I know people who work at the newspaper, and I think they are hard workers and do their best to help us readers be informed. Recently, I had a “hmmmm” response, to a headline from a couple of days ago.
Here’s how I read this in my head: “County’s unspent rent, aid funds at risk.” (i.e. the county had money that wasn’t needed for rent, and now they had funds to aid people at risk.) I thought that there was left-over money that renters hadn’t needed, and it was now available to help with funding . . . something important.
I read the paper first thing in the morning, while I’m eating breakfast, so I’m not at my most competent. I do put on my glasses to see things well, but I might not be alert enough to get the drift of what the newspaper people have intended. And, of course, if I’d read the headline carefully, I’d have realized that the word should have been aids instead of aid, if it had wanted to convey what I thought it meant. But then, when I read the article, I realized that this was a bad outcome. The funds that had been available to people had not been distributed in a timely manner, and now families were now in danger of being evicted if they can’t come up with the money. The article continued, saying that Corpus Christi and Laredo hadn’t distributed any of their funds, and other counties were also very behind. There seems to be hope that lagging localities can get some help organizing their work.
Here’s what Wednesday’s front page said (and see how they properly used a comma to help readers understand; “spending soars adding” would have been an odd phrase if read without that pause). Things are looking UP! (for folks who have money to spend). The idea is that people have been cooped up at home, not going shopping very much, and they are ready to go spending some of that money that they’ve been hoarding, saving, and keeping in their wallets/piggy banks/cookie jars. So folks with cash in their pockets are going to have a, hmmm, very Merry Christmas, it seems like.
1 John 3:18 (The Message translation)
Our church collects Christmas gifts for families. We shop for items for babies to teen-ages, and those things go to Mission Waco, where low-income families in our community can purchase Christmas items for their children at an 80% discount of the retail price. Hopefully, some of those people who’ve been cooped up at home (and haven’t been able to spend the cash they’ve accrued) will make a trip to Target or Wal-Mart or some other great place to buy gifts for the kids in struggling families.