I must apologize to our readers for failing to celebrate October 15^th properly. Last Wednesday a very large assortment of flakes, dupes, dolts and ADHD sufferers joined to voice their disapproval of poverty. It was a courageous position they took, and we at Remonstrans hope that they don't suffer social ostracism or political repercussions for their bold stand.

According to blogactionday.org (as of last night at 11:05), 12,800 bloggers and 13,498,280 readers have declared that poverty is not to their liking even a little bit. Their insights into the causes of poverty were most helpful.

Eric says of the poor:

These folks could use a bailout. Oh wait bailouts are only for rich corporate fascists

One vine-swinger said:

The first thing I have come to terms with is this - poverty is. It just is. People are poor and sometimes we have to get out of our heads long enough to stop asking the why's and figure out what we're going to do about it. The second thing I have concluded is that in the figuring out of what to do about it, the why's need to come back to me. In other words, it's easy to look at the person who is poor and say "she is poor because" with the intention of getting to the root of the "problem". it's a bit more difficult to look at MYSELF (not poor) and say "she's poor because of you."

One poor Baha'i lost track of the important date, cobbled together some last-minute deliberations cribbed from Bahá'u'lláh and then he rushed off to some important engagement.

Tony Jones brought his enviable wit and considerable vocabulary to bear on the problem with typical emergent flair.

These people didn't actually do anything. No one was less poor on Thursday than he was on Wednesday. But they all talked about it and made quite clear to all bystanders that they do not approve of poverty in the least. Some went so far as to suggest that poverty could be significantly mitigated if we all drank fewer lattes.

Overall, I think this was a big success. I think we should do it again next year. Some people might forget that poverty is bad. The more people who know that poverty is not good, the better, I say. We should spread the word. And in the meantime I think we should all monitor our latte intake.

And just for the record: not only am I averse to poverty, I also oppose sadness in all its forms.