[jopperm2]

And you still have the same general political biases and approach to welfare: make a joke, let 'em die, it's not your concern. Am I wrong in this?

Not completely wrong about it. I do care somewhat. I can't personally make a big difference in the matter, and I don't favor it politically. I do like to use humor to soften the blow of the reality that we won't be saving the world and people are going to suffer. O'Rourke's way more conservative than me though.

This contradicts what you say below in this same post of yours: "They were using a moter bot to get from a semi-major city to theri loge that was a ten minute hike through jungle. That means they were probably all but five miles into the forest. Any legitimate trip would be more detailed than that." So what you're saying is that his few days' experience, taking a motor boat to get from a semi-major city to lodge and a ten minute wallk to the "jungle," is comparable to my wife taking a week, flying in on a 6-seater to a small airlot, next to a village about a day's travel by canoe to the nearest Indian settlement. Sure, that makes sense.

It didn't contradict it. It just wasn't very clear. Sorry. What I meant was that you having taken two trips doesn't qualify you as much more of an expert than him. He's a novice at terrible, commercial, faux-eco travel; and you are a novice at legitimate amazon tourism. I didn't mean to imply that his travel was a legitimate as yours. It wasn't. It seems I have implied such. He has done some very legitimate travel in warzones for other genres besides humor books, but that's another story.

Originally Posted by Me in the Anti-Patriotism thread

And you mean that you wouldn't have wished that a government run shelter could have taken you in?

I'm not saying there should be none of this. It shouldn't be federally funded though. I think a better alternative is for city or county governments to give incentives to NPOs that can provide these cheaply and to run shelters when necessary themselves. I never once saw a homeless shelter before age 20 and I saw very few homeless people. Therefore I don't want to pay for shelters that are not going to benefit my area.

I think that solves the issue of what I said in referrence to the homeless population of Iowa. As for compassion; I feel for them, I've been there. We've had that debate a few times though. You know how I feel on it.

This account actually sounds far more genuine than O'Rourke's. It still amazes me that people who would only buy a used car after bringing it in to their favorite auto mechanic for a checkup will nonetheless invest a good deal of money in something like this. You should always check ahead of time to get answers on every question you could possibly have about such matters. We did, and we never regretted the experience, though at the time it certainly wasn't labeled an eco-anything.

That's basically what I was getting at. Some of these trips are crap. I'm glad it was conveyed.