I don't usually peruse the sports section for blogging material, feeling unqualified to comment, but this article goes too far. Key quote:



"And don't blame those taking advantage of the system - which includes the son of Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz - but rather blame the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for making changes in the Section 8 program that allows for this to happen."



I see . . . there's no personal responsibility involved, if you can screw the system you should at every turn. Even though who you actually are screwing is yourself and anyone else who pays taxes in this state. Nice set of morals, that.



This is the kind of attitude that makes me absolutely furious. You want to know why it's so hard to get good welfare or medicaid funding for truly deserving people? Because there are a bunch of assholes out there milking the system just because they can. They don't give a damn about who they're hurting or why.



Don't blame them? Please. They aren't "caught in a housing flap." They are stealing me blind, but worse, they are stealing housing in a city that has a homeless problem. How DARE they?



And don't give me the old line about poor college students. Most of that town has been there, done that. We worked our way through without a full ride thank you very much, put up with crappy apartments and crazy roommates, sadistic employment/exam convergences that left us sleepless for days. We timed our parties for dime or quarter draw nights, or got to know the bartenders very, very well. Ragstock was cool, but that was only half the reason we shopped there.



I'm not talking about that minority of the student population who happened to cruise in with new BMW convertibles on Daddy's tuition money. I also don't mean the pampered little full-ride atheletes: according to this article, as a full-scholarship athlete, Brian Ferentz receives free tuition, and the university also pays him $406 a month for housing and $298 a month for food and other college expenses. $406 per month for housing in an area where most two bedroom apartments range $600 to $700? And he gets $298 for food and "incidentals" without having to pay any tuition? Yep, he's poverty stricken. Just like the rest of the students, he is. Barely a cent to his name, poor kid.



There is no excuse for this, and there is no excuse for Kirk Ferentz' attitude toward it. You don't want your son scamming money off you for college, because you think it will let him live like a "normal student." As opposed to the rest of us, who needed to beg the occasional grocery money or take laundry home. Fine, so cut him loose. Let him get a thirty-hour-per-week job to pay his own way through.



Instead, you let him scam it off me, off the rest of society, and your excuse is that the "rules" let you do it? You say nothing while he claims poverty to get an apartment that should rightfully go to a truly destitute family? How cold can you get?



I'm told that in "the old days" it was considered a matter of pride not to take charity. Not having been alive then, I'll pass on the truth of that comment. But if it was true, then it's a rather sad commentary about the prevailing attitude now.



State 29 has blogged extensively on this subject if you want to hear more.