Poverty is as old as hunger, but in a world where massive government buildings, super-supermarkets, sprawling theme parks, city-sized airports and colossal stadiums rise overnight, where a star pitcher averages five thousand dollars for every ball he throws, where an executive fired after a few months on the job can take home ninety million dollars in severance pay; where the cost of waging wars compares to the expense of health and housing as Mount Everest compares to a sand dune, it ill becomes the well-housed, well-warmed and well-fed, to carp about sidewalk space for the poor. Hence to the doers and mentors of Millennium Three, a modest suggestion: dismiss the crotchet that destitution is God’s punishment for indolence or sin, and that the hungry are hungry by choice.

“Memos to a New Millennium” broadcast December 31, 1999 on NPR