A side note, first. In this clip of the Daily Show, Jon's condescending thinking is revealed through his off-the-cuff banter: that people who struggle with bills, are in debt, have trouble with creditors, who are poor are that way because they lack the shame a Decent Person would have who—without today's "faceless" lenders and banks—would be forced to look the person who gave them the loan in the eye. So it's decency and self-respect and ethics that poor people don't have. Not just money. Or the benefits of already having money, which garners better opportunities, preference, and more money. Jon Stewart is only thinking like a typical, well-fed, common, American, TV-taught man.

Mohammed Yunus, on the other hand—the man Jon is interviewing— is an exceptional man and thinker. Maybe you've read about him online recently [Google=Mohammed Yunus]. He was given the Nobel Prize for his concept of microlending. Making "small" loans to poor people (97% of them women). Helping millions leave a poverty-stricken life behind. These loans have been repaid at an excellent rate.

As I said, poor people are another "issue" that is close to my heart as there were some times growing up that I lived in some pretty bare situations. I know what it's like to have no home, or no front steps on your home, or what it feels like to come to school with cheap clothes, or hand-me-downs even when you're the oldest, to be raised with the fixation of Not Having Enough for This or That or Anything. There is some shame there, for sure. It's a shame that begins to weave into your self-image. And it's a shame gifted to you in comparison to others who have the sort of thinking that Jon Stewart shows. But I don't see Poor People as some Otherly type who are morally deficient. I see them as not having much money.

In terms of myself, of course I don't think of myself as poor anymore. If I have the 2005 Mac I do—regardless of my empty pocket—I'm not poor. Poor is when your mother drops you off by some unknowing farmer's orchard while you and your father snatch as many apples as you can and she swings around to provide the getaway once you have a couple bags full. Poor is not having a toilet and using a bucket. Poor is living in a tent off the side of the highway in a field and cooking dinner in tinfoil over a campfire. But things got better for my parents and myself, in time. My mother worked her ass off for decades, and climbed her way from a standard hospital nurse to eventually Director of Public Health for the entire county, quoted by local TV and radio on the regular, and included in Public Health/Safety conferences with Hillary Clinton. Through those years, my [legal] father worked on his art in the garage, and tried to hold odd jobs. But it was my mother who mostly supported all of us and took us out of poverty, as far as I'm concerned. And it is worth noting again that 97% of those who took out and are repaying those microloans Yunus has made possible are women. This ought to inspire.

I think I'd have empathy for poor people anyway. I don't think you have had to be poor to understand, or feel for those who are poor. All you need is a heart, right? But what is that? It's not the organ, as George Bush demonstrates. I'm sure he has the organ in his chest. But he seems to be an example straight out of a fundamental Soc textbook, the man who has lived with a profound lack of Social Marginality (being on the outside) and thus, has been starved of his ability to feel empathy for anyone there. But perhaps that's not a lack of social marginality....maybe that is just GWB's sociopathy at work. Anyway. I don't know, and let's not get sidetracked on the Decider. Let's flip a 180º.

I don't understand how poor people think.

—George W. Bush

Mohammed Yunus shows us what we need more of in this world. Heart, hope, belief in others. Not a constant focus on the deficiency, the hate, the anger, the confusion, the FEAR. Giving people a hand when they need it. "A trust-based system" the man says! Relying on people's innate sense of goodness and begetting kindness by giving it. All that junk we've heard in fairy tales, and were led to believe stayed there. In the Real World, into which we are dragged, the Grownups have learned that things are more complex. There are a million reasons to be cynical and look out for Numba One and to distrust and demonize those who can't rise in the hierarchy.

Man, what a backward land we live in. It's so refreshing when someone comes along and does some good. I'm always wishing I were rich just so I could do some large-scale good. I've talked about this at various times. It always baffles me that people who have lots of money don't feel the need to go out and do direct acts of helping. (Although some do sometimes, and it's always heartening). But the philosophy Yunus acts upon is what's most striking and exciting to note in the hands and heart of someone who can act upon it in such a way.

Of course I'm not the kind of person who handles money well enough, cares about it enough, or thinks in terms of selling myself to actually get rich. (You don't know how many times people had told me even years before I was published "You have to do something with your art" in response to a painting or something and I replied "I am doing something with it! I'm making it!") So I must find my own ways of helping. But to see someone do this really lifts my spirits after so many recent examples of the lesser side of the human being in our world and in our media.

To see a person with some degree of power spread good, instead of blood. Shower his fellow humans with hope, instead of phosphorus. Lend money to poor women, instead of raping them at checkpoints or shooting them in their living rooms, or shooting their children or husband dead in front of their eyes. Make life better and say not much about it, instead of yammering on and on about Democrafreedee Propaharma when nothing's on the march except fear, death, horror, and payola.

Faced by Mohammed Yunus' unwavering belief that poor people are just in need of opportunity, and that it makes sense they should get it if others can give it, Jon Stewart eventually seems humbled, dropping the Zany® a bit, and agreeing that the simplicity of Yunus' philosophy is why it is so "brilliant." But Stewarts' concession, as true as the words are, sound practiced and lifeless coming from his mouth. And listening to Jon concede this tinyvast truth in the midst of his glitzy studio, I wonder if he really sees the brilliance in it, after all. He speaks the compliment to Yunus as if he intellectually recognizes what a revolutionary idea it is (to trust people and try to help them), but doesn't quite understand it. He's a funny man, and he seems a good man. But like all of us, he too, can be blind to simple and profound truth. It is always a good example to note, so that we can keep ourselves in check. And Yunus Mohammed is an example we can use to remind us where and how to grow.