Blog 8
1400 words by Peter Pham
Mayor C. Ray Nagin
Mayor of New Orleans
Mayor’s Office
1300 Perdido, Room 2E04
New Orleans, La 70112
Dear Mayor C. Ray Nagin,
My name is Peter Pham and I am currently a sophomore at Xavier University. I am writing this letter to you because of the assignment my professor assigned to the class. The assignment is to find a way to improve the state of Louisiana or try to improve the world. The world is too big to improve all by myself, so I decided to start with Louisiana instead. I thought to myself and wondered about what is one of the biggest problems in Louisiana right now? Could it be the crime rate? Can it be the poverty status? Or is it the combination of both these things that leads up to one of the biggest issues in the state? The fact of the matter is that the combination of crime and poverty will lead to homelessness. Poverty is a direct link to homelessness. The issue of not being able to support yourself or even keep the status of your house from being re-possessed will leave you living on the streets instead. I live in the east of New Orleans and I can say somewhat that I grew up in a fraction of poverty these people who live in the street are experiencing every day. My ideal idea is to put on hold the production of playgrounds and such and put more work towards the homeless shelters. I know that the playground for kids is to supposedly keep them off the streets and off of drugs, but from personal experience, they don’t help very much. Instead of building playgrounds, we can put all the money towards expanding the shelters and supplying more useful supplies for the homeless. Especially with winter coming and the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, these people on the streets need us now more than ever. If we can find a way to put a roof over these people heads then the city doesn’t have to worry about people living under bridges or stealing for money. If this plan is executed, the crime rate may actually go down. The homeless have to steal food and clothing every day just to survive. I’m sure I don’t have to explain this any further and you do understand where I am coming from. I just hope you and your council will hear my thoughts and maybe give a hand to solve this aged problem and fix the city better than what it was before. Thank you for giving me your time to listen to my thoughts and ideas.
George W. Bush
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President George W. Bush,
My name is Peter Pham and I am currently attending Xavier University in New Orleans, Louisiana. I am writing to you today because of the project my theology professor assigned us in our class. Our “project” or goal for this semester is to find a way to improve the world. I know there are many problems in the world today that can be addressed, but many of those problems are way too hard and big for me to even begin to formulate a plan to solve the issue on my own. The issue that I believed to be top priority is homeless people. I know this is a problem that has been presented over and over again over the years, but I don’t see why it still hasn’t been fixed yet. I was trying to explain to the mayor of New Orleans that we should postpone the projects to build new playgrounds and fix up the old beaten roads for now to put all our concentration and attention to these homeless people. I know there isn’t an instant solution to the world scale problem, but the least we can do is somehow find a way to raise some money to build more shelters or extend the old ones. I know we spend money to help out other countries, but why can’t we just start in the country we live in first? If we aren’t able to solve our own problems, then what gives us the right to try to fix other countries’ problems? My only suggestion is that the government should put more money into fixing and upgrading the homeless shelters. It would be beneficial to the United States as a whole and it will also affect the cities as well. Thank you for listening.
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton for President Committee
1717 K Street, N.W.
Suite 1001
Washington, D.C. 20036
Dear Hilary Clinton,
My name is Peter Pham and I am currently attending Xavier University. I am working on a project to help benefit Louisiana in some kind of way. I’m writing this letter to you because you of all people should know the problems Louisiana is facing after Hurricane Katrina. I live in the east side of New Orleans in a community most people are familiar to as either versai or the east village. I came back after the storm to help my parents fix the house and heard the news that you were coming down in person to speak at my local church. The day of your arrival was big news for the community and word was spreading quickly. I had my doubts that you were coming but you stayed true to your words. I know that you should have seen for your own eyes what kind of damage the storm did on our community and the rest of New Orleans. The damage of the hurricane is a direct link to the topic of my project. The project that I have chosen is to find a way to help the homeless. My plan was to focus less on unnecessary things as fixing bumpy roads and playgrounds to upgrade the homeless shelters. So many are homeless people because of a variety of reasons, but Louisiana is more homeless now than ever. I hope you can find some way to help Louisiana’s people get back onto their feet and give them a roof over their heads to sleep well at night. I will also eagerly wait for the next time you visit my community. Thank you for giving me some of your time to listen to my thoughts.
Bobby Jindal
United States House of Representatives
1205 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-1801
Dear Bobby Jindal,
My name is Peter Pham and I am attending Xavier University. I am working on a project to help the world or the state we live in. I chose to improve Louisiana in a way that can be accomplished with some of your help. My goal is to help improve the shelters in which the homeless people stay in. the way that I would accomplish this is to postpone some of the projects that the state is currently working on right now. Some of these projects may include the highway in Metairie, rebuilding some playgrounds, or building new parking lots. The things I just named are unnecessary at the moment and do not help the community we live in very much. Rebuilding some of these shelters would mean getting people off the streets and into a warm bed. You are a member of the House of Representatives and your voice is well respected. I can move one step closer to reaching my goal if you would lend me your voice and influences to help make this state the best that it could be. Thank you for listening to my thoughts and I hope you can help me in some kind of way.
African American criticism is important in the bible because scholars would like to know if there were black people back in the ancient days living amongst the other people. Another idea that was brought up was that if Jesus was a black person. The bible described Jesus having hair like wool. Wool comes from sheep but the only type of people in the world who comes close to having that is black people. We can never know if black people were around or not because people back in the day never mentioned or called somebody by their race.