New Haven to Receive Emergency Oil Supplies from ... Hugo Chavez

Wow. My hometown, New Haven, Connecticut, has just brokered a deal for deeply discounted emergency heating oil from Venezuela's socialist, petro-populist president, Hugo Chavez.

According to the New Haven Independent, the deal was originally made for New Haven by one of Mayor DeStefano's aides, then expanded to 24,000 impoverished families all over Connecticut.

If you've ever thought of New Haven, you've probably thought of it like this:

Home of Yale, quaint New England small city, birthplace of the frisbee, etc.

But there's another New Haven, and it's a grim little place. Think New Orleans, minus Mardi Gras.

I'm in New Haven at the moment, and on the bus home last night (I grew up in one of the rougher neighborhoods in town, which means it's pretty rough) I heard two women getting really excited about a job opening. I actually wrote down their conversation, since I had nothing better to do on the bus.

"You hear the DMV is hiring?"

"For real?"

"Yeah, I don't know what for, but they're hiring."

"Well, they need more people, because I went there to get a new ID card, and it took 3 hours.

[laughs] "Yeah, it's a hot mess."

"Well, alright then, thank you, because lord knows I need a second job."

[laughs]"You know I do, too!"

"I can't get by on this $8 an hour."

"Who can? And if they pay any more, they don't give you as many hours."

"And if they give you hours, they don't pay as well."

"I'm taking the bus there tomorrow morning."

"Hell yeah!"

Neither of those women is likely to get that scarce job, or any other job that could help them get by, of course.

Good for Hugo Chavez for drawing some attention to what's really going on in America, and for trying to help the people of Connecticut not freeze to death. God knows nobody else is.

Tags:oil,news and politics ,poverty,Hugo Chavez,New Haven, income gap