Now, Mr. Antonio. I understand that there are people who are close to you who want me dead.___o, mija. They don__ want you dead.___hen explain this._ I handed him the picture.He chuckled again.__o, they don__ want you dead. That would be too easy. They want revenge.__old sweat broke out all over me, but I kept my face calm. I looked at him straight in the eye.__ell, then they are going to be quite disappointed, aren__ they?_ I flashed my teeth at him.__enorita, you might want to warn Senor Smith, you see, my nephew he doesn__ like to share, and if he sees another man after you, he__l get very, eh, aggressive._ The silver fox looked at me and winked.__h, he won__ have to worry._ I said as I was walking out the door. __ doubt he will be alive long enough to know Agent Smith.__hen I slammed the door.

Poverty is not a character failing or a lack of motivation. Poverty is a shortage of money.

But apparently you don't need dot-com wealth to ruin an area for its low-income residents. The Pioneer Press quotes Secretary of HUD Andrew Cuomo ruing the "cruel irony" that prosperity is shrinking the stock of affordable housing nationwide: "The stronger the economy, the stronger the upward pressure on rents.

I think of what it means to be a teenager in America, necessarily pushing boundaries, making expected mistakes. Here there is no margin for error: a mistake, no matter how insignificant, dashes any small hopes to break the cycle of poverty. Here in Kibera the world is relentless and unforgiving.

But the economic meltdown should have undone, once and for all, the idea of poverty as a personal shortcoming or dysfunctional state of mind. The lines at unemployment offices and churches offering free food includes strivers as well as slackers, habitual optimists as well as the chronically depressed. When and if the economy recovers we can never allow ourselves to forget how widespread our vulnerability is, how easy it is to spiral down toward destitution.

If we loved Steve Aylett, really loved him in the way that he deserves, a selfless love that genuinely wanted nothing save his happiness and comfort, we'd lobotomise him.