There, I Said It

The Wind Cries Mary - The Jimi Hendrix Experience (mp3)
Requiem Mass in D Minor, K.626 - Amor Artis Orchestra (mp3)

Haiti no more needs our love and attention and money now than they did two weeks ago.

There, I said it.

A former co-worker and dear friend, a very religious woman wrapping up her seminary work to be ordained in the Episcopal faith, spent two months in Haiti a year or so ago. A young alumnus spent two weeks there in December. The experience was emotionally draining for both of them. Their stories are jaw-dropping. You simply can't witness that kind of across-the-board abject poverty for a prolonged amount of time, knowing full well what life is like on our side of the Gulf, without looking toward the heavens and hoping that a wise and guiding hand might one day explain it all to you.



It's the poorest and saddest country in this hemisphere and one of the poorest on the globe. It was a natural disaster before the natural disaster. Yet here we are, getting ourselves worked up and full of pity for Haiti because of an earthquake.

All these organizations are taking in donations, and all these donations are piling in, and we don't even know what this money will do, exactly. Maybe we don't even care.

It won't get heavy equipment into Port-au-Prince quickly enough to lift the rubble away from survivors. I doubt it will save many lives. Hell, the good ol' US of A can't even be efficient and appropriate in how it deals with post-Katrina New Orleans et al, yet I'm supposed to have faith that my money will carry the day in Haiti?? As if to rub my doubt in shit, I have to read stories that Haitians complain that the help isn't coming quickly enough when, by every report I can see, help is coming faster than it did to victims on the Gulf Coast.

Sorry if this makes me an ass, but anyone who's witnessed first-hand the continued pathetic state of the Bayou should be thinking the same thing, that we're sending money to Haiti and blindly offering our sympathies in that direction when we can't even clean up our own back yard and take care of our own people

We only rally in large numbers for earthquakes and tsunamis. Simple starvation, abject poverty at levels unimaginable, significant portions of the population suffering from syphillis and AIDS. None of that really seems to get to us, probably because it never looks as striking on the news. A tiny financial and political earthquake has hit Haiti every day for the last 20 or 30 years, but only when Anderson Cooper and Michelle Koszinski fly in with their camera crews and their tender-hearted feature stories do we think, "Hey! Let's feel sorry for Haiti! Maybe if I send them $20 I'll feel better!"

I don't want to sound all right-wing and callous here, but our last decade has more than a few prime examples of the best charitable intentions leading straight into the toilet.

The funds raised and meted out for 9/11 families and survivors. The tsunami relief funds to Asia. Katrina and The Land of The 10,000 Trailers. In each case, an unknown but certainly disturbing percentage of funds fall in greedy shyster back pockets or move in wrong directions or sink into red tape and "administrative costs" or mysteriously vanish from the process altogether.

We hesitate to hand a homeless man a $5 bill, because we're just sure he's going to use that money to buy booze or drugs. But we'll mail off a check to a church (or other) organization promising to help Haiti even though the harsh reality is that, by the time that money can be realistically utilized, the very purpose for which you gave it has long changed.

The doctors who have been hopping on planes to offer their assistance? The pilots flying those doctors and other relief workers for free? I'm all about that. Mega-kudos to those great and generous souls. And I know it costs money, so it's not like I'm violently opposed to all attempts to offer fiscal relief.

Hell, I'd love to see every penny and every ounce of good will to Haiti mean something amazing. Haiti can use all the love and hugs and financial assistance it can grab, and if it needs a few earthquakes to get it, maybe in the end that's just proof that really bad things have to happen for people to take notice. Perhaps actual rubble is required before our contemporary society is willing to acknowledge a need to rebuild, even if things were broken and demolished long before a single building collapsed from shockwaves.

As for me, I think I'll keep focusing my charitable giving towards programs aimed at helping local homeless families and battered women. And I'll feel better about my spare change going where it's intended when I hand it to a man outside a downtown bar than I will shipping it to some hastily-organized group suddenly working up pity for a long-neglected neighbor country that apparently only deserved a fraction of it before this.

Maybe when my trips to New Orleans no longer involve long stretches of road that look like they are from the outskirts of Nairobi, I'll text the Red Cross so they can charge $10 to my cell phone bill.

Charitable Exhaustion

The Knife--"You Make Me Like Charity" (mp3)

I did the Susan B. Komen Race for the Cure today. It's a good event, a big event, but it is part of the charitable overload that is exhausting the good citizens of this city and this country.

You see, I am "walked out." While I can't claim that I've participated in dozens of walks in the past year, I have done a couple of others, and my job puts me in a position to have to say "yes" or "no" to the many charities that want, quite rightly, to involve our students. And these days, when a good cause looks for a way to raise a bunch of money, at least in this city, you can almost predict what their event will be:

1. a walk.

2. a t-shirt.

3. or an event involving alcohol (these, of course, do not involve students).

When a non-profit looks to raise money, their first thought seems to be 'Let's do a run or a walk-a-thon.' The Komen Race is the gem in that jewel box, without doubt, but the success of that now-27-year-old annual event has led to so many imitators that people have to be worn out with the idea and increasingly discerning about where they will commit their sore feet for charity. Unfortunately, there's only so much you can do with a walk or run--sponsors with schwag, drinks, t-shirts, live or taped music. I'm not trying to diminish wonderful events, but they've all become pretty much the same.

At our school, the favorite fundraiser is a t-shirt. You can charge a pretty significant price over cost, make a lot of money quickly, and students love t-shirts, especially t-shirts that commemorate important student events, so much that those t-shirts will become the first fashion selection for a lot of students. Tommy Hilfiger would turn green with envy if he knew how many units of the same shirt design were sold in this city every single year during the week of the great football rivalry! I broke the hearts of the March of Dimes a couple of weeks ago when I told them that our school's t-shirt market was glutted and we would not be participating in their t-shirt fundraiser.

The last option is kind of the new kid on the block--Brewfest, Wine Over Water, there was even a mixed drink fundraiser for a couple of years at the Convention Center where everybody got completely shit-faced for charity. But as these events get more and more expensive, once you have done them once or twice, you may hesitate before dropping $80 bucks for your and your significant other. You may conclude that the band doesn't look as good as last year's band, or that the vintage or microbrew you enjoyed so much the previous year isn't going to be represented, so you decide not to go.

Is that fair? Does a charitable event have to be "worth it?" If you support a cause, shouldn't you just support it and not worry about what's in it for you or how expensive it is? Well, idealistically, that may be true, but we are a culture who expects something for our sacrifice. At least throw a bumper sticker our way so that we can let other people know what our causes are and where our money goes.

I do not condemn this mindset. America, as a capitalistic society, has always embraced the maxim that "It takes money to make money." Why should it be any different for charities?

But with the exception of the t-shirts, which are almost guaranteed in our school culture, most charitable options in this city are pretty played out at this point, at least in my opinion. Some of them don't even make all that much sense. We have helped out "Pennies for Patients" for the past three years, and will again this year, but people aren't carrying around change, let alone pennies, much any more, which makes this a flawed concept. It's only because we have those students who will shove a $20 bill into the box that we make any headway at all.

You probably think I have a solution, but I really don't. And I don't have to. We try whatever we can think of--koozies, sunglasses, Thunderstix, buttons, Chik-fil-A sandwiches, sno-cones, free dress days, etc. and most of them will work because we know our target market so well. But for a large local or national charity that wants to involve thousands of people in an event, it must be increasingly difficult to try to keep ahead of the pack with fundraising options.

All I'm saying is this: it's reaching the point where I'm having to say, "I'm sorry, we're already doing a walk that week (or that month) and I don't think we can handle another one." It's time for good old Yankee ingenuity to pay a visit to the non-profits of America and give them a fresh slate of money-making ideas. Otherwise, there's going to be a lot more room to walk.

Stuck in a Parable

Wee Who See the Deep - Black Crowes (mp3)
The Sun is Shining Down - JJ Grey + Mofro (mp3)
[NOTE: JJ Grey + Mofro will perform for FREE at Nightfall in Chattanooga on Friday, July 3. A pox on your houses if you can make it but choose to miss out!]


On Sunday afternoon, as my wife and youngest hit Napville, I made a run to Starbucks to write for a little while and then to pick up a few needed groceries for the evening's affairs. I scootered myself down one of Chattanooga's mini-autobahns known as "South Terrace." Three-quarters of the way down, I hit a red light but continued to live in my distant musical world, singing along with whatever glorious song played on my iPod. (Yes, I wear my iPod when riding my scooter, which seems to some people a death-wish.)

Due to the loud earbuds, I failed to notice that this older fat guy in a holey T-shirt had walked riiiight up to me on my scooter and was saying something to me not eight inches from my helmeted noggin. He was covered in sweat. Drenched in it, in fact. Sunday was a hot, muggy day (as opposed to those standard summer days in Chattanooga, when it's a breezy and mild 74...).

He was sitting at this stop light selling Sunday newspapers. In the Employment Hall of Shame, this job is right there next to standing on the side of the road dressed up in Statue of Liberty and Uncle Sam costumes to promote tax filing services or holding up Little Caesar's signs to promote their $5 pizzas. I'm pretty sure crack whores look down on these people.

Trying not to react too quickly in panic, I paused my music and asked him to repeat himself.

"Are you coming back this way?" he asked.

"No sir," I said, mostly telling the truth. "Why?"

The light turned green.

"It's so hot out here, and I was hoping you might be --"

I waved him off and said I was sorry and began to ride down the road. " -- willing to bring me back something to..." he said as I was puttering away. He probably wanted something to drink.

I'm not a very generous or selfless person, but my "good" moments tend to sprout in small and unplanned ways. This is exactly the kind of small and unplanned moment that tends to activate my philanthropic heart. Give homeless people a ride. Throw some extra change into that "fund" at a sandwich shop. Take a beggar into some place and buy a drink or a sandwich. Help someone push their broken-down car off the road then look under the hood and shake my head, as if there was any chance in hell I'd have the slightest clue what was wrong (I'd have better chances of scattering chicken bones on a table to diagnose engine trouble).

I don't do it every chance I get, mind you. But when I get that "vibe" that I "really should," then I heed my vibe.

Yet, for entirely unacceptable reasons -- green light, "not feeling it" -- I scooted away from his request and went along my merry way. When I got caught by the next red light, I began to wonder if I'd just had a Biblical Moment, a Divine SAT test in which I failed. ("When I was thirsty you gave me drink" yada yada.) It stayed on my shoulders as I sat down with my fancy coffee, knowing I'd turned away the angel at my door, "the least of these."

Oh well. Too late to do anything, right? So I finish my coffee and wrap up my writing, and I go get the necessary groceries at Wally World.

I get home only to discover that the checkout lady had managed to require three separate plastic bags for what amounted to eight paltry frikkin' items. I'd only stuffed two bags into my scooter compartment. I'd left one behind.

Yup. I was gonna have to get back on my scooter and drive riiiiight past that very same place where I'd told the man 90 minutes earlier that I wouldn't be going by there again. So I threw two bottles of water into my scooter bag and headed back for Wally World. I would stop off and hand these bottles to the man on my way, thus clearing my conscience and culpability.

But he was gone. This old fat sweaty hulk of a thirsty man and his stack of unsold Sunday papers were no longer there.

Attack of the Charitable Causes

What If We Give it Away? - R.E.M. (mp3)
You Can't Take It With You - Kelly Willis (mp3)

I don't know when it started. Maybe it's always been like this, but it only started affecting me once I hit a certain age of perceived tenderheartedness and incorrectly presumed financial security. But at some point in the past decade, and with an aggression and melodrama that seems to increase with each passing year, it's been drilled into my skull that I'm just not doing enough for Other People.

Here's just a list of the things that have been "organized" and "recommended" in the last two months by groups in which I am a part:

• Purchase instruments for poor middle school band by church choir
• Pay for and deliver meals to families in ICU waiting rooms by Sunday School class
• Sponsor a child for Christmas by different local choir
• Sponsor a child for Christmas by my office mates
• Sponsor a child for Christmas with the group of students I mentor
• Support the homeless organization on whose board I served for a year
• Support breast cancer research
• Tithe to my church
• Operation Christmas Child through church
• "Loaves of Love" change boxes through church
  
• Donate items or money for work in Darfur and Rwanda
• Donate items to the troops
• Pledge money to Habitat for Humanity
• Donate canned goods
• Donate coats
• Donate shoes
• Donate ties
• Buy ornaments to support a local private school
• Give to our public school's "annual fund"
  
• Give change to Salvation Army bellringers
• At least a handful of others I know I'm forgetting
• And let's not forget the monthly deduction to United Way, since we've been told at our workplaces year after year that supporting that one organization is almost like magically supporting half of every charitable cause in existence.

My wife and I are not poor, nor are we remotely in need of things we don't have, but we're not exactly swimming in spare cash. We can't afford decent life insurance. We're struggling to stash a few bucks away to prepare for the multi-million-dollar investment that will be the educational costs of three children. My retirement/401k has dropped down to 3/4 of one year of my salary. We're constantly trying -- as in making a sincere and deliberate effort -- to live a fiscally responsible life while also enjoying the little expenses just a little here and there along the way.

This isn't a cry for pity. It's merely an assertion that we're not exactly the Gates Foundation. And it's exasperating -- no, exhausting -- to give to our church, to the United Way, and to at least a dozen or so other causes at the levels we do yet still find ourselves having to turn down five or six or 10 pleas for help for every one cause or fundraiser we support.

In some ways, it's started to feel like I'm in some Dawn of the Charitable Dead movie. At first, it was just one or two Charity Zombies, but you could inject them with the Antivenom, and they'd be cured. But slowly, inevitably, more and more Charity Zombies start showing up, and you're running out of Antivenom, and you realize you're not going to be able to save them all. Hell, you can't even save more than one or two. So mostly you start to panic, and you grab the shotgun and the machete and get your family and try to protect them from this onslaught of Needy Zombies, but they're coming through the windows and down the chimney and from the basement crawlspace.

And you see that some of these zombies are just little children. And some of them are your relatives. And some of them are people from the small town where you grew up. But you only have five doses of Antivenom left, and you were really hoping you could hold onto a couple just in case your own children get infected. So you're forced into playing God and decide which ones you'll save and which ones will feast off the living for eternity.

Shit, Charitable Zombies were multiplying with increasing verve when the economy was sailing along! Now that it's going to hell in a Hummer, the zombie population ain't gonna wane anytime soon.

Some will think -- perhaps rightly -- that I'm an asshole for complaining about this. Perhaps my aggravation is more of a sign of my own conscience haunting me than it is a sign that I'm drowning in causes. But wouldn't I more of an asshole if I could somehow numb myself to this? If having to turn down so many of these (usually) noble and worthwhile efforts didn't phase me? Is there some magical formula for pulling oneself out of this "never enough" dilemma? Can we ever give enough, do enough, pay enough, donate enough to stem the tide of our own conscience?

When I'm overwhelmed by all the charitable pleas and find myself wanting to wash my hands of it all, I try soothing myself by reading all those kickass Mother Teresa quotes that remind me I'm doing important work by being a loving parent and bringing happiness into others' lives, that small things matter in the big picture. Her quotes are a balm, even if their efficacy is fleeting when the zombies are at your door.

"What If We Give It Away?" is from Life's Rich Pageant. "You Can't Take It With You" is from Easy. Both are available on iTunes or Amazon.com and are highly recommended, truly awesome albums.