Topic: Give a little bit... (Read 6702 times)

TheJudge · « **on:** December 13, 2005, 12:39:42 PM »

I figured I would write up a little something since the front page hasn’t been updated for quite sometime. This isn’t going to be long or very entertaining for that mater. “But Judge, why the hell should I read this then?” you may ask. And the answer, my friends, is quite simple. Because it’s important! Oh, you won’t learn anything new. Consider this a little reminder of an important message. Oh and I lied. It is long!

At Christmas time, we tend to be more generous than usual. We give a little bit of our money, a little bit of our time, and we generally try not to be our regular selfish selves. I think that sucks. I think it’s a shame that we need Christmas to remind us how fortunate we are. I think we should be generous all the time. But I suppose we are somewhat greedy by nature. Note that I’m generalizing throughout this article so don’t be offended or pipe up and scream “Hey! Not all people are like that you know!” Yes, I know. I whish I could say I am one of them, but I’m really not. I mean, I look back at the last few years and think of what I have done for other people. Then I look at what I have done for myself. And then it hits me! I’ve always thought of myself as a generous person but… did I give a donation to Tsunami victims? Nope. Did I help out in anyway with the New Orleans disaster? Nope. I just watched it all unfold before my eyes on my 25 inch TV whishing that I actually had a 60 inch widescreen TV. How fucking lame is that?

I travel a lot for work. I usually end up in beautiful Ottawa. And every time I go, I walk the streets and someone will ask me for money, or for food, or a coffee. It’s become so normal for me to see this picture that it doesn’t inspire me anymore. And it’s not just me. It’s a lot of people. Yet there’s nothing funny about living in poverty. I wouldn’t know first hand, but I do know that I never took the time to buy a warm coffee for the poor lady because I was rushing to a meeting, freezing my ass off in my Helly Hanson coat, my winter boots, my gloves and hat, and wanting to get inside where it’s warm. Yet this person, dresses in rags, spends the entire winter outside. Yet it’s all normal…

You know, I really hate myself when I read this back from the top. I’m an ass. And most of you, like me, are asses. Selfish, ludicrous assholes. But I guess it’s normal. On the other hand, it is not the responsibility of a single person to solve world hunger so maybe I’m a little hard on myself and perhaps a bit harsh towards you. But the question remains; what am I going to do about it.

This year, I’ve decided to sponsor a poor family and my wife is doing the same thing through her workplace. We’ll also be visiting our local food banks to see what items they need the most and we’ll go and buy them. And like a lot of people, we’ll do our thing for a day and feel like a million dollars. And then we’ll likely go back to our good old selfish lives. That’s a reality of our society. It’s not a good thing as Martha would put it, but at least it’s something right? In an ideal world, we would behave generously throughout the year, but this isn’t an ideal world is it? I work hard everyday, and that’s mostly because I want to be able to spoil myself. I don’t want the burden of supporting those who perhaps didn’t make the right choices in their lives. But would it kill me to buy someone a coffee once in a while? Or to bring someone to MacDonalds once a month and tell them to pick a combo? Would it really change anything in my lifestyle? Yet I don’t do it. I sit on my ass all day, and walk the streets with my eyes closed, choosing not to see how difficult life really is, ignoring the fact that I am one of the lucky ones who has a place to sleep and plenty to fill my belly and who will likely soon be the proud owner of a big screen TV. I am one of many. We all have the same problem. We are making the wrong choices. Life is about choices. Our choices got us to where we are today. Why can’t we make the obvious choices when it comes to helping out those in needs? Why can’t we shove our pride in a cupboard and take the time to smile at people, to thank people, to give them a hand when they need one? How did we get to the point where it’s normal to walk by a person wrapped up in cardboard in cold winter night and not care?

My dear friends, I urge you to look at your life differently. Stop crying about the things you want and can’t have. Instead, celebrate what you do have and what you have accomplished in your life. And please, take a few minutes to help out someone who sees a mere cup of coffee as something rare, as something they have difficulty of getting on their own. Because for every single thing you take for granted, there’s 10 people out there who struggle every day. That’s actually just a random number, but I’m sure you get the point.

Regardless of your beliefs, whether you celebrate Christmas or you don’t, dig into your pockets a little, spend time with those who live in loneliness, read a book to a kid, smile at people and watch them smile back at you! Even if it doesn’t last year round, at least make an effort for the rest of this month. In fact, I challenge all who read this to treat a homeless person with a fast food combo by the end of the month. You don’t have to bring them in. Just ask them what they want, go buy it, and bring it back. And if you do, then I want you to post about the experience. I want you to tell me how they reacted and how it made you feel.

Oh FYI, if someone gets shot, stabbed or injured in anyway by attempting this challenge, I’m not responsible!

Merry fucking Christmas everyone!

hackess · « **Reply #1 on:** December 13, 2005, 01:48:40 PM »

The problem with Christmas is that it's so commercialized and capitalistic that it puts in sharp contrast those who "have-not." The poor are still poor the rest of the year; it's just that people might actually feel guilty for spending hundreds of dollars on crap they wouldn't otherwise give out.

Dark Shade · « **Reply #2 on:** December 13, 2005, 02:24:33 PM »

I agree. 'Tis the season to advertise, I suppose. I still have trouble believing it takes Christmas, and only Christmas, to open the majority of the closed eyes to what's happening around them on a daily basis. There's a ever-increasing homeless population, families who may not have that second helping of mashed potatoes, and those who are simply less fortunate than most. It's really quite sad that people who are generally tight-fisted let go during one month of the year, for one purpose, and simply because it's Christmas.

You make a great point Judge, and you've given me an excellent idea. I'll make a point of attempting your challenge, and I'll let you know how it turns out.

ivan · « **Reply #3 on:** December 13, 2005, 02:30:02 PM »

I'm too old to get Lego for Christmas.

That makes me bitter.

HUMBUG!

Vespertine · « **Reply #4 on:** December 13, 2005, 02:49:47 PM »

This is actually similar to one of my pet peeves about Valentine's Day. I despise the thought that you're going to, on one day of the year, treat someone the way you should be treating them every single day.

TheJudge · « **Reply #5 on:** December 13, 2005, 02:59:19 PM »

Exactly Vespertine. It's like if all of a sudden there would be a "road rage day" where only on that day would you make the effort of giving the finger to the old lady who cut you off. How insane is that? I wanna give the finger to the old bags every day!

xolik · « **Reply #6 on:** December 14, 2005, 04:05:47 AM »

Quote from: Vespertine

This is actually similar to one of my pet peeves about Valentine's Day. I despise the thought that you're going to, on one day of the year, treat someone the way you should be treating them every single day.

Quotes like these make me love you even more.

How did Christmas become what it is today? I've thought about it for a bit and can't come up with an answer that doesn't make me sad in some way. Is it overly commercialized because of the social pressure to remove the religious aspects of it out for fear of offending others, thus reinforcing the whole 'Santa' thing? (We're talking fat jolly man who passes out gifts, not the actual Saint he's supposed to be based off of. The purely secular Santa.) Is it that, as Amercians, we've gotten so used to competition, that we've turned it into a 'who can buy the biggest, most lavish gift to prove their love' deal? Or is it that since it's a holiday that a very large percentage of the population celebrates, a bunch of greedy bastards have decided to milk it for all it's worth and nobody cares because, hey, it's OUR holiday?

See? Now I'm all sad again.

Just once, I'd like Jesus to come back for just five freaking minutes to try to explain things.

It's really late, I've been drinking, and I'm sure there's about a thousand spelling\grammatical errors. My apologies.

Comedy Option here: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/43438

TheJudge · « **Reply #7 on:** December 14, 2005, 07:38:40 AM »

I found an interesting article about the origins of Santa in America.

Quote

The American version of the Santa Claus figure received its inspiration and its name from the Dutch legend of Sinter Klaas, brought by settlers to New York in the 17th century.

As early as 1773 the name appeared in the American press as "St. A Claus," but it was the popular author Washington Irving who gave Americans their first detailed information about the Dutch version of Saint Nicholas. In his History of New York, published in 1809 under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker, Irving described the arrival of the saint on horseback each Eve of Saint Nicholas.

This Dutch-American Saint Nick achieved his fully Americanized form in 1823 in the poem A Visit From Saint Nicholas more commonly known as The Night Before Christmas by writer Clement Clarke Moore. Moore included such details as the names of the reindeer; Santa Claus's laughs, winks, and nods; and the method by which Saint Nicholas, referred to as an elf, returns up the chimney. (Moore's phrase "lays his finger aside of his nose" was drawn directly from Irving's 1809 description.)

The American image of Santa Claus was further elaborated by illustrator Thomas Nast, who depicted a rotund Santa for Christmas issues of Harper's magazine from the 1860s to the 1880s. Nast added such details as Santa's workshop at the North Pole and Santa's list of the good and bad children of the world. A human-sized version of Santa Claus, rather than the elf of Moore's poem, was depicted in a series of illustrations for Coca-Cola advertisements introduced in 1931. In modern versions of the Santa Claus legend, only his toy-shop workers are elves. Rudolph, the ninth reindeer, with a red and shiny nose, was invented in 1939 by an advertising writer for the Montgomery Ward Company.

In looking for the historical roots of Santa Claus, one must go very deep in the past. One discovers that Santa Claus as we know him is a combination of many different legends and mythical creatures.

The basis for the Christian-era Santa Claus is Bishop Nicholas of Smyrna (Izmir), in what is now Turkey. Nicholas lived in the 4th century A.D. He was very rich, generous, and loving toward children. Often he gave joy to poor children by throwing gifts in through their windows.

The Orthodox Church later raised St. Nicholas, miracle worker, to a position of great esteem. It was in his honor that Russia's oldest church, for example, was built. For its part, the Roman Catholic Church honored Nicholas as one who helped children and the poor. St. Nicholas became the patron saint of children and seafarers. His name day is December 6th.

In the Protestant areas of central and northern Germany, St. Nicholas later became known as der Weinachtsmann. In England he came to be called Father Christmas. St. Nicholas made his way to the United States with Dutch immigrants, and began to be referred to as Santa Claus.

In North American poetry and illustrations, Santa Claus, in his white beard, red jacket and pompom-topped cap, would sally forth on the night before Christmas in his sleigh, pulled by eight reindeer, and climb down chimneys to leave his gifts in stockings children set out on the fireplace's mantelpiece.

Children naturally wanted to know where Santa Claus actually came from. Where did he live when he wasn't delivering presents? Those questions gave rise to the legend that Santa Claus lived at the North Pole, where his Christmas-gift workshop was also located.

In 1925, since grazing reindeer would not be possible at the North Pole, newspapers revealed that Santa Claus in fact lived in Finnish Lapland. "Uncle Markus", Markus Rautio, who compared the popular "Children's hour" on Finnish public radio, revealed the great secret for the first time in 1927: Santa Claus lives on Lapland's Korvatunturi - "Ear Fell"

The fell, which is situated directly on Finland's eastern frontier, somewhat resembles a hare's ears - which are in fact Santa Claus's ears, with which he listens to hear if the world's children are being nice. Santa has the assistance of a busy group of elves, who have quite their own history in Scandinanvian legend.

Over the centuries, customs from different parts of the Northern Hemisphere thus came together and created the whole world's Santa Claus - the ageless, timeless, deathless white-bearded man who gives out gifts on Christmas and always returns to Korvatunturi in Finnish Lapland.

Since the 1950s, Santa has happily sojourned at Napapiiri, near Rovaniemi, at times other than Christmas, to meet children and the young at heart. By 1985 his visits to Napapiiri had become so regular that he established his own Santa Claus Office there. He comes there every day of the year to hear what children want for Christmas and to talk with children who have arrived from around the world. Santa Claus Village is also the location of Santa's main Post Office, which receives children's letters from the four corners of the world.

ivan · « **Reply #8 on:** December 14, 2005, 01:39:30 PM »

NOW I BELIEVE!

Maybe I'll get some Lego...

jeee · « **Reply #9 on:** December 15, 2005, 08:47:21 AM »

We still celebrate Sinterklaas on december 5th, it's quite a party especially for kids.

TheJudge · « **Reply #10 on:** February 01, 2006, 01:30:29 PM »

So??? Did any of you bastards do it?

MISTER MASSACRE · « **Reply #11 on:** February 01, 2006, 04:42:52 PM »

I threw some cans of soup at some street kids, and I like to think that my heart was in the right place (my chest)...does that count?

Crystalmonkey · « **Reply #12 on:** February 01, 2006, 05:03:24 PM »

I thought we were creating a street urchin orchestra?

MISTER MASSACRE · « **Reply #13 on:** February 01, 2006, 05:20:10 PM »

Quote from: Crystalmonkey

I thought we were creating a street urchin orchestra?

You have to get those ones from infancy - the canned kids were teenagers already, and pretty useless for my purposes.

Dark Shade · « **Reply #14 on:** February 02, 2006, 05:50:04 AM »

I bought a homeless person who was less fortunate then myself a cup of coffee before December was done. It felt quite good really, to be giving a lil' back to those without.

Min · « **Reply #15 on:** February 02, 2006, 09:09:52 AM »

Quote from: TheJudge

So??? Did any of you bastards do it?

I'm doing the same things I've been doing. I don't think I need to make a list, you guys know what I do.

TheJudge · « **Reply #16 on:** February 02, 2006, 09:14:23 AM »

Indeed. Keep enriching everyone's lives!

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Author Topic: Give a little bit... (Read 6702 times)

ivan

ivan