Sunday, March 10, 2002 |
21:40 - God Bless the Red Cross (Quiet, you fool!)
http://www.lileks.com/bleats/031102.html
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Lileks comments on the Red Cross turning away kids who had come to sing "God Bless the USA" and "America the Beautiful":
These things would not have happened in WW2 - again, you can ponder the matter and figure out why, but the fact is that no one would have thought to make this complaint. The nation was at war; the idea that singing a patriotic medley that contained “God” and “Prayer” would be divisive and offensive and cannot be allowed at a RED CROSS MEETING would have struck most people as absolute lunacy. I know there are people who think that the Red Cross decision is a good thing, that we're better off because the kids didn't sing “God Bless the USA,” but all I can do is plead ignorance because the reason escapes me completely.
I can, however, find another charity.
Yeah. If I'd been among the carolers, I'd have said, "Yeah, you know what? I find the term 'Red Cross' to be offensive and divisive. I demand that you change your name, or set up your so-called 'charity' elsewhere."
Not that I'm not already a bit torqued off at the Red Cross anyway. I gave them $400 sometime late in September, and shortly afterwards it came to light that that money had likely gone towards those administrative cost paydowns or office refurnishings or whatever that scandal of misappropriations was about. Like many other Americans during those times, I was going through a belt-tightening period when it came to finances, and I was none too pleased to find out that Disney had lied to me about him who donates his last farthing to help the poor getting rewarded by the poor turning into beautiful genies who baked a whole inventory full of shoes for him to sell the next day. But then they lied to us all about lemmings too, and it wasn't until the 90s when we learned the truth about the little rodents (which was that they marched around in blue smocks building bridges and exploding on command).
Bah, humbug. I am soooo disillusioned.
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