A lot of you chipped in to help Bob Kahan raise enough cash to not get evicted from the apartment where he and his cats have resided for many years. Bob reports today that he went to court and the funds raised did the trick. The eviction notice will be vacated as soon as the checks clear. Yay! Now, we just hope the fellow can find a job.
This kind of thing makes me happy. You know what doesn't make me happy? The people you see on and in the news who have that Scrooge-like self-hatred that bubbles out as contempt for the needy. You know: Anyone who doesn't have a job is a lazy bum who leeches off the public. The homeless should just starve to death and disappear. Sick people can just go to emergency rooms and don't bother me with them. Oh — and you know, slavery wasn't so bad…
The rhetoric is sometimes frighteningly identical to ol' Ebenezer and his wish that the poor die off and decrease the surplus population. You'd think that the folks who think like that would at least have the sense to conceal their a-holishness, especially around this time of year but no. I guess the Tea Party has made them feel liberated enough to boast of their selfishness. Some of them have even developed convoluted explanations of how their worldview is utterly consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ. He didn't care about the poor and sick at all except…well, all the time.
I often think about this one quote from Kurt Vonnegut. Someone asked him to explain the meaning of life and replied…
Well, I have a son who writes very well. He just wrote one book; it's called The Eden Express. It's my son Mark, who is a pediatrician and who went crazy and recovered to graduate from Harvard Medical School. But anyway, he says, and I've quoted him in a couple of my books, "We're here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is."
Merry Christmas.