Merry Grinch Time

Okay….all of you do-gooders who want to wash yourselves in the Christmas spirit are going to have to wait until next week. This week, I am the Grinch…the Scrooge….the curmudgeon who is ready to take this holiday and shove it up someone’s ho ho ho.

Generally I am a good natured person (Alright…who snickered?). But this year I have had it up to my chinny chin chin with people who always have their hand out. How much is enough? The begging for the “needy” is non-stop. From food banks to the local charities to collections in churches to collections in grocery stores to the cashier who asks do you want to donate a dollar to help blankity blank to my Continuing Legal Education seminars where the Ohio Supreme Court says we need to do more pro-bono work. Hell, half the work I do is pro-bono. I don’t need some smug judges who don’t have to pay for their CLE hours because they are “public servants” telling me to do more work for nothing. I am at the end.

If things have gotten so bad in our society for so many people so fast, then there is something seriously wrong with how this country works. Does anyone ever stop to ask what’s going on? Who and where are the recipients of all of this public largess?

Alright, I can hear you groaning from here. How selfish are you? How cold can you be? Actually I am just the opposite. Every society will always have people who are truly in need, and every effort should be made to help these folks. But now things seem to be getting a little out of hand. If the government is providing on average the equivalent of $62,000.00 per assisted household in goods and services, why do we need cashiers collecting a dollar to help whatever? I am guessing that as I write this approximately fifty million Americans will be receiving food stamps. Imagine a society that has produced fifty million citizens living on food stamps. Something is seriously wrong.

In the middle of this continual harangue for donations and gifts, I have the feeling that there are some really needy folks who are falling through the cracks. Big charity is big business. Like any other entity private or governmental, the natural inclination of these types of entities is to grow. They become self serving and bureaucratic. Who monitors these things? Who is making sure that folks' good and generous nature aren’t being gamed? Who makes sure that those who are truly needy are getting help?

Here in Mahoning County, the population has shrunk from almost 400,000 to about 235,000. We are awash in natural gas. Yet the charities continue to grow….serving more and more people in need. Where were these folks when the mills shut down? Who are these “more and more people in need”?

This Christmas I am being particularly choosy about my charities. I am not quite at the “surplus population” stage…but I am becoming more and more skeptical. I have some charities in mind whose work I can actually see with my own eyes. There are several in the area that do remarkable work for folks with mental or physical disabilities; entities that help our veterans; entities who provide shelter to the homeless who are incapable of providing shelter for themselves; entities that monitor the elderly who live alone. These are the deserving folks whose plight is lost in the institutional ballyhoo. Help those entities that actually work to get people back on their feet and become productive members of society. Those are the ones that are worthy and for the most part work without large institutional assistance.

So this year I am going to be the Grinch and skeptically examine who is asking for what and who is doing the work I think is needed to make America a better place. Then I will grow my Christmas heart.  We all should have a Christmas heart.

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