Friday, February 09, 2007

Charity?

Someone did something nice for someone. It was very nice and I'm sure the recipient was very grateful. No harm done at all. Everyone wins.

The recipient published something (in a blog where he's paid to write, btw) that said he was slightly worse off financially after his divorce than he was before it. A kind person took heart and gathered some funds from willing bloggers and delivered a kind but obviously frivolous gift to the downtrodden author.

But I have to wonder. There are several bloggers who are now or have recently been without work. There are some that have been recently divorced and nobody survives something like that without a big financial hit. Like Christopher Titus says "Wanna know why it's so expensive to get divorced? Because it's worth it!"

There are certainly those more needy, if not more deserving of charity. I wonder how those people felt when they read about this "act of charity." I don't presume to know. I just wonder.

And I'm absolutely not shitting on someone doing something nice for someone else. I'm sure everyone that gave money to this cause knew the whole situation and people can certainly do whatever they want with their money.

I think the gift giver is a really good guy, and the recipient (although he probably spends more to get his metro-sexual wardrobe cleaned in a month than this gift cost) is well meaning too.

I just got a weird feeling when I read about it, knowing what I do about some other bloggers and what I know about the situation. Some people will just think I'm being an asshole but those people already think I'm an asshole anyway.

I wasn't asked to be a part of this, I only found out about it by reading the blogs of the giver and the recipient. Had I been asked, I'm pretty sure I would have declined. Probably. I definitely would have felt like I was getting squeezed. If any bloggers felt put on the spot by the request, I feel bad for them.

8 comments:

Daddy said...

I tried to get a contingent of bloggers to chip in and get you a case of grape Smirnoff, but everyone politely declined.

Wes said...

I was e-mailed about it. I didn't donate. I'm a scrooge.

Fuel55 said...

I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone. I asked 23 people I think and got 18 positives, 1 no and 4 no shows. It was meant to be part fun/part gesture and part blogger entertainment. The amount of money involved was meaningless.

I have no true idea of anyone's financial picture unless they explicitly state something. Nor do I think anyone has any idea of my financial situation.

SirFWALGMan said...

I think Fuel is broke from all his loses at Poker. That is only conjecture from seeing him play.

People always do nice things for people they like.. It's just nice.. I do not claim to understand it but whatever..

Not like they got him a Camaro or something..

Oh and while I do think you can be an asshole probably not being one here.

Jordan said...

Sounds like someone is trying to stir shit. Is it Friday already?

DuggleBogey said...

"People always do nice things for people they like.. It's just nice.."

If I think someone is in need, I'll do something to help...if I would like to give someone a gift, I'll buy them one.

What I don't do is put the squeeze on other blogger so that I can give someone a gift.

Guin said...

As someone who did donate to the bottle of booze it was done for fun.

I realize that others have more serious financial problems that we can't really help. If a couple hundred dollars will solve anyones problems then I am sure I will donate again to that charity raise.

I guess the only question I have for you is what have you done to solve the current situation of the people you mentioned? Not being rude but wondering since you think our actions were an either or choice. I just went with the one situation that was presented to me.

DuggleBogey said...

I don't have a problem with doing something nice for someone for fun. But don't pretend you're doing some big act of charity when there are people that are actually in difficult circumstances.

What did I do? I did what I could, I gave a stake to someone who I thought could use it. It wasn't a ton, but it wasn't frivolous either.

If you were asked and you thought it was great fun, that's good. But others were asked, who didn't think it was very appropriate but gave anyway because of the peer pressure.