Holiday Season Is Here - Time to Feel Good

One more time, as it happens every year, images of good-deed-doers populate the television screen and enter our homes with cheering calls to help those less fortunate. And that’s nice, at least there is one occasion in our Oh-so-busy-schedule where we can make room for hunger, homelessness and poverty. So, the cameras start going places like the Salvation Army, Goodwill, local shelters and every other food kitchen they can find, with smiling and tender looking announcers interviewing mostly old ladies doing something to shake our dormant compassionate mood. Or perhaps a few shots of the guy ringing a bell in front of a store. What about a piece on a casino or other large entity donating a few hundred coats for the needy? Yeah, that will start things rolling and a little bit of free promotion for the merchant won‘t hurt either. You name it, you’ll find it on TV. Endless encounters with people and friendly companies eager to show that the Holiday Season is here and we must pitch in.
I don’t know about your town but in Las Vegas all this sounds so hypocritical that is sickening. All year long we are aware of the problems that surround us regarding the poor, the homeless and the ones who are not able to meet the minimum standard of living and very little is done about it. Yes, there is the occasional photo-op where someone from City Hall announces another patch to this problems, but overall, once December is gone everybody returns to their routine thinking perhaps that the five bucks they gave to some charity or that old coat they’ve donate will last for a whole year. And what about those who hold the purse in this fantasyland, forever worried about their next humongous building dedicated to skim yet more money from all of us. I’m not suggesting that big business should be in charge of solving our problems, but, since they are after all part of the community - or so they say - I wonder if it will hurt them, at least once, to get together and pour some of their profits into a partnership with the City, building and funding a couple of structures where those who have nothing can go and try to kick-start a new productive life. As far as I’m concerned, the Holiday spirit in this context is just a feel-good moment to makes us forget how much we don’t take care of common problems the rest of the year. So, go and donate something you don’t use anymore, drop a few bucks in the jar or work for three hours feeding starving people at your local kitchen, rinse well and have pleasant Holiday!