Charities

I heard on the news yesterday that some charities have raised too much money for the tsunami relief efforts. The charities could no longer promise that all the money they collect will go to help the victims.

And hey, we want to make sure all the money we give goes where we want it to. By golly, no darned charity better try to spend any extra money on anything other than what tugged at our heartstrings and made us want to give in the first place.
That's why the families of the victims of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack got paid hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for the death of their loved ones, in contrast to the families of the soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq on the war on terror who get about $10-20,000. (But that's another subject.)

At dinner time tonight the phone rang. We usually let our answering machine screen our calls for us, but tonight we stupidly answered it (because we had just left a message on a friends answering machine and thought they were calling back.)

The caller said they had an "EMERGENCY" message for us .

Well, that got our attention; we have a loved one in the hospital in a coma, and an elderly relative in Florida. But no need to get excited, it was only World Vision.
Not wanting to miss a golden opportunity, they were calling to capitalize on the misfortune of all those suffering the effects of the disaster around the Indian Ocean, by hitting me up for a donation.

I understand the squeaky wheel getting the grease, but that really gets my goat.

I make donations to charity regularly, year after year. The charities I give to, almost without exception, then pester me with phone calls, e-mails, letters and cards telling about the latest disaster and asking me for more money.
In the beginning I even went along with them. I naively thought that there must be a real need for it or they wouldn't be asking. So I would give another $50 and they would send a nice thank you letter, and not wanting to waste the postage or the opportunity, ASK FOR MORE MONEY! Often times offering to give me a calendar, coffee mug, tote bag or umbrella as a small token of their esteem.

Well sometimes the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and sometimes the wheel gets replaced.
I doubt they would notice if I replaced them.