Giving strong consideration
Sep. 16th, 2002 08:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynto using this entry's suggested means of dealing with obstacles, courtesy of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lwood. . . Newark Star-Ledger ran a front-page, below-the-fold article today about how FDA is suing Red Cross for blood donation problems in the past. Considering that our overall trck record on these things is excellent, and that we've improved and/or fixed the problems of the past, I suspect FDA is (understandably) trying to save face. And that the Star-Ledger hates us, because over the course of the last twelve months I can't think of anything they ever published that was the least bit complimentary or positive about the Red Cross. Funny how none of the other organizations that collected $ for September 11th has taken the kind of flack we have, from anyone, least of all the Ledger. . . including some of the overnight charities that've sprung up and just as quickly vanished, taking the donations with them. I wonder if the Ledger has an editor who was in England during World War II and didn't get his damn free donuts (long story short: the Brits didn't give stuff away at the time, so Secretary of War Stimson told us we had to charge for our donuts & coffee or he'd pull our charter), or if it's that someone on staff thinks President Bush's 'give money to faith-based organizations' plan is the right way to go and that a dedicated neutral organization like the Red Cross needs to be destroyed to make that more likely, or what, but they pretty much seem to hate us. They've been writing about nothing but our flaws and failings for as long as I've worked here. I think the only times they've written about anything GOOD we do, they've written about our Braille bindery, and maybe once about how we reunited a Holocaust survivor in the Ukraine with his family in America.
I have several things I wish I could wish on them, but all of them would be horribly un-Christian, un-Buddhist, etc., so I'm not gonna do it. All I can say is: I have more faith in my organization, in my employers, in the people around me here at the Red Cross than I do in the American government - or in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in which I grew up. I have no doubt we'll do the right thing and eventually be vindicated; I just hope people like this don't tear us apart first. We're not just an organization. We're people. We're paid staff, we're volunteers, we're civilians and nurses and doctors and soldiers. We're here to support the American people in time of disaster and to support the American armed forces every single day of every single year. . . but in the end we are nothing but people, and I can only pray that the ones who seem to hate us so much that all they can ever talk about is what we did wrong don't succeed in destroying those people. We're needed, dammit. And we're doing the best we can.
lwood. . . Newark Star-Ledger ran a front-page, below-the-fold article today about how FDA is suing Red Cross for blood donation problems in the past. Considering that our overall trck record on these things is excellent, and that we've improved and/or fixed the problems of the past, I suspect FDA is (understandably) trying to save face. And that the Star-Ledger hates us, because over the course of the last twelve months I can't think of anything they ever published that was the least bit complimentary or positive about the Red Cross. Funny how none of the other organizations that collected $ for September 11th has taken the kind of flack we have, from anyone, least of all the Ledger. . . including some of the overnight charities that've sprung up and just as quickly vanished, taking the donations with them. I wonder if the Ledger has an editor who was in England during World War II and didn't get his damn free donuts (long story short: the Brits didn't give stuff away at the time, so Secretary of War Stimson told us we had to charge for our donuts & coffee or he'd pull our charter), or if it's that someone on staff thinks President Bush's 'give money to faith-based organizations' plan is the right way to go and that a dedicated neutral organization like the Red Cross needs to be destroyed to make that more likely, or what, but they pretty much seem to hate us. They've been writing about nothing but our flaws and failings for as long as I've worked here. I think the only times they've written about anything GOOD we do, they've written about our Braille bindery, and maybe once about how we reunited a Holocaust survivor in the Ukraine with his family in America.I have several things I wish I could wish on them, but all of them would be horribly un-Christian, un-Buddhist, etc., so I'm not gonna do it. All I can say is: I have more faith in my organization, in my employers, in the people around me here at the Red Cross than I do in the American government - or in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church in which I grew up. I have no doubt we'll do the right thing and eventually be vindicated; I just hope people like this don't tear us apart first. We're not just an organization. We're people. We're paid staff, we're volunteers, we're civilians and nurses and doctors and soldiers. We're here to support the American people in time of disaster and to support the American armed forces every single day of every single year. . . but in the end we are nothing but people, and I can only pray that the ones who seem to hate us so much that all they can ever talk about is what we did wrong don't succeed in destroying those people. We're needed, dammit. And we're doing the best we can.
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Hmmmm....
Date: 2002-09-16 06:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-09-16 12:03 pm (UTC)...who swiped it from
...... who liberated it from
.........who cadged it from
"Do you want me to tell you something really subversive?
Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it . . . It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for.
And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more."
- Erica Jong
Erica may have had eros in mind, but I'm just has happy to apply this to philos, or even to the good old agape that's supposed to be part of one's motivation in working for charitable organizations here.
Or just replace 'love' with 'people.'
I'm likewise reminded of the Discordian saw:
"All systems are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense."
... in short, people are always and in all ways themselves. This occasionally makes them assholes, but often kicks up much excitement in any case.
-- Lorrie
-- Lorrie