Continuing my philanthropic social experiment. This is not a complaint! It's an exploration of the "Charity-Industrial Complex."
Having paid a whole bunch of charities with a concentration on animal rescue and starving children, I now get not only more solicitations but stuff from their mailing lists multiplied by each successful charity hit. I get at least a dozen begging letters every day (not Sunday) asking for my help in this CRISIS CRISIS URGENT DESPERATE any number of causes, not even political. We are stretched to the breaking point but we couldn't let these horses die! Shocking pictures of animal atrocities. Miserable exotic species captive in awful prison-like zoos! Thousands of kittens experimented on (I knew they would get to the kittens sooner or later) PUPPIES TORTURED! Save the horses: the used-up race horses, Arabian horses, draft horses, abandoned donkeys! SAVE THE DONKEYS! Save the innocent donkeys (remember, all animals are "innocent"). Save innumerable "sweet" dogs and cats, blind dogs, laboratory dogs, helper dogs, vivisected dogs. Dogs for suffering war veterans....how did I get into the veterans section? Police dogs, armored vests for police dogs,
and all of them worthy in one way or another.
I took a break from giving. There is only so much misery in our world. It won't go away, ever. They send me more stuff. Not only the begging letters, but coins (pennies, nickels, 50 cent pieces) trinkets, magnets, decorative gloves, material made to look "hand written" with an imitative typeface. Piles of paper, blank envelopes to draw us in by curiosity. A deck of playing cards with rescue donkeys on the back side. Please, we're desperate humans and animals, please help us! And the most prolific of all, the "FREE GIFT..." Decorative address labels, coming to me in the thousands like the leaves of fall.
You've heard this all from me before. What I realize, is that this is...fun! I like reading about the infinitesimal possibility that some human or animal is actually helped by this. You did a good thing. Or maybe you didn't. All of this is carefully manipulated to produce the most emotional response. It's our world but the donkeys and horses are still the beasts of burden.
