On feeling sorry for people

Or always, but only in a Mind.

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God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, ”Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It’s yours.’
--Ann Coulter, Fox-TV: Hannity & Colmes, 20 Jun 01 Save lives! Click here!
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I'm a soft touch.All the street people see it right away--the alkies, the crazies...the crack whores wanna show me their tits...everybody's got my number.In Third World countries, everyone else can leave the station unbeleaguered because the starving children see me coming a mile away. Maybe my eyes bleed compassion, I don't know--maybe I just look stupid. I never need a piggy bank because I give all my change away.Sometimes I resolve to harden my heart.One New Year's Eve I was walking to the liquor store to buy some wine for dinner. Two familiar homeless guys (at least one a fellow vet--I could tell by his tattoos) watched me approach. When I reached them, the vet asked, "Hey, buddy, got any spare change?""Nope.""That all you gotta say?""Yep.""Who the hell you think you are, Gary Cooper?"I was so tickled I bought them a case of beer and dropped it off on the way home. They were politely incredulous when I told them I spent a year or two (I couldn't remember exactly) living on the street:"You don't look like it""Well, I stopped. It wasn't fun anymore."They still didn't look convinced. I didn't have the heart to tell them that some things don't leave as many scars as booze.But they really appreciated the beer. They offered to come home with me and share, but I begged off.Nice guys, though.

I spent a couple of months in an Army hospital, basically rotting off a leg beneath a cast while they treated me for pneumonia. The Army's like that.One day a WWII vet came around with a chessboard, asking did anyone wanna play? Sure, I said, a coupla games would be nice.I used to play competitive chess. I cleaned his clock three times in a row, real quick.After the third game, he threw the pieces into the box, slammed the hinged board closed, and said, "Goddamned smartass. Play with yourself."He never came back. I guess the pity factor just wasn't enough.

Was that you?

Well, I'm not about Robin's life.But I will tell another story.My grandmother died at 107. She was a virulent, vocal racist almost all the years I knew her. I, on the other hand, grew up in a white trash neighborhood, the last block before the black ghetto. I had lots of black friends. A black boy saved my life when I was five years old and immunized me. I became "radicalized," as the fasionable term went in the 60s, on issues of race, class, and, eventually, gender.At family gatherings, inevitably my grandmother would launch a racist rant. I would confront her, and in no uncertain terms renounce her racism and hatred. This went on for years and years. Family members would buttonhole me and say, "She's too old to change. It's unmannerly to confront her that way. Just let it go."I would reply, "She's talking in front of children. All it takes to keep bigotry alive is silence."Finally, at her 103rd birthday party, she motioned me close, and said, "You know, boy, you're right. We're all God's people."You could've knocked me over with a breath. I was amazed. Some of my nephews, nieces, and great-such came to me later that day to comment that they had been changed by my insistence on confronting her hatefulness, and that they shared my joy that she had come around.The moral of this story?If we lived long enough, we would all become good.

Amen, brother.