Posted tagged ‘“Our Basic Human Pleasures: Food’

How To Feel Rich, Sensual, Happy, And Free to Turn Off Telethons.

January 17, 2010

Endangered Cheetah Stuffed Animal



Ten Reasons You Should Give To Charity (Haiti and Elsewhere.)

1.  It gives you free (i.e. non-hypocritical) license to make fun of Pat Robertson.

2.  And Brangelina.

3.  It allows you to guiltlessly  switch channels whenever a telethon comes on.  (No matter what stars participate in these events, they always remind me of the boy who was paid $5 to sing, $10 to stop singing.)

4.  It will make you feel good, on a sensual level, and happy, on a satisfaction level.  See e.g.  recent studies cited by Nicholas Kristof in NY Times op-ed, about food, sex and giving.

5.  That satisfaction thing works.  (At least for me.  Whenever I make a charitable donation, I feel immediately less broke.  Actually, I feel immediately kind of rich.)

6.  On the sensual level, you can do it in the middle of the night.  In the privacy of your own home.

7.  You can avoid that embarrassing silence that follows your accountant’s question, while computing your income tax deductions–“charitable giving?”

8.  The range of options as to how you spend money allotted to charitable gifts is even greater than those offered by Amazon–Haiti, rainforests, girls’ schools in Pakistan, a llama for a family in Bolivia, Jane Goodall’s chimpanzees….

9.  Some charities will even send you a stuffed animal.

10.  A personification of the warm fuzzies.