THE OFFICIAL WEB SITE OF THE MADISON TIMES WEEKLY NEWSPAPER 

“We are the potential tone setters of the world, and we can do anything we want to do.”

— Betty Franklin-Hammonds

August 4, 1995

This is going to be one of those Second Thoughts where I'm not sure where it's going to end up, a kind of 4 a.m., stream of consciousness Second Thought where I have to look at it the next morning and wonder 'Did I write that?'

When I was at the Hmong Thanksgiving celebration November 24, I ran into George Hesselberg, the award-winning columnist for the Wisconsin State Journal. He was writing a story - walking the beat sort of to speak - on a local angle for the shooting tragedy that had happened in Sawyer County a few days before. It appears the new management at the Wisconsin State Journal took Hesselberg off his twice-weekly column and has him reporting again. I had always enjoyed and admired Hesselberg's column because it was insightful, routinely thought provoking, and humanistic. He had always been voted Madison's favorite columnist. What's up with that?

When I woke up this morning, Wisconsin Public Radio had a pretty discouraging discussion going on about the decision of Target stores to not allow Salvation Army bell ringers to collect money in front of their stores, a practice they allowed for ten years. Apparently, some other non-profits complained because they couldn't do it also and some customers complained because they felt compelled to give.

To my surprise, most of the callers agreed with Target's decision. Maybe it was the early hour. Salvation Army bell ringers have been a Christmas tradition since I was a child. It has always served as a reminder of the Christmas spirit, the spirit of giving to others without the expectation of a quid pro quo in return. Maybe it acted like Pavlov's bell, but the sound of the bells got me thinking about the Christmas spirit.

As I walked by the stands, sometimes I would give money and sometimes I wouldn't. There was never any compulsion about giving unless my conscience reminded me that I hadn't been very generous lately. If I felt uncomfortable, it was because I needed to confront something in me, perhaps my values and whether or not I was living up to them. It's good to have confrontations or reminders about our values. It keeps us human.

Has Christmas become a strictly shopping, commercialistic enterprise? Have we become so weak-minded that we need our environment to completely conform to our own whims and likes? Is it so hard to ignore the ringing of a Salvation Army bell or is it our own conscience that we find it hard to deal with?

Some people said they write checks to non-profits or the Salvation Army and so the bells and the kettles aren't needed and they get tired of explaining to their children why they aren't putting money in the kettle. How else is a child to learn if not from visible, readily understandable acts of kindness and generosity? Children need to see things happen, not have an abstract understanding of how a check benefits someone else.

And it is also my understanding that giving to non-profits and other charities is down this year. When we become less generous as a people, we stop becoming a community. We are merely a collection of insulated consumers bound together by the price of the good or service and not out of any sense of shared humanity on this earth. 'But by the grace of God goes I …' I don’t like where this is headed.

It was almost shocking when we received the press release this week from the NAACP announcing that Kweisi Mfume was resigning as the president of the NAACP. I guess all good things must come to an end. I have always found Mfume to be a very articulate and well-grounded leader who truly cared for the mission of the NAACP.

Mfume said that he wanted to spend time with his youngest son who is 14 years old. That is perfectly understandable. Social activism begins at home. It is rumored that he may run for the U.S. Senate in a couple of years. I hope the rumors are right. We need more people, not less people of Mfume's caliber on the national stage. Thank you Kweisi for all that you have done!

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