"On Tuesday, several dozen protesters slept outside the Capitol in a camp they've dubbed 'Walkerville.'"

Ha. As if Walker has caused homelessness. (The coinage presumably alludes to "Hooverville.")

This protest is NOT about poor people. It's about people with good jobs, wanting to preserve the high quality of what they've been able to acquire for themselves. Now, I do think those who are sleeping on the floor of the Capitol rotunda and outside on the frozen ground are young people who don't themselves have good jobs. It's interesting what these kids are putting themselves through for others, who are, presumably, better off than they are. I took this picture, yesterday, of the outdoor sleeping setup:



It had gone down to 11° the night before. Note the underlayer of Ian's Pizza boxes. There is a lot of free food. Ian's, by the way, is doing some kickass branding (without losing any money):

On Monday afternoon, [store manager Staci] Fritz guesstimated that Ian's had delivered upwards of 35,000 slices of pizzas in the last week, all paid for by donations...

Fritz says that while Ian's is still making deliveries and taking donations, it has been very careful to cut off the amount of money it takes in one day. "What if somebody gives a load of money and then suddenly this whole thing is over and we can't deliver anymore? We can't let anyone pay for what we can't promise to deliver."

Keeping it honest... which is good for branding too, of course. They're not just raking in donations without accounting for it all with free pizza delivered to protesters.

Madison has a long tradition of its bars and restaurants being sucked into the fervent political activity of the times, such as the Nitty Gritty restaurant and bar's role as the meeting place for the activists who bombed the university's Sterling Hall in 1970.

Well, hell... why bring that up? Things have been really peaceful, by and large — to an amazing degree, considering the difficulty of keeping a large, diverse crowd energized enough to look like a good demonstration without tipping any individual over the edge into something ugly, even as the days wear on and on.

Why the Pope can't be an organ donor.

For one thing: "his body belongs to the entire Church and must be buried intact." But:

Furthermore, if papal organs were donated, they would become relics in other bodies if he were eventually made a saint.

I don't know enough Catholic theology to understand what's wrong with a saint's relic functioning in someone else's body. Saints are supposed to help us out only in ways that that are unachievable by ordinary dead people?

About that Christmas tree.

I said it's okay — and green enough — to get an artificial Christmas tree. Then Professor Yin came in with some scary stuff about lead, and Professor Bainbridge says don't get a tree at all, and don't even get presents — give it all to charity.

What's the best solution to the Christmas tree problem?
	A real tree, a cut tree. Follow tradition!
	A nice new artificial tree. The lead problem is solved, right?
	Some sort of potted tree, that you reuse or replant or something.
	No tree at all!
pollcode.com free polls

Pay $1 million or Lady Gaga (and other celebs) won't do Twitter and Facebook anymore.

It's Digital Life Sacrifice.

"It's really important and super-cool to use mediums that we naturally are on."

"Graphic designer will be 'Homeless for One Week' in Union Square Park to raise money, awareness."

I love the "money, awareness" form in that headline. It's so Onion-y.

Yusef Ramelize, a 33-year-old graphic designer, will leave his Ozone Park apartment Sunday and take up residence in Union Square Park. He won't shower and he won't have shelter during his "Homeless for One Week" project.

"My reasoning for doing this is to inspire people to make sacrifices within their own lives," Ramelize said of his project, now in its second year.

He raised $3,635 in March 2009 and donated it to the Coalition for the Homeless. This year's beneficiary will be the Food Bank of New York....

Ramelize chose Union Square to pay homage to his biggest inspiration, Mohandas Gandhi, who is immortalized with a statue on the west side of the park.

So you're walking through Union Square, and you see Ramelize and a homeless-year-'round person. You have a $1 bill that you want to hand out. Which man gets the dollar?

Our beer taste test.

We're comparing:

1. St. Bernardus Abt 12, our classic favorite over the last year.

2. Trappistes Rochefort 10, the new upstart. New for us.

I tasted blind. Meade, having set up the test, was non-blind. Meade picked the St. Bernardus. I favored the Trappistes Rochefort, for its fascinating extra dimension of flavor. It's been made by monks at he Abbey of Notre-Dame de Saint-Rémy since 1595. "There are approximately 15 monks resident at the monastery. The monks are very secretive about the brewing process, and the brewery is not open to the public...." Good work, secretive monks! "[T]he beer is only sold in order to financially support the monastery and some other good causes." Well, then! I feel like a real humanitarian.

***

And no jokes, please, about us (or me) being blind drunk. We attended a play last night, and, in that play, blindness was batted about:

I am blind.

Perhaps he can see into the future.... 

I woke up one fine day as blind as Fortune. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not still asleep.

And when was that?

I don't know.

But no later than yesterday—

Don't question me! The blind have no notion of time. The things of time are hidden from them too.

Well, just fancy that! I could have sworn it was just the opposite....

Have you not done tormenting me with your accursed time! It's abominable! When! When! One day, is that not enough for you, one day he went dumb, one day I went blind, one day we'll go deaf, one day we were born, one day we shall die, the same day, the same second, is that not enough for you? They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more.

My child, the advanced moralist.

"[Y]our child may wonder why you have twice the home you need. Kevin Salwen and his wife were so taken by their daughter’s conviction in this particular matter that their family of four decided to sell their 6,500-square-foot home. They bought a new one less than half the size and are giving away about $850,000, more than the price difference between the homes."

It's a conundrum of pride!

What should you learn from your child's moralistic inquiries?
	How to reach a higher standard of morality.
	How to talk about substantive issues with a child.
	How to resist being shaken from your own decisions about how to live.
	How to be proud of yourself AND your seemingly brilliant offspring.
pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

Crying Haitians spliced with bellowing pop stars...

... heartrending outreach or charity porn?

Charitable texting.

$5 and $10 donations are easy to make, and they really add up. It's a terrific way to include vastly more donors. It's not just that people have cell phones and the phone company already has all your credit card information, it's that it makes small cup-of-coffee size donations the norm.

Text the word "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross. And get on with your life!

Now, maybe you think charity should involve more reflection and attention to the object of charity. Maybe you think charitable donors should feel that they are giving something up for the sake of the less fortunate and be personally transformed by the act of giving. You know how people who make the effort to attend a long church service feel about the people who say, "I can pray anywhere!," "I can pray on the golf course," "I'll pray when I'm stuck waiting in line somewhere," etc. 

Jesus said: "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." So do not let your left thumb know what your right thumb is doing. Text some charity and don't make any kind of deal out of it. Don't even let yourself think that you have done anything. There is good in that, and it's a good instantly achieved by everyone with a cell phone. You're only giving $5 or $10, so there isn't even anything to congratulate yourself about. When everyone just does this, without thinking, the charities get millions, and we have no reason to get puffed up about about our benevolence.

"Garth Brooks Sues A Hospital."

Charity vanity and the ensuing litigiousness.

WARNING: Male camel toe at the link.

"She understood deeply the lesson our mother and father taught us -- much is expected of those to whom much has been given."

"Throughout her extraordinary life, she touched the lives of millions, and for Eunice that was never enough."

So said Teddy Kennedy about his sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, dead at the age of 88.

In the competitive household of her youth, she established herself as the most intellectually gifted of the sisters in a family where the patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., decided that his sons were the ones bound for politics.

Within the constraints of her era, gender, and social strata, she was the most ambitious, too, becoming an international leader more than a half century ago in the burgeoning movement to wrest mental retardation from the shadows of hushed conversations.

A younger sister of Rosemary Kennedy, who was developmentally disabled and institutionalized most of her life, Mrs. Shriver dedicated decades to ensuring that other families would not endure the fate of her own, watching a loved one whisked behind closed doors. In an attempt to alleviate Rosemary’s intellectual disabilities, doctors performed a lobotomy that instead left her in need of constant care.

Here are 2 pictures of the great lady — young and old: