Thanksgiving Photo Opps Continue

Nothing like the holidays to bring out celebrities and politicians to get some photo opps feeding the homeless.  Council Members Dennis Zine, Jan Perry and Tom LeBong were ready for the cameras as the LA Mission served their annual Thanksgiving meal, as seen on the pages of the excellent blog, Downtown Los Angeles Central City East. 

Indeed, it's a wonderful thing to make the holiday as best as can be for those who are down on their luck.  All of us have got the call from a friend "We're going downtown to feed the homeless before we go over to Grandma's!" have been inspired to help.  The truth is however, as nice and as well intentioned as these acts are I believe they serve only to assuage a certain amount of guilt that we've yet to find real solutions to these social ills, let alone get past the fraud, waste and abuse of government that at least contributes to if is not the cause of these roadblocks to human welfare. 

I am certain by chanllenging these random acts of kindness it puts me in the "hater" category but I can't easily accept some of the inherent phoniness around it when on the days that are not Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. bad things are ignored and allowed.

Postscript: Two years ago Joel John Roberts, CEO of PATH Partners, wrote an excellent post on this topic.  It still is true.