In watching a bit of this, a thought experiment came to mind.
I realized if I had fifty million dollars, I would have attended and offered to donate that entire amount to cancer research, potentially saving millions, if Billy Crystal would shut up permanently and put a gun to his head and pull the trigger live on nationwide television.
Whaddya think? Would he have gone for it? Would he have given up his dubiously worthwhile life, to save the lives of others, and the psyches of countless more from his inane should-have-been-left-in-the-80s impressions?
We all know that answer.
When The Pussycat Dolls and Beyonce and the others went on, do you think that they'd have taken off every stitch of clothing live and pranced nude and writhed and perhaps even masturbated to the delight of millions of bored and lonely men in return for a fifty million dollar cash donation to cancer research?
Given that Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler regularly make offers to women such as them to donate large sums to the charity of their choice in return for simple nude modeling and they refuse each time, what do you think the answer is?
That auditorium is full of Christians who don't drop a thing on the collection plate, Jews who attend synagogue once a year if that and never put a dime in the tzedakah tin, and others who claim godlessly to know morality but while mouthing platitudes about vegetarianism and animal welfare wear leather belts and leather cell phone holsters.
Would they even pledge to sacrifice every cent of any paycheck that results as a matter of the PR and notoriety of this show, of any income at all from any job that results directly from the shmoozing and networking that takes place, giving it all to cancer research?
It's always easier to ask others to make sacrifices you won't. While the left says that of American soldiers dying in Iraq, killing people, destroying stuff, going in harm's way and risking dying while following orders is the short form definition of a solider and they knew that when they signed up.
In their quest to be right over doing what is right, what is their rationale for asking the future to risk great sacrifices when an unstable Iraq left before it can naturally and organically achieve stability, falls apart?
In the same vein of hypocrisy, why are these stars not leaving their cushy jobs and taking up courses in medicine and molecular biology to try to cure cancer themselves? Why are they not encouraging their own children to do so? Why are they not encouraging the youth of America to take up such careers?
Because it is about being right and not doing right. They want the glamour, the prestige, the notoriety of the gig and they want none of the hard work and self-sacrifice that are made every day by researchers in universities every day when they might have made more money in private practice or in another field altogether. Sure, they do it for their own self-deceptive self-gratifying reasons of achieving notoriety in their own field and fame for achievement. They also actually bother to learn about the problem that the stars display utter ignorance of.
Curing cancer is not a money issue, it is a scientific issue. Praying will not cure it. Throwing starry galas will not cure it. Throwing money will not cure it. Only time and steady unyielding insistence on researching every aspect of it until there is not a single biochemical reaction or genetic sequence left to document will cure it.
But that's not fun, that's not profitable, that's not increasing anyone's fame. And people will continue to die because they always default to try to do the right thing always for the wrong reasons by the wrong reasoning.
