How Low Can You Go?

"This low, for now. So someone fetch me a shovel!"

***Update:
What's wrong with Tim Robbins? I realize I was disparaging him without saying why he deserves sparage. So I used the evil search engine and found the very words that turned me against him. Tim Robbins at the National Press Club:

For all of the ugliness and tragedy of 9-11, there was a brief period afterward where I held a great hope, in the midst of the tears and shocked faces of New Yorkers, in the midst of the lethal air we breathed as we worked at Ground Zero, in the midst of my children's terror at being so close to this crime against humanity, in the midst of all this, I held on to a glimmer of hope in the naive assumption that something good could come out of it.

I imagined our leaders seizing upon this moment of unity in America, this moment when no one wanted to talk about Democrat versus Republican, white versus black, or any of the other ridiculous divisions that dominate our public discourse. I imagined our leaders going on television telling the citizens that although we all want to be at Ground Zero, we can't, but there is work that is needed to be done all over America. Our help is needed at community centers to tutor children, to teach them to read. Our work is needed at old-age homes to visit the lonely and infirmed; in gutted neighborhoods to rebuild housing and clean up parks, and convert abandoned lots to baseball fields. I imagined leadership that would take this incredible energy, this generosity of spirit and create a new unity in America born out of the chaos and tragedy of 9/11, a new unity that would send a message to terrorists everywhere: If you attack us, we will become stronger, cleaner, better educated, and more unified. You will strengthen our commitment to justice and democracy by your inhumane attacks on us.

And he goes on to whimper his disappointment. "Ah but it wasn't to be. I love the country, well, some of the trees at any rate, but the animate objects all disappoint me...." Like that.

I first read this crapulence on a Saturday shortly after he spewed it. And I remember it because I was hurrying through the news, hopping links, checking mail, busy clicker that I am. And I only read this because there was an extra half hour thrown into our plans for the evening. Why? Because one of the kids involved was going to be late getting back from... drum roll.... the nursing home. Yeah Tim, the nursing home, visiting the "infirmed". Which is what people do. No, not what rich actors do. What real people do. Then of course, I realized that the problem was that we weren't writing to Mr Robbins to inform him of our activities.

Sure, Tim Robbins could volunteer someplace himself. Upon his arrival he might notice that there were people already there. People who had been there, doing service -- not there awaiting his theoretical arrival, with his actors sleeves rolled up and ready to hypothetically pitch in.

Nah, Tim doesn't value service to the extent that he would actually do something. His contribution is pretty much whining about how other people don't pitch in. (in much the same way he doesn't)