But it got me to thinking. Although I recognized the celebrity who was being honored, I had never heard of the award. For that matter, I had never heard of the group giving the award.
The more I found out about it, it sounded to me like this was a group that existed primarily to give awards to big name people in order to garner publicity for themselves more than to garner publicity for the cause they supported and/or opposed. As is often the case with these groups, most of the money goes to pay the salaries of the top officers and probably a small percentage goes to making little gold-colored plaques to hand out to actors and political candidates who are just happy to get their name and photos in the paper.
Well, everyone has to make a living, I suppose. But I am not going to get all hot and bothered because some group I have never heard of is giving out awards that don't mean anything to someone who has already made his or her opinions known and received more media attention than merited. The award event is mostly a feeble attempt to get back in the paper, and writing angry letters about it helps keep it in the news.
And, no, I doubt you know which group I am talking about, because you have probably never heard of them and I am not in the business of handing out free publicity. So despite this post, I am not keeping this story alive.
Groups of all sorts seem to do this -- political groups of all stripes, religious groups, single-issue groups. Not all individuals or organizations, of course, are in the racket for the money. But too many of them are.
Since this sounds like a complaint, I will say that today I am grateful for those people and groups who, often at great personal sacrifice, sincerely work to make the world a better place for all of us, especially for the disenfranchised, the poor, the sick, the elderly, the hungry, the vulnerable. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. So thank you!
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