The Alabaster Hoopla

A few words about the Alabaster Hoopla: as David Mamet has pointed out (in Three Uses of the Knife if memory serves) the Employee of the Month award is not an award the Employer gives the employee; it is an award the Employer gives itself for being such a nice Employer.

And everyday, people presume that by, say, dissing Hitler, they are taking a brave moral stance. No. When The White Rose students
dissed Hitler, they were taking a brave moral stance. For us in this day and age, dissing Hitler is merely correct. We can no more claim moral cred for dissing Hitler than we can intellectual cred for stating that 2+2=4.

But this kind of lip-service morality is a proud tradition among the comfortable, and it is in that spirit that I offer the Alabaster Hoopla, a non-tangible award given to the morally courageous by the morally non-courageous (that'd be me.)

The first Alabaster Hoopla for excellence in demonstrating Moral Courage far in excess of me, Aaron White, goes to Montri Sinthawichai, who has worked hard to save children who have been victimized by the child sex slavery in Thailand. A more noble cause I cannot imagine. Every day he does more to justify his existence than I have in an entire lifetime. Thank you, Montri, for picking up the moral slack and helping damaged innocents! I don't, but I'm in favor of it. Tonight when I lay in my bed watching Arrested Development, I'll think of how you're putting your life on the line to save our fellow humans, and how I'm not.