Decency
When once the forms of civility are violated,
there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency
--Samuel Johnson
The most practical kind of politics
is the politics of decency
--Theodore Roosevelt
_______________
there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency
--Samuel Johnson
The most practical kind of politics
is the politics of decency
--Theodore Roosevelt
_______________
Just when you thought generosity had shriveled up and left the building after the Masters of the Universe gifted themselves with billions of dollars in exit bonuses as the Wall Street Titanic sunk (Obama Calls wall Street Bonuses "Shameful"), a small story like this surfaces.
CB Richard Ellis, a Los Angeles-based Real Estate Management & Development Group, decided to forgo their Recognition and Awards Conference this year (which would have recognized their top-producing US agents), deciding instead to donate 100 vacation packages to the Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit for wounded veterans (Real Estate Forum).
The vacations will consist of a three-night stay at the Hilton Cabo San Lucas Beach and Golf Resort. The Group will also be donating another 125 packages to other charitable organizations.
This is decency in action. The group was chosen as one of BusinessWeek's top 50 in 2008, coming in at No. 11. If humanity were part of the criteria for selection, it was well Richard Ellis Group was chosen.
Labels: cabo san lucas, CB Richard Ellis group, wounded warriors vacations
posted by Lisa at 6:58 PM
6 Comments:
good for them..... here's an article you might be interested in...
This is scary, what if this random act of kindest catchs on?
jo6pac
i imagine chief and ranger will second me when i state that in a war zone, simple human decency is one of the most powerful acts.
the decency it takes to simply do something kind for another, without thought of reward, or even risk at times, can be such a rare thing that its power and its beauty are multiplied.
same thing in the hospitals and recovery wards. the last time i was medivaced from vietnam, i was rushed to a subic bay surgical center so quickly that when i was coming out from under the anethesia i still had jungle grime on me.
i remember two things about coming to vividly. first, my hands were being washed. warm soapy water. a gentle touch. not things one finds in the boonies.
second: the nurse doing the washing was wearing perfume. i hadn't smelled that scent in like forever.
before i was even fully conscious it told me two things. i was somewhere else, somewhere safe.
decency. little things like being nice to a kid. over and over i saw, or heard the tales about how the enemy would use the innate and often unconscious decency of the americans against them. most of us kept being decent.
one of the biggest casualties of the PWOT has been the american force's loss of status in the eyes of the world. we used to be the army of choice for folks to surrender too. you tell little ngueyen in his black pj's out there in the jungle eating bugs and snakes and weevily rice that the americans have hot chow, showers with soap, and racks with blankets a lot of them would consider defecting for that alone.
there are stories of the end of ww2 where germans would travel hundreds of miles, fleeing toward the american lines so that they could surrender to folks who would give them fair treatment.
it didn't happen that often that way in the pacific during ww2. but that was mainly a cultural thing on the part of the japanese. surrender was not part of their thinking. the tit for tat exchange of atrocities in the pacific was horrific.
good for these guys. doing the right thing should not be bad for business. they get mine.
Ghost Dansing,
Thanks for that link.
Jo,
It would be nice.
MB,
I am very moved by your testimonial to the power of simple kindness.
It has been my experience that the simplest gestures delivered at a significant moment (unknown to the giver) have been the most profound gifts for me. My spirituality consists of this: we can, any of us, be a conduit for humanizing or even ennobling our fellows. Care, made manifest through word or deed, is the way we overmaster our brute animal desires. (Which is not to say animals do not show care, also.)
Lisa: Nice. Good to read that not everyone in the canopy of the corporate jungle is a would-be Master of the Universe.
Sure is nice to read stories like this! Just wished it'd be a regular daily occurrence.
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