Walkathons

If someone from 1950 could fast-forward themselves in time, one of the aspects of modern-life that would confound them is the bizarre convergence of charity and physical exercise.

Thanks to the Baby Boomers, the most charitable act in America today (beyond writing a check) is the -athon.

Charity alone is meaningless when you've grown up believing that you are God's gift to the earth, that you are the most "adventurous, daring, risk-taking, compassionate, focused and purposeful" generation since Adam and Eve, as this Baby Boomer Blogger believes. And because Baby Boomers can't participate in a charitable activity without some kind of me-me-me-me-me self-improvement function (i.e., trimming the waistline), we are left with the Walkathon, Bikeathon, Charity 5K, Challenge Run, Skip Around the Block for Diabetes, etc.

What a lazy, selfish, pathetic, geeky way of helping other people. How many emails do you get from a Baby Boomer each week asking you to personally join them in volunteering at a local soup kitchen? Is it between zero and zero? And yet how many Baby Boomers at the office, through email and at family dinners, hit you up for $5-a-mile so you "sponsor" them on some stupid early morning walk that ties up traffic.

Instead of using those four hours walking the highway in your track suit, how about doing some pro bono work at your law firm to help an impoverished family? How about reading a book that gives you some insight into the ways global poverty and genocide can begin to be extinguished? How about writing a letter to a congressman about increased funding for disease research?

Asking me to put my credit card number into a walkathon web site is flat-out lazy. I hope you sprain an ankle.