I was sitting in a hospital room this evening. No cable. Waiting for the Bears game to come on. We had on 60 Minutes, and watched a piece by Mike Wallace. Bumfight videos. The sickest thing I’ve seen in a while. The hospital I was in does an enormous amount of charity work. They have many homeless people every day, every night. Not always sick. Often times claiming illness so they can get a good nights sleep and a good meal. They feed them, let them sleep and then send them on their way. In the wintertime, they’ll sit in the waiting room for days before someone treats them. A nurse was telling me about this earlier today when I asked her if they treated many homeless people there. I had noticed quite a few in the waiting room and on the steps of the emergency room. After hearing of the good they do for these people, this Bumfight video really pissed me off. Some cold, amoral son of a bitch decides to make a video entitled Bumfight, where people go around and basically torture homeless people and buy them beer or give them a few cigarettes or a couple bucks to do dangerous stupid things. And he makes a million and a half bucks.
Not too long ago, a group of teens beat two homeless men in Fort Lauderdale. One survived. The other was not that lucky. There’s a growing trend of violence towards the homeless. And I sat in that hospital room tonight and wondered why. They say religion is on the rise. I know of no religion that teaches violence towards the weak. Or violence at all, for that matter. On my way out, I talked to a homeless man. He stated he had asthma, he was epileptic, and needed to get in that hospital to get some good rest. I hope he did……..

Next time you see a homeless person, go out of your way to be kind. The way I look at it…..in this day and age, we’re all just a day away from being in the same boat. There are no guarantees in life. We don’t know what’s going to come at us from one day to the next. And neither did that guy in front of the hospital tonight.

You can read the 60 minutes article at CBS News