The American Cancer Society

Is the American Cancer Society a legitimate and worthwhile charity?

We've all heard of it, of course, but still, who knows? It might be like the phony policemen who constantly call trying to sell lightbulbs. You wonder, how did these guys ever get in the lightbulb business? Then you realize, it goes way back, one of the first Associates program. Sell lightbulbs for an unrelated third party company and they'll give the police a dime for every dollar.

They do the same thing in school when your kids are selling stuff. Seeds, candy, maybe lightbulbs. The school gets a cut off each sale, making your kids kind of like taxpayers before their time. At least they're exploiting their labors for a bill the taxpayers ought to be footing.

We get all these calls from the police, I mentioned that. And what's the other big one? Oh, I had one from the Special Olympics the other day. "We're not selling anything. We are not asking for money," I don't know precisely what their pitch was. But it came down, I believe, to subscribing to a newsletter or magazine or something. "No, I don't care about it."

Now I have the Cancer Society on my case. I was watching American Idol and right at one terrible audition the phone rings. It's the Cancer Society guy. So I told him send me the stuff and I'd look at it. It might be a local guy. I gave to that once. He sounded amateurish enough to be local, and you know my feelings on "local guys." So today I get his mailing. Nothing local in the mailing, just a form donation sheet from the American Cancer Society, suggesting $20.

I'm thinking, what do I need with the Cancer Society? If I get cancer and die, well, I got cancer and died. I don't think we're going to cure every disease and live forever anyway ... at least in this world. So at some point, why don't we just accept it? We're going to die.