Merry Shaqmas

While individual acts of charity can’t make up for negative structural changes likely to be pushed by our next President, the current hostile environment also makes individual acts of kindness stand particularly tall – particularly when it’s in the form of 7-foot-1 NBA Hall of Fame center Shaquille O’Neal.

When Shaq’s significant other asked about doing something for 30 kids at an agency in Central Massachusetts, his only condition was that they needed to get more kids.

And organizers did – 400 of them, to be exact.

Read the rest of the story in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette. In this age where there’s so much unapologetically self-entitled greed, it’s good to be reminded that there’s still plenty of affluent people who model a sense of social responsibility to something larger than themselves.

As the paper pointed out, it wouldn’t be a particularly good idea for the behemoth with the size-22 shoes – and what looks to be more pounds than the 325 he played at – to go sliding down anyone’s chimney this Christmas Eve.

Just the same, merry Shaqmas to all, and to all a good night.