{"id":1763,"date":"2008-06-07T03:07:54","date_gmt":"2008-06-07T03:07:54","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2008-06-07T03:09:41","modified_gmt":"2008-06-07T03:09:41","slug":"fifteen_minutes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1763","title":{"rendered":"Fifteen Minutes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please read the whole thing; it’s not what you think, and the favor I’m asking isn’t either.<\/p>\n

Last night Long Beach Opera did a production of Frid’s Anne Frank in West Los Angeles. It was – again – an amazing and heartrending show<\/a>. We’ll (I’m on the Board, be grateful I’m not singing or playing) be doing it again Sunday night in Long Beach – sold out, thankfully.<\/p>\n

The performance was amazing, and wrenching. Our artistic director contacted Laura Hillman – a poet and herself a young Holocaust survivor – to read from her own writings as an interplay with the soprano’s singing of Frid’s work and readings from Anne’s diary.We’re kind of a shoestring organization, so we divvy up responsibilities – mine for this performance was to purchase the refreshments – about $200 worth of cookies and veggie platters, sodas, juice and ice.<\/p>\n

I was late doing the shopping, worried that I wouldn’t get the food there in time, and hustling to the venue through sticky Los Angeles traffic when I passed a homeless man, laying in the gutter on Westwood Boulevard near Ohio. I registered him as a Land Rover juked left to avoid running him over and passed him by, worried for a moment that the platters of cookies in my back seat would fall over as I maneuvered.<\/p>\n

I picked up my cell phone and called 911, finally getting through to the CHP operator who transferred me to the local LA firehouse who would take the call. I explained that he was laying in traffic, and I was worried that he’d be hit by a car, and they promised to go out and take care of him.<\/p>\n

And I drove off to deliver my cookies and juice, vaguely disquieted but unsure why.<\/p>\n

And today, reading this<\/a>, I realized why. I had the duty and capability to intervene, and I didn’t.<\/p>\n

All I had to do was go around the block, stop my car, and put on my hazard flashers while I waited for the fire department to show up. I didn’t have to deal with picking the drunk and filthy man up, or treating him as the firefighters would. I could have sat for a few minutes and been late with the cookies – no one would have died. I could have taken fifteen minutes.<\/p>\n

And all day I’ve been vaguely ashamed that I didn’t – somehow more ashamed after sitting and listening last night to stories of inhumanity set to haunting music.<\/p>\n

So listen. The next time you have a chance to intervene – especially at such a small cost to yourself – please do. That request is my way of shedding some of the shame I’ve been feeling, and apologizing to the sad and helpless man I left exposed to cars in the street. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Armed Liberal is unhappy with himself – you can help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1763"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}