Saturday, August 30, 2014

I'm cold as ice

When I was in Grade 4 kids in my class kept 'accidentally' stapling their fingers. It didn't make any sense to me so one evening after about the 5th kid in class did it, in the privacy of my bedroom, I intentionally stapled my finger to see if you could accidentally do it. I determined that all those kids must have been intentionally doing it to join in.

I have never been one jump on the bandwagon just because everyone else was doing it - that meant not wearing my thong well above the waistline of my jeans and not doing the macarena all way up to the current ALS Ice Bucket challenge.

It's not just about the challenge, I also have an issue with donating to some 'charities' - as they say, "if shopping cured Breast Cancer, it would have been done already". It seems  I am not alone, and just like me it took a while for those opposed to speak up about it - but here is one of the best explanations I have read so far. It comes from Discovery Channel's Mike Rowe - read his article here. He writes:
The spectacular success of the Ice Bucket Challenge is not the result of a conscious, collective commitment to rise up against a terrible scourge; it’s the result of a marketing campaign. Consequently, a foundation accustomed to working for decades on a million dollars or so in annual donations, will now have to manage a $75 million jackpot. That worries me, as it should anyone who has ever studied the fate of lottery winners. That’s not their fault, but it doesn’t change the situation, and I’m not inclined to challenge more people to send more money to coffers that are already overflowing....

and this as well
...The Ice Bucket Challenge is different. Here, people I’ve never met give me 24 hours to either write a check to a charity I’m not familiar with, or dump a bucket of cold water over my head. Tell me honestly – if that precise challenge arrived to you privately, via the US Mail, what would you do with it? You’d throw it in the trash, right? But a public challenge is not so easy to ignore. Online, everyone is watching. Your friends. Your co-workers. Your clients. Maybe even your boss....
...When it comes to asking people for help, I don’t like to put them in an awkward position. So the only challenge I’m issuing today is to Freddy [his dog]. If he can refrain from peeing on the floor, I’ll send a check to the local shelter. Beyond that, I’m staying dry.
See? I told you I couldn't say it better than Mike Rowe. So tell me  - did you do it?  and why?

No comments: