A man after my own heart: from the NY Times…
Op-Ed Columnist
A Most Meaningful Gift Idea
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: December 24, 2009
Some of the best kinds of gifts don’t need to be wrapped, just donated. Here’s a list of worthy, unknown charities.
Recently, CNN doled out its “Heroes” awards with pomp and circumstance. Beautiful celebrities recognized everyday people who help fellow beings around the world. These heroes do good deeds as varied as obtaining prosthetics for the uninsured, securing access to clean water, operating a mobile library for slum kids, supporting women brutalized by rape and other byproducts of war, and feeding the homeless. But outside of this rare ceremony, which focused on the good that is in humanity, the media is usually fixated on war, murder, rape, terrorism and other violence aspects of human nature. Not to take away the importance of reminding ourselves of the realism and the casualties of violence, I often wonder why our news outlets don’t provide enough exposure to NGOs and non-profit organizations that are working behind the scenes to address the fundamental factors that typically lead to conflict. Ratings are of course the primary reason. But ratings are driven by demand, and most people have that morbid curiosity to delve into the forces of the Dark Side.
Which brings me to the purpose of my blog: learning more about the individuals and organizations who help others without expecting anything in return (except to meet their original objectives), and showcasing them to inspire others to do the same. OK, I admit it’s all a bit touchy-feely fluffy sugary sort of thing. I also must confess that I like movies with lots of action and fighting. But this is reality folks, not fiction.
In my previous posting, I linked to President Obama’s 2009 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech for a specific reason. Regardless of one’s political standing or reactions to the content of most of his speech, his summation of the nature of true and lasting peace is worth listening to:
The people and organizations I seek out are those who tackle these very problems. I begin locally with those operating in the cities and neighborhoods surrounding my home in Silicon Valley & the San Francisco Bay Area “Peninsula” region.
more about "President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize A…", posted with vodpod
Tough job. I would not want to be in his position.
Here I am, taking a break from a crazy morning of launching a newly public product beta community. (By the way, if you want to virtualize your PC or Linux box, try the latest beta release candidate of VMware Workstation 7 and Player: http://bit.ly/14YHHM ; but I digress.) I’ve been glued to my laptop since the early hours of the day AT HOME. Now I have to “unstuck” myself from this machine, clean up my grunge look, and get my buttocks over to the office. Shouldn’t be too hard – except even when I shut down my PC connected to the corporate LAN and the Internet via Comcast high-speed broadband cable network and my wireless router at home, I’m STILL connected. Yes, I too suffer from Crackberry syndrome. Email, phone, Internet, Facebook, games, all neatly packaged in the palm of my hand.
So how do I break this addiction? One solution did not work out so well in the long run: falling on my head at full impact on the ice while skating, then undergoing a craniotomy to remove a hematoma. It was somewhat nice to be disconnected from it all for two months; then again, the headaches and nausea, not to mention the isolation and home imprisonment were not so pleasant. Maybe I can do what Bilbo Baggins (the hobbit of JRR Tolkien lore, for the uninitiated) did in “The Fellowship of the Ring.” He gave the ring (= Blackberry) to Gandalf the Grey (someone, anyone) and took off to faraway Elfen lands across the oceans. Somewhere quiet, he said. Can we survive like that anymore?
The middle ground might be to stop and enjoy old pleasures frequently enough to retain one’s sanity: reading a book or a newspaper rather than seeing it online; talking to friends face-to-face or on the phone rather than doing what I’m doing now (writing in my blog and Facebook) or sending emails; doing research at the library of all places instead of on Wikipedia; going out and playing sports rather than “playing” them on the Wii or the PS 3 or the XBox 360 at home. I should try these alternatives more often. I will probably reduce eyestrain and shed a few pounds in the process.
Maybe. Then again, I’m a 21st century, overweight hypomaniac who needs to get off this damn computer, shave and get over to the office.
| Love this series. Tonight’s program was about Stephen Mather’s entry into the history books, and his achievements including the formation of NPS. Also learned a tidbit about Charles W. Eliot’s role in forming Acadia National Monument (later National Park) on Mt. Desert. (Eliot happened to be the president of Harvard at the time; one of the upper-classman dorms is named after him: Eliot House, hangout for preppies. |
