Personally I have experienced the affect of AIDS on a number of levels. I think that the majority of those reading this blog have had some level of personal experience with the devastating affects of AIDS.
Today, try and set aside a few moments of your time to think about, learn about, pray about, and considering taking action to stand in solidarity with others in addressing AIDS.
First of all, let me say my family is awesome. I think we are going to go all out this Christmas and do something fairly spectacular. I think, we are going to give a big donation to something like building a clean water well or sponsoring a family or something, rather then giving gifts. It’s a great step, one I’d like to encourage others to take.
So, within reason, I’d like to try and highlight some giving alternatives for folks over the next few weeks. I know your maybe starting your Christmas shopping already, so please be patient and consider giving in honor of your loved ones rather then giving them more stuff they don’t need.
To start, check out Christmas is Not Your Birthday over at CoolPeopleCare. And if your ambitious and want to spread some internet buzz put the banner up on your site by doing this.
Put a corner banner on your blog by putting this html in your post:
If you need help knowing how to put html in a post just ask.
Tis the Season friends.
If your a Bush fan try and ignore the first part, I really enjoy the second part of the guy giving a Speech on MLK Day.
I usually wait till after the holiday passes before I go into a critical assessment of the festivities. I figured this year would be a good chance to try and encourage folks to consider things before the holiday rolls around.
I’ll start by saying that I plan on driving home and spending time and eating a big meal with my family on Thursday. Whether that’s mainly because of the convenience of us all having that time off, or because of our devout acknowledgement of the historical events is up for debate.
I guess when I think about the historical implications of a holiday like Thanksgiving I’m much more disturbed then I am thankful for it. The idea of the pilgrims and native people of this land sitting down together in peace and sharing a meal is a beautiful and wonderful thing, I just worry it ignores so much more of the history.
You see if my history book is correct (they must have torn out this section in my middle school), the atrocities of that time far out weigh any peaceful meal together. Massacares, forced removal, slavery, genocide, stolen land; this is the overwhelming story of the “settling” of this land. Stolen land. Stolen land.
To this day we live on stolen land. Thanksgiving is a difficult holiday for me, because I think it’s celebration without regard for the terrible injustices, is one of the deep wounds of our society that has never healed. You live on stolen land.
I know for me sitting at my family’s table on Thursday, I won’t be able to solve the problem, or right the wrong of the land. I can however acknowledge, and I can be diligent in thinking of ways to return, to make amends, to right wrongs.
I live on stolen land.
I like the little triangular banners you can put in the top corners of your website and blog. I’ve decided I would start a post collecting those. Since I couldn’t find a lot I’ll start with a couple and encourage people to make more for the websites (particularly humanitarian and non-profits) that you like.
Let’s be advocates through our blogs.
You can read about how to put this banner on your site here.
If you want this banner for your website (and get it to show up for just Internet Explorer users) then check this out.
An interview with Kalle Lasn, founder of Adbusters, about Buy Nothing Day last year. (sorry the beginning is a repeat of the commercial from yesterday).
The video is about 5 minutes long, but quite interesting
My favorite part of the Video:
“If somebody want’s to buy their kid an elmo doll, what’s the harm in that?”
“You make it sound so nice. But you know, if we consume 86% and we leave only 14% for the other 5 billion people on the planet, how do you think it makes them feel?
Forget about our kids, what about their kids?“
I don’t usually do this but it was worth telling others about.
Giveaway of the Day is a site that gives you a free software selection available for download each day. Today is Photo Toolkit 1.5 which allows you to edit pictures within Windows picture viewer (the thing that comes up usually when you double click a picture). You don’t know how often I want to edit a picture just a little to crop, fix red eye, etc. but don’t bother because I have to open a big program like Picasa or Gimp.
Anyways, I thought there are a few people who might enjoy this program.
Download here. (Today only by the way)
November 24 & 25 is Buy Nothing Day (26th was on 2005)
Every year the holiday season comes around and I quietly cry to myself about how terribly consumeristic and self-centered it all seems to be. I’ll post something here and there, but mostly I worry about ruining people’s mood and being a pessimist.
Well, this holiday season I’m going to try and talk about some of this and point out some alternative options for the Holiday’s that you might want to consider.
Today, I thought you should check out CoolPeopleCare and their new “Christmas is Not Your Birthday” Campaign. Sign up for their email and take the five minutes a day it takes to read it and respond.