September 2009

  • Give the Gift of Halloween

    By sarajean on 9/30/09 4:20pm
    Add Comment

    With Halloween on the horizon, a lot of us have costumes, parties and candy on the brain. But Halloween is actually a fantastic time to volunteer. There are a lot of kids who don’t get to participate in Halloween for various reasons, and as an activist you can help bring them a bit of fun. Here are a few suggestions:

    Take Halloween to the Hospital. When my daughter was in the NICU, I was able to see firsthand how awful it was to have children in the hospital. There were plenty of kids up on the children’s floor who were stuck there for the holidays. The staff brought in costumes, candy (for those who could have it), treats and games, and those kids looked happier than I’d ever seen them. See if your local hospital, hospice or resident care facility will let you do the same thing.

    Read more >

  • Remember to Register to Vote Week

    By sarajean on 9/30/09 2:01pm
    Add Comment

    I used to register voters in college, and while it was fun, it was amazing how many people would get hostile with me. Sure, I was working with a specific organization, but it wasn’t partisan, or offensive, or even a “wedge” issue as so many people claim some issues are (though I’ve worked with plenty of them, too). All I was asking was if they wanted to vote or not, right?

    If you do want to vote in time for the elections in your state, you do have to be registered by a certain date—which means that it’s probably a good idea to register as soon as you turn 18. It’s sort of a right of passage, too—why miss it? Each date’s voter registration deadline differs, so it’s important to stay on top of the date in your own state.

    Read more >

  • National Bullying Awareness Week

    By sarajean on 9/30/09 11:00am
    Add Comment

    Every time I hear about how “kids will be kids” and how “teasing” is a normal part of childhood, I get pretty ticked off. Sure, there’s teasing in between friends—the gentle kind, things like “Oh, someone’s got a crush on Mr. Smith!” It’s all in good fun, it’s usually in private—and it doesn’t result in kids being too scared to go to school.

    If we want a violence-free world, we have to raise violence-free kids. This means teaching that bullying is wrong all of the time, violence is never the answer. I’m not saying that a kid should put his hands over his head and just sit there as he gets beat up—I know that’s what we were taught in school, and that if you do that you’re probably going to get picked on even worse. But suspending a kid for fighting isn’t that great of a punishment. So he gets a few days off of school, so what? What has he learned?

    Read more >

  • Google Project 10^100

    By lisala on 9/24/09 2:15pm
    Add Comment



    Read more >

  • Substitute Teacher Appreciation Week

    By sarajean on 9/20/09 8:25pm
    Add Comment

    Most of our memories involving substitute teachers are probably not so charitable. Sure, we may have had one or two of them who were okay, but most of the memories I have are of my classmates harassing and tricking the teacher. I remember one incident in which our class even made a student teacher cry.

    Even though I was normally your basic goody two-shoes, I was normally not exempt from punishment, as we’d be warned before a teacher’s absence that if the class did not behave, everyone would suffer—which, by the way, seems pretty damn fascist to me.

    Anyhow, once we’re grown we know how juvenile it is. Having been a student teacher, I know how rough it can be, too, though most of “my kids” were pretty well-behaved. During Substitute Teacher Appreciation Week, we can use those memories to offer up a bit of compassion, such as…

    Read more >

  • Is a Phone Call Worth 1,000 Emails?

    By sarajean on 9/17/09 10:00am
    2 Comments

    Today I received an email from 1 Sky—a great organization that is working to support clean energy and curtail climate change—asking for a phone call to be made in support of clean energy legislation. That’s no big news—I get a few dozen emails every day asking for some sort of action to be taken (or donation to be made) and do what I can when I support the action.

    However, this email in particular gave me pause—not because I didn’t agree (I fully support clean energy legislation), but because of the subject line. It read, “One phone call = 1,000 emails.” Could this be true? Could a phone call, like a picture, be worth that many words when it comes to really creating change?

    Read more >

  • Take Action for Chilhood Cancer Month

    By sarajean on 9/13/09 10:02pm
    Add Comment

    In 2008 alone, approximately 10,000 children were diagnosed with cancer. The leading cause of death among children, childhood cancer can strike any time, any place and tear an entire family’s world apart.

    During September, which is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, we can help raise awareness and take action to fight childhood cancer so that one day it may not be such a prevalent devastating occurrence among children and their families. Here are a few things you can do to help out.

    Wear a Gold Ribbon

    Read more >

  • 3 Points: An NBA Star Visits Darfur

    By becksta on 9/12/09 1:30pm
    1 Comment

    3 Points3 PointsTracy McGrady (T-Mac) of the Houston Rockets recently traveled to Africa for a documentary about the situation at the Darfur refugee camps. Upon arrival Tracy showed his ignorance of the true situation in many ways, but as Tracy interviewed some of the residents through an interpreter, I became increasingly impressed with his interest in the situation and his resolve to draw attention to an international situation that is, in my opinion, sadly overlooked.


    Read more >

  • Tell Congress: End Hunger Now

    By sarajean on 9/8/09 7:23am
    2 Comments

    Today, we have the power to cut the number of people who go to bed hungry—over a billion— in half.

    At this moment, we’re already spending money internationally to help curb world hunger—a noble endeavor, right? But it’s not handled very well, making the money we spend sort of redundant.

    The fact is, there is food to go around—it’s just not distributed fairly. The aid we give as a county is distributed through several dozen organizations. What that does is make the distribution even more scarce and disorganized, a practice that Mercy Corps says results in “little coordination and even less accountability for delivering timely and effective aid to the world’s most vulnerable. We can do better.”

    Indeed, we can!

    Read more >