Help for Haiti

Today I donated a humble sum to Mercy Corps, a Portland-based non-profit that is sending an emergency response team to Haiti. I hope you, too, will give to one of the organizations listed on the What Gives!? site if you can.

Champagne toast to Earth Day

Going green doesn’t have to be snooty - let the Guide Girls prove it to you.  (Where can I get one of those flying nun hats?)

Technorati Tags: Earth Day, Guide Girls

Street corner Christmas

For the past five years, I’ve adopted a disadvantaged family at Christmas and then hit up everyone I know for donations. Think of it as my version of standing on the street corner, ringing them bells for your loose change.

This year it’s a family of four: single mom and her three girls, ages 13, 9 and 11 months.  I’ll be buying needed items like coats and hats, as well as toys and a gift certificate to a grocery store for a holiday meal.

The economy is lame right now, I know.  But even a donation of $5 or $10 toward the cause is so very much appreciated and goes further than you think!

Five bucks from you will pay for:

• a roll of wrapping paper! (it takes more than you’d think)
• two rolls of tape!
• a holiday card to the family!
• a bribe to the JCP cashier so I can skip the line! (OK, I won’t do that, but it’s tempting)

A donation of ten dollars buys:

• a onsie for the baby!
• a Bratz doll for the 9 year old!
• a scarf for the 13 year old!
• A really big margarita for me, which I will need desperately after two weekends of shopping!

All donors will receive good holiday karma, as well as a great big virtual hug from moi.

If you can chip in this year, you can either use PayPal¹ or send check/cash to me personally.²

I hope you can donate (I really look forward to that margarita every year).  Many, many thanks to you from your favorite Santa-hatted ho ho ho!

1. For PayPal, send donation to: schopenstudio@earthlink.net [↩]
2. Click here to email me for my snail mail address if you don’t have it. [↩]

Unsubscribe me, Uncle Sam

They tell me to strip and put on a flimsy gown. They have me lie on my back on a slab with my head in a vice-like cradle. I am told I may not move a muscle. They stick me in a tube that blocks my vision, then assaults my ears with a series of unbelievably loud noises. Some are so loud the slab trembles.

As the seconds go by, the panic begins. My heart races; I can feel it pounding in my chest and my throat. I struggle to control my breathing. Bile rises in my throat and I fear I will vomit. Stars burst before my closed eyes. I fight fainting.

This goes on for twenty minutes. It is nearly unbearable and I almost squeeze the emergency alarm they gave me before the ordeal began.

To my insurance company, this was an MRI on my brain.¹ To my central nervous system, this was torture.

Coincidentally, a few days prior to this procedure, I heard a news article on NPR about the on-going debate in Washington (DC) about the use of torture by the military. To be precise, the newscaster said it is a discussion “about the use of torture, versus those interrogation methods that sometimes result in the death of the prisoner.”

Talk about nauseating spin. If the latter isn’t torture, what is it?

As I was lying in the MRI machine, hoping I wouldn’t throw up in my mouth, I remembered this broadcast. I thought to myself that anyone advocating the use of “enhanced” interrogation methods on prisoners should have said methods tested on themselves to help them decide whether or not they are torture.²

Well, I read today that journalist and Iraq war-supporter Christopher Hitchens literally took the plunge. He allowed himself to be “water-boarded,” the Bush Administration’s current interrogation method of choice at Guantanamo Bay. Unlike some of the Gitmo detainees, however, Hitchens lived to write about it.

His description of the experience sounds all to familiar to me, from the racing pulse to waves of nausea to near fainting. And guess what he concluded?

Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

So, enhanced interrogation supporters, let’s just stop the spinning, grow a pair, and call a spade a spade, shall we?

Righteous Ribs, in honor of our country’s birthday this year, I ask you to put your foot down and Unsubscribe.

Unsubscribe is a movement of people united against human rights abuses in the ‘war on terror’. The threat of terrorism is real, but trampling over human rights is not the answer. From Guantanamo Bay, rendition, torture and waterboarding – we unsubscribe.

Tell the government they cannot continue to torture people in your name.

“No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
—The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 5 (1948)

1. Alright, alright. I’m having problems with muscle fatigue, and my doctor wants to rule out a lesion-inspired multiple sclerosis since there is a history of it in my family. To quote Ahnold in Kindergarten Cop: It’s not a tumor. [↩]
2. Not likely to happen in Washington, given politicians’ history of hypocrisy, such as getting handy deferments for themselves and their children from wars they start. [↩]

Adopt A Family with Uppity this Christmas!

I emerge from NaNoWriMo and the inevitable few days of post-blitz exhaustion and what do I see?

That Christmas is only twenty days away. Jesus, how did that happen?¹

But you all know how much I love the holidays, so it’s all good. I’m being careful this year not to over-extend like I did last year …

…though I am still organizing my annual an Adopt-A-Family effort, courtesy of my employer and local charity Solid Ground.

This year it’s a family of five: Mom and her two girls (14 and 12) and two boys (7 and 1).

I’m buying their gifts this week - warm winter coats, shoes, and toys, plus a gift certificate from a grocery store for a holiday meal.

Righteous Ribs, come be a Secret Santa with me!

The easiest way to donate is to send the amount of your choice to me via Pay Pal - just click on the Coffee Cup in the sidebar on the right. ²

Every cent of every donation will go toward gifts for our Family!

Thank you so much and check back here at the Rib for updates, thank you’s, and pictures!

Photo: “Uppity Antlers” by Lachlan 2006

Technorati Tags: charity, Solid Ground

1. Ha ha ha. Or is it “Ho ho ho”? [↩]
2. You can also send me a check or cash if you like. Email me if you need my snail mail address. [↩]

Notes from the right side of the brain

Not much computering this weekend - the weather has been beckoning me outside. The gorgeous blue sky, balmy breezes and rolling green vistas are what we PNWers put up with 9 months of clouds for.

I’ve been so inspired by the beauty outside that I’ve brought it inside, spending a few hours each evening puttering in the stampatarium (to use a Kevinism).

However, a girl can only use so many greeting cards. I’ve been pondering how to put my creations to good use. If anyone knows of an organization that sends cards to inmates, soldiers, etc., please let me know.

Technorati Tags: art, DIY

The Kindness of Strangers

Open letter to the person who saved my nephew’s life:

I don’t know who you are, what you look like, or where you live. I don’t know if you are a he or a she. I don’t even know whether you are still alive today.

But the kid in this photo is very much alive, and that’s because of you.

Ten years ago, when he was three months old, my nephew Ray was diagnosed with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID), a genetic disease that affects 1 in every 100,000 live births.  If untreated, most babies with SCID usually die from infection before their first birthday.*

At four months, Ray got his first infection. His body was covered head to toe in thrush that wouldn’t go away; with his skin flaking off everywhere, he looked like a burn victim. He was tiny, not growing - “failing to thrive,” as they say in the medical field.

He cried a lot, and so did we, watching helplessly as the disease began to sap his life away.

The only treatment for Ray’s SCID was a bone marrow transplant, and for it to work, we had to find a donor with the same marrow type as Ray. Marrow matches are most commonly found in members of the patient’s family, but none of us could help.

Thus we were forced to rely on the kindness of strangers for the life-saving marrow. Unfortunately, the chronic shortage of registered donors made finding a match difficult. Ray was already half into his life expectancy; we were racing against time.

Then we got the news we’d been praying to hear. Because you took a moment to register as an organ donor, our little boy survived.

Ray’s body accepted your marrow, recovered from SCID and hit the ground running. He’s our radiant Miracle Child.

Ray is smart, generous and kind. He likes school, Warner Brothers cartoons, Disney movies, and Harry Potter - that fellow “Boy Who Lived,” saved by love.

We in Ray’s family will probably never get to thank you in person, so we post this letter in hopes that it inspires Rib Readers to register as organ donors in your honor.

We hope your story convinces them of how much they have to give, and how five minutes of their time at OrganDonor.gov could mean a lifetime for someone like Ray.

With love,

Uppity & Family

——————————–

Thanks to BlogCatalog for giving its bloggers the opportunity to make today Organ Donation Awareness Day.

*Source: Wikipedia

Technorati Tags: Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, SCID, organ donor