Tag: twitter

A Glaring Omission?

It feels to me like this story comes with a hefty dose of laughing gas.

Sometimes a trending news piece will hit me kind of sideways. It causes me to ask what seems to me to be an obvious question, and yet the article doesn’t answer that question. That makes me wonder if I see the world differently than others, or if, in fact, the media, their subjects, and those who devour the resulting stories have all, collectively, lost their ever-loving minds.

That was my reaction just now when I read a Newsweek story entitled, “Elon Musk Claims ‘Stalker’ Targeted Car With Young Son Inside”. Newsweek didn’t hesitate to mention the son in the headline, to grab your attention. Mission accomplished. I must admit that Elon Musk does not impress me one bit, and it’s a rare occasion when I’m compelled to read anything about him. I think he’s a nitwit. But Newsweek got me when they said “Young Son”. I took the bait.

So I read the short article, which discusses a stalker who followed a car that was carrying his son. The guy apparently blocked the car and climbed up on its hood. Elon says the guy mistakenly thought he himself was in the car, but no such luck.

Elon even tweeted footage of what appears to be a rather well-groomed, unsweaty white male dressed in black, wearing a mask and looking for all the world like the love child of a leading man in an Alfred Hitchock movie and a high-end ninja turtle. And get this: he’s also filming the filmer! There is no explanation as to how this footage was obtained.

The filmer of said footage was able to approach this car, which had its window conveniently rolled down, and not only talk to the guy (who didn’t seem the least bit agitated), but also get a clear, unobstructed view of his license plate. And yet no one seems to wonder how, under those circumstances, the guy managed to get away in his little Hyundai. If any of the elements of this story are true, you couldn’t provide the police with more clues if you covered the guy in neon paint and hung him feet first from a billboard.

It feels to me like this story comes with a hefty dose of laughing gas. We have been habituated to weirdness since 2016. But I still find it astounding that people seem willing to leave their critical thinking at the door, and take this weird story at face value.

The article goes on to say that Elon blocked someone’s Twitter account because it was tweeting the real-time location of his private jet. He discusses the lawsuit he has against this guy, and also mentions that anyone doxing real-time location info of anyone will get their twitter account suspended.

If you aren’t looking closely, it would be easy to assume that his stalker was the guy he’s suing, or at least someone acting on his behalf. But in truth, that connection is never even attempted, let alone established. That’s a strange segue. But that’s not even my primary puzzlement.

My question is, “How did this story become all about Elon and his safety? What about the two-year-old who probably just had the wits scared out of him? Is he okay? And what are you doing to make HIM safe, Elon?”

I mean, for the love of God, he’s talking about lawsuits and doxxing and his own safety when his 2-year-old was probably pooping in his little diaper from the sheer terror of it all. How is that not the main story? A normal parent wouldn’t be thinking about himself in this situation. A normal parent would be so freaked out for his kid that he wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else.

The kid already has enough problems by having a father who seems to lose more of his marbles every single day, a man whose life is a spectacular, slow motion train wreck. And to make matters worse, they name the kid “X Æ A-Xii” so that he’ll feel even more like the richest turd in the punchbowl as he grows up. But you have to wonder how old the kid will have to get before he realizes that it never occurred to his dad to say something like, “I dropped everything to rush to X’s side to make sure he was okay.”

In fairness, I suppose Elon could have done so, but he certainly didn’t give that impression to the reporters, and I suspect he would have. He’s all about trying to spin his image positively, although he often fails spectacularly in that effort. Instead, in this instance, he seems to have been quite focused on his tweeting.

What more proof do you need that Elon Musk cares about nobody but himself? He has turned Twitter into a 24 hour hate fest where there are no holds barred, but heaven forefend someone tweet some publicly accessible information about where his stupid jet is. His kid’s very life is threatened, and Elon’s zeroes in on physical safety violations… directed at him.

There’s more to this story, dear reader. I can feel it. Something is rotten in Musk-land.

It breaks my heart that this cute little kid lives in such a rarefied, drama-filled, overly-entitled environment. In that atmosphere, the odds that he’ll grow up to be mentally healthy, compassionate and decent are extremely long. It’s not fair to him. He never asked for any of this.

He’ll have to become paranoid out of a sense of sheer self-preservation, because no one is at a higher risk for kidnap than the son of someone who was, until quite recently, the richest freakin’ man in the world. In addition, he’ll never know who his friends really are. That right there is a good reason to have trust issues.

As he grows, I dread the stories that X will generate for the media. I anticipate a lot of emotional pain and poor decisions, and some epic rebellion. He has so many hurdles standing between him and any chance of becoming anything approaching a level-headed, content, and happy human being that it will be heartbreaking to behold. I hope he manages to pull it off, though. He could do a lot of good in this world.

I don’t know about you, but I have never had less of a desire to be super rich. Please say a prayer for little X, if you’ve got ‘em. He and his siblings will need all the help they can get.

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Say It With Me: Birds Aren’t Real

It kind of makes sense if you think about it hard enough.

A few months ago, I was at the grocery store and I spotted a young man wearing a T-shirt that said, “Birds aren’t real.” I was intrigued, but then, as often happens with me, I got distracted by something shiny. I soon forgot all about it.

Then, on the way to work recently I was listening to The Daily on NPR. (It’s a fascinating podcast. I highly recommend it.) On this day, the topic was “A Movement to Fight Misinformation… with Misinformation.” And it was about the Birds Aren’t Real movement.

After learning more about it, I have to say that I am hooked. If you go to the Birds Aren’t Real Website, you’ll find the following description of the movement:

“The Birds Aren’t Real movement exists to spread awareness that the U.S. Government genocided over 12 Billion birds from 1959-2001, and replaced these birds with surveillance drone replicas, which still watch us every day. Once a preventative cause, our initial goal was to stop the forced extinction of real birds. Unfortunately this was unsuccessful, and the government has since replaced every living bird with robotic replicas. Now our movement’s prerogative is to make everyone aware of this fact.”

If you go to the page that describes the movement’s history, you get a detailed manifesto. It describes a federal conspiracy to root out communists that ran amok, and has been getting even more amok since 1947. It explains that we entered the Vietnam war to have access to the aluminum that we’d need to make these drones. It reveals that Trump wanted to build a wall not to keep immigrants out, but to keep live birds out. He was relentless in this pursuit.

There’s also a lot of cool merchandise, called “Truther Gear” you can get to spread the word. Slogans such as “Pigeons are liars”, “If it flies, it spies”, and “Bird watching goes both ways” are some of the very popular selections.

The movement has thousands of followers on Twitter and Facebook. Its founder, Peter McIndoe, was surprised how quickly it took off. But not so surprised that he wasn’t willing to quit college and hop on this feathered gravy train. Who could blame him?

He even has a van dedicated to the cause. On the side it says, “THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT MURDERED OVER 12 BILLION BIRDS OVER THE COURSE OF 1959 THREW 2001. AS THEY KILLED OFF THE REAL BIRDS THEY REPLACED THIM WITH SURVEILLANCE DRONE REPLICAS. INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM A BIOLGICAL BIRD. THERE ARE NOW NO REAL BIRDS LEFT.”

Breaking character for once, he spoke to the folks at the Daily, and said that one day he noticed a protest and a counter-protest going on. It was full of chaos and absurdity, and neither side was listening to the other. He decided to add to the absurdity by contributing some of his own. He made a poster that said Birds Aren’t Real, and footage of him earnestly shouting about a “birdemic” at that rally soon hit Youtube.

Followers now call themselves the Bird Brigade, and have started showing up at protests to speak their mind. They showed up at Twitter headquarters to protest their logo. They’ve done rallies on college campuses. (Campi?) They showed up at an anti-abortion rally, waded in amongst all the pictures of aborted fetuses (feti?) and made so much noise and had so much fun that the anti-choicers finally left in sheer frustration.

I love that they are diffusing hate with comedy. I love that they’re smothering misinformation in even more misinformation. This tweet just about says it all:

If you join this group. You’ll learn all sorts of useful information, such as the fact that you really need to avoid seagulls, because they’ve recently been upgraded and can now steal your credit card information by just looking at you. You’ll learn that those chem trails actually consist of poison gas used to get rid of the last of the live birds. And did you know that bird poop is really a liquid tracking device? No wonder it seems to gravitate toward our windshields. Big Bird is watching you.

Those who don’t join the movement are called “Cheeple.” They are told, “You’re either with us or you eat worms.” So be warned. Don’t be on the wrong side of history.

McIndoe theorizes that this movement is so popular with his fellow Gen Z members because, having been born between 1997 and 2012, they have known nothing but political chaos and unrest. They’re feeling isolated, longing for community, and they have an intense desire to have some semblance of control over their lives. These feelings are exactly why most people buy into a conspiracy, and if you insist on doing so, I can think of no better conspiracy to buy into than Birds Aren’t Real. (And incidentally, if you’re into Facebook, join the Bird’s Aren’t Real Facebook Group. It’s hilarious!)

Because, you know, it kind of makes sense if you think about it hard enough. 😊

I hope that the Bird Brigade is descending upon the trucker rallies in Canada. This group of anti-vaxxers and haters have befuddled Canadians. Ninety percent of the eligible Canadian population has been vaccinated, and they don’t understand why anyone would want to be so selfish and foolhardy as to not do so. But these rallies are going strong, because they’re receiving funding from the radical right in the US. The protests soon filled up with confederate and Nazi flags and other symbols of hate. And, of course, Fox News is exaggerating the size of their presence and influence.

In fact, the Canadians are so unamused by this that all the unions in the country recently released this joint statement:

“What we have witnessed on the streets of Canada’s capital over the past thirteen days is something different altogether. This is not a protest, it is an occupation by an angry mob trying to disguise itself as a peaceful protest.

“We have seen an occupation of city streets and parks, disrupting workers, businesses and residents. Frontline workers, from retail to health workers, have been bullied and harassed. We have witnessed noise attacks keeping families up at all hours. We have seen right-wing extremists spreading messages filled with racism and intolerance, flying the Nazi and Confederate flags, alongside other symbols of violence and hate. We have seen organizers not only demand the end of all public health rules, but also call for the overthrow of our democratically elected government.

“The leaders of this occupation include people who espoused Islamophobic, Anti-Semitic and racist hate on social media, organizers of the notorious far-right yellow vest protests, and people spreading extreme conspiracy theories and calls for violence. This is an attack on all of Canada and not just the people of Ottawa.

“Canada’s unions stand together, unequivocally opposed to these vile and hateful messages and condemn the ongoing harassment and violence against the people of Ottawa.”

This statement from the Canadian Trucking Alliance makes it clear that they don’t support this protest either. Calling this a Canadian Trucker Protest is really rather unfair. The vast majority of them are not involved. There is only a tiny lunatic fringe who aren’t carrying on with business as usual.

This obnoxious protest is actually a practice run. They are learning how to create the type of chaos that will disrupt a democracy. They want to see how far they can go without getting arrested as they did on January 6th. And by “they”, I mean the financial backers of this debacle, with their nefarious agenda. The truckers are merely guinea pigs in this experiment.

Here’s hoping that Birds Aren’t Real shows up and holds up a big old feathered mirror to the truckers’ absurd faces so they can take a good look at themselves and withdraw with whatever is left of their dignity. Nobody is buying what those birdbrains are selling. Just ask the Bird Brigade.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

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The Great Airline Seat Debate

Surely there are civilized ways of dealing with this issue.

I just read an article entitled, “Is it wrong to recline your airline seat? Debate rages again after American Airline incident”. I then went over to the twitter post to see the video clip that sparked this debate in the first place. Stunning.

In a nutshell, this lady reclined her seat. The man behind her asked her to put it upright again, because he was eating and the tray was crushing into his lap. She did so. That interaction seems reasonable to me.

But then, when he finished eating, she reclined it again and he starts punching the back of her seat so hard that her head is jerking forward. He does it so much that she starts videoing him and posts it on twitter. Apparently, when the lady asked the flight attendant for help, she stuck up for the man and gave him some rum. (Yeah, because adding alcohol to a dispute is always an excellent idea.)

Twitter, being Twitter, quickly blew up with a lot of people posting their opinions on the matter. People stood firmly on one side of the debate or the other. It got rather heated.

This is where I part company with the Twittersphere. I can’t set up camp on either side of this one. As far as I can tell, both were in the right and both were in the wrong.

First of all, I know what it’s like to feel claustrophobic. And if you’re a very tall or large person, you already feel confined without someone reclining their seat in what already feels like limited airspace. It’s miserable.

On the other hand, if you’ve been traveling for many many hours, and you’re already uncomfortable, and you add exhaustion into the mix, sometimes you desperately need to recline and get some rest.

Lest we forget, most of these seats only recline about 2 inches anyway. Are we really going to fight over two inches? Can’t there be reasoned discourse?

She did raise her seat up during his meal. Why must he have the tray down during the entire flight? Why can’t she have a period of recline?

Who has the rights here? The seat is made to recline, so shouldn’t she be able to recline it? But then it’s not his fault he’s a big guy, either. Does he have to be punished for his size?

I do have a problem with the way the guy dealt with it. He’s pushing the seat so hard it’s making her jerk forward, and he’s doing it over and over again. That’s aggressive. That’s simple assault right there. She could have a neck injury already for all he knew. No one gets to push another person around, for any reason. No one gets to pull the “I’m bigger than you, so I can threaten to hurt you to get anything I want” tool out of his tool kit. And no airline employee should be reinforcing that. And yet a bunch of people on twitter were calling this guy a hero. That triggers me.

Bottom line, she’s rude for taking his space, he’s rude in the way he’s dealing with it, and the flight attendant handled the whole situation in an unprofessional manner.

I think the debate needs a different focus entirely. I think airlines should have their greed restricted. There should be regulated limits as to how tightly they pack us in like sardines for profit, and a wide variety of body shapes should be taken into account when determining this limit. I think they shouldn’t be allowed to act like they care about our comfort by maintaining a recline option that clearly doesn’t fit with the current lack of available space. And if they’re not willing to do that, then they need to train their staff to adequately deal with the clashes that will arise, all while maintaining a zero tolerance policy for simple assault.

If you’re on a long flight in particular, you really should be allowed to recline part of the time. This isn’t the wild wild West. These are paying customers who both deserve a civilized, comfortable flight.

Maybe I’m overthinking this, but this spring I’ll be on a 15 hour flight to Europe, and I’d kind of like to feel more solid about what’s acceptable to do thereon. I’m currently considering turning around and introducing myself to the person behind me and saying, “I know it’s crowded in here. I’m not going to recline my seat the whole time out of courtesy to you. But I will need to sleep at some point, and I do have back issues, so I will need some periods of recline. Can we work this out now?”

I think that’s a much better option than indulging in my desire to haul off and punch someone in the throat while soaring over the Atlantic Ocean. What do you think?

Cramped plane

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Twitter me a Precious Memory!

Help me out, Drawbridge Nation!

So, guess what? I’m getting married! Yes. Little ol’ me. Hard to believe, I know, but when you finally get something right, it deserves some recognition, some consecration. This is going to be good. I can feel it in my bones.

Sorry. You’re not invited. It’s going to be an intimate little affair, and there are only so many cupcakes to go around.

But the exciting thing is that Jason Mraz is playing at my wedding! Can you imagine? I’m so excited!

Well… he’s sort of playing at my wedding. He doesn’t know it. It’s just that he’s doing a concert in the park that day, and we’re getting married in that same park right beforhand, and then going to the concert afterward.

So, I have this fantasy. We get married, we’re feeling all romantical and stuff, and we go to the Jason Mraz concert, and he dedicates my favorite song, “I’m Yours” to us. Oh, the feels! The feels!

The thing is, I don’t know how to get the request to him. I see he’s on Facebook, and Instagram and Youtube. He even has his own website but I don’t see how to post in any of those places.

So, this is a long shot, but the only way I can think of to get the word out is if you guys help me by blowing up his Twitter feed. It’s https://twitter.com/jason_mraz or @jason_mraz.

Here’s an example of a twitter-length message to send him:

Jason: Barb marries for the 1st time at age 53 right before ur 9/9 concert! Plz dedicate “I’m Yours” to Cris & Barb? Thanks! @BabelHauser

Please, please spread the word. If I can get enough people sending him that message, maybe, just maybe, he’ll give me the best wedding present in the whole wide world. If he does, I’ll give you a full report!

Thanks for your help!

http _images2.fanpop.com_image_photos_8500000_Jason-Mraz-fans-of-jason-mraz-8571512-716-481
C’mon, Jason! Do me a solid!

I’m Tweeting

I have been Twitter-resistant for years. I just didn’t see the point. Between this blog and Facebook and e-mail and Second Life, I already felt as if my social media world was rich and nuanced. I also worried that if I added one more thing, my introverted little self would be crushed under the sheer weight of the stimulation.

In addition, in case you hadn’t noticed, I tend to be rather verbose. How could I possibly restrict my thoughts to a mere 140 characters? And then a funny thing happened. I decided to publish a book.

One of the mistakes many writers make is thinking that once their books have been written, their job is done. Au contraire. That’s when you’re just getting started. Many a book has died aborning because the feeble promotional effort has left it moldering on some dusty shelf.

As my first book approaches its final edit, it became obvious to me that I’d have to have courage to take flight in the Twitter-verse, or I’d be missing a vast potential audience. Thank goodness I have a dear friend who was able to answer all my silly, nervous questions.

Now, instead of thinking of each little tweet as a restriction of my words, I’ve come to think of it as a sort of haiku. I have to get creative to force my thoughts into the restrictions imposed, but what that has done is oblige me to get innovative.

But, having leapt off the twitter cliff, I seem to have plunged into the wallflower abyss. I’ve only managed so far to get 8 followers. And some mornings I’ll wake up and find I have lost one. Heartbreaking. It’s reminding me of all the times I got picked last in gym class.

I really need to put this in perspective. It took me years to build up a following on my blog. It’s ridiculous to think I’d get a million twitter followers in a few days. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

And along the way, go figure, I’m starting to like it. Tentatively. Hesitantly. Perhaps that had been my fear all along–that I’d like it too much. That I would turn into one of those constantly twittering people that I’ve made fun of for years.

Well, be that as it may, I am now a tweeter. Follow me here if you so desire!

Twitter Bird

The Lost Art of Communication

I got three Christmas cards this year. I miss them. We used to get so many that we’d string them up and hang them on our bannister. They became part of the holiday decorations. It was a great way to catch up with friends and relatives far removed.

Granted, in this digital age it’s much easier to keep in touch. It might be tedious to read a long Christmas letter when you’ve been hearing the news, bit by bit, on Facebook all year long. But there are limits.

Recently a friend of mine heard of the death of her grandmother on a Facebook post. I was stunned. I can’t even imagine receiving such horrible news in such an impersonal way. How hard would it have been to pick up the phone?

I think we’ve lost something as a species when monumental life changing moments such as death, birth, weddings, and divorces become tweets and posts. I actually think it’s kind of disrespectful. Close friends and family deserve the personal touch at times like these. If you can’t be bothered, it shows an utter lack of consideration.

But I have to admit that this societal deterioration has worn me down as well. I’ve stopped sending out cards in recent years because I discovered my time, effort and expense wasn’t being reciprocated or even acknowledged. I suppose that means I’m part of the problem. But I guarantee you I’ll never sink so low as to announce someone’s death on Facebook until I’m sure that all loved ones have been PROPERLY notified.

cards

[Image credit: projectdonelifestyle.com]

A Pop Culture Deficit

“What are these Hunger Games of which you speak?”

When I have to ask for pop culture clarification, I always sound like English isn’t my first language. And as time goes on, I find myself having to ask more and more frequently. Thank God for Google, because it often allows me to answer my own questions, thereby avoiding looking like a complete fool to the younger generation. Just the other day, I typed in “What does smh mean?”

If I really want to feel old, I check out Google Trends. For example, apparently today, Jennifer Lawrence, Miranda Lambert, and Kacey Musgraves are a big deal. I don’t know who any of these people are or what they do or why they’re so important in life.

And when did the pound sign start being called a hashtag? Seems like everybody made that switch on the same exact day. Apparently I didn’t get the memo.

I don’t know when I stopped having my finger on the pulse of what is going on in this country, but I’m most definitely pulse-less. You don’t want me to be part of your team at trivia night in your local bar. I couldn’t pick Lindsay Lohan out of a line up, which is a pity, because from what I hear that’s where I’d be most likely to encounter her.

And guess what? I’ve never tweeted. Not even once.

Smh.

trending

[Image credit: Zazzle.com]

And when did “trend” become a gerund?

Gravity, with all the Bells and Whistles

The other day I went to see the movie Gravity, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, in IMAX 3D.

To say that this was not the movie experience of my childhood is putting it mildly. Back then, you went to a shabby little two screen theater, the kind with sticky floors, gum under the seats, and mice running around in the dim light reflected off the movie screen, and you had a perfectly grand time with your popcorn and your raisinets and your tall glass of mostly ice. And it was usually the only place you could go and sit in the air conditioning in the summertime.

Shit, but I’m old.

Anyway, contrast that with my Gravity experience and you’ll see how far we’ve come. The movie was showing at my local multiplex which has about a zillion screens and thick plush carpets and more than one concession stand serving four-course meals and video games in the lobby and… I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but then I realized. This is the sensory overload that is Las Vegas.

Gone are the days when you could shuffle in wearing flip flops and have your purse made out of a pair of jeans slung over your shoulder. No. Going to the movies these days is an event. You have to prepare for it. You have to be present. You almost feel like sending postcards to people. Well, you sort of do, because you’re tweeting and texting your fingers to the bone during the previews.

And talk about sticker shock. Between the 14 dollars just to get in and the ten thousand percent mark up on the food, you practically have to take out a bank loan just to kill two hours of time.

And when did 15 previews become the norm? I mean, previews are usually my favorite part. Previews are a movie boiled down to a thick, rich, dramatic broth. But when they go on for a half hour, you begin to feel like you’re being force fed.

But when the lights went down, rather than noticing mice scurrying in the darkness, I put on those 3D glasses and completely and utterly lost myself in the movie. I was floating in outer space, dodging catastrophes and struggling for air right along with the actors. It wasn’t until the credits began to roll that I began wondering how the heck they pulled off all those weightless special effects. During the movie it just seemed natural. And there could be no better testament than that to the overall experience.

My only gripe is that in each of the three spacecraft, there were ballpoint pens spinning through the air. Don’t you think that NASA, of all organizations, would have figured out how to go paperless by now?

gravity

Twenty Seconds for Runan Wan: You Could Change Lives

Update: The voting has closed. Thanks to all of you who participated! I’ll let you know if we won as soon as I know.

We don’t want your money. We just want 20 seconds.

Deep in the foothills of rural Yunnan Province, along the southern border of China, is the Runan Wan Primary School. The nearest town is a restored Ming Dynasty village called Lijiang. To get to Runan Wan from Lijiang requires driving about two and a half hours over a tortuous, dangerous, and in some places entirely absent road, but most of the children who live there will never make it that far in their entire lives.

Runan Wan is home to about one hundred students, attending what in the US would be grades one to six. There is one principal and about six or seven teachers. The students there are hungry for education; some walk as much as three hours, over a 2,000 foot mountain ridge, just to be able to attend. And yet for most of them, this will be all the education they ever receive. Every few years, one of them is lucky enough to secure some kind of sponsorship that allows them to leave their family at age 10 or 11 and go to Lijiang to attend intermediate school. The rest, no matter how bright or academically inclined, go to work the fields.

There are of course countless thousands of schools just like Runan Wan. The only thing that makes it different from any of the others is that last November, my friend Areiel Wolanow went there and got to meet these students, talk with them, and learn something of their lives and their dreams. Since then he has not been able to stop thinking about this school, or these children.

How Can You Make a Difference?

Well, the fact is, Areiel isn’t sure. Yet. He’s not even sure it can be done, but he knows he’s going to try. The first step is to tell their story, and to do that he needs your help. It’s simple, really.

One of the photographs he took during his visit, seen below, is a picture of his teammate Martin helping a Naxi girl prepare for racing the three-legged race. It was nominated to appear in a photo contest for International Corporate Volunteerism. The winner of this contest gets to speak at their annual conference. It is important that you know that Areiel will not get paid a cent for doing this; in fact it will be quite expensive for him to attend if he does win. But I cannot imagine a better place, or a more receptive audience, to start to tell this story and talk about ways to make a difference. So am asking you for your help in making this happen.

Please go to this site and vote for this photograph, below. (Clicking on the photo will take you there, too.) The photo is entitled “IBM Corporate Service Corps – Team China 18″

 810_512518c71ba40-CSCChina18-MartinandStudent

It’s very important that you vote for this photo and no other! I’ve known Areiel Wolanow for years, and I guarantee you that if he wins this contest and has the opportunity to speak at this conference, he will make amazing things happen for these children. But we need your help!

Other Ways to Help

Please spread the word! At the bottom of this article, you’ll see several keys that allow you to share it with others. If you are on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc, you can pass this link along. Also, if you have a blog on WordPress yourself, you can click the “reblog” button up above. The more people who read this article, the more who will be likely to vote. And there are only a few weeks left to vote, so time is of the essence!

I will be sure and give you updates on this story, such as whether or not he won the contest, what actions he’s taking to help the school, etc., in the comment section below. We’d also love your suggestions on ways to help this school, so please don’t hesitate to comment as well!

Vote! Vote! Vote!

Thank you.