Crooked Timber

Gareth Wilson brings something up in comments to this post. What do the parents among you say when your children ask you if your family is rich? I say, yes, we’re rich. Living in Asia as we do, our family has lots of chances to see really poor people in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. We see these people because we’re going on family vacations to stay in villas in Bali. There doesn’t seem to be much to say about that except, being rich sure is great, eh? I tend to say, well, that doesn’t mean we can buy just anything we want, and we’ll often see other people we know having great things we can’t afford, but on the whole, we’re rich. This is ideally meant to inspire charitable thoughts rather than mercenary self-satisfaction. Am I going to deprive my children of their God-given American right to insist they are middle-class? And when is Richie Rich Euros going to come out and serve as the grave monument for the mighty US dollar?

I haven’t posted one of these in a while. The twist: this one has a worthy cause attached to it.

Free Rice

Test your vocabulary skills and donate rice at the same time.

It’s interesting to note which countries have already fulfilled their pledge in international aid to address world hunger, and which countries haven’t taken any concrete steps. Can you guess?

Talking of music, can it really be 4 years since we asked what the most annoying Christmas record is? Well, since then, youtube has enabled us to play them for you. So, instead of most annoying, this year I’d like your favourites. Here are the rules. The recording must be recognisably related to Christmas, must be non-traditional in some hard to define way, and while jokes are entirely welcome, they must be funny. One more rule: no wry, ironic, or mean references to Cliff.

Let me kick off with two secular songs, and two religious. First Jona Lewie’s Stop the Cavalry. Despite the wierd anachronisms and slightly unrespectable ott anti-war message, I love it simply for the refrain. When I used not to be home for Christmas, I would sing the whole thing to myself over and over, knowing neither the name of the song nor the singer. I know our British readers will be appalled by my complete lack of sophistication, but I also love Merry Christmas Everybody (even if you hate it, as I’m sure you do, it’s worth watching the first few seconds just to see Kid Jensen and John Peel not enjoying themselves). My wife won’t allow it to be played in the house.

From the ridiculous to the sublime (and religious). I once read that In the Bleak Midwinter is Britain’s favourite carol, which surprised me; sung here by Bert Jansch, with slightly different words than I remember. And finally, for Lindsey in France and Val in Madison, here is Def Leppard (yes, really) with what I find the most moving Christian pop song of the lot, Lindisfarne’s Winter Song. (“for Lindsey and Val”—I should have been Michael Aspel, or perhaps the other Cliff). And after you’ve listened, whatever you think of the religious message, take up the secular message, get out your credit card, go to Oxfam and donate a little bit more than you think you can afford.

Gary Farber has been scraping by for a while on your previous generous donations, CT readers, but he’s in a world of hurt at the moment, so show some love.

In perhaps related news, some people just don’t know anything about being broke:

“The risk is that you could be modifying loans for people who don’t need it,” said Sharon Greenberg, director of mortgage strategy at Barclay’s. “There’s only so much you can do without talking to the borrower. You’re spending $60 a month on cable TV; can you get by with less? You’re spending $200 a month on food for two people, but food costs in your area show that you should be able to get by with $100 a month. These are the kinds of conversations that loan-servicing companies have to have with borrowers.”

Food costs in your area show that when there are no crawdads, you should be able to eat sand. No refinancing for you, Mr. Moneypants McRichington!!

I’ve just returned from a thankyou event held by the Leukaemia Foundation of Queensland for participants in the World’s Greatest Shave, for which my son and I shaved our beards (here’s the result, and many readers of CT and my blog gave generous donations. Together we raised over $6000, which was in the top ten efforts for the entire state.

The thankyou event was both interesting (I’ve never seen so many women with the identical haircut in one place) and inspirational (talks from leukaemia patients, family members and fundraisers really brought home how much this effort means). The $3.6 million raised this year has enabled the Foundation to clear the debt on this new accommodation facility for families of leukemia patients. This is a huge boon. Thanks again to everyone who contributed.

Last June I wrote about my friend Havi Carel and her battle with the lung disease Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM). Havi has an article in today’s Independent about LAM and about what it is like to live with a terminal illness and how that changes your relationship to others, indeed, to everything.

Last time I wrote I invited you to sponsor Havi on a bike-ride to raise money for LAM Action which supports patients and raises money for research. This time Kate Gamez and Becky Tunstall are running the London Marathon for LAM Action – so please click on one of their names if you want to sponsor them.

I used to give blood, less often than I probably should have done, but willingly, and without much personal cost. Needles don’t bother me (as long as I am the victim) and whereas I’d feel tired at the end of the day, that was about it. There’s nothing special about my blood, and I’m sure it’s a drop in the ocean, but a recent conversation about why I no longer give blood has prompted me to wonder whether I should start again.

Why don’t I give any longer?

Continue reading “Very Nearly an Armful”

For quite a few people, the prospect of seeing my beardless chin (or whatever lurks under there) has been enough to open wallets and maybe hearts. But for the more theoretically inclined, my appeal has served as the basis of some interesting discussions about reciprocity and charitable giving. The general view, it seems to me, is that accepting a gift entails an obligation to reciprocate.

So, having given the best gift of all for blog audiences, a new or at least barely-used topic for discussion, I’m now calling for my reciprocal gift. Click here and donate before the beard comes off on Saturday.

Continue reading “How about my gift?”

The World’s Greatest Shave is an annual fundraiser held in Australia to raise money to support people with leukemia and their families. I’ve decided it’s time to put some skin in the game, for the first time in 30 years, I’m going to shave my beard off. In a gesture of family solidarity, my son Daniel (17) is going to shave his newly-grown beard as well.

The big day is going to be Saturday 17 March. You can visit my profile here to sponsor me. Photos of the aftermath will be posted on my blog.

Blogger Gary Farber is unfortunately going through another really rough patch, and I encourage generous CT readers to help him out. Non US-readers particularly are invited to marvel at the lack of a social safety net in our otherwise kick-ass nation.

Last in this season’s gift guide series are some ideas for charitable giving. If you celebrate any of the season’s gift-giving holidays, it’s getting to that point where it is too late to order anything for delivery and soon you won’t have time to run out and buy something either. What’s left? You could make a charitable donation on behalf of the people on your list.

I am sure there are the usual suspects on everyone’s list, either charities that are the first to gain mention during any crisis, ones automatically associated with the holidays, or ones you donate to annually and so it is likely that you reach for your checkbook this time of year with specific organizations in mind. For example, we here at CT have a history of supporting causes such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation since their mission is so closely aligned with what we do.

But in addition to the usual suspects, how about considering some lesser known charities? Is bigger always better in this realm?

Recently, I stumbled upon an interesting site called the Darfur Wall.

Continue reading “Gift guide: charitable giving”

MSNBC prints a puff piece from Forbes on Richard Branson’s approach to charity – he’s been for it since September, apparently. “At Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative in New York, Branson pledged all proceeds from Virgin Group’s transportation divisions be donated to develop alternative fuel sources and alleviate global warming. His pledge amounts to about $3 billion over ten years.”

But get this: “Branson didn’t even believe in global warming until five years ago. Then he read Bjorn Lomborg’s, The Skeptical Environmentalist.”

Just imagine if he had been reading Quiggin’s posts – on his own website back to August, 2001, and here and here and here and here, for example. On the other hand, could it be that Lomborg served as the thin edge of the wedge and that Branson allowed himself to be convinced by the evidence only because the “solution” Lomborg presents is pretty much to wait until technology solves the problem? Regardless, and not to quibble about the definition of “charity” at work in the article, it’s certainly good that Branson is putting money toward developing alternative fuel sources.