A 5-year-old girl named Phoebe decided she wanted to collect cans in order to raise money from the 5-cent per can deposits. With the help of her day care center in San Francisco, she raised $3,736.30 from cans and cash donations. That translated into 17,800 people being fed via local food banks. If a 5-year-old can do that, imagine what wealthy Americans and corporations could do.
Category Archives: Public Service
‘Persepolis’ Author Marjane Satrapi Appeals for Iran Help
Marjane Satrapi is the author of the magnificent graphic novel, Persepolis. She also co-directed the movie adaptation of the book. Her story is about being a young girl growing into womanhood in Iran. She is now appealing for help from the United Nations to protect the people in Iran who are protesting against a brutal totalitarian religious regime for freedom. Here is her note:
Dear Friends
To all who believe in freedom and democracy
Please sign this petition to the United Nations to stop the violence,
arrests and torture in Iran.
The situation is really really bad.
Please forward it to whoever you know
Best and lots of love
Marjane Satrapi
Pixar Grant’s a Girl’s Dying Wish
Disney’s Pixar Animation Studio received a message from a friend of the family of ten-year-old Colby Curtin who was dying of cancer. The message told Pixar that the girl wanted to stay alive long enough to see Up. She was too sick to risk being moved to a movie theater and a DVD was the only possible option. It seems that Pixar management dispatched an employee to the girl’s home with a DVD, a poster and some toys based on the movie. The girl was able to enjoy the screening even though she could not open her eyes. As the movie played, her mother described the images on screen. The girl passed away several hours later with her family at her side.
This is sad story, but it’s a great thing Pixar did and it was a wonderful wish for a little girl to have. Very nice. I’m sure this simple act by a few people at a big company made a sick little girl very happy in her last hours. Well done, Pixar.
White House Terrorizes New York City
The Obama administration has committed what amounts to an act of terrorism. The president’s Air Force One backup plane was flown low in banking circles around lower Manhattan, trailed by an F16 fighter plane that appeared to most observers to be giving chase. In an FAA memo released today it became clear that the administration knew the flight could cause panic in New York but threatened the New York City police and the mayor’s office with federal sanctions if they let the secret get out into the public. The president has since apologized and said that he is furious and had no knowledge of the flight. But it’s his plane.
I am becoming increasingly concerned that my support of Mr. Obama may have contributed to placing an absolute incompetent in the office of president. An act like this shockingly callous flyover simply beggars belief. Having lived in New York City for ten years, I know that if you manage to send thousands of New Yorkers running out of their buildings screaming in terror, you have really done something profoundly frightening. New Yorkers are a hardy lot and have a real ‘been there seen that’ attitude. These people were terrified at what was happening in the sky above them. The windows of their buildings were shaking because the plane came in so low. It came right at them! The White House says it was for a ‘photo-op’ so that they could take pictures of their airplane with the Statue of Liberty behind it. Seriously! These people are running the United States.
I think that the hero-worship of Mr. Obama needs to end immediately and we need to ascertain just exactly what is going on here. The NBC video above which shows Obama’s press secretary saying ‘I don’t know’ about the flight is very scary. Perhaps Mr. Obama will consider parking a yellow rental truck in front of an Oklahoma federal building next week for a ‘photo-op.’ That should help build his reputation there, don’t you think?
By the way, NBC news anchor, Brian Williams is furious too and thinks somebody should pay for what happened.
Eating Meat Contributes Enormously to Global Warming
Scientific American published the page of charts on the left. Click the image to get a high-res version. It explains how bad for the environment the production and consumption of meat really is. According to the magazine, the annual beef diet of the average American emits as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as a car driven approximately 1,800 miles.
That’s very bad. Here’s another statistic: According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.
The New York Times: Students Make a Green House
The New York Times produced this environmental film that follows a group of Oberlin College students for a day of green ideas that they used on their group student house. Their sustainable living ideas are easy to do and fun. Their methods for capture and reuse of water are effective and cost nothing to implement. I really like their very balanced view of sustainable energy and resources. They also go out to peoples’ homes in the area and exchange regular incandescent lightbulbs for energy-efficient compact fluorescent lightbulbs.
