The (RED) Campaign

For example:

THE (RED) MANIFESTO

• All things being equal, they are not.


• As first world consumers, we have tremendous power. What we collectively choose to buy, or not to buy, can change the course of life and history on this planet.


• (RED) is that simple an idea. And that powerful. Now, you have a choice. There are (RED) credit cards, (RED) phones, (RED) shoes, (RED) fashion brands. And no, this does not mean they are all red in color. Although some are.


• If you buy a (RED) product or sign up for a (RED) service, at no cost to you, a (RED) company will give some of its profits to buy and distribute anti-retroviral medicine to our brothers and sisters dying of AIDS in Africa.


• We believe that when consumers are offered this choice, and the products meet their needs, they will choose (RED). And when they choose (RED) over non-(RED), then more brands will choose to become (RED) because it will make good business sense to do so. And more lives will be saved.


• (RED) is not a charity. It is simply a business model. You buy (RED) stuff, we get the money, buy the pills and distribute them. They take the pills, stay alive, and continue to take care of their families and contribute socially and economically in their communities.


• If they don’t get the pills, they die. We don’t want them to die. We want to give them the pills. And we can. And you can. And it’s easy.
  
• All you have to do is upgrade your choice.

For more about the (RED) campaign, click here.

To do something (RED), click here.

Sick Day

I feel like crap. Absolute CRAP.

(I don’t do sick well.)

Confined to my bed for yet another day, I feared I’d go crazy. Pops was kind enough to take my sad self on a quick run to Wal-Mart to stock up on DVDs. I knew exactly what I wanted.

Just two things:
1.) Digitally remastered Indiana Jones trilogy
2.) Digitally remastered Star Wars trilogy

At the check out, the lady said to me: “Let me guess, one’s for your father and one’s for your brother.”

My pale face blushed a bit. “Well, actually, no. They’re – “

“Oh – two nephews? How sweet! The boys love these. Birthday gifts, right?”

It seemed useless to argue. “Yep. Twin boys.”


So I’ll spend my day watching late 70s boy-movies and loving every second of it. Whatever.

9/11/07

Today is a hard day.

It weighs on you like an iron composed solely of grief, of tragedy.

Like everyone else, I remember exactly what I was wearing that day. I remember the friends I mourned with — some of whom are no longer with us, their lives also cut short since the Attacks.

Like everyone else, I feel the magnitude of the loss each anniversary. The attacks gave Americans a sense of scale by which we now measure degree of grief and impact; never before had my generation witnessed a national tragedy of such scale. Yet the more I learn about the world, the more I realize the extent of emergency in faced every day elsewhere, and if the scale created while witnessing the 9/11 is true, I feel compelled to do something. Anything.

For example, today I ironically found myself reading about September 11, 2001 in Jeffrey Sach's book, and this is the point that resonated most:

"Almost three thousand people died needlessly and tragically at the World Trade Center on September 11; ten thousand Africans die needlessly and tragically every single day—and have died every single day since September 11—of AIDS, TB, and malaria."

Certainly makes you understand the need for urgent action... Especially since ''the ten thousand daily deaths are preventable.''

Lost from the Skies

Ok. I have a secret fascination with aviation, including — maybe especially — aviation disappearances.

Today Steven Fossett was reported missing. Of course you hope he’s ok, but deep down, when planes go missing, you know there’s little hope. Already reports of wreckage are flooding news outlets. What went wrong? What kind of a person was he? You have to assume every pilot is a free spirit, an adventurer, the type who's so full of life. It’s sad — tragic, really.

It piques my interest in other morbid (but famous) disappearances, like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (who may or may not have slept with my great-grandmother on occasion…), whose mysterious disappearance in 1944 intrigued generations until his crashed plane was discovered 60 years later. But there's still so much left unknown.

Of course, you can’t think about aviation mysteries without thinking of Amelia Earhart. Is her plane on the bottom of the ocean? Was she captured and killed by the Japanese? Or did she and Noonan land safely, lost on some uninhabited island, and survive for a while afterwards? I once read a novel that provided a fiery illustration of the last scenario. More and more, some parts of it seem to be true.

I say this because of the fascinating — albeit completely circumstantial — discoveries by TIGHAR, a non-profit aviation archaeological organization, in Nikumaroro, the island some believe Amelia inhabited after her crash. I had heard of their discoveries before, and — in light of today’s tragic news — was eager for them to launch another exploration. (Who doesn’t want to know the fate of Amelia Earhart?) I took a glance at their website and was pleasantly surprised.

They just returned from a second exhibition to Nikumaroro, and the mystery continues to unfold.


(Also — TIGHAR offers interesting insight into l’Oiseau Blanc, the plane lost in France’s attempt to complete a non-stop transatlantic flight between New York City and Paris... the plane that altered aviation history!)