GATNB is a place where you can act like a kid, cuss like a sailor, fuck like a porn star, party like a rockstar, and handle business like a BOSS. Therefore, I tend to stray from blogging about political or religious issues. It’s not that I don’t care or don’t have an opinion, it’s just not my forte. I rather sit back, listen to different perspectives, and make my own observations.
However, there are certain topics that are hard to avoid. Among them is the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. I remember waking up one morning to one on my feed. Then, seeing two the next day. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if I logged onto Facebook and my first 5 posts were about it. In case you’ve been living under a rock (or without Wifi), this is a challenge where you can either donate $100 to the ALS Foundation or dump a bucket of ice water over your head. Either way, you nominate 5 other people to partake.
Since it’s emergence online, it’s raised over $50 million for the cause. Unfortunately, it’s also raised skepticism. From it’s contribution to California’s drought, to it being just a trend, to … Pamela Anderson, it’s gathered criticism as well as praise. This biggest concern seems to be the drought in California. A friend of mind told me the following:
“This water crisis is the govt fault, not us citizens fault. The problem is we’re are out of “cheap” local water. CA has to pay other surrounding states to import their water and they are charging us a premium for it so the state is taking a financial hit. The state subsidizes water costs and doesn’t charge us market rate. We studied this in our micro economics class.When something is “free” people over use it rather than conserve when we pay market price.”
While this makes sense, I don’t know if it’s actually true. What I do know is it barely rained, and we barely had a winter. If you disagree, just ask any avid snowboarder in Northern California. Having said that, there must be a way to help out the ALS Foundation without hurting the environment? Why not just jump into a pool? It’s already filled with water! Not “crazy” enough? Do it in a clown suit! I’m not saying I take 3 minute showers, but I’m not going out of my way to waste water either. *Gets off of biodegradable soapbox, and into her car that runs on reused vegetable oil*
Others are irked by the trend factor, and I also understand where you’re coming from. If you’re going to waste water, at least know what you’re wasting it on. If you’re going to participate in a movement that will be broadcasted all over the interwebs you should definitely do some research beforehand. Or at the very least, find out what ALS means for fucks sake! I admire all of your enthusiasm and generosity, but I personally would want to educate myself before showing public support for something.
Having said all of the 10,836 words above, the ALS ice bucket challenge did exactly what it intended to do – create awareness for Lou Gehrig’s disease. Regardless of if participants donated or not, I bet that its raised more money in the last few weeks than the last few months. Despite the water being wasted, I guarantee there are hundreds if not thousands of people that are now more informed about ALS, and you can’t be mad about that.
Oh, and by the way. ALS is not the baseball division the Yankees play in. Don’t worry, I didn’t know it stood for Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis without Googling it either. But I did know the ice bucket challenge supported Lou Gehrig’s disease. And he did play for the Yankees 😉
コメント