Wordless Wednesday: RIP Maurice Sendak

In the wake of Maurice Sendak's death, this picture made the rounds and was attributed as one of his illustrations from 1947

End Malaria

If you use Twitter, it's likely you've seen tongue in cheek tweets with the hashtag #whitepeopleproblems.  You know, stuff that the privileged and entitled suffer like hot tub water splashing on your cigar and having to turn up the TV when the dishwasher is running.  Sometimes, as in the second example, they're interchangeable with #firstworldproblems.

Want to know what's not a white or first world problem?  Malaria.  Frankly, I, ensconced in my Midwestern home, haven't thought much about malaria, as it is so far removed from me geographically.  "The global geography of malaria is increasingly disproportionate. The vast majority of malaria cases and malaria-related deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, which the director-general of the WHO, Margaret Chan, has called, 'the heartland of malaria' Meanwhile, 'outside Africa, the malaria map is shrinking, as more and more countries eliminate malaria from their territory,' says Chan." - Source

But, just like when you first get pregnant and you notice pregnancy everywhere, foundations and volunteers seeking to eradicate malaria are popping up in my line of sight.  It all started with BzzAgent, interestingly enough.  Yes, the same network I've mentioned in the past that facilitates word of mouth marketing for companies: I talk honestly about products I receive for free or at a discount.  One of the BzzCampaigns I am part of is for The Domino Project.  Created by Seth Godin, The Domino Project seeks to change the way books are published and shared.  BzzAgents who are part of the campaign receive each new book prior to its release.  Until this month.  Instead, it's been encouraged to buy the current title, End Malaria, as $20 from the sale of every copy goes to Malaria No More, an international advocacy organization working to end malaria in 2015.

In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't yet bought the book, so I can't tell you if its worthwhile (outside of supporting a good cause.)  The Amazon reviews are positive though.  The book itself is not about malaria; in it, 62 leading writers and thinkers share their tips about great work.  It's a motivational book figuratively wrapped with that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you do something good.  When I do read it, I'll be certain to share my review.

If you don't want to buy the book on Amazon, but still feel compelled to do something or make a donation, research what feels right to you.  I suggest reading about the work Mandy Moore is doing.  I learned about her involvement with the cause via her Twitter feed.  She's worked together with PSI (Population Services International) as an Ambassador and helped distribute life-saving mosquito nets to "the Central African Republic (CAR), a country with one of the highest childhood death rates in the world and where malaria is a primary cause of illness and death."  Another resource in malaria prevention is Nothing but Nets, a foundation that espouses, "Send a net.  Save a life."

Look, maybe you're like me and have causes that you support already.  But that doesn't mean that we can't find new issues to become passionate about.  I believe strongly that we are global citizens and have a responsibility to make this world a good place to live for all.

There is no Us and Them. There is only we.

Can you remember when your innocence was shattered?  I don't know if I do, because, for most people, I think it happens piecemeal as you advance towards adulthood.  But there are moments in life, like September 11, 2001, that may not shatter innocence, but rip away false notions of what the world is like as swiftly and shockingly as pulling off a band-aid.

When I was in middle school and high school, my family lived in a townhouse.  I hated it there; I missed my old home.  I called it, "The Townhouse", perhaps so that qualifier in its name would signify that it was less of a house, that it wasn't my home.  I may have been determined to loath the place, but I cannot deny the memories built there.  One such memory came when I was in the downstairs family room, alone, watching TV.  I happened upon a documentary about the Civil Rights Movement.  Of course, I knew about it.  Every Black History Month, it was a part of the curriculum.  The text of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech was printed on a poster displayed near the circle time area in my Kindergarten or first grade class, I can't recall which.  So, yes I had learned about the Civil Right Movement, taught facts about inequality and Rosa Parks and peaceful protest by many teachers over the years.  But their lessons never captured my attention or emotions the way this documentary did.  That's the thing about facts - they have the tendency to be cold and hard and yet somehow, not feel real.  Sometimes it takes pictures and video and hearing individual experiences to "get it."

Charles Moore's "They Fight a Fire That Won't Go Out" appeared in Life

Watching the water hoses turned on protesters ( the water pressure strong enough to "peel bark off a tree or separate bricks from mortar") horrified me.  The victims were protesters, innocent bystanders, children ... our fellow human beings for God's sake!  It took being witness, about forty years later, to understand how Americans were capable of relegating people to Other, second-class status.  It wasn't just to an intangible them or in other parts of the world that this happened.  I don't know why I was surprised, but I know that I was naive deluded to think that those things didn't happen here.  See: slavery, the Trail of Tears, Japanese internment ...  America, while beautiful, isn't perfect.  The United States and her people and government are not separate from Tank Man in Tiananmen Square or the Egyptian protesters earlier this year, nor so far removed from the perpetrators of the Holocaust or the Khmer Rouge regime.  All humans have the capacity to want the world to change and be a better place and to commit evil.  There is no Us and Them. There is only we.

Similar to my epiphany, Kathryn Stockett's The Help, set during the Civil Rights era and evoking reprehensible acts of racism, has opened others' eyes to injustice.  The novel has been a runaway hit, popular with book clubs and given readers, especially those who haven't experienced that time in our nation's history firsthand, "access to a more personal, intimate look inside race relations than could ever be gleaned from most history texts." I adore historical fiction.  From the books I gobbled up as a girl, like Number the Stars, The Devil's Arithmetic, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The Sign of the Beaver, and oh! how I could go on and on, to what I'm reading now, The Historian, historical fiction comprised/s a significant chunk of my reading history.  Today's Daily Bzz, is The Help.  It has been on my "to read" list, but frequently checked out at the local library.  Regardless of whether BzzAgent selects me to spread word of mouth about the book, I will eventually read it to fulfill Gran's legacy.

Have you read or seen The Help?  What do you think about the divisive book and movie?  I'd also love if you shared the events that eroded your innocence.

Gran's Legacy

Gran loved (her) babies!

My grandmother was and is my hero.

She died nine years ago today, September 7, 2002 and I miss her.  But I've decided to make sure that I honor my memory of her. 

You might ask yourself how could a woman with no famous outstanding achievments or feats of skill and courage be a hero?  Yet she is; she was a champion of reading.  As Fred Rogers remarked, "Anyone who does anything to help a child is a hero to me." Gran's my hero because she instilled in me a love of books and to honor her, I've been reigniting that passion.

Gran was a very dedicated woman who loved her family.  Her love was evident in her giving nature and all she did.  She always wanted to be helpful (in many ways because she couldn't keep still!) and was incredibly generous with her time.  My sister became deathly ill in her first year and spent a fair amount of time in the hospital recuperating.  During this period, my grandmother took me in so that my Mom could devote her time to my sister.  Unfortunately, there was a wave of chicken pox going around and I had to be kept virtually quarantined so that no illnesses could be passed on to my immunocompromised sibling via my Mom in the snippets of togetherness we had when she wasn't at the hospital.  The only time Gran and I left the house was to go to the local library, where we would check out ten books at a time.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Cuddling up with a good book as a favored pastime was a natural progression from cuddling up with one of my favorite people as she read me stories.

In the last several years, I went from being an avid reader who would devour every word available, from the back of a cereal box to a classic novel, to being lucky to leaf through a magazine at the doctor's office.  Thanks to marrying a man who prefers watching tv to fall asleep and two young boys who keep me so busy that I seldom had time to myself, reading fell by the wayside.  However, in the last two months I've read four books!  I think I can officially call myself a reader again.

BzzAgent, a product testing network I've mentioned before, has launched a new feature called The Daily Bzz, in which you prove you deserve a spot in an upcoming campaign by doing something cool.  They are opening a campaign for the Kindle 3.  "The Kindle 3 is ingeniously designed to be everything the iPad will never be: small, light and inexpensive… Now, the Kindle is almost ridiculously lightweight; at 8.5 ounces, it’s a third the weight of the iPad.  And with a wi-fi connection you’re just seconds away from close to a million books. It’s like having access to an entire library from the comforts of your couch"  Sounds nice to me!

I don't own an e-book reader.  Until this past summer, I was convinced I'd never own one!  As a bibliophile, I cherish the smell of libraries and used book stores and turned my nose up at the notion of reading without actually cracking open a book.  But when my cousin's husband showed me his Barnes & Noble Nook, I thought to myself, "Someday ..."  I filled in that sentence with, "... when I'm reading enough to justify the expense" and "... maybe I'll receive one as a gift."

My grandmother taught me an invaluable lesson.  And I'm eager to get back to applying that lesson, no matter what form the books come in.

The last picture of me and Gran together.

For the record, this blog was ready to go today without the information about BzzAgent and the Kindle.  But when the opportunity to apply for the campaign came out this morning, the timing was too perfect and I had to tweak it!