Random Ramblings

I know, I know. I'm going overboard with the posts today. But these are just links, so it's all right. (Right?)

1. BP spills coffee (3-minute video) -- a satirical little video: a BP exec spills coffee on the boardroom table, and the executive team rushes into high gear to clean up the spill. Hilarity ensues.

2. Eating well on $1 a day -- this guy is utterly amazing. He made a deal with his sister that he could eat well on just $1 a day, using various couponing skills. So far, in the almost two months he's been doing the project, he's been eating extremely well, donated a TON of food to local food banks, and bought over $1,100 worth of food for about $40. I'm in awe.

3. The 10 most important things they didn't teach you in school -- though I don't usually link to Cracked articles, this one's pretty spot-on. (Even if the writing is a bit over the top compared to what I generally like.)

4. The life you can save -- I recommend watching the very powerful 3-minute video. Then do whatever conscience (and heart) tell you to do.

5. Vision simulator -- a very cool simulator that shows you what it's like to be red-green (or blue-yellow) color blind. Worth playing around with.

6. The fast lane - The slide (2-minute video) -- From the guys that brought us piano stairs and the world's deepest garbage can comes a new project designed to make life more fun (and, in the process, get us moving a bit). I wish these guys were in Montreal.

7. Extrapolating (xkcd comic) -- just a cute xkcd comic I've been meaning to post for a while. Sometimes I really love xkcd.

After a month or two of procrastination, I finally sat down today and sent off my donations to charity. I set aside one tenth (10%) of my paycheck to donate, split roughly equally between organizations.

This month, the recipients were: The Canadian Red Cross, The Grameen Foundation (which funds microcredit institutions), Santropol Roulant (a local meals-on-wheels service, among other things), and Dans La Rue (a local charity that serves street kids).

It feels really, really good to be able to do this.

I just caught a snippet of the Oprah show, which today is talking about the "Big Give." In the segment I watched, a woman raised over $100,000 from members of her community to give to a family whose home had burned down, and who were left with nothing. The money and goods were given to the destitute family in a huge presentation in front of the local community. There was cheering, shouting, and hugging. It was very moving, I'm sure, for everyone involved.

First, I want to say that the woman who did the fundraising effort was fantastic. To raise $120,000 dollars in less than a week is truly an accomplishment. And I think that everyone who donated did the right thing, and I'm happy that they did it.

But (you knew there was a "but" coming, didn't you), it got me thinking about the form of the giving. I watched the recipient family walk out in front of the whole community as the donors were read out (along with the amount of their donations), and as everyone cheered the gifts they received. My major thought was, "that's got to be embarrassing."

In Judaism, there are 8 levels of charity (or "tzedakah"). According to these levels, it is far better for all parties to be anonymous than for both parties to know each other. That way, the giver can't gloat to the recipient or hold the charity as a form of obligation; and the recipient doesn't feel pitied or indebted to a particular person.

So, question to my readers: Do you think a huge ceremony to celebrate the giving of charity by named donors to a particular family is good or bad? Should the givers have done the ceremony another way? Or not done it at all? Or was it fine the way it was?