#ALSIceBucketChallenge

So it has finally made its way to me, and now numerous people are telling me to “get on it”. For all of you who are looking for a video of me dumping a bucket of ice water on my head, you’re not going to get it….and I’m writing this blog to explain why:

I tend to keep my views of the world fairly personal and don’t outwardly react to a lot of stuff to just anyone, for fear of upsetting the balance in relationships, but for this one time, I will let you all in. So please don’t take any offense to what I write below and just simply respect my views as they weren’t intended to offend anyone, rather to say what I feel needs to be said.

Since becoming a father, it’s really opened up my mind to thinking a lot about what kind of world we’re leaving for our children and what we as a society are teaching our kids.

America is hated largely by a lot of the world for how snobbish and full of ourselves we are. We go to fight wars for people who can’t fight for themselves and while I am divided on that subject, I am not divided on the subject of negotiating a trade with terrorists for one of our Generals who deserted his post. America is supposed to have a strict rule of not negotiating with terrorists, yet we did just that to get our guy out of the Taliban’s POW camp in Afghanistan. So outwardly, we’re a duplicitous country of people.

Martial law has been declared in Ferguson, Missouri to handle the public unrest over the shooting of a black teenager by a white cop (SIX TIMES!). The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I have a dream” speech in Washington, DC over 50 years ago and yet there are STILL areas in this country where race relations are tense. We want to think of ourselves as an evolved people who can conquer anything and yet we can’t even live together in harmony with other citizens of our own country.

And this all brings me back to the #ALSIceBucketChallenge. There’s a lot of bad crap going on in the world (like the beheading of a US reporter in Iraq) and I really have to worry about our country who is all tied up in recording videos of themselves dumping buckets of ice on their heads and that being the big headline that continues to pop up on my internet browser when Kermit The Frog & Cookie Monster complete this “challenge” instead of trying to find ways to fix the real problems we’re facing as a people.

Donating to a cause like ALS is a noble one, I’ll give ya that. But the big problem I see is people dumping the buckets of ice water on their heads and not making a donation, just playing along with the game of tag. But the serious issue is that along with dumping the bucket of ice water on your head, you have to make the donation for it to mean anything to anyone with ALS. Otherwise, you’re just simply mimicking any NFL head coach who has ever won anything. And that doesn’t help to cure anything.

So if you’re going to continue this 2014 fad version of a chain letter, please make a donation at www.alsa.org as I just did and please just leave it at that. We don’t all know what kind of financial situation everyone is in and to push this onto someone else to expect them to make a donation that they may not be able to make right now (especially in 24 hours) is unfair and I won’t do that to anyone.

So there you have it,

My name is Marc, and that’s just my two cents.