By WE, I mean the society with no eyes and no name.

This is serious.

I’ve had a hard time thinking of how to approach this subject.  I’m a funny guy.  Apparently.  Many, many years ago someone told me so, and I was happy with the social implications of the tag so I just sort of became what they perceived me to be.

When I’m happy I joke to celebrate. When I’m sad I try to be funny to drag myself out of it.  When someone else is down I refuse to leave them without seeing a smile first.  When I’m physically hurt I joke to help calm the worrying bystanders.  When I’m mentally hurting I joke to defend myself.  When I’m nervous I joke to break into the environment and find a friendly face.  But when I’m in uncomfortable territory I go all quiet.  Thus the delay in getting this posting completed.

Here we go.

I love life.  I believe that everyone should have an opportunity to love life.  I want to help.  I live to help.  I hate pain and suffering (mine especially, but others as well).  I may well be the only person on the planet who gets teary when the charities run campaigns on TV.  I sometimes offer help when it is beyond my capacity to help. 

There are a lot of people who need that help.  There are more people in more places than I could ever hope to help myself.  Especially since I don’t even have a passport.  If you are reading this it means you are most likely in a country with a fairly good social structure which, among other things, provides some kind of support for people in need.  There are many places around the world that either can’t or don’t support the needy among them.

This is not a political commentary.

I have no (public) opinion as to the reasons for the suffering of these people.  Whether it was mismanagement by their own government, inequities created by an invading society and the associated new government forcing the indigenous population into a minority status or some other reason.  I have neither the time nor the qualifications to determine who is in greatest need of help.  But there are many organisations whose only business is trying to minimise the suffering of people in these situations.  World Vision has been consistently identified as having one of the fastest and highest percentages of donations from source (you) to destination.

nikared recently posted something about Christmas charity experiences and put forward a proposal:

Christmas 2005:  My wife got a new ring last year (not $16,000 but still…) so I figure this is my year.  I came across this site and as soon as I saw it, I knew this was where my extra Christmas money would be going this year.  If you haven’t gotten anything for yourself yet this year, I would urge you to visit and pick out something.  I probably won’t get the $16,000 one, but they have less expensive options, too.  Here’s the site.  Happy shopping!

 Let’s do it.

You can always flip a coin into the hat on the ground in front of the gay amputee midget playing the banjo outside your favourite shopping mall.  But this Christmas let’s make a difference in the life of someone who will never even see a banjo, let alone a gay amputee midget.

I propose that OUR SOCIETY, the society with no name and no eyes, makes a team effort.  We will be helping people who need it the most.  The beauty is you get to choose who you help.  There are options for assisting Tsunami and Earthquake victims on the subcontinent, farming resources for African villages, or if you want your money to stay closer to home (for most of you), the gulf hurricane victims.

Something for everyone.

There are items available from $25 dollars up to $18,700.  You are welcome to go directly to the World Vision site.  If $25 is beyond your budget, or you want to participate as part of a group gather your friends together, decide on an amount and go directly to World Vision. 

If you don’t have the time, or the money, or the friends (or any combination of these) I have one more alternative for you.  I can be your friend and we can donate together.  I have established a Paypal® account using my email address   slimpedal@iinet.net.au   When making your payment, include as much of the following as you feel comfortable; your blog name, blog address, email address, preferred gift (this information is between you and me, and goes not further.  I will endeavour to put people who select the same gift together and actually get that gift).  The Paypal® payment page looks a lot like a webmail page and this information can be placed in the notes part of the transaction and it will come to me in an email to confirm your contribution.

In all cases I would love to include participants in an acknowledgement posting of some sort.  All contributions will be acknowledged equally.  No-one is in a position to pass judgement on who gave what, when, where or how.  It is not our place to know whether a $10 contribution is one minute’s income or half a week’s wage, neither do we expect to know. 

Acknowledgement will be by a simple list displaying your blogging identity (with blog address if you have one).  Nothing more - no email address, no amount, no date.  If you wish to confirm a donation but wish to remain anonymous simply mention this to me in your message.  Your spot on the list will look like this:

john smith
mary smith
anonymous
jim jones
marj jones

The moral and legal aspects of this endeavour.

Many people are uncomfortable dealing with money matters over the internet.  Who am I?  For all you know, the family in my blog photos may be buried out behind the barn.  If you are uncomfortable with this proposal at any level, do not participate. 

Deal directly with World Vision through their website, or you can correspond with them twentieth century style at: World Vision P.O. Box 9716, Federal Way, WA 98063-9716  Print out the gift page you want to donate and staple a cheque to it.  I’m sure they can handle it.  Just remember though that the more manual you make the process the higher their overheads are and the more your donation must be used for administration rather than the “real” work.