Top staff at the Sisters of Charity Foundation, accepting the challenge last week.
On a previous thread, Silence expressed how tired he was of “everyone’s stupid ice bucket challenge videos.”
He’s not alone in that. Even this laudatory article (“The Perfect Viral Storm“) on an advertising industry site notes the meme’s “somewhat annoying ubiquity.”
That aside, there’s no denying that this is the best thing to happen in the fight against Lou Gehrig’s disease since, well, Lou Gehrig. (Even if, as Silence also pointed out, Gehrig may not have had ALS.)
Samuel Tenenbaum, head of Palmetto Health Foundation, made that very observation to me yesterday in a breakfast meeting in which he and I and Ashley Dusenbury were discussing the promotion of this year’s Walk for Life (watch for more coming on that very soon, teammates!). The Walk has been hugely successful, and they already have some mechanisms in place to make it even more successful this year, but Samuel stands ready to have ice dumped on him if it will make it more successful yet.
Then, over in the world of political advocacy, I received this yesterday from Conservation Voters of South Carolina:
Climate ChallengeFolks, here’s a challenge that doesn’t involve ice buckets.
When local officials, citizens and natural resource managers are meeting to prepare for sea level rise, wouldn’t you think it’s time for us to pay attention? I challenge you to learn more about the public workshopsin Bluffton and St. Helena Island sponsored by the Beaufort County Planning Dept, Sea Grant Consortium and USC’s CISA.
When veterans talk about “climate security” and the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events to “critical infrastructure at home,” shouldn’t we take note? I challenge you to read Clay Middleton’s letter to the editor of The State.
When the Washington Post announces a series of climate editorials and observes that “despite ups and downs in the polling, a solid majority of Americans favors action to curb greenhouse emissions,” we are reminded of Governor Sanford’s warning in an op ed to that paper in February, 2007: “If conservatives cannot reframe, reclaim and respond to climate change with our principles intact, government will undoubtedly provide a solution, no matter how taxing it may be.” I challenge you to ask Governor Haley to tell us where she stands on climate. Click here to send her a message
Yeah, she has a completely different point, but you can read in that lede a certain envy, a wish that her challenges might acquire the “somewhat annoying ubiquity” of the ALS phenomenon.
Success has that effect.
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By the way, Nikki Haley’s ice bucket video has achieved a bit of a coup, in that it is now featured on the Wikipedia entry for “Ice Bucket Challenge.”
Vincent Sheheen’s earnest effort along those lines has not achieved the same notoriety.
I mean, you know, if anybody’s keeping score.
I challenge Brad, bud, Bryan, Doug, David Crockett, Kathryn, scout, and SD3 to take the liquid nitrogen bucket challenge, and make a donation to the charity of their choice.
“Other causes envy the viral success of the ice-bucket challenge”
For the moment, perhaps, but I am certain the United Way will always be envious.
However, I think Nimrata (Nikki) Randhawa Haley’s ancestral paisans have trumped the silly fad in which ALS cure foundations have reaped about 10% of donated monies.
Here is India’s creative approach, which the United Way will not envy: http://time.com/3183211/rice-bucket-challenge-india/
And, Silence, you forgot to mention that advance donations would be mandatory in your liquid nitrogen bucket analogue.