Stuck on You
January 31st, 2007
Maybe your kid tends to lose his sweaters at school? Or perhaps your little angel is allergic to cashews and forgets to tell his teachers at snack time? If you have anything you need to stick with a label, the sky’s the limit with Stuck on You!
Customizable stickers allow you to label your kid’s name to his lunchbox or warn his teacher of allergies for just $20.50 per set. That price give you six lines of text with your own personalized icon.
So cute and so functional!
Green Dimes Ends Junk Mail
January 31st, 2007
Junk mail stinks. Green Dimes is here to help!
Did you know…?
100 million trees are chopped down every year for junk mail sent to American homes.
28 billion (that’s 28 with 9 zeros) gallons of water are needed to make all the paper used for junk mail.
Paper makes up a third of the 235 million tons of waste Americans send to landfills each year.
The typical American household receives about 70 pounds of junk mail a year.
The amount of junk mail sent grows by 3 billion pieces a year.
Enter Great Dimes! They are combating the plague of junk mail by taking your name off major direct mail lists and keeping them off. And, good news for your mail carrier, they will unsubscribe you from those unwanted catalogs!
Green Dimes handles contacting all the companies for you so you don’t have to, and they claim to do it for less than it would cost you to do it yourself.
What do you have to lose?
Giving Express Program
January 31st, 2007
Want to donate, but don’t have the time to write out a check? American Express makes it super easy for you to donate via their Giving Express Program.
Just find a charity, and choose your method of donation. You can:
• Give to one or more charities and nonprofit organizations
• Donate dollars with your American Express Card
• Donate Membership Rewards points
• Set up recurring donations
Best of all, you can earn points for each dollar you give, so you can ultimately give away even more!
Now if I could just get my hands on that RED AmEx!
New Global Fund Combats Malaria
January 22nd, 2007
First the bad news. As you may already know, malaria kills 1 million people a year in Africa, mostly children under the age of 5. Sadly, the cause of the disease has been known since the 19th century. Prevention of and treatment for the disease is widely available for those in the developed world.
Nevertheless, the Center for Disease and Control Prevention says 350-500 million cases of malaria occur each year worldwide, making it one of the deadliest diseases in underdeveloped parts of the world.
And now the good news! A World Bank-sponsored forum recently announced the creation of a new global fund to subsidize the purchase of a new generation of anti-malaria drugs for Africa.
According to the Associated Press,
The drugs, Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies, or ACTs, are meant to replace chloroquine and other old generation drugs sold in Africa and Southeast Asia… which have become ineffective.
Olusoji Adeyi, the World Bank’s coordinator of public health programs, said it took 18 months of discussions to reach a broad agreement on the need for the subsidy. The plan will work in tandem with the bank’s malaria-prevention programs to provide mosquito nets and insecticide to affected areas.
Hopefully the coordination of additional money and resources will bring relief to the millions in Africa who suffer so needlessly from this disease.
To find out what you can do to help malaria victims around the world, visit World Vision’s Global Emporium where a small $20 investment can provide malaria care for a whole family in Africa.
Israeli-Palestinian Checkpoints
January 20th, 2007
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an issue I don’t pretend to know much about beyond the vague outlines I see in the news.
But a compelling blog entry, by a 22-year-old man named Elias from Bethlehem, made the issue a little more real for me. I thought you might be interested in a few of the photos he took from the checkpoint that separates Israel from the Palestinian territories.
Even if you understand the need for these kinds of security measures, it’s hard not to sympathize with those people who live everyday in the middle of so much mistrust and violence.
For more details about Elias’ Christmas experience at the Israeli security checkpoint, read his blog.