🤬 Tis the season to be charitable

Rants

It is again the time of the year when we start seeing food drive bins roll out to grocery stores, libraries, fire stations, and pretty much every other location with a roof. Of course it’s a nice idea to donate food to those in need, but I am always left wondering, “Why does the U.S. only encourage food donations during the holiday season???”

Well, obviously it is incorrect to say that Americans only donate food during the holiday season. Charitable contributions occur throughout the year. However, the sight of a food donation bin anywhere outside of the holiday season is remarkably rare. There are close to zero organizations which encourage food donations until October/November roll onto the calendar.

I understand that there is some logic to food donations in the Fall. The weather is getting colder and therefore the less fortunate who often have to spend considerable amounts of time in cold weather need an increased number of calories to survive.

However, the point of this rant is that it is wrong to limit charitable food donations to 2-3 months of the year. That idea is similar to limiting the study of black people in history to Black History Month or only learning about the contributions of women to society during Women’s History Month. Why not respect people with dark skin all year round? Why not learn about the historical contributions of women for all 12 months of the year? Why not provide support to the homeless and poor each and every month of the year?

Encouraging charitable food donations in November and charitable financial contributions in December enables people to check their personal “charity box” and forget about any further help. They can say, “Yep, I’ve done some good for the year and I don’t need to think about helping others until next year.” If our society is going to grow stronger, we cannot forget about people who are less fortunate than us for 10 to 11 months every year. We cannot simply buy several pounds of canned food and think that poverty has been alleviated by a meaningful degree. The idea that other people are suffering while we live comfortably should live in our minds like a rock in our shoe. We must remind ourselves every day that other people who live among us do not have the fundamentals necessary to ensure their wellbeing and happiness.

🤬 Tis the season to be charitable Read More »

🎵 Music of the Week: W45, 2018

Music

Back in 8th grade (late 90s for me), music was tough to get. Streaming music was certainly not around quite yet. Listening to music required buying CDs at almost $20 per album, which was a steep price for a kid on an allowance. Buying CDs to discover new music was out of the question at that price. Instead, 100% of the new music I heard about came through the radio or as suggestions from friends.

However, all of the sudden Napster burst onto the scene and changed everything about music. Suddenly I was no longer limited to saving up for multiple months just to purchase a single CD from a well-known band. I could download and sample as much music as my parents’ internet bandwidth could accommodate.

It’s impossible for me to say where I first heard the band Refused. I know for sure that none of my friends listened to that kind of music, so my only guesses are that I either heard it on Live 105.3 FM or randomly happened to download their songs on Napster. Either way, I was definitely an outlier in my appreciation of their music.

I remember driving with my friend and his older brother shortly after I discovered Refused. At the time, “cool” was the last word anyone would have used to describe me and I know my friend’s older brother looked down on me. However, when I told him to play ‘New Noise’ by Refused and the first verse came on, he turned to give me a look that said, “Where the fuck did this come from?!? This music is amazing!” In that moment, I learned the power of respect that can be given to you by someone who appreciates your taste in music. This experience also explains the bitterness I felt towards the friends I developed in college who all claimed my taste in music was shit, but that’s a story for another blog post.

Refused is a Swedish punk rock band which was primarily active from 1991 to 1998. To my knowledge, the band is a mainstay of 90s punk rock and anyone who likes the genre has the song ‘New Noise’ somewhere in their music collection. However, much like a famous Renaissance artist the band only gained popularity and fame after they had broken up in 1998.

All of these factors together leave me truly scratching my head as to how an unpopular, musically-ignorant 8th grader from the Bay Area, California could have discovered Refused in the late 1990s when music discovery on the internet was not a thing and the band was not well known.

🎵 Music of the Week: W45, 2018 Read More »

Scroll to Top