Where To Add Organ Donor Info on Facebook

I read today that Facebook is encouraging organ donations.  I think this is a great effort and more people should be organ donors.  Ultimately I want this campaign to be successful (and it looks like it is) , but I do have a few concerns:

1. This feature is kind of hidden away.  In fact, I didn’t realize the amount of “Timeline Life Events” I could indicate until I started writing this.  This speaks to a larger problem Facebook has with rolling out new site changes without really communicating to their end-users that it’s happened. See the blog post photo to help with finding this feature’s location.
2. Life Event or Ease of Use? Part of the challenge in organ donations is that it makes us confront our mortality.  I’m not sure Facebook, with its real-time & past timeline focus, changes that mindset. Being an organ donor is kind of like the ultimate bucket list item – one day you’re gonna go and hopefully save some lives when it happens – but does that energy exist as a “life event” when you sign up?  Is it easy for me to just “like” that someone is a donor, but not do it myself or declare that I am one?  Is the campaign’s success hinged on it being a “life event” or that it’s just easier for people to sign up since usually we’re asked to make this decision only every few years with our driver’s license renewals?
3. Other Life Saving But Less Mortality Confronting Campaigns. Why not start with something life-saving that is also giving…while you’re still living?
1. Bone Marrow: Why not start a campaign for more people to register as Bone Marrow Donors?  Bone marrow donors require a genetic match and the more people who register, the more likely it is that a person who is suffering from life-threatening diseases like cancer can find a match.
2. Blood Donations: Why isn’t Giving Blood a life event? According to the Red Cross, “currently only 3 out of every 100 people in America donate blood” and “1 pint of blood can save up to 3 lives.”  And if you donate platelets, one donation can be worth 3 single doses for 3 patients – the equivalent of 12-18 whole blood donations.

On my walk back to the office from lunch, my co-workers and I were stopped by this really large protest.  It even blocked traffic coming from off the freeway – sorry Los Angeles drivers and bus transit riders.  It turned out to be a protest for Justice for Janitors, emphasizing more affordable healthcare and fairer wages.

A protest like this gives reason to pause and more than just for the inconvenience of traffic. A few minutes of protest is nothing compared to where we would be without our janitorial services.  Why do we then pay people who work this difficult job poorly?  Why do we then shrink on their healthcare?  Try going a week in this city without the people who help maintain the offices of government and corporate America.  It would be pretty darn terrible for everyone all around.

The janitorial staff at my building are some of my favorite people.  They don’t seem to judge me when I work late at night (sometimes when I’m singing aloud to whatever I have playing on Pandora) and always say hello and ask me how I am as they go about their jobs after office hours.  There is a janitor that maintains the glass doors and reception area of the building during the morning, who I see almost every day.  When I arrive really early to work, he comments on my change in routine. While I may not be working on projects with this staff and while there might not even be a sharing of our names, I really appreciate their presence in my life and what they do.  This place would fall apart without their efforts, as I’m sure all the other buildings would too.

People who think they run the world because they make business decisions are wrong.  That’s only part of the process.  There are other people who keep this world running too, and one of them is likely the person that pulls in a squeaky-wheeled trash can to sort out your office recyclables.

-cct

There is a video embed of the commercial at the end, but here’s the text:

Thank you, Michigan Senator Debbie Spenditnow. Debbie spends so much American money. You borrow more and more from us. Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs. Thank you, Debbie Spenditnow.

Let me point out a few things:

• The Gong: It starts with a gong.  Yes.  A Gong.  Let me reference the aptly named Oriental Riff entry in Wikipedia: “The Oriental riff, also known as the Asian riff or the Chinese riff, is a musical riff or phrase that has often been used as a trope or stereotype of orientalism in Western culture to represent the idea of the Orient, China, Japan or a generic East Asian theme by Western culture. The riff is sometimes accompanied by the sound of a gong.”  Having listened to copious amounts of Chinese pop music, I can tell you based on my experience that there is a certain lack of gong.
• Wrong Setting: If Hoekstra is trying to insinuate that money is being funneled into China, why is the spokesperson a girl riding a bike in the rice paddies?  This doesn’t conjure images of affluence or wealth – it draws on stereotypes of how people view “Asia” – the continent, not the diverse groups of cultures and countries that make up that continent.  Additionally,  with her white pants, 3/4th sleeve shirt, and hat – this actually conjures more connections with a traditionally dressed Vietnamese young woman.   Despite many years of rule by China, Vietnam is not China.
• Broken English: Just because the girl is from China doesn’t mean that she necessarily speaks broken English.  English is a global language, spoken by many people throughout the world.  While some might speak it with an accent or not very well, there are also very many people capable of speaking it correctly and well.  Hoekstra argues that
  

  The fact that a Chinese girl is speaking English is a testament to how they can compete with us, when an American boy of the same age speaking Mandarin is absolutely insane, or unthinkable right now. (Politico)

  Hoekstra must have missed out on this 2007 article of As China booms, so does Mandarin in U.S. schools or perhaps the fact that there are many Chinese-Americans who are bilingual?  Or did he not think of Chinese-Americans when he was talking about “American” boys and girls?

Most of today, I’ve been saying that Hoekstra did not get the memo that we are in 2012 – not 1912.   But the more I let this run through my brain, the more I couldn’t help but consider, who else did not get this memo?  How many people saw this ad before it ran?  Pete Hoekstra did not single-handedly film and air the commercial.  How many people worked on this “script”?  Filmed this commercial?  Saw the ad, approved it, praised it?  How many people were also involved in creating the DebbieSpendItNow.com website that is worse than this commercial?  The website that features “Asian” font, the phrase “The Great Wall of Debt”, and contains images of dragons, lanterns, and tea.  (As my co-worker pointed out, tea is served in England as well.)

The fact that this went from concept to launch (and is still going…) says something to me about a lack of cultural sensitivity and, moreover, a lack of understanding about America.  We are home to so many different peoples and cultures.  I do not see that as a weakness.  Feeding into negative stereotypes about those different peoples and cultures is a weakness.  Such actions reflect a lack of depth, a lack of consideration – especially as a politician that is supposed to represent the needs of the people.

Hoekstra may have thought he was attacking a candidate in his ad, but really he was attacking a culture and its people – a great many of whom live in the United States.

-cct

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

– Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

I received the news of Steve Jobs’ passing while in my online class session – in front of the only Mac in my predominantly Windows-OS office, in front of my iPad that had my reading materials, in front of my iPhone where I kept watch of my work emails.  I never met the man personally, but in that moment I was very cognizant that this human being who had just passed away was very connected to how I live my life as another human being in this world. 

The quote above from Steve Jobs talks about making connections and trusting in something within yourself, but I think there’s something to be said about a man who was not only an innovative and creative thinker, but one who believed in something enough to make things happen for himself and others.  There are so few people in the world that can conceive of “dots” that do not yet exist for themselves – the kind of perspective to drive the framework of their own life – let alone that that framework could be something that involves the lives of so many others.

And if Steve Jobs’ life and legacy is a reflection of the power of perseverance, of thinking outside of the box, and belief in oneself – how much greater the world might be if we all began to do the same.

Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs.  Thanks for thinking differently.

-cct

East Coast and Colorado?!  I really hope California doesn’t decide to go all diva today too.

-intellichick twitter

Antoine RJ Wright wrote back to me:

@intellichick according to earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/re… – no one can touch Cali Diva-ness

The link featured a view similar to the one below —

I think those dots are the West Coast’s collective giggle of Earthquake Diva-ness. In the end though, somehow I think the East Coast will get the last laugh.

-cct