House of Eratosthenes

Last night, as I sat in the comfort of my living room, watching the news and obsessively checking my Twitter homepage for the latest developments, I felt completely helpless. I cried, and then I did the only thing I could do…I wrote a check to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF for $50,000. But I woke up this morning feeling that this wasn’t enough. As I sat in my bed trying to brainstorm how to raise more money…I turned to Twitter and tweeted the following:

*TWEET CHALLENGE* I just donated $50,000 to UNICEF for #Haiti relief. Which corporation will match my donation?

So… it’s on! I challenge any corporation to match my $50,000 donation to the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. 100% of every dollar will go directly to supplies that include tarpaulins, water-purification tablets, oral rehydration salts, family water kits, medical supplies, medical kits, food, shelter, and protection.

Who is up to this challenge? Will someone help me help the victims of this catastrophe?

Back last month, during her birthday, we noticed she was spinning away on the “Prove I’m a Good Person” cycle like a crazy obsessive-compulsive hamster.

This is a little bit worse than that, I think. You don’t have to study Ms. Milano very long to figure out that, if & when XYZ Corporation steps up and says “Why, we will do that Alyssa Milano! Here’s a check!” — there will be no gratitude, there will be no tweets about how XYZ Corp. is a swell bunch of guys, she takes back all the vile things she’s ever said about corporations…blah blah blah. There will be none of that. There’s no way they can win here. Now imagine yourself as some old guy with enough money to his name to live comfortably, with a spoiled rotten brat like Alyssa Milano as your niece “challenging” you to do this or that. Just to prove what a good-hearted adorable pixie she is, and what a towering asshole you are. No way to win. How quickly would that get old?

Corporations did nothing to cause the disaster. And yet here’s Alyssa Milano making them into the villain of the drama anyway. Why is that? We know she’s an Obama supporter now…or was…did she push for Hillary Clinton back in the early days? Because this is exactly the same way of thinking things out: Horrible story, it doesn’t have a bad guy anywhere in it, so I’ll manufacture one so I can point my finger and do some blaming.

You know what America really needs more than anything else? It needs some people who are ready, willing and able to do good things like donate Alyssa Milano’s $50,000…or $500…or less than that, because they’re donating whatever they can afford to donate…and not say a word about it. Yeah, I know, you can’t harness the power of “The Wave” without tweeting, or doing something like that. So maybe her heart is in the right place. But I kind of doubt it because when I see people working really hard to prove they’re good people, I immediately get suspicious. Can’t point to any one event that made me that way. I’ve just reacted that way, more and more, each year I’ve been on the planet. Comes from living real life and watching real people. When people need the validation from strangers that they’re decent, I just have to wonder what’s going on to keep this confirmation from coming from within.

Alyssa Milano is now a two-time offender in this department — and it seems to be what she’s all about. I just can’t help but wonder what she did that arouses this need for others to say “Alyssa Milano, she’s a swell cookie.” Why’s she feel so guilty? What’s she hiding? Yes, I’m deadly serious; not being funny.

I realize, also, that we might very well be up to our armpits in anonymous, quiet, life-saving donors. By definition, they are people about whom I cannot learn. But things like Milano-tweets of this sort, fill me with a dread that perhaps they’re not there after all. That maybe America is going through a phase in which, while we might be doing good things left & right, it’s all to recoup some of this validation-from-strangers — it’s all for show. And this is an idea I find to be awful. I recoil from the notion that this is a very real possibility, for if it is true, then the eventual results of such a condition cannot possibly be good.

Consider this to be my challenge to spoiled, vapid Hollywood celebrities to donate to worthy organizations for relief for Haiti — and not utter a single syllable about it. To anyone. Because, unlike Alyssa Milano, I’m genuinely curious about whether my challenge can be met. And if it were possible for me to get an answer to that (it isn’t possible, of course, by the very nature of the question) it would truly and immediately impact my opinion, for the duration, either way, positive or negative. No, I haven’t made up my mind on whether they got it in ’em or not, and yes, I’d really like to know.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Update: This CNN link provides several ways to help out Haiti. Use ’em if you have the means to do so, and don’t tell me about it.

If a celebrity made a donation and didn’t tell anyone about it, how would we know that had happened? The challenge is self-defeating.
- cylarz | 01/18/2010 @ 12:40
Yes, and I acknowledged this…

“Shut up and act,” I guess, would be the only adequate way to meet the challenge. After all, 99% of us manage to limp on from one day to the next, with no means whatsoever to broadcast to millions of strangers what wonderful people we are. We somehow manage to survive it, so the remaining 1% can perhaps learn a lesson there.
- mkfreeberg | 01/18/2010 @ 16:51
[…] has a report that ought to cause some measure of distress to Alyssa Milano: Outside of trying to destroy Israel and bring down Western civilization in general, is there […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 02/13/2010 @ 09:45

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Alyssa Milano’s Challenge to CorporationsSunday, January 17th, 2010

Alyssa Milano’s Challenge to Corporations
Sunday, January 17th, 2010