Slacktivism

A week or two ago, a meme went around facebook where people would change their picture to that of a cartoon character and set their status to something urging others to do the same. This was supposed to be some sort of campaign against child abuse. But not once in any of the statuses that I saw was there any explanation of exactly how changing your facebook picture would have the slightest impact on this problem. Is some scumbag out there going to see all these pictures of cartoon characters on facebook and decide not to beat their child that evening because of it? Call me pessimistic, but I don't think so. Some may say that it was to "raise awareness". Who doesn't already know about child abuse? Other than the abusers themselves, who doesn't already think it's a terrible thing? Whose awareness are you trying to raise?

I'm not trying to be negative here and say that this is a problem that we can't solve so let's just do nothing. I'm not saying that people who do this are idiots. And there's certainly no harm in changing your facebook picture. But anyone who believes that this type of "campaign" will have any effect on anything is delusional. This is just another form of slacktivism, where people think they can cause real change in the world without actually doing any work.

This has come up on both facebook and twitter many times over the last few years: Copy this line to your facebook status if you know anyone who's died from cancer. Black out your twitter picture to protest a proposed copyright law in New Zealand. Join this group to protest <cause of the day>. Sign this internet petition to protest high taxes. Could the government look at an internet petition with several thousand "signatures" on it and rethink their budget because of it? Not bloody likely, but I guess it's theoretically possible. But how is changing your facebook status to "I know someone who died of cancer" going to change anything? And quite frankly, who doesn't know someone who's died of cancer?

Every couple of years there's the "gas-out" where everyone is supposed to not buy gas on a particular day (sometimes from a particular gas company) to protest high gas prices. This is not quite the same thing, in that people are doing something real, but nobody considers the fact that if Wednesday is the gas-out day and you were going to buy gas that day, then you'd have to buy it on Tuesday or Thursday instead. Even if they sold no gas on the gas-out day, the total demand over the course of the week would be the same as usual, and so there might be some momentary blip in gas prices but nothing long-term. This is proven by the past few gas-outs, where gas prices drop by a few cents on the day of, only to rise back to normal a day or two later.

Another form of slacktivism is the "ribbon" magnets people put on their cars. Many of them are for some medical condition or another (again, "let's raise awareness for cancer" – who doesn't know about cancer?), but some simply say "support the troops". These ones confuse me too. Originally I assumed they meant that the person was in favour of the fighting in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc., i.e. they support the war and agree with those who decided to send the soldiers overseas. But later I heard that even if you don't support the reason the American and Canadian troops are fighting, you should display these magnets to say you support the soldiers themselves. This makes no sense. Saying that you support the war is a political statement that many agree with and many do not, and some may feel strongly enough about their position that they want to broadcast it to the world. But agree or disagree with the war itself, who doesn't support the soldiers? What's the alternative – hope they die? Why do you need to put something on your car that says "I hope the soldiers overseas are not killed!"

Now as I talk about ribbon magnets, I should say for the record that I do have a magnet on my car. It's shaped like a banner and it says "Transplants save lives". I've written before about a little girl we know who had four organs transplanted in 1997 at the age of six months. This surgery saved her life, and she will be 14 years old in a couple of months. This magnet could be considered slacktivism as well, but I argue that it's not. In order to do something real to help cure cancer, you'd have to be a doctor or scientist or both. You can certainly give money to the Cancer Society (or the CNIB or the Diabetes Association or whatever); I do it myself and I will never argue that it's a bad thing. But all you need to do to support organ donation is sign your organ donor card, which takes almost no effort and costs nothing. I've done it, my wife has done it, many of my friends have done it, and if something terrible should happen to one of us and the organs are needed, just signing the card has saved someone's life. Not to take anything away from donating money, but donating organs can have a much more direct impact. If the magnet on my car reminds someone to sign their organ donor card, it will have served its purpose.

If you want to effect real change, get off your ass and get out there and do something real, or at least donate money to someone else who's doing something real. There are lots of charity walks, runs, and bike races, not to mention car washes, barbecues, and even 50-50 draws and raffles. Hell, I grew a moustache in Movember, which took almost no effort on my part, but it raised a coupla hundred bucks for prostate cancer research. That's about as close as you can get to doing something good with no work and no cost. Though come to think of it, I did change my facebook picture as part of it.

PMH 5K Run 2009

Last year, I participated in my first 5k run, and almost killed myself doing it. This year, I decided not to let that happen again, so I've been training since July. As a result, not only did I feel fine the day of and the day after the race, but I beat my time from last year by almost five minutes. I finished 5km in 27 minutes 18.5 seconds, a pace of 5'50"/km. I was the 458th person (out of 2552) to cross the finish line, though that's misleading because some people that finished ahead of me may have had a slower overall time. Unfortunately, that's the way they order the finishers, so in terms of absolute time, I don't know where I placed. I was 284th out of 930 men. They originally listed me as "Male under 24", so my ranking there is meaningless as well, but doing the math myself, 25 out of 87 men in the 40-45 group finished with faster times than mine (one beat me by over ten minutes). These numbers assume that most people are listed in the right groups, though Nicky and both of my parents were also in the wrong groups, so who knows. I've emailed the people who do the stats, and they have already replied saying they can fix them, so I'll check again before I post this and see if it's been updated. Update from next morning: They've moved me over to the right group, but some other things must have changed too, because now I'm ranked 30th out of 88 men 40-45. Whatever.

It turns out that I wasn't training quite as thoroughly for this race as I thought I was. I used my Nike+ iPod and it decided that the route was 5.49 km. Since I finished in 27'18", that gave me a pace of 4'58". I'm assuming the route was actually 5 km even, so I guess my iPod measures a bit long. It looks like those runs I did that were reported as 5.2 km weren't even five and the 4.4's were probably about four. The iPod reported after the race (with a message from Lance Armstrong!) that this was my longest workout to date, which means that none of the runs I did in practice was as long as the real race. Apparently the iPod gives you the ability to recalibrate it, so right after the race I should have selected "Calibrate" and then told it that I had just run 5.0 km, but it's too late now. Sometime in the near future, I'll have to drive around the block and measure exactly how long it is, and then run it and do the recalibration. Regardless, it was close enough that it didn't really matter. I wasn't in pain at the end of the race – I even had enough left in the tank to increase my pace (not quite sprint, but I definitely ran faster) over the last 50 metres or so.

This year Ryan and Nicky joined in the fun as well (Gail was away at a scrapbooking weekend). They walked the course with my parents and finished in about an hour. They seemed pretty excited about being part of the team, and having special t-shirts, and the sensor on their shoe, and especially getting a medal at the end (Nicky said that the 5K on the medal means that it was 5 karat gold).

To all of those who sponsored me, a huge Thank You! I raised over $300 myself, and our team raised over $3000 for gynecological cancer research at PMH.

Help make cancer history

In October of last year, I participated in the 5K Your Way run, part of the Toronto Marathon, to raise money for cancer research at Princess Margaret hospital. Princess Margaret was where my sister Trudy went for her cancer surgery last year, and thanks to their early diagnosis and subsequent surgery, she is now cancer-free. Obviously this is a very important cause for me, so once again I'm looking for donations for this year's event. Last year, our team raised over $6000, of which I personally raised $480. My goal for this year is to surpass both the amount we raised and to beat my running time from last year. I have been training most of the summer, so I should be able to run the 5k race and climb up and down a set of stairs on the same day.

Any donation you can make is very much appreciated. Click here to visit my personal page where you can sponsor me. Don't forget to click "Go To Team Page" above the lovely picture of me and Trudy and check out the list of team members and a picture of all of us from last year's run – you can even sponsor my kids or Trudy directly if you'd prefer.

To those who do sponsor me and those have done so already, thank you very much for helping Princess Margaret hospital in their quest to eliminate cancer in our lifetime.

RFD: Request for Donations

Earlier this year, my sister Trudy was diagnosed (at age 36) with both ovarian and uterine cancer. Luckily, she was diagnosed early and is now cancer-free, thanks to the gynecological cancer team at Princess Margaret hospital in Toronto. But not everyone is so lucky. With these types of cancers, there are frequently no symptoms until the later stages, which means that early detection is critical.

On October 19, we are participating in "5K Your Way", a 5 km run/walk as part of the Toronto Marathon. Trudy has enjoyed running for years, and when she heard about this event, she made it her goal to be healthy enough to participate and help raise money for Princess Margaret hospital. She has achieved that goal and will be running, and I will be running with her (well, I'll be participating with her, though I may not be running the whole way with her!). All of the money that we raise will go to gynecological cancer research at Princess Margaret hospital.

Please help make a difference and help us raise money for life-saving cancer research. You can donate online here, and as a bonus, you get to see a very cute picture of me and Trudy when we were kids.

Thanks for your support!

Stanley Cup Champion Ducks

...boy does that sounds weird. So I ended up 11 for 15 in my NHL playoff picks. As I said before, I wouldn't call Ottawa's defeat "choking" - in previous years, they've had great regular seasons and then lost to inferior teams in the playoffs, while this year, they beat the inferior teams (and you could even argue that Buffalo wasn't) and then simply lost to a better team. Can't fault them too much for that, though the fact that Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley are now appearing on milk cartons all over the National Capital Region certainly didn't help them.

We did the Walk for Miracles this morning. It was indeed 5km, same as the Run for the Cure, but was a little more leisurely, and seemed less hectic. However, the main reason for that was the fact that there were way less people there. I don't remember the actual numbers, but I think the Run for the Cure has something like thirty thousand people walking through the closed streets of downtown Burlington. Today, there were a maybe a couple of thousand walking along sidewalks through downtown London. No streets were closed; actually, I don't think the path they chose even crossed any streets. Anyway, both boys walked the whole way (no wagon!), so I was pretty impressed with that. We had lots of fun, and will probably do it again next year.

Edited to add: Here are a couple of pictures from last year's Walk for Miracles. There are three pictures from London — the little girl cutting the ribbon is Sarah, and her mom Cindy is helping.

Wal-Mart Walk for Miracles

This coming weekend, the four of us are walking in the Wal-Mart Walk for Miracles in London, Ontario. The walk will raise money for the Children's Hospital in London. As some of you may know, our friend Sarah had multi-organ transplant surgery there in August of 1997 at the age of six months, and is now a happy and healthy ten-year-old. We are walking with Sarah, her mother, and a bunch of other friends and family. We would like to help the Children's Hospital continue the wonderful work that they do.

If you would like to sponsor us, please go to the team page. Any donations are very much appreciated. To be honest, I have no idea how long of a walk it is - 2km, 5km, 10km, ... but however long it is, that's how long we're walking. The next step is to convince the kids to walk, and not ride in the wagon like the Run for the Cure last year.

Golf tournament

I played in the Deiter's Love Memorial Golf Tournament this past weekend in Strathroy (west of London). I played in it last year as well, and also designed and built the website. The tournament is in memory of Deiter Rombouts, who was born prematurely and needed a liver and bowel transplant, and possibly a stomach and pancreas transplant as well. Deiter passed away at the age of six months while still on the transplant waiting list. These are the same four organs that our friend Sarah received when she was six months old, and that was over nine years ago. While Sarah was in the hospital in London for one of her many surgeries, her mom Cindy met Deiter's parents (Stacy and John) and became friends, and we met them through Cindy. Stacy and John started running this golf tournament and silent auction to raise money and awareness for organ donation, and I am proud to be part of it. <blatant plug>I've signed my organ donation card -- have you?</blatant plug>

I played with my friends Steve, Jeff, and Doug, and we finished the day with a 2 under par 69. I got to use my new driver, and actually hit it pretty well a couple of times. One of those times, I hit it too far, and we used Steve's drive (it's a best-ball tournament) because it was further back and gave us a better shot at the green. (Of course, he used a 5-iron, and I only outdrove him with my big-ass driver by about 30 yards, but still.) The winning team shot 10 under, so we didn't come close to winning (not that we expected to), but we had fun.

Didn't buy anything at the auction this year. I bid on a few items (Tiger-Cat tickets, some outdoor speakers for my dad, and I can't remember what else), but was outbid on all of them. Not true - I actually bid on and won a little green ribbon (for organ donation) charm for Gail, but found out later that she already had one. Silly mistake, but not very expensive ($10), and Gail said it was a very sweet thing to do, so it won me some husband points. Gail got a couple of crafty things, and the boys each got some toys. I bid on and won a putter last year, but I haven't touched it since, since I like the putter I have. I should have called Stacy and donated it back so they could auction it off again this year, but I didn't think about it until a day or two before the tournament. I'll probably donate it to the school silent auction in February.

Coincidence of the week: At last year's tournament, I bought one of those bracelets that everyone is wearing (like the Livestrong ones). This one was green and said "Donate Life". I didn't wear it much during the winter, but other than that, I've worn it almost every day since. I wore it again at the golf tournament, and then when taking it off yesterday, the day after this year's tournament, it broke.

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The Figster and Runnin' for the Cure

Had a bit of a scary day on Friday. I went to the dentist in the morning and when I came back, my cat Figaro was sitting on the kitchen chair, looking at me. I noticed that his ears and nose seemed a little yellow, instead of the usual pink. Upon closer inspection, I found that they were quite yellow, as were his nose, lips, and the whites of his eyes. Gail and I had noticed the day before that he hadn't been himself for a day or two. I immediately called the vet and brought him in. She examined him and told me that he had liver disease. She said that most of the time, this is caused by cats simply not eating. After a while, their body starts to process their body fat, and sometimes the liver gets overwhelmed and shuts down. Then this causes nausea, which makes the cat even less likely to eat, so the whole thing spirals. He's lost a pound (i.e. 10% of his body weight) since his last checkup a month ago (at which time he seemed in perfect health). She told me that they'd have to keep him there for the weekend.

The type of liver disease that she thinks he has is very treatable - as long as he starts eating again, his liver will start to regenerate itself, and he'll be fine. They started him on anti-nausea medication, and managed to get him to eat something, though he threw everything up Friday night. We went to see him Saturday morning, and he did seem a little less yellow, and a little less lethargic as well. We tried to go again Saturday afternoon, but they were just starting a procedure on a dog, so we couldn't go through to where Figgy was, and they were about to close. The doctor called me a little while later, saying that he hadn't thrown up all day, and was eating some more, and was even more bright than the morning, so this is good news. We heard nothing today (vet's office was closed)- she's going to call with an update tomorrow, and hopefully he can come home.

Figgy's been with Gail and I almost as long as we've been together -- we started dating in February of 1992, and we found Fig (he was a stray) in November of '92. I know that he's not going to live forever, and I know that at 14, he's already lived longer than most house cats. If anything were to happen, Nicholas is too young to understand, and likely won't remember Fig for long, but Ryan seemed genuinely upset on Saturday, and said a number of times that he hopes Figgy gets better. Gail would be devastated, and I'm not sure I'd be much better. C'mon, Figster, you can beat this.

On another topic, we all walked in the CIBC Run for the Cure this morning. It's a 5k run/walk to raise money for breast cancer research. My mother and Gail's mother are both breast cancer survivors, as was Gail's late grandmother, so this is a cause that's important to us. We raised $325 ourselves, and the event, held at over 40 different locations across Canada, raised over $21 million. Last year, the four of us plus my parents walked the 2k leg, but we decided to walk the full 5k this year. We knew the boys wouldn't walk the full 5k, so we brought the wagon -- good thing too, since they both stayed in the wagon the entire walk. Gail and I split pulling the wagon, so we each walked 5k, 2 1/2 of which was pulling a wagon holding 80 pounds of Perrow kids.

Deiter's Love Golf Tournament

I played in the Deiter's Love Golf Tournament this past weekend - this is the one that I'm doing the web site for. There were well over 100 golfers, so it was by far the largest tournament I've been in. I was in a group with my friends Jeff, Steve, and Doug, all of whom are better golfers than I am - though Jeff hasn't golfed much in the past few years, so his game has dropped off a little. I couldn't hit anything off the tee most of the day, but my short game and putting were pretty good. I did come within about an inch of a natural birdie on a par 4 -- we used my tee shot, then my chip pitch onto the green (I learned the difference between a chip and a pitch as well), and then I almost sank the birdie putt. Luckily, someone else sank the putt, and we birdie'd the hole. We played pretty well overall - no bogies at all, and four birdies, so we ended up 4 under, which was good enough for 5th overall. Note that this is the 5th best score overall - there were at least 4 teams with lower scores than us. Could be that 5 teams tied at 5 under, putting us 9th, not 5th.

After the tournament, there was a dinner and a silent auction of hundreds of items ranging from toys to gift baskets, golf equipment to crafty things. There was even a big bag of dog food and a can of ceiling paint. My friend Wendy got the ceiling paint - doesn't seem that exciting, but she paid less than half of what she would have at a store. Hey, if you need it anyway, may as well.

I bought a couple of things at the auction - a putter and dozen golf balls for about $55 (the golf balls are normally about $25, so I got a pretty nice putter for $30), and a picnic set, which consists of a big cooler bag, and another bag (that attaches to the first one) containing plastic plates, cups, cutlery, a little cutting board and bread knife, and some other stuff. Not bad for about $50.

I'm not really sure why I decided to bid on the putter - maybe just because I golf left-handed, and it was a lefty putter. The thing is, I already have a pretty good putter, which I'm perfectly happy with (used it to sink a long nasty putt on our last hole, thankyouverymuch). I'm probably done golfing for this year, so I'll have to wait until next spring to figure out which putter to use.

Win some, lose some

I've abandoned my www.stelcoball.com web site - the one for my Wednesday night baseball league. The convener wouldn't give me updated rosters or game results, so the site is hopelessly out of date, and almost nobody in the league was looking at it, so I dumped it.

Then this week, I offered to build a new web site for my friends Stacy and John, who are running a golf tournament in memory of their son Deiter, who died at the age of six months while waiting for a bowel and liver transplant. This is almost the same transplant as our friend Sarah had when she was six months old. Sarah is now a happy and healthy eight-year-old, who's in the Guiness Book of Records, as the youngest ever multi-organ transplant recipient. Anyway, I'm playing in the golf tournament in September, and I suggested to Stacy that I could create a web site for the tournament. She said that they already have one, but it's out-of-date, and she would be happy to let me build a new one. I've already done a prototype site that looks very similar to the old site, and Stacy's going to get me some pictures of Deiter to put up, and possibly some pictures from previous tournaments (this is the third one, I think).

Important note: If you haven't signed your organ donor card, please make sure you do! There's absolutely no downside, and you could save more than one life.