Posted by Jack
Sixth-grader Ruben Martinez wants to hold up posters, pass out flyers and promote a challenge on Facebook he thinks will help his Texas community begin to heal from a devastating shooting that claimed the lives of 22 people and injured 24 others.
He calls it the #ElPasoChallenge.
Here’s how it works: The 11-year-old is challenging each person in El Paso to do 22 good deeds for others — one for each of the victims shot and killed when a white supremacist began firing Saturday inside a Walmart.
You can mow someone’s lawn, visit a nursing home, pay for someone’s lunch or dinner, donate to families in need, write someone a letter and tell them how great they are, hold the door for everyone, take flowers to someone in the hospital or leave a dollar on the vending machine for the next person, the young boy suggests, among other ideas in a list of “kind acts” examples.
I think Ruben has a great idea. It wouldn’t hurt any of us to take a moment, reflect on our life, our giving and our taking. Think about how being kind to others has made us feel and perhaps added just a little bit more to our value as inhabitants of this earth? Our time is short here – we should try to do it right.
Very sweet … but this is more to the point …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dMgEwQYdog
Should the NRA REALLY be able to give a single politician $1.26 million?
Mmmmmm, sausage.
“Randa Ragland opened her mailbox in late July to find a letter from a neighbor, with no return address and no name.
Just words — hurtful ones.
The letter accused Ragland of not caring about her Pinson, Alabama, home.
“Your eyesore is affecting the resale value of OUR homes,” it said. “Do better!!!”
“So many things, bad things, had happened right before I got the letter,” Ragland said. “I just didn’t have the energy to be mad.”
Her husband lost his job. She received some news regarding her health, and her 3-year-old son was battling cancer. Jaxen, who has autism and is nonverbal, was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma just a few days before his third birthday.
Ragland decided to post the letter and Jaxen’s story on Facebook, asking people to “try being kind to your neighbor” and to “say hello to people.”
But she never could have imagined the kindness that came next.
“I just posted what I was feeling at the time,” she said. “I never thought in a million years it would turn into this.”
On Friday, Kimberly Davis Quick received a Facebook notification about what was happening in the community. A friend of hers had shared Ragland’s post.
“I don’t ever usually click those, but God must have been talking to me,” she said. “And I said, ‘Oh, no, not in our community.’ ”
She had never met Ragland, but Quick started a Facebook page in Jaxen’s honor to help organize volunteers and donations.
Ragland’s lawn was mowed. A man with a chainsaw showed up to remove debris from the yard. Others went to the store to pick up supplies for the family. Some pitched in to tidy up her home.
“This is love,” one of the volunteers, Joey Harding, told CNN affiliate WIAT. “This is love for a stranger.”
Just two weeks earlier, on July 25, Harding lost his 6-year-old daughter, LuLu, to the same cancer that Jaxen is fighting. LuLu and Jaxen had gotten to know each other during treatment.
Harding told WIAT that helping another family in need is helping him cope with losing his daughter.
When he arrived at Ragland’s house, he gave her one of the rocks that were like LuLu’s safety blankets. This one was painted green with black hearts and the word “strength.” Ragland burst into tears.
“I told him his baby knew that’s just what I needed right now,” she said.”
This is a very nice idea.
Another nice idea is banning the Nazis.
Chris, we must resist banning things unless it’s absolutely necessary to preserve the peace and protect us from great harm.
If it wasn’t clear, I wasn’t talking about the government banning anything. I am and always have been a strong believer in the first amendment, and I oppose hate speech laws. But social media companies absolutely should ban Nazis from congregating on their sites and spreading messages of hate of the type that motivated and encouraged the El Paso shooter and many others. I also favor companies like YouTube, iTunes and Spotify deplatforming these people, and I encourage boycotts of advertisers for people like Laura Ingraham and Tucker Carlson who who take this message to the mainstream.
Well played, Ruben!!!!!
This is want it should all be about, no matter what city. People helping people.
Hundreds of volunteers clean up trash in west Baltimore:
https://www.wbaltv.com/article/scott-presler-volunteers-cleanup-trash-west-baltimore-president-donald-trump/28611545
“what”
See this?
https://apnews.com/3a6a7fc4a8554e50a91c139b0cdf4818
Now I want to see some uprighteous denizens of Mississippi step up and take those jobs ! … in my dreams … they’ll continue to sit on their opioid-laden asses, collecting myriad varieties of federal aid.
I also want the names of these meat processing facilities. How can we excoriate them for paying shit wages only illegals will work for … if we don’t know their names. Did any of these owners get arrested for employing illegals? It don’t sound like it.
I kinda loath the denizens of Mississippi … and Missouri too. Did you know that there are 2 million fewer people in Missouri than in the SF Bay Area? But it’s just one exhibition of socially unacceptable behavior after another from them people.
https://www.apnews.com/f68478d691414f76adf1d1426ae53e37
https://www.apnews.com/a5d95e8fb2da4d2dbd0cb44f9cb82d99
https://www.apnews.com/7e9a2b78c31c4a5d9cb868a0c3e0814f
And is this scuzzy, or what !
https://www.apnews.com/e6521dae78044528b3d084494445bcce
Australia? Looks like bald-assed graft to me. And that’s only one week’s worth!
I rant, I know.
Did any of these owners get arrested for employing illegals? It don’t sound like it.
What do you think the motive is for targeting the workers who are just trying to find a better life for themselves, rather than the business owners and corporations that exploit them?
And shit, Missouri has two Senators !!!
The SF Bay Area should have two Senators !!!
I don’t seem to have calmed down at all.
Libby, the comical part is you criticize Missouri as a terrible state, but Missouri kids beat CA for the highest median SAT score, 1262 v. 1076. CA is becoming a very stupid state. CA also ranks among the worst states for student assaults on teachers, CA is becoming a dangerous states for kids and teachers. CA also ranked California ranked 51st for teacher-to-pupil ratio…overcrowded schools. Missouri also had a higher per capita ratio for attracting new businesses than CA and beat the national average too. CA has been hemorrhaging businesses. This might explain why Missouri beat CA in unemployed folks, CA had 7.4% and they had 6.5% according to CNN. The median priced home in Mo. is $196k, in CA is $550K…not too affordable is it? This is taking up too much of my time to research, but do you see why enlightened people are NOT real happy with the direction CA is going thanks to liberal management? No? I didn’t think so. But, some day I pray that you will and I hope I am still around to see it.
CNN’s Oliver Darcy had some fun writing this:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/08/media/tucker-carlson-vacation-reliable-sources/index.html
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/07/iraqi-man-dies-deportation-trump-administration-1643512
Proud to be an American, are you?
I’m not.