It’s been awhile since my last post regarding some idiotic event happening in our crumbling society, however, this post brings some hope for the less fortunate.

Five Days for the Homeless is a charity campaign founded in 2005 by students from the School of Business at the University of Alberta. It is a 5 day campaign in which university students live “homeless” on their campus and make personal sacrifices to raise money and awareness for a local charity (http://www.5days.ca/).

So I have this friend, his name is Matt Paulino. He’s a 3rd year Sociology student at Brock University, and he’s taken it upon himself to start his own 5 day campaign. He’s raising money for Community Care (in St.Kitt’s). You can read  the full story from the Brock University Press by clicking the link.

Now I’d like to introduce you to Matt’s beard. He’s been growing this masterpiece since July. I’ve seen it in person, it’s actually pretty sweet! Here, let me show you…

At the end of his campaign, provided he raises all his funds, Matt will be saying goodbye to this beaut.

Friends, that’s where you can lend a hand.

I’ve created this post to ask all of you for your help. In reality, homelessness can happen to anyone at any time, regardless of the money you make or the house you own. All it takes is a series of unfortunate events to turn a single life upside down. Just put yourself in the shoes of someone who doesn’t have a fancy smartphone, a fridge full of food or a warm bed to come home to at the end of the day.

And as you are all well aware, we can not simply rely on the government to help it’s own people -it’s not accustomed to do so. I know post-Christmas is one of the toughest times of the year, but if you needed help wouldn’t you want to have somebody there to answer your prayers?

If you’d like to help Matt’s cause by making a donation be sure to get in contact with myself, and I’ll be sure his donation box gets fed.

Like Gandhi said, you must be the change you want to see in the world.

**And yes, I totally used the picture from the article, thanks Brock Press.

If you’ve watched the news or read a paper you will have realized the latest trend is a sad and unfortunate series of events.

Teen suicide has been dominating the headlines in large numbers over the past year, more so in the last few months.

Christopher Howell

Jamie Hubley

Jamey Rodemeyer

Marjorie Raymond

These are just four of the names that should never have made the papers, four names that would have benefited from the work now being done to aid those feeling the pressures of being bullied.

The Ontario government has an anti-bullying legislation in the works that could see bullies expelled from schools –instead of a simple suspension.  But is that enough to tame the courtyard bullies? What will it take to make a point that states loud and clear “words hurt like knives”?

It’s been preached before and it’ll be preached until concrete evidence proves that what’s being done is actually helping this new epidemic of teen suicide.

The Toronto Star writes:

“Across Ontario, the number of deaths by suicide in those 19 and younger remains relatively constant at 60 per cent. The coroners office believes the total is under reported by as much as 33 percent“

Plain and simple, this shit needs to stop.

The Toronto Star has started a series that examines the lives of people who have not only contemplated the idea, but who also tried. The concept of the series is to share the success of these individuals after being stuck in a dark part of their lives.

The message: it gets better.

In an October episode of the Mercer Report, Canadian comedian Rick Mercer used the rant portion to speak to bullying. He says it’s not enough to just tell young people who are bullied that it will get better; we have to actually make it better.

Truth.

So we have a proposed bill and inspirational stories from big media outlets. What about an inspirational video from a teen who actually spent a portion of his life being bullied?

Jonah Mowry.

Four months ago this young man released a video expressing his feelings, telling the story of how dark his life has been. Take the time to watch it.

Pulls at your heart strings, doesn’t it? It’s also a positive message for those thinking of suicide, thinking it’s the only way out, the only way to make it stop. Advocacy for those who think there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

But recently a video went viral with a happier, smiling Jonah saying his school loves him – it wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the obnoxious gum chewing – take a look.

Before you jump to conclusions, understand that Jonah Mowry didn’t lie. He clearly makes a point of mentioning that his other video was posted 4 months ago. Since that video, his life has gotten better – people don’t hate him so much… well at least they didn’t.

The irony to this all, is that people are now bullying him again. They say they’ve lost all respect that he’s a liar and his first video was fake.

So what if it was. Regardless of the nature, Jonah brings up an issue that obviously needs to be addressed. Instead of judging because you think it’s fake, read between the lines and begin to understand the real issue at hand.

Teen suicide is on the rise, and shows no sign of slowing down.

If we as a society don’t start better controlling the bullying that’s plaguing our youth we will continue to see our youth fall into dark places, and continue to watch them disappear.

It’s not hard to be accepting, people should try it sometime.

I was mindlessly checking my Facebook feed this afternoon and I came across a post from TMZ, and to no surprise it was about Justin Bieber.

The latest buzz on this young lad is that he may or may not be the father of a potential crazed fan’s child.  She claims that at one of his shows in California she had sex with the then 16 year-old Canadian singer and demands a paternity test.

Your good friend JB has replied and said he’ll do one once he returns to the United States (because apparently he’s too busy singing mushy love songs to European teeny boppers).

Now usually, I just roll my eyes and come up with some sarcastic remark about celebrities and the people they choose to be, HOWEVER, there was a comment at the end of the story that just took me to the edge of the mountain and throw me over.

“Sources say Bieber and his team think it’s important to file a lawsuit against Yeater to show there are consequences when somebody trumps up phony, hurtful allegations against a celebrity.”

OH REALLY?

But if it were against us common folk, it would be okay? Or are you saying that nobody would care?

Well let me tell you and your team something Mr. Bieber, you are an over-rated pop star whose crappy music is out of control. A person like me, whose life doesn’t revolve around celebrity on-goings doesn’t care about you or potential love-child. Furthermore, just because you’re a celebrity doesn’t mean that you somehow have more rights than a normal 17 year-old teenager. Shit happens, people tell lies, and people get hurt. Man up. Being a celebrity means that you have more money than everyone else, not that a lie is more hurtful because your girlish face is plastered everywhere.

Common folk hurt too, but you don’t see them racing to the courts every time someone tells a lie about them.

And to Ms. Yeater, you have to be one of the dumbest people living in America. You do realize that after coming out and claiming you had sex with the Biebs you incriminated yourself, don’t you? It’s called statutory rape. My friends and I looked it up, in California the age of consent is 18, with a misdemeanor if the minor has 3 or fewer years of difference with the major – Biebs was 16, you were 19, that’s three years. Didn’t think that one through, did you?

On another note,
Dear Occupy Wall Street protestors,

If you want to occupy something because of greed and ridiculous spending, Occupy Beverly Hills.

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but celebrities (and athletes) are the worst with spending and equal rights.

For instance, Kim Kardashian.

Ten weeks ago the woman had a $10 million dollar wedding and is now getting divorced (not to mention she made $18 million because it was broadcasted on television).

Seriously?

Do you know how many starving families in the United States that could have fed? How many more homeless shelters that could have been built in Canada? How many schools in Africa that could have built? How much more a Chinese labour could have made?

Of course she doesn’t.

She, like many other celebrities don’t know the value of a dollar, or why there is so much anger around the world because of money.
The difference between businessmen on Wall Street and celebrities in Beverly Hills is that the businessmen actually worked hard for their money.  They actually had to do more than memorize lines for a movie or have a big ass and reality show.

People wonder where all the money in the world is, well if you look in the bank accounts of celebrities and athletes, you’ll find it.

No celebrity is worth $20 million a movie, and no athlete is worth $98 million over seven seasons.

Believe me, that money is better spent on something that’ll actually make a difference in someone’s life.

Just sayin’.

Pdots. I have more to rant about when it comes to celebrities, but I prefer to spend the rest of my day thinking about things that actually matter.

Mr. Hyde can retreat to whatever hole he crawled out of, and you can move on. Be happy. You did it.

I’ve been around for many worldly events (Katrina, Japan, the World Trade Centres, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami -not so much in that order), but I had never had the feeling that it was the end  of the world.

Now if you’re thinking I actually thought that, you can just hang your head in shame. Oopsch, on you my friend.

Moving on.

Here’s that feeling described:

You walk into a room full of BlackBerry users the morning after BBM stops working. They’re all like “oh, yours isn’t working either? Good, that means nothing’s wrong with my phone”, “oh my god, Blackberry is so stupid “and “ugh, I should have gotten an iPhone”.

If you look at them like they’re technology crazed zombies they’ll look at you like you need to be committed because you couldn’t give a rat’s ass that your little sister can’t send you PING!!!s every 12 seconds.

Believe me; I’m sure there are other ways you could talk to whomever you need to talk too. Correct me if I’m wrong, but people with a BBM pin generally have a phone number too.

Look at that, you’ve learned something new today. You’re on a roll.

There’s also Facebook, or Twitter, or a face to face conversation?

Our world is so consumed by technology then when something of such disastrous epic proportions (<- hyperbole) like RIM having technical difficulties, we treat it like Y2K.

The 6pm news has the latest updates, exaggerating the problem, scaring the old people, newspapers write articles that explain why the CEO hasn’t figured out how to save the world yet, Apple users flood Facebook with page long statuses about why the iPhone 12 has got to be God’s gift to technology, and the Blackberry users, oh those poor users. They huff and puff, swear, spit, cry, turn the WiFi on and off and even remember to take out the battery. But still those poor bastards are left with a Blackberry with a less than working BBM (by the way, BBM stands for Blackberry Messenger).

But, I assure you the world is not going to end. It never was.

It’s technology. It’s not perfect or reliable. And if you think about it, by fixing the problem, they’re bettering the server, making it more reliable than before. So when you upgrade to a Blackberry Star you’ll have a BBM that’ll never jeopardize your life again.

Seriously though, just get over it. If your social life is dependent on the working status of BBM then you really need to get out more. Like a lot more.

And believe me iPhone users, your time will come. Apple is not perfect and Steve Jobs was not God (May that poor man’s soul rest in peace). I’ll bet you a pretty penny your iPhone 23 is going to have a glitch. Sooner or later.

And to my fellow BBMer’s, please stop with the broadcasts, they’re not in any way truthful.

This is the real broadcast from BlackBerry© All rights reserved. Broadcast this message to every single contact on your BBM© We need our active users to re-send this message to everyone on your contact list in order to confirm our active users that use BlackBerry Messenger, if you do not send this message to all your BlackBerry Messenger contacts by 12pm EST tonight then your acount will remain inactive with the consequence of losing all your contacts.

OR

062345877#REP :Broacast this and your BBM will get repaired this is working

OR

RIM has sent out the reactivation broadcast code for proper restoration of BBM. Until this code is broadcasted you may continue  to interruption in RIM related service. Please broadcast to all contacts in order to restore full service, This is as shown: “Code:1337

OR

This is the real broadcast from BlackBerry© All rights reserved. Broadcast this message to every single contact on your BBM© We need our active users to re-send this message to everyone on your contact list in order to confirm our active users that use BlackBerry Messenger, if you do not send this message to all your BlackBerry Messenger contacts by 12pm EST tonight then your acount will remain inactive with the consequence of losing all your contacts.

AND MY PERSONAL FAVOURITE:

Message from Jim Balsamic (CEO of RIM Blackberry) we have had an over usage of user names on Blackberry Messenger. We are requesting all users to forward this message to their entire contact list. If you do not forward this message, we will take it as your account is invalid and it will be deleted within the next 48 hours. Please DO NOT ignore this message or blackberry will no longer recognize your pin. If you wish to re-activate your account after it has been deleted, a charge of $25.00 will be added to your monthly bill. We are also aware of the issue involving the pictures updates not showing. We are working diligently at fixing this problem and it will be up and running as soon as possible. Thank you for your cooperation. **Please do not ignore this message***.

I can’t roll my eyes enough at the people who believe any of this nonsense.

Jim Balsamic is not going to send you an activation code (where would you even put it?), he’s not going to delete all your contacts, he’s not going to charge you $25.00 for anything (I’m sure he’s rich, vinegar is a high selling commodity), and he’s not going to send out stupid chain letters to tell his users how to fix BBM (mostly because he’s not real – or not CEO of RIM at least).

If Jim BALSILLIE was going to tell people how to fix BBM he’d probably do some sort of press conference or release a statement like a normal professional would.

So stop being such gullible morons and push onward my friends! There are PING!!!s to be sent!

They can make you smile, they can make you laugh.

They can break a heart, and they can mend it.

They can save a life, and they can take it away.

Growing up we’re told never to use certain words, most of which fall under the profanity category.

One word, however, stands alone and holds more meaning and more negative emotion than any other word in the English language or any language for that matter.

That word is hate.

Many of us don’t use the word on a regular basis, but we practise the emotion through our actions and through combinations of other words. We see it every day in the news, on playgrounds and in our schools. People experience it at home, on the streets and on the internet.

Hate is a disease that makes people irrational, violent, angry, and just flat out mean.  Hatred is the gateway to violence, murder and war.It comes in all forms ranging from racism to taunting and teasing. But we don’t call it hate, because our society has come up with terms to make actions and words seem a little less hateful.

For example, homophobia is not a legitimate phobia. It’s nothing more than a term coined to make it okay for people to hate other people who don’t follow the bible’s version of love between a man and a woman (It’s interesting that people say you shouldn’t believe everything you read or hear, yet people believe everything the bible says. It’s those people who are incapable of individual thought).

Bullying is not just an action, it’s a term created to disguise actions and words of pure hatred and make them seem like something a little slap on the wrist couldn’t fix.

Gays are bullied, fat people are bullied (J.K Rowling wrote “is fat really the worst thing a human being can be? Is fat worse than vindictive, jealous, shallow, vain, boring, evil or cruel?” –is it?), people with disabilities are bullied (because when we’re born we have the ability to control these things and those people choose to be born with disabilities), people of colour are bullied (it’s called racism, but apparently it doesn’t exist in our society anymore. What’s it like living in world of denial?), hell, people are bullied just because someone doesn’t like how they dress.

Let me ask you this. What difference does it make in your life, if two men or two women choose to get married? How do their actions affect anyone but themselves?

In what world do we have the right to dictate who someone should love, how someone should act and how they choose to live their life?

Why do you think people shoot up schools? Surely it’s not because they had nothing better to do on that given day.

This is what hate does.

On September 8^th of this year, Christopher Howell decided that taking his own life was the only way to get away from bullying.  He was bullied because he was different, because he had Tourette’s and wasn’t “normal” like other people.

He was 17.

Tyler Clementi and Seth Walsh, along with three others decided to end their lives because they were bullied for being gay.

Seth Walsh by the way was only 13.

Try and fix that. Try and hide the fact that our world is fuelled by hate.

My first instinct is to blame parents, because hate is not learned on a playground, it’s not taught in classrooms, it’s taught at home.  Their first instinct is to blame music, television, and video games.

But the reality is people are hateful because they choose to be.

Believers of God often preach that you should treat others the way you want to be treated, but it’s those people who are often the ones pulling people down (sure, this is probably a generalization, but isn’t it the Catholic Church that wants gay marriage to be illegal?)

What about Miss Universe? Didn’t all 59 of them want world peace? Or was deciding who looked better in a bikini more important?

(That point leads me to ask where our priorities lie. We live in a world that is so consumed by looks and materialistic goods that it’s no wonder we are literally swimming in hate)

Instead of choosing to hate why not choose to promote peace and equality? Why not be a leader instead of a follower? Choose to make a difference, choose to stand up for what’s right, instead of doing what’s wrong.

There’s more to life than a person’s sexual orientation, the colour of their skin, their weight, their looks, their normalcy.

So here it is, I’m daring each and every one of you to take a stand, and make a difference in someone’s life. Instead of just watching someone get bullied, be the one who says “stop”.

Instead of making fun of someone, compliment them.

Instead of making someone feel like life is worthless, make them feel like life is worth living.

Make hatred a thing of the past and not a problem in the present.

Make your children’s future a place where hate is obsolete.

Instead of hate, love.

I double dog dare you.

It could save someone’s life.

It could save your life.

“Hatred paralyses life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”

     -Martin Luther King Jr.