Take Care When Interacting with Animals — CMB Post

This was originally posted on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

My deepest sympathies go out to the family and friends of Dawn Brancheau, the trainer who died tragically at Sea World on February 24.

Our family takes this loss to heart, as my husband and stepdaughter both work with animals daily. My husband owns a pet shop with a wide variety of small animals, reptiles, fish and birds.

My step daughter has devoted her life to animals. She had several internships with the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago and at the Dolphin Research Center in Florida. She earned her undergraduate degree in marine mammal biology from the University of Miami and a master's degree in primate conservation from Oxford Brookes University in England. She has worked as an animal trainer at Parrot Jungle in Florida, Great Adventure's Wild Safari in New Jersey, and currently works for the company that contracts the birds of prey show at Disney World's Animal Kingdom.

My husband knows a lot about animals — they are his business. He has been bitten or scratched many times, and some of the injuries have involved emergency room visits. My stepdaughter knows a lot about animals — they are her passion. She has suffered several injuries, including one that required a two-week hospital stay and treatment in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

What I have learned about animals from both my husband and my stepdaughter is that they are first, last and always true to their nature. The mistake we humans make is to anthropomorphize animals to meet our own emotional needs. My stepdaughter, who is practically an animal whisperer, has learned and tries to teach others that we need to respect each species and each individual creature for what it truly is — nothing more, nothing less. It's an important lesson to remember when you bring an animal into your home.

Pets provide rich connections and many learning experiences for families with children, but you should learn everything you can about an animal before purchase or adopt one. Do your research and know the breeder or pet shop owner. Most importantly, never leave small children alone with any animal.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. Susan Bearman is a freelance writer and editor who lives with her family, a dog and a hermit crab in Evanston. She can be found online at www.bearman.us and on her blog, Two Kinds of People.

Photo credit: orcas & humpbacks by Christopher Michel via Flickr creative commons.

Pistachios Should Dump Pitchman Levi Johnston — CMB Post

This post originally appeared on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog:

My children love pistachios. I love them too, although not as much as I did before my kids started leaving Hansel-and-Gretel trails of shells in their wake every time I buy a bag, even though our rule is "no food upstairs."

Last spring, we were sad to have to cross pistachios off our grocery list when the FDA issued a warning of salmonella contamination in certain pistachio products. It seems that the all clear has been sounded and that pistachios processed and packaged after June of last year are again safe to eat. Even though no cases of human illness have been directly connected to the salmonella contamination of pistachios, the industry took a big hit last year.

As a small business owner myself, I can understand the need to do something dramatic to change the image of a product that has been cast in a negative light. I've been doing my part to support pistachio farmers (and keep my kids happy) by buying the tasty little nuts to snack on and pack in school lunches, but now I find I'm going to have to stop, at least for a while, and it's all because of Levi Johnston.

Well, not just Levi. The fault really lies with Lynda Resnik, whose marketing team hired Johnston to shill for Paramount Farms, which grows 60 percent of America's pistachio crop. In case you've been living under a rock, Levi Johnston is one of those famous-for-being-famous celebrities who rose to the top of that dubious heap by knocking up Sarah Palin's teenage daughter, Bristol.

Maybe I've completely lost my sense of humor (as my husband sometimes implies), but I'm no prude. I admit my funny bone is tickled by different things since I became the parent, and that my world view has shifted again since my children became adolescents. I'm concerned about the messages they receive at just the time in their lives when outside influences are making a bigger impact on them than ever before.

The tag line of this tacky ad campaign is: "Now Levi Johnston does it with protection." I can't begin to count the number of ways this seven-word slogan offends me. I don't understand this beleaguered industry's choice to associate their product with a teenage father and Playgirl model, and I don't understand the implication of using protection while eating pistachios. "Get crackin'" is the overarching theme of the ad campaign, so maybe the ad means that if Johnston had been busy crackin' open pistachio shells, he wouldn't have had time to get busy with Bristol.

To me, this ad says: Hey, look kids, if you get a teenage girl pregnant (especially one with a famous mom), you can have a great career as a Playgirl model and a commercial spokesman. Where are the consequences? It used to be that people were shunned by society for these kinds of mistakes. I'm certainly not advocating that, but can't we find something between total excommunication and rewarding bad behavior with lucrative contracts?

Sadly, evidence shows that the new ad campaign has had a positive effect on pistachio sales, which have increased 244 percent since October. Those numbers may drop a bit for a while, though, since I don't think I'll be buying any pistachios while that campaign continues to run. I get the irony that by writing this post, I have both extended Mr. Johnston's 15 minutes of fame and promoted the pistachio industry, but hey, a woman has a right to rant.

Just FYI, you can now follow FDA recalls on Twitter @FDArecalls.

When Susan Bearman isn't busy picking pistachio shells out of the couch cushions, she can be found writing at Two Kinds of People and her writing Website, www.bearman.us. This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post.

Guest Post: 2KoP Writing Challenge Winner

For two years now, I've been telling you all about the two kinds of people who populate my world view. To celebrate the second anniversary of my blog, I issued a writing challenge to my readers to come up with their own Two Kinds of People essay. It was wonderful to read the entries and difficult to choose a winner. Thank you to all who entered and to my panel of judges, who chose a culinary essay by Murray Abramovitch.

The judges felt that Murray's essay best captured the spirit of the 2KoP blog: a solid basic recipe of good writing, seasoned with some interesting facts and quotes, and topped with a great big dollop of humor. (Please note that the opinions expressed are those of the guest author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog or its owner. Also note that Murray is from Canada, and his quirky spellings and those of his countrymen are also not our fault.) Without further ado, please enjoy the winning guest post:

Important Distinction or Just a Truffle?

by Murray Abramovitch

Anything that simplifies life and peels away its many layers of ambiguity has to be a good thing. The two-kinds-of-people exercise, seeing the world in a binary way, is certainly a good thing because it is clarifying; like a rinse, it washes out the grey.

It is important, however, to stick to comparisons that are meaningful and not get caught up in splitting hairs, constantly splicing and dicing and dividing into neat but useless sections the world-at-large.

To this end, I have separated humanity into two very simple but important groups: those who like mushrooms and those who don't. This is a comparison with gravitas.

I am one of the latter group, one who sees a mushroom as a the fleshy, spore-bearing fruity body of a fungus. Mushrooms are part of a noxious family that includes puffballs, stinkhorns and morels. They thrive in the dark, dank and decaying habitats of forest trolls.

The best advice to unsuspecting diners who can't tell a Jack-o-lantern mushroom from a chanterelle is: do not eat a mushroom unless it was collected by a competent mycologist or become a mycologist yourself.

Putting their toxicity aside, mushrooms are fundamentally unattractive, rubbery and without taste unless heavily seasoned or sauteed. Like tofu, they simply take on the flavour of what they are cooked with. Portobello mushrooms in a Madeira wine reduction? Honestly, from where do you think the flavour comes?

Wrote William Alcott, uncle of writer Louisa May: "Strange that mankind should ever have used the mushroom. All the various species of this substance are of a leathery consistence, and contain but little nutriment. The condiments or seasonings which are added are what are chiefly prized. Without these, we should almost as soon eat saw dust as mushrooms."

Voltaire also knew what he was dealing with: "I confess," he wrote, "that my stomach does not take to this style of cooking. I cannot accept calves sweetbreads swimming in a salty sauce … nor the excessive quantity of morels and other mushrooms, pepper, and nutmeg with which (cooks) disguise perfectly good food."

Bottom line: there is no dish containing mushrooms that couldn't be improved by having the mushrooms removed.

At the other end of the gastronomic spectrum is my wife … from a mushroom's lowly perspective, my better half. She positively salivates at the prospect of eating a golden chanterelle, a meaty porcini, an earthy morel. Watching her dine is like seeing the screen debut of Romancing the Funghi. Or better still, a rerun of When Harry Met Sally. You know, the part when Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm to embarrass Billy Crystal in from of the cheap diner crowd and someone says, "I'll have what she's having." I can swear my wife's nostrils flare when she sees mushrooms on her plate … as if someone snuck all that is savory, silk, sexy and decadent into her food.

As for mushrooms being inert ingredients without character, she is one of those who claim that mushrooms "pick up the complexities of other ingredients and add their own meaty, rich and inviting flavour." They add dimension to any dish with their texture and contrast.

I do admit that some of the dishes featuring mushrooms sound enticingly exotic, maybe even Meg Ryan erotic: Morel Fondu; Enoki and Smoked Oysters; Porcini and Eggplant; Truffle Oil and Eggs; Shiitake Fettucini; Crab Imperial Stuffed Portobello; Maitake and Gorgonzola Cheese Penne; Mediterranean Mushroom Brushetta; and for dessert, my favourite sounding concoction — King Trumpet Strudel. But let's face it, any five-star menu will have dishes that are a delight to the ear as their taste is ostensibly to the palate. The truth that gourmands will not admit is that mushrooms are largely interchangeable in recipes.

I cannot be swayed. I am like Diderot who, in L'Encyclopedie wrote: "Whatever dressing on gives to mushrooms, to whatever sauces our Apiciuses put them, they are not really good but to be sent back to the dungheap where they are born."

So there you go: two kinds of people, one destination.

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Murry Abramovitch's short biography, in his own words: "After some 30 years as a marketing and strategic planning executive, I retired to focus on writing, sharing what wit I can muster and what meager wisdom I have gleaned over time. I have two blogs, one literary — The Literarian — and one business — View from the Corner Office. I invite you to visit the sites and trust you will find them both enlightening and entertaining."

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I invite you to leave your comments for Murray by clicking here. Have a mushroom to pick? Pick it with him. If you agree that he falls on the right side of the dung heap in this argument, let him know that, too. Thank you again to those who entered the first ever 2KoP writing challenge and, as always, thanks to my readers.

The Sandwich Generation vs. Semantics — CMB Post

This post originally appeared on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

Last week, I officially joined the Sandwich Generation, a growing group of adults who find themselves caring both for their dependent children and their aging parents. For my husband and me, it happened rather suddenly when my mother-in-law's planned two-day hospital stay for sciatica surgery turned into five days in the hospital, an indeterminate time at a rehabilitation center and the need to go home with at least a part-time caregiver. Can you say "unprepared"? Because that's what we were — totally unprepared.

We shouldn't have been, because the woman is 80 years old. Granted, she is in generally great health and has always been fit, but 80 is 80. When someone cuts into your spine when you're 80 years old, you tend not to bounce back as quickly as you used to, a fact we all should have considered before the surgery. Our bad, as my sons say.

On the other hand, I have two high schoolers and two middle schoolers at home, so we have a long way to go before emancipation from daily parenting responsibilities. In addition, one of my twins, who is now 18, has some learning issues. His sister has applied to college for the fall, but we have no idea yet what his next step should or will be.

So if we are sandwich fixin's, what do we call the side-order of angst that was served up yesterday by my pediatrician's office. When I called to the have the aforementioned high-school son's prescription refilled and to make an appointment for a physical, the receptionist told me: "I'm sorry, but I can't do that. Your son is 18 and you can no longer make appointments for him. In fact, I cannot discuss him with you at all."

Say what?

This is a boy who can't find his socks in the morning. This is a boy with a short-term memory deficit and a sequencing disorder. This is a boy still catching up from the trauma of being born 16 weeks prematurely at a pound and half. He didn't walk until he was two; he didn't talk until he was four; he didn't eat or grow until we put him on growth hormone. But suddenly, because of a date on a calendar, he is supposed to be completely in charge of his own health care. How about a grace period? True, his birthday was November 17, but his due date wasn't until March 1. At least that would give me another few weeks.

Fortunately, this young man, who still struggles with a few things, does understand that we are his best advocates and he chose to sign a medical power of attorney. Now, I can make appointments, discuss his health care with his team of providers and continue to help him on his journey toward independence. But, again, I was totally unprepared.

I don't really consider myself a slacker in the parenting department (maybe a procrastinator, but not a slacker), but it sure would have been nice to have a little heads-up about exactly what happens when they turn 18. Damn, I knew I should have kept that manual that came with them at birth. Oh, wait, no, that was just a hospital bill.

So I'm feeling a little hard pressed these days, but I don't really think the deli analogy is apropos. Therefore, I hereby propose that we rename the "Sandwich Generation" the "BarHop Generation" (that's BaRaaHP for "Between a Rock and a Hard Place"). All those in favor, say cheers.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan Bearman isn't busy trying out condiments, she can be found writing at Two Kinds of People and working on her new writing Website, www.bearman.us.

Longing for an Italian Renaissance

ren • ais • sance

a revival or renewed interest in something;

origin FR, meaning "rebirth"

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love Italy and those who have never been there. If this sounds vaguely familiar, that's because it's a slightly revised version of the introduction I used for this post — a renaissance of the topic, if you will.

In case you haven't noticed, it's January and 23°F here in Chicago. January wouldn't be so bad if it didn't end in February. Everyone knows that God made February the shortest month of the year because we just couldn't take it for more than 28 days (29 tops).

At this time of year, I never feel warm. All I want to do is take a steaming hot bath and crawl under the covers to hibernate. But winter lasts forever in Chicago and then crashes directly into summer, so I've decided it would be far better to start my rebirth in Italy now, rather than wait for an unlikely spring awakening here at home.

Don't get me wrong — I don't want to become an expat. I love my country and my city, for at least half the year. If only I could live in Italy between, say, November 1 and June 1 — oh, wait, that means I only want to be here five months a year. Well, so be it.

Why Italy and not, for example, France? Well, I've never been to France. I'm sure it's very nice — lovely, in fact. But in Italy, blue is azure, lemons make limoncello, architecture is old, fashion is new, and life is dolce.

I don't want to do the whole Under the Tuscan Sun thing, where I dump all my (nonexistent) savings into a dilapidated villa. I have a hard enough time maintaining our 117-year-old Victorian.

No, I want a little pied a terre (it's the same in Italian as in French, only without the hyphens; I looked it up), and I want it here, at the Hotel San Pietro in Positano. Today, it was 54°F in Positano, not exactly tropical, but way above freezing. Seriously, look at these pictures and tell me you couldn't be reborn in such a setting:

Think of the writing those views would inspire. One small problem. The current rate (and this is the "low" season) for a standard single/double room with a sea view (the "cheap" one) is Euro 420, or $591.57. Per night. I'm accepting donations. Look for a button to appear on my sidebar soon.

I had the pleasure of staying at Hotel Il San Pietro one night, 20 years ago. I don't remember the room number, but if you examine the door jambs carefully, you can tell which one it was by the deep fingernail marks I left behind as my new husband dragged me kicking and screaming back to reality.

The bathroom was generous, but not huge, and all marble. The tub, which could comfortably accommodate you and four or five of your closest friends, was a square affair that butted up against a floor-to-ceiling glass wall that gave you the illusion of bathing in the Mediterranean. The entire hotel was all clean and cool and tiled. Sitting in the lobby, I expected to see Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman step out from behind the palms at any moment. Or maybe Spencer and Kate. Sigh.

This is presenting such a dilemma. Do I stay here, in the frozen wasteland, performing my chosen role of mother/wife/wannebe writer? Or … do I run away from it all and devote myself to a life of creativity and hedonism? To help me make my decision, I've created a classic pro/con list. Wikipedia, that fount of all knowledge, claims that pro/con lists oversimplify and are never complete, "thus inviting biased contributions." Look over my list, and leave your votes, contributions (biased or otherwise) and comments here:

Pro:

• It's Italy.
  
• Great food.
  
• Better weather.
  
• Compari and orange juice.
  
• Inspiration.
  
• Rebirth.
• Could maybe hang with George Clooney.

Con:

• Room too small for a family of six, so I would have to leave five of them at home (wait, this may belong on the "pro" side).
  
• I don't actually speak Italian.
• Distressing reports of rising racism and anti-semitism in Italy.
• Lack of funds.
• No money.
• Senza soldi.

Before you go, I wanted to offer a final bit of encouragement for you to enter my Guest Blogger Writing Contest. It's easy. It's fun. You have until February 1st to write up a post about your idea of Two Kinds of People. Then simply email it to me. What can I win, you ask? Oh, baby. The first place winner will earn a guest post right here on Two Kinds of People (and now I know how to Twitter, so I can tell lots of people to read it). Wait, there's more. Don't forget about the exclusive 2KoP logo baseball/golf cap, pictured below. With prizes like these, you can't afford not to enter.

"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Reanaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

— Orson Welles, The Third Man, 1949

Double-edged Internet — CMB post

This post originally appeared on the now defunct Chicago Moms Blog.

Hi. My name is Susan. I'm addicted to the Internet.

Well, maybe that's an overstatement, but I do have a blog. OK, I contribute to this blog, have several business blogs, and I the blogs I follow include … well, let's just say I keep up and am a regular commenter.

Then there's my new Website. And my husband's Website. And my Yahoo, LinkedIn and Google groups. And my SheWrites account. And my Facebook account. But I do not Twitter (except for my husband's store). That's where I draw the line. At least today.

Hi. My name is Susan. I'm addicted to the Internet.

Every day I am astounded by all the Internet has to offer. There are the big things, like huge outpourings of generosity and compassion for the people of Haiti — and great ways to vet the organizations involved. So many innovative ways to help have been spurred by technology, like Google's offer of free voice calls to Haiti for US families with relatives in the stricken nation.

Then there are the little things, like recipe calculators (transform your favorite family dish to a meal for 25 instantly!) There are cool little widgets (many free!) to download that will make your Web life easier.

There's the common application that my daughter has used to apply to colleges, and all kinds of tools for comparing schools, making that process so much simpler than when I was her age.

There's a strange and wonderful intimacy that can develop among virtual friends, like the mom from this very group who received astounding messages of love and sympathy when she lost her daughter.

Personally, I live for really enjoy the comments I get on my blog. Today, for example, a complete stranger emailed me to tell me how much she loves my posts and even called me "a clever, clever woman." A little thing, yes, but it made my day.

There are seemingly infinite ways to connect online, making life less difficult and isolating for parents and caregivers; more interesting for the shy, geographically isolated or housebound; and more accessible for students and professionals seeking research materials.

Games, apps, online libraries, support groups, professional groups, lists, aggregators, search engines … so much good stuff, the mind boggles.

And then there's the other side — the aggravating, insidious, even dangerous side.

How many of us have "misdiagnosed" ourselves or a loved one by becoming cyberchondriacs? How many viruses have we had to fight, spread by innocent-seeming emails? How many writers have lost their jobs due to free content providers and news aggregators?

There are hackers and phishers and screen scrapers; people who want your money, your identity, your computer's integrity, or worse. There are predators and pornographers. There are individual bad guys and organized scam efforts.

Our family has not been immune. My daughter is a victim of online slander. A few years back, when she started high school, someone anonymously posted an unflattering picture with a vile caption that included her full name. I tried repeatedly to contact the host of the site and get it taken down, pointing out that she was a minor, and that her photo and name were being used without permission. No response. The photo still lurks in the ether and comes up whenever you search her name. Will it ruin her life? No, but it stinks.

While technology has made it so easy to donate to Haiti (proving that "going viral" can be a good thing), there are frauds out there and we need to be wary. In addition to cheating donors out of their heartfelt contributions, these fraudulent sites are also interfering with donations to legitimate organizations, some of which have had their sites wrongly blocked.

I, myself, feel the need to offer up a mea culpa for poor Internet judgment. Several groups have recently formed in our community to protest the proposed closing of our two small branch libraries. One posted on Facebook and I immediately became a fan. Who could possibly be against keeping libraries open, I reasoned. The trouble is that I jumped on this band wagon without any thought or research.

While I would love to keep our libraries open, a recent conversation led me to understand that this may not be the best option. With a budget deficit of $9,532,100 and a $140M pension fund deficit, tough choices must be made. What other services or programs might we lose in the tradeoff?

I'm not saying these branch library supporters are wrong; but I'm not saying they are right, either. I need to learn more before I can make the best decision in a bad situation. And good decisions do not come from mob mentality — they come from honest, forthright discussion. Somehow, in the heat of the Internet, I forgot.

I remember when my mom was teaching me how to sew, she said: "This machine is a wonderful tool, but you need to learn how to use it carefully." Good advice.

Hi. My name is Susan. I'm addicted to the Internet.

This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. When Susan Bearman isn't clicking around the Web, she can be found at Two Kinds of People and on her new Website.

Help for Haiti

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who have lived through a natural disaster and those who have been lucky.

I'm looking around for a piece of wood; I need to knock on it loudly, because I have been very lucky, natural disaster-wise (unless, of course, you count children. Can we count children as natural disasters?)

Oh, our basement has flooded a couple of times, but all that really did was make us clean up and do a little culling. (I'm thinking maybe we should schedule one periodically.)

A tornado touched down in our town sometime in the '90s. I don't think anyone was hurt, but the astounding force of nature could be seen in the felled trees and overturned cars just a few blocks from my house. You don't forget seeing the bared roots of a giant elm ripped from the earth, vulnerable and exposed against now clear skies. But we were spared.

A much more devastating storm ripped through The Villages, FL in February 2007, shortly after my parents moved into their new home. It was eerie to tour the area, even two months later when we visited. Their block was untouched, but houses just a block or two away were torn open — roofs and outside walls completely gone — revealing pots and pans left untouched in the kitchens inside. Again, we were lucky.

We get our fair share of crappy weather here in Chicagoland ("that frozen wasteland", my brother calls it). Sometimes we get too much rain, or snow, or cold. Our winters can be brutal, our springs all but nonexistent, our summers often lacking … but our autumns will break your heart with their glory and, overall, we're pretty lucky. Natural disasters don't seem to like our climate well enough to visit. (Time to knock on wood again.)

On August 28, 2005, we watched, helpless, the broadcasts of Hurricane Katrina as it approached, landed and virtually destroyed New Orleans. Then we watched and worried and complained that not enough was being done fast enough to help the survivors. It's a shameful chapter in American history, when we as a nation failed some of our most vulnerable citizens right here at home.

To be sure, many people offered help — funds, goods and elbow grease flowed and continue to flow into the region — but not enough, and not fast enough. More than four years later, the areas affected by Katrina are still far from full recovery.

According to the Brookings Institution: "… the region still faces major challenges due to blight, unaffordable housing, and vulnerable flood protection. New federal leadership must commit and sustain its partnership with state and local leaders … to help greater New Orleans move past 'disaster recovery' and boldly build a more prosperous future."

And now Haiti has suffered an earthquake of devastating proportions. Hurricane Katrina resulted in 1,836 deaths, a tremendous human toll. Early reports from Haiti mention 45,000-50,000 deaths, with the final toll possibly reaching as high as 200,000. The devastation is staggering for this poor nation where 55% of its people were living below the poverty line of $1 (US) a day before the earthquake.

"It is a denial of justice not to 
stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; 

that is the common right of humanity." 

— Seneca (the Younger) , 3[ish] BC – 65 AD

Have we learned anything since Katrina? I have hopes that we have. As of January 15, more than $10M had been raised through text donations alone. The blogosphere is bursting with posts about the disaster and ways to help and the American Red Cross is reporting such tremendous response that it is has necessitated a 10-12 hour lag time in donation processing (but don't let that stop you).

Got a minute, few bucks and a cell phone? Here's a list of text-based donation sites (the donations will be charged to your cell phone bill):

• Text QUAKE to 20222 donate $10 to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund
  
• Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross
  
• Text HAITI to 25383 to donate $5 to the International Rescue Committee
  
• Text HAITI to 52000 to donate $10 to the Salvation Army
  
• Text YELE to 501501 to donate $5 to Yele
  
• Text RELIEF to 30644 to connect to Catholic Relief Services  to donate by credit card
  
• Text HAITI to 864833 to donate $10 to The United Way
  
• Text CERF to 90999 to donate $5 to The United Nations Foundation
  
• Text DISASTER to 90999 to donate $10 to Compassion International 
  

Donate easily online to:

• the Jewish Federation Haitian Earthquake Relief Fund 
  
• ShelterBox (see awesome video below)
  

At this point, the American Red Cross reports that it is meeting any requests for blood due to this tragedy through current supplies" and does not anticipate the need for a special donor appeal. While goods and services may be needed further into recovery, right now the best way to help is to donate cash to the organization of your choice. Shelterbox is an interesting group that provides immediate, practical help for victims of natural disasters:



Please beware that disasters spawn fraud and the Internet is rife with scams in the name of helping Haiti. Protect yourself by donating to well-known organizations; click on the image at the top of this post or check out sites like this one for vetted agencies.

Though most of my posts are snark-ridden, allegedly humorous observations of everyday life (and I don't apologize for the snark), you'll forgive me if this one is on the earnest side. There was nothing everyday about the disaster in Haiti. Our collective attention span seems to have dwindled to the length of a (much shorter) blog post, so I think a little repetition is not amiss in service to such a worthy cause. And if Bill Clinton and George W. Bush can work together to help Haiti (I kid you not — snark intended), then so can we. Your regularly scheduled snark will return next time. Feel free to leave your comments or suggestions for other places to donate help for Haiti by clicking here.

(P.S. The deadline for the 2KoP Guest Post Writing Contest  is February 1. I know you are just polishing up your entries, but I thought I'd post this little reminder. Pardon the plug.)