Wendy Brandes Jewelry Blog

Never Is the Next New Thing

#GivingTuesday

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There are so many social-media-friendly “holidays” to celebrate. Some of them have been officially designated to promote companies (National Pancake Day) or industries (National Ice Cream Day), while others promote causes (National Family Literacy Day). Our feline overlords have multiple tributes: National Cat Day, International Cat Day, National Black Cat Day, National Feral Cat Day, and National Hug Your Cat Day (Warning: Observing the latter holiday can be physically dangerous.)

Don't hug cat thugs.

Don’t hug cat thugs.

Today’s special day is Giving Tuesday (#GivingTuesday on Twitter), which was created in 2012 by the Belfer Center for Innovation & Social Impact at New York City’s 92nd Street Y. It’s intended to be a philanthropic antidote to the shopping sprees of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Here are some of my favorite civil-rights-related causes, in case you’re looking for ideas. Click the links to go to the donation pages.

You can donate to Jill Stein’s recount fund to protect your rights in a different way. You don’t have to like Stein to do it. I don’t like a damn thing about her except for the recount effort!  The conspiracy theorists who claimed she was going to run off with the money in full view of the public have already been proven wrong. She has filed for recounts as promised and has stated she will pay the “exorbitant” $3.5 million demanded by Wisconsin alone. (The information about hefty costs in addition to the filing fees was on Stein’s donation page the first time I viewed the page. People who didn’t have the patience to read all the way through were “discovering” that news days later.) A lot of people argue that the recount won’t help. But who can it hurt? Donating to the effort isn’t mandatory, like, for instance, paying taxes. A recount will certainly help millions of people like me put their suspicions to rest. Donald Trump clearly agrees because — both before and after the election — he stated that the voting had been rigged. When even the winner questions the results, I’d say a recount is in order.

If these causes don’t resonate with you, check out Charity Navigator. It evaluates and rates charities.  There is also a Better Business Bureau for charities here.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Stupid-ass Trump is so confident, I think he should have stepped up and just paid the $3.5 million to confirm the results.

  2. Purrkoy is a most adorable and disagreeable looking delinquent.
    As for Jill Stein – she’s going to pocket that money from the PA recount, isn’t she, now that she’s withdrawn her request. Yet another con; she’s no better than Dump! She even has her own connections/ toadying to Putin, that POS, and her idiotic anti-vaxx stance.

    • I hate everything single thing about Jill Stein except for the recount effort. I think she should never have run, and that she did fuck things up. Still, I do believe she’s still trying with Pennsylvania (http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/03/politics/jill-stein-drops-pennsylvania-recount/) With the insane, escalating, and deliberately obstructionist payments demanded by Wisconsin and Michigan, it seemed inevitable to me that she’d run out of money. That said, even if she did run off with the excess, I don’t really care! I voluntarily contributed money to something I knew would be a challenge. As the saying goes, “You pays your money, you takes your chance.” Bothers me much less than a much greater amount of my tax money being used to line the pockets of the Trump family. And there’s smaller things, like how much did it cost us New Yorkers to have Trump close the Lincoln Tunnel both ways one day at rush hour, I wonder? I didn’t agree to that! Like, I don’t even have any anger to spare for Stein. LOL.

      • “I hate everything single thing about Jill Stein except for the recount effort. I think she should never have run, and that she did fuck things up.”
        Yes and yes! I need to pick my reasons for outrage better.
        I keep hoping that there’s something that NYC (and the rest of the country) can do about NOT funding Mrs. tRump’s refusal to move to DC. That decision is unconscionable! Why are the so-called fiscally conservative Republicans not screaming about this!?! What programs are going to be eliminated to pay for that decision?