just trying to get your attention.

we just confirmed an all ages outdoor benefit show in Middletown Ohio June 2nd at bicentennial park. this is being put on by a few passionate kids at my former high school Fenwick, in association with invisiblechildren.com. the jist is that there is a terrible civil war in uganda, young children are being forced to join the rebel army or are killed. there are bad things happening all the time but the shit that is happening in africa right now is truly mind-blowingly awful. little things like this help.

invisible chilrden is a nice group because they are youth focused. talking about youth is not just good PR. obviously “save the chilrden” is catchier than “save the really old people” but what is important about this is the other youth cliche, the youth are “the future”. that is true by definition. a lot of the time, hand-outs do not work. what does help to solve problems is finding a long term solution. a good place to start is educating young people and building schools. that’s the kind of stuff they help to do.

dan and i were talking the other day about all the problems here in america. there is poverty and illness here, and definitely we should do whatever we can to help with those things too. but the thing about charity is if you believe all people are created equal, you might as well just pick something and do it. so this is what we’re doing… from a rational (and spiritual) perspective, there is nothing inherent about americans that makes them more valuable than anyone else in the world. you can try and pinpoint it all day but it’s just not going to work. on a deep level one’s birthplace and place of residence is completely arbitrary. we are all just people who want the same things. a lot of global problems would disappear if more leaders and citizens embraced this idea.

so help us out here and mark your calendar for June 2nd. we’re already in the hole 600 bucks for PA rental, so i hope we can cover that quickly, and then make lots more for this cause. i’m not sure if they are doing pre-sale or not but i’ll keep you posted.

thanks!
joe