By some accounts, the 2010 Haiti Earthquake could end up being the worst natural disaster in modern history. I’m not sure exactly what metrics are used to measure the severity of a disaster, but I’m sure the highest would be in the cost of human life.

The response to this disaster has been overwhelming, at least at the outset, with the Red Cross reportedly raising over $5 million via text message donations alone (which has exceeded the total amount raised in this manner for all of last year). Highly visible and excruciatingly tragic events such as this always seem to amass a large amount of support very quickly.

Looking at the response and the outcry as it plays out in the media, and in online social networking sites has led me to wonder about myself, and my reactions to disaster. In an event of this magnitude, it seems almost natural to pray, and to give, and to support those who are trying to help. I find, however, in other situations, my response may not be as passionate and as natural as it should.

Every day, all around us, people are facing disaster in one way or another. Someone’s lost a home, lost a job, lost a spouse to divorce or an untimely death, lost a child, or lost hope. They’ve been diagnosed with a terminal illness, or a potentially terminal illness, or they may have just given up on life. They are the discouraged, the broken, the downtrodden, the homeless, the jobless, and the friendless masses we walk by without noticing.  They are not literally digging out of the rubble of a collapsed home or building brought down by an earthquake, but they have been similarly impacted. Their life has become a disaster.

But for them, there is no international relief organization on it’s way, no telethon, no fundraisers, no worldwide prayer vigil. Thinking about them today makes me almost feel powerless to help, because I know that there are so many in need, but so little time and resources at my disposal.

Doesn’t every disaster deserve a response? What can I, what can WE do in the face of disaster?

If you haven’t already heard, a powerful earthquake struck Haiti on Tuesday, January 12, 2010.

It is estimated that over 100,000 have died, many more are trapped, and up to 3 million Haitians will require some sort of help to recover from this disaster.  It has been reported that all hospitals in Haiti have either collapsed or have been abandoned due to damage, and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, are in need of medical help, not to mention food, water and basic necessities.

There are dozens of organizations that are answering the call for help in Haiti. I would encourage everyone who can to support these organizations who are responding to this disaster.

You can make a donation to any one of various organizations that are now or will be providing earthquake relief in Haiti.  CNN has a pretty exhaustive list of organizations on their website. Update: The Miami Herald also has a very inclusive list as well.  I will mention a few more here that I picked up on Twitter as well:

• Compassion International: This organization known mainly for connecting children in poverty to sponsors has a disaster relief fund and are raising funds for Haiti.  You can text the word “disaster” to 90999 to give a $10 donation towards their relief efforts in Haiti.  The $10 will be billed to your cell phone account.  No credit card required.  You can also give online here.
• World Vision: Another organization providing opportunities to sponsor children in poverty is also working toward disaster relief in Haiti.  You can give online here.
• The Red Cross: Text the word “HAITI” to 90999 to give a $10 donation towards their relief efforts in Haiti.  The $10 will be billed to your cell phone account.  No credit card required.
• The Assemblies of God has created a disaster relief fund for Haiti as well. Information is here.
• WyClef Jean(formerly of The Fugees) has a foundation called Yele Haiti that is collecting donations toward relief efforts in Haiti.  You can donate at the website or by texting the word “Yele” to 501501 to donate $5 via your cell phone.
• SafeWaterNexus is collecting funds and item donations for Haiti.  Information is here.
• Hollywood Unites for Haiti is a non-profit organized by Jimmy Jean-Louis (“the Haitian” from the NBC Series Heroes) that works with underprivileged youth in Haiti.  You can donate to their disaster relief efforts here.
• Update: One Day’s Wages is sending $5,000 to Haiti, and wants us to help match it.

Update: If you are concerned about where your money is going, check out Charity Navigator to see how the charity rates, and avoid getting scammed.

Above all else, please pray for the people of Haiti.

Updated 4:36 PM CST 1/13/10

Actually, I’m not that cool at all. I’ve always been very backwards when it comes to social interaction, especially when dealing with people I don’t know well.

There are situations that I can do well in, like meetings where I have a good working knowledge of the subject. I can verbalize much easier in that regard than I can in more interpersonal situations.

I find it much easier to communicate in writing. I love email, texts and twitter.  I generally despise actually talking on the phone. I find it difficult to gather my thoughts into words when speaking to other people personally, although I usually do well in a presentation mode (again where I control the subject matter).

In emails, or on social networks, I am much more outgoing (although I still carefully consider my messages that are sent directly to people). I find it much easier to hold a conversation with someone I don’t know well within the confines of email, twitter, or even over SMS.

My wife is the absolute opposite. She does extremely well in social situations, always seems at ease in conversation, and can make fast friends of just about anyone. She is on Facebook, but for the most part, does not get that involved in socializing online, except for the convenience of communicating short messages. She doesn’t Twitter, does not have any interest in getting on Twitter, and really does not understand my fascination with it.

So, blog readers, where do you feel most comfortable socializing? Are you more social online or off? Somewhere in the middle?

That was some blogging vacation (although some might say I haven’t been here that much anyway).  At least my absence only affected tens of people.

Over the break, I’ve really been thinking about the focus of my blogging and trying to target one major subject that would define my writing here.  Being a highly un-focused person (slightly attention-deficit disorder here, ooh shiny….), it’s hard to nail it down to just one.  In that, I’m breaking one of the cardinal rules of blogging, if you listen to the blogging “experts”. But since I read this post, I feel like one of my favorite bloggers, Anne Jackson, has given me permission to go against the grain a little.

Without further adieu, here is my blogging vision for the year ahead:

In general, I think about becoming a better person all the time.  Since I spend a lot of time in thought on that, that is probably what I will write about the most. Not that I will be telling anyone how to do that.  Most of my writing is extremely introspective, and out of that I tend to formulate ideas that could potentially apply to someone else.  What I would like most is to develop those thoughts into a conversation on my blog, so that everyone can benefit from the discussion.  Sure, this idea is not that original, but I think it most reflects who I am.

I have plans this year to get back to making music again, so as I go through that process, I have a feeling I will write about that.

I will continue to periodically write book reviews.

Since I have a lot of fun with technology and gadgets, I will occasionally write about that subject.

Here’s hoping that the blogging journey this year won’t be a lonely one.

With all of the activity surrounding the holidays, and my family’s traditional holiday vacation trip coming up, there has been no time for crafting my usually deep and thoughtful blog posts.

Tonight (Christmas Eve) my family has our holiday gathering with my wife’s side of the family.  Tomorrow morning we see what Santa brought us. Tomorrow night, yet another holiday gathering with all four of my brothers’ families.

We head out for Disney World on New Year’s Eve for a four night stay.

The Alabama Crimson Tide play for the BCS National Title shortly after we return.

It’s going to be a busy next two weeks or so.  In the interim, I’ll be working on my goals for the blog for next year, possibly writing a few posts to be published later, and hopefully upgrading to Wordpress 2.9.

But, before all of this I wanted to sincerely wish one and all a very Merry Christmas, and blessings for the coming new year. I also want to express my gratitude for the new friends that I have found in the process of blogging and twittering. I look forward to getting to know all of you better this next year, and hopefully reaching one of my 2010 goals: meeting my twitter friends in person (well, at least some of them, anyway).

See You Next Year!

When my youngest son was somewhere between the age of three and four, we chanced upon a women giving away free kittens in a Wal-Mart parking lot. In spite of my wife’s intense dislike of pets, she let him take home one of them, a tiny, scrawny kitten with a shiny black coat.

The kitten grew to be a healthy cat, and prowled our front deck like a king would his throne room. Of course, our son wanted the cat to stay inside, and we would find him in odd places in the house, most often shut up in our son’s bedroom closet (with a full bowl of milk at least).

One sunny Sunday morning, tragedy struck. We were in our car (my wife driving) and were running late for church (as usual), when my wife backed the car out more quickly than she normally would have, and in the process, backed over the cat. We heard the thump and saw the cat hobbling away, dragging his back legs. Our son was immediately upset, but we did our best to reassure him that his cat would be okay, since the cat managed to escape from the scene. We couldn’t find him immediately, but once we returned from church, I saw him, curled beneath the shade of the azalea bushes in front of our house.

I’m no veterinarian, but my assessment of the poor cat’s situation was pretty grim, as it appeared he could not move his back legs. And if that were the case, I knew he would have to be put down.

My heart dropped when I thought about my child losing the pet that he loved, and not only that, his mother being responsible for it.

So I did the only thing I knew to do. I prayed for the cat. Yes, I knelt down next to him and reached under the azalea branches where he lay so that I could reach him. I stroked his fur, and said a simple, yet sincere prayer, asking God to please heal the cat, and spare his life, so my son would not have to lose his pet.

I walked away after my prayer and left the cat where he lay, while we all went next door to my in-laws house for lunch. I instructed the kids to please leave the cat alone for awhile.

As I walked home later from the house next door, I glanced to the spot where I had left the cat. He was gone. My heart fell a little further, thinking that he may have dragged himself off somewhere to die in peace. I tried to reassure my son that he would be back soon, in as much as I was trying to reassure myself.

A few days later, I had parked my car in the driveway after my trek home from work, and was headed toward the door, when I saw him, walking gingerly up the front steps ahead of me, as if to say, “I’m okay”. I reached down and gave him a little rub down his back, whispering a prayer of thanks to God. And I realized that God does care about little black cats, and little boy’s hearts, and the mostly pathetic faith of a man who’s prayed more prayers than he’s received answers for.

In those times I get frustrated with my prayers, I remember the miracle cat. And even though I may not be getting the answers I want, I take solace in the fact that God is still listening, and if he cared about that cat, surely he cares about me.

What about you – do you have any strange, but true stories that made you think?

We are a country in crisis: economic problems, the healthcare debate, sending more troops overseas. Yet somehow, a house subcommitee finds the time to draw up a bill to force college football into a playoff system.

The bill would ban the promotion of a postseason NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision game as a national championship unless it results from a playoff. So, if the BCS continued, the winner of the #1 versus #2 game could only be called the ‘BCS Champion’, not the “BCS National Champion”. Pure genius.

I love college football. It is my favorite sport by far. I would love nothing more than for there to be a playoff system in Division I college football (the only Division 1 sport that does not have a playoff). What I do not want is our government attempting to regulate and legislate how it is run.

I mean, our goverment has had so much success with other things, Social Security, Medicare, FEMA. Oh, wait. They’ve totally botched all of that, and much more. And as such, I want them to stay as far away from the sport I love as they can.

The bureaucracy in the NCAA national leadership is bad enough. There are so many ridiculous rules and guidelines for student athletics that even experts can’t keep up. If our Federal Government were to get involved it would only get worse. Some may say that it’s okay for the government to intervene on this one issue.  But since when has our government not taken a mile when they were given an inch? I don’t care which party is in power, who the president is, and what their political stances are, they need to leave college football alone. Even if it means watching 35 meaningless bowl games for a few more decades years.

So please, call/email your representative and tell them to stay out of college football, and get back to more important issues.

If you blog, post comments on blogs, Twitter, or post on Facebook, inevitably you will face criticism for something you post online.

The easiest route is just to ignore all criticism, but in doing so, you will give the impression that you are above reproach, which is a fast way to lose respect. Besides, by listening to your critics, you could actually learn something.

I don’t think you should listen to all criticism, especially in these cases:

• The criticism consists mainly of attacks against your intelligence and/or character. That’s not really criticism, that’s an insult. Determine if they are criticizing the information, or the person posting the information. Attacks leveled at the person should always be ignored.
• The critic makes no effort to explain their position. A good critic should use established facts and/or relevant experience to validate their claims. If they can’t do that, it’s not worth it to listen.
• The criticism is an obvious emotional reaction, obviously because these rarely contain any intellectual value.

How should you respond to valid criticism?

• Read carefully. Be sure that you have not misread or inferred meaning where there was none.
• Resist the urge to react emotionally. Strong emotional reactions to criticism will impair your ability to analyze it. Never respond to the critic with an emotional backlash. You will regret it later.
• Determine if the criticism is constructive. Is there something that you can take away from it that you can improve upon?
• Try to see the other person’s perspective. It may not change your mind, but it will allow you to think outside of your normal viewpoints, which will improve your ability to empathize with others.
• Disagree? That’s okay too. Criticism will not always bring you to change your mind, and people rarely agree on everything. We should be able to respect another person’s viewpoint, without agreeing with them.
• Always respond positively. Thank the critic for their input. Even if you still disagree, do it respectfully, without insult, and based in facts and/or relevant experiences; not on emotion alone.
• Never take it personally. Don’t invest too much of your self-worth into how well you are received online.

Most importantly, don’t feed the trolls. Some people are just trying to get attention by posting critical and usually insulting responses on blogs, message boards, and the like. Ignore them.

How do you deal with criticism? Do you have any advice to share?

Allow me to preface this review by saying that I am an Alabama Crimson Tide football fan, which is odd, because while I live in Alabama now, I grew up in Texas, and moved to Alabama shortly before I finished high school. How I became a fan of the Tide deserves it’s own blog post someday, but suffice it to say, I was interested to read this book, due to Eli Gold’s status in the state as the “Voice of the Crimson Tide.” This book is not only for Alabama football fans, though, as it focuses more on Eli’s career as a whole, which does include a lot more than just the Crimson Tide.

From Peanuts to the Pressbox is a collection of stories chronicling the career of sports broadcaster Eli Gold from his humble roots in Brooklyn, New York, where his first sports job was selling peanuts at Madison Square Garden. Eli took a passion for sports and an admiration of sports broadcasting and made it a driving force in his life, and worked hard to follow his dream to create a career in sports broadcasting, and to follow his inspirations into the pressbox. Eli has done it all, from minor league hockey and baseball, to the NHL, NFL, Arena League, NASCAR (and other auto racing) and college sports as well.

Eli’s story is inspirational and encouraging. It shows the values of setting goals and following those goals with hard work and determination. It also demonstrates the importance of making friends and good connections throughout your career, and how those relationships bring not only opportunities, but a more fulfilled life. It is not the standard “climbing the corporate ladder” story, where it was necessary to use others as rungs to reach success, but shows the importance of respect and friendship, especially to someone in the broadcasting field.

The book is full of stories and anecdotes that are not only about Eli’s greatest moments. He was not afraid to poke a little fun at himself in this book, and the reader will get a few laughs at his expense. Some of the best stories come from his experiences in NASCAR, which was surprising to me, and Eli’s perspective on many of the legends of stock car racing are very insightful, and at times very personal, especially due to his closeness to many of the greatest tragedies in the history of the sport.

If you are not a sports fan, this book may not have much for you, as sports are the central focus, but sports are about people, and in that regard, there are some great people whose stories intertwine with Eli’s throughout the book. Overall, I enjoyed the book, somewhat more than I thought.

My rating, four out of five.

(Disclaimer: I am reviewing this book as part of the book review bloggers program from Thomas Nelson Publishing.  You can find out more information about this program at http://brb.thomasnelson.com. I received no compensation for this review, other than a review copy of the book.)