Ice Buckets

When I first saw the Ice Bucket Challenges going up on Facebook and (to a lesser extent) Reddit, I was perplexed and confused. What was this ghastly looking fad? Thankfully technology allows me to avoid looking like a total noob every time something new comes along, and it wasn't long before perpleximent turned to understanding. Which rapidly turned to fear, in case someone decided to nominate me. So far so good.

Turns out ALS stands for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. More commonly known in the UK as Motor Neurone Disease.

I forbore to comment on other people's challenges, for that aforementioned fear, but applauded, quietly, anyone with the cojones to actually DO the thing. And that lack of desire to comment lasted until today.

Today on Facebook, within the space of a few posts, a couple of my "liked" pages, Zath and The Telegraph, have both posted articles on Why The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Is Bad For You. I was ready to scoff, thinking they must be going down the Korean Fan Death road - "You'll catch your death if you pour that bucket of iced water over your head." You know what I mean. But actually, it's more insidious than that.

Both these pages are suggesting that I, the potential donator, should consider spending my, as they call them, Charity Dollars more wisely. Why would I donate to a cause which takes out, I found out, only about 600 people a year in Canada (that was from the Zath article), when 72000 die from Cancer in the same time frame. They even have a checklist on the page to show me that my Charity Dollars would do far more good in support of Cancer research.

The Telegraph article, on the other hand, tells me that my support of this charity is taking support from OTHER charities I'd otherwise be supporting (the expression used was "cannibalising". It also questions what's wrong with quietly supporting your own charities. I'm not sure that these two points aren't somewhat diametrically opposed - but I'll allow it for the moment.

Both of these articles are labouring under a misapprehension.

Zath assumes I want to be logical about where I donate my money, when my actual charitable donations are, in fact, far from logical. Let's list the charities I support, and you can see why. I support the Parkinson's Disease Association - because my dad had PD, and I'd like to see more done about that. I support the RNIB (that's the blind people) - because I'm heading that way myself. I suppose this could be considered a somewhat selfish reason. But I support neither of these on a regular basis. And based on the Zath checklist, neither of these passes the "should I stick my hand in my pocket for this charity" test.

The Telegraph assumes I'll be making a fixed donation each month/year, and that any attempt to support the ALS Association or MND Association will mean less going to my other (or more "worthy") charities. Nothing could be further from the truth. Again, as a NOT regular donor, I'm much more of a "catch me in a good mood and I'll sling you a fiver" giver, anything I give to charity is a bonus anyway. And for the very reason stated in the Zath article, I doubt either of my preferred charities would be considered "worthy".

While I won't be doing the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge (because ice water, duh!), I WILL be supporting any and all of my friends who choose to do it. Partly because it's always good to raise awareness of areas of research (pink ribbons for breast cancer, anyone?), but mostly because of my friend Claire Brown, who was diagnosed earlier this year with MND.