The Advocate

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

Winston Churchill

Someone, actually quite rudely, told me that they were annoyed by what I wrote, they rolled their eyes, that I didn't have to "advocate" for everything.

I can see how I might become "that girl." The fanatic always in arms about something.

In this case, I really don't care if I'm generalized.

I give voice to those without one.

I work to help the babies in Haiti, babies born with congenital heart defects, woman in Iran, or to support other mother's whose children died because I feel for them with my whole heart. I'm compassionate.

I'm even compassionate to the bratty person that said that. If they must sit back and judge someone else for speaking up, perhaps they feel voiceless? I get angered for a minute, but then feel nothing but compassion.

Let me be painted the wild fanatical blogger always taking up a new cause.

It's much better than the alternative, never sticking up for anything I believe in.

I've read the emails of the CHDs detected, the crutches delivered to a needy person in Haiti, and the eyes opened to the plight of the Iranian women because of what I do.

I embrace the criticism that I advocate too much.

It's what I do now. After what I went through, I can't close my eyes to the pain in the world anymore.

Blog Action Day 2010. Take steps to make sure everyone has clean, safe water.

Today is Blog Action Day 2010. I know it's late, but wanted to join in because I believe that blogs can bring changes. 

As of this posting over 5000 blogs participated today. The topic is water.

Something, I think almost all of us take for granted. Something in this country that is a given, just like the air we believe.

In other places? Not so much. 

Almost a billion people worldwide don't have access to clean, safe drinking water.

Each year over 38,000 children under the age of 5 die because of lack of clean water.

I wrote that in red type for a reason. This is a red alert. People need our help.

What can we do?

Honestly, I'm just learning myself about what steps we can take, but my fellow bloggers at Hobo Mama and PhDinParenting wrote awesome posts with detailed explanations. So, go there to learn more, but to help quickly and effectively today:

Stop the water bottle habit. We have this habit. We are stopping it. By commercializing water, we're limiting it's access. Plus, all those plastic bottles aren't good for the environment.

Donate to organizations working to provide wells and clean water.