i brought this one over because i think it is an excellent example of how we should honor young people that take initiative. hell, when i was 11 years old, my thoughts didn't go much beyond my little league game and riding my bike.
bravo, little 11 yo. bravo.
babylonsister Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri Jun-11-10 08:59 PM
Original message
11-Year Old Girl Raises $80K and Counting for Gulf Birds
Girl Raises Thousands of Dollars for Gulf Birds
Updated 2:01 PM PDT, Thu, Jun 10, 2010
Olivia Bouler doesn’t have time for anything else these days except to draw and paint. But that’s OK for the artistic fifth-grader, because everything she does is for the birds.
The Islip, N.Y., girl, who turns 11 on Friday, has raised an estimated $80,000 by sending her sketches and paintings of birds to people who donate to organizations helping with relief efforts in the Gulf of Mexico spill disaster.
“I do some in the mornings and some in the afternoons, and weekends are really the time for me get cracking at them,†Olivia told msnbc.com on Thursday in a telephone interview as she and her parents were headed to the Gulf for a visit.
Olivia came up with the idea to help birds in the Gulf four days after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 workers and triggering the nation’s worst oil spill. Olivia's father's family grew up in Alabama, and she has spent vacations in the Gulf.
“Olivia heard about the oil spill and she immediately thought of the birds. She’s a bird lover. She knew they were nesting and she knew the spill would bring an incredible change to their habitat,†said her mother, Nadine Bouler.
So Olivia wrote to the National Audubon Society, saying she would like to help by doing drawings and giving the wildlife conservation group any money she raised. She signed it, a bit precociously, “Olivia Bouler, 11 years old and willing to help.â€
more...
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/breaking/Girl_raises_tho...
i hate to see any animal suffer in an accident like this. i do. i wish it wasn't so.
but then (and there's always a but) there is this little "inconvenient truth" that dummys never, ever! bring up or want to talk about...
if we are going to weep and hand-wring about the number of birds that are killed. each and every day. we need to point out the number of birds that are killed by the very things dummys hold dear to their ignorant little hearts.
in this case, wind turbines and their beloved cats. then the number of birds in peril in the gulf is a very small number indeed.
from the wall street journal...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574376543308399048.htmlThe number of birds killed by wind turbines is highly variable. And biologists believe Altamont, which uses older turbine technology, may be the worst example. But that said, the carnage there likely represents only a fraction of the number of birds killed by windmills. Michael Fry of the American Bird Conservancy estimates that U.S. wind turbines kill between 75,000 and 275,000 birds per year. Yet the Justice Department is not bringing cases against wind companies.
"Somebody has given the wind industry a get-out-of-jail-free card," Mr. Fry told me. "If there were even one prosecution," he added, the wind industry would be forced to take the issue seriously.
from the state of wisconsin (and these figures are from just one state!)...
http://www.awea.org/faq/sagrillo/swbirds.htmlCats, both feral and housecats, also take their toll on birds. A Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) report states that, "recent research suggests that rural free-ranging domestic cats in Wisconsin may be killing between 8 and 217 million birds each year. The most reasonable estimates indicate that 39 million birds are killed in the state each year."
and these numbers are only a fraction of the largest killer of birds... windows. i'll let you do your own googles on this fact, but between 100 million to 400 million birds are killed each year crashing into windows.
it seems to me that if dummys are so concerned about birds they should be mounting their boycotts elsewhere. windows. windmills. cats.
i know, not as topical or sexy as an oil spill accident. but magnitudes x magnitudes more lethal.
see, this is why i'd make a terrible dummy. i can think outside of their little ko and rachael "talking points."
