Guest Post by Ross McKitrick
Hello WUWT’ers:
Anthony has kindly given me a bit of real estate on his website to tell you about a Christmas-themed project I am involved in. Cheerfully it has nothing at all to do with climate change, and unlike the overfed, self-important stage show at Doha, it might actually do some good for the world.
The quick background is that I am involved in the local (Guelph Ontario) Celtic music scene, and one of the groups I play in is called The Wild Oats, in which I play bagpipes, pennywhistle and bodhran. For kicks, over the past year we recorded a CD of Christmas music, arranged as traditional jigs, reels and waltzes. The CD is called Making Spirits Bright, and if I do say so myself it’s a blast. We are getting rave reviews on it for the quality of arrangements and the lively performance.
Now here is the best part. With the assistance of the aid organization World Vision Canada, for every CD that we sell, we and a group of other Canadian corporations will kick in a total of $75 for school supplies to be sent to classrooms in poor communities around the world. It can be ordered through the CD website, where you can also download a tune sample and watch a Youtube that tells you more about it.
Each CD sells for $20. But there’s another nifty thing, which is that if you order more than ten copies, the price drops to only $10 each (plus shipping and applicable taxes). So some local schools, church groups and other organizations have bought quantities to re-sell to their members at $20 each, making a bit of money for themselves while also generating large donations of school supplies for needy classrooms overseas. Also some small businesses have bought sets of 10 to give to their clients at Christmas, and groups of friends have gone together on orders to reduce their costs.
The Christmas season has only just begun, but based on early, word-of-mouth sales, we have already sold hundreds of copies. This week I traveled to World Vision headquarters in Toronto with two other band members to present them with a donation of $1,785. (That’s me behind the giant cheque on the left.) With the matching donations this will result in a shipment of nearly $27,000 worth of paper, pencils, readers, math exercize books, and other basic educational supplies. It’s the kind of stuff we take for granted here but it’s in desparately short supply in poor countries.
I have another 500 copies of this CD that I am hoping to sell before Christmas. WUWT attracts a well-educated readership that knows that schooling is the key for lifting poor communities out of poverty. If just 50 WUWT readers order 10 copies each (or some similar permutation) not only will a lot of great music be spread around the land, but I will be able to go back to World Vision HQ in the new year and give them another $2,500 in donations, which will trigger a total shipment of $37,500 in school supplies overseas early in 2013.
So I hope you’ll take a few minutes to watch our Youtube video and then hit the order button on the CD website. At present we are only shipping in Canada and the US. For those of you who take part, please accept my thanks in advance. I know you won’t be disappointed, and a lot of deserving students in needy countries will also thank you.
Ross McKitrick
UPDATE – Ross writes in comments:
We can now accommodate overseas orders. Just email admin@chanterrecords.com saying how many you want and we’ll send you a shipping quote and take it from there. For Canada and the US, follow the existing payment system at http://chanterrecords.com/MakingSpirits.aspx. By the way, just since post this went up last night we have been FLOODED with orders! Thanks everybody. We will be spending the weekend packing CDs for shipment Monday morning. Also, World Vision staff told me our donation yesterday, with the matching donations added in, will fully stock 540 classrooms in the new year.
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Why World Vision? Are there not charities that simply do good work and are not beholden to CAGW orthodoxy?
I applaud your motives Ross and wish you well.
Not with my Canadian money!
I wish you all a Merry Christmas.
From us (“the wishors”) to you (“hereinafter called the wishee”):
Please accept without obligation, explicit or implicit, our best wishes for
an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, politically correct, low
stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice
holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious
persuasion or secular practice of your choice, with respect for the
religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice
not to practice religious or secular traditions.
Please also accept, under aforesaid waiver of obligation on your part, our
best wishes for a financially successful, personally fulfilling and
medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of this calendar year of
the Common Era, but with due respect for the calendars of all cultures or
sects, and for the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious
faith, choice of computer platform or dietary preference of the wishee.
By accepting this greeting you acknowledge that:
This greeting is subject to further clarification or withdrawal at the
wishor’s discretion.
This greeting is freely transferable provided that no alteration shall be
made to the original greeting and that the proprietary rights of the wishor
are acknowledged.
This greeting implies no warranty on the part of the wishors to fulfil
these wishes, nor any ability of the wishors to do so, merely a beneficent
hope on the part of the wishors that they in fact occur.
This greeting may not be enforceable in certain jurisdictions and/or the
restrictions herein may not be binding upon certain wishees in certain
jurisdictions and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wishors.
This greeting is warranted to perform as reasonably may be expected within
the usual application of good tidings, for a period of one year or until the
issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first.
The wishor warrants this greeting only for the limited replacement of this
wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wishor.
Any references in this greeting to “the Lord”, “Father Christmas”, “Our
Saviour”, or any other festive figures, whether actual or fictitious, dead
or alive, shall not imply any endorsement by or from them.
NOTE I take no credit for this seen on a UK police blog and indicative of the current UK environment on political correctness.
Some councils have replaced the word ‘Christmas’ with non denominational winter festival.
Congratulations to Ross for his efforts in providing a desireable product with a great donation leverage for a very worthwhile cause. World Vision’s charity efficiency of about 81 % is notable also. I can overlook their AGW alarmism here. Of course, I live some 70 miles north of New York City, where I have to constantly endure phony AGW hype from the local newspaper, colleges, environmental groups, and many of my friends.
Ross,
Some of the Whitman clan in the Adirondack Mtns like the music of the Wild Oats. I have listened to it before. I never realized you were a member of the group.
It is a small world.
I wish you well with your charitable efforts.
Happy holiday season wishes to all.
John
Should point out, W.V. CANADA although they share the LOGO is almost an INDEPENDENT organization.
World Vision USA has NOTHING like the Canadian “environmental” buy off.
I think we can continue to support W.V. USA.
Max
Eyes Wide Open: A few years ago when I was living in the UK, I saw to my dismay Oxfam billboards playing up AGW alarmism, and I have seen lots of those giant aid organizations (mostly on the UK side) go all in for the green cause. World Vision Canada has by and large stayed away from that, but they do get pushed by the activist crowd to jump on the rhetoric bandwagon. You’ll notice, though, in the link you provided, that their response is entirely practical, focusing on improving local agricultural techniques and building up resilience, namely stuff that makes sense with or without the AGW angle. They’re not wasting money on Oxfam-style climate alarmist billboard campaigns. I had a complete tour of their headquarters yesterday. With a relatively small staff they manage half a million child sponsorships in Canada, as well as special-purpose field projects focusing on health, education and agricultural productivity in developing countries. And while there are other aid organizations out there, I know of none that have the credibility in Canada to line up corporate sponsors willing to provide 14:1 matching funds for the contribution from each of our CDs, so that the $5 we pay them turns into $75 worth of school supplies arriving overseas. I consider it an honour to work with them and I am confident that the revenue we are generating in this project is going to good ends.
Regarding sales through Amazon and overseas, go to http://chanterrecords.com/ and sign up for the email list and we’ll let you know when it’s available. We didn’t have time this year to sort that stuff out, but we will in the future. Because of the charitable donation on each unit the accounting has to be done very carefully and it’s easier for us to handle all the orders and shipping in house for the time being. That’s also why we are not selling individual tracks on iTunes at this time.
John Whitman: I think there must be more than one band out there called The Wild Oats. I doubt anyone in the US has heard the Guelph version.
For charities in the U.S., you can check with the taxman, or Guidestar. In Canada, you can check with their taxman, or a couple other sources:
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/chrts-gvng/lstngs/menu-eng.html
http://www.charityintelligence.ca/charity-details/33-world-vision-canada
http://www.canadahelps.org/CharityProfilePage.aspx?charityID=s35994
–These show World Vision Canada to be a legitimate charity operating within normal, and admirable parameters, such as salary levels and portion of revenue going to direct programs along with salary and administration.
I am not too concerned about the global warming tie-in; bottom-up structural things need to be done to address poevrty, rather than the top-down new-colonialism promoted by the oil companies and the sellers of birth control pills/devices and the sellers of non-renewable food supports such as gnetically modified crops. Hand-up, not hand-out.Providing education and small-scale infrastructure for health and productivty is my opinion of a way to help, if you are going to help.
Small solar devices (solar ovens, solar radio, solar-based water-purification), hyper-efficient wood-burning stoves and stove technology, are ways to empower people from the bottom up, and so less subject to the abuse of power. bill Gates’ ideas of delivering birth control pills is how we with power prefer to keep the third world from gaining on us, and so is in my view simply mere manipulation under the guide of “progress” and “charity.”
Also, I hope people are not dissuaded by the Christian basis. Christian religious-obseravtion-based charitable giving has been and continues to be the most powerful charity force on the planet.
Christian giving from the U.S. to the world far surpasses what the U.S gives in foreign aid. We Chirstians who give to our churches, demographically, on average, also happen to give to non-religious charities as well- this includes humanitarian, more self-less charities as well as the old-fashioned alumni giving, which I always consider a bit suspect since that is probably heavily motivated by football enthusiasm.
when we give and serve as Christians, our usual behavior is to evangelize, in a loving, enthusiastic way, without undue pressure and without tying our giving to any decalration of believe, church attendance, or anything as coercive as that. We believe that we are to plant seeds of hope and good news, and that it will eventually be God in someone’s heart that leads them to join with us.
So, technically, evangelists never convert anyone. Our job is just to prep people so they are in a state to listen to the holy spirit. I say this because it gets marketed that we want to perform charity only to convert people; we have a dual misson – spread the good news, and selflessly serve. Interpersonal persuasion happens all day everywhere, and we are just doing the same thing. People persuade me to buy things, vote certain ways, and so on – all day long. We deliver our dual effort – service plus the good news – because we have been asked by our deity, and we want to see you in heaven. that it. Nothing bigger than that.
The marxists want the general public to believe that we are stingey and judgmental. Many “scientific”-minded people have bought this false story. This is not the truth. We give selflessly, and historically are THE ones on the “battlefront” of selfless help to others, including when AIDS emerged, including the establishment of nearly ALL of those charity hospital you know so well, the abolitionist movement, and so on.
We, generally, are not ignorant, selfish, or dumb. Theists have, obviously, been seminal major thinkers in science, including DesCartes and Al-Ghazali, a very clever muslim epistemologist who explored the primacy of doubt in epistemology long before DesCartes.
Some people do capitalize on the favorable view of Christians or Chirstianity and take advantage of others, lie, cheat, steal, rape, molest, etc.
That is simply a bad person using any means they can to practice evil. A Buddhist monk fled the temple in my neighborhood for another country for child molestation – I know of no tenet of Buddhism encouraging this behavior, nor in Christianity. The opposite is true.
So, fellow WUWT readers: please be open-minded, charitable, and consider evidence.
Here is a good place to start.
http://www.independentsector.org/giving_volunteering_faith_philanthropy
As always, check out charities well.
Bought one as a Christmas gift for my brother-in-law (we draw names).
Include “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” on your next release, and I’ll buy 2.
Ross McKitrick wrote: “WUWT attracts a well-educated readership…”
Would either Ross McKitrick or a WUWT reader care to define “well-educated?”
I seen a book once.
A Premise: An important learning process of each individual includes a highly critical independent assessment of educational value received in relation to how one was educated.
John
Jake Diamond says:
November 29, 2012 at 8:35 am
Ross McKitrick wrote: “WUWT attracts a well-educated readership…”
Would either Ross McKitrick or a WUWT reader care to define “well-educated?”
—————————————————————————————————————————
During my education for a degree in music education, they taught me that education was all about educing what lies within – as long the education “educed” the right things as determined by the educer. Haven’t cared much for definitions of well-educated since then. I would incude Lincoln within the well-educated – especially when compared to all the well-educated types around him.
They didn’t teach me anything about the bodhran or the bagpipe, though. Didn’t appear to fit within the well-educated definition of music at the Big Ten university. But I do know enough about Celtic music to have been profoundly disappointed when my mother-in-law took us to a performance of Cetltic Thunder.
Thanks to folks including Ross discussing the global waming policies of the chartiy in question. Might as well be well-informed, yes?
As a person owning a stack of Celtic CDs, it is a new goal of mine to purchase the “”Making Spirits Bright” CD after I extricate myself from my current extreme poverty situation.
Commenter Eyes Wide Open (November 28, 2012 at 8:55 pm) brings up a valid point about genuinely well-meaning organizations that apparently accidentally drive off a cliff over global warming concerns, and Ross’ answer (November 29, 2012 at 8:11 am) points out the error of Vision Canada jumping “on the rhetoric bandwagon”. My own religion’s organization, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has also done so at the hands of no less than a person associated with the old Ozone Action group, as I detailed almost two years ago in my article “The Case of the Curious Climate Covenant” http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/the_case_of_the_curious_climat.html
For all the good work the ELCA does, I can’t tell you how dismaying it is to see them duped into eco-justice rhetoric without any apparent attempt on their part to check the veracity of AGW or to question the people who led them into this. But, I still support the ELCA’s work when it comes to helping people.
We can now accommodate overseas orders. Just email admin@chanterrecords.com saying how many you want and we’ll send you a shipping quote and take it from there. For Canada and the US, follow the existing payment system at http://chanterrecords.com/MakingSpirits.aspx. By the way, just since post this went up last night we have been FLOODED with orders! Thanks everybody. We will be spending the weekend packing CDs for shipment Monday morning. Also, World Vision staff told me our donation yesterday, with the matching donations added in, will fully stock 540 classrooms in the new year.
I’m happy to help out.
Merry Christmas to You & Yours!
“in which I play bagpipes, pennywhistle and bodhran”
But we forgive you. ;-p
Seriously, Ross, congratulations on your successful CD. And thank you so much for your wonderful charitable efforts and for giving us a chance to join in a truly worthy cause.
Nollaig chridheil agus bliadhna mhath ùr!
I like Ross McKitrick a lot. I also like instrumental music. But World Vision is on my list of charities I don’t want to support. That’s unfortunate.
Ross,
Thank you for your thoughtful response. No doubt World Vision Canada does much good work and I applaud you for your efforts to assist with the particular endeavour you are are involved with. It is a shame that so many otherwise rational organizations feel the need to jump on the climate change bandwagon and end up alienating themselves from communities that might otherwise be inclined to support them (such as the WUWT community of rational scientific thinkers). Perhaps WV Canada are starting to see the light – their pushing of the climate change nonsense seems to be less overt than it was a couple of years ago. Perhaps you could help educate their management as to the folly of getting involved with fad causes that have no basis in reality and the benefit to distancing themselves from such nonsense by completing purging their website of associated references! It can only help them with their otherwise valid initiatives.
Good luck with your project!
Just an observation: Although so far a small sample size, I note that none of the usual warmists who troll or attempt to hijack threads on WUWT have yet to post in support of this project.
Perhaps, as opposed to conservative skeptics, they are much more at ease giving other people’s money.
thelastdemocrat says:
November 29, 2012 at 8:17 am
….Also, I hope people are not dissuaded by the Christian basis. Christian religious-obseravtion-based charitable giving has been and continues to be the most powerful charity force on the planet….
___________________________________
My husband is an atheist and I am agnostic. Or one and only charity is the Salvation Army based on their track record. WV Canada seems to have their head screwed on correctly too.
Thanks everyone for the information on the organization. We have passed the information about the CD on to our music loving friends.
Jake Diamond says:
November 29, 2012 at 8:35 am
Ross McKitrick wrote: “WUWT attracts a well-educated readership…”
Would either Ross McKitrick or a WUWT reader care to define “well-educated?”
___________________________
Eons ago it was the subject of a post here complete with the stats but I am not about to dig it out. So yes it has a basis in fact.
One for me, one for my family’s Christmas dinner host & hostess (brother and wife).
WV’s distancing itself from AGW is encouraging. Encourage it.
On November 29, 2012 at 4:23 pm, Gail Combs mentioned the Salvation Army. I agree completely. They are an actual charity, as opposed to those organizations which are in the business of charity. If only they’d drop the religious angle. 😉
Now to Celtic music, which I love, and it does not include that silliness, “Celtic Thunder’; what a crock. Of course the Celts emigrated to Hibernia from Iberia in a couple of waves, taking their Gaita (pipes) with them. See Susana Seivane – Gaitera Celta. h/t to the chiefio.