Support Matt Brown #3

i know i tend to complain here a lot but im taking a break on this posting and counting my blessings instead. this past week i was sitting in a norwood diner and saw a poster of a high school hockey player that just hit a raw nerve.




matt brown is a sophomore at norwood high school. about a month ago during a game against weymouth, he was going for the puck, got bumped, lost his balance and hit his head on the glass. im sure this type of play happens all the time during the course of a hockey game. sadly, matt hit the glass in one of those freaky ways and sustained a spinal cord injury at the C4-C5 vertebra. he underwent immediate surgery to stablize the spinal cord and has since been moved to atlanta to a rehab center. he currently is paralyzed from the chest down though he has reported being able to feel touches on his arm and leg. despite his condition he has remained upbeat and says that no one did anything malicious to him during the game.

ive participated in many sporting eventss throughout my life, and even when there are big collisions, you dont really think that maybe this is the last time you will play. as i sat in the diner, i just kept thinking about this 15 year old kid with his whole life ahead of him, now in a rehab facility miles away from his family and friends and a world away from the life he once knew.

so what can you do? at the very least, say a prayer and put the brown family into your thoughts for a few quiet minutes. if you want to do more, you can visit matt's blog for information on making charitable donations.

Donate to Matt Brown #3

the census and the super bowl

Faced with record levels of red ink into the foreseeable future, Washington is spending $2.5 million to create buzz for the census - by advertising during the Super Bowl.

The Census Bureau is hoping to exploit the strong ratings from this annual attraction, aiming to get more participation from people who now seem disinclined to mail back a government questionnaire or even answer the door.

Census officials call it a good investment, saying the front-end costs of purchasing the ads can be quickly recouped if they succeed in encouraging people to mail back their census forms.

and this is only $2.5 million of their overall $133 million ad campaign!

i understand that they are trying to hype the census in order to get as many people to complete it as possible. and i know this isnt the first time that the government has advertised the census during the super bowl.

however, during the current economic situation arent you just stirring the pot of citizens concerned about the government wasting tax dollars? at the very least its a bad PR decision right?

while im annoyed that tax dollars, in my mind, are being mismanaged on this effort, i can get past it. the one statement from this article that most stuck out was the last paragraph

you can make a succesful argument that running the ads during the super bowl is a good advertising strategy but how do you make the argument that the front end costs can be quickly recouped? its not a product; the census will bring in $0 to taxpayers. so how are ANY costs being recouped?