Ice Bucket Challenge

What in the world does dumping a bucket of ice water over your head have to do with ALS?


Absolutely nothing.  But at the same time, a whole heck of a lot.


Like just about everyone else in America who has ever joined and occasionally visited a social media website, I have watched many people dump buckets of ice water over their heads in the last couple of weeks.  Initially, I watched with passing interest...there's so and so from my fraternity... there's whatshisname who I swam with...there's whoseewasit from high school...hey look, they are now having their kids do it.  I started to see some celebrities do it, most notably LeBron.  LeBron is notable, because Middle loves him more than he loves his own mother.  While going through YouTube on the TV to show Middle LeBron's ice bucket dump, I found the top 10 celebrity ice bucket challenges.  The best, by far, is Paul Bissonette, who was doused by glacier water on top of a mountain.


The ice bucket challenge has taken America by storm.  Well, at least in social media.  A Google search for "celebrity ice bucket challenge" yields 54,200,000 results.  The top results are traditional news sources, such as USA Today and Time, entertainment news sources, such as Entertainment Tonight and internet news sights, such as BuzzFeed.  Celebrities who have participated include politicians, such as Chris Christie, numerous athletes (LeBron, Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning and Christiano Ronaldo, just to name a few), actors, singers, the 1% (Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg), groups, teams, cheerleaders, news anchors (Matt Lauer), media moguls (Oprah Winfrey) and just about every level of celebrity from A to Z.  This is in addition to the many friends and family of just about everyone.  My 8 year old niece did hers yesterday, although her older brother missed the water dump, so she had to do it twice.  O4C posted a news article on FaceBook that appears to say Lithuanians are doing it, although I can't be sure, because the article was in Lithuanian.


The methods are as diverse as the people doing the challenge.  Many go for the solo dump.  Just as many have someone do it for them.  I enjoyed the William and Mary volleyball team, who had the water dumped on them, as a group huddled together, from a landing, 20 feet up.  Watching multiple people do it to each other all at once is entertaining.  I have seen people do it in pools, at the beach, fully clothed, mostly naked, on a boat, sitting and standing.  I have seen complete misses, near misses and direct hits.  Chris Carter missed his head and hit Chris Berman.  I guess you could call that collateral damage, if Berman wasn't already wet, because he knows how to dump a bucket of water over his own head without missing.  I guess that's why Carter was a receiver and not a quarterback.  The best, Paul Bissonette, was mentioned above.


As I slowly watched this phenomenon I noticed that it seemed to be stalking me, like a tiger, sneaking up on a zebra.  Slowly but surely, the people who were doing the challenge were moving from people I knew 20 years ago, to people I know now, to people I see on a fairly regular basis, to close friends.  The closer that wave gets to you, the more likely you are to get wet.
Add to this, the desperation of Middle to participate.  All day Sunday he kept asking questions about the ice bucket challenge.  "Dad, do you want to do the ice bucket challenge?"  "Dad, do you want me to do the ice bucket challenge?"  "Who wants to see me dump a bucket of ice over my head?"  "How cold do you think the water is?"  "Do you want to nominate me for the ice bucket challenge?"  Will you nominate me for the ice bucket challenge?"  "How do you get nominated?"  "When do you want me to do it?"


I got to the point that I almost, and I stress the word "almost", wanted to get challenged, just so I could make Middle do it to.  Middle was so persistent and desperate, Youngest also wants to do the challenge.  Eldest has reached the point where he realizes dumping a bucket of cold water over your head might not be that much fun.  He wants nothing to do with it.


So, it was with mild trepidation, but a little relief, that I saw a FaceBook notice yesterday afternoon, a day I knew my oldest and dearest friend was fulfilling her challenge.  Sure enough, I had been challenged, which at least means that Middle gets to dump a bucket of ice water over his head.


On SportsCenter this morning, I saw a report on the beginning of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.  The report stated that this trend began with a former Boston College baseball player named Pete Frates.  Frates has been diagnosed with ALS and is currently confined to a wheelchair.  Frates is credited with creating the challenge, along with friend and fellow ALS patient, Pat Quinn.  The purpose of the challenge is to raise awareness and money to support research into ALS and hopefully find a cure.


Today, on FaceBook, I saw an article  from Slate.com, criticizing the Challenge, and those participating.  The main point of the article is that people are spending money on ice, rather than on ALS research.  The writer proposes that people should not buy ice, they should not fill a bucket with water and the ice and they should just give money.  The writer presumes that the people participating in the challenge are doing it simply to show off and do not care in any way about ALS or people suffering from ALS.  The article criticizes the ice bucket videos for not giving any substantive information about ALS, why the money is needed or what it will do.  Of course, the author fails to give any of this information himself, while suggesting that people give money and not make a video.


The irony of this article is that the evidence to destroy the writers point is in the article itself.  The ALS Association raised $1.35 million in the two weeks before the article was written, as compared to $22,000.00 during the same period last year.  Read that again.  It sounds to me like a lot of people are donating their "hard-earned cash" money, as well as time to make videos and gather FaceBook "likes".  The ALS Association website, http://alsa.org/, currently advertises the challenge prominently.  Perhaps this writer should recognize that a disease like ALS, as well as any other charitable organization, needs all the publicity it can get and that a social media craze is going to raise awareness in ways that the organization couldn't do in 10 years without blowing almost every dollar they collect.  It is obvious that many more people are giving to ALSA this year than ever and the reason is this challenge.  Sure, many of them may not be giving money, but donations are breaking records.  Why complain?  Especially when you consider that almost all of the people dumping ice water over their heads weren't going to give to ALS this year and probably didn't deduct $5.00 from their donation to cover the cost of ice.  Not that I think most of them bought the ice anyway.


ALS is a devastating disease.  Getting funding for ALS must be difficult, because there are no success stories.  You can't point to someone who lived, or even fought the good fight.  People get it, they get worse and then they die.  There is no cure.  There is no treatment.  Cancer has success stories.  Breast cancer has fun bumper stickers (SAVE THE TA-TAS).  MS is debilitating, but not fatal.  There are tons of diseases out there making people suffer and killing people.  There are tons of organizations trying to find cures or treatments, or simply make life a little better for the people suffering and their families.  They are all fighting for money, often the same money.  Raising awareness means getting the word out that money is needed.  The people suffering from this disease don't care if donors know what the disease does or why the money is needed.  They only care if a cure is going to be found.  They don't care how or why.  They don't care why anyone donated, only that they donated.


With this in mind, today, I will accept the challenge.  I will dump a bucket of ice water over my head, with Middle and Youngest by my side.  I will also donate to ALS and another charity.  It is the least I can do.


Oh, and thanks, Laura.