(This is something I posted in the demise of Omidyar.net discussion).

I am at this moment watching the Democratic Presidential candidate debate on CNN. They are fielding questions submitted to YouTube....and there....before me... I see our very own Gabriel Stauring asking a question about Darfur while standing with some children in a refugee camp in Chad.

I haven't cried this hard in a long, long time.

My wonderful friends at HopeLab are developing something called Ruckus Nation. It's an online competition to create products that will get kids between the ages of 11 to 14 more active. They are awarding up to $300,000 in prizes for the best ideas. ($25k for the winning middle school student, $25k for the winning high school student, and so on.)

They are particularly hoping that middle school kids will submit ideas. I told my 11-year-old step-twins about it and they are brainstorming as we speak (after a short break for Hannah Montana).

Here's the info as it stands now (the official guidelines will be posted in September, with the deadline in November):

What: Ruckus Nation is an online idea competition that challenges participants to imagine innovative products that will increase physical activity among kids ages 11 to 14. The best product ideas will win.

To enter, all you have to do is submit a written description in English of the product idea, including why you believe your idea would be a fun and effective way to increase physical activity among kids. You'll also be able to submit a video clip, but it's not required.

When: Ruckus Nation opens in Fall 2007: September 2007 Competition opens for idea submissions; November 2007 Competition closes - all ideas must be submitted; Early 2008 Awards event - winners announced

Where: The competition will take place online. Ruckus Nation will accept entrants from around the world (with the exception of Quebec and countries subject to U.S. embargo.) A special in-person awards event will be held in the San Francisco Bay Area to announce winners. Who: People of all ages may enter and win. Individuals and teams will be allowed to enter their ideas. Ideas will be judged in four categories. Up to 1,000 teams will be allowed to compete.

How much: Ruckus Nation is free. No entry fee is required.

Legal stuff: Rules for Ruckus Nation will be finalized and published on ruckusnation.com prior to the start of the competition in September 2007. HopeLab reserves the right to modify the competition as described in these web pages before that time. Competition winners will assign the ownership rights to their winning ideas to HopeLab. We may decide to develop those ideas into products or use them in other ways at our sole discretion.

I'm going to restart something that fell by the wayside a while back: sporatic musings on whatever it is I'm pondering. I'll still have my Art Heals discussion going. This is more personal. Sometimes it feels good to get things out there, whether or not anyone actually reads them. Feel free to chime in.

Carpe diem, and all that jazz!

All my best, Cynthia

Over the past few years as I've been traveling around the country with my friends from KaBOOM talking to folks about how to build playgrounds I've been asked the same question: where do you get the tools? Each time I've told them about the Atlanta Community Tool Bank , the awesome organization that I've worked with here in Atlanta.

Then this year I heard the stunning news: ours is the ONLY tool bank in the country!!!! I can't believe it. It's such a no-brainer. An organization that has almost every tool you could ever need lends the tools (in great quantities) at a low rate to non-profits so that they can do their work. I mean, why buy 10 wheelbarrows if you only need them for one day or a weekend? Where do you find 40 shovels?

They want to take their model national. It has proven highly successful and they are attracting the attention of a number of potential partners who would be perfect matches.

I'll post more about this process as I learn more. I talked to Mark Brodbeck, the Executive Director today. He's an awesome fellow and has done great work. I first heard him speak on a powerhouse panel that included the head of the Woodruff Foundation and the Atlanta Community Foundation and was very impressed.

More soon, but check out their website. Plus, very cool logo!

My stars must have been aligned in some incredible way in late summer 2004. I found all of my friends here on Omidyar.net in late August and at about the same time a friend of mine started forwarding my political emails to a friend of hers. She thought he'd like my philosophy. He did. Turns out he liked me, too. He proposed to me in Paris Monday night!

I'll post some pictures from the trip here over the weekend. Pretty jet-lagged right now, but had to share my news with y'all.

Some things in life are worth waiting for, and Al is one of them. He's a terrific man. I am so lucky. I look back on my life and so much of it leads me here. The gift of a trip to Paris (I had never been before) is just one example of his generous spirit. Bigger still is that he is willing to share his wonderful twin ten-year-olds with me. I adore them.

Even without the proposal (which, by the way, I accepted) Paris was a dream come true. We stayed in Montparnasse which is an old arty section. Paul Gauguin (my favorite artist) used to live 3 doors down from our adorable tiny hotel. The restaurant, Wadja - our favorite place in Paris and where Al proposed, was a regular haunt of Giacometti (my sister's hero) and Modigliani. On the plane home I was reading "A Moveable Feast," and in it Hemingway describes walking down rue Delambre (our street.. only a couple of blocks long) to Le Dome. We ate at Le Dome's bistro.

I am peacefully and profoundly happy. I never imagined this would be a part of my life. I was never one of those girls who imagined her wedding. My first one, fresh off the commune, was done in jeans. This is going to be a wonderful party filled with the love of great friends and family and I will walk away with a husband who is my best friend. I am truly blessed.

So much more to tell, but I have to dash now. He's telling the kids our wonderful news as I type this and I'm going over so we can celebrate.

Here's what it says under my name:

It says (1506) next to my name.

202 people have given me points.

I've given 4262 points.

My comments have received 1820 thumbsup.

I've met many of you face to face: Mark G., Gabriel, Meron, Evonne, Anne Marie, Tony, Mark H., Christina, Thomas, Susan M., Susan L., Joan, Pam, Pierre, Stephen, Luke, Niny, Jim F., Esther, Ted, David R., Ray & Jackie, and many more .... can't believe I haven't met Lars!

I've traveled more than I have in my whole life: NYC for the IRC lunch and meetings with ICG; Washington to march for Darfur; LA to Camp Darfur; Chicago for the first o.net conference; DC again with Lance Armstrong Fdn., a whole bunch of trips with KaBOOM! Soon... Uganda...

You've stretched my brain; you've ticked me off; you've held me up; you frightened me off; you inspired me; you shared s'mores; you lied about my snoring.....

I'm not where I want to be, but I'm still moving and striving. I get overwhelmed by how much there is to do; you inspire me to do more...

My eyes have been opened to the possibility, no, the reality, of friendships and community with people I only know online; I savored the growth of friendships after we've actually met.

Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing here and I pull away. Then as the void grows and grows I return. It's hard not to check in several times a day to see what's happening. I think we can do a whole lot more.

Kinda babbling... it has been a long week. But, I couldn't let this anniversary pass without comment. It is probably significant to no one besides me, but for me it is really something. I'm going to come back to this over the next few days. Tomorrow I'm going white water rafting and I look forward to lying back (when the water's not white) and reflecting.

With a jolt this week I was reminded of the kind of fearlessness and integrity that led up to the formation of the United States of America. I took American History in high school, but I just didn’t get it that anybody took much of a risk. Not really. George Washington, Thomas Paine, Paul Revere…all quaint old stories from another time. It didn’t occur to me that they didn’t know how the story would end. They just had to do what they thought was right for the greater good no matter what the outcome. Grasping that concept helps me understand the depth of their courage.

The heroes of the Revolutionary War, the War of Independence, were rebels, turncoats, and traitors. They spoke their truth even though they were hated for their “unpatriotic” stance by far more of their countrymen than I ever realized. To a large part of the population they were the bad guys. The “patriots” were the ones who sided with the way things had always been; they sided with the British. But, the “traitors” were willing to stand tall and proud because they knew that the right to speak was the road to freedom. They were willing to fight for this right. They were willing to die for it.

We are extraordinarily lucky to live in the USA that these rebels created with their “unpatriotic” actions. We have our sacred freedoms because of the sacrifices they made. These sacrifices demand that we understand the old quote from The Friends of Voltaire: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” In our country we get to speak our minds without fear of being locked up or worse. And we’re proud of that right, or we sure ought to be.

I wonder if I would be willing to sacrifice much of anything for a little more freedom. Would I risk losing a cushy job or the respect of my peers? Would I be willing to put it all on the line and even face the threat of death for my principles? I doubt I have what it takes, but I am thankful that those Founding Rebels did.

This week I got a little glimpse of their type of courage and rebellion alive and well in the good ol’ U. S. of A. A singer, Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, put her money where her mouth is because she understood that it was worth the risk. She spoke her mind and she wouldn’t back down just because some folks thought she should. She didn’t risk her life to form a new country, but she sure reminded me why they bothered to form this one in the first place. I haven’t been this proud to be an American in a long, long time.

God bless America.

God bless the Dixie Chicks.

Just got this email from the friend of a friend and wanted to share it with the community. Amazing, for a nanosecond there I wished I was a little bit older than I am!

Dear Colleague:

Which five social innovators should receive the $100,000 Purpose Prize? David Bornstein suggested that I contact you to ask your help in identifying promising candidates for this new prize.

Civic Ventures, a national nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, has received $10 million in funding from The Atlantic Philanthropies and The John Templeton Foundation to launch The Purpose Prize, celebrating social entrepreneurs who are over the age of 60. We welcome your nominations or referrals and would appreciate your help in spreading the word about this program. More information on resources to assist you are mentioned at the end of this communication.

Founded in the late 1990s by social entrepreneurs John Gardner and Marc Freedman, Civic Ventures is reframing the debate about aging in America and working to redefine the second half of life as a time of individual renewal and significant social contribution. See www.civicventures.org. The Purpose Prize campaign, which was launched on December 1, seeks to shift society’s views – through powerful examples -- about what people can achieve in the second half of life. An article on the campaign from the Wall Street Journal is attached. (Go to http://www.omidyar.net/group/artheals/file/4.36.11336246364/get/Civic%20Ventures.pdf to download)

Contrary to common assumption, social innovators are not necessarily people in their 20s or 30s. For years, Civic Ventures has been following the efforts of people over the age of 60 who have demonstrated remarkable creativity and entrepreneurialism. With the first of the baby boomers reaching 60 next year, the opportunity (and need) for harnessing this pioneering spirit for positive social transformation is unparalleled.

Presently, these older social entrepreneurs receive far less recognition and investment than younger innovators. Because they are relatively unknown, there are few national role models for baby boomers to emulate in this way.

The Purpose Prize will challenge this perception by investing significantly in carefully screened social innovators over the age of 60. Each year the organization will award five prizes of $100,000 to individuals who have demonstrated uncommon vision, determination and entrepreneurialism in addressing community and national problems.

To be eligible, a person must:

· Be a U.S. resident age 60 or over

· Currently work in a leadership capacity at a nonprofit organization, government agency or company in support of a social cause

· Demonstrate creativity, passion and fresh thinking to advance his or her work

Individuals working in the public sector and not-for-profits, as well as for-profit organizations focused on social causes, are all eligible. Elected officials and individuals working in a strictly religious or sectarian capacity are not eligible. Due to staff limitations, we are unable to evaluate programs that primarily operate outside the United States.

The prize program will tell the stories of these and dozens of other innovators in the second half of life. Rather than a lifetime achievement award, however, The Purpose Prize is a down payment on what these innovators will do next to transform their communities and our nation. Beyond the Prize, Civic Ventures is establishing a fund for innovation that will make grants to enable these social innovators their ideas to scale or create new breakthrough pathways for solving problems. The fund has initial seeding of $1.5 million, but hopes to attract additional support and grow significantly.

Nominations and self-nominations will be accepted through February 28, 2006. Winners will be announced in June 2006.

To nominate someone (or have them self-nominate), go to the prize website, www.leadwithexperience.org and click on the link to apply/nominate. If you would prefer that we follow up with individuals directly, please send me an email with your candidate’s name, phone number and email address and we will contact the candidate.

Also, please spread about this new prize through your email newsletter, blog, or any other vehicle at your disposal. Sample email communications, newsletter articles, banners and buttons for websites and other resources are available at http://www.leadwithexperience.org/prize/partners.

Thank you for your assistance in helping to identify qualified nominees and spread the word. This is tremendous opportunity to advance a new agenda for engagement among people in the second half of life and I hope you will enjoy being part of it.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Jim Emerman Executive Vice President Civic Ventures 139 Townsend St., Suite 505 San Francisco, CA 94107 Ph: (415) 222-7487 Email: jemerman@civicventures.org www.civicventures.org

Tonight I stopped by the grocery store to grab a few things. Instead of the usual light rock wafting through the air I heard children singing. I followed the sound, and discovered, up by the check out lanes, the Inman Middle School choir. I felt like I was in Maybery, especially when they sang a song about turkeys and flapped their arms like wings. I stood there listening while my ice cream melted and it made me painfully aware of some changes I need to make in my life.

For the past several years I have started feeling dread right around Halloween. I'm not sure when it started to be like this. I used to love the holidays. Maybe things started to change when my son outgrew Santa, or after my Mom died. I know for a fact that without my little brother to do his traditional dramatic reading of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" and me not being able to spend much time with his daughters anymore the season has seemed empty and hollow. I dread the feelings of dread themselves.

But, this has got to stop. I have so much to be thankful for and wasting a good month or two feeling miserable is absurd and more than a little unhealthy. So, this year, as I approach the holiday season, I am in search of new meaning.

Now, Thanksgiving is easy. That has always been my favorite holiday. I have an abundance of things to be thankful for this year...more than ever before. My son is healthy and has a vision of building an organization to help young athletes facing the same challenges he faced in his life. I have a new man in my life whom I care for more dearly every day and he comes packing twin nine-year-olds who delight me at every turn. I have cherished friends who have stood by me through thick and thin. I am working every day on CancerKid, doing work I love that challenges, frightens and inspires me.

To top this off I'm spending Thanksgiving in Jackson Hole. On the following Saturday I'll walk down the aisle in front of my little sister who is marrying the love of her life with the Grand Tetons in the background. We'll be surrounded by life-long friends and my new friend, too. Two of my Mom's dearest friends will stand in for her. In front of me will walk the ten-year-old daughter of my dear brother. I think that the question will not be will I cry, but will I be able to keep it down so the vows can be heard.

Christmas is the tricky one. I am not a Christian really. I think Jesus is awesome. I love his teachings. But I don't think he is any more (or any less) the child of God than any of us are. He just knew it more clearly than we do. Christmas is also tricky for me because I have major problems with the fact that the season seems to be all about gift-giving and gift-getting. Our stuff-crazed gimme-gimme gotta-own-more culture drives me nuts.

So where does that leave me? Happy through the fourth Thursday in November and then tense until January? I don't think so. Not anymore anyway. I realized what I want to do a paragraph or two ago. I've decided to run Thanksgiving all the way through until January with a few carols, gifts and sugarplums thrown in for good measure. (OK, I don't really know what sugarplums are, I just added that in 'cause it sounded good.)

The holidays for me are about love and gratitude. Honestly, there is a little sadness in there, too, and I think that's just life. But, if I could spend just this one month of the year focusing on the love I have in my life I think my world would be a better place. This year I'm going to do a test run. I'm going to not panic about the gifts I give and give only ones that are heart-felt. I will give gifts only as a token of my affection, not in the attempt to fill some void or relieve some guilt. I will give freely and from the heart. I will focus on the message of gratitude and see if I can make it last until January 2nd. I don't want to feel the dread anymore, so from now until then it's Thanksgiving and Valentines every day.

However, I will never flap my arms and act like a turkey. But, I sure am thankful that those children did.

It's early Sunday morning. There is a cool breeze blowing through the leaves of the dogwood and walnut trees outside my 2nd story studio. My enormous old windows are wide open and as the breeze hits me I am overwhelmed with peace. This is my church.

But now there are tears running down my face as I read about the new rule expected to be released by the Vatican prohibiting homosexuals from entering the seminary. When I first heard about this I was stunned and infuriated. This morning it just breaks my heart.

I always thought that God = Love.

There is an article in today's New York Times about Father Mychal Judge, the priest who was killed while giving last rites to a fallen fireman on 9/11. Father Judge was known to be a celibate homosexual to his friends. He was know to be a true man of God to all. For Father Judge not to have been allowed to minister to people as a priest would have been whatever it is that lies far beyond criminal.

It breaks my heart that so many churches and religious leaders ignore godliness in their striving to make people conform to their comfort level. But, the God of my understanding is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving and all-inclusive. Vile rules such as this new Vatican rule are hateful, exclusionary and spit in the face of any Being thought to be great.

Hate is small. Hate is putrid. Hate is the poison that hardens the heart and probably the arteries as well. And so I try not to hate those who make rules like this that break not only my heart, but the hearts of so many I hold dear. For one single one of my gay friends to think for one nano-second that they are wrong or not loved by God saddens me so profoundly I can barely breathe.

One need look no further than Father Judge to see that sexual orientation has absolutely nothing at all to do with one's capacity to love God, love mankind, and spend a life in service of both.

September 25, 2005

Admirers of Fallen 9/11 Hero Disdain the Vatican's Likely Plan to Bar Gays as Priests

By ANDY NEWMAN

The Rev. Mychal F. Judge, the Fire Department chaplain who died in the rubble of 9/11, was, and still is, one of the most widely loved Roman Catholic priests in New York City's recent history.

For 40 years, Father Judge tirelessly ministered to firefighters, their grieving widows, AIDS patients, homeless people, Flight 800 victims' families and countless others. At his funeral, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani called him a saint, a sentiment that admirers have followed up by campaigning for his canonization. A simple prayer that Father Judge wrote has been circulated around the world and attached to thousands of donations to the needy. Pope John Paul II accepted the gift of his helmet.

Father Judge was also, according to many of his friends of all sexual orientations, a homosexual. A celibate homosexual, he told friends, but a homosexual nonetheless. And reports last week that the Vatican is likely to try to bar gay men, even celibate ones, from the priesthood stirred anger among those who revere his memory.

The former city fire commissioner Thomas Von Essen, a close friend of Father Judge's, said Thursday that excluding men of his caliber from the priesthood would be simply "a shame."

Mr. Von Essen, a married, practicing Catholic who said that Father Judge came out to him years before his death, added, "To sacrifice your life to God and try to do so much good every day and to be prevented from doing that - it's no wonder they can't get anyone to join the church to become a priest or a nun."

On Thursday, Andrew Sullivan, the outspokenly gay and Catholic journalist, posted on his Web site an oft-reprinted photograph of Father Judge's limp body being carried off by firefighters on 9/11 minutes after he had given last rites to one of their own. Above it was the sardonic headline "Unfit for the Priesthood."

Mr. Sullivan said on Friday that Father Judge's work with the Fire Department mocked the assertion, made by a Catholic official who described the expected new rule, that even celibate gays should not enter the seminary because the temptations arising from being surrounded by men there would be too strong.

"The idea that gay priests somehow cannot serve straight congregants, when you have this priest working with one of the most stereotypically macho organizations - and he gave his life to them - captures some of the cruelty and bigotry we see in the Vatican now," Mr. Sullivan said in a telephone interview.

Father Judge, a gregarious, sandal-shod Franciscan friar who was 68 when he died, was a longtime member of a gay Catholic group, Dignity, and he often spoke up for gay rights. But several of Father Judge's admirers from conservative backgrounds declined on Friday to discuss his sexuality because they said it had no relevance.

A gay man who posted to saintmychal .com, a Web site promoting Father Judge's canonization, said he did not see why anyone would care, either. The man, Ralph W. Vogel, attended Masses that Father Judge offered in the 1990's for gay and lesbian Catholics in a Unitarian church on Staten Island. "I don't know anything personally about his sexual orientation, and it's not really important to me other than 'Wow, he was there,' " said Mr. Vogel, a director of volunteer services at Ronald McDonald House.

In fact, some prominent conservative Catholic commentators said on Friday that the church should not concern itself with the sexual orientation of candidates for the priesthood who honor their vows of celibacy.

"I don't really care, and I don't think most Catholics care if a priest is gay" as long he does not act on his urges, said William Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and a fierce critic of what he has called declining moral standards.

The Vatican document on gay seminarians has not yet been completed, and exactly how the authorities would go about screening out homosexuals remains an open question. The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a conservative Catholic who edits the religious journal First Things, said that he doubted that the final document would include celibate gays in the ban. Such a policy, he said, "would raise enormous theological and moral problems in the teaching of the church."

Mr. Donohue said that the while the Vatican did need to address the sexual abuses committed by priests and damage they have done to the church, "the answer to the problem is not all of a sudden to roll out of bed and have this universal prohibition."

The founder of the saintmychal Web site, Burt Kearns, suggested that Father Judge himself could help repair the church's public image.

"If you look at the work and life of Mychal Judge, this is a man who should be on the recruiting poster for Catholic priests," Mr. Kearns said. "He was a great priest."

Shadi Rahimi contributed reporting for this article.

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company