Better Things for the One Million Moms To Think About or They're Just Schweddy Balls, Baby!

So, for the past few days I've been laughing at the Schweddy Balls Ice Cream that Ben & Jerry's came out with.  Every time I think about it, or hear someone else talking and laughing about it or read about it, I laugh.  It's funny.  And the skit on SNL that birthed it is funny.  Good on ya, Ben & Jerry for having the balls, er, guts to have fun with this.

Then I read about the One Million Moms and their call for a boycott of Schweddy Balls.  In their words, Ben & Jerry introduced a  "...vulgar new flavor has  (that) turned something as innocent as ice cream into something repulsive. Not exactly what you want a child asking for at the supermarket."

Oh, boo hoo (and don't even get me started on their issue with Hubby Hubby flavor).  Seriously, this is what you spend your precious time on?  This is what you want to rally your the power of One Million Moms about? What a waste.  There are so many more important things that you could be doing, gettiing press about, creating solutions for.  And I'm not saying that these are mutually exclusive--I'm saying that there are many, many more issues that deserve your time and attention.  So many in fact that you could multi-task your little brains out and still not get to all of them.

So, because I hate to see such a waste of resources, I'm going to share a few ideas I came up with on my 10-minute drive home from work.

1.  Visit, clean up and put flowers on the 4,683 plus graves of the men and women that have given their lives in our current war(s).

2.  Collaborate on a solution for our horrifyingly broken Child Protective Services and Foster Care system.
(You know, according to NCMEC there is an estimated 800,000 kids that are reported missing each year and children missing from care fall into three groups; those who run away, those who are abducted and those whose whereabouts are unknown.)

3.  Give blood. (The Red Cross needs 1/2 a million blood donations in August/September to meet patient demands.)

4.  Work with local and federal governments to put a stop to the human trafficking of young boys and girls for the international sex trade.(Worldwide, it is estimated that somewhere between 700,000 and four million women, children and men are trafficked each year, and no region is unaffected and an estimated 14,500 to 17,500 women and children are trafficked into this country each year.)

5.  Talk to your children about why Schweddy Balls is so funny and then why you don't think it was a good idea.  Get their opinion on it.  It's called teaching your child "critical thinking" skills.

6.  Spend a few minutes thinking about some other mom's son, Troy Davis, and the issues with the death penalty in this country.

7.  Start and staff a voter registration drive with the goal of getting all eligible Americans ready and able to vote according to each states rules.

8.  Work with Skype to make their "Skype in the Classroom" vision of  a million connected classrooms a reality.

9.  Gather a million of anything (mosquito netting, childrens books, pennies) and do something with them.

10.  Go to http://www.avaaz.org/ and find one or two, or heck, maybe even three issues that your One Million Moms can make a real difference on.  A difference that makes a real impact on people's lives.

11. Go to http://www.kickstarter.com/ and help someone or a group of someones realize a dream.

I left myself a voicemail on the way home telling myself these 11 ideas for this post so I wouldn't forget them. Literally it was 10 minutes.  Which means that anyone else can spend 15 minutes and come up with 16 better ideas.

But it's not really about the ideas is it?  No, it's not.  It's about the fact that you have built an amazing resource and in this country you do have the freedom to do anything with that resource.  All I'm asking is that you think about the responsibility that comes with that freedom and be better than worrying about something as silly as Schweddy Balls.