Why? or Whackos in Whirlybirds

Some lady wants to circumnavigate the globe in a helicopter. Well, the circumnavigation part isn't all that impressive, seeing how she's already done it. The strange part is that she wants to do it via the North and South Poles. You can read all about the trip here.

This is patently ridiculous. So what if you circumnavigate the world in a fucking helicopter? What will you have proven? It's not like you're explorers or scientists. It's not like people are sitting around anxiously wondering whether it's possible to circumnavigate the fucking globe in a goddamn helicopter. Do us all a favor: stay home, or, better yet, fly your helicopter to Africa and deliver some food and medical supplies. Or fly your helicopter to my house and give me a ride to work.

Wait. This just in. The helicopter ride around the globe is actually a good thing, since the pilot and her navigator are using it as an opportunity to raise money for endangered wildlife, or some shit like that.

This is something I've never understood. "I'm going to do something stupid in order to raise money for something totally unrelated." Actually, this helicopter thing is a much bigger version of give-me-money-because-i'm-doing-something-dumb events like AIDS walks. AIDS walks are these things they hold in major cities. People get sponsors, who give them money (like x amount of dollars per mile) to walk a for a while. So they close down a whole bunch of streets and a lot of people walk around for a while, and somehow, AIDS research benefits. I happen to thing AIDS research is a rather good cause, but I think we'd be better off if people just donated the fucking money and didn't walk anywhere. In other words, don't close down my city streets so you can walk for no reason. Just give your money to the fucking AIDS research people and go to the gym like the rest of us.

So back to stupid helicopter people, I think we ought to start a fund to prevent them from going to the South Pole. Listen up crazy helicopter pilot lady and her even crazier helicopter navigator man: I'm rallying a group of people to raise money to keep your asses from killing yourselves at the fucking South Pole. If we raise more money than you do, I think you should fly your asses right back to where you came from. Sound like a deal?

Comments

[Jessie]

I've always found the "give-me-money-because-i'm-doing-something-dumb events" kinda weird too... (it's the "walk FOR hunger" ...what, you supporting hunger?)

But the thing is, it works! People are more apt to give money for someone doing something/anything rather than just for the cause.

I guess because AIDS or Hunger or whatever is always there and aren't going away anytime soon people need little events as reminders?

I mean, I was able to raise $2,500 for MS because I walked 50 miles in 3 days. But maybe that's just because my friends and family were willing to pay to see me suffer...

From the MS Society's point of view the walk represented a commitment to the cause. It was also good for visability-1,000 people stopping traffic gets your attention, whether in a good way or not! (or maybe it's really some weird perverse pleasure they get out of people walking that much, because afterwards, I certainly felt as crappy as my boyfriend does on a bad MS day!) :)