October 12, 2014

Using the Web, Celebrity, and even Churches to Raise Money, Then What?

The web offers opportunities to help those in need like nothing before it. In fact, without the internet, most people would probably have already forgotten that more than a quarter million Haitians lost their lives just a little over fifteen months ago.

The internet can be used to save lives in time of natural disaster or civil uprising. It can also be used, especially in this era of the social media revolution, to bring awareness and raise money for different causes that people the world over are passionate about.

Coupling it with the magnetic power of celebrities, such as Eva Longoria or Shaquille O’Neal, it could do things that no one thought was ever possible. In fact, this is exactly what Shaun King, a pastor at Most Courageous church in Georgia, did last September when he started the Twitchange phenomenon on twitter.

The goal was clear and simple, to bring celebrities and fans together in a loud, fun way on Twitter to bring awareness and financial support to charitable causes that change the world. The idea started because of the earthquake in Haiti; hence, the first twitchange campaign was to benefit a school for children with special needs there: The Miriam Center in Northwest Haiti.

Before twitchange started, Pastor Shaun King founded Ahomeinhaiti, which was a movement that provided shelter, more specifically tents, to people who lost their homes after the earthquake in Haiti. Many people and organizations joined this movement to make it a success, although the idea of sending tents to Haiti in the wake of the earthquake was always controversial to many who know and understand Haiti.

Now, to why this article is even being written. On twitter, many Haitians and foreigners who supported Twitchange and pastor Shaun King, often sent me direct messages (DM) asking what have I heard about the Miriam Center since the end of the twitchange campaign? Many were curious because a lot of money was raised and wanted to know how it was being used, while others simply wanted to check on the progress of the project.

Back in January, I sent my first email to Pastor Shaun King after briefly asking him on twitter, if we could do a short interview so that I could get an update on the project. He replied, saying that I could send him the questions by email, but at that time I was traveling to Haiti, so I never had a chance to do a follow up. As I visited the Twitchange website on April 16th, I then sent Mr. King an email asking for some basic information: Could you please provide us with an update about your project in Haiti, and also for a main contact from the organization which you donated all the money raised? It would be good to get an update from all involved.

This question was sent to him after he wrote on twitter that he donated all the money raised, more than $540,000 according to some reports, such as this Forbes.com article and the Twitchange website (see picture below), to Northwest Haiti Christian Mission (NWHCM). Up to this point, I was just hoping to get a straight answer from either Mr.King or if he provided me with the contact info for NWHCM that the project is on-track and here’s where I can get more information if interested. But all to my surprise, we had a few email exchanges, which can be read below.


Mr.King: Sure! Are you in Haiti?  It would be best to go and see the work for yourself. Amazing stuff!

So again, I asked the same question: Do you have someone I can reach in Haiti? I would like to go visit and talk to someone there next week.

Mr King’s: You live in Port Au Prince now? Will you drive from PAP to St. Louis or fly? I will check with the team there on Monday to see who could connect with you.

I answered: I will drive. Can you give me a name and phone number that I can
contact this week-end?

Mr.King: I will get a Haitian # for you by Monday. If you drive to St. Louis Du Nord - everybody there knows all about Northwest Haiti Christian Mission.

I sent emails, both on Monday and Tuesday, reminding Mr.King to send me the info. I received no reply. On Wednesday April 20th, I sent another email to him, asking for a Haiti contact again, so that we could set up a visit and an interview with the staff there. When I received no reply to the emails, again, I contacted him through his twitter account. Shortly thereafter, Mr. King sent me this reply: I am out of the state in Los Angeles. Please contact Northwest Haiti Christian Mission directly for whatever info you need. Here's the thing - the organization you are researching has nothing to hide. I have already encouraged you to go there and given you the links to all of the staff members for you to reach them directly. I encourage you to do so.

In the above reply, Pastor King made it seemed as if I was researching NWHCM, which from our first conversation, I had no idea who they were. Pastor King was the one who raised all the money through twitchange, and from the beginning the money was to build the Miriam center which was going to look like this upon completion.

( architectural rendition of the Miriam Center)
Since Pastor King never gave a direct contact for NWHCM in Haiti, so I followed the link for NWHCM that he sent me and contacted Courtney Pierce, the Miriam Center director in Haiti. I got a replied from the director’s organization email stating that she was on sabbatical, and that I should send my email regarding the center to another email address (Miriam.center at nwhcm.org), which I did.

From that email address, I received a reply from Courtney Pierce, detailing the history and need for the Miriam center. I replied to her stating, I was simply looking for basic info about the twitchange funds, and if possible to get a receipt of the transaction between Ahomeinhaiti and NWHCM. She then forwarded my email to a few people within NWHCM, which Sam Guilliams, the executive Vice-President, replied to by asking me to provide more information about who I was.

Once the conversation caught the attention of some more people on twitter, Janeil Oneil, the executive director of NWHCM joined the chat on twitter to bring some clarifications. He noted that his organization only received exactly $200,000 from Ahomeinhaiti.

The conversation continued on twitter with some people who were curious and knew about the twitchange campaign from the beginning. The following day, I received a phone call from Cameron Mayhill, as he returned my calls from the previous days. We chatted about NWHCM work in Haiti, and he was also very forthcoming by answering some of my questions about the Miriam center and the money raised through twitchange.

Mr. Mayhill clarified that NWHCM received $200,000 from Shaun King’s Ahomeinhaiti back in December 2010, and that the money was wired via Paypal, but he could not confirm if that was all the money raised through twitchange. He also mentioned that the Miriam Center’s construction is currently on hold due to drainage issue on the land, but that they plan to move forward with it in the near future. He could not comment on an exact date at this moment, but he is confident that the center will be built.

Mr. Mayhill also added that Pastor King was hired for a paid position by NWHCM after the twitchange campaign, and up to now he is still employed with them. Mr. Mayhill further added that there is a change in the architectural plan, and a new firm is being contacted for adjustment in the design of the new center to make it more in line with Haiti’s reality.


In a newsletter report from NWHCM, dated Fall 2010, they mentioned that twitchange was able to raise more than $540,000 for a new and extended Miriam Center in Bonneau, Haiti. In a later newsletter issue, a correction was made about funds collected from the twitchange which put it at $200,000, although it still stated that more $540,000 was raised. The key here is that there is a distinction to be made between money raised and funds collected.

One explanation that I got about this discrepancy is the fact that some celebrities did not want to support certain businesses that bid for them during the Twitchange campaign, so those businesses did not pay on their pledge. I perused the entire Twitchange website, the Twitchange twitter account, Ahomeforhaiti.org, Shaun King’s twitter account and NWHCM website and nowhere did I ever see a mention of celebrities not wanting to support a business that participated in the Twitchange campaign or anything referring to $200,000 as the final count. The amount raised was never corrected on any of those websites, and there was no formal press release about the money transfer between Ahomeinhaiti and NWHCM.

It might be true that only $200,000 were collected from the twitchange auction to build a new and expanded Miriam center, but since both Ahomeforhaiti, which used Courageous Church as a fiscal agent and NWHCM are 501(c) 3, and in the case of the latter a registered Non-Governmental Organization in Haiti, shouldn’t we the public have access to their financial records, so that everyone knows exactly how much money was raised and how it is being spent.

(A screenshot of Twitchange.com, showing more than $500,000 was received)

There is no financial statement on NWHCM’s website, which has been operating in Haiti for more than 30 years. Pastor King, who is currently employed by them, got this job after the twitchange campaign, how much he is being compensated has not been made public. By publishing their latest tax form, it would put all the donors of Twitchange at ease because they would know how their donated money is being used, and it would help eliminate any doubt that anyone might have about how much money was really raised by Pastor Shaun King through Twitchange.

(This screenshot, actually showed how much was raised to the penny)

Pastor King likes to mention on his twitter account that the land for the Miriam Center is already purchased, and the foundation work has started, but it is worth to note that the land was purchased before the Twitchange campaign. According to Mr.Mayhill, the $200,000 received from Pastor King is still in the Mission's bank account.

As Haiti gets ready to build back better, many of us appreciate all the great initiatives that friends of Haiti and people like Pastor Shaun King have taken to contribute and make a difference. However, due to lessons from the past, it is known that the best way to finally get Haiti moving in the right direction is for Haitian people to keep their eyes open and a little honesty from all involved about their work in Haiti. People who have nothing to hide will be forthcoming and able to show how every dime is being spent. The Haitian people have been taking advantage of far too long, there comes a time when enough is enough.

It is one thing to raise money through innovative ways by using the web, celebrities, churches, and regular individual, but it is as important to follow through with a promise, and use all the money for the intended purposes. If things change or a challenge arises, be as creative as possible to communicate with all involved, especially the donors. This is not only the right thing to do; it is also showing respect to the donors, and the people who should benefit from such projects.

It is our hope that the money raised through Twitchange will be used to help build this new center in Haiti and that sooner rather than later, financial reports and constant updates will be provided to all of us on the websites of all those in charge of this project.

Additional links regarding Twitchange:


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Comment

You need to be a member of Haiti Rewired to add comments!

Comment by Rick Davis on April 28, 2011 at 8:02am
Excellent article and I would like to see the tax forms for the US tax exempt status. If there is a church involved that makes things even more complex.
Comment by chuck mccune on April 27, 2011 at 11:20am
thank you for this discussion.

September 23, 2014


The Hidden Story Behind Stop Rush

The Rush Limbaugh Show Exposes the Stop Rush Conspiracy 

ANGELO CARUSONE MMFA VP
LIAR & VILE HATE FILLED PERSON



September 23, 2014- The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s newest email spam, asking their recipients to sign a petition calling for sponsors to end their relationship with The Rush Limbaugh Show, is based on the two-year old Stop Rush political protest as it’s inspiration. After an investigation, The Rush Limbaugh Show has discovered a far darker story to Stop Rush, and is today releasing the hidden story of the people and motives behind the Stop Rush conspiracy.


The Stop Rush group claims to be made up of ordinary consumers unhappy with Rush Limbaugh’s comments. The group claims to be “grassroots,” just concerned consumers who won’t shop at businesses that advertise with Rush Limbaugh. In truth, however, there are no potential customers here, just a small number of hardcore political activists founded by Angelo Carusone, EVP of Media Matters for America.


It’s remarkably tiny. Only 10 Twitter users account for almost 70% of all StopRush tweets to advertisers, amplified by illicit software. In addition, almost every communication from a StopRush activist originates from outside the State of the advertiser. Thus, these activists are not and never would have been customers… their only role is to harass small businesses in an attempt to interfere with their operations, as long as they are advertising with Rush.


“A small number of politically motivated out of-state activists are distributing target lists indiscriminately, and annoying small businesses until they give up the advertising deals that help them grow, or risk being unable to conduct business at all. It’s not even activism… it’s blackmail,” according to Brian Glicklich, Rush Limbaugh Show spokesperson.


How does this small group make themselves look so much bigger than they actually are? Stop Rush has deployed custom automated tweeting software, in violation of Twitter’s rules, that lets their activists send tweets at a rate far faster than any unassisted person could do manually. They send barrages of thousands of messages through this software until advertisers are bullied and harassed into cancellation.


These activists have long operated in secret and anonymously. But now, The Rush Limbaugh Show has the results of an investigation that names the people tweeting, facebooking, and emailing small businesses with harassing and bullying messages over and over until they surrender. These names are surprising, and include a tenured professor at Kent State University using her official email account to badger advertisers.


Contact: Brian Glicklich, The Rush Limbaugh Show, Brian@HowHandyIsThat.com or 818-444-7160

Meet The Top Members of The Stop Rush Conspiracy

This list was developed so that advertisers and others can judge the credibility and motives of the activist bullies anonymously behind Stop Rush. Any other use is not endorsed.
Name: Matthew Mitchell
Location: Altamonte Springs, FL
ID: Captain Murdock/@CaptMurdock
Name: Nancy Padak
Location: Kent State University
ID: npadak@kent.edu, facebook.com/nancy.padak
Fun Fact: Emails advertisers with harassment from her official Kent State email address. Gives businesses she has no relationship with 1 star ratings if they advertise on Rush. Friend of Cherie Richards
Name: Jason Rey
Location: Georgia
ID: Frantic Quark/@FranticQuark
Name: Lauren Reynolds
Location: Los Angeles, CA
ID: Lauren Reynolds/@chloesty, lonelydays46@gmail.com, facebook.com/lauren.reynolds.946179
Fun Fact: Gives businesses she has no relationship with 1 star ratings if they advertise on Rush
Name: Cherie Richards
Location: Powell, Ohio
ID: Kitty Fitzgerald/@KittyFitz50 kittyfitzgerald@gmail.com, facebook.com/cherier1
Fun Fact: Regularly changes online identity to hide anonymously, gives businesses she has no relationship with 1 star ratings if they advertise on Rush
Name: Sarah Smyea Rivers
Location: Whittier, CA
ID: SueBryce/@eurekasue49
Fun Fact: Changes ID frequently with different numbers to remain anonymous, has sent over 96,000 tweets
Name: Dennis William Rohner
Location: Gainesville, FL
ID: Shawtoo@Shawtoo
Name: Linda Kotsenburg Swanholm
Location: Covina, CA
ID: CMMorgan/@socallks, lswanholm@aol.com
Fun Fact: Develops, administers, and distributes target lists indiscriminately, gives businesses she has no relationship with 1 star ratings if they advertise on Rush
Name: Carol Kernahan Wallin
Location: Anaheim, CA
ID: Uses @Flushfools and @hrhprincess, facebook.com/carol.kernahan.7,flushfools@gmail.com
Fun Fact: Writes for DailyKos under both identities, long bullying/harassing pieces about political opponents.

September 22, 2014

Statistical Imparities Do Not Necessarily Prove Injustice, Discrimination

By Walter E. Williams | September 22, 2014 | 10:02 PM EDT
How many times have we heard laments such as "women are 50 percent of the population but only 5 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs" and, as the Justice Department recently found, "blacks are 54 percent of the population in Newark, New Jersey, but 85 percent of pedestrian stops and 79 percent of arrests"? If one believes that people should be represented socio-economically according to their numbers in the population, then statistical disparities represent injustices that demand government remedies. Before we jump to conclusions about what disparities mean and whether they are indicators of injustice, we might examine some other disparities to see what we can make of them.
According to a recent study conducted by Bond University in Australia, sharks are nine times as likely to attack and kill men than they are women. If sinister motivation is attributed for this disparity, as is done in the cases of sex and racial disparities, we can only conclude that sharks are sexist. Another sex disparity is despite the fact that men are 50 percent of the population and so are women, men are struck by lightning six times as often as women. I wonder what whoever is in charge of lightning has against men.
Another gross statistical disparity is despite the fact that Jews are less than 3 percent of the U.S. population and a mere 0.2 percent of the world's population, between 1901 and 2010, Jews were 35 percent of American and 22 percent of the world's Nobel Prize winners.
There are other disparities that we might acknowledge with an eye to corrective public policy. Asian-Americans routinely score the highest on the math portion of the SAT, whereas blacks score the lowest. The population statistics for South Dakota, Iowa, Maine, Montana and Vermont show that not even 1 percent of their populations is black. In states such as Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, blacks are overrepresented in terms of their percentages in the general population. When this kind of "segregation" is found in schooling, the remedy is busing.
There are loads of international examples of ethnic disparities. During the 1960s, the Chinese minority in Malaysia, where Malays politically dominate, received more university degrees than the Malay majority — including 400 engineering degrees, compared with just four for the Malays. In Brazil's state of Sao Paulo, more than two-thirds of the potatoes and 90 percent of the tomatoes produced have been produced by people of Japanese ancestry.
Blacks are 13 percent of our population but 80 percent of professional basketball players and 65 percent of professional football players and among the highest-paid players in both sports. By stark contrast, blacks are only 2 percent of the NHL's professional ice hockey players. Basketball, football and ice hockey represent gross racial disparities and come nowhere close to "looking like America."
Even in terms of sports achievement, racial diversity is absent. In Major League Baseball, three out of the four hitters with the most career home runs are black. Since blacks entered the major leagues, of the eight times more than 100 bases have been stolen in a season, all were by blacks. In basketball, 50 of the 59 MVP awards have been won by black players.
If America's diversity worshippers see underrepresentation as "probative" of racial discrimination, what do they propose be done about overrepresentation? After all, overrepresentation and underrepresentation are simply different sides of injustice. If those in one race are overrepresented, it might mean they're taking away what rightfully belongs to another race. For example, is it possible that Jews are doing things that sabotage the chances of a potential Indian, Alaska Native or Mexican Nobel Prize winner? What about the disgraceful lack of diversity in professional basketball and ice hockey? There's not even geographical diversity in professional ice hockey; not a single player can boast of having been born and raised in Hawaii, Louisiana or Mississippi.
Courts, bureaucrats and the intellectual elite have consistently concluded that "gross" disparities are probative of a pattern and practice of discrimination. Given all of the differences among people, such a position is pure nonsense.
Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
Column
- See more at: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/walter-e-williams/2014/09/22/statistical-imparities-do-not-necessarily-prove-injustice#sthash.CzT0L92c.dpuf

September 15, 2014


SCIENCE

Study Points to Well Leaks, Not Fracking, for Water
Contamination

By HENRY FOUNTAIN SEPT. 15, 2014

A study of tainted drinking water in areas where natural gas is produced from shale shows that the
contamination is most likely due to leaky wells rather than the process of hydraulic fracturing used to
release the gas from the rock.

The study looked at seven cases in Pennsylvania and one in Texas where water wells had been
contaminated by methane and other hydrocarbon gases. Both states have extensive deposits of gas-bearing shale that have been exploited in recent years as part of a surge in domestic energy production. Some environmental groups have suggested that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, could cause the gas to migrate into drinking water aquifers.

Shale-gas producers commonly drill a deep vertical well that is then extended horizontally in several
directions into the rock, like spokes from a hub. In fracking, water and chemicals are injected at high
pressures into these spokes, creating fissures and releasing the natural gas trapped within.
But in their analysis, published Monday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers found no evidence that fractured shale led to water contamination. Instead, they said cement used to seal the outside of the vertical wells, or steel tubing used to line them, was at fault, leading to gas leaking up the wells and into aquifers.

“In all cases, it basically showed well integrity was the problem,” said Thomas H. Darrah, a researcher at Ohio State University and the study’s lead author. The gas that leaked, he added, most likely came from shallower gas-rich pockets that the vertical wells were drilled through on their way to the shale formations,rather than from the shale itself.

“The good news is, improvements in well integrity can probably eliminate most of the environmental
problems with gas leaks,” Dr. Darrah said.
Richard J. Davies, a professor at the University of Newcastle in Britain, said the study confirmed what he and others had shown in earlier research, that the fissures created by fracking were generally not long enough to affect aquifers.

“It is good to know which parts of the fracking process are the ones we need to worry about,” Dr.
Davies said. “It’s unlikely to be the fracking itself. It’s more likely to be poor well construction.”
Well integrity is a widespread problem in the oil and gas industry, with one often-quoted statistic
suggesting that 15 percent of all cement sealing of wells may be imperfect, said Scott Anderson, who studies energy production issues for the Environmental Defense Fund. The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico four years ago was related in part to problems with cement that was supposed to act as a gas barrier in the well. Mr. Anderson said there were many steps producers could take to eliminate leaks, including basic ones like making sure the proper cement or steel tubing was used, and monitoring pressures both during well construction and later while gas is flowing. Companies should also be more aware of any gas pockets in the formations they are drilling through.

“Because they’re not really thinking about that strata as being a commercial zone, they sometimes
don’t pay the proper attention” to make sure the well is leakproof at that location, Mr. Anderson said.In some shale-gas areas, producers tend to be smaller companies with less drilling experience. Mr. Anderson said he was aware of statistics that support the idea that larger operators tended to drill better wells than smaller ones. “But on the other hand, some of the best wells from a technical viewpoint are drilled by the smallest operators,” he said.

September 12, 2014

Brendan Tevlin's murder evidence that 'domestic terrorism is already here,' says radio host (AUDIO)

Print
Dan Ivers | NJ Advance Media for NJ.comBy Dan Ivers | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com 
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on September 10, 2014 at 2:18 PM, updated September 10, 2014 at 8:17 PM
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NEW YORK CITY — A New York radio personality is calling for increased attention to the June murder of a 19-year-old Livingston man, calling it evidence that “domestic terrorism is already here.”
Todd Pettengill, host of WPLJ’s “The Todd Show”, discussed the death of Brendan Tevlin for more than eight minutes this morning, asking why the case has not received more attention despite the alleged murderer’sadmissions that he killed Tevlin as an act of vengeance for U.S. military actions in the Middle East.
“It was in fact an act of jihad, perpetrated by a fellow American who sympathized more with those who want to annihilate us than with his own country and its people,” he said.

Essex County authorities have charged 29-year-old Ali Muhammad Brown with killing Tevlin in a West Orange intersection on June 25. Since being taken into custody on July 18, he has confessed to the murder, along with three others in Washington state, saying they were carried out as retribution for innocent lives lost in Iraq, Syria and other parts of the Islamic world.
Pettengil criticized President Barack Obama and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for not referencing the case in recent addresses and downplaying the level of threat radical Islamists currently living in America could pose.
He also chided the media for not bringing the story to the national stage, and focusing instead on other protests such as those in Ferguson, Mo., where an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, was shot to death by a police officer last month.
“If there was ever a reason to riot in the streets in the name of humanity it would for this case. But has that happened? No. And I’m not suggesting that it should,” he said.
west-orange-homicide-brendan.jpgBrendan Tevlin, 19Twitter
“What I’m suggesting should happen is that this should be talked about and written about, and the American people should know.”
Pettengil also echoed the frustrations of Tevlin’s parentsover the initial characterization by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office that the teenager was “targeted” before being gunned down in a West Orange intersection on June 25.
Authorities later walked back the description, saying accused murderer Ali Muhammad Brown and two other men, Jeremy Villagran and Eric Williams, had randomly targeted Tevlin for a robbery before Brown shot him eight times.
A fourth man may have also fled the scene of the murder, according to prosecutors, but he has not been identified or named as a suspect.
Pettengill closed his statement by reminding listeners that they should acknowledge the threats the country faces from terrorists both overseas and at home.
“The bottom line is this, domestic terrorism is already here, and we need to talk about it,” he said.

Dan Ivers may be reached at divers@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DanIversNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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