My Monthly Charity for August 2008 will be Prevent Child Abuse New York. Prevent Child Abuse New York is a state wide non-profit organization out to stop child abuse and neglect.

“Prevent Child Abuse New York wants to prevent the pain of child abuse from ever happening. We believe that:

• All children have the right to have their basic needs met.
• Prevention is the best way to keep children from harm.
• Child abuse prevention means strengthening families.
• Prevention is the responsibility of the individual, the family and the community.

Our vision is that all children live in families that love, nurture and protect them.”

Founded in 1980 Prevent Child Abuse New York focuses on education, support, and progressively improving programs and policies to achieve their mission of preventing child abuse.

A cool thing about this non-profit organization is that there are many ways you can help out. Some ways you can help prevent child abuse include selling on eBay, buying sauce from The Villa Valenti Sauce Company in New York (I’ve been there before that’s pretty cool), buying flowers from FTD.com, purchasing Plushland Bears, and many more. See all the ways you can give.

Like in My Monthly Charity July 2008 – Fight Crime Invest in Kids, kids are the future and preventing child abuse is important to the growth of children to become productive adults in society.

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The story of John Challis, who lived by the motto of “Courage + Believe = Life”. Even though John had cancer and he knew it wasn’t going away, he still kept a very positive outlook on life. John showed courage by staring death in the eye and continuing to live life to the fullest. Sometimes we have to understand that it’s not that bad compared to what others have to face. If John can stay positive with cancer slowly taking away his life we can all attempt be positive more often then not. See the great story done by ESPN below.

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2008 Beijing Olympics
I’ve been immersed into the Olympics this year. China has been a great host thus far which started with an unforgettable opening ceremony. All I see is greatness everywhere as world records get broken left and right. Michael Phelps is Superman going for his 8th gold medal tonight. USA Basketball is on a tear with intense play from standouts like Lebron and D.Wade. Go Redeem Team!! Track and field has started and the fastest man in the world will emerge. The Jamaican Usain Bolt is looking great breezing through the semis. I can’t wait to watch the finals.

On a darker note Spanish basketball teams are a disgrace. The pose they did for an advertisement was poor in taste and offensive to a whole country. Talk about a moment of bad judgment, come on think about it.

I want to give some recognition to Glenn Cowan and Zhuang Zedong and share the story of accidental diplomacy. It was a US ping pong player by the name of Glenn Cowan that likely sparked a path to a new China and USA relationship in the 1970’s. Glenn had missed his bus and got on the bus with the Chinese team where a Chinese player Zhuang Zedong offered Cowan a gift of a silk-screen portrait of Huangshan Mountains and that’s how it started. Cowan compared it to a quote from Mao Zedong, “It only takes a spark to start a prairie fire” because it was him and Zhuang who started the prairie fire. On the bus is where Zhuan Zedong offered him a gift in a time where it would be unlikely to see an US athlete and Communist Chinese athlete befriending one another created lots of press which started a chain of diplomatic events leading to Nixon’s visit to China. An common thing like missing the bus was an act of diplomacy, it really only takes a spark to start a fire. For more see Ping Pong Diplomacy on Wikipedia.

Mythological Creatures
There’s been a lot of buzz going on recently about Big Foot and Chupacabra. There’s a new video of Chupacabra and some hunters have claimed to have a Big Foot carcass. What are the chances that both these mythical creatures are discovered within weeks of each other, I doubt it. Maybe we’ll see the Lochness Monster next week.

GO WORLD and I can’t wait to see the Lochness Monster!

Also a shout out to my buddy Evan out in L.A., check out the video he cut for the new Vin Diesel movie Babylon A.D.

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Basketball will consume this world and surpass soccer. That’s a very bold statement I’m making but it’s already happening. In the past year the amount of international players in the NBA has grown to 76 and the popularity of basketball in the world’s most populous country of China is exploding.

I watched the USA vs. China game of the 2008 Beijing Olympics over the weekend and you can see how important this game is for both countries. The US team is out for redemption and the Chinese team is out to make a statement to be a future basketball powerhouse. International competition is only going to get better as the US tries reclaim world dominance of basketball with a team of super stars from the NBA. As popular as basketball already is in the US, the international exposure will make it even more popular. International play has caught up with the US, so you can’t deny it that basketball will continue to grow with other countries catching up to the US and now you add into the mix a massive country with a billion people.

As the popularity of basketball grows in China, the players will only get better there and make the sport even more popular. The fact that China plans to put a basketball court in every village shows how big basketball is going to be in the future. This won’t only happen in China it will happen for any country that has a up and coming basketball team. More popular players will spur more interest and it will continue this way exponentially.

Yao Ming is the perfect example how the popularity of basketball is going to explode worldwide. He has been the perfect ambassador to opening the game up to players overseas to play in the NBA as the first number 1 pick from overseas. He is the face of basketball in China that is bringing basketball to the forefront of sports in the country. NBA superstars worldwide will be bringing basketball to another level of popularity as the world shrinks and we are all little more closer to everyone. On a side note I’ve never seen anybody represent their country as proudly as Yao Ming has done for China as they host the 2008 Olympics. Fittingly a man of this stature has put the weight of the country on his back to represent China and basketball. )For a great story on Yao, check out this story on Yahoo Sports! about what Yao Ming has done.)

Basketball is such a simple sport that you can play with one or many. Basketball is bringing the world together like no other as countries embrace this great game. Kids in the US are doing the same thing as kids in China, they’re playing basketball. I Love this Game!

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Quick post about some new things on my blog. I’ve started a new section for movies and started to Twitter.

I’ve made a custom design for the movie category of my blog and I’m kicking it off with a post about a movie I can’t wait to see again. The new Batman movie, “The Dark Knight” is dominating the box office and now you can see what I think of it. Go check out the new movie category of my blog.

The other new thing that I’ve added to my blog is my last five Twitters. Twitter is a form of micro-blogging and it’s perfect for me to add quick comments and updates on my blog. I took a couple lines of code that Twitter offered and now you’ll be to see my Twitters on the bottom right hand corner of my blog. This way I can keep my mouth running on my blog about things that don’t need a full blog post or whatever I feel like.

Enjoy the new features I’ve added to my blog and here’s something fun to finish off this post.

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To kick off my movie section I’m going to have start one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen. I made a special trip down to an IMAX theater 3 hours away to see the Batman The Dark Knight.

This movie was simply sensational all around. I loved the movie and I was on the edge of my seat the entire 2 1/2 hours, the fastest 2 1/2 hours ever. The acting was captivating, in particular the Joker played by Heath Ledger. The Joker was a straight up cruel and sadistic character that you can’t get out of your head. I can’t emphasize enough how great Heath Ledger played Joker from the way he licked his lips every time he spoke to the the demented stories on how he got his scars. Christian Bale has brought the dark super hero back and it’s better than ever. As usual Morgan Freeman was nothing short of top notch. Aaron Eckhart played Harvey Dent and Two-Face perfect. Great performance across the board with the highest video quality out there from IMAX and some of the best action scenes I’ve ever seen.

“Wanna know how I got these scars” – Joker

There are so many memorable scenes through out the movie, I can’t wait to watch it again and list some of my favorites.

This was easily a top 10 movie of all time for me and seems to be on roll as it shatters records and takes aim towards the highest grossing movie of all time Titanic (I haven’t seen it and don’t plan to). This is a must see movie just to witness the memorable performance by Heath Ledger. I will probably watch it again in the theater one more time.

M.Li Rating
9.5/10

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