Paris Hilton’s Charitable Deed
Paris Hilton’s Charitable Deed
This girl is so busy that she doesn’t have time to lay out in the sun to get a tan. No worries, because Paris Hilton has the next best thing - a spray tan.
The “Hottie and the Nottie” actress was spotted yesterday in Beverly Hills looking obviously freshly spray-tanned, hauling around a bag of Chinese food from Chin Chin as well as a beverage and of course her BlackBerry.
In addition to her various careers and boyfriend Benji Madden, it seems Paris has been spending some time getting charitable with the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, making an “extremely generous” donation toward the construction of a new 460,000 square-foot medical tower.
Hilton told press, “I am so happy and fortunate to announce my support for Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. The children I have met through my [involvement] at Childrens Hospital have truly touched my heart.”
“The fabulous new hospital facilities at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles will provide a caring, healing environment for children and their families for many years to come and I am proud to make a donation and lend my name to the fundraising effort to help children who are facing terribly serious illnesses.”
Paris’ donation will go towards tricking out a double patient room in the Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases.
Even Paris Hilton has some good in her
Like Darth Vader before her, good things can even come out of a person like Paris Hilton. The wealthy socialite best known for her role on television’s The Simple Life as well as an amateur porn video has made an “extremely generous” donation to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles for the construction of a medical building. No exact amount was specified. The new building, called the Children’s Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases, will open in 2010.
“The children I have met through my involvement with Children’s Hospital have truly touched my heart,” Hilton said in a statement. “I am proud to make a donation and lend my name to the fundraising effort to help children who are facing terribly serious illnesses.”
Far be it from me to be a cynic in light of such charity, but this is a woman who has lived such a life of debauchery that the gossip rags have their own special section regarding her. I’m not sure what to think.
So what do you folks think? Actual generosity, or publicity stunt? Or maybe a little of both?
Shocking Canadian PSAs
Shocking Public Service Announcements (PSA) are common in Canada. For example, a few years ago in Quebec, we had a TV ad that contained real footage shot during a daring car stunt that went terribly wrong (the teenage driver died while doing the stunt) so that teens would be “scared straight” by seeing how stupid and deadly reckless driving can be.
The latest shocking PSA TV ad campaign comes from Ontario and is called “Prevent It.” These PSAs, which have been airing for a while now, feature shocking and gruesome scenes showing what can happen at work if you don’t ensure safety is everyone’s primary concern.
Here are some words I’ve heard people say after watching those PSAs either live on TV or online: gruesome, shocking, grotesque, disgusting, powerful, incredible, hideous, sick, awful, well-done, efficient, and the list goes on and on. You either like the ads or don’t. But everyone has to agree on one thing: those PSAs airing on TV have everyone at the watercooler talking. This buzz, either good or bad, helps the campaign reach its goal: have people talking about safety at the workplace.
The Prevent-It.ca website claims that the ads promote “awareness of the need for workplace safety.” With these hard-hitting ads, the people behind the campaign “wanted to show how severe workplace injuries can be while reminding viewers that everyone plays a role in avoiding workplace injuries, illnesses and fatalities; these could all have been prevented.”
Here are a few of the ads airing on Ontario TV channels:
You can find more TV ads from this campaign on YouTube. The “Prevent It” campaign also reaches the Internet, the radio and printed press. How would you describe this campaign? Let your voice be heard in comments.
[Via Pong A Long]
Sundance Movie Review: Young@Heart
Young@Heart is a documentary about a Massachusetts Senior Citizen’s chorus that rocks out to everything from the Clash, Ramones and Sonic Youth, to Coldplay and James Brown. The film follows the chorus members and their director, Bob Cilman as they learn new songs, cope with illnesses and deaths of their close friends, and prepare for a concert performance, dubbed “Alive and Well”.
Label me mean, but the “old people are so cute” sappiness drives me insane (hence the fact that I almost wanted to smack the two annoying girls sitting next to me that kept loudly aww-ing during the movie). I don’t normally see the charm in grandmotherly types, but I must grudgingly admit, this film won me over, and actually almost drew a few tears. Young@Heart is a great film that shows seniors who enjoy music more than anything. They’re singing their hearts out, and doing something that makes them happy all the way until the very last days of their lives. It is so refreshing to see these elderly characters, alive with so much energy, as opposed to the often seen images of them wasting away in nursing homes. These are old people that sing loud music, stay out late at gigs, and travel the world to perform. They’re not dead until the day they really die, and that is so inspiring to see.
A scene that I found particularly moving was one where the chorus performs for convicted felons at a prison. The positive reactions of the prisoners after the show are absolutely tearjerking. The film is also humorous at times, like the scene where two of the chorus members are trying to learn how to play a CD that chorus director, Cilman has handed them (they can’t figure out which side should face up in the player).
The narration in the film is a little excessive, and director Stephen Walker chose to fill the film with cheesy music videos starring the elderly chorus members, which cuts into the pacing of the film, but overall, Young@Heart is a great movie that shows charming seniors who are living their lives to the fullest by doing something that they love.