Give us your fucking money

I mentioned running below, which may well have surprised anyone who read it and knows me. However, it's so; I decided to enter the Nottingham Half-Marathon this year, entirely for the sake of the challenge and the "buzz" - well, buzzes, meaning the physical buzz from the exercise, and the achievement buzz. Half-Marathon because I didn't think I had time enough to get fit enough for a full one, but that doesn't mean that won't come later.

Since I was going to do it anyway, though, I figured it would be a waste not to do something else with it, so to speak, and so I will be raising money for Amnesty. An address for a justgiving page will be up soon, and I'll be emailing people and stuff.

So, why Amnesty? Put it this way: my raising money for Amnesty will do not a jot to resolve the situation in the Middle East, but it puts a bit of cash in the way of people who are trying to help people cope with the consequences of the worst human behaviour. We're all seeing some pretty dreadful human behaviour on a daily basis at the moment. Can your money, put to some medical charity, maybe save some lives? Indeed. Should we fight nature in that way? Oh yes, not for nothing do I describe myself as a child of the Enlightenment. However, I am not against cancer in the same way as I feel impelled to be against, for example, war, torture, Israel's behaviour, AND Hizbullah's behaviour. So am I going to dedicate my life to fighting injustice? Of course not; I have a life and a family to which I am dedicated; I don't love other people's children more than I love my own. For one reason. But, if 95% of my nature is quite venal, that's no reason to suppress the other 5%; or, to put it another way, I might as well raise some money, and Amnesty seems to me to be a good place to put it. I hope anyone who reads this will agree; I will post the justgiving page as soon as I recieve a couple of bits of info from Amnesty.