Thor’s Hall

The Bob Woodward foundation has begun a tech based, social networking campaign that you should know about.  You might remember that Woodward was reporting in Iraq when the convoy that he was traveling in was targeted.  Woodward was wounded in the insuing battle.  As a result of his work, and his recovery he founded the Woodward foundation.  Today the begin the Tweet to Remind Campaign.

Tweet to ReMIND is a celebration of support for the United States service men and women created by the Bob Woodruff Foundation’s ReMIND.org. ReMIND.org is ensuring our heroes return home with the assistance they need to successfully integrate back into society. Through the power of the social web, Tweet to ReMIND aims to raise $1.65 million by Memorial Day, May 25, 2009.

More often than not, the injuries we can see are coupled with the injuries we cannot. Hidden injuries, by their very nature, routinely go unnoticed. ReMIND.org is bringing these hidden injuries to light, so that we can care for all our wounded—and address all of their wounds.

1.65 million U.S. service members have been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq since 9/11. More than 35,000 service members have been physically wounded. It is estimated that more than 320,000 have sustained traumatic brain injuries and more than 300,000 have psychological wounds.

Tweet to ReMIND empowers Twitter users to donate dollars and tweets in service of our injured service members, veterans and their families the local support and resources they deserve as they heal and reintegrate into their communities.

They have a worthy goal, and an interesting experiment going.  Give them a few minutes of your time, skip that gourmet coffee tomorrow and instead make a donation http://tweettoremind.org.

Who is my hero?  The list is very long, and very distinguished.  In general terms, it is every person who has honorably served this country from prior to it’s inception.  From the Tun Tavern in 1775 to the Hindu Kush, and everything in between.  In every clime and place.

If you are looking for a specific set of individuals.  That is much harder to specify.  So let’s go with this:

• Ross McGinnis
• Jason Dunham
• Michael Monsoor
• Paul Smith

• Seal Team 10
• Michael Murphy
• Danny Dietz
• Matthew Axelson
• Marcus Luttrell

I know I am a bit late to the party on this one.

It always amazes me the way that we encourage / allow anyone in the world to influence polls and results. Without having done any research, just observationally, the past several years have seen an increase in the use of various channels to gather opinions from a broader “cross section” of interested parties. The problem that I see is that the “cross section” is really a very poor sampling of a narrow population. For instance, American Idol has brought the idea of audience voting and participation to a significant portion of the viewing audience, with no controls on the voting (except how much you want to pay the cell phone company). Rockstar had a similiar approach.

Now, we have an opportunity to influence the Miss America pagent, and it’s selection of finalists. As a result you may have seen a number of bloggers out there campaigning for their candidates. Personally, without the communication from the blogging community I would never have realized that this opportunity was out there. I am actually curious to see what, if any, influence the blogging community can have on this effort. Unfortunately, there is not a good way to measure this scientifically. All we can do is get the word out, do some campaigning if you will, and see where the vote totals come in.

In that context I encourage all of you to get out there and vote here. Who you vote for, if you do, is up to you. However, I would encourage you to vote for….

Miss Utah, Jill Stevens. A member of the National Guard 1st Battalion, 211th Aviation Regiment. The Miss America Pageant takes place on January 26 in Las Vegas, Nevada. She has an opportunity to win a finalist position by popular vote. Her personal request for your vote is below: