Tag superhero academy

There seems to be a lot of controversy in the RLSH/RLSV community concerning KITTY GENOVESE DAY.
Some people feel it should be remembered. Others feel it should not. Still others seek to find the truth of the situation amidst a sea of urban legends and yellow journalism.
Let me state my position on this…I (and visiting professor AMAZONIA) chose to do a show on Kitty Genovese this past Sunday not because of any Watchman reference – in truth I was unaware of the reference until I read it a few days ago – but because I believe we can all learn from the past.
We’ve done shows on the real lives of Saint Nicholas, Saint Valentine, Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, and Kitty Genovese because in looking at how they lived – or in Ms. Genovese case how she died – we can see the proper ways to serve the world around us.
Hindsight, as the proverb says, is 20/20 and those who forget the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat the same mistakes…therefore I stand by my decision to honor the life of Kitty Genovese on the anniversary of her death by encouraging others to be aware of the world around them and to step up when someone else is in need.
It was not a person patrolling that failed to call the police, it was the neighbors who witnessed it. It doesnt matter if it was the 28 witnesses claimed by the papers or the real 10-12 that actually saw parts of the attack because it would only have taken ONE…COUNT IT – O N E…person to intervene and possibly have saved her life that night.
For her that help was too late and her tragedy now serves as a reminder to act and a shout out against apathy and indifference.

For those who feel that its unfair to single her case out when there are so many tragic stories that are just as worthy, Let me assure you that she is not the only one who will be remembered on my blogs and my show. Hers is just the one remembered on that day – the anniversary of her death.
There are other examples that can – and will – be presented on SUPERHERO ACADEMY in the weeks and months to come…precious lost lives like Adam Walsh…missing children like Morgan Nick…tragic happenings like 9-11 and Columbine…and historic or mythical figures like St Patrick and Robin Hood…Each will serve as a glimpse into the souls of mankind and point the way for those of us who wish to serve the world in a better way.
If that offends you I am sorry. You have my permission to go off and pout somewhere if thats what you want.
Im not going to change the way I choose to honor her memory or the memory of so many others like her that have been lost to the evil of this world. But you can be assured that I will do my best to present each of these cases as accurately as I can with the facts available to me. No urban legends. No modern mythology. No Hallmark poem in a folded paper sentiments to mark another big sales day. Just the facts!

In the meantime I encourage each and every one of you to be alert for your OWN Kitty Genoveses – those people around you who need your help – and to put aside the apathy, indifference, and complacency that allows you to justify not acting on their behalf.
Its not about doing something for nothing.
Its not about doing something to make you feel good about yourself.
Its not about being altruistic.
Its about doing the right thing…and thats what it requires to change this world for the better
 

A few months back I was honored to have an interview with some amazing people from a charity called HEART HEROES.   (You can listen to the interview at the link below.)
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/superhero_academy/2010/12/12/superhero-academy
These folks are doing something simple, yet powerful.   They provide custom superhero capes for children with congential heart disease. These capes help the kids to find their inner hero and gain the courage they need to face the surgeries and other issues that plague them in their day-to-day lives.
At the beginning of 2011, they had given out over 200 capes.  However, they still had a waiting list of over 200 more kids who needed capes but could not afford to send them yet.
So I had an idea.
We have decided to take the path of being a real life superhero…why dont we take this side path and help these little ones who need help finding their own inner heroes.

What I am proposing is a pledge drive. Each hero…or villain…or citizen…or Wal-Martian being…or whatever…that reads this, please search your soul and see if you can help out by donating to this cause. The cost to purchase and ship one cape is $25. Thats not much to give the gift of hope and courage to a child in need. How many capes do you think you could provide to HEART HEROES in the year of 2011?
I would like to see us step up and provide enough capes to overcome their backlog, and possibly even provide enough to see that they dont get behind again. If we use their numbers from 2010, we can estimate a need of 400 capes plus the 200 they need already…thats 600 capes heroes…I believe we can do it?
I have  personally pledged to provide at least 6 capes to HEART HEROES in 2011…I will do more as I am able. Who will join me in this mission? Add your name to the list and lets see how fast we can reach 600 capes for 600 little heroes!
Another friend has pledged a portion of the income from her online business toward this cause.
Donations can be made at your discretion – be it weekly, monthly, or one lump sum – and should be sent to HEART HEROES directly…just follow the link below.
http://powercapes.com/heart

Originally posted: http://www.realitysandwich.com/real_life_super_heroes
By Elliot Edge
Costumed activists are engaging ideas of self and community on the online Super Hero Academy taking place this month. The Real Life Super Hero Project is inspiring others to regain not only a moral sense of self, but also engage the question of identity very seriously. It has been a longstanding problem that society forces folk to conform to a rigid identity within the socioeconomic machinations or face alienation, despite the disempowering limitations such prefabricated notions of the self offers. This is no doubt why video games, virtual communities, social networks, hyperindividualization have become the new empires: In real life, folk are doomed by their local consensus reality regardless of it’s observable stagnation, pathologies, obsolesce, and soullessness. Though these self-made heroes and heroines seem to be putting McKenna’s line, “You don’t have to be a victim of your culture,” into real world practice. We don’t and these people are the active proof.
Kevin Kelly, author of Out of Control and What Technology Wants “The major theme of this coming decade is going to be identity of self. Every time computers get more powerful they basically threaten our established understanding of our selves both in terms of who we are or who we could be…So I think the self is really going to undergo some transformation or expansion in the coming decade and we see that with like online games where the identity that people have with these personas and avatars is very intense in the sense of this being real a place that they come to for many hours a day may be realer…It’s very, very, very, very powerful evidence that our notions of self are under transition right now.”
Birthed from a half-century-old history culture of comic book culture and combining it with LARPing (Live Action Role Playing, think a Civil War reenactment only with capes and masks) with active participation in the community; the Real Life Super Hero Project takes us past the mere culture of reaction (e.g. blogging) and flings us back into action with a soul-satisfying POW! that world society has been waiting for. Though they don’t actively seek the role of vigilantism, they are true to their word do-gooders: delivering relief supplies to flood victims, bringing food to the homeless, returning lost purses, and perhaps most importantly inspiring others, especially children—life can be fun and meaningful at the same time.
Though critics may regurgitate the problem of the spectacle, the reality of our time is in the fact that most human beings in the first world have no contact with reality at all and that there world has been replaced by a conceptual hyperreality. Thus the vehicle of the spectacle is still necessary to reach sleepwalkers. As consciousness pioneer Tom Campbell has said, “If you’re going to communicate with somebody you have to start from wherever they are, not from wherever you are.” Once again, the imagination reigns supreme. As the aptly named Super Hero stated, “People would say, ‘Why do you do this?’ And I would say, ‘Well I’m a symbol and I fight apathy and all this stuff,’ but after a while I stopped lying to myself and said, ‘The reason why I do this is because it’s hella fun.’”