If you have eyes, and an internet connection, then you’ve seen a video recording of someone getting ice water dumped over their heads in the past month or so.
This is a challenge dreamed up to raise awareness and money to fight ALS (formerly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease), known as the Ice Bucket Challenge. Basically, once someone calls you out, you then have 24 hours to film yourself having a bucket of ice water dumped over your head, or you must pay $100 to a charity that funds ALS research, then you call out several more people.
This phenomenon, while it has raised an immense amount of money for ALS, is not without its detractors. Principle among these is that, in a time where water is increasingly scarce, to waste it even for a good cause seems wrong.
Thinking through these things led a Hyderabyad, India journalist to create the Rice Bucket Challenge. Instead of dumping a bucket of water, you cook a bucket of rice, and give it to a neighbor who needs it, then pass it on.
Learn more here.