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Welcome to Thinking Out Loud, a blog that contains postings from The Tampa Tribune’s Editorial Board and from various Tribune Community Columnists. Unlike the unsigned editorials that represent the newspaper’s institutional voice, the blog postings offer personal perspectives on the issues, personalities and events of Tampa Bay. We invite you to participate by posting your comments. We’ll do our best to respond.

Contributors:

Joe Guidry

Joe Guidry is the deputy editorial page editor of The Tampa Tribune. He is a Tampa native and a graduate of the University of South Florida. He is married and has an adult son.

Jeff Stidham

Jeff Stidham grew up and lives in Bartow. He has been with the Tribune for nearly 22 years, the last 10 on the editorial board.

William Yelverton

William Yelverton is a Tribune editorial writer who has worked for the paper nearly 22 years. He lives in the Dade City area.

Jim Beamguard

Jim Beamguard is a Tribune editorial writer. He is a native of North Carolina and a graduate of Davidson College. He and his family live in Brandon.

Jackie Papandrew:

Jackie Papandrew is a freelance writer and editor. Her syndicated humor column appears in publications in the United States, Canada and India. She lives in Largo with her husband and children. Visit her website at www.jackiepapandrew.com.

Camille Beredjick

Camille Beredjick is a senior at Chamberlain High School, an avid musician and a scribbler with a quirky sense of humor. In the fall, she will be attending Northwestern University to study journalism, political science and music, and she plans to pursue a career in journalism.

Jim Harnish

Jim Harnish is in his 17th year as Senior Pastor at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa. He and his wife, Marsha, have two daughters and two grandchildren. He is a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary and received the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Bethune-Cookman University. He is the author of six books and numerous articles and studies. He enjoys playing with his grandchildren and cheering for the Florida Gators.

Angela Hunt

Angela Hunt is a novelist living in Pinellas County with her husband and two 220-pound mastiffs.

Sheryl Young

Sheryl Young was a Tampa Tribune Community Columnist in 2005-2006. A freelance writer since 1997, including the Tampa Bay Business Journal, Tampa Style Magazines, St. Pete Times and nationally in Better Nutrition, Today’s Christian Woman and more. She’s received a First Place Amy Foundation national "Roaring Lambs" Writing Award, and has lived in Tampa Bay with her family for over 20 years.

Christie Gold

Christie Gold teaches English and journalism at Freedom High School in Tampa where she advises Revolution, the school newspaper. She has been both the Hillsborough County Teacher of the Year and Florida Journalism Teacher of the Year. She lives on a small farm in Wesley Chapel where she trains as a competitive equestrian.

Natalie D. Preston

Natalie D. Preston is a karaoke singing, only-child pouting, Seminole Tomahawk waving, newlywed bride blushing, 50-state traveling, girlie girl who loves to shop, read, run and jump up and down on her soapbox.

Fernando Figueroa

Fernando Figueroa is a researcher, educator and lives in Riverview.

Gary Beemer

Interests include humor, politics, economics, community and world affairs, finance, people, religion, music, sports, current events, the arts and education.

Nicole Yunger Halpern

Nicole Yunger Halpern is an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, where she studies everything she can get her nerdy little hands on. Desired major: life. No, not necessarily biology. Life.

Kris DiGiovanni

Kris DiGiovanni is a Tribune Community Columnist, Huffington Post contributor, Daily Kos diarist, and teacher, who recently moved from NW Hillsborough to another planet - a small beach community in Pinellas County. She also blogs at www.sandscript.wordpress.com

H. David Braswell Jr.

H. David Braswell Jr. is an Information Systems Professional. He is a native New Yorker and a lifelong NY Giants fan. He attended college in California (Cal State Northridge) and moved to Tampa in 1998.

Sean Marcus

Sean Marcus teaches creative writing, journalism and reading at Chamberlain High School. He has one son and is expecting a daughter in early March. He can be reached at wuizabug@gmail.com

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Saving the World, One A Cappella Show at a Time

Posted Dec 17, 2009 by Nicole Yunger Halpern

Updated Dec 17, 2009 at 09:34 AM

Enrolling in college means pledging to save the world.

At least, that’s the impression one gets from some colleges’ extracurricular calendars. This fall, my college hosted a candlelight vigil in support of healthcare reform, a mentoring program for local youths, Domestic Violence Awareness Month activities, a be-a-designated-driver pledge event, a poker-tournament fundraiser for a children’s charity, a karaoke night for Autism Speaks, and more.

Which is fantastic. Who can gripe about people caring for others? Yet when Refugee Awareness Week, Poverty Awareness Week, and World AIDS Day all happen at the same time—which they did—we trip over our own feet.

The organizations sponsoring these events have campus-wide email lists; consequently, more demands for sympathy saturated my inbox than hours got saturated in my working out differential equations—which I squeezed into my schedule between bombardments with pleas to help Darfur by attending free a cappella shows. (Puzzling out how free a cappella shows help Darfur saturated other bits of my schedule.) To have time for my own needs, I had to delete the advertisements on sight.

Before you write me off as inhuman, consider whether everyone involved wouldn’t benefit from reevaluating our actions. I do not enjoy ignoring worthwhile causes; I cringe at the apathy fostered by disregard. Yet without apathy to shield me, the torrent of demands would sweep me into oblivion. If I cried over every refugee story that deserves crying over, I’d never crawl out from my Kleenex box. And if I can’t satisfy all those cries for help, how can I choose any—what makes a homeless shelter less worthy of my concern than sustainability? Just as the wealth of choices at an American supermarket can paralyze a refugee rescued by an a cappella group, inundation with demands for help can freeze our abilities to satisfy those demands.

The above paragraphs may paint me as heartless, self-absorbed, and pick-any-adjective-from-a-Disney-villain’s-theme-song. But I don’t advocate rallying against helping others (and not only because that would necessitate more a cappella shows). I advocate only this: In our frenzy to care—to act human—we must not treat ourselves as superhuman.

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