Dan Wood: The Eponymous Weblog

Around the end of each year is when people tend to think about where they can spend their extra money on gifts. Not just gifts to friends and family, but to community organizations that are working to make the world a better place.

I have a number of favorite groups that I have been supporting on and off over the years when I can. Between now and the end of the year, I'd like to share the stories of a few of them with you.

The first one I'll mention — I've linked to them before — is Commercial Alert. This is a group based in Oregon whose mission "to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy."

These days, it seems like we are inundated with commercialism, advertisements, product placement, and sales pitches. It's annoying if you're an adult — 65 percent of Americans agree that we are being bombarded with too much adversiting — but downright subversive for our kids, where they are surrounted unhealthy food, forced to become door-to-door saleskids in "fundraising" drives that barely help their schools, and now some schools (in Philadelphia) are on their way to being given corporate names just like our sports stadia.

This is a great group (despite their now-unfortunate association with a former American hero turned fringe Presidential candidate) that is focused on exposing and fighting this disgusting trend in our culture. (If you're a parent, check out their Parent' Bill of Rights.)

Naturally, they will accept donations online. So if you have a few extra bucks left over after filling the stockings, why not send them a little love?