Hey, it’s our digital magazine’s First Birthday and we wanted to find a meaningful way to celebrate: and what better way than to celebrate YOU.  YOU, the misfits, the crazy ones, the outliers, the futurists, the imaginators, the geeks, freaks and nerds for being your awesomely perfect, kind selves and supporting the notion that “What Makes You Different, Makes You Cool.”

For, without you, there would be no us.

Y R U So Awesome?

Through your support of  DisC, you have shown that you understand the power of critical thought, non-judgment, empathy and kindness.  

That you join us in our wish to eradicate prejudice by increasing compassion for others honours us – we thank you for your alignment.

HOW YOUR ONGOING SUPPORT HELPS OTHERS

As you may know, we are a social enterprise, or “enterprise for good”, whereby all of our proceeds go to our Endowment of Cool – a fund which is dispersed to aligned charitable causes such as Autism education, Writer’s Trust, Music education and anti-bullying campaigns.

So every time you visit our site, read our articles, comment, share and/or engage with us on social media [Facebook, Twitter], our sponsors and advertisers reward us. And all of the proceeds go to our Endowment. SO, VISIT US OFTEN!  TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS!  SPREAD THE COOL!

You can also purchase super-cool Different Is Cool Merchandise in our EMPORIUM OF COOL - again, all of the proceeds go to the Endowment.

 SO, BACK TO OUR BIRTHDAY…

In our quest to find a meaningful way to celebrate our beeday and thank you for your support, we asked our awesome Founding Patrons of Cool, Margaret Atwood, Nikki Sixx and Daniel Lanois for their thoughts on giving and receiving and here’s where we landed:  how about we celebrate with a Kindness is Cool Giveaway Event?

KINDNESS IS COOL: BE KIND & WIN!

HERE’S HOW IT WORKS:

1. Perform random acts of kindness towards others – ie. buying a coffee for the first responder in line behind you at the coffee shop; engaging in conversation with a street person; giving up your seat on the bus for someone who looks like they could use it; hugging someone who’s having a hard day; donating time/dollars to a worthy cause, etc
2. Post images of your ideas/acts on our Facebook page and Twitter Feed  and you’re automatically entered to win!  We would LOVE to see you post pictures of you performing your cool deed, so please do!  [Note. If your deed involves someone else, please always get their permission to take their photo.]
3. Watch your Inbox to see if you’ve won!

We’ll be giving out autographed, exclusive swag ALL SUMMER, so post your good deeds as many times as you like!  Remember, Kindness Is Contagious, So Pass It On!

JUST A FEW OF THE COOL, AUTOGRAPHED ITEMS WE ARE GIVING AWAY!

U2′s album “Achtung Baby” autographed by Daniel Lanois.

Hardcover edition of Nikki Sixx’s best-selling memoir “The Heroin Diaries”-autographed by Nikki Sixx.

Daniel Lanois’ memoir “Soul Mining” – autographed by Daniel Lanois.

Mötley Crüe memoir “The Dirt” – autographed by Nikki Sixx

Autographed hardcover edition of Nikki Sixx’s photography book, This Is Gonna Hurt. Caption reads “Stick To Your Guns”.

DVD of Daniel Lanois’ docu-film “Here Is What Is” -autographed by Daniel Lanois & filmmaker Adam Vollick

Autographed ADVANCED READING COPY of Margaret Atwood’s upcoming novel: MaddAddam, the third in the trilogy-Oryx & Crake, Year Of The Flood.

Autographed copies of Margaret Atwood’s upcoming novel MaddAddam.

 Plus, many more autographed albums, books and DVD’s!

Thank you again for your support – now go forth with your awesome self, do good in your ‘hood, share it with us and get ready to win!

Dear Mr. Jeffries,

DIFFERENT IS COOL. PLEASE READ & SHARE.

Clothing brand Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries [pictured above] has been outed as having a VERY limited definition of the kinds of people he wants wearing his brand.

In a 2006 interview with Salon, Jeffries confirmed that the communication between HOT people is his primary marketing tactic.

“It’salmost everything. That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores. Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that,” he said.

Jeffries also told Salon that he wasn’t bothered by excluding fat people. In fact, he said that not limiting his ideal demographic would make his clothing less desirable.

At Different Is Cool, we are super proud to report that we are the antithesis of Mr. Jeffries target demographic & do not and will not, be investing in his brand.

Click here to read this awesome open letter to Mr. Jeffries, from one of his undesirable “fat chicks”, Amy Taylor.

Amy Taylor, author of open letter to Mike Jeffries.

So, what if an awesome thing happened that combined your love of Game of Thrones and your lack of love for the Biebs?  Some awesome Tumblr user has answered the call with….

Joffrey Bieber Tumblr!

The Tumblr page “Where fiction’s biggest brat and real life’s biggest brat become one!”

Whoever came up with this one – you shall sit on the Iron Throne. [Cue earworm theme music: dun dun, dundundun dun, da da dun...]

BTW, should you have your own Joffrey Biebs gif, you can upload to the Joffrey Bieber page.

Today, April 2nd, is World Autism Awareness Day and we dug through YouTube to find a video that would help increase understanding about autism, in 6 minutes, or less.

We found this gem of a video, from the You Ought To Know guys that has a few real pearls of knowledge about autism and is fun to watch [and adorable].  While it isn’t under 6 minutes, [runtime: 6:18] it is a must-see.

Viewing the video, we were especially struck by these pearls about how a person with autism is viewed by conventional education standards and how they learn:

• Up to 75% of people with autism are labelled mentally retarded [by conventional testing]
• People with autism learn differently
• Low IQ?  No.  Just different.
• When communication is the problem, how effective is an IQ test going to be?
• The brains of people with autism are mapped very differently than neuro-normal people
• Communication is very different for people with autism; sometimes we can communicate perfectly and sometimes we just don’t connect

Please take a look at What You Ought To Know About Autism. And if you are so inclined, please pass along the link to this post, to increase awareness about autism.

Remember: What Makes You Different, Makes You Cool. [Proceeds from our store go to our Endowment of Cool and are disbursed to autism education charities, music education charities and the Writers' Trust.]

DisC’s tshirt, available in our store.

The Resurrected Christ , Bramantino, 1490

Did Jesus really rise from the dead, as told in the Christian resurrection story?

The Resurrection passage from New Testament of the Bible:

Mark 16:1-8
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ 

So, did Jesus nail it? Or not?

In keeping with our philosophy of critical thought and investigation of theorem, we present a lively and fascinating debate on the resurrection of Christ, by two noted theism authorities, held at Cambridge University, March 13, 2008.

On the Pro-Resurrection side: Gary Habermas, American evangelical Christian apologist, historian, and philosopher of religion. He is a prolific author, lecturer, and debater on the topic of the Resurrection of Jesus.

On the Con-Resurrection side: Dr. Arif Ahmed, Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Philosophy, Cambridge University and noted atheist.

The full debate video between Habermas and Ahmed [1:28:51]:

Here is a summation of Dr. Arif Ahmed’s case against resurrection.

Regardless of where you land on the pro-con resurrection spectrum: Happy Easter!

In honour of Lady Gaga’s birthday [March 28], instead of waxing on about her meteoric rise to the top of the world of pop music and performance art, we think she would rather we focus on the charitable foundation and social movement she created, The Born This Way Foundation.

The Foundation of a Future Foundation

As an artistic teenager growing up in New York and attending The Convent of The Sacred Heart school, Stefani Germanotta has said “I used to get made fun of for being either too provocative or too eccentric, so I started to tone it down. I didn’t fit in, and I felt like a freak.”

[Photos: Gaga in concert]

It is that feeling of empathy towards young people who are bullied for being different that led Lady Gaga and her mother, Cynthia Germanotta, to create The Born This Way Foundation, an anti-bullying movement and charitable foundation, whose mission is stated on their website: to foster a more accepting society, where differences are embraced …

The website goes on to say: “We believe that everyone has the right to feel safe, to be empowered and to make a difference in the world. Together, we will move towards acceptance, bravery and love”.

It’s this message that has been the basis of Lady Gaga’s persona and has been the impetus for the creation of Born This Way to combat intolerance of all kinds.

The Born This Way Foundation takes a 3 Pillars approach to the issue:

SAFETY – Create a Safe Place to Celebrate Individuality

When provided with a safe environment, young people are able to explore themselves. So, we’ll provide you support through an online community that engages users in ways that celebrate their individuality.

SKILLS – teaching advocacy, promoting civic engagement, and encouraging self-expression 

To download a copy of the 3 Pillars click here.

Or click on this pdf file: BornThisWayFoundation3Pillars.pdf

Watch Gaga talking with Oprah Winfrey at the Foundation’s launch event at Harvard University about the 3 Pillars:

============

Of course, at Different Is Cool, we have an aligned vision of acceptance, so we give a huge salute to a celebrity who is using their life to be a force of good.  Please visit The Born This Way Foundation for more information.

Lady Gaga performs “Born This Way”, her anthem to self-acceptance, at the Grammy Awards:

http://youtu.be/xl0N7JM3wZk

“The question is not what you look at, but what you see.”~Henry David Thoreau

The world is strewn with Christian churches of grand, awe-inspiring proportions and elaborate decoration – St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, Notre Dame in Paris – actually, one can travel to any city in Europe and find one or more of these grandious religious structures, but it takes a different point of view to create a different kind of place of worship – one that is less about a show of wealth and power, and more about the revelation of Man’s intersection with Nature and God.

The Revelation of Man’s Intersection with Nature & God

Two such subtle, austere, houses of the holy are: The Church Of The Light in Japan and The Chapel of The Holy Cross in Sedona, Arizona.

“Nature is a revelation of God. Art is a revelation of Man.” ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The central tenet of Christianity is Jesus Christ’s death on the cross and by extension, its central icon is the cross.  Whilst classical Christian cathedrals aren’t known for their subtlety in decoration, they do embed the emblematic cross subtly into their architecture,  placing their altars at the axis of of the cross, visible when viewed from above.

The Chapel Of The Holy Cross, Sedona, Arizona

 [Photo: Dave Toussaint photographersnature.com]

As Tadao Ando explains: ”An important role of the church is to enhance this sense of the spiritual. In a spiritual place, people find peace in their mind (kokoro)…”   So, whether your church is grand and awe-inspiring, or austere and meditative, wherever you find peace is the most holy of houses.

My adult brother-in-law has autism.  I struggle to explain how much he means to me and how grateful I am to have him in my life, because, sometimes, the things that are most important are the things that are hardest to express…so, when I came across Spencer Timme’s YouTube video “What It’s Like To Have A Brother With Autism”, that he created about his older brother, Mitchel, I felt like Spencer has articulated that which I [and all the people who love someone with autism] feel every day.

Thank you, Spencer and Mitchel, for opening the eyes of our hearts and letting us feel how joyous unconditional love can be.

One of the driving forces for the founding of this social enterprise [or, "business for good"], Different Is Cool, is our autistic brother and his special needs.

Our BHAG [Big Hairy A$$ Goal], is that through promoting understanding and compassion for all kinds of “different” people, prejudice will be reduced.

We are proud to support and fund autism education as one of our aligned causes, through our Endowment of Cool.  If you are interested in supporting DisC’s Mission, please visit our STORE, where all the proceeds are directed to our Endowment.

And always remember: What Makes You Different, Makes You Cool.

Brigham Young University believes that its star Mathletes should receive the same kind of adulation and school spirit as its star athletes.  And so they created this totally awesome BYU Mathlete Rap. Spirit Fingers!

Go Dittmer!

Chorus goes like this:

The BYU Mathletes are coming after ya
When they walk by don’t do the wave do the parabola

It’s Dittmer not Detmer but he’s fly like Ty
And if it existed, he’d win the Heisman of Reciting Pi

Champ in high school, college pressure grew
Til the guv wants a pic with the top math recruit

And that’s in Indiana where they worship their Hoosiers
But now the kids there love math and they say, “Hoops is for losers!”

 I wondered why somebody didn’t do something.  Then I realized, I am somebody.  ~Author Unknown

Yes, People Are Awesome.

Watch as this Czech street magician makes this homeless man’s day by magically turning his coffee into cash.  Warning: Your heart may grow two sizes.