The Children's Miracle Network, an incredible non-profit, is
partnering with Microsoft to force hospital-bound children into the
middle of a vile, popular-vote based "giveaway." Voters decide which
three hospitals receive an "Ultimate Gameroom" and which children will
get let down.

The Children's Miracle Network has raised $3.2 billion for Children's
hospitals around the world. While Microsoft has actually helped raise
$1.3 million of those billions and contributed a few Xboxes here and
there, they've chucked away any milligram of character with the
Ultimate Gameroom Giveaway. This attention-seeking sham they've
concocted is on the level of tearing a teddy bear out of a child's
arms and then ripping it apart into a pile of fuzzy remains on the
spot.

What exactly is so bad about the Ultimate Gameroom Giveaway? On the
surface it's a wonderful bit of charity on Microsoft's part: they'll
give some Children's hospitals about ten thousand dollars worth of
equipment which could include several 42" Plasma TVs, a pair of Xbox
consoles, some Zunes, four computers, oodles of games, and associated
furniture. Except only three out of the 170 hospitals in the
Children's Miracle Network will receive such an equipment package.
$30,000 total, and the hospitals pay all the taxes. How generous
coming from a company who spends hundreds of millions on individual ad
campaigns.

If Microsoft outfitted each of the 170 hospitals with the same
Ultimate Gameroom, it would cost them a measly $1.7 million. That's a
lot to you and I, but to Microsoft that's .6%, point freakin' six
percent, of the cost of a single ad campaign. How much more positive
publicity would donating that pocket change get? I'd certainly react
better to it than I did to the Seinfeld ads.

This tightwad attitude of Microsoft isn't the truly horrid part of the
entire "giveaway" though. It's how the three recipients of the
gamerooms are chosen: a very public popular vote. Not a random raffle,
not an secret vote, but a public, popular vote with results regularly
updating on the Children's Miracle Network's website.

As I'm writing this, there is an eight-way tie for last place, with
each hospital having one measly vote. How do the kids at those
hospitals feel when they see those rankings? The hospitals currently
in the top three have a lead of several thousand votes over the rest,
but that can and probably will change quickly. How will those kids
feel when they miss out on the gamerooms after thinking they could
win?

For the sake of feigning concern about charity and kindness, Microsoft
is toying with the hopes of children at 170 hospitals and frankly, I
would really love to find whoever limited Microsoft's contribution to
this charity and tear any Birthday, Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter,
Summer Solstice, and un-freakin'-Birthday gift right out of his or her
greedy, little claws. If you're going to contribute to a charity,
especially a children's charity, you shouldn't turn it into a game
with winners and losers. Those kids have enough sadness in their lives
and they really don't need Saint Microsoft to yank them back and forth
in the name of pretend kindness.

One point seven million dollars, Microsoft, that's how much you saved
by getting rid of that pesky sense of dignity.