Put us in, coach! A stylish whistle ‘round the neck benefits a good cause

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I’ve never thought of the whistle-on-a-lanyard look as exactly stylish (it reminds me of my junior high soccer coach, with whom I didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye when it came to motivational technique), but an item posted over at our compatriot Brand X blog made me -- at least momentarily -- reconsider.

You can read the whole story there, but, to oversimplify: The noisemaker, which is used as a weapon of sorts in the civil war raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has been turned into a fundraiser, with a company called Falling Whistles crafting them into stylish jewelry, with gunmetal, brushed metal and gold-colored finishes and ranging in price from $30 to $100, with 100% of the sales of each whistle going to a school in that country to help rehabilitate the youngest victims of the war.

If you’re looking for the perfect gift for the whistleblower in your life, the only version that’s guaranteed delivery by Christmas is the $100 limited-edition ‘gold’ one (it’s actually brass) which ships already hanging on a brown suede necklace. And that’s only if you order by today.

Now that’s a ‘tweet’ worth making.

-- Adam Tschorn