observations thought fodder

One Source of Our Blindess

“Nonprofit With Balls” is a blog that’s all that and a bag of chips (with some unicorns thrown in for good measure). Its posts, written by Vu Le (pronounced “voo lay” – because I know how to read an About page), offer a typically irreverent, but uncomfortably honest look at the nonprofit world. Vu’s humor makes the uncomfieness easier to bear. (And, frankly, darn it, we do-gooders are not the dour types that we are…

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design ideas observations reading thought fodder

Feeling a Tad More Eco-Friendly

I’m reading a book called “What We Leave Behind” by Derrick Jensen and Aric McBay. It is depressing as hell. It explains how people are murdering the earth, which we absolutely are, but hasn’t offered any solutions thus far. I’m only part-way through the book and am hoping there will be some concrete suggestions that help me feel as though I can do something. Being left in a hopeless morass by a book is no…

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Letters to Legislators thought fodder writing

Letters to Legislators: Disable the Mute Button

When I was a kid, my mom used to laugh at me for yelling at the TV whenever I saw injustice playing out on shows. Yes, most of these shows were fiction, but I simply couldn’t stand the unfairness. One of my kindred spirits, a woman who could not tolerate injustice, is Eleanor Roosevelt. She died before I was born, but we share the same birthday, October 11, and I wrote a research paper on…

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observations thought fodder

Facebook Is Our New Town Square

I promised a second blog post that was inspired by this Facebook meme. Here it is. As much as we might hate it, Facebook has become our new town square. Starting in this last U.S. pre-election cycle, political posts overtook Facebook as individuals shared their views and tried to sway family, friends and co-workers  with their opinions. Often, nasty things were said. Post-election, the political sharing has become more intense as citizens attempt to figure…

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observations thought fodder

We Need to Stop Treating the U.S. Government Like a Furnace

This meme greeted me on Facebook one day and it irked me, as often these Facebook memes do. Usually, it’s because they strip complicated issues down and leave important parts out, serving as sound bites that rarely get analyzed. I can’t not analyze them and argue back. This one is so irksome to me that it’s generating at least 2 blog posts. Here’s the first. Until the most recent election cycle and the takeover of…

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