challenge family projects thought fodder tips

Being on Camera

Being on camera is not natural for most people, particularly those of us who grew up without constantly being attached to a phone camera. When I was a kid, film was expensive to process and most rolls came with only 24 shots, so you didn’t want to waste them on goofy or unimportant subjects, like pictures of food or a cat playing with a toy. Also, parents weren’t likely to let their kids “play” with…

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ideas reading thought fodder time

Jill-ohnny Come Lately

Just call me “Jill-ohnny Come Lately.” I finally got around to reading Kevin Kwan’s “Crazy Rich Asians” and I loved it. The copyright date is 2013 and it’s been made into “A Major Motion Picture,” as my second-hand, thrift store copy announces from the cover. It takes time to make major motion pictures, and while I’ve heard of the movie, I haven’t yet seen it. I wonder if I will like it as much as…

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law observations thought fodder

Observations on Ethics and the Law

I saw the above tweet from Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) on June 18, 2021, regarding sanctions against Sidney Powell, Donald Trump’s attorney during the second impeachment hearings who lied when she claimed the 2020 election was fraudulent, and I thought, it’s about time. As Donald Trump was being impeached again, I was taking my paralegal certificate courses and watching as so many of the attorneys involved (Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell) were lying or otherwise engaging in…

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ideas observations pragmatic historian thought fodder

Small Town Progressive

I live in a small town with a population of under 10,000 people. We’re often referred to as rural, and our county is most assuredly rural. When it comes to politics, our small town and rural county are true-to-type, with a majority of voters supporting conservative candidates in the last two presidential elections. In 2012, when Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were on the ticket, Minnesota as a state chose Obama with 52.65% of the…

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history pragmatic historian thought fodder

How Can We Improve Nonprofit Governance?

The inimitable Vu Le has written another thought-provoking blog post at Nonprofit AF. The post is called “The default nonprofit board model is archaic and toxic; let’s try some new models.” In it, Vu posits that 1/3 of nonprofit boards are helpful, 1/3 are useless, and 1/3 are harmful. That’s a lot of bad nonprofit boards. Vu suggests this isn’t necessarily about individuals who serve on boards; it’s more about the structure of nonprofit boards.…

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