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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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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ideas observations thought fodder

New Frozen Pizza Law

I’m going to be imperious here for a moment and declare a new frozen pizza law. Regardless of the brand, all frozen pizzas from here on out MUST carry the same baking temperature. It is seriously annoying for those of us who buy two different brands for the same meal due to health issues (gluten-free vs. regular) to have to struggle over what temp to set the oven at. I’m not quite so concerned about…

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history olio pragmatic historian thought fodder

Food for Thought on Independence Day 2020

2020 has been a tumultuous year so far, as many people have pointed out already. We have a pandemic to contend with that has caused 132,000 deaths in the United States, massive unemployment, and economic upheaval. Donald T**** and his White House Administration, with the all-out encouragement of the Republican party at all levels of government, has created chaos by continually dismantling whatever parts of the federal government he can get his hands on. And…

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