The Little Words Mean the Most

Class? In today's US democracy, is there a real reason for the Republican Party to any longer exist?

 

Or are Republicans the "past sell by" party?

 

The 2-party system kinda works, I think.

 

The "loyal opposition" is a lovely idea. I personally bow to this daily mantra: "What if everything I know is wrong?" A.k.a., whaddaIknow?

In the U.S., the worshipped balance of powers is practical genius: How else can a diverse society compromise and advance?

And then we have today's Republicans in America.

They're no longer sane nor intellectually trustworthy.

Instead, they're desperate. For a very obvious reason.

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Demographic trends are showering urine on their parade ... and they don't have an answer.

"White" privilege will shift into "everybody" privilege ... within what, a decade? Maybe two?

I just don't think there's a marchable anthem here: "Woe is me because I happen to be white." Yeah, probably not....

I'm white. I know I had advantages because I slid out into a white-majority nation.

I got the benefit of the doubt loads of times (wasn't arrested when in fact I was breaking the f**ing law).

I squeaked into an Ivy League university ... thanks to a caring high school teacher who could tip the scales in my direction. But he would have, I'm sure, done the same thing, proudly, enthusiastically, for whomever he considered a-mind-with-potential ... whatever their complexion.

Or if not him (because we're all locked into our own generation's stereotypes and biases), then the next teacher of the same ilk.

Here was a wake-up call for me, just 2 years ago.

We were working with a client in the U.S. who helps the world's burgeoning census of refugees. This client does extraordinary work in tough circumstances ... around the world! And we surveyed their donors: about 90% were either Independents or Democrats. There were almost no Republicans chipping in.

I now feel like I hold a crystal ball.

The U.S. Republican party is simply too inflexible, too inbred, and too politically irrelevant to matter much longer. This party will end up like a sand bank with countless dying fish (its supporters) ... the sooner the better.

 

So political progress can begin again in America?

 

 

 

Happening now: For CASA CA ~ new pro bono show, condensed from 1.5 hours ... to 45 minutes

 

 

What matters to someone brought up as a devout existentialist?

ex·is·ten·tial·ism

Georges Joyaux taught this powerful new philosophy at Michigan State University; he'd come from France, married American; Sim One was the first of their 6 children {{{ in truth, so common: her oopsie occurrence triggered the marriage }}}; Alain came next: don't buy two-for-the-price-of-one condoms I guess was the lesson there; then Nicole blah blah blah ... they're all Existentialists and magnificently accomplished, responsible adults; the planet is better for them all.

A visit to dear friends by SIAB and me: reconnecting with Marci, Jonathan, Merlin (Forrest was at school)

SIAB? Simone In A Box. Everything is a first for her and me, 37 years in close loving trusting learning proximity. Just pre-pandemic, Simone and I did the same trip, gossiping up a storm on the way. She castigating lightly every false turn I made. Now I have no one castigating. I want my castigator back.

Below: more details from the house makeover. Top row, left: Marci's home office. Top row, middle: a commissioned stained-glass window in the master bathroom; every image relates to their family and its life story. Middle row, left: Marci's temple to reading (which she says was inspired by my temple to writing). Middle row, right: the new kitchen for a family that adores cooking. Bottom row, left: the toilet closest to the kitchen. Bottom row, middle: the new backsplash behind the old oven/stove.

Internet Interruptus for 2.5 days: > Got me thinking

 

Feeling leads to action [Canadian neuroscientist]

A donor who stays WITH a charity is ACTING

 

A crisp new fundraising show: Zooming with Nashville AFP

 

Dropping in? My chief mentor Michelle Brinson, who taught the world how to do a lucrative donor newsletter (to the tune of $2 million extra in gifts annually)....

 

"Hey, dad, what's the opposite of the YOU test?"

Sim One & I run/ran global businesses off a small brown cable lying on the ground. Then a shovel severed it....

 

Wednesday: the incredible Sam was here, trying to turn some of our acreage into meadows (for bird and deer support and amusement) ... and so she excavated a pest shrub (wild fake-olive takes over if you don't control) ... and with one foot-propelled slice of her pest-popping shovel (a.k.a., the shovel of death) she severed my fiber-optic feed.

Sam knew about this danger. It was danger #1 for me/us to carry on a global consultancy from this obscure rural nest. But a momentary ... some lapse ... and I was done; machine says: "can't find the router" ... >>> [timing is everything] thank goodness this calamity happened an hour AFTER I'd presented a smokin' 40-minute webinar on cases to the Nashville AFP.

Sent a request for repair into Verizon immediately.

After navigating an hour's-worth of "customer service" artificial (QUITE artificial) intelligence, I finally reached a responsive human ... who scheduled a fix. And then that scheduled repair person never showed.

So another 24 hours without phones and Internet fluttered out the window. Tried again this morning (I'm learning how to play the artificial intelligence customer "not-real-service" game)  ... & miracles!!! (yes, prayers work) >>>

I once again reached a human! (Saint Sim One, resident in existentialist heaven, be praised) ... a superior being who checked on everything and rescheduled a repair visit. A visit that arrived early!!! And featured a genius.

And now I'm back online. Thank you, St. Sim One.

 

 

 

Took SIAB hiking today on the CT coast

SIAB = Simone In A Box; her cremated ashes. I sleep next to them and take her a lot of places ... like today, on my back. (We also filled up on gas together.) Pre-SIAB, we'd talk for hours and decades about our joint industry, as we hiked the world. She and I liked to shop-talk on the trail.

This was a "view stop."

{Photo credit: Dean, Maggie's wonder-hub} L-r: Maggie Cohn (best copywriter and case interviewer ever); moi with SIAB in the yellow backpack; Andrea Hopkins (my fave designer of all; and I've swum through quite a few); and Dave, Andrea's wonder-hub. Behind us? Long Island Sound, which is now almost officially empty of lobsters. Those tasty crustaceans of yore are moving north toward suitably colder waters: "take a right at Maine and head for Canada's Atlantic provinces." This was a case-writing hike: we share a $700 million/year super-charity client who needs ... well, you know: the usual ~ money-making messaging.

That's Obi, lower left. He's the unofficial mascot (we haven't had the swearing-in ceremony yet) for The Case Writers.

 

Pro-level fundraising is one of the hardest jobs I know on earth

 

When I started in donor comms, I was 90% learning, 10% successful.

Now, I'm probably more like 10% learning, 90% successful. It's rare these days to make a horrible mistake. (Though they DO happen; had one in 2021.)

To move that needle from mostly-fail to mostly-succeed took me (at least) 2 decades of paying close attention: lots of reading, listening, frequent humility soaks, chasing results, hundreds of mentors, worshiping data, experimentation ... where the baseline was this: failure is a GOOD thing (if you learn something).

Just reporting in....