The Little Words Mean the Most

OK, I thought this would be easy enough: "Monitoring" your office behavior is the new term for "surveillance"

 

Let a few friends know that I planned to change my e-mail address. Close a 30-year technology gap. Flush the toilet. Start over with BFFs.

 

Thinking about that, I laughed aloud in my home office ... and out of nowhere a robot wanted to know if I wanted paper or plastic or platinum handcuffs.

 

Huh?

 

My computer "minotaurs" my behavior? To what good end?

 

There are 330 million residents in America. The best good is all of them agree on which fashion handcuffs to choose? Now this is scary. I didn't know I was being "monitored." Without my knowledge or consent. But I am.

 

AND YOU ARE, TOO! I would say I am under surveillance. But our benign overlords hate that term. They prefer this: I am simply being monitored.

 

OK: I figured the "deep state" was nuts because the people who spoke about it were CLEARLY nuts (newly elected GPO house reps from MO) ....

 

Nothing about the "deep state" (Plan A: pull aluminum covers over one's head; tuck tightly; press microwave button labeled POPCORN) made sense.

 

Like there were two kinds of gravity.

 

Gravity one: your pants fall down. Gravity number two: your pants stay up ... but your neighbor's pants fall down, exposing his bony knees.

 

Oh, shit

 

 

 

She wants to know why, me, loud athiest, listens to Christian rock....

 

????

 

I dunno.

 

Good rock is good rock. Great musicians? Half the time I can't understand the lyrics anyway.

 

I'm moved is all. And you know what's the amazing part? I learned this from Alan Clayton in Slovakia. He started his workshop by playing some hard-rock song. He told us to get up on our feet ... and dance. And then after a minute or so he shut off the music; we settled back into our chairs. He said, "That's how fast you can change someone's emotions."

 

Now that's teaching.

 

love

 

dad

 

 

 

 

Suffering strep throat? Me, too. PSA below: Remedies I found recently....

 

HERE. It's that time of year.

Strep throat is a bacterial infection. It entered my Thunderdome last week, after a hike with friends and a meal. Strep is highly contagious. You can pick it up just by touching an unclean door knob at a restaurant's rest room (so, yes, continue washing your hands a lot ... and do NOT touch your face).

Anyway, America's shambolic (trust me, your first guess will be right, if you don't already know the adjective) health-case system has hit the jackpot: Covid-19 variants multiply faster than bunnies; flu remains a strong seasonal force to be reckoned with; there's a new player: RSV; and then there's this long-time teacher's pet, strep throat.

Bottom line: I can't get an appointment with a doctor anywhere within driving distance in near-2023.

Yet I can't swallow.

Understand: I LOVE my docs; they amaze me; I'm grateful.

But the SYSTEM (the web we're trapped in) isn't ready ... and 2022-2023 is a MILD test of America's "health-care system."

We all need to hear the demographic REAL truth about aging populations and our society's ability to cope (it can't yet ... or even close; although if you work in the non-profit sector you're trying to be helpful ... ).

------

The Mayo Clinic online pretty much confirmed my self-diagnosis. Low-grade fever. Headaches.

Worst symptom from my head down? Excruciating to swallow. Even a tassel of gently descending saliva bends me in half: with shouting pain. Try to stealth a much-needed pill down my throat, shielded past by an innocent luke-warm sip of water: puts me on my knees. Prognosis?

For two days my nutritional intake has been the occasional honey lozenge, all my throat would tolerate.

I've started to pray ("Dear Simone... If you can hear me...."). Finally, I find a doctor who will talk to me via telemedicine; PlushCare it's called. The online doc is careful. Thoughtful. Probing. Exhaustive. She prescribes! I rush to my nearest pharmacy.

Miracles happen.

And hallelujah in little more than a day my tonsils-flogged-across-broken-glass, those dramatic unh-unh swallowing symptoms begin to subside. Organs begin to rehydrate, expanding like kitchen sponges. Body shouts: eat! I hire an Uber. "Take me to the nearest All-You-Can-Eat buffet with a full liquor license."

The sun sets on another infection.

In the end I wondered, should I have gone to YouTube first? Here's what I found. Sounds solid, too.

 

My goal? ZERO clients

 

just

 

lovely ambitious

 

friends

 

 

An outdoor hotdog occasion to celebrate the land

Gina's new banana car; Gina firepit master; the provisions for 3 including Sam; the view @ sunset including a glacial erratic and a well-built dry-stone New England wall from the dairy farm that once clomped here

Toma and Andrée Joyaux in Providence, Nov. 2022; photo by the impeccable Nicole Joyaux Kramer

Ashley & Amy's new chair, made cat-claw-proof (once felines learn to read and obey); creepy Roger Williams; Andrée Joy-Ox

To a client who'd requested a short bio

 

My brief official bio goes something like this ... at the moment:

In 2016, the New York Times called Tom Ahern "one of America’s most sought-after creators of fund-raising messages." In 2021, author and respected legacy expert, Richard Radcliffe, said: "Tom Ahern is possibly the greatest non-profit copywriter on the planet." Tom's recent cases range from massive campaigns with a $1 billion goal to local community chests hoping to raise small amounts. He has authored 7 highly-rated how-to books on donor communications. He speaks internationally. During the pandemic, he collaborated with the Institute for Sustainable Philanthropy (UK) to devise a best-selling online course for charity copywriting.

Client responds to my bio:

Perfect! Shameless if it is true!

Me:

 

Yeah, it's true. I have more credentials and achievements than a porcupine has quills. NOT to brag ... because it was mostly about clients agreeing, "We're getting out of your way. Do what you think is best." Then we BOTH succeeded ... because EASY gains were just sitting there on the table, ready to be plucked.

 

Typically, my partners and I have more lay-psychology training than our nonprofit clients. Which meant THEY were guessing ... and we were only SEMI-guessing. We felt (knew-ish!) we could maybe reliably extract more money from their supporter base ... as long as clients allowed our uninhibited appeals and such to go free-range.

 

No mysteries. No magic.

 

Our confidence came from neuroscience; other recent research. A lot has changed in fundraising since the 1990s. NOT because of shiny new things ... but because we understand donor behavior MUCH better now.

 

love mushrooms

 

~ tom

 

 

On US election day, Nov. 8, 2022, a dear friend...

 

... who's voted for Donald Trump twice

... will drive us both to Foster RI's local polling station

... and we will vote: dutifully, faithfully, our best; marking our secret ballots

... opposite ends, for adequate reasons

... and go hiking again next week together

... with deep respect & love, whatever happens

 

Forgive me, if this is a Loch Ness repeat ... it was important to Simone and me

In a small Scottish inn, we spot hints of the coming pandemic

... before the average world hears the news

         It's a master class for about 25 fundraising professionals. It starts Monday, March 2, 2020; we meet and mingle the night before. There's a fire. There's a single-malt bar. Our classroom overlooks Loch Ness. Highland cattle bagged in thick copper hair and lengthy horns graze the sloping fields in front of The Inch, our inn and classroom. These animals are an ancient Scottish breed. We're staring at Neolithic-period meat and milk.

         Loch Ness isn't all that wide. But it is the very, very, well-fine-not-really-all-that-implausibly deep home to the (please adopt this lovely word) "cryptozoological monster" touristically known in gift shops as Nessie.

         And you know what, when you're teaching a master class?

         The Nessie legend is an f*ing distraction. Delegates can't help glancing out the windows, hoping. Walk a few minutes to the nearby village of Fort Augustus: Nessie is unavoidable. Nessie burgers. Nessie squish toys in tartans. Loch Ness energy drinks: "Guzzle the damn stuff!!! You'll feel like a dragon trapped inside a fathomless lake for at least 10,000 years!" Nessie petrol. And Nessie boat patrol.

         Along with meals, lodging and pitiless fundraising instructors [us] yapping about expertise for 2.5 days, our master-class students get a complimentary boat trip up Loch Ness from Fort Augustus.

         It's a sedate ride. A colony of feral goats chewing the scenery on the loch's sheer cliffs is the highlight; that, plus sunburn if you didn't bring covering.

         In several places, the boat's windows offer a pasted-on Nessie silhouette. Through that silhouette, you can shoot your very own pretend "I saw Nessie" photo. Everyone does it. It's the highlight of the tour. The silhouette features a couple of arching black spines and the famously erect swan's neck topped by that fierce presumably-ancient fish-crushing head.

         I notice that Simone has cornered one of our brightest, most eager master-class students. He's from the Czech Republic. Went to Harvard. Now back in his home country, where he's set on reforming public school education. The vision: to make the Czech Republic a superstar amongst post-Communist states, which ended almost 30 years ago. He's got grant funding, which puts a warhead on his missile (to slip back into Cold War terms).

------

Sim One lectures him throughout our one-hour ride re: her disgust with politics in America. She's not bothering with photos of Nessie. He's attentive, polite, calm, respectful. He's a remedy, too, I suspect. His unremitting, much-younger Czech attention-span probably spares Simone's stomach a messy countdown.

         She is spectacularly prone to seasickness.

         More than once, within seconds, I've witnessed her explosive reactions to being afloat on any boat; on three continents.

         Even on today's prim, flat lake, aboard a tub in the Scottish Highlands, with waves no higher than careless gestures, waves less formidable than a gent's pocket square, I can easily imagine Simone collapsing on the deck, eyes rolling up, gracelessly puking without caring much, like a wan fire hose.

         So, PS: The cleaning crew for this Loch Ness tour boat wishes to thank the Czech Republic. Which I kept mistakenly calling Czechoslovakia in his presence, a political entity that dissolved peacefully on January 1, 1993. He was adoringly patient. He forgave me because I was clearly too old to castigate and my references were obsolete. My stamp collection was old, my atlas was old, my globe was old. I was an antique, too. I just needed to shut up and let the next generations have their say.