Yes, I will continue to beat the drum about shitty nonprofits not using donations effectively to actually DO a damn thing — and by “beat the drum” I mean “link to this excellent piece about charity-scamming and lack of efficacy in the highly-funded world of breast cancer.”   Seriously, it’s well worth a read.

…doing good is hard work. It’s humbling work, it’s a lifelong commitment, and it requires us to face hard questions about the way we live. And doing good, sometimes, requires us to wage war on sentimentality. -my friend Jialan Wang, on Kony2012 and this article in particular   In the wake of Kony2012, there’s a [...]

When I talk about bad approaches to social issues, this is the kinda thing that fits the bill.   Many Internet commenters are saying things like “But hey! Homeless people are earning money!  WHERE’S THE PROBLEM?!”   The problem — like the problem with Kony2012 — is in thinking that this is actually accomplishing anything. [...]

These campaigns don’t just lack scholarship or nuance. They are not bothered to seek it. -On Kony2012   Thursday, I woke up (from one of many naps, because my body imploded on itself like a dying star) to discover that the Internet had exploded.  (Again!)  This time, though, it was not owing to a Kardashian [...]

When I heard that Andrew Breitbart had died, I was saddened. It is natural to think of the damage Breitbart did to people like Sherrod by embracing lying as a weapon. But I found myself thinking of the great injury he must have ultimately done himself, for by the end of the Sherrod affair, he [...]

Romney is in sort of a quantum superposition between winning and losing, still waiting for the Republican base to look at him just a little bit harder and collapse him into one or the other. -Kevin Drum, MoJo   …these are the metaphors which erupt when one-time Techers* become writers.   *Caltech, natch.  Lord only knows [...]

I have not been posting much lately.  Sometimes, the world is a difficult place, and I just want to sit around and watch “Cougar Town” and eat delicious sandwiches.  (Expect a future post on “Cougar Town,” btw.)   Raising my ire most recently has been the general state of affairs RE women in America, what [...]

I know my last post was a lengthy rant against so much attention paid to Occupy, but I am going to devote one more piece to the matter, for two reasons: 1.  I hate to shut up; and more pressingly, 2.  In that last post my main charge against Occupy was that protest is not [...]

Today, I lost my patience with #OO.   Occupy Oakland is news enough to have its own acronymous hashtag — taking up more than three characters will only stifle the flow of news coming out of Frank Ogawa Plaza.  (Which I am tired of hearing called “Oscar Grant Plaza.”  Yes, Oscar Grant is a tragic [...]