A posting every day; an interesting idea every three months…
Even the games section of the New York Times can be educational. What organization protects your individual right to “keep and bear arms”? The same ACLU that helped Amber Heard express herself is “defending individual rights” (Autocheck enabled so we know that this answer is consistent with dogma):
Related:
Full post, including commentsHere’s some mail that recently arrived for my mother, who would have been 91 if she’d been alive to receive it:
It’s from the same geniuses who wrote the op-ed that led to Amber Heard being successfully sued for defamation. Inside the elderly with some cash potential are informed that “A second Tmmp administration presents a clear and present danger to our fundamental freedoms.”
Here’s the rest of the panic-inducing letter.
As you observe International Day to Combat Islamophobia and work on your taxes (one month to go!) and contemplate your charitable contributions, check out this post from two years ago… Our first grader learns about the non-profit world (American Heart Association):
The CEO earned $2.44 million in 2020,
How’s this lady with a bachelor’s degree doing more recently? For 2023, her compensation is up to about $4.15 million (source):
The organization’s revenue went up 32 percent from $700 million to $926 million while her compensation went up by 70 percent.
(Our local public school is still enlisting children to help raise money for the American Heart Association.)
Just as in 2023, the American Heart Association’s giant medical brains recommend that babies get their first COVID-19 shot at age 6 months. Contrast to the Science-denying Trump-worshipping fools who run the United Kingdom’s National Health Service (previously an exemplar of what government and health care could be) who say that baby’s first COVID-19 shot is at age 75.
Full post, including commentsHappy GivingTuesday!
When practical, I think it is better to buy stuff from people who’ve suffered a natural disaster rather than donate money (see Japan Relief Idea: Buy a folding saw and Japan Relief: Idea #1 (buy a knife)). Sarasota was hit at full Category 3 strength by Hurricane Milton (albeit apparently not as badly damaged as whatever apparatus was supposed to count votes in California!). The Ringling Museum there is a great cultural institution and a $200/year membership there (mostly tax-deductible?) gives a family access, via a digital card downloadable to a DouchePhone Wallet, to about 1,000 museums nationwide via the following networks:
If you’re going to hit just two or three museums in a year and weren’t smart enough to get a SNAP/EBT card (see How to get free museum admissions for life: sign up for food stamps (SNAP/EBT)) you’ll recover the $200.
Ahead of their time?
Anyone else want to offer an idea for GivingTuesday?
Full post, including commentsA tweet from Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council:
The folks who get paychecks from the victimhood industry are hanging out in a Parisian palace with chandeliers blazing while the victims whose victimhood enables those paychecks are fighting the Israelis street-by-street and tunnel-by-tunnel.
Full post, including commentsBelow are some recent photos from the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California. A railroad, streetcar, and real estate baron left this gift of beautiful gardens and arts to Californians and tourists. Today’s Silicon Valley rich are much richer than Henry Edwards Huntington was. Why aren’t they creating amazing art museums and gardens? A Walmart heiress did that in Arkansas with Crystal Bridges, but I haven’t heard of the tech billionaires doing anything similar. Why not? Is creating a world-class garden and/or museum not sufficiently ambitious for today’s elites? They want to instead say that they saved humanity from disease or landed humans on another planet?
Some inspiring bonsai:
Inspiration for your golden retriever and a room in which to relax after the kill:
An all-gender restroom before you venture out into California gridlock:
I would like to support the Turkish people by supporting the Turkish economy. What should I buy? (As noted in Japan Relief Idea: Buy a folding saw, I prefer the idea of trade rather than sending money to nonprofit orgs where it could be swallowed up by employees paying themselves $millions (see Our first grader learns about the non-profit world (American Heart Association) for example)).
From our government:
How about carpets and textiles? A lot of food in jars and cans from the local Middle Eastern store? (these are thin on the ground in Jupiter, Florida, but maybe they exist down towards West Palm Beach) I found a mail-order shop in Pittsburgh. Amazon sells Turkish olive oil with free delivery.
Readers: do you know of a good online source for Turkish carpets of at least medium quality (wool rather than synthetic, for example)?
Related:
“Our school is raising money for the American Heart Association,” said our first grader. “Do you want to donate?” I said, “It depends. I don’t like to give money to organizations whose employees make more than I do. What if the CEO gets paid $1 million per year?”
My hypothetical turned out to be far from the truth. The CEO earned $2.44 million in 2020, the most recent year for which data are available (from IRS Form 990):
Maybe 2020 was an anomaly and Nancy Brown got paid a $2 million bonus for curing heart disease? Her 2019 haul was $3.4 million:
The 7-year-old suggested that the CEO had probably done 19 operations to save a child’s life. We found a LinkedIn page and the $2.4-3.4 million (in pre-Biden money) was being paid to someone with a bachelor’s degree:
(In other words, not a surgeon.)
The school’s plan, we learned, was to raise $32,000 for the American Heart Association. After informing the kids that there were 250 working days in a year, we asked them to figure out how long $32,000 would last if used to pay Nancy Brown’s CEO salary (answer: 3.3 days).
What do the Scientists with bachelor’s degrees at the American Heart Association have to say about the only health problem that concerns Americans? From their coronaplague page:
“Every vaccination brings us closer to a future free of COVID-19”? How is that possible when the vaccines do not stop infection, transmission, disease, or death? Separately, nowhere on this page from the Heart Association is there any mention of the disproved-by-Science association between the attempted COVID vaccines and heart problems such as myocarditis. Why not reassure the public that it is perfectly safe to inject everyone starting at age 6 months?
(I think “attempted vaccine” is the best description for these shots that don’t stop infection, transmission, sickness, or death.)
Full post, including commentsI’m wondering if the Depp v. Heard trial has shed any light on one of America’s more unusual philanthropists. It is not uncommon for an American to have sex with a rich person (oftentimes his/her/zir/their boss!), sue that person for divorce, alimony, child support, and property division, and then be celebrated in our media as a great philanthropist using the money obtained via having sex and going to family court.
Amber Heard was unusual in that she stated that her only motivation for seeking cash in family court was philanthropic. She promised to donate all of her profits from the one-year marriage to hard-working Johnny Depp. From Amber Heard: brave and financially independent (2016):
“Amber Heard ‘suffered through years of physical and psychological abuse’ by Johnny Depp, lawyers say” is a Washington Post article in which Ms. Heard is characterized as “a brave and financially independent woman” who is besieged because the defendant whom she sued has a “relentless army of lawyers.”
Although the only thing sought by her original lawsuit (previous posting includes a link to the Petition) is money (property division, alimony, and attorney’s fees), “none of [the plaintiff’s] actions are motivated by money.” (Amber Heard is also seeking to be divorced, of course, but California is a no-fault state (offering what scholars call “unilateral divorce”) so she is 100-percent guaranteed to win that part of her lawsuit.)
(A plaintiff suffered “years of abuse” during a one-year marriage says the newspaper that assures us inflation is being ably handled by the technocrats.)
“Amber Heard admits to withholding millions from Children’s Hospital” (PopTopic 2021):
Amber Heard admits to “failing” to donate to charity. After Johnny Depp’s attorney Adam Waldman subpoenaed two organisations that Amber Heard claimed she donated the entirety of her USD$7 million divorce settlement, it came to light that Amber Heard had lied under oath about making any donations. She reportedly pocketed the entire amount.
Amber Heard promised that she would donate the whole amount to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) to prove that she was not after Johnny Depp’s money.
Presumably it isn’t relevant to the core of the issues at the current trial, but I wonder if it is now clear to what extent Ms. Heard acted on her expressed charitable intent.
(As previously noted here, the most obvious way for Amber Heard to have donated $7 million of money earned by Johnny Depp was to write checks from a joint checking account with Mr. Depp shortly before she filed her divorce lawsuit, then ask only to be divorced in the suit (an automatic win since California is a no-fault state). This has worked for plaintiffs in Maskachusetts. One gal transferred more than $1 million in joint account money via cash and checks to her boyfriend, then sued her husband for property division, alimony, and child support. The judge ruled that she was authorized to spend the jointly held money however she wanted during the marriage. So he split the remaining assets 50/50 and also awarded 20 years of child support and alimony to the victorious plaintiff. She ended up with perhaps 80 percent of the spending power. This was 20 years ago, so $1 million was real money at the time.)
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Full post, including commentsIf anyone expresses support for low-skill migration into the U.S., one of my standard tropes is to offer to pay for a year of food for any migrants that the gracious welcomer wants to shelter in his/her/zir/their own home. After 20 years of making these offers, I have not had to spend one penny. Here’s the typical exchange:
It seems that my bluff has been called, however, by an Irish helicopter enthusiast friend. He and his wife have welcomed a Ukrainian and her 15-year-old son into their suburban Dublin house (to occupy a couple of bedrooms that have been vacated by adult children). From WhatsApp: “They arrived last night with a cabin size bag and 2 shoulder bags.” Although he didn’t ask for any help, I decided to send 500 euro for a gift card at the local shopping mall (impossible to buy online with a U.S. credit card, so I did a bank transfer with his IBAN number and he will buy it; I trust him not to spend the money on essential-in-Maskachusetts-and-California marijuana because weed is illegal in Ireland). The mom will have a “PPS number” by next week and, therefore, will be allowed to work in Ireland.
One of our loyal readers (I won’t share his name until I get his permission) is married to a Ukrainian and is sheltering up to 7 of his wife’s relatives in his suburban Paris home. They’ve gotten health coverage from the French government, but, as in the U.S., housing is a human right to which a 10-year waiting list is attached. We could get together and try to cover some of his hypermarché bills. I met this reader in person when I was in Paris with my mom so I can vouch for him. And I’ve seen the pictures of the crowded kitchen table.
Why send money direct to individuals in this manner? Donating to a non-profit org has the advantage that it might be tax-deductible, but Elvis Presley wouldn’t deduct any of his donations because he said that it “took away from the spirit of the gift.” Also, I don’t want to help a non-profit executive boost his/her/zir/their salary from $1 million per year to $2 million per year, even if that only keeps pace with housing inflation.
Finally, let me add that the Ukrainian friend whom I talk to most regularly is ambivalent about aid to refugees. He prefers to assist those who’ve chosen to stay in Ukraine (his own father has refused to bug out despite a quiet suburban American existence being within relatively easy reach (dad is over 60 and therefore free to leave Ukraine at any time)).
On the third hand, I feel sympathy for anyone who has to live under Irish weather conditions…
(above: part of Newgrange, where no refugees will be housed, from a May/June 2019 trip in which it rained for an entire week)
Comment here and/or email me (philg@mit.edu) if you want to be connected.
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