Anti-intellectualism cracks its knuckles and steps out of the shadows

Recently, a local online news source reported that California colleges affirmed their commitment to diversity and inclusion. Along with this, the local JC offered a 2 1/2 hour session this Monday as a "safe space" for students, faculty, staff, and others to gather and discuss their concerns.

This is exactly the role a community college should play. Colleges are places for expanding horizons, learning new things, and discussing different opinions. I think it's great that DVC is offering this. I hope students and others of all backgrounds attend and listen at least.

Then I read the comments on the article above. And on the facebook post of the article.

Most were mean-spirited attacks on the idea of a "safe space."

Liberals, please, quell your fears! You will likely still be able to receive welfare. You will likely still be able to live in your parent’s basements.

Oh goody! A communtiy college cry-in!

OK, now everyone just remember the upside here. These snowflakes, will never be able to hold a job. So the rest of us will be able to get and keep one regardless of their whining.

Bed-wetters and save space kids the election's over if you don't know what the hell happened take a civics class and learn something about how things work in our government if you're confused. ......

I embrace diversity. I frequent Taco Bell and Panda Express.

Ok cupcakes. Dont forget your safety pins

And on and on it went. This is in the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the bluest regions of the country. I can't imagine the commentary in deeply red areas. Those who tried to defend the colleges were, of course, attacked for being libtards.

What I saw most among these comments, besides the frequent references to special snowflakes and bedwetting, was an undeniable undercurrent of anti-intellectualism. Aggressive anti-intellectualism. A sense that if you go to college, you're weak and worthless.

This is Trump's America. Where ignorance and whiteness are to be celebrated, and knowledge and diversity are to be ridiculed. Where a white thug with a mohawk and camo pants feels like a success by insulting college kids. I know these white thugs won't show up at the discussion, either to share their feelings or to cause trouble. They're just punks posting shit online. And it's their right to do so.

But this is not the direction America should go. If we don't fight against this surge of white power and anti-intellectualism now, we're going to slip deeper into a dark future.

Five truths about online charity auctions in the workplace

Recently my second blog post on CSR Wire hit the internet. It's a sum-up of a few things I've learned about running an online auction for charitable purposes.

I hate online auctions. They generate more risk than money, take a ton of time and effort to build and maintain, and get people into a lather about the most inane things. I have spoken to a few workplace giving managers who said they successfully killed their online auctions. I will have to learn how they did it.

Read it here:
The things I've learned from running our online auction

Please stop calling it a gender pay gap. Because it's not.

I just read yet ANOTHER article about the "gender pay gap" in soccer. The following comma splice in particular caught my attention:

Women’s teams play just as hard on the pitch as men’s teams, they should be receiving equal reward for their hard earned victory.

That is fallacious logic. A job's pay is not set by the effort a person puts in; it is set by the market value of what that job produces. This is why actors who perform in local theater don't get paid the same as actors who perform on Broadway, even though they may produce similar quality and work equally hard. Also, this is why male soccer players in MLS do not get paid the same as male soccer players in most European leagues, even though they play just as hard on the pitch.

Fairness and gender equity are noble causes. I support equal pay for equal work. But come on. The outrage flying around the internet this week is misplaced.

The outrage should be that a jersey that sells for $80 is sewn by someone who gets paid pennies a day. The outrage should be that billions are spent on stadiums that crumble into decay after the tournament is over, built by laborers who can't afford to buy a ticket to a game played there.

Can we stop talking about this as gender inequity, please? Because it's not, and calling it so undermines the real issue of gender pay gaps.

If you showed me a woman creating ads for the World Cup who makes 70% of what a man making ads for the same World Cup makes, then I'd feel the outrage.

THAT would be a gender pay inequity. Equal pay for equal work is not the same as equal pay for equal effort. Is the discrepancy in payment from the men's and women's World Cups unfair? Possibly. Should it be "corrected" by a new rule to ensure a "fair" or "equitable" situation?

No.

Well, I could imagine a scenario where you reduce payments to men's teams so they are equal to payments made to women's teams. Spend the savings on community improvement, education, and health care in the places where the laborers live.

If you want to talk about equity and injustice, let's start from there.

(The photos are just ones I took of soccer related stuff. They don't actually relate to the text except that they are soccer, and I took them.)

The privilege of driving a stick shift in suburbia, and being able to laugh about it

My younger son recently got his learner's permit, and he's been eager to get out and drive as often as possible. He's only had four hours behind the wheel, and he's already almost--not quite, but almost--mastered the stick shift.

This is the car.

Last night he took me out for a practice drive. Fifteen minutes of warmup through our suburban neighborhood with broad, sparsely trafficked streets; gentle curves with good visibility and a few stop signs; and the mildest of hills. Christmas lights ranged from simple elegance to the most garish displays of electrical overindulgence I've seen anywhere. He almost missed one stop sign. Almost.

After the warmup, we went out on the bigger streets. Multiple turn lanes at stoplights, crossing major intersections, a lot more traffic. He was nervous but had done this once before and handled the vehicle well. Another stint through another suburban neighborhood... then:

He made a good start from a stop sign into a tight left turn despite the headlights of an SUV close behind. He got into second gear, then went to shift into third but missed and hit first again.

Have you ever accidentally downshifted when you meant to shift up? The car bucks like crazy, the engine fighting against momentum and slowing like you slammed the brakes. To his credit, he got it back to neutral and then found third gear almost immediately. He was flustered but not panicked.

Until the SUV behind us turned on its red and blue flashing lights. Yup, a cop. A cop at 9:30 p.m. on a Thursday night during the height of holiday party season. My son smoothly glided to a stop on the shoulder with a little coaching from me. The cop pulled up behind. My son was now very flustered as I retrieved his permit from the glove box and handed it over.

"Can I see your license, please?" The cop shined his flashlight into the car but stood behind the driver's window. I couldn't see him. My son handed out the permit, and I leaned forward into the light and asked if he wanted my license, too.

The cop's face broke into a big, knowing smile when he looked at the permit. "That explains it," he said. He said he was just making sure "we got home safely because from the sudden deceleration in the middle of the street, he wasn't sure we would." I.e. he though he'd spied a drunk driver. But it was just a kid, learning to drive a stick shift. A few more seconds of kind and gentle banter between us, with my son explaining the mis-shift, and he went on his way. My son did an excellent job of recovering, pulling away cleanly, and finishing the last 20 minutes of our drive without any mistakes.

For me, that is a great story, a funny anecdote, a memory I'll enjoy for decades. For my son, it's a great learning experience.

It wasn't until this morning that I realized it could have been a very different kind of story, a very different kind of learning experience.

If we hadn't been white.

I don't know the officer we met, and he was absolutely right to stop us to check us out. And he was right to be cautious as he approached the car. Once he saw us, though, everything changed. If we hadn't been white, would he have so easily dropped his caution? Maybe he would have. Maybe another guy wouldn't. With us, he was professional, kind, understanding, and efficient. If we'd been black, would we have gotten the same quick and cheerful dismissal?

I like to think in our town, yes. I like to think that our town is somehow more enlightened about diversity than the towns we've read about so often in the news recently. But I don't know. That's probably what the white people who live in those towns like to think, too.

For me, this is still a great story, a funny anecdote, a memory I'll enjoy for decades. And for my son, it's still a great learning experience. For him, the lesson is that he doesn't have to fear cops or be nervous if he ever gets pulled over again.

I wish that were the lesson that all 15 year old boys could get when pulled over for a simple shifting mistake while out learning to drive with their dads.

But I understand that's not the case.

Yet.

Some day. Some day.

"I had grand plans."

That was a primary point in my sister's keynote speech at Boston's ALS walk this past Saturday. Cathy was diagnosed with ALS only a few months ago, just weeks after retiring from a demanding and very successful career. The last time we saw each other, about two months before the diagnosis, she told me she had grand plans for the next chapters in her life; although she was still figuring out the specifics, "helping others" figured prominently in her ideas. Those plans have changed.

The last time I saw my sister, I saw no hint of ALS. Nothing to make me think anything like this could be coming. We talked about her pending knee surgery and retirement, our kids' college tours, plans for a long future filled with activity. Those plans have changed.

This past weekend I joined scores of others to support Cathy in the ALS Walk in Boston (we flew in from California Thursday night). Family I hadn't seen in decades were there. The morning was glorious, clear and warm after a week of terrible wind and torrential rain (so I'm told), and the location was beautiful. Cathy was honored with the keynote speech in part because in the couple of months since she was diagnosed, she assembled a huge team for the walk and became the Boston walk's top fundraiser.

My family and I also participated the previous weekend in our local walk in Northern California, which was much smaller but eye-opening. I've walked in several fundraisers for ACS, LLS, AHA, etc., but the ALS walk had a different feel. It wasn't until I started writing this blog post that I realized what the subtle difference was. Other walks are all organized around the survivors. This walk was entirely about finding a cure.

It's strange and difficult to return to normal everyday life after two weekends like the past two. I know my sister and thousands of others who are diagnosed with ALS every year don't even have that option, so I'm going to try to take advantage of the time I have. I don't know exactly what that means yet. There are things I want to achieve. There are places I want to see. There are people I love who I want to spend more time with. And I don't want to be so busy that I miss the countless moments of beauty around me all the time.

Photos from the two walks are posted below.

WALNUT CREEK, CA - October 19, 2014

With some Wells Fargo colleagues

Pretty long stream of people along the canal trail.

BOSTON, MA - October 25, 2014

The setting near Dorchester Heights along Old Harbor was gorgeous.

Boston financial district in the background.

Sis & me

Giving the keynote address to 1,500 walkers

The paparazzi taking family photos

Roundup of my #workplacegiving and #employee #volunteerism blogs

For some reason, people seem to want to know what I think. (No, not you, of course. I mean people in the business of workplace giving and volunteerism. My Day Job.)

I am fortunate to run the nation's largest workplace giving campaign (fourth year in a row with the top honor) and one of the nation's largest employee volunteer programs (over 1.5 million hours recorded by our employees in 2013). Much of the growth of these programs occurred on my watch, and I'll even take credit for some of it.

This year I've been honored with a few opportunities to tell people what I think about all this, what I've learned. And I think I came up with some good stuff. See for yourself.

Webinar
On April 17, I spoke on a webinar about workplace giving put on by the American Heart Association and American Cancer Society. Although the audio is faint and I sound like a frog, the content is actually really solid, from all three presenters. You can enjoy the recorded webinar and see for yourself. (No idea if it expires at some date.)

Blog Posts
As a member of the advisory council for the Charities @Work conference in both 2012 and 2013, I was asked to write a few blog posts about employee community involvement.

• Workplace Giving, Beyond the Numbers (March 29, 2012)
  Why it's important to go beyond the typical metrics of dollars raised and hours volunteered, and how you can actually measure the impact you're having on your corporate culture.
• Do recognition programs really incentivize employees to give or volunteer? How can we know? (March 7, 2013)
  Don't confuse incentive programs with recognition programs. No one is incentivized by recognition, though recognition is critical to success.
• What does it take to get managers on board to support employee volunteering? (March 21, 2013)
  In a big company, even with top level support and front line enthusiasm, a program can sputter without the buy-in of middle management. How do you get them on board?

And finally, I was credited with a blog post about the success of my programs on the Wells Fargo blog, though really I only edited what a communications guy composed for me. A lot like those quotes in press releases, I guess. (It's really weird being an author and having someone ghost write a blog post for you. On the one hand, I'm mortified that I didn't write it myself; on the other, it's pretty cool to be important enough that Corp Comm writes something with your name on it.)

And a little fun, too
One of the programs I manage, our volunteerism, has a pretty awesome brand. I have brought my Wells Fargo Volunteers water bottle to some pretty cool places. Like these:

Half Dome in Yosemite

Swayambhunath (the Monkey Temple) in Kathmandu

Looking at Machhapuchhre, the "holy mountain" in the Annapurna range in Nepal

Kudos to @SJEarthquakes and @MLS for zero tolerance on anti-gay slurs (blog post)

This is not a pro-gay-rights blog post, though I support equal rights for all. Nor is it about soccer, although it involves my favorite team.

I read in today's paper that a San Jose Earthquakes player hurled an anti-gay slur at an opponent in the heat of a tight, physical game on Sunday. Afterwards, the player apologized publicly, and I believe he's sincere in his regret. The club's president also issued a statement saying he's appalled by the incident and will redouble the club's efforts to be a diverse and inclusive organization the fans can be proud of.

It's pretty certain the player will be suspended three games, in accordance with MLS policies. Apparently, MLS has been the most strict about this kind of thing among the major sports leagues in the US. And that's the right thing.

Leagues look at this behavior as a risk from a business standpoint. They analyze audience sentiments and demographics and calculate how much revenue they might lose by allowing such bad behavior. And that's a shame. They should put equal emphasis on how such behavior shows up on the training fields of our thousands of youth leagues around the country.

I've been coaching youth soccer for eight years, following my son's age group. He'll be in U15 this year, the first time he'll be playing club soccer with high school kids. (He's going into 8th grade.) I've always managed a clean, fun team. We don't win all our games, but my boys always have lots of fun and improve their skills, and I never have attendance problems at the end of the season. From time to time, I'll hear a little bad language during practice, when they think I'm not listening. I've never punished a player for it, though I always call them out. Fortunately, I've never heard an insult toward another player from one of my boys. It's always been typical middle school playground randomly and somewhat arbitrarily used f-words.

I have been told by my boys, however, that they've been called pussy or fag by opponents. One 11-year old boy told one of my players a few years back, "You're my bitch." The offenders are clever about saying it when adults aren't nearby--in the middle of the field, when the ref is far away. Some kids are coached this way, but most of the coaches I know would be appalled by that. If I heard my players saying it, they'd be pulled out without hesitation.

As a coach, I have some influence over the boys. I can create the right environment, model good sportsmanship. I can lay down the law and demand certain behaviors within my rules. But those things are so much easier when the professionals--leagues, teams, and players--are all modeling the right behavior as well.

Youth sport should be a safe place for children to learn valuable life skills and attitudes. I applaud MLS' zero tolerance policy and the Earthquakes' quick and unambiguous indictment of the player's action. I applaud his immediate apology, and I hope he is sincere. And I hope soccer coaches at all levels around the US take note and make sure they are training up their youth players the right way.

If coaches in high school or club level see a lack of respect and discipline in the pros, they'll feel free to foster that same attitude among the youth. Soccer is a global game, an inclusive game. We need to respect that and use it with our youth. Sport can be such a great learning opportunity. It's sad when a professional league looks the other way and makes it so much harder for coaches.

So thank you, MLS.

#BSA should follow this council's lead. THANK YOU @bsamdsc (blog post)

I never actually formally resigned my status as an Assistant Scout Master; I just stopped wearing the uniform and fulfilling the duties. I am not sure if it was just laziness on my part, or if it was my innate optimism causing me to believe that things would change soon at BSA, and when they did I would probably step up as a leader once more.

Last month, our local council (Mount Diablo Silverado) sent out a survey to over 5,000 stakeholders--scout leaders, registered adult volunteers, scouts, and scout parents--and got a 42% response rate. The survey was specifically about BSA's national "membership standards," which is the official term for BSA's policy of discriminating against gay people.

Earlier, our council was at the center of a media firestorm about BSA's policy. That drove me bananas and made me embarrassed to be a part of this organization. Today, I have tremendous hope because our council executed this survey and is completely transparent with the results and is taking action. The membership of our council spoke loudly and clearly.

Now, I'm a data wonk for sure. I love analyzing survey data, especially trying to mix in various dimensions to see what the data is really telling us. Back when I wrote a weekly college football column, I based nearly all my analysis on stats, and the more obscure patterns I could see, the more fun I had with it.

No such super-deep analysis is needed with this survey. The results pretty overwhelmingly say three things:

1. The vast majority of our council membership want the policy changed, and most want it changed at the national level (none of this "each group can decide to be homophobic if they want to" stuff).
2. Scouts in particular (the youth in the organization) want the policy changed.
3. People who are prejudiced are really prejudiced. People who like the policy as it is say they would be even less likely to recommend scouting if it's changed. (Fortunately, some day, these people will die off. But that's my independent prediction; the survey doesn't actually say they'll die off.)

I took this survey, and I took the time to fill out every text box that was available to me. Apparently, quite a few others did, too, and some day I hope to see the verbatim responses which are not published in the web-accessible version of the report (which, I must say, makes total sense). The council called such responses "quite helpful and in many cases inspiring."

But what really has me feeling good today is the action our council has taken. I hope they don't mind me quoting it here--it's publicly viewable as section 5 of the survey results, and I think they should be commended for not only taking action based on the survey results but for being thoughtful about the right action to take and going that extra step. I actually got chills reading this, which is rare for me. It gives me hope amid all the prejudice and political bullshit that goes on in the world (Congress, I'm looking at you).

LIFTED VERBATIM FROM THE REPORT
5. Recommendations
Given that the national board may evolve their view on this matter, our committee does not believe that the MDSC board should vote on the current proposed changes to national BSA’s membership standard. Rather we believe the MDSC board should vote to support a set of principles that represent the views of the majority of our members. Further, we believe our board should vote to advocate for these principles. Finally we believe our board should vote to encourage our national board representatives to vote in a manner consistent with these principles.

5.1 Membership Standard Principles that represent the majority opinion of the MDSCGiven the work of the committee, the findings from our survey, and our debates and discussions, we recommend the adoption of the following principles:

A. Scouts and Scouters should be judged by their conduct, their actions, and their character, consistent with the Scout Oath and Scout Law, not by stereotypes or group related prejudices.
B. The Scout Oath and the Scout Law are foundational ideas that every person should be exposed to so that all people can benefit from the Scouting movement’s principles, ideals, and values.
C. Regardless of sexual orientation, sexual topics and conduct, which include pointing out another individual’s sexual orientation, are not part of the Scouting movement and should not be tolerated. Further, the Scouting movement should not permit its organization to be used as a vehicle to promote any personal, political, social or other objective that is inconsistent with the Scout Oath and Scout Law.
D. The results of the MDSC Membership Standards Survey and the discussions of our committee have reaffirmed the role that the Scouting Movement has had and can continue to have in shaping the lives and values of young people. However the current BSA membership policy clearly excludes an entire group based on a presumption of behavior rather than on the actions of individuals. Excluding an entire group of people based on stereotypes and prejudices is inconsistent with the Scout Oath and Scout Law. The current membership policy is of deep concern to many in the Mt. Diablo Silverado Council for its potential to undermine the future vitality of the Scouting movement.
E. Chartered Organizations have always and will continue to create Scouting Units that are consistent with their organizational faiths, standards and deeply held beliefs. However, we believe that the national BSA board should not pass this important decision from BSA’s governing body to Chartered Organizations. Rather, we believe that the national board should adopt a standard policy, consistent with the Scout Oath, Scout Law, and the principles documented within this report, which ends the isolation and exclusion of LGBT individuals.

... and it leads to action

Thank you, MDSC, for asking us, listening to us, and taking action. Even better is this nugget from the newsletter that I got from the council and included in the survey's summary on the MDSC web site:

On Saturday March 16th at our Annual Business meeting the Committee’s recommendations (Section 5) were adopted and are now the guiding principles for the Mount Diablo Silverado Council.

It may have been a long time in coming, but the council has done this in such a way that it's based on facts and on the whole membership's beliefs. Hopefully the national BSA board will come around as well and stop basing their policy on the very loud voices and deep pockets of a prejudiced, fearful minority.

A view from Mt. Diablo overlooking our council's territory. Our mountain has one of the largest viewsheds in the western United States. No wonder our council takes a broad view of this issue and is taking inclusive action.

The beauty of the 4-way stop (blog post)

This morning, after dropping my boys off at their schools, I stopped at an intersection I've been through thousands of times before. Just a standard suburban four-way stop. I intended to go straight across but waited to allow the pickup truck coming the other way to make his left turn across my path. He had arrived first, after all.

But he paused. He started into his turn, but tentative. He and the two guys crammed into the little cab with him watched me as they crossed slowly.

The pickup was cruddy and old, probably held together by string and prayer. The back was filled with gardening tools--rakes, a dented trash can, a lawn mower. A stereotypical independent lawn service coming to work in our upscale neighborhood from one of the neighboring, less affluent towns.

Behind me as I waited, an enormous SUV, the kind with room for eight kids and all their accoutrements, pulled up behind. Our town is filled with trucks like these, driven by moms who might not be decked out in Tiffany and Cartier but who almost certainly have some in their bedrooms at home. Our town is also crawling with BMWs and other vehicles that cost, I am sure, more than all three of those guys in the pickup truck make in a whole year. (For the record, I live in the "poor" part of town. No Tiffany or Cartier or BMWs for us.)

As I drove home from the intersection, I pondered the tentative way the pickup driver took his turn, the wary looks on the three men as they watched me. I don't know them or why they acted that way. Maybe they'd been hit by an impatient driver there before. Maybe it was something else.

In any case, it was their turn to go. So I waited. And they drove on.

The four-way stop does not distinguish between rich and poor, male and female, old and young, gay and straight. The four-way stop does not recognize the socioeconomic differences between a white bank executive and a Hispanic gardener. Everyone is equal at a four-way stop, subject to the same rules and order of precedence.

I find that beautiful.

But all my pondering left me with a big question. If we can all accept each other as truly equal at a four-way stop, why can't we do it everywhere?

Why I'm only giving advice on #GivingTuesday (blog)

I had never heard of #GivingTuesday until late in the day.

Keep in mind that my day job is helping people give money to charity. I enable giving. I encourage it. I spend a large portion of the professional me figuring out how to ask people to give. And, by most measures, I'm pretty good at it. (That is, if you consider raising $60 million, recording 1.5 million volunteer hours, and being ranked #1 in the country three years in a row a decent set of metrics.)

So hearing about #GivingTuesday for the first time after it was almost over was a little surprising.

And to be honest, I've had a very hard time getting revved up about it.

Maybe I'm just too cynical about Black Friday and Cyber Monday to give a flying meme about #GivingTuesday.

Or maybe Black Friday and Cyber Monday are just so oozy with the septic puss of unbridled consumerism that #GivingTuesday feels like an overreaction. Like naming the Saturday after Thanksgiving "Fitness Saturday"... the day you try to make up for the fourteen pounds of pumpkin pie you ate two days before. You feel guilty about your overindulgence.

Or perhaps the whole thing feels just a little too self-righteous. Like those parents who don't let their kids watch TV or play video games and only let them listen to NPR. "It's wonderful you let your four-year-old son play Call of Duty," they say. "Here, I'm not using this Beethoven for Toddlers CD any more. Maybe share it with your son," they say. They are disgusted by your overindulgence.

You need to give to charity on Tuesday because you just gorged yourself on consumerism, presumably maxing out your credit cards in the process. This is healthy... how?

Mostly, though, it just feels irrelevant. Or desperate. Like that forgettable guy you had your first date with last night who leaves nineteen messages on your machine the next day before noon, every one of which ends with, "Yeah, okay, so maybe give me a call some time. You know. If you want to. You don't have to. Just if you want to. Okay? So okay. Um, bye."

Browsing the Twitter feed for #GivingTuesday did not inspire me. It did not educate me. It did not make me want to continue reading the Twitter feed for #GivingTuesday. It did get me to click over to the web site once due to professional curiosity. The feed seemed to be filled with three types of tweets (my very unscientific vague impressions):

• "Hey, I'm participating in #GivingTuesday!"
  Translation: I am tweeting but may or may not be giving any actual money. I am (a) appeasing my inner slactivist, (b) trying to look cool, or (c) hoping someone else will also give to my favorite charity.
• "Hey, we're a charity! It's #GivingTuesday! Give us something!"
  Translation: Hey! We're a charity! We are desperate! We will take anything, even slightly used tweets!
• "Top story of the day: #GivingTuesday!"
  Translation: I work in a charity-related job and all my colleagues will think that I'm well informed for tweeting this hashtag.

I'm really not this cynical about most things. Really. Ask anyone who knows me well.

On the other hand, I know #GivingTuesday will do some good. The #1 reason people don't give to charity is because no one ever asked them to. #GivingTuesday is that first ask for many people. And the best way to generate a positive cycle of giving is to get people talking with their friends and colleagues about their charity in an authentic, personal way. Also, exposure for nonprofits--especially when people are feeling guilty about overindulgence and generous due to the holidays--is not a bad thing.

I hope someone does some serious scientific statistical study about the real effects of #GivingTuesday. I would love to know if nonprofits saw a spike in web traffic, a spike in one-time donations, a rising tide of engagement, a lasting increase in their donor rolls.

For my part, I did not give anything on #GivingTuesday. I plan out my philanthropy as part of my family's annual budget, and I give to many causes mostly through automatic deductions from my paychecks.

#GivingTuesday is like the Twinkie of charity. Nonprofits and donors love that sweet, immediate rush. But you can't live on it for long. Nonprofits need sustained, rich relationships with donors who understand and appreciate the work their donations fund. If #GivingTuesday is an entree to a more healthy, sustainable relationship between nonprofits and donors, terrific. But if it's simply an instant gratification moment to capitalize on the tacky "special day" feel of Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, then I hope it disappears as quickly as it flashed into being.

for Christmas all I want is fewer dead children

The holidays are approaching. Oh hell, they're here already.

This means relatives visiting, tight travel schedules, crowded supermarkets and honking horns at the mall, office parties, and end-of-year deadlines. It also means we're approaching the darkest day of the year. What does this all add up to?

Stress.

Every red light seems to last longer, doesn't it? Every dinnertime seems to bring more telemarketer calls. Every commute seems to have twice as many idiots in twice as many cars.

Am I right?

Yesterday, a child riding his bike to our middle school got hit by a car. The kid went to the hospital but will be all right, thank goodness. I wasn't there. I don't know what happened. But I do know from personal experience how distracted parents get this time of year and how impatient they are behind the wheel.

Your kid is slow to wake up, slow to get ready for school. He'll still be barely on time, but now you're five minutes late and that means you could miss the start of your 9 o'clock call. Or your yoga class. Or your coffee date. Or your housecleaner's arrival. And there are all these people driving slowly in front of the school and just freaking hurry your ass up you morons!

Or maybe you're approaching the school and you just found out Johnny left his all-important history presentation poster at home. What do you mean I have to go home and get it? I've got things to do!

A few years ago I volunteered as a crossing guard at our elementary school. You'd be shocked at how many people make illegal and ill-advised U turns during the busiest pick-up and drop-off times. And how many drive 35 or 40 miles an hour through a crosswalk when kids are standing at the curb. Normally sane and intelligent people suddenly decide traffic laws are more like suggestions and don't really apply when you're in a hurry anyway.

After all, 11 year old kids are so aware and responsible and careful. Right? What could go wrong?

Despite my fashionably reflective orange vest and the huge STOP sign I was holding and my very cautious nature, I was nearly hit four times as a crossing guard. Once, a huge SUV barreled through the crosswalk at about 30 miles per hour while I was standing on the double-yellows with the STOP sign out. The mom was looking behind into the back seat at her kids, yelling at them as she pulled from the curb and into traffic. Had there been a kid stepping off the curb at the same time he'd have been killed. Had I been two feet more to my left, I might have been killed.

Seriously, people. Slow down. Pay attention.

The uniform comes off: @BoyScouts and @bsamdsc, you got this WRONG.

Sometimes an event happens that clarifies a difficult, murky situation. Such an event happened today. I got an email. That in itself is not unusual. This email came from our local Boy Scouts council leadership. That is a little unusual, but not terribly. But when I received this particular email, I swear I could actually hear that other shoe hitting the floor.

My last blog post was about BSA's national anti-gay policy. That post focused on the meaning of leadership. How can BSA profess to teach young men to become effective leaders when they're saying that roughly one in every ten boys (or one in every twenty-five, depending on which experts you believe) need to be excluded?

I think BSA's policy is morally wrong, ethically wrong, and also wrong-headed. It's ass backwards from a leadership perspective, from an American perspective, and from a management perspective. Why are gays excluded? Gay does not equal pedophile. Gay equals gay. Pedophile equals pedophile. BSA's history is littered with documented cases of covered-up child molestation. The anti-gay policy didn't do any good then in protecting the boys. Only in the past few years has BSA put in place strong policies to protect boys from predators, including background checks, biannual youth protection training, no solitary one-on-one contact, etc. Had those policies been in place, policies that protect against pedophiles, then maybe that abuse could have been prevented.

But that's not my point. My point is the email I got today. You may have read about that boy in a town nearby who is a shining example of all things Boy Scouts. Oh, wait, sorry. There's this one thing. He's openly gay. And for that, he was denied his Eagle rank, for which he accomplished all the requirements. The Scoutmaster of his troop refused to sign off on the boy's excellent Eagle project. And now, in this email I've received, the Council stands behind the Scoutmaster's decision.

I've heard this argument made before. We were just following orders. People might disagree about the policy, but there's nothing we can do. Our hands our tied. It was a "good faith" effort. (Which is an odd use of the phrase here since faith (in the religious sense) is typically correlated with gay discrimination (see: reasons Prop 8 passed).)

Anyway, this email hit my inbox hard. I'd imagined the policy to be a result of BSA being headquartered in Texas. Everyone in California knows that Texas is a wacko tea party Bible Belt kind of place, right? That could never actually happen in the Bay Area. (Ooh! Ironic prejudice alert!)

Well, it did. It happened here. In my own council. And they aren't standing up for the scout. They're backing the adult leader. Which is what has happened for decades. Too bad for the 17 year old boy who did everything right and trusted the adults around him. Too bad they are kicking him to the curb. But the adults, they made a good faith effort, you know?

No more for me. I cannot wear the uniform any longer. I cannot hold an official position in the BSA organization, no matter how puny and insignificant my role as Assistant Scoutmaster of a troop of 35 boys is. When a boy as courageous and upstanding and model as that boy is (according to what I've read... I do not know the family personally) is crushed just for being who he is, it's wrong. As an organization, we should be celebrating his leadership and accomplishments. As a society, we should be congratulating him for overcoming the bullying he's experienced.

In Michigan, an unpopular girl is made fun of by her peers, and she gets a huge rally of support from her community. This boy accomplishes all he has done, and the adults around him tsk-tsk and suppress him further, rallying around the poor Scoutmaster who was put "in a difficult position."

It's all so backwards and wrong. It makes me really sad. Shame on you, BSA. Shame on you, Mount Diablo Silverado Council. I know you will grow up and change one day. But today? Today's a bad day.

#CSR conference season! this week: #BCConf12

Why do all CSR conferences happen right around spring break? This week it's the Boston College conference in Phoenix. Next week it's the Charities @Work conference in New York.

I'm disappointed I'll miss BCLC's conference in Atlanta, but that starts the day after I get back from a 10 day vacation in Nepal. After a week in Vegas for work, then I have to spend a week in Charlotte for work which means I'll miss United Way's CLC in Nashville the first week of May.

It's a crazy travel time, especially since they all fall in or around National Volunteer Week, Earth Day, National Workplace Wellness Week, Teach Children to Save month, and, it seems, a host of other corporate citizenship initiatives and activities. (Some, like BSR's conference, the Points of Light conference, and the Public Affairs Council's corporate citizenship conference, come later in the year.)

I actually enjoy all these conferences. I see lots of colleagues I have grown to like very much (turns out people who care about corporate citizenship tend to be really nice, creative, fun, compassionate, interesting people), and I meet lots of new ones every year as well. But it can be exhausting.

This year I'll actually be speaking at the Charities @Work conference in New York (see my recent CSR Wire blog post). And recently my workplace giving campaign was named #1 in the country by United Way for the third year in a row. Plus I received a nice award from CHC California. So it's a good year already.

If any of you will be at BC or C@W, look for me and say hi. The best part about the job (apart from bringing out millions of dollars and thousands of volunteers to help people in need) is meeting colleagues from other companies, places, and backgrounds. Maybe I'll see you at tonight's dinner.

I hate flying on Sundays for work. But if I have to, this conference is a good place to land.

(This is a photo of me, on the left, receiving the award from CHC California in the Wells Fargo boardroom at a reception on March 7th. Macy's and UC San Francisco were also honored that night.)

the devil made us do it

The Tasmanian Devil, that is. An endangered critter that could fade into history embodied only by the whirling dervish of Bugs Bunny cartoons.

The authors of the stories in the anthology "Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever" are donating all profits from the sale of the ebook until July 15th, 2011 to help save the devils.

If you've not bought it, please do before the 15th. I don't need the profits, but these little critters do.

For more information:

• Not Extinct Yet
• Teaching Biology

To skip the information and just buy the book:

• Amazon US
• Amazon UK
• Barnes and Noble

... but if you can visit those blogs, if only to thank them for helping promote this donation, that would be nice. Thank you.

the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug

I attended a portion of the Black Economic Council's conference in Oakland today. Specifically, the keynote luncheon and awards presentation. My boss won the "mensch" award (because he's a really great guy), and a coworker was given the "transformation" award (because he's a cousin of Optimus Prime). Anyway, one of the other award winners gave an awesome acceptance speech that, in the great tradition of awesome acceptance speeches, went on WAY too long.

But something he said hit home with me as a writer, especially given the recent flap over the idiot who's releasing a version of Huck Finn with a certain word changed.

The background: this award winner met a man whose mother was the granddaughter of a slave. It's striking to think how little removed we are from that culture, though it seems like ancient history. This man held the hand of a woman who held the hand of a slave.  That's how he put it. Just one touch away. Not so distant after all.

As part of this story, the man was corrected by a wiser man nearby. "Don't say she was a slave," this wise man said. "Say instead that she was enslaved."

The difference between the right word and the wrong word is the difference between the lighting and the lightning bug.

To say someone "is a slave" is to blame them for their condition. It's what they are, that phrase says. No big deal. She's a slave. She's five feet tall. She's brown-eyed. That's who she is. That's who she'll always be. You can't change her eye color. You can't change her being a slave.

To say someone "is enslaved" is to illuminate that they are a victim of someone else's inhumanity. This is a big deal. She's enslaved (by someone else). She's repressed (by someone else). She's beaten (by someone else). Being enslaved is a condition that can be changed... by changing that someone else.

Think on that a while. And pay attention to the way simple phrases and images appear in the media, and in casual conversation. Notice those places where a bias has crept in without looking like any bias at all. Understand how words affect us on deeper levels. I'm no fan of political correctness--that overt, childish mockery of language that creates whole new doublespeak and which inhibits the free exchange of ideas. But we all need to be aware of how the words we use affect others. And ourselves.

#1 again at $55 million!

Many of you know that my Day Job is managing a workplace charitable giving campaign at one of the world's biggest companies. I'm happy to say that yesterday the news became official with this United Way press release: for the second year in a row, Wells Fargo ranked as the top employee giving/United Way campaign in the country. It's good to be #1. And even better to repeat.

Good timing on the announcement because in two hours I'm speaking on a panel about workplace giving campaigns.

the body heals itself, usually

The human body generally heals itself.  Get a scrape, new skin grows.  Catch a virus, your immune system deals with it. Twist your ankle, it'll get better.

Society also tends to "heal" itself--this belief is the foundation of capitalism and democracy.  Bad policies in place?  The electorate will throw the bums out.  Bad economy?  Investors will buy low, and the economy will grow again.  Generally, I think we can see over time that this is, at least at a superficial level, true.

But suppose you got a huge gash on your leg, long and deep.  Without at least some first aid and maybe stitches, the wound will not heal itself.  You may even bleed to death.

Does society suffer the same kinds of wounds?  Are there gashes so deep and big that they can't possibly be healed by society's natural ability to adjust?


Yes, there are.

In 1998, California voters made Affirmative Action illegal for the University of California.  Since then, UC Berkeley has gotten far less diverse.  The university's freshman class is only 3.4% black and about 12% Hispanic.  There are nearly ten whites for every African-American.  There are 13 Asians for every African-American.


In a state (California) where there is no racial majority (every ethnicity is less than 50% of the population), this is a tragedy.  While I hope that one day we will achieve a "colorblind society," which was the chief selling point of Prop 209, today we have a huge wound in our society that needs emergency help.  This is one rift that is not going to heal itself.  Eliminating Affirmative Action in the hope that it will create a colorblind society is much like eliminating medical care in the hope that it will create a disease-free world.  It is backwards and destructive.

If UC Berkeley had been this racially lopsided when I went there in the 80s, I would have gotten a much less valuable education.  This is a real shame.

God, guns, and the flag

Three stories that have come up in recent weeks:

• Man wants to rename a mountain
• Teacher has kid arrested for not reciting the Pledge
• Handguns flaunted in Starbucks

When people have a view to impose on others, they rarely stop at the line where reasonable discourse turns into insanity.  In fact, some of them already began on the far side of that line.

Here in Walnut Creek, there's a mountain.  It's only 3,849 feet tall, but more of the Earth's surface can be seen from its summit than from any other peak besides Kilimanjaro.  Thirty-five of California's 58 counties are visible from this mountaintop.  It is a key survey point for much of California.  And it's been called Mt. Diablo since as early as 1824, when San Francisco was little more than a Mexican military outpost of about 250 soldiers.

So of course a guy wants to rename it Mount Reagan.  Actually, he doesn't much care what the new name would be.  He just doesn't want to glorify Satan any more.  Apparently, God told him to file the petition.  Because, you know, God cares about this.

Meanwhile, in Maryland, a teacher had a 13-year-old girl removed from her classroom by school police when she refused to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  Oh, the humanity!  She must be a Communist, or a terrorist.  I am surprised she didn't end up at Guantanamo, labeled an enemy combatant.

Three things really bother me about this:  First, that this school has "school police."  Either this is a really tough school and the school police probably have something better to do already, or it's an insanely rich hoity-toity school where parents are worried about things like, you know, free speech.  I mean the exercise of free speech, and making sure it gets punished severely.  Second, that the teacher broke state law and violated school policy by trying to force the student to stand and recite the pledge.  Can we even call someone like that a teacher?  What, exactly, is she trying to teach?  And third, that some people actually think the teacher was doing the morally right thing.  That is scary.

We return now to the shadow of Mt. Diablo, where some kooks think it's really important to strap on handguns when buying coffee.  California has "open carry," which means that while it's illegal to carry a concealed handgun, it's not illegal to buckle one into your belt as long as it's not loaded.  The ammunition can be handy, just not loaded in the weapon.  For some reason, a group of people decided it was important to make everyone aware of this law by insisting on wearing their weapons when they got coffee.  Because you never know when there might be a firefight at the half-and-half pitcher.

It reminds me of a joke I heard in middle school:  Why does a dog lick its balls?  Because it can.

So, why does a man insist on flaunting deadly weapons in wealthy suburban coffee joints?  Apparently because he can't lick his balls.

We now return you to your regular programming of health care, global warming, foreclosures, the rotten economy, and Olympic medal counts.

what are we recovering TO?

The number of people without sufficient food in the United States hit 45 million this year.

45 million.

That's nearly one in every six people in the United States going without sufficient food at least sometimes or frequently in the past year.


45 million is more than the population of 194 of the world's 223 countries.

Going without sufficient food doesn't mean that you ran out of chocolate or that you decided not to buy popcorn the last time you went to the movies. It means that you ran out of real food before payday. Or that you could get food, but it wasn't sufficiently nutritious. (I presume these statistics do not include former NBA head case Latrell Sprewell, who apparently found it difficult to feed his family on $7 million a year.)

This is acceptable?

The problem looks even worse when you talk about America's children, and it looks absolutely dire for specific populations when you break it down by race. (Read the article linked above.)

This situation is an indicator in so many ways it's difficult to count them all.

Only about half of the 45 million hungry people are actually considered in poverty, with household income at or below the federal poverty line. This means that our poverty and unemployment statistics are woefully inadequate and that a huge amount of the population are underemployed. It likely means that these households are not saving for the future. How can they? Why should they? The future has no opportunity for them, even with a trillion dollar "stimulus" package designed to shock new life into the DOW. We should call it the DOWfibrillator package.

Hunger also leads to health problems. The current Health Care Reform debate is all about whether the USA will become the United Socialists of America or we let the free market wreak its wonderful magic and keep the rich getting richer. Meanwhile our city hospitals are overrun by hordes of the poor looking for free medical care in the emergency room--bandages, cough syrup, Tylenol. Not only do they not have health insurance (who can afford that when you can't even keep Cheerios in your cupboard?), but their health suffers from lack of proper nutrition and overabundance of stress. We're worried about Death Panels in our health care reform? Why bother? We're already starving to death the people who would have to go in front of the Death Panels.

Our failing education system is another case of the rich getting richer and the poor falling into the abyss. Our top colleges, high schools, and primary schools continue to turn out some of the best educated people in the world. But on average, our school systems are sliding farther and farther behind other countries in critical areas such as creativity, analysis, and even the basics of reading comprehension and essential math. Yet the money continues to pour into the richest schools where property taxes are highest or where the richest donate to their own children's schools. I won't go into all the other things I think are fatal flaws in our system (tenure, centralized curriculum, NCLB, etc.). Instead, I'll just point out that children can't think clearly or retain knowledge when they're hungry. If we don't properly feed the children, how can we possibly expect them to learn how to lead the world in thirty years?

We've got a "recovery" that only a statistician could love. The DOW is soaring. Meanwhile, more people than ever in this country are going hungry.

We may be recovering, but to what exactly? How will we know when the recovery is over and we're back to normal? What is normal, and are we satisfied with it? If so, why are we satisfied? We were suffering and backsliding for decades before the bottom fell out of the financial industry and the economy.