Category Archives: Discussion and Philosophy

Here is where I can rant about issues, or just calmly discuss them.

Double My Gift? Not Really

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I accept that fundraising is a necessary evil. Charities need a way of reaching potential donors is needed, and I want to learn about ways to help. But it infuriates me when I think fundraisers are playing tricks in an effort to increase donations.

One example, the one that inspired this blog post, is an organization I shall not name which insists I have an opportunity to “double your lifesaving impact” by giving before such-and-such a deadline. But when I read more closely, I find out that my gift will go into a pot officially designated to match the contributions of other, future, donors. Yes, I will have already given the money, and they will tell potential donors that by donating right now, their gift will be matched by a group of other donors. Even though those donors have already given and will not change their donation in response to the future donors’ gifts.*

I don’t see that as having my gift doubled. If my gift were doubled, and the future donor’s gift was doubled, then shouldn’t the organization be receiving four times what it might have? Put a different way, if I give $100 expecting it to effectively contribute $200, and someone down the line responds by contributing $100, expecting it to effectively contribute $200, and the organization gets a total of $200, how is that different from each of us just contributing $100 in the first place, no match expected?

No doubt the response will be that the second person might not have contributed as much–or at all–without the enticement of having it doubled. I don’t buy it. It might equally well be true that they donated half as much as they would have otherwise, expecting the final value to be the same. And even if my contribution does bring in their contribution, I don’t see that as also doubling their contribution. I see this as trickery with words.

However, I don’t see any way to register my displeasure with fundraising organizations without harming the charities and the recipients of those charities, which of course I don’t want to do. I do, however, want to rant about this, and thus you have this post.

Till next post.

*I think I have understood this correctly. See this article on fundraising.

What Will Unvaccinated Children Choose?–speculations on vaccination choices as adults

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This is not another post on whether you should vaccinate your children, nor is it about the consequences of increasing numbers of unvaccinated children. At least, it isn’t about the consequences for children as children.

We are all familiar with the controversy and its history. Once upon a time, kids tended to get certain diseases when they were young, the so-called “childhood diseases.” Over the years, we developed vaccines for those diseases and made those vaccines available and, in fact, largely compulsory. The result was a decrease in the incidence of measles, polio, pertussis, mumps, and chickenpox, among others. Recently, some people have become concerned about the risks of the vaccines and are not vaccinating their children. The incidence of those diseases is increasing, but there are still many children who manage to avoid them even without being vaccinated.

What will those children choose to do once they are eighteen and in charge of their own medical decisions?

Measles, mumps, chickenpox, and polio tend to be more severe in adulthood. There’s a lot of focus right now on the risks of these diseases to children–the risks for the very young are particularly high–but not so much being said about the risks to adults. This is probably because most of today’s adults were vaccinated as kids.

Will the unvaccinated young adults reevaluate the risks and decide that it’s time to get vaccinated? After all, they have perhaps another sixty years in which to be exposed to the diseases. If they have unvaccinated kids of their own, exposure is even more likely. And if they manage to avoid the disease during their child-bearing years, then they will be susceptible to them when they become grandparents. I suspect getting measles in one’s sixties is even worse than getting it at age twenty.

To some extent, their reevaluation may depend on why their parents decided not to vaccinate them. If their parents’ main concern was the persistent rumor about vaccines and autism, or concerns about too many vaccines at once, maybe they will decide it’s time to get vaccinated. If their parents had other worries, then even warnings about the increased severity of the disease may not be persuasive.

It will be interesting (that’s one word for it) to see what happens. But there is one group that has an additional reason to consider getting vaccinated upon reaching adulthood. I hope that young women who plan to have children someday will take into account the added risks of getting certain diseases during pregnancy. In particular, I hope they will be open to vaccination for rubella (German measles) while they still have time.

Till next post.

In Celebration of our Flag on Flag Day

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To celebrate the flag of our great nation, I thought I’d say something about why, exactly, I love this country.

First, though, I need to list some of the goals that I think most of us have in common–the way we want this country to be.

We want to live in a country where everyone prospers. We want a country where each person has an opportunity to contribute to society, whether in a paying job or otherwise, and where everyone who puts in a full day’s work has enough to live on.

We want a country where people treat each other with respect, and receive the same in return.

We want a country with laws that apply equally to everyone, whether rich or poor, powerful or powerless.

But having these goals in common doesn’t mean we’re going to agree on how to reach them, and indeed, we all know that whenever you have a large enough group of people, there will be disagreement. Sometimes passionate disagreement.

And yet, we have to work together somehow. So we decided on a particular form of government, one that grants everyone a voice yet makes it possible to reach decisions. It’s a foregone conclusion that not everyone will like every decision, and that not every decision will turn out to have been a good one, but we’ve agreed to go along with the decisions so long as they follow from a fair process.

We designed our government knowing not only that people are fallible, but also that power corrupts and that even good people can lose touch with what’s right. So we divided the powers among three branches, to provide checks and balances. We placed limits on how long people can hold executive or legislative power before needing to be re-elected. We added a two-term limit for presidents, because we didn’t want any one person to accumulate too much power. (And why we don’t have something similar for legislators, I don’t know… but that’s another topic.)

We designed our government with the goal of being able to correct missteps when we recognize them. It doesn’t happen by itself, but the potential is there. And that is something I love about our country.

And yeah, no kings.

Till next post.