2020 donation list

earlier this year I started donating ~$25 a month to a different cause. here is my list for the year. it's interesting, but prior to actually donating, I would have thought I'd mostly donate to food orgs. but as it were, I didn't donate to a single food org this year. partly it's cause I know food orgs are getting more attention this year anyway (altho they could absolutely use more help). but also with the election stuff, I really thought a lot about fair politics and unbiased reporting. plus, I volunteered a handful of times at the OC food bank this year so I did technically help fight against food insecurity :) 

april - the guardian

may - terrracycle pet food bag recycling (jojo)
june - equal justice initiative 

july - planned parenthood, south atlantic

august - in-n-out foundation, slave 2 nothing (t's 5k)

september - long beach arts council

october - dress for success, miami (a's non-profit)

november - kiva

december - radiolab

collection drive - USB and SD cards for Recycle USB and Flash Drives for Freedom

priority orgs for next year: NPR, PBS, Vox, Pro Publica, waterstations.org, solarbuddy.org, comptonpledge.org, abortionfunds.org, RIP medical debt, Food Finders, Harvest Partners, Food Forward, Seed Savers

december 2020 donation

this month I donated to Radiolab, my all-time favorite podcast. it covers an expanse of topics, has interesting guests, and is well edited. I hesitate to list any favorite episodes because I haven't heard a bad one yet. tho, it was The Other Latif series that really got me into this podcast.

RIP medical debt

during a road trip last week j and i talked about "if you were going to die soon and had a bunch of money (nothing crazy, but like a couple million or under), what would you do with it?"

j would start a scholarship fund. I had a bunch of ideas but soon settled on creating a non-profit that bought up old medical debt and either collected on it at cost or slightly more (to offset admin costs). there are collection agencies that buy medical debt for pennies on the dollar then go after the debtor for all of the original cost, often times plus interest. that's fucking terrible. but welcome to america where it's all terrible all the time. (seriously tho, privatized health insurance is a fucking racket. for instance, did you know that the CEO of kaiser's 2017 salary was $16.1 million)

but I don't particularly believe in starting non-profits because generally there's already a pre-existing one  doing great work with a limited budget. and guess what? RIP Medical Debt does almost exactly what I described above. difference is, they straight out forgive it. which is even better.

USB drive tally

yesterday I mailed off 32 USB drives to Recycle USB for Sugar Labs and another 38 USB drives and 28 SD cards to the Human Rights Foundation for #FlashDrivesforFreedom. I sorted USBs depending on required size. Sugar Labs requires USBs to be over 2gbs so anything that and over went to them; HRF got anything smaller and all SD cards.

UPDATE: 2/1/2021
yahoo! we joined a number of others who donated drives to Recycle USB at the end of last year. my name is incorrectly spelled but that's almost certainly entirely my fault. 

I also got my HRF package returned :( so I wrote them recently to confirm the shipping address.

november 2020 donation - kiva 2

I got laid off last week, which I'm hoping won't affect my monthly donations too much, but this month was a very expensive one. i paid for 4 tickets to the huntington museum for ting's bday, bought a rather expensive pan (it was 35% off for black friday and we do need a new non-stick pan but I don't want a chemically one), and still need to buy christmas presents for people including a $60 hand vacuum for my godmother. I was planning to buy us one too since I broke ours but I'm probably only going to get one if it's super cheap since altho I broke ours, it's basically still usable. 

anyway! so if you read my last post about kiva.org, you saw that I was given a $25 credit from PayPal for a future loan. I decided to lend it to bernard, a tailor in kenya who needs funds to buy materials for his business. 

but I did actually donate too! normally when you donate via credit card, you're asked if you want to help cover transaction costs by adding another like 3-4%. at my previous kiva loan, I donated the requested $3.75 to help cover costs, and this time I donated $6.25 for a total of $10 to kiva this month. 

clothing

Generation Z & The Fast Fashion Paradox

I'm not gen z, and I don't do fast fashion, but clothing is definitely my biggest consumer weakness. it's worse too because I wear mostly synthetics tho I, obviously, know better. I justify it to myself in saying that I'm upgrading my wardrobe to better brands which use better quality materials so items last longer and shed fewer micro-plastics. and yeah, I actually have cycled out all my columbia fleeces for north face, marmot, and arc'teryx. I also never buy new, because used is cheaper but also more environmentally friendly. I also try to sell all my clothes rather than donating them because there's more control that it doesn't end up in landfill. 

but regardless of those reasons, I still have way too much clothes =\ I literally have like 10 fleeces. different weights, but several at each weight. it's also really ridiculous because I only wear certain colors so it's even more pronounced that I have too much. I sometimes blame my completist inclinations. when I was much younger I would try to finish everything in a series: nancy drew, stephen king, etc. I definitely still have a little of that now, but it's less pronounced. 

I don't even think it's the clothes itself (studies confirm it usually isn't), but the excitement of getting a good deal, of winning an auction, of having something come in the mail, of getting something new. realizing this, I've more recently told myself that a good deal is not good enough. good thing J is much better at that, lol. we were at grocery outlet and they had a $20 bottle of sake that used to be like $80 and I really wanted to get it. not because I like sake, but because it was such a good deal! we ended up not buying it because neither of us really likes sake and my reasoning for wanting it was really stupid. tho had I been shopping by myself, I might have bought it. ugh.

for 2021 I'm going to focus on narrowing down my closest. that doesn't mean I can't buy anything new, but I do think I want to do the one thing in one thing out rule. and, more importantly, really focus more on the purging. I probably have 20 dresses total? for some reason, I love buying them but am always too "embarrassed" to wear them. buy for your actual life, not the life you want, or some saying like that. 

my purchasing guidelines for new things: economics, ethics, and the environment. not necessarily in that order. 

kiva

I'm really starting to really like PayPal as a company! a few months ago they offered a $5 bonus to a donation made thru their app. I, of course, took advantage of that offer and donated my monthly give to Planned Parenthood. a couple weeks ago they offered a $25 future credit for lending a minimum of $25 on Kiva. I had heard of Kiva but hadn't really looked into it before but, again, I took advantage!

there are TONS of people you can lend to, in any amount, in like many counties, for a million different reasons. I was only planning to lend $25 (sort of matching my monthly donation), so I sorted the borrowers by how much remained of their ask. there were three women just short $25 of raising their total: two from the Philippines (there are a lot of borrowers from the Philippines I think?) and one from Uganda. one wanted funds to buy additional merchandize for her bodega, another wanted money for feed for her animals, and Sifa, from Uganada, asked for funds to expand her clothing business.

I chose Sifa, because she's a refugee and because this was included in her ask: Sifa is grateful that the income will help her to grow her business while increasing her income.

almost immediately after checking out, I got a message from Kiva and PayPal saying I got another $25 to lend next time. for no particular reason, I think I'm going to wait till December to lend it out.

this is separate from my november donation since this is technically a loan so I guess I'll eventually be paid back. mentally, I'm treating this as a donation. especially since I'm pretty sure I'll never "cash out" and will keep my funds cycling thru Kiva as long as I can. what an incredible service!

sex work

t and i recently talked about porn and sex work. t referenced it and said how she and I agreed that porn was not good and sex work should not be allowed. i corrected her. I don't think porn is bad. some porn, sure, but not all porn. porn can have negative impacts, but then, can't everything? 

I used to be against porn and sex work in general. I thought it was anti-feminist. we've always been able to use our bodies for money, how does this advance our rights? but you know what? it does. feminism gives you the power to do what you want. and if that's sex work, cool. there's certainly a market for it. and if that's something you like to do or are good at, why not make money doing it? plus, I think if it were legal, sex workers would have more rights. you might not need to hire a pimp to keep you safe, because you can call the cops cause you're doing legal work. you can form a union and maybe get pooled medical benefits, special pay by the hour hotels that are especially sanitized. you can write off condoms and lube and all sorts of stuff on your taxes. and you can likely charge more because there will be a more clear industry standard. in general, anyone participating in the sex industry, including customers, will be safer if it's legalized. and that's a good thing. 

also, maybe more importantly, there's nothing inherently "wrong" about sex. (t, being religious, believes that sex is sacred and should be saved for marriage and i dunno, possibly only for procreation?) biologically, sex is good for you. it helps you relieve stress, gives you a rush of good hormones, and let's face it, we orgasm for a reason! there's no reason ejaculation has to come with an orgasm, but it does! and women, who generally don't ejaculate, orgasm too! we're one of the few animals that has sex for fun. i imagine it's cause sex doesn't feel great for most animals. hell some species have developed barbed penises and corkscrew vaginas so to either make sure the sex happens, or that it doesn't. humans, on the other hand, have orgasms. especially women who can have multiple in a session. 

personally tho, i am a little squeemish about sex work. I wouldn't want my daughter doing it. and I can only imagine doing it if i were desperate for money. even then, I'd prefer to do cam work, or something more "anonymous". but i think that has much more to do with social stigmas, my conservative upbringing, and america's puritanical views on sex (breastfeeding is somehow sexual?), than with any actual adult reasoning.

october 2020 donation

this month I chose Dress for Success Miami because one of my best friends works there as their COO! very fancy, yes.

it's interesting because I've been thinking about my next year's donation drive. and, probably because I've been thinking about Dress for Success, I thought to donate nice professional clothing for interviews. Dress for Success's closest office to me is in DTLA, so I thought a similar nonprofit in Long Beach would be better since DfS only takes women's clothes. plus, I don't have a lot of storage space here before I can make a drop off so having a closer location will help in that I can do multiple drop offs. in doing some research I found Clothes the Deal, which sounded perfect!

of course I looked up them up on a few charity rating websites and saw that on Charity Navigator they have a 50 out of 100. ... that's no good. especially because they're only rated for finance and accountability. they're not yet rated on impact and results, leadership and adaptability, or culture and community (their budget is too small to have gotten an in-depth rating). but they even have poor ratings on yelp! eek. anyway, so I'm NOT donating to them next year.

I think I may probably just "cheat" and do the menstrual products drive in conjunction with work. julie of BYO already approved it for 2020 but we didn't find a receiving organization in time, cause I had wanted to tie it in with women's month (march) and incorporate a discount on buying a plastic-smart menstrual product at the store. she reached out to one org, I reached out to four, and only heard back from one (WomenShelter of Long Beach) ...not great. but they had someone do a drive for them earlier so they were full up. hopefully next year tho, we can try again. 

minimum wage

The Guardian - How much is an hour worth? The war over the minimum wage
and for a little background info about the minimum wage from the US department of labor

i quickly googled it, but didn't find it easily so my main questions remains: how is minimum wage determined anyway? and how did they arrive at the $15 an hour for the new minimum wage?

the Guardian article keeps referring to economic studies and theories, but is that the only field of study that matters in the fight for or against a minimum wage? I feel like we should also be consulting psychologists and sociologists, and more. certainly the economy affects everyone, but in what feels like a very indirect way. it'll be harder to find a job, or you'll get a bigger year-end bonus, but generally things are pretty stable, even prices of apartments and milk. 

what does a living wage mean to people? what to they spend their extra money on? are there fewer deaths somehow (since people can now afford preventative health care rather than "I'm literally on my deathbed where's the nearest hospital" kind of care) is there less crime? more college graduates? more babies being born?

there's a widely quoted factoid: "When affordable is defined as comprising up to 30% of a renter’s budget, a full-time worker earning the federal minimum wage [$7.25 per hour] cannot afford rent on the average two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country." not sure why they went with two bedrooms. maybe cause many people have dependents? I think a one-bedroom apartment might be a more realistic expectation. all the couples I know share a one bed-room,  unless they have roommates in the another bedroom. the singles are either in studios, or also have roommates. only those that are in their 40s are living alone, without roommates, in their one bedrooms. 

I think there should be a federal minimum wage, and, likely a higher one for most states. it should be determined based on a number of factors like average price of a one bedroom apartment, cost of gallon of gas, and maybe cost of a dozen eggs. cost of living, basically, which is why each state would have it's own minimum wage. it's true that cost of living can vary wildly across each state, but I think it maybe too much to do city minimums. possibly counties might be better. 

the measure

Ravi Patel (of Meet the Patels) has a new show called Ravi Patel's Pursuit of Happiness. it's a travel show where he tackles different theme each episode rather than a new destination. 

in one, he focuses on work-life balance. he goes to south korea with an equally workaholic friend and there they "die," give their own last words, and go to their own funeral. in ravi's self-eulogy he says that he read of a "Buddhist philosopher who said, the measure of one's happiness in life is the extent to which, by the time he's passed, he's contributed to evolution."

I often think that the point of participating in anything is to make it better. people should feel like you've made their life better for having been friends with them. your work should be better for having employed you. your team better for having you on it. your club for having you in it. this betterment can be big or small. you can bring in huge profits to your company, or you can be a pleasant co-worker that everyone likes to have around. you can be team leader or club president, or you can always bring a main course and extra napkins and utensils to potlucks. holding doors open, letting people in front of you in line, getting off the phone for the cashier, saying please and thank you to everyone. these small things count. 

most of us won't have a big effect on the world, and that's okay. but I would hate for anyone to actually think the world would be better place were I dead. hell, I wouldn't even want someone to think their day would be better were I not to exist. we're here, so let's make the best of it. 

I choose this

This Is How To Have An Amazing Relationship: 7 Secrets From Research

when I am struggling in my relationship, I tell myself "I choose this" and I try to let go of what is bothering me. "I choose this" means "I am choosing to be in this relationship because I think it will make me happier than if I do not." it usually makes me realize that what I'm stressing about is small and temporary. sometimes it doesn't.

a few months ago I was going thru a hard time. I had actually thought out ways to leave. not for good, but for a while. where I would go, who I could stay with. what I would say, or if I would just leave. me being me, I thought I would pack, write a note, and leave when he wasn't home. notice that I say "I thought" not "I planned." it wasn't so bad that I had actually planned anything, but I knew that thinking about escape routes meant that things were bad.

instead, we actually talked about it. I'm sure he noticed something and brought it up, as he does. and I told him, as I'm getting better at that. I hold him about my choosing to be with him, and I could choose not to be. that I did not leave my overly-critical mother's house only to get into a relationship with an over-critical boyfriend. he understood. he knows that it's not a good trait, but it's something his mom does also, and he learned from that. I think t and I have talked about this hyper-criticalness in our mothers so often, and have just as often promised each other not to do it, that I am extra aware of it in others, and extra motivated to avoid it.

I said that "I would rather leave you, than change you." it's not that I wouldn't want him to change, but it has to come from within himself, not because I asked him to, or gave an ultimatum. I want you to change because it's an objectively good thing, not because I have quirks that I want you to work around. relationships are about compromise, but you shouldn't have to become a worse person to be with me. we should build each other up, and become better people for being together, in being together. 

parenting goals

I had a recent thought, that if I were to have kids (and I still have no intention to), I would want to spend some time distilling into words some of the most important values I would want that kid to have. I would want my partner caretaker to do the same.

not wanting to spend too much time on it now, I would probably end up choosing among: kind / empathetic / fair, thoughtful, practical / realistic, confident, independent, curious / well-rounded intellectually, resilient, hard working, team player... normal things, really.

but some of these will shape HOW we bring up the child. and identifying what is most important to me should help to raise it according to those values. for instance, I believe it's better to be intellectually well-rounded than academically "successful." therefore, I would take my kid to museums, monuments, shows, and wouldn't hesitate to pull them out of school if something big was going on. like, maybe a political rally. I value people who are team players, so I would enroll my kid in some sort of cooperative thing: team sports, orchestra, drama, debate team, etc. so they can see how important it is to do their part and to be able to be counted on. I would be less inclined to enroll them into singles tennis or surfing. 

how much?

"Suppose you're one of five people who have been selected by a mysterious philanthropist to participate in a contest. The five of you all have comparable debt-levels and costs-of-living, as well as similar, middle-class financial situations. You're all roughly the same age, equally healthy, have the same number of children, and you all live moderately low-risk lifestyles.

Privately, and one by one, a representative of the donor approaches each of you with a blank check and a pen, and poses the following question: How much money would you have to be paid, right here and now, to retire today and never receive another dollar of income (from any source) for the rest of your life?

The catch this time is that whoever among the five players writes the lowest amount on the check will be paid that sum. The other four players will get nothing."

taken from: How Much Money Is 'Enough'? This Simple Thought Experiment Gives You an Exact Number to Aim For

this is such an interesting question! the above article says that "One way to calculate that point is to figure out how much money you'd need to make decisions based entirely on enjoyment and impact, without pressure to earn. This is the goal of the catchily named FIRE movement (for financial independence, retire early). Its boosters generally say that 25X your expected annual expenses is enough. So if $50,000 a year is enough for you to live comfortably, you need to save $1.25 million."

based on that thinking, I only need $650k. I make about $50k a year before taxes, and manage to save about 30% of my paycheck after taxes. which means I only need $26k a year to live on. that being said, I would love to some savings because 'merica and our lack of healthcare, and I'd want to factor in inflation. plus, all my grandparents lived to at least 80, and both my parents should hit that easily. which means I have maybe 45 years of life left. so 45 x let's say $30 is $1.35 million. I'd round up to $1.5million, and probably just to be safe, ask for $2m.

I wonder if I'd win. 

...the flaw tho, is that the story says you can never have any income (from any source) forever. tho the FIRE equation above almost certainly factors in bank interest. 

september 2020 donation

this month I kept it local and donated to the Long Beach Arts Council.

they help put on local shows (I've been to "hello, welcome" twice now), help sponsored so many of the covid murals, and also help with Pow! Wow! Long Beach. I LOVE murals and street art!!

I donated to them thru the Long Beach Gives site. this is a one week online fundraiser for 150+ non-profits all doing great work in Long Beach. 

non-profit / churches

The Hill - Thousands of Catholic churches received PPP loans: report

I get that churches have bills (like rent and utilities), and obviously they employ people, so sure, they need money too. plus, I imagine many of their donations come from passing around the "hat" every week. so if they're closed, they aren't getting their usual donations. so i don't really have an issue with them getting ppp money.

that being said. i do have an issue with it. as someone who works for a non-profit in fundraising, i know pretty well what our revenues and expenses are. our biggest expenses are salary and programs. our salaries take up about 30% of our total expenses, which sounds like a lot, but isn't (we each get under $65k a year and we have NO benefits). of course there are other expenses like rent, utilities, insurance, office supplies, stamps (nearly $1000 a year!), but the majority of our expenses are on programs which go directly back to the community we support. we mostly spend on teachers and students. we get audited every year, we have our annual reports on our website, easily found public 990s, and grantors regularly request our financial information going back several years. they generally also limit our overhead expenses to a max of 18% of our total grant money because they want us spending their money on our programs, not on our people (and while I get that, I also very much don't get that, but that's a conversation for a different day).

but, like, what are churches spending on? I feel like (honestly, this is based on nothing other than feeling) the majority of money is spent on their own parishioners, and not on the outside community. basically, it's a social club you pay dues to, and you get snacks every meeting, and occasionally you invite the homeless dude down the street. I doubt many of their parishioners ask what their money is going to, what percentage on the programs and what on operations. 

it's funny because the other day, this topic came up. g was upset so much PPE money went to churches. I agreed but was also more cautious. but as I said this, t gave the example of how the church of scientology is getting a lot of money that isn't spent on programs but I wanted to ask her about if she know what percentage her tithe is spend on programs at her church? it took a minute to find her church's EIN (it's not listed on their website), and even with that EIN I can't find their 990 (apparently churches aren't required to have them public) or any sort of financial information, and they don't have anything resembling an annual report on their website. like... wtf knows what they're spending their income on? and how much income do they even have? and the biggest thing is, NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE. not even t who so quickly tried to throw scientology under the bus. 

I get that services to your own congregation are services. it just seems really unfair that regular non-profits are expected to provide free services to pretty much anyone who asks, without getting nearly anything financial in return from that same group. we're held to pretty high standards, especially by anyone who is offering to give us money. even for individual contributions we generally have to prove that we're helping people. I guess churches are different in that the proof is in you. if you feel good, you're happy to give money, even if it doesn't help anyone else. which also seems really weird somehow.

conclusion - I don't think churches should be considered non-profits. I do think they should be taxed. any entity that wants to be tax exempt should have a certain level of transparency. the public loses out on your tax money, so you should be able to justify WHY. regular non-profits do. churches don't. that's completely unfair.

grease fire

2 nights ago, september 11th of all days, i had the scariest night of my life.

joe had made french fries the day before and assured me it was very easy to make tho i've never fried anything before. he said to microwave the potatoes for five minutes, and to make the oil very hot, keep it on for like 5 minutes on before dropping the potatoes in.

so i turned up the heat and put on the lid (because that makes things heat up faster). the potatoes finished their 5 minutes in the microwave but the oil seemed unchanged (the pot has a glass lid). all the frying oil I've seen has been boiling so I thought to wait a bit longer. I was mixing my cookie dough (I'd measured everything out earlier) when i looked over at the stove and saw white smoke coming out of the pot.

i ran over and took the lid off. WHOOSH! a flame suddenly shot up several feet high out of the pot! I tried putting the lid back on but it didn't quite slide on correctly and there were still hella flames. I tried again and again but the flames were so high! there was SO MUCH smoke and I think at this point the fire alarm started to go off. our stove doesn't have a hood, and I was using the burner closest to the wall, so I thought to move the pot into our stainless steel sink which has a higher ceiling, and is further from the walls. I called 911 (first time ever I think!) and was crying (I think from the now black smoke) as I gave the wrong address, then corrected myself. by this time I finally got the pot in the sink, lid still only halfway on. the flames were so high! I thought we had a fire extinguisher under the sink (we don't, that's my parent's house). the dish towel I was using to protect my hands from the pot handles was catching fire so I grabbed the dog's pillow to use as an oven mitt. I grabbed another pot lid (thankfully two our pots have the same sized lid). and thought I was gotten it on correctly, but there was so much thick black smoke by that time I gave up. I ran to the door with Roux and got outside. 

I was only outside for a minute or two before the firefighters showed up. I rang the doorbells and banged on the doors of my fourplex neighbors but no one answered. I was so scared because my next door neighbor's car was in her usual handicapped spot in front of the house (mind you, she's also my landlord's mom so I really really scared I would accidentally kill her).

the firefighters came and I waved them down. by then I was pretty sure the fire was out. I didn't see flames anymore though the smoke was so black it was a hard to tell. a few of them went in and quickly came out, saying the fire was out. another set up a fan in front of our door to draw the smoke out.

they weren't here long. less than half and hour. they waited for the fan to do its thing, then they went in and double checked. they said there wasn't any damage. they were very nice, very understanding, and asked if anyone else was home, and any other pets, tho they didn't ask if I was hurt. strange because I was coughing a lot and my hand was actually in quite a bit of pain.

the neighbor above me showed up and we chatted a bit until the firefighters left and she went to move her car. I came back into the house; Roux did NOT want to, he was quite scared to come in and for the first hour he stayed near the door. eventually he came back to the sofa, but he stayed on the far side and did not go to his side, his kennel, or check on what I was doing in the kitchen. 

blah blah blah. it was scary. very scary. I think this was definitely the most scared I've ever been. in car accidents you think, it's just me and my car and that other driver and the car and cars are pretty fucking safe. when freaking out while snorkeling I KNOW it's mostly in my head. but this... oh man... I was very conscious that 6 people live in this building, 3 dogs, the neighboring buildings are pretty close, and there are major fires up and down the whole west coast right now. I was so scared I was going to start another fire, here in the city, burning down everyone's things, killing their pets because I couldn't make fucking french fries. 

all in all, it went as well as it could have. I did the right things after initially fucking up very badly. I only have a small first degree burn on my right hand (that actually hurt pretty badly for several hours. there wasn't any blistering or color changes but it hurt badly enough I thought it might possibly "become" a second degree burn. it didn't). the dog is fine, on his side of the sofa and in his bed. there was no damage to the apartment tho I did throw away the pot, the lid, the dish towel, and the kitchen mini-blinds. everything else is fine, even the sink, and the plastic soap dispenser above the sink. tho of course everything smells. smells bad. different, and I think worse, than a regular fire though I've never been terribly close to a wildfire so who knows. 

that night I tried cleaning some of the soot away and it smeared badly and I was worried we would have to repaint and we would lose our deposit. yesterday J and I did only some basic cleaning since we had to go down to SD for the day (my first real hangout since the pandemic started). but this morning we woke up, I googled some things, found some other cleaning products we already had, and guess what? the kitchen looks pretty good. it does look a bit grimy, but it's nothing serious. definitely don't need a paint job (until we move out anyway because we purposely didn't try to clean the walls or ceiling outside the kitchen knowing that it would make it look worse). but seriously, after about 5 hours of cleaning, it looks almost back to normal. I've never thought I'd had to clean a ceiling before; it's hard work.

anyway, lessons were learned. I do have a little bit of PTSD. I'm definitely never frying anything on my own again, we got a fire extinguisher (actually, g got us one because we all realized we should have one in the kitchen and she bought a two pack to share), I learned that I'm pretty good in a serious emergency, a little correct info about grease fires goes a long fucking way (un-introduce oxygen), and a little lack of information goes just as fucking far (don't turn stove way up when cooking oil!, don't cover oil when cooking!, don't open lids when there's smoke from oil!).

one sentence

Radiolab episode The Cataclysm Sentence was about Richard Feynman on the One Sentence to Be Passed on to the Next Generation, which was "If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generation of creatures, what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis that all things are made of atoms — little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied." 

the hosts asked a bunch of people the same question and they got all sorts of answers including stuff about fear, about God, about race. honestly, mostly dumb stuff that aliens wouldn't care about because these things are too specifically human.

I thought a good answer was from writer Jenny Holwell: "Everything is connected." she said about it: "to me that feels like a sentence that contains an element of scientific truth, but also inspires us to believe in it. Because I do think that whatever we leave behind needs to contain something about it that would inspire the finder to believe in it."

before I heard her sentence I was thinking mine might be something along the lines of "no matter how much you want it to be untrue, basically, nothing you do matters." which is... fucking dismal, lol. I like Jenny's thought that it should inspire the finder. so I added another sentence.

"No matter how much you try, basically, nothing you do means anything. But don't try too hard to disprove this."

bipoc

I watched Joker last week, and a few days later I realized that there seemed to be speaking parts for only white or Black people. I don't remember any other races of people talking, which is nuts. 

and this is why I kind of hate the term BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color)

Black people are the go to race when adding diversity. I'm glad that these days tv and movies include more than a single "token black person". but, just as including one black person in a group of a dozen or more white people doesn't make it a diverse cast, adding just one other race doesn't make it so either. 

when Kamala Harris was announced as the democratic VP candidate, I saw SO MANY headlines saying "first Black woman" but only a handful that said "first Asian woman". she's half Indian, and was mostly raised by her Indian mom. (side note, did you know that Tiger Woods is only a quarter black but 1/2 asian [1/4 Chinese, 1/4 Thai]. he's also 1/8 native American and 1/8 white.)

Black people are already highlighted in our society today. yes, often because of horrible horrible things. but they're still assumed to be American. I don't think Black people are often asked "where are you from?" whereas I've been asked dozens of times, even though I speak perfect english with more than a hint of a so-cal accent. asians, and possibly latinx might always be considered "other" in America. we may always be assumed to have immigrated here recently. which is crazy, because a good portion of today's America used to be belong to Mexico. and Mexicans had settled in places like New Mexico before 1600 even!

I don't at all take issue with the I in BIPOC. I think they, more often than the rest of us, get forgotten about. their experience is very different than the rest of us in that this was their land and it was stolen from them. (Mexico lost the Mexican-American war so gave up land in the settlement)

flash drives collection

do you have old USB drives or SD cards? I'm collecting!

USBs over 2GB will go to Recycled USB which partnered with Sugar Labs to provide a free activity-focused, open-source software learning platform for children. USBs under 2GB and all SD cards, will go to Flash Drives for Freedom partnered with Human Rights Foundation which loads them with "content proven to inspire North Koreans to disbelieve Kim Jong-Un's propaganda" and smuggled into the country.

deadline is beginning of December so I can ship them off before the end of the year.

prefer one org over the other? lmk when and I'll ship yours to the one you prefer.

august 2020 donation

this month I donated to a friend's 5k fundraiser for the in-n-out foundation and slave 2 nothing.

a tip to these fundraisers. while most of your friends don't really care what org their money is going to, you should write up a little description about the org, their work, and why they're important to you. if you join a team for your event, it'll likely just be the org they pick and you can't change it, but you should try to connect to the org and their mission somehow. 

control

Vogue - The Supreme Court Is Letting Trump Get Away With Weakening Birth Control Coverage Mandates

I don't understand how it's okay that a person's religious and moral beliefs can oppress other people. what does your religion have to do with my health care?

if my employer is a jehovah's witness, should my health coverage not include blood transfusions (and therefore rule out many major surgeries)?

if my employer is an anti-vaxxer, should I (and my children who are on my health care) be forced to pay for vaccinations out of pocket?

or what if I believe that you shouldn't have any kind of health care since you can just pray to god really hard and ask him to cure you? his will is the way, and if he wanted you healthy, well, you would be.

article about how birth control used as medicine, not to control births: Why the Supreme Court Ruling on Birth Control Is Even Worse Than You Think

july 2020 donation

my donation comes a little early this month because PayPal was having a promotion where if you donated at least $5 thru their app to a non-profit, they would add $5! I picked Planned Parenthood South Atlantic (North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, and the Blue Ridge of Virginia) rather than planned parenthood of america cause of the $10,000 limit per charity. :) i figure a smaller branch would likely get fewer donations.

fine print: Donation: PayPal will give up to $1.5M dollars in total donations and $10,000 per charity over the course of the promotion. Must use your Valid Account to complete a donation through the PayPal mobile app to PayPal Giving Fund. Ends 6/29/2020 at 11:59:59 p.m. PT or when the donation cap has been reached, whichever is earlier. Limit: 1 donation per person and per Valid Account.Donations will be made to PayPal Giving Fund, an IRS-registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and granted to your recommended charity pursuant to its Donation Delivery Policy. Contribution may be tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Consult your tax advisor to understand your specific circumstances. No goods or services will be provided in exchange for your donation. PayPal reserves the right to deny a donation for any reason at its sole discretion. 

news and social media the last month has been awash with news of police brutality and the black lives movement. accordingly, i've been reminded of the ACLU and have learned about many orgs doing great work!

in april, starting with my first donation, i had listed out a bunch of orgs that i liked and would want to eventually donate to: NPR, Radiolab, PBS, Planned Parenthood, Compton Initiative, OC Food Bank, Second Harvest, Food Finders, Harvest Partners, Food Forward, and Seed Savers. they were mostly food related. probably because we were in full swing with the pandemic so much of the news was about food banks running out of supplies. plus, i've worked directed with a few of the orgs listed.

june 2020 donation

if you read my last post, you know that for june 2020 I donated to Equal Justice Initiative. there have been a ton of recent lists of Black Lives Matter groups to donate to, which was helpful tho I kind of randomly found this group on google. what cemented my decision is that they have a 100% rating on charitynavigator.org.

it's always a good idea to do some research into the group you want to donate to. and I know that a lot of people heavily weigh salary expenses when looking into non-profits, but you should be careful to find actual numbers rather than percentages (you can find this info on their 990 tax forms, which are public). for instance, about 30% of algalita's annual expenses goes to our staff of four, which sounds like a lot, but we all make under $65k a year before taxes. my annual take home pay is well under $40k, which is really not that high, especially when you figure that I have no medical or retirement benefits offered thru work.

relevant article from refinery29: How To Make Strategic & Impactful Donations, According To A Personal Finance Expert

#blackouttuesday

got a bit fired up this morning seeing all those blank black rectangles on instagram. that doesn't DO anything! I get that you're showing solidarity with the BLM movement, but are you really? this has been said a lot lately, and I'm all for it: it isn't enough not to be racist; you have to be ANTI-racist. and if posting this on your insta is all you're doing, you're doing it wrong.

after some thought, i posted an amazingly still relevant quotation from writer Ta-Nehisi Coates from his book Between the World and Me. 

do you remember Eric Garner? he too was suffocated to death by a cop. his last words were "I can't breathe." that was 2014. the cop, Pantaleo, was finally fired in 2019. AND "A state grand jury declined to press criminal charges." in fact, NY police commissioner James O'Neill actually said that "had I been in Officer Pantaleo's situation, I may have made similar mistakes." um... Pantaleo isn't the victim here. and he broke rules to kill Garner; chokeholds are banned by the NYPD. (short article)

there were a couple other slides from my post, but below is my caption. 

DO MORE. join a protest, help cleanup the next day if looters/rioters hijacked that protest, sign a bunch of change.org petitions, watch a documentary, read a book (Ta-Nehisi Coates @tanehisipcoatesis amazing), EDUCATE yourself, support family owned black businesses, boycott companies that exploit black people (that exploit anyone really!), DONATE! as someone who helps with fundraising for a non-profit, i can tell you that every donation, no matter how small, is appreciated. 
this year i'm donating about $25 a month to a different org/cause. this month i'm choosing Equal Justice Initiative @eji_org which "works to end mass incarceration, excessive punishment, and racial inequality." I found them on charity navigator @charitynav and they have an incredible 100% overall rating. 
#blackoutuesday

more giving trends

Campbell Rinker, a California-based marketing research firm that caters to nonprofits, polled 630 U.S. adults from April 17 to 20. Participants had given at least $20 to charity in 2019.

20% of donors in a new survey said they won’t give to charity until the economy is back up and running
53% said they plan to continue giving but will do so “more carefully” than before
the remaining 28% said they planned to maintain their giving despite the pandemic

I'm planning to give more this year. last year I donated to a friend's biking fundraising campaign and I gave to the non-profit I worked for. this year, I'm definitely planning to give at least $300. it'll be non-taxed so I'm going to use to use it as my goal, and hopefully something I can surpass!

trans rights

"discrimination laws don't apply to transgender people"?! well, I looked up the laws and can see how they don't. =\ I mean, technically transgender people change their gender, but not their sex (which is biological and has to do with the x and y chromosomes) so I can see how a total asshole of an employer could legally discriminate someone over this.



an article about Aminee Stephens and her case: She came out as transgender and got fired. Now her case might become a test for LGBTQ rights before the US Supreme Court.

the case is still pending, but hopefully, if SCOTUS does hear it, they make the right decision. transpeople already suffer so much, they should be protected against employment discrimination.

new donation tax rule for 2020

added bonus for donating in 2020 (which is super important because non-profits are really struggling right now, especially small and medium ones), for those that file standard deductions (almost 90% of people) you can report up to an additional $300 in donations for 2020. and this MAY not be ongoing, i.e. this may only be valid for 2020 so it's really important to stretch your money and donate this year.

"How the new $300 "Universal" deduction works"

may 2020 donation

this month I donated $30 to a friend's pet food bag terracycle box campaign! so many of the things we put into our recycling bin can't be recycled, but terracycle is a company that specializes in recycling difficult to recycle products. in this case, jojo bought 3 boxes to be placed in different locations. boxes cost about $130 and cover shipping costs both ways, plus some extra.

giving trends

notes about giving during this time: "Where donors are giving in the coronavirus era: A survey conducted in mid-April by the University of San Diego in partnership with the Chronicle shows that donors since the pandemic have been giving more to health organizations. Meanwhile, many are cutting back on environmental and education giving, writes Michael Theis."

"Americans who have given to charity during the past 12 months have dropped to a historic low of 73%, according to new survey from Gallup. The study also confirmed other data suggesting a decline in fewer donors overall in recent years."

April 2020 donation

even when I first started tracking notable articles on this blog in October 2018, I noticed that I read a lot of stuff from The Guardian. I never noticed before then tho. since noticing, I've thought to donate, but never did so until today. I gave only a small amount, and hope to feel more comfortable to give more after Covid, but I think anything, no matter how small, is appreciated.

I plan to choose a new group to donate to every month, and will probably eventually want suggestions. but for now I really like NPR, Radiolab, PBS, Planned Parenthood, Compton Initiative, OC Food Bank, Second Harvest, Food Finders, Harvest Partners, Food Forward, and Seed Savers.

cross-posted to my other "blog"