A few weeks ago, an Australian startup offered to send me a T-shirt. I’m not normally on the T-shirt beat, but this one was special. The 100-percent cotton garment featured “patented hydrophobic nanotechnology” to make it super stain-resistant. “I’ll be the judge of that,” I thought, and a few days later the Threadsmiths T-shirt arrived in the mail.
Over at the FCC, the regulatory agency is voting on Net Neutrality — and they are streaming the vote live from 10:30 AM EST onward. Go watch it! The result of this vote will determine whether the internet remains a democratically-controlled common carrier, or becomes more like television, whose broadcasts are largely controlled by a handful of wealthy corporations.
Last month WhatsApp rolled out a web client , and yesterday it announced support for Firefox and Opera as well as Chrome, so it seems like an opportune time to show you how to switch between your browser and your mobile. There’s still no love for iOS users or for Safari right now, but the rest of you can dive right in.
With the cold winter weather seemingly never ending, cravings for comfort food can be hard to ignore–but don’t let your diet go into hibernation. We talked to chef, instructor and author Phoebe Lapine, who teaches cooking classes at The Institute of Culinary Education and Haven’s Kitchen, for her favorite healthy vegan recipes to get you through the rest of the cold winter stretch.
These meals will not only excite your taste buds, but will satisfy your cravings guilt-free. All meals are one-hundred-percent vegan and are perfect whether you are cooking for one or hosting a dinner party.
1. Moroccan Red Lentil Soup with Chard
This simple, healthy soup epitomizes winter vegan comfort. Discovered when cleaning out her pantry after two weeks of traveling, Phoebe combines red lentils in a Moroccan harira-like concoction with lots of carrots and red chard. A great addition to any winter lunchbox, this “warm goodness” takes only 35 minutes to prepare.
Get the complete recipe here.
Photo credit: Phoebe Lapine
2. Vegan Pumpkin Risotto with Rosemary
Patience is a key ingredient in making risotto, but this recipe is great for beginners as you, quite literally, cannot stir it too much. Heavy enough for a meatless main course, or perfect as a base, the starch from the rice creates a creamy texture so there is no need for milk or cheese. Even better, this recipe uses canned pumpkin, saving precious time.
Get the complete recipe here.
Photo credit: Phoebe Lapine
3. Greek Baked Stuffed Tomatoes with Rice
Phoebe picked up this recipe from a handyman (“the Greek Chuck Norris”) working at her rented villa while on vacation in Greece, and it changed her opinion of hallowed out, baked vegetables forever. Simple, rustic, and elegant, there are two secrets to this recipe: let the tomatoes cook longer than expected to get fully baked and caramelized, and (like in most Greek cooking) use lots and lots of olive oil.
Get the complete recipe here.
Photo credit: Phoebe Lapine
4. Shepard’s Pie with Lentil’s and Mushrooms
Shepard’s Pie is classic pub comfort food and this recipe gives it a vegan twist replacing the traditional lamb with hearty lentils and mushrooms. According to Phoebe, not only is it incredibly cheap to make (this was Irish peasant food, of course), but it can be finished a few days in advance and seems to only get better with time.
Get the complete recipe here.
Photo credit: Phoebe Lapine
5. Sweet Potato Latkes with Scallions and Kimchi
Phoebe admits that there are few things in life that she loves more than fried potatoes, so she mastered the art of making latkes. Use sweet potatoes, rice flour (if you want it to be gluten-free), and add some kimchi for an Asian flair.
Get the complete recipe here.
Photo credit: Phoebe Lapine
6. Asparagus Potato Leek Soup
Phoebe describes this tasty soup as if “cream of asparagus and potato leek soup had a love child.” The potato provides a creaminess eliminating the need for added dairy. This one-pot meal is perfect for bunkering down during the cold, and will last a whole week.
Get the complete recipe here.
Photo credit: Phoebe Lapine
This post was created by Lauren Browning for CourseHorse.
Grunge is officially making a come back this fall, but the team behind Timo Weiland, including Alan Eckstein, Donna Kang and Timo himself, gave us a lighter and brighter variation on this retro trend, resulting in a pleasing and very wearable collection.
Timo Weiland from NEW MINDS STUDIO on Vimeo.
Perhaps more than any other group, athletes have fully embraced sleep as a performance enhancement tool. Top athletes are, of course, all about results. So there’s no better place than the world of sports to see the tangible effects of sleep (including pre-game naps) on performance.
As medical director of the Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine in Virginia, and one of the country’s leading sleep researchers, W. Chris Winter has worked extensively with athletes eager to learn from him. He also works with teams to teach them about sleep’s importance. In fact, when we exchanged emails, he was in Florida, and shortly bound for Arizona, working with Major League Baseball teams. Here are his answers to my questions about why athletes are putting sleep at the forefront of their lives — and what the rest of us can learn from them.
You don’t always publish your research on how sleep affects athletic performance. Why is that?
The reasons for this are many, but generally boil down to two things.
First, teams view what I do as a way to gain an advantage and do not want to give that advantage away. Second, I have been involved with sleep research for about 21 years now, including my involvement while I was in medical school, neurology residency, and my sleep fellowship. There are individuals and groups out there with no real sleep background who sell sleep services to businesses, teams, etc. that do little more than borrow other’s research ideas and sell it as if it were their own. Given these facts, I see little upside to publishing.
You’ve researched the effect of time zone travel and jetlag on the performance of pro baseball players. What did you find?
The convention in sleep medicine is that for every time zone you cross when you travel, it takes about 24 hours to acclimate. So, with that in mind, we looked at every team, every day of the season for ten seasons and assigned them a value as to how adjusted they were, and used it to predict game outcome. Basically, we proved what hardcore gamblers have probably known for years…travel impairs performance!
Since then, we have studied how a player’s chronotype (are you a morning lark or a night owl) affects performance at different times of the day. For instance, does a night owl pitcher pitch better at night versus in the day? Our data suggests so. It also suggests batters hit better if their game matches up with their chronotype too. We have unpublished data on this as well.
We have also looked at the incidence of sleepiness in college football players and compared the number to that seen in professional football. College players blow the pros out of the water. Just under half of the players we studied were excessively sleepy, and usually not because of lack of sleep!
Beyond day-to-day performance, how can inadequate sleep affect an athlete’s career?
We have looked recently at measures of sleepiness in professional athletes and have seen that players with high levels of sleepiness tend to exit their sport earlier than those who are not sleepy. For players who want to have long, lucrative careers, ignoring healthy sleep is not the way to go about it!
My work in the past has looked at the active athlete and shown how poor sleep can affect multiple aspects of his/her performance. Currently, we are working on using sleep-specific parameters to predict future performance, injury risk, and potentially whether or not an organization should invest in a player. If two equally talented writers want to work for you and one is much sleepier than the other, who would you hire? Initially that was our directive. Taken a step further, what if you had a really good sleep doctor on your staff who said he could diagnose and fix the sleep problems we discovered on your staff during the sleep screening process (what I am often doing for teams). Now who would you hire? Perhaps the sleepy writer, who is already amazing prior to the intervention, will be a superstar once I figure out and treat her sleep issues. Now you can see how a team could find treasure in other team’s trash… if they know what to look for.
How are professional sport teams leveraging sleep consultants to enhance performance, and what tangible benefits are players receiving?
The short answer is in many different ways. I think the most important way is through better education about sleep and its impact on our health, recovery, and performance. Players learn that the hours spent in the bedroom lay the foundation for their physical improvement, and nutritional goals.
I love to talk about sleep. Despite this tendency, I don’t like to talk a lot about the specifics of what I do for teams. I think it is something my teams value — I keep my mouth shut. Strangely, the San Francisco Giants spoke to the media about me this season in the midst of their third World Series win. I’ll let this article, which was the result of their comments to the media, answer your question.
What’s the big takeaway for those of us who aren’t pro athletes?
The funny thing about all of this was that my research started as a way to get ordinary people to pay attention to sleep. I thought, if I can get a pro athlete to really value sleep, his or her fans might do the same.
My son is in his high chair and I’m cleaning the floor and dishes. His arm magically transforms into a windshield wiper against the tray. Waffle and oranges fly across the room. Rising up inside of me is a piece of my heart that is angry and impatient. And then I catch my son’s eyes — bright and bubbling with laughter — and that angry little piece of me dies.
When I’m comfortable in bed and the sun is still sleeping, I hear coos and then squeals. Eventually loud cries are coming from his crib. A piece of me longs for the days when Saturday meant sleeping in until 10. Then I remember: mornings are Nugget’s best time. When he tries new words and flirts with his mommy. And that piece of lazy longing dies.
When I’m trying on clothes in Target’s family dressing room, my son’s legs swinging happily from the cart, nothing fits right, even though I’ve lost the baby weight. A piece of me whispers, “Before the baby, you would have looked awesome in that dress…” And then I remember that skinnier, more fashionable me. Whose dreams and hopes centered around the possibility of a life with children. And that bratty, self-deprecating piece of me dies.
When nap time arrives and I’m soaking up the beautiful, coveted silence, a piece of my mind aches at the memory of quiet independence. Of books on the couch and long lunches. But then I think of his laughter… and the sound of his little feet, pitter-pattering across the tiles of our family home. And that rogue little ache, that selfish piece of me, quickly dies.
Motherhood has such a strange dichotomy. It is life-giving and exhausting. It constantly exercises my faith, tests my patience, and stretches my heart. But, as a result, my faith and patience are stronger. My heart is bigger. And although sometimes I still reach the end of my rope, my rope is getting longer.
It’s true that every day I’m a mother, a little piece of me dies. But I will not mourn these losses.
My child is making me a better person every day.
And then the piece of me that doubts I’m doing this “mom thing” right… it dies, too. And I’m left with gratitude.
And a floor covered in waffle bits.
This post originally appeared on Mom Babble.
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Megachurch Pastor Rob Bell certainly caused a stir with his statement on Oprah Winfrey’s “Super Soul Sunday.” His statements however need some qualification. Fact is, even though the majority of (and growing) number of people in the Western world do support equal rights for LGBT people, including civil marriage, anti-LGBT Christian rhetoric and the churches who preach it are still very much relevant… to those who are anti-LGBT of course! As well as the political parties counting on their votes.
Even anti-miscegenation Christian churches still exist in America, South Africa, with a resurgence in the UK. There are churches that still believe it is against God’s plan for the races to mix. The same can be said of Christian churches that are heavily informed by very misogynistic religious rhetoric with regard to the place of women in society and believe in a God-ordained gender hierarchy of: God, then man, then woman last, created from a spare part of man, as an afterthought for HIS use as HIS helpmate to carry HIS seed and not a person in her own right.
N.B Many primitive cultures believed only men were “creators” of life and therefore in the image of God. They thought semen contained the entire seed of a human being and women had no life-giving power except as a fertile plot of land to grow it. They had no knowledge she also contributed gametes or that scientifically speaking the female of the species is the one who holds the key to our genetic ancestry. Much of their belief systems about men and women came from that ignorance.
However I hasten to add that Pastor Rob Bell is not wrong. Evidence shows anti-gay churches are losing the younger generation, those with higher education and a growing number of people whose spirituality is not dependent on an “Us vs. Them”, imperialistic world-view. Furthermore, their growing “irrelevance” is not the fault of LGBT people or equal rights legislation.
It is the fault of anti-LGBT Christians themselves.
Before I explain further, let me avoid any confusion over the definition of “anti-LGBT Christian” by sharing what my definition is as it relates to this article.
The heated debates in the wake of Pastor Bell’s statements highlight that anti-LGBT Christians base their position on four assumptions (1) the bible explicitly condemns LGBT orientation and/or all loving committed same-sex relationships of LGBT people; (2) the bible is 100 percent infallible (i.e. free of cultural subjectivity, scientific limitations of the iron-aged Northern Palestinians who wrote it, political agendas or human errors of those who selected, compiled and translated it) and can be read at a pedestrian level, in their favorite English version to answer any situation, by just picking a verse that seems to apply; (3) that strict adherence to the bible is necessary for salvation and (4) that their sect’s method of interpretation and application of the scriptures, (particularly those they use to condemn LGBT people), is absolute Christian theology.
Ironically it’s those very four assumptions that are proving to be their theological undoing. You see, the more they assert those claims, the more those claims are being scrutinized. The more those claims are scrutinized, in our new age of information, the more people are unearthing a minefield of contradictions, double standards and intellectual dishonesties. I only have time and space to highlight two of them:
1. Intellectual Dishonesty
More people are closely examining the oft quote-mined verses anti-LGBT Christians use. They are cross referencing with the best scholarly information on the historical, cultural and linguistic background of those verses. When they do, they soon realize Genesis 19 is about an attempted gang rape of two angels, Leviticus 18:22 is a prohibition idolatrous ritualistic sex between men and part of a code of laws Christians say are defunct, Romans 1 is about people engaging in what Paul called “akatharsian” (verse 24) or “uncleanness”, which is a reference to idolatrous temple prostitution. It was for that reason the men and women he was referring to changed their usual opposite-sex relations and 1 Corinthians 6:9 is about the catamites (boy prostitutes) and pimps and pederasts who sexually exploited them in Corinth which was infamous for that kind of flesh trade.
Now, those with basic reading comprehension skills who understand the big difference between sexual orientation (a medical classification that first occurred in the 19th Century, of innate gender attraction) and the specific sexual behaviors described in these verses, immediately realize that none of these verses have anything to do with being born LGBT or expressing one’s LGBT orientation in terms of a loving committed relationship. Nor is it newfangled “pro-gay theology” to have this interpretation. From the very beginning the most Conservative biblical scholars and the earliest Christian philosophers never applied scriptures like Romans 1 in the manner anti-LGBT Christians use it today.
From Aristedes’ commentaries of Romans 1 in his work The Apology to the early Church fathers like Clement of Alexandria to Saint Augustine, their understanding was that Paul was talking about the pagan fertility rites of the Romans, not romantic attraction and love between men let alone women! Lesbianism was not even “a thing” and the verses never said women had sex with women, it said the women changed their natural use of the man, which was understood to be heterosexual anal sex.
“Clearly they (the females referred to in Romans 1:26) do not go into one another, but rather offer themselves to the men.”- Anastasios, Early Church Father.
More people are realizing gay-affirming Christian sects do indeed have proper biblical scholarship on their side because they stick to the original meanings and original context. If a word meant “male prostitute” in the Hebrew or Greek they do not make the intellectually dishonest claim it means all “homosexuals” or “transgendered” people today. If there is an account of Jesus answering a question about men and women getting divorced (Matthew 19) they do not mislead people into believing he was answering a question about gay marriage. If a story was about gang-rape, and all other Hebrew references to it and doublets (see Judges 19) of it, point to the motivation being wickedness, inhospitality to foreigners and greed, then they do not use that story to make an impressionable 15 year old who just nervously came out, feel like a wretched, evil person and kill himself rather than be labeled a “sodomite”.
This brings us to the next theological minefield anti-LGBT Christians create for themselves. Clearly they have no problem ignoring historical, linguistic and cultural context and quote-mining a verse out of context just to load up biblical burdens on others. So they should have no problem when they get a taste of their own methodology. After all, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Right? Wrong!
2. Biblical Double Standards
Anti-LBGT Christians turn red in the face with rage when you point out that they do not apply their biblical methodology when it comes to so many everyday things they do:
• Participate in and profit from our modern day banking system which is built on money-changing and usury. (Ezekiel 18:13, Psalms 15: 5, Luke 6: 35)
• Take up arms, learn how to kill for God and country in war or support the death penalty (Romans 12: 19, Matthew 5: 38-41, Matthew 5: 43-48 Luke 6: 27-38 John 18:36 )
• Pursue and protect material wealth instead of selling all possessions and focusing on helping the poor (Luke 12:33, Luke 16:19-31, Matthew 19:21, Proverbs 14: 31)
• Promote showy displays of public prayer and charitable acts.( Matthew 6: 5-6, Matthew 6: 1-4)
• Protest paying their taxes and obeying Government laws. (Luke 20: 24- 25, Romans 13: 7)
• Get divorced and remarried over irreconcilable differences, with no thought to the fact they are living in state of adultery. (Matthew 19:6, Mark 10:11, Luke 16: 18)
I can go on and on and never have to mention the usual pork, shellfish and mixed fabrics abominations of the Old Mosaic Law, which most Christians agree are not relevant.
The glaring hypocritical pitfall of Anti-LGBT Christians is not only being noticed by more and more people, it’s further exacerbated when people unveil the embarrassing, historical pattern of Christians selectively wielding the scriptures purely to oppress those towards whom they already had a prejudice or to excuse human atrocities that benefit their status or profit margins. Once that skepticism/distrust button is pressed, I’m afraid it is very hard to step off without detonating one’s suspension of disbelief, which is necessary to believe in any religion’s claim to absolute truth and Divine superiority over all other ideologies/cultures. The outcome is not always a total rejection of spirituality (atheism) but as in my case and that of many others, a rejection of organized religion only, especially that of the anti-LGBT ilk.
While I may no longer categorize myself as a member of any Christian denomination, I have to admit that the LGBT-welcoming Christian sects are refreshingly honest and upfront about the fact that all Christians, anti-gay or not, are cafeteria Christians. None of them live a strictly biblical life. It’s impossible! Even Jesus broke a biblical law or two according to the Gospels. Sometimes it was for the greater good, like letting a woman with unclean blood flow (who should be quarantined according to Leviticus) touch him. Sometimes it was just for pure practicality, like when he and disciples were starving and picked grain in a wheat field, angering the Pharisees, because it was the Sabbath. Jesus’s retort, “God desires mercy, not sacrifice.”
It’s also impossible to live a strict biblical life because how do we ignore all the knowledge, systems and cultural insights mankind has acquired in the 2000-plus years since? We cannot revert to the mind-set and cultural myopia of people living 2000 years ago in Northern Palestine. Using the bible as a new edition of Mosaic book of rules, almost guarantees societal regression into ignorance and hypocrisy. If one is going to use the bible, the astute thing seems to be putting it into proper perspective and applying a lot of discernment in order to sift out the timeless, universal truths it does possess. For a time may come when humans travel to the deepest corners of space and/or answer even more questions about our existence with science but so long as Christians sects focus on living The Greatest Commandment, as their primary mandate, they always stay relevant to humanity.
An interesting thing happens when you ask an anti-LGBT Christian about the Greatest Commandment and whether they currently loving and treating their LGBT neighbors as they would like to be loved and treated. In the uncomfortable silence that follows, you understand why a growing number of people only see the rotten fruits of politicized religious extremism, rooted in Pharisee-ish use of ancient texts to justify unjust status quos that really have and still are hurting and oppressing people. You understand why people are not experiencing a yoke that’s “light and refreshing” and the more anti-LGBT religious people double down on their current modus operandi, they more they hasten their irrelevance.
It’s not unheard of to seek idle time on a trip, but today’s trend toward wellness travel has some wanderers turning to spas and fitness retreats for healthy escapes.
And let’s face it, undoing weeks worth of salad lunches and early morning ab work for five days of glorious gluttony may feel great at the time, but staying fit and well wins over post-jaunt paunch.
Beyond maintaining physiques, wellness retreats with a taste of local life, like a Mayan detox in Mexico and a wine valley hike in Napa, can mean returning home both restored and inspired. Here, the fit trips that will make 2015 a more you-focused year.
Courtesy Casa Palopo
Where: Casa Palopó, Guatemala
Way to wellness: Hike the San Pedro volcano
Instead of your standard hillside hike, try scaling a volcano. From your vista courtesy Casa Palopó, a high-end hideaway with a homey feel on the shores of Guatemala’s Lake Atitlán, three are visible: Toliman, Atitlan and San Pedro. The 9,990-foot trek up San Pedro takes hikers through lush jungle, mountainside cornfields and trees bearing coffee pods–the country’s prime crop. Post-hike, head back to the seven-room lakeside sanctuary and stretch out with some outdoor yoga overlooking the volcano you just conquered, or order up a massage and enjoy it on your private patio. Room rates from $154 a night, casapalopo.com
Courtesy Westin Playa Bonita
Where: Westin Playa Bonita, Panama
Way to wellness: Kayak the Panama Canal
It’s not often people say they kayaked the Panama Canal, but Panama’s Westin Playa Bonita is hooked up with Gamboa Tours, so resort guests can traverse the historic waterway. As part of a full-day tour, guides will take travelers up the Chagres river and into a rainforest that’s home to local wildlife like jaguars and Harpy Eagles, and on to the indigenous Embera village to experience shamanic and celebratory dances. Once back on land, when paddling-induced arm fatigue has set in, head to the hotel’s Sensory Spa by Clarins for a dip in the Vitality hydromassage pool or perch next to a healing rock in the Amethyst steam room to rid your body of negative energy. Room rates from $178 a night, westinplayabonita.com
Courtesy COMO Hotels
Where: COMO Shambhala Estate, Bali
Way to wellness: Get personalized pampering
The beside-yourself-beauty of Bali may be enough to restore your spirit, but if you’re seeking an extra boost, the COMO Shambhala Estate near Ubud offers wellness with your name on it. Whether you’re looking to cleanse, be active, manage stress or try Oriental Medicine, experts are on hand to tailor to your every need. An onsite Ayurvedic doctor can recommend a detox program based on a one-on-one consult or you could opt for more action like ricefield biking or yoga in the Estate’s gardens. Balinese wisdom and meditation classes are also on offer at a nearby temple and activities work in tandem with customized healthful cuisine for a holistic experience. Rooms from $630 for a single and $850 for a double a night, comohotels.com
Courtesy Crystal Cruises
Where: Crystal Cruises “Wonders Down Under,” Australia
Way to wellness: Run Down Under
You could also cruise your way to wellness with Crystal Cruises’ site-running excursions across Auckland. Venture beyond the boat for a 14k that’s part of the area’s annual “Around the Bays” race along Kohimarama and Mission Bay, one of Auckland’s best beaches. New Zealand Christmas trees, called Pohutukawa, will be the backdrop for your run and you’ll get a look at Bastion Point, where Auckland’s main Maori tribe, the Ngati Whatua, is based. When the ship docks in Sydney, guests will again have a chance to join a guided 8k run from the Royal Botanical Gardens to Hyde Park. Back aboard, sip all-inclusive fine wines and watch the Bass Strait go by. Cruise fares from $10,720 per person, crystalcruises.com
Courtesy Meadowood Napa Valley
Where: Meadowood Napa Valley, California
Way to wellness: Hike Wine Country
If you’re after a bit of nature in Napa, Meadowood Napa Valley has a hike on tap that will give guests a taste of the local terrain. The 4.5 mile Meadowood Loop hike varies in difficulty with heights rising to 600 feet, and lets hikers become one with the deer and Douglas fir trees with vineyard vistas in the distance. Personal training, slow flow vinyasa yoga and cycling classes are available daily, or opt for croquet to keep things interesting. Either way, end in time for the afternoon tastings of Napa Valley Wine and then retreat to your spacious lodge with room enough for a fireplace and a masseuse. Room rates from $575 a night, meadowood.com
Courtesy W Retreat and Spa
Where: The W Retreat and Spa – Vieques Island, Puerto Rico
Way to wellness: Energize exclusively
Keeping fit hip in true W fashion, The W Retreat and Spa – Vieques Island launched an exclusive “Fit With Tara Stiles” package with the yoga expert and celeb teacher offering access to a customized yoga, nutrition and wellness programs. A weekend FIT package includes treatments like organic body scrubs at resident Away Spa, two daily Strala yoga sessions, lunches you’ll prepare with the resort’s chef, and kayaking in one of the island’s three bioluminescent bays. Experience package from $609 a night, wvieques.com/FIT-RETREAT
Courtesy Sandos Caracol Eco Resort
Where: Sandos Caracol Eco Resort, Mexico
Way to wellness: Detox with Temazcal
There may be few better ways to detox and revitalize than through the Temazcal treatment, a Mayan experience that symbolizes rebirth. Once the word for sweat lodge in ancient Mesoamerica, Temazcal is a traditional Mayan therapy to purify your body, mind and soul. Set within the jungle, the treatment helps eliminate toxins and stimulate circulation through varying levels of heat and steam generated with volcanic rocks and medicinal herbs. In your private retreat at the eco-experience resort, there’s Jacuzzi tubs on the balcony overlooking the jungle that you’ll later trek or bike through before catching a Mayan fire of life ceremony around a clearing. Room rates from $206.83, sandos.com
Governments — at the local, state and the federal levels – are increasingly competing with charities for voluntary donations. Beyond their on-going appeals to philanthropic foundations, the rivalry has grown to include crowdfunding and other individual-donor focused campaigns. That’s a problem not just for nonprofits, but for all of us who depend on government to address common problems and shared needs.
Most Americans would readily agree that the more of us who engage with one another, the more who help one another with money and volunteer effort, the better off all of us are. That kind of engagement makes for better neighbors and better citizens, both of which are key ingredients of a good society.
But we have to ask ourselves if we want to substitute voluntary individual philanthropy for collective public responsibility. Do we trust the vagaries of people’s personal motivations and their sometimes impulsive altruism to begin to substitute for government in prioritizing problems and in gathering the resources to address them over the long haul?
Consider the ALS Association‘s wildly successful Ice Bucket Challenge, which has raised more than $115 million since its debut in July for the organization’s efforts to find a cure for Lou Gehrig’s disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) — about six times the Association’s total revenue from all other sources in 2014. The challenge also drove worldwide donations for ALS of an additional $100+ million. No wonder nonprofits and governments at all levels have become interested in crowdfunding and other social-media-driven techniques. Yet, for all its success, the Ice Bucket Challenge also highlights some real issues.
Few would begrudge the ALS Association a penny of those contributions. But one could be forgiven for wondering why the 2.4 million new donors to the organization (triple the number it could boast prior to the challenge) made the decision to contribute to that particular cause.
There are about 12 thousand people in the US suffering from ALS at any one time. Contrast that with the 5.2 million people who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. In the last comparable year for which IRS data is available, the Alzheimer’s Association raised seven times as much the ALS Association (though with the success of the Ice Bucket Challenge, that advantage assuredly has narrowed) for over 400 times as many ill people. While one can debate whether ALS or Alzheimer’s is the more pressing need, it is safe to say that the vast majority of “ice-bucketers” probably didn’t even consider that question or others of importance before deciding to dump and/or give.
That is a concern because it’s not as if there’s a limitless pool of charitable dollars. Giving has long remained relatively static in the US at about 2 percent of GDP. No matter what a fundraising campaign generates for a particular cause, it’s quite likely that those dollars are not added to — but instead come out of — the philanthropic pool.
There has been much speculation and some academic analysis about what led to the astounding success of this highly creative ALS crowdfunding campaign; peer-pressure and the narcissism of social networking have been cited beyond other factors common to philanthropy. Still, its viral scope is decidedly uncharacteristic and not easily replicated. Indeed, there’s every reason to believe the ALS Association will not do comparatively better than to retain the 25 percent of donors who typically return to gift a charity for a second year.
That fact begins to get to one of the major problems in crowdfunding charities and government. Do donors truly care about the issue or cause and, even assuming that they do at the time of the gift, can that be sustained over time? Beyond whimsy, what brings them to select a particular problem and program that they are funding in the moment?
Contribution-seekers understand that successful crowdfunding efforts depend in great part on good public relations, on media savvy. One study of support for scientific research – government’s share of funding for which has dropped by half since the 1960s – suggests that researchers with a large “fan base” (Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) get the lion’s share of crowdfunded dollars. Government officials recognize this and now are promoting crowdfunding efforts through “old-fashioned fundraising strategies” using social networks and other online channels. That might be fine for charities, but it raises real and important questions when it comes to public-sector initiatives.
Rather than truly serving the broader common good, such campaigns tend to appeal to the narrower self-interests and concerns of prospective donors. Instead of working to generate the resources to meet public needs and making policy decisions about how best to allocate public funds in the context of pressing priorities, governments increasingly are looking to promote those projects with the potential to catch people’s attention so they can get them funded voluntarily. Sometimes such initiatives are as parochial as a park in their neighborhood or a bike-lane serving its residents.
Unlike charities, public program funding ought not depend on ephemeral individual and foundation interests. That approach moves government away from coherent efforts on public problems and toward addressing social concerns as fragmented matters subject to people’s passing fancy. It makes it profoundly more difficult for government – and charities – to adequately support and advance the broad-based and continuing efforts necessary to improve our social, political and economic institutions.
As an example, joyfully over $350,000 and a new car were donated recently by 13,000+ crowdfunders to Detroit’s James Robertson to help in his heroic daily 21 mile roundtrip walking commute (plus additional miles by bus) while maintaining his perfect attendance record at a factory job. But as The Washington Post’s Michelle Singletary points out, this does nothing to address the lack of public transportation in low-income communities or the inability of working people to earn enough to own and maintain a car. To do so would require government policy changes and a commitment of significant public resources.
Crowdfunding and other individually-focused campaigns also tends to favor the economically secure. Over the past three decades, politicians have passed tax cut after tax cut benefiting the wealthy, effectively transferring money due to public coffers back to those least in need. And now government asks them not to pay those taxes, but instead to voluntarily consider whether or not they might wish to divert some of their charitable giving to meet a promoted cause, one that really should have been funded by the missing tax dollars – just as President Bush did with national parks.
That might be a fine way to fund “nice-to-haves” – if governments were meeting the basic needs of every American, maintaining our highways and bridges, providing quality public education in every community, safeguarding our food supply, and so on. But, of course, strapped for revenue, they aren’t. There is a long history of governments cutting funds and then turning to foundations and corporations for public support to try to meet obligations. Now, however, localities are turning as well to individuals, with ice buckets in mind and metaphorical tin cups in hand.
In spite of the fact that Mitt Romney and the libertarian Cato Institute both argue that “taxes are a form of charity,” most Americans know they decidedly are not. Voluntary and discretionary decisions by individuals, even if aggregated through crowdfunding, are not a substitute for deliberated and accountable policymaking or for appropriate revenue and allocation decisions by democratically-elected officials.
We all have a responsibility to promote the common good, and government is the principal mechanism through which we serve it. Let’s not substitute the arbitrary and sometimes passing nature of individual altruism for what is in fact a continuing shared obligation. We need to go beyond joyful tinkering at the margins, beyond joining friends for the light-heartedness of doing good in funding programs we like. Let’s not shirk the hard work of improving the responsiveness, performance and accountability of our government and the substantial sacrifice of providing it with the resources that all of us truly need.
Versions of this piece also appear in The Chronicle of Philanthropy and PhilanTopic.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
