A great presidential Commercial - Classic

 Last night I had this dream for a presidential commercial. This was the narration. "Things aren’t how they used to be. Here is a picture in black and white that proves it. Today there are many pressing issues for the next president; here is a picture of a steaming teapot to represent pressure. Kids today aren’t thinking about the future. Here is a picture of a kid who is playing while wearing a towel on his head. He isn’t pretending to be a bad guy; he is just playing. This is the new world. People today still try to propel things in weird ways. Here are pictures of people using spoons to launch cotton balls. This election is going to be important. Here is a picture of a string of pearls swaying with clock sounds to convey the urgency. Make sure you vote for someone who doesn't think hats make people evil."

Drag queens can swim!

Last night I dreamt that I went to a gay bar with an indoor pool where it was encouraged for the drag queens to swim with their wigs on. How those wigs stayed on while swimming was the magic of dreams. And the makeup never looked wet. I want to go to this place.

Ted Cruz got a lecture for Christmas

 Uh, I had a dream I was Ted Cruz's secret Santa for Christmas. Instead if a gift I gave him a lecture about poverty+healthcare and a lump of coal. I really don't understand my dreams. I also was walking barefoot all over Pocatello looking to rent VHSs.

The Bones Dream

 I had a dream last night that Dr. Brennan (Bones) and I were researching some sort of cult. I had to lecture her on the ethics in ethnography. I think Italy have been the "Raw Bar" with oysters and clams last night that did me in.

Disney Luggage, Doctor Who & My Little Pony crossovers

 Strange dream of the night: I was on a trip to some sort of villa and my parents were there and had purchased like 100 dollars of Disney themed luggage. Each piece was a dollar so they thought it was a good investment. 

There were kids suitcases, the roller backpacks, and duffel bags. I had no idea why they had purchased this weird stuff. 

Then, my mom went to McDonalds and brought me back a Doctor Who themed happy meal. These meals existed for a limited time because there was a convention in town. 

Then we went to see a My Little Pony Doctor Who crossover cartoon, and the animation was amazing. It looked live-action! Then there was something about ponies. The end.

Job Search Websites I frequent

http://www.idealist.org
http://www.careerbuilder.com
http://www.indeed.com 
http://www.monster.com
http://www.minnesotanonprofits.org/jobs
http://www.tommanatosjobs.com/
http://www.craigslist.org

Time Travel

So, in addition to lots of applying for jobs, being unemployed has given me time to watch Doctor Who. I'm really getting into the show. I just watched "Beware the Weeping Angel" and it has given me some study questions to ponder while I clean the house. 1. If I could go back in time, what would I tell myself? Would I tell myself to do anything differently? 2. In the future, what kind of life do I want to have lived so I have a story to tell? 3. What kind of a world do I want to live in, in the future, and what should I do now to make that world a reality? The other interesting thing I have been thinking about from watching the show is how differently people of African descent's experience is in other countries. I'm sure racism exists in the London of the future. It is because of America's history that people of color have a different experience. I hope the work I do helps peoples in our country have a more positive future. For example, on Doctor Who, I didn't see the same segregation and I see on TV here. We know that after the Civil War, there was a migration to the North from former slaves, and still today we have high concentration of minorities in neighborhoods. Although not always, these neighborhoods also house a concentration of people living in poverty. This is not portrayed on the show, even when the 2 part episode was about the 1930s New York City. People of African descent are regularly shown as leaders and heroes. I love this. It doesn't recognize the experience of African-Americans. I love that they are just people who don't have any extra challenges because of history and are accepted as equals without question. I wish that were reality, but it hasn't been in the places I have lived. Time travel is also no reality, which is what I'm writing to think through. To question number one, I don't know if I have any advice for my past self. Maybe I do. Last night my roommate and I were discussing women in STEM programs. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math. I was looking through my old transcripts as part of reviewing myself for job applications. I can see where I was very good at math, and it wasn't until becoming a sophomore or junior in high school, I started spending my time on other things. I'm glad I studied art in college, but I wish I had been encouraged to be even better at math and science. I didn't go to Girl Scouts because I was encouraged to only do LDS church sponsored activities. I learned how to cross stitch, cook, do laundry, play music, and tend children. The church sponsored activities for young women didn't include science fairs, or even activities like go-cart racing. They were done, but they were only for the boys. I guess I would go back in time and ask my parents to encourage me to develop my STEM skills more, and to encourage me to take pride as a young woman who excelled in math. The other advice I would have for myself is to be more engaged in team activities. I loved to read, and was always very independent. I scored in the 90th percentile for language and reading on my ACTs. However, I feel like if I had been exposed to more group activities like sports, or engineering games, I would be better prepared to manage other people and not let their mistakes bother me. I do let others mistakes bother me when I shouldn't. I have to consciously plan on making sure to let other people fail by my standards but succeed at their own. If I did come back in time and talk to myself, I'd like to be able to let me know that the work I'm doing is making a difference. I would like the encouragement and historical context to know that what we did in politics in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Vermont, and even in Idaho made a better world. It is hard to imagine what didn't happen. Negative talk is reserved for the future and about actions to prevent future outcomes, like regulating guns and not having thousands of gun-related deaths each year. I think as organizers we forget to celebrate our impact. Non-profit work, especially foundation work, spends significant time celebrating success and impact, but politics doesn't. In politics, we always have the next battle to attend to. If I could time travel, someday I hope I can come back and say, "You did the right thing, Diana. You did a good job." I'm not sure I'm closer to knowing just what kind of world I want to live in right now, but I'll dwell on it some more and get back to you.

Robot Soldiers, or Soldier Robots?

You would THINK this would pacify some of my fears about the robot apocalypse. Instead, it makes me even more scared that the robots will learn to control us. I'm not talking Matrix stuff. I'm talking Cleopatra 2525 stuff. Remember that show? I remember watching it late at night while I was studying. That was back when I lived Los Angeles. The clothing those chicks wore was pretty hot. Are we the man or the machine?

Yes or Yes? Which opportunity is better?

So, I have two job opportunities for my short-term future.

1. A position at the city housing office as a secretary. The job would start Monday, the 21st and go through mid-Febrary 2012 - just in time for even more campaign jobs to kick up.

Positives: Twice as much money as I make now, A chance to interact with local and federal housing policies, practice new skills, not have to think so much, get to stick around for "science cafes"
Negatives: strong commitment (I couldn't leave town), full-time leaves less time to spend working on grad school applications and career-oriented work, kind of monotonous work

2. Changing to part-time work at the position I have now.
Positives: make the same amount of money but work half the time, get to complete some projects I have been working toward, I love the work, can take another temp part-time job to supplement income, at-will employment (low commitment), time to work on grad-school applications and apply for career jobs, don't have to move during the winter (yay!), will be available to make Science Cafe happen!
negatives: doing the same old thing, not learning anything too new, still in Dubuque.

Money is not the most important part. I live on so little as it is. But I wouldn't be getting ahead in the short term. Money is important when I am ready to move to Madison and get my car fixed sooner. If I did have money, I could pay off my car right away - which would get rid of a bill which frees up money to pay toward student loans sooner, and leaves me even more free later to work for less pay - if necessary.

I dunno what I want to do. I think I should sleep on it. I am also soliciting advice from friends. Please chime in if you have an obvious choice you would make.

Gah! Can't anyone think around here?

I just need an audience that won’t judge me for my outright bitchiness. 

So these grad students! They made up this survey for the community. It is 20 questions long and asks really generic questions, to a point where it is not actually useful. I think between being inexperienced, is part of their flaw, but it is also the construction of the research project.

Here is the dumbest part. Their projects are set up to start with the community proposal on what we wanted researched. That’s good. But then they spent the last semester deciding what data to use – that is great except they didn’t do the literature review first to know what kind of data to look at.  So, now, in this survey, because they don’t understand how poverty actually shows itself, they pulled a bunch of stuff that is limited. For example, they look at income and consumption utility shut offs -  which is great at measuring trends, but because they got caught up in the past data when they created their survey, they’ve only identified emergency service providers that treat poverty, and left off service providers that prevent poverty. The goal we gave them is to create a way to measure regularly and predict outcomes based on prevention.

But the way they’ve selected survey participants is opportunistic and because they don’t have a system for deciding who should be a part of a regular survey which means it isn’t replicable. If it isn’t replicable, it isn’t sustainable, and it isn’t useful.

And they need to start next week if they are going to meet their deadlines. Suddenly, I’m the bureaucracy. It feels weird to be on this side of things.

This has me so pissed, off I’m going for a walk.

Maybe once I’ve calmed down I can think of how to logically argue with my boss why we need to slow down and make this a teaching moment for the students.

Fear

I'm feeling kind of down on myself tonight. I went to a fantastic event with amazing people and ideas shared. It was the Women's Giving Circle annual dinner where they talked about their work in the past year raising and granting money to local non-profits who do amazing work. But I'm always a downer so there were two things that annoyed me. While I loved so much of the presentation, the bad stuff is sticking more.

The first thing that was super annoying was when one of the board members of the Multi-cultural Family Center referred to Africa as a country. I know the kid was 17, but that was super lame. Second, I don't believe in art therapy. I understand healing from trauma, I understand coming to terms with emotions, and I understand the value of DOING SOMETHING, but I don't think arts and crafts really is that deep. I have never been shown empirical evidence that it works better than any other therapy. That annoyance stuck with me.

I also got scared. My co-worker did this amazing presentation about inspired giving. I very much related to her ideas. I too am too often obsessed with finding that perfect thing I am good at. But really we each are perfect at being who we are. But sometimes who we are isn't so clear. I know I'm passionate, but I am also impatient with systems change. I'm not good at math (accounting), I'm not good at writing, and I'm not good at influencing people. I have spent the last year of my life doing something I am passionate about, but I can't tell if I'm good at it or just doing it as well as anyone else is.

I'm also a bit jealous. I've not done international work, which I would like to do. My co-workers have. But I don't see any way that this will be fiscally possible for me anytime soon. I could have done it in college, but I was too busy working and being involved locally. I say I want to go get a masters degree, but I don't write well, and the cost is prohibitive. I'm scared I took this job here and now I'm economically stuck - all because I'm too idealist and not practical enough. I have learned how valuable public policy is because I keep bumping up into it when I work on things at my job, however this point brings me back to my option of using electoral politics (something I know and am pretty good at) back as an option as a job. I need to have leaders elected who will be friendly to the policy changes I would like to see. Then I look at the jobs and they are either in places I may not want to live, or if I took one of them, would have to put grad school off. Why can't elections be in August and be over before school starts? That would make the choices easier.

I would feel selfish if I got on a campaign, especially at a regional director position, and then have to leave in August. I would have to withhold this goal from them to even get a position - which is like lying to them or a candidate.

I just don't know what I want to do. I'm also afraid if I do find a job that I do get I learn to hate. I don't want to do something too repetitive, but I'm not a good enough writer to get one of the jobs where I could move around more in the topics I research and want to help work on.

I come back to it is all fear. I fear the unknown. I fear not being good enough. I fear being insolvent. I fear making a bad decision.

One thing I also know I am good at, from stories my parent tell me, is that I make the right decision. But right now I don't know what that decision is, and I"m scared.

Tis' the season, I guess.

The Point of Privilege

I start with "I love my job." I get to think about structural poverty more than probably anyone else in the city. But at the same time, I often get frustrated because I see systems of discrimination and systems that propel income inequality and because I see them and can't stop them, I feel I am sometimes allowing for the system that I don't agree with.
   An example is the idea of an internship academy. I love the idea that younger people are being taught how to make the most of their internship experience and given some leadership skills to help them excel. However, the way in which these students are selected is by referral and good grades. This means the system is set up to reward those who already are succeeding, instead of helping those who need more attention to get to a similar position. I don't like this at all. With something as simple as a change in a selection policy, we could be doing better. But the argument is that it is easier to do it this way, and policy change demands debate which can potentially dissolve a group that could do more good by staying solvent. It is easier to stay the same than increase the impact.

I am assisting with a group who has a substantial amount of money to spend that could go either way. At this time, there is great opportunity if we keep our eye on the goal economic equity. Economic equity is not the same as economic equality, but can work towards the same goals concurrently. To minimize the economic inequality of a region makes the place more solvent and makes it easier for economic development to have the goal of making all people's lives better, not just the few at the top by supplying labor.

I keep thinking back to the idea of fairness. "The doctrine of fairness asks: If there must be some or even considerable inequality in society, why not seek a society where problems such as poverty are distributed randomly, rather than being disproportionately located in specific populations such as African Americans and women?" The doctrine of fairness means that there is equality of opportunity. It does not mean we shouldn't really be working for equality, but it is a first goal that policy should think toward if they are going to make measurable progress.

As the program has this available privilege of spending money (which really the whole foundation model does) their responsibility should be taken even more seriously. If we are not the ones to model responsible behavior, who is? Who will use their privilege for good if us.

When I see internal policies or behaviors that consent to inequality - whether framed as just bad customer service or racism - I become even more impassioned and frustrated when I have no outlet for changing things. I can't change an individual's behavior, but I have learned from some empirical studies that if you make the right behavior easier than the bad one, people will chose to be good. Usually. So that is our task. To make the right decision easy and the wrong decisions hard through systems. If I have accomplished anything this last year, I hope that a legacy of "right" is what I leave behind.

Writing to right

I've had a bad day. Well, not really. I've been in a bad mood despite having a reasonably good day. I get excited reading through all the jobs I am qualified for and would enjoy doing, but I am too tired at the end of the day to apply for any of them. My resume is in order, but writing the cover letter, and tweeking the resume for each job description to highlight why I would be good at that job is very tiring. I am not scared I won't have a job come November. I know I have rent covered for Nov, and December, but I don't know what I am going to be doing for Christmas because traveling back to Idaho may not be on my agenda since I may be moving across the country, either north, south, east or west. Being in the midwest means there are only more directions I could go. Deciding what jobs I could really be happy to do is also hard. Lots of non-profits have great missions I agree with, but few really speak to me. And which ones have the option for graduate school? It is all mixed up in my head as to my future, but I'm sure I'm going to make the right choice. Being young, with no major bills, having everything that fits in my car, and being free to move wherever opportunity may take me is just as scary as having no options. I wish I could just find the right job in Wisconsin. That would be the easiest choice. Milwaukee or Madison is where I need to go. Minneapolis is up there too, but I doubt I fit the Humphrey Institute as well as I would like. I want to go where I can be an anthropologist, where I can use my thinking, but have clear enough job duties that I can accomplish something tangible. My job now is good work, but it isn't always easy to tell what a good day is. In other jobs, with clearer objectives, it is so much easier.

Eating grapes has made me have a sugar high. Or I may be allergic to them and this is my body going into some sort of shock. Just writing this makes me feel better. Not an insightful blog post, but just something so I don't have to look at the last story about robots anymore.

Robot trading blamed for wild swings in markets | PRI.ORG

Robot trading blamed for wild swings in markets | PRI.ORG

"Markets opened lower this morning after stocks plummeted yesterday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 400 points and S&P closed down sharply. This is just the latest in a series of wild swings in financial markets in recent weeks."

I think it is part of the robots' evil plans. First they tank the economy. That, of course, makes people insecure, which is dangerous. Then those people riot and commit crimes against other people, which is the real warfare the robots have against humans.

It is so much easier to get them to kill each other than to do it yourself.

Good plan, robots... I've got my eyes on you.

The Earned Income Tax Credit and the Lottery

I don't enjoy gambling. I live in a town with several casinos and don't really have any interest in using them for gambling. I've never even bought a lottery ticket before. Maybe a scratch game once or twice, but never a lottery ticket.  Until this week.

It started as a joke. The odds are incredible, but for 48 million dollars, I thought, "why not this once" I've read about how for some people in poverty, playing the lottery is a type of remittance. While it is a small amount to pay out regularly, the sudden infusion of cash ($50-$200) is how they pay for those things they need irregularlly - like new clothes, technology upgrades, and stocking up on personal items or entertainment devices.

Buying the lottery ticket didn't start as a savings plan; it was entertainment. I was surprised by the amount of entertainment that it gave me. It was a tangible thing , this piece of paper, that induced dreams. [The only other piece of paper that inspires such dreams is my voting ballot.] What would I do with 48 million dollars? Daring to dream that big is a place far from the economic reality of my life, and of anybody's life. I spent time dreaming aloud, something that doesn't get to happen often for people trapped in the tyranny of the moment that is poverty.

Then today, I was reading up on current US policies related to asset building and it reminded me about the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).

"Despite the curtailed policy agenda, the Fiscal Year 2012 budget includes a set of policies and proposals that allocate $519 billion in resources to asset-building activities. An additional $65 billion in funding for the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, while not explicitly asset building programs, presents resources that individuals and families can devote to saving."


There is this continuing question in the EITC funders world [and middle-class sensibilities] of why people don't always use their EITC for its intended purpose of family asset building. There is evidence many many families use it to pay off debts - something which is responsible, but that still isn't asset building for the future. Then it dawned on me.  To people living on under $12,000 a year, their tax return is like winning the lottery.

When you think about what you are going to do with your tax return, you dream. You dream of the things which you know are out of reach on a regular basis. You plan on buying cars, televisions, movies, entertainment, restaurant food, vacations, ect. ect. Five-thousand dollars in one lump sum might as well be a million dollars. People in poverty often get unfairly judged for this behavior and called "irresponsible spenders."

While I could imagination how to split up my $48 million dollars so I could live modestly for a lifetime, I still dreamed of what $$ could do that I can't do now. It was a lot of fun.

Take that fun away by talking about asset building won't persuade people to change their behavior. What we need to do is develop a positive dream of the possibility of a secure life. We as a society, and as social service agencies, don't always give people a goal of what to be, only of what NOT to be.

With a new American Dream, maybe then tax returns won't be treated like we won the lottery.