Ready, Fire, Aim! - Mihail's Public Blog

From Monday, December 02, 2002

The New York Times reviews the new exhibit of quilts from Gee's Bend, AL, a closed community that has produced some spectacular work:

The results, not incidentally, turn out to be some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced. Imagine Matisse and Klee (if you think I'm wildly exaggerating, see the show) arising not from rarefied Europe, but from the caramel soil of the rural South in the form of women, descendants of slaves when Gee's Bend was a plantation. These women, closely bound by family and custom (many Benders bear the slaveowner's name, Pettway), spent their precious spare time — while not rearing children, chopping wood, hauling water and plowing fields — splicing scraps of old cloth to make robust objects of amazingly refined, eccentric abstract designs.

From Thursday, December 05, 2002

A great annual tradition that benefits charities across the country according to this New York Times story (registration required):

Miracle Day started in 1984 in Canada at the suggestion of a broker in a CIBC branch, and it raised 123,891 Canadian dollars. Since then, it has raised $60 million.

This year, it got a plug from Stanley Druckenmiller, founder of Duquesne Capital Management and a former associate of George Soros, during a breakfast held by the Robin Hood Foundation, the philanthropy whose events are star-studded affairs that raise millions.

...Wall Street has learned that Miracle Day is painless philanthropy, too. "It's a great opportunity to take an activity we would be doing anyway on this day, which is trading securities, and do it in a way that benefits our clients and, ultimately, a lot of kids," said David F. Lamere, vice chairman of the Mellon Financial Corporation and president of its private wealth management group.

Friday, December 06, 2002

The WHO, in collaboration with UNAIDS, released the AIDS Epidemic Update, December 2002 last week. The estimated numbers involved are quite staggering:

There are 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS world-wide. 38.6 million of these are adults, 19.2 million are women and 3.2 million are children under the age of 15. Five million new infections with HIV occured in 2002 of which 4.2 million were adults and 2 million of them were women. A total of 3.1 million people died of HIV/AIDS related causes in 2002.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest number of HIV positive individuals (29.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS) followed by South and South-East Asia (6 million). In North America there are 980,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, 570,000 in Western Europe and 1.2 million in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The number of HIV positive individuals in Australia and New Zealand has remained constant since 2001 (15,000 people). In Latin America and the Caribbean the figure is 1.2 million and 440,000 respectively. East Asia and the Pacific have 1.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS. North Africa and the Middle East have 550,000 people living with HIV/AIDS.

From Saturday, December 07, 2002

A San Francisco Chroncile story on the new Koret Education Center at the SFMOMA:

"I found the idea of an education center at a museum quite surprising, as I've never seen something similar in Germany. It's impressive," Schull [a visitor from Germany] said of the handsome new 7,000-square-foot center, with its multimedia stations, screening room and sleek black leather couches. "I envy San Francisco for this. "

Nearly triple the size of SFMOMA's old education center on the main and lower levels, the new center, located on the second floor right off the galleries, offers a richer array of resources for visitors to learn more about the art just around the corner.

From Saturday, December 07, 2002

Peter Piot, executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, writes in the Washington Post:

Addressing the links between hunger, disease, lack of education and war is vital to long-term solutions for humanitarian emergencies. The world's most serious health problems, including HIV/AIDS, are deeply connected to the violence and poverty that shackle hundreds of millions of people around the world.

...Perhaps for the first time, southern Africa's famine brings the world face to face with the true scale of the consequences of AIDS. With 5 million new HIV infections globally this year alone, if we do not dramatically increase action against AIDS, we will be sowing the seeds of future humanitarian disasters -- and not only in southern Africa.

From Thursday, December 12, 2002

Marcos R. Lara, active in establishing free Wi-Fi access in New York, has mapped out Wi-Fi nodes across Manhattan by driving down almost every street and using a GPS device to create a vivid picture according to this New York Times story (registration required):

Mr. Lara's survey, described at www.publicinternetproject.org, also found a stark dividing line between Manhattan's haves and have-nots: 92 percent of network nodes were below 96th Street.

Andy Carvin, an editor at the Benton Foundation's Digital Divide Network (www.digitaldividenetwork.org), noted that even technology advocates involved at the street level do not always know the exact picture of usage. "Activists in the digital-divide community realize the power of mapping because it helps us fill in the blanks of what's happening where," Mr. Carvin said.

From Thursday, December 12, 2002

according to this Associated Press story in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required):

Leading mobile-phone manufacturers pledged Thursday to work with the U.N. Environment Program to try to ensure that old models are recycled or refurbished rather than simply dumped.

An estimated 380 million mobile phones were sold last year, and ownership is expected to soar in the coming months. Manufacturers say that in some developed countries, the average life span of a mobile phone is just a few months, although they also say there are no reliable figures on how many are thrown away.

From Friday, December 13, 2002

The latest on Ted Turner's 1997 $1B gift which was to have been paid over 10 years and his thoughts on his UN gift (which he spke of with "boyish glee") at a recent UN event according to this New York Times story (registration required):

Even though he has cut back on other philanthropy as a result of the steep decline in his wealth, Mr. Turner said today that he would make good on the $500 million still remaining on his pledge, but that he would spread it out over the next 10 years instead of 5.

...The United Nations Foundation and a sister group, the Better World Fund, are credited by officials here with a major role in cajoling and shaming Congress into releasing funds so the United States could pay its dues, which were more than $1 billion in arrears when Mr. Turner made his pledge.

...The foundation, through $581 million in grants over five years, has supported campaigns to eradicate polio and measles in Africa, protect the white rhinoceros in the Congo Republic and coral reefs worldwide, and set up girls' clubs in Bangladesh to educate young women as a way of slowing population growth, among other programs.

From Friday, December 13, 2002

A BusinessWeek cover story on the new face of philanthropy, an era who's start is defined as Ted Turner's 1997 $1B gift to the UN:

Carnegie would surely have given an approving nod to the latest generation of philanthropists. Not since the Gilded Age, when harsh overlords such as Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller Sr. put millions of their dollars toward good works, has philanthropy been as bold and ambitious. The spectacular late-1990s runup in the stock market created a generation of newly super-rich executives and entrepreneurs worth hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars. Even after the sharp decline in the market, the ranks of the very wealthy have never been stronger--and many are now working almost as hard at giving their fortunes away as they did at amassing them. Since 1990, charitable donations by individuals have grown by half, from $110 billion to $164 billion in 2001. By harking back to the individualistic style of giving practiced by Carnegie, these donors are ushering in a new era of philanthropy.

From Monday, December 16, 2002

The owners of the Anniston Star, a small NE Alabama newspaper with a circulation of 28,000, are planning a complex maneuver to ensure its long-term independence and local ownership. Soon the newspaper will be owned by a nonprofit foundation that is being set up to fund a training institute for journalists and to avoid the newspaper's consolidation into one of the mega-media companies according to this New York Times story (registration required):

Mr. Ayers, 67, said he had no interest in selling The Star and three smaller newspapers owned by the Consolidated Publishing Company. The company is jointly owned by Mr. Ayers and his sister, Elise Ayers Sanguinetti.

He said the $50 million he might get for selling his share would be "more money than I could spend or give away in a lifetime."

"And it wouldn't be much fun," he said.

From Sunday, December 22, 2002

The New York Times points readers to a site that rates various charities based on what their cost of fundraising (should be less than 35%) or how much of a reserve they have...that is how much they need the money, which doesn't make sense completely since a well run organization will have built up its reserves to weather an economic downturn and should not be penalized for that although it is good for donors to be aware of that.

Baby boomers aren't the most generous generation, but they're not bad. Statistics from Independent Sector, an association of nonprofit groups in Washington, show that people aged 40 to 49 gave, on average, $1,827 in 2000, the most recent numbers available. That's a bit more than the amount from younger age groups, but not as much as from 50- to 64-year-olds, a mix of boomers and people who were born just before and during World War II. They gave $1,912, on average.

But boomers are also pressed for time, or at least we complain that we are. So we often give without checking to see if the charity is worthy of our money. Luckily, there are organizations that do the research for us, and the one I found easiest to use is the Charity Rating Guide and Watchdog Report from the American Institute of Philanthropy in Chicago (www.charitywatch.org; 773 529-2300).

From Sunday, December 22, 2002

This year give your old gadgets to a charity that may be able to put them to good use according to this New York Times story (registration required). Try the following for PCs www.cristina.org or Donate a Phone at www.donateaphone.org and CollectiveGood at www.collectivegood.com for used cellphones.

The National Recycling Coalition says experts have predicted that nearly 500 million personal computers would become outdated between 1997 and 2007. Yet only about 5 percent of discarded PC's are being donated to charities or nonprofit groups, according to Dataquest, the market research arm of Gartner Inc. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 80 percent of discarded computer components will end up in landfills. And 130 million cellphones are expected to be discarded by 2005, according to Inform, an environmental group based in New York City.

To find a list of groups that recycle electronics or are looking for donations, check the E.P.A.'s Web site, www.epa.gov, or the site of the National Recycling Coalition at www.nrc-recycle.org. It lets people search by ZIP code for groups and businesses that accept old equipment.

From Monday, December 30, 2002

According to this New York Times story (registration required), this nonprofit's windfall will mean $6-7M in interest nearly doubling its budget. Wish one of the nonprofits I'm involved with would have such luck.

A low-profile arts advocacy group is pondering the delightful question of what to do with a sudden windfall of $120 million.

Americans for the Arts, which helps local arts councils lobby for money and support, received the money in November from the philanthropist Ruth Lilly. Ms. Lilly also made a comparable gift to Poetry magazine.

From Friday, January 03, 2003

Ecuador is making it online slowly with some of the aid organizations even getting involved according to this New York Times story (registration required):

Help may also come from the United Nations, which on Dec. 9 began an Internet initiative in Esmeraldas, one of Ecuador's most impoverished provinces. The project will be run by workers from the United Nations Volunteers and financed by the Ecuadorean government, the World Bank and Japan's International Cooperation Agency, offering "one-stop offices" where fishermen, artisans and other small-business owners can use the Web to find new markets.

In a country where the average person earns a mere $1,460 per year thanks to eBay a small group of Ecuadoreans, usually with ties to the US, are even finding it possible to become online entrepreneurs.

Mr. Cooper, who has lived in Quito with his Ecuadorean wife, Eulalia, for 23 years, bargained the price from $12 to $10, purchased the Navajo-style floor runner and lit a cigarette to celebrate: The rug will likely fetch $30 or more at auction on eBay, where he sells tapestries, baskets and religious relics at substantial markups. Mr. Cooper, who devotes 15 hours a week to buying, listing and shipping eBay items, clears roughly $1,300 a month from his online business, and up to $2,500 each November and December.

From Monday, January 13, 2003

The MacArthur Foundation is planning to award some $42 million in special grants including $14 million to NPR, the largest gift it has received, thanks to a reserve fund it set up similar to what a few other foundations such as the Ford Foundation have according to this New York Times story (registration required):

The MacArthur Foundation created a reserve fund in 1999 to help offset declines in its endowment, which has fallen about 13 percent since the stock market began losing steam in early 2000. The $30 million reserve has helped the foundation continue making grants, including some outside its budget, Mr. Fanton said.

...The MacArthur Foundation is best known for its MacArthur Fellows grants, commonly called "genius" grants. But those account for just 7 or 8 percent of its grants, totaling $175 million a year on average, and the foundation would like to move out of their shadow.

From Wednesday, January 15, 2003

Harvard joins the distance learning ranks as technology improves and certain upstarts gain traction according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required). ""The world is changing whether we like it or not," says James H. Ware, the dean for academic affairs at Harvard's School of Public Health."

Indeed, it has been hard for mainstream academe to ignore stories like Apollo Group Inc., the parent of University of Phoenix, which counts 57,000 students in its online program (and 84,300 more in physical classrooms). Apollo, whose stock is up 500% since January 2000, credits its success on the convenience it offers adults who need a diploma to improve their job prospects.

"The No. 1 reason people take this way of learning is convenience," says Michael P. Lambert, executive director of the Distance Education and Training Council, an accrediting body for distance-learning institutions. Mr. Lambert estimates that 2.5 million U.S. students took online courses for credit last year.

From Thursday, January 16, 2003

Here's exactly what Larry Summers and the Dean of the Kenney School at Harvard had to say according to this Harvard Gazette story. When I'd met with Summers right after his tenure as Harvard President had begun I had suggested that Harvard do something on a large scale such as raising a billion dollars for education or for curing AIDS...that that would be something my generation could get behind not throwing more money into the blackhole that is Harvard's $18B or so endowment. So I'm especially glad to see the direction he is taking Harvard. Excellent!

"Enabling top students to come to Harvard to prepare for careers in public service or academic fields is a top priority," said Summers. "It has long been true at Harvard College that no talented student is prevented from coming here because of an inability to pay. The same should be true of the most able students who come to Harvard to be scholars, doctors, architects, or teachers."

"This initiative could not come at a better time," said Joseph S. Nye Jr., dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "The world situation demands the best minds attacking complex issues with expertise and sound judgment, and these programs will help us to attract and train top talent. President Summers said when he arrived that he wanted to increase support for public service, and these programs represent important progress toward that goal."

posted by Mihail at 7:22 PM Comments (0) (link)

Harvard to provide loans, scholarships for students into Public Service

I was hoping that Harvard's new president, Larry Summers, who was formerly the Treasury Secretary and the Chief Economist at the World Bank, would start to aggressively take Harvard into areas such as education and public service. According to a New York Times story (registration required):

In a new program to encourage graduate students to enter public service, Harvard University plans to give $14 million in "presidential scholarships" over the next three years to 200 to 300 graduate students interested in public service or research careers.

It will also offer below-market-rate loans to all 12,000 of its graduate and professional students — including those from outside the United States — and solicit donations for a new universitywide fund to support students who enter less lucrative public-interest careers.

From Saturday, January 18, 2003

From the plea for the New York Times Neediest Cases Fund which is a $1 million behind in donations, in today's New York Times (registration required):

If I had a million dollars" is a musing usually followed by a wish list of luxuries, like a house, car, vacations and jewels. But a million dollars can go further than that. A million dollars could provide nearly 400,000 meals for poor children or hungry elderly people. A million dollars could save 800 families from being evicted for one month, feed them and provide job training for their breadwinners.

In the hands of agencies that help New York's neediest, a million dollars could buy warm coats for 55,000 kids who outgrew last year's coat as the coldest spell of the season arrived. A million dollars could provide 2,500 medical and dental exams or send 3,000 disadvantaged young people to camp in the summer, keeping them off the streets and exposing them to a healthy environment and a world of possibilities.

From Tuesday, January 21, 2003

Funded with grants from the National Science Foundation, 74-year-old Dave Hughes has set up wireless connections "in small towns, an Indian reservation, the Wisconsin woods, the Mongolian steppes and Puerto Rican jungles. His pioneering in "packet radio" put Mr. Hughes far ahead of the current explosion in the wireless Internet," according to this Wall Street Journal story (subscription required).

"Col. Dave Hughes, USA, Ret., is the only character who has popped up in the plot every time I've investigated the roots of a technology revolution," futurist author Howard Rheingold wrote in "Smart Mobs," his 2002 book about the sociology of constant Internet connectivity.

...These days, Mr. Hughes is helping Sherpas in Nepal set up wireless Internet connections, including one for a cybercafe at the Mount Everest base camp. Soon climbers will check e-mail at 18,000 feet before trying to reach the top of the world.

From Tuesday, January 21, 2003

If the Bush administration's economic plan goes thru, it would increase by 50 percent or more the deductions small-business owners can take right away on SUVs according to this New York Times story (registration required). The ramifications of the plan were first reported in the Detroit Times and come just as there's growing anti-SUV sentiment in the country.

The plan would mean small businesses could immediately deduct the entire price of S.U.V.'s like the Hummer H2, the Lincoln Navigator and the Toyota Land Cruiser, even if the vehicles were loaded with every available option. Or a business owner, taking full advantage, could buy a BMW X5 sport utility vehicle for a few hundred dollars more than a Pontiac Bonneville sedan, after the immediate tax deductions were factored in.

...The proposal "makes a glitch in the tax code much worse and it benefits rich businessmen who want to buy massive S.U.V.'s," said Aileen Roder, program director for Taxpayers for Common Sense. "In essence we're buying these vehicles for these businesses."