Here’s the thing about poverty– it’s terrible, traumatic, scarring, bad for the health, reduces hopes for the future and life expectancy considerably.   Like the intractable and uncomfortable subjects of Death, Religion and Politics, it is one of those things we are advised not to discuss in polite society.

Poor people in the US have TVs, cellphones, air-conditioners.  Yes, some of them do. Most people who are not poor also have these things.  I’m not judging, just saying.

My mind is flipping around a bit today, I just sat through a webinar about how to retain donors to a nonprofit cause.   It takes, among other things, a constant flow of gratitude, which comes naturally enough when someone is moved enough to open their wallet that your idea might move forward into the world.   Did you know that 70% of first time donors do not donate a second time?   Or that a 10% increase in donor retention increases revenues by up to 50%?   Neither did I.  

It was suggested by one of the experts in the webinar that a nonprofit consider hiring a special consultant to coordinate the thanking and stroking of donors.   We will get on that right away, once we raise some funds to pay that professional.

Here is a free piece of advice:  if you want to help the children of the poor, do not be poor yourself.  Poor people, let’s put it this way, are not as credible as billionaires who can buy teams of marketing geniuses to make them mayor of any city they fancy.

Here’s another piece of disjointed opinion:  don’t get upset by what you hear in the media.   If you hear, say, an interview by a reporter you respect (Warren Olney) of an ideologue like Jim DeMint, current president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, in which DeMint repeatedly calls Obamacare the most destructive legislation in American history, and the journalist never asks for any clarification of the grounds for this rather incendiary assertion, don’t think too hard about it.

Perhaps it was one of the conditions for the President of the Heritage Foundation to come on the show:  absolutely no requests for clarification of any statements.  It is clear that right wing types are desperate that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) not be implemented, lest it succeed in saving consumers of health care a lot of money and become widely popular, like Social Security and Medicare.

Though not the plan many would have hoped for, it appears more and more clearly to have been the best Obama could do, as seen by the determination of the right to defeat its implementation by any means necessary.   It has personally saved me about $700 over two years, ACA-mandated rebates from the outfit that gave its CEO a 72 million dollar golden parachute when Obamacare was approved.

Perhaps, if you qualify for low-cost NY State Health insurance that costs a full 25% of the maximum allowable income to qualify, you should be happy and just shut the hell up.  You know why?  Because truly, and sincerely, and from the bottom of their hearts, anyone not effected by it does not care.

Live long, prosper, have a nice day.