Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.Carl Jung

September 2016

  • The Women of South Sudan

    We all know that women are not treated well in many of the world’s countries, but I found this story about the status of women in South Sudan so poignant I have to share it. Women there as you might surmise are married as early as possible The government passed a law 8 years ago outlawing marriage before the age of 18, but the law is not enforced and in rural areas, it makes no sense to villagers. Wealth in measured in cows, and women bring cows as bride price. A woman is usually worth 20 to 40 cows, and an attractive woman who is seen as fertile, can bring up to 200 cows. There is no escape from this fate, only 7% of girls finish elementary school, 2% finish high school. As easily deduced education is (more…)

  • Hacked E-Mails, Leaks and Transparency

    Are we enabling hackers? Every time someone is hacked, not only is the fact known, but what is hacked is made public. Sure the gossipy part of us reads what Colin Powell had to say about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. But do we actually need to know what he said? Is that truly newsworthy? What cause has been advanced? The ratings of certain news outlets or the voyeuristic part of us? Same thing when Sony was hacked a while back. Careers were lost over it, but was it necessary for us to know what celebrity (more…)

  • Donor Advised Funds

    I had not heard of donor-advised funds until I read about them quite recently. They are funds similar to private foundations, where the donor can advise where his or her money is to go. Say you have a few millions, instead of donating them straight to a charity, you can give them to a DAF and instruct them where to disburse the money. Perhaps a family member has had cancer raising your interest in the disease and you would then specify the money is to go to a cancer charity, or as I understand it, a specific organization. These funds have recently come to attention because of an article written in the New York Review of Books stating that they interfere with (more…)

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