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 Continue reading “Donor Advised Funds”
Category: Values
Nate Parker and The Issue of Rape
I’ve just finished reading several articles about the Nate Parker controversy relating to his having been accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 1999 when still a teenager and while being a student at Penn State ( one of the most thoughtful was one in Slate). Parker was cleared and his co- writer, Jean Celestin, who was then his classmate was also accused, convicted and given a 6 months sentence. He was eventually cleared upon appeal. After reading all these points of view I am left with a question: Is our reaction to Nate Parker, the actor, writer, director of the movie Birth of a Nation, a movie about a rebellion led by Nat Turner, meant to make a statement about the history of African Americans, based on his case or is it a product of our current heightened Continue reading “Nate Parker and The Issue of Rape”
“Survival of The Nicest”
I ran across “ Survival of the Nicest” (published by The Experiment in 2014) at least a year ago and then somehow forgot about it until I read about it again in a newsletter I receive. It’s not the kind of book one should forget, it speaks about how altruism could actually help human kind with its struggles. Its full subtitle is “How Altruism made us Humans & Why It Pays to Get Along.” You may not read this book, but regardless you ought to Continue reading ““Survival of The Nicest””
About a Child Predator
Rare is the person who does not cringe with horror at the sexual exploitation of children, and when the crime involves traveling to another country as well as trafficking it is particularly difficult, for me at least, to exercise compassion. Ronald Gerard Boyajian of Palos Verdes, California, a well to do section on the southern end of the Los Angeles basin, kept traveling to Cambodia to have sex with young girls. In 1995 he was convicted of sexually exploiting two girls—whom he had apparently bought in Cambodia from their mothers and grandmothers—he went there to have sex with even younger girls. He had been convicted Continue reading “About a Child Predator”