Jan 29, 2008
Jan 25, 2008
Jan 22, 2008
lambs for school
As some of you may know, I once saved a lamb from drowning. It was epic. You, instead of wading into the Atlantic to grab one, can help educate a Burkinabe girl by buying her one. Pretty unrelated, except that both involve sheep and Africa. Read on:
A description of the program from my sister, who spent 3 years in Burkina Faso (and so knows):
"This organization [Education for 900 Rural Girls in Burkina Faso] buys a young girl a lamb and pays for the first year of school materials. The girl raises the lamb, sells the sheep, and uses that money for her school supplies the following year. The support goes to girls whose parents would/could not otherwise pay to educate them. I think it is really creative, makes sense in the local context, and seems to work! This organization has entered into a fundraising contest, wherein the organization that gets the most INDIVIDUAL donations will receive $50 000.
"I am going to donate the minimum, $10. I know you have already done your donating for the year, but I thought you might consider this! The details are below."
And here are the details, from the manager of the project:
"... [The Lambs for School Project, supported by Friends of Burkina Faso, (FBF)] pay a young girl's school fees for her 1st year of primary school and provide her family with funds (roughly $45) to buy a lamb to raise and use as an income source to support the young girl's subsequent years of primary, middle and senior high school education. Burkina Faso ranks 176 out of 177 on the Human Development Index (2nd only to Sierra Leone) and the adult literacy rate among women is ~15%. Sobering facts indeed but our project has been doing its part to provide an education for many young girls since 2002. To date, we have supported 1200 young girls to get a primary and middle school education and they have done well! We hope to support 900 more with your help!
That's it, back to me. Here is the direct weblink for donating: http://givingchallenge.globalgiving.com/dy/registry/ag.html?cmd=prevfund®id=683&RF=fundraiserwidget683 . Off you go, ye lads and lassies.
. . .
A description of the program from my sister, who spent 3 years in Burkina Faso (and so knows):
"This organization [Education for 900 Rural Girls in Burkina Faso] buys a young girl a lamb and pays for the first year of school materials. The girl raises the lamb, sells the sheep, and uses that money for her school supplies the following year. The support goes to girls whose parents would/could not otherwise pay to educate them. I think it is really creative, makes sense in the local context, and seems to work! This organization has entered into a fundraising contest, wherein the organization that gets the most INDIVIDUAL donations will receive $50 000.
"I am going to donate the minimum, $10. I know you have already done your donating for the year, but I thought you might consider this! The details are below."
And here are the details, from the manager of the project:
"... [The Lambs for School Project, supported by Friends of Burkina Faso, (FBF)] pay a young girl's school fees for her 1st year of primary school and provide her family with funds (roughly $45) to buy a lamb to raise and use as an income source to support the young girl's subsequent years of primary, middle and senior high school education. Burkina Faso ranks 176 out of 177 on the Human Development Index (2nd only to Sierra Leone) and the adult literacy rate among women is ~15%. Sobering facts indeed but our project has been doing its part to provide an education for many young girls since 2002. To date, we have supported 1200 young girls to get a primary and middle school education and they have done well! We hope to support 900 more with your help!
"FBF is participating in [the] America's Giving Challenge, funded by the Case Foundation (aka Steve Case [of AOL/Time Warner fame]). If we are among the top 4 international charities to generate the highest number of unique/individual donors (not the most amount of money nor the greatest number of donations in total), we will win $50,000 for the Lambs For School Project. Our overall funding goal is $72,000 (to support 13 years of education for each of 900 girls: that's $80 per girl for 13 years of schooling). Winning the $50,000 would get us very close to reaching our goal in a matter of weeks instead of years!
"[We have been rising in the running and as of a few days ago, were in 5th place.] We need at least 125 individual donations (of $10 each) to ensure that we'll be in at least 4th place on January 31 when the contest ends..."... I know that there are many causes as worthwhile as ours--but if each of you donates $10 today, you stand to have a 5000% return on your investment. $10 from each of you means $50,000 for 13 years of education of 900 girls. That is one awesome way to stretch your money!
"The competition ends on January 31 (just [9] days away!) To donate, please go to the Friends of Burkina Faso web site ( http://fbf.tamu.edu/) On the opening page, you will see links to donating to this project.
"To learn more about the Lambs for School project, please read our most recent edition (page 10) of our organizational newsletter, the Burkina Connection , available on our web site. ...
"Thanks in advance for your help--your support will mean a lot to the young girls in northern Burkina for whom your, and our, support will provide the only opportunity they will have at an education.
That's it, back to me. Here is the direct weblink for donating: http://givingchallenge.globalgi
. . .
Jan 16, 2008
and a slight chance of fedora
This morning, I woke up, stepped outside to water the pet, saw that overnight my street had received a very slight dusting of snow, and this:
It snowed a hat.
. . .
It snowed a hat.. . .
Jan 8, 2008
power suck
This chart, from the Standby Power Home Page, shows the watts that plugged-in-but-turned off appliances eat up.
. . .
. . .Jan 6, 2008
a mixed bag, yes and no, part and parcel
I took care of some business today--more work on that project and backed up my computer for the first time in about 11 months. And intervened in a domestic dispute next door. All three, exhausting, the last quite upsetting. Even though tomorrow is Monday, not typically my best day o' the week, love o' my life, pick o' the litter, I won't be sorry to say goodbye to today.
bye bye,
. . .
bye bye,
. . .
Jan 5, 2008
hiatus
After a 3.5 year law-school lacuna, I have returned to a project started in the fall of 2003. There are others, I'm sure, but this one had the most done and took up the most mental and physical space. It will be good to get it done. I hope to have it done by the end of the week. But right now it's time to drink a Shiner Bock.
. . .
. . .
the great english breakfast explosion of 2008
That's how I'll remember today. The tea-tin, top unsecure and upside-down in the cabinet, carelessly grabbed, and cascading e-breakfast everywhere. I haven't been in NP often enough to know why--probably I put it back there in a frenzied attempt to find the surface of my dinner table. Or some tea-spilling set-up bandit made me a visit. Anyhow, there is now small round e-breakfast spheres sprinkled into my wishdasher and the kitchen floor. The dishes will probably come out with a slight accent. On the whole, though, no big loss. As RLY once called to my attention, e-breakfast is rather boring. Nothing compared to, say, my beloved russian caravan. Which I am now out of, alas. Tea.
Here's some more about January 5, 2008. It is the day of Lulu's first carrot. I made the mistake of giving her a big carrot--mostly she seemed to enjoy shredding it and leaving the shreds on the rug. But maybe her teeth are cleaner. Today the carrot, tomorrow, the stick.
January 5, 2008, in NP smells like poop and cigarettes. The cigarettes are because I have a smoky neighbor. I can't account for the poop stink. It only occasionally smells like poop around here. Wrong wind direction, perhaps. Or maybe the times when there was snow that I was not prepared with the plastic bag have come back to haunt me now that it's melting a bit. Regardless of the stink's provenance, today NP deserves AAMcM's moniker of North Poop.
Today is also the day after the day of Lulu's first trip to the NP dog park. Her favorite new friend, and mine, was a baby bloodhound pup. She and Razor (the bh pup) were both a little shy of the older animals (regardless of size). She also enjoyed playing with Britney, a dog of the small yappy variety.
I have a final divorce hearing and a social security appeal hearing this coming week. Final divorce hearings, when there has been a property and/or child custody settlement, as there hs been in this case, are great hearings to have early on in one's career. No cross-examining necessary, about 10 minutes max of routine questions for the plaintiff (e.g. "Is the marriage irretrievably broken?", a ridiculous statutory necessity--it's not like anyone's ever going to bother saying no.) and the only evidence is the settlement agreement. Social Security hearings are more intense and scary, but still not so bad. They are not adversarial proceedings, so there is no opposing lawyer & client trying to trip me up at every opportunity. I just have to convince the administrative law judge, an employee of the Social Security Administration, that my client is disabled.
Anyway, it's a post-holiday Saturday, and those are the best kind of all. That's what I'll say today, anyway.
. . .
Here's some more about January 5, 2008. It is the day of Lulu's first carrot. I made the mistake of giving her a big carrot--mostly she seemed to enjoy shredding it and leaving the shreds on the rug. But maybe her teeth are cleaner. Today the carrot, tomorrow, the stick.
January 5, 2008, in NP smells like poop and cigarettes. The cigarettes are because I have a smoky neighbor. I can't account for the poop stink. It only occasionally smells like poop around here. Wrong wind direction, perhaps. Or maybe the times when there was snow that I was not prepared with the plastic bag have come back to haunt me now that it's melting a bit. Regardless of the stink's provenance, today NP deserves AAMcM's moniker of North Poop.
Today is also the day after the day of Lulu's first trip to the NP dog park. Her favorite new friend, and mine, was a baby bloodhound pup. She and Razor (the bh pup) were both a little shy of the older animals (regardless of size). She also enjoyed playing with Britney, a dog of the small yappy variety.
I have a final divorce hearing and a social security appeal hearing this coming week. Final divorce hearings, when there has been a property and/or child custody settlement, as there hs been in this case, are great hearings to have early on in one's career. No cross-examining necessary, about 10 minutes max of routine questions for the plaintiff (e.g. "Is the marriage irretrievably broken?", a ridiculous statutory necessity--it's not like anyone's ever going to bother saying no.) and the only evidence is the settlement agreement. Social Security hearings are more intense and scary, but still not so bad. They are not adversarial proceedings, so there is no opposing lawyer & client trying to trip me up at every opportunity. I just have to convince the administrative law judge, an employee of the Social Security Administration, that my client is disabled.
Anyway, it's a post-holiday Saturday, and those are the best kind of all. That's what I'll say today, anyway.
. . .
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