I have been having fun blogging over at the Reform the Patriot Act Blog. Yesterday I wrote about bloggers’ reactions to the current FBI “counter-terrorism” investigation of the ACLU as well as Greenpeace, MoveOn and other groups. Today I am looking at how librarians are reacting to the invasion of their patrons’ privacy.
Please check it out, link to it, and/or add some comments over there…
Last night Brian told me to download this new Internet phone tool called Gizmo Project and so I did like the dutiful girlfriend I am 😉 .
Now that I have it, I have no-one to call. It looks real pretty, but I have no idea how it works. It seems to be free for calls within the Gizmo system. If you want to talk to the outside (ie: non-geek) world it’s 1.8 cents/minute to call out, $5/month to receive calls.
I’ve never used Skype, so I don’t know how this compares. Brian says it’s better because it uses a protocol called SIP. Anyone got more info? Want to try it and call me? My Gizmo ID is rubyji.
Today I participated in N-TEN‘s first ever “webinar” on Lessons Learned from Tsunami Online Fundraising led by Michael Stein, Michael Ward, and the fabulous Sarah DiJulio. Here are my notes from the session (my own thoughts are in red).
Overview:
Donors response to the tsunami was amazing. Among the three organizations we discussed over $85 million dollars was raised and $38 million of that came online!
• 80% of the online giving happened in the first 2 weeks.
• More than 3/4 of the online gifts were from new donors. More than half of them asked not to be contacted again, but 40% did agree to be added to the org’s lists.
• There’s an increasing number of large (>$1,000) online donations.
Continue reading “Rapid response for nonprofits”
This is a list of resources I put together for my colleagues in public affairs before I left Planned Parenthood. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep it up to date, so I might as well publish it now before it’s all stale!
Continue reading “Helpful links for e-organizers”
Why doesn’t Technorati ever seem to work quite right (or at least work as they claim it does)? In addition to being slow as molasses, it has recently started to incorrectly index my posts. Maybe I shouldn’t complain since a month ago it wouldn’t index me at all. But now it’s schitzophrenic and associating the tags of each of my entries with the text of the post before it.
Continue reading “TechnoTrouble”
So I am figuring out an identity with which to post entries on the ACLU blog, and the name that stuck in my head was “Blog Maven.” I wanted to make sure I was using the word correctly so I looked it up at Wikipedia. I think it is even more apt than I suspected!
A maven (also mavin or mayvin) is an expert in a particular field, usually one who is self-appointed and who seeks to pass his knowledge on to others.
Newsflash – conservatives suddenly acting conservative! Who woulda thunk it? Thanks to EdCone.com for reading keeping up with these losers so I don’t have to.
Greensboro congressman [Howard Coble] says he and fellow NC Republican Walter Jones “are becoming increasingly frustrated by the daily loss of American lives, along with the enormous cost to the American taxpayers, in an operation that should be taken over by Iraqi citizens.”
I’m happy to announce that the consulting project I’ve been working on for the past 2 weeks is almost complete and I can finally show off the fruits of my labor! And it’s about time the because the reauthorization is now racing through congress and there are some very bad changes to it that need to be stopped!
I have been working with the ACLU to encourage bloggers to write about reforming the Patriot Act and to advise them on creation of the Reform the Patriot Act Blog. Please check out some of the cool stuff we put together. This page for bloggers features RSS feeds, technorati tags, graphics, and a list of the many helpful documents and presentations that have been developed by the ACLU.
Continue reading “Blog the PATRIOT Act!”
According to health care activists Procare, they are victims of a SLAPP from BlueCross BlueShield who is trying to stifle their ongoing criticism of the insurance behemoth. I first learned about SLAPP suits when they were filed against environmental activists in the 1990’s.
ProCare has been agitating against BCBS for a year or two now, it’s their sole mission. They claim to represent both patients and doctors in NC, but they are led by two political hacks, one from each major party. This means that although I usually agree with what they have to say about BCBS, but I find it very difficult to trust them at all.
Blue Cross sued ProCare… on July 1 after ProCare revealed that Blue Cross spent $478,000 at the US Open in Pinehurst. That included rooms, golf and meals for executives and their guests…
[The BCBS CEO] does not want policyholders – or the news media or legislators – to know how he is misspending money that is supposed to go to health care. Especially when the legislature is considering bills that would force Blue Cross to meet its obligations as a nonprofit.
– ProCareBlog