Tacky nonprofit advertising

The following sorts of ads are as old as professional fundraising itself, and like horror villains, never rest quietly in their graves. They're tacky, sure, but they also invite backlash and are often ineffective.

1. The scare tactic. "Give to to us or these cute children/animals/women will get it." It's one thing to quote scary-but-already true factoids, but another to tell us that this charity is the only thing standing between society and a free handbasket ride to hell.
   
2. The suicide note. "Without your support, our nonprofit will have to close its doors." While technically true of all nonprofits not supported primarily by grants, contracts, or fees, this tactic emphasizes the urgency of their claim - people will be laid off tomorrow!!! And so what? Despite popular opinion to the contrary, "nonprofit" is not supposed to be a synonym for "poor management." Put the organization out of its misery and it's likely a more stable one will fill that niche.
   
3. The voyeuristic gaze. "Look at these poor children/people of color/bearded ladies." We used to call this a freak show back in the day. It's different from number 1 because it shows actual problems, not theoretical ones. It's voyeuristic because it shows only the before picture. One hopes the organization is spending money to ameliorate the world's problems, not just to photograph them.

Chickadees

The view from my office in my apartment is of the fence between our building and the house next door. It's not really an inspiring view, except that the fence attracts a lot of birds. Some of them I know and some I don't - I'm not a birder. But I don't like not knowing, even if I have no desire to take up ornithology in a general way. Often when I read books from 100 or 200 years ago, the writers describe nature with a specificity lost on many of today's readers. How many of us know wildflowers, for example? So when I try to describe what I've seen in nature, it comes out as, "There were purple flowers. And yellow ones." Conversely, many of these older descriptions don't conjure up quite what they are intended to, but they at least sound poetic.

Today I was watching some little gray birds, and with the help of Google image search I figured out they were Carolina chickadees. At least now I know one thing I didn't this morning.

Holiday season

I'm busy with dissertation stuff (and holiday festivity), so apologies for the sparseness of posting.

Last night I went to a holiday party at my adviser's house. He cooked up New Orleans-style food, and his wife (a professional pastry chef) made desserts. The food was really, really excellent.

Today I did a short hike at Shelby Park.

Various other activities have involved eating, working on my dissertation, studying, yoga, and more eating.

Short winter hike

Hills
Originally uploaded by TheTurducken

I hiked the Warner Woods trail at Percy Warner today. The Warner parks don't have overlooks or waterfalls or any dramatis personae, so it's hard to take interesting photos of the landscape. But in the winter, you can really see the shape of the land.

Roller skating

IMG_1790
Originally uploaded by laurenmichellebeck

I've got nothing particular to post about (want to hear about this cold that is waxing and waning?), so here's a picture of one of last weekend's adventures ... roller skating! It's been a really, really, really long time since I last tried it.