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newstfionline · 4 years

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Headlines

Trump Threatens to Send Federal Law Enforcement Forces to More Cities (NYT) President Trump plans to deploy federal law enforcement to Chicago and threatened on Monday to send agents to other major cities—all controlled by Democrats. Governors and other officials reacted angrily to the president’s move, calling it an election-year ploy as they squared off over crime, civil liberties and local control that has spread from Portland, Ore., across the country. With camouflage-clad agents already sweeping through the streets of Portland, more units were poised to head to Chicago, and Mr. Trump suggested that he would follow suit in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit and other urban centers. Governors and other officials compared his actions to authoritarianism and vowed to pursue legislation or lawsuits to stop him. “I’m going to do something—that, I can tell you,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “Because we’re not going to let New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Detroit and Baltimore and all of these—Oakland is a mess. We’re not going to let this happen in our country. All run by liberal Democrats.”

Chicago restaurateur joins mission to feed America’s hungry (AP) Before coronavirus arrived, Manish Mallick’s trips to this city’s South Side had been limited to attending graduate classes at the University of Chicago. Now Mallick is a South Side regular—and a popular one. He regularly arrives bearing food for the hungry from his Indian restaurant several miles to the north, in the city’s downtown. “Thank you, sugar, for the meals. They’re so delicious!” one woman recently shouted to Mallick outside a South Side YWCA. “God bless you!” she added, raising her arms for emphasis. Mallick has personally delivered thousands of meals cooked and packed by his staff—among them, chickpea curry and tandoori chicken with roasted cottage cheese, sweet corn, peas and rice. Volunteers from neighborhood organizations then take them to children, retirees and the multitudes who’ve been laid off or sick during the pandemic. “We all need to help each other,” Mallick says. “That’s the best way to get through a crisis.”

American tourists are banned from the Bahamas as coronavirus cases spike (Washington Post) One of the few countries to welcome U.S. tourists has changed its mind, citing soaring infection numbers. The Bahamas will close its borders to most visitors from the United States starting Wednesday, Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said Sunday. While commercial flights from Canada, Britain and the European Union will still be allowed to land, all visitors must show proof that they tested negative for the coronavirus at an accredited lab in the past 10 days. Other international flights will be banned.

More and more countries are making masks mandatory (Washington Post) As countries around the world reopen their economies amid ongoing novel coronavirus outbreaks, governments are increasingly embracing what remains in some places a divisive public health measure: mandatory masks. In France, face coverings will be required in all public enclosed spaces as of Monday. England is set to begin enforcing new rules that make masks mandatory inside supermarkets and other shops, effective Friday. In the U.S., there is no national mask requirement. But at the state level, a growing number of mask requirements have come into force.

EU agrees on $2.1 trillion deal after marathon summit (AP) After four days and nights of wrangling, exhausted European Union leaders finally clinched a deal on an unprecedented 1.8 trillion-euro ($2.1 trillion) budget and coronavirus recovery fund early Tuesday, after one of their longest summits ever. The 27 leaders grudgingly committed to a costly, massive aid package for those hit hardest by COVID-19, which has already killed 135,000 people within the bloc alone. “Extraordinary events, and this is the pandemic that has reached us all, also require extraordinary new methods,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. To confront the biggest recession in its history, the EU will establish a 750 billion-euro coronavirus fund, partly based on common borrowing, to be sent as loans and grants to the hardest-hit countries. That is in addition to the agreement on the seven-year, 1 trillion-euro EU budget that leaders had been haggling over for months even before the pandemic. “The consequences will be historic,” French President Emmanuel Macron said. “We have created a possibility of taking up loans together, of setting up a recovery fund in the spirit of solidarity,” a sense of sharing debt that would have been unthinkable not so long ago.

Breached levees trap thousands as flooding in China worsens (AP) Breached levees have trapped more than 10,000 people in an eastern Chinese town as flooding worsens across much of the country, local authorities said Tuesday. High waters overcame flood defenses protecting Guzhen, a town in Anhui province, on Sunday, the provincial government said on its official microblog. Flood waters rose as high as 3 meters (10 feet), the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Wang Qingjun, Guzhen’s Communist Party secretary, as saying. About 1,500 firefighters were rushed to carry out rescues in the province, where weeks of heavy rains have disrupted the lives of more than 3 million people, Xinhua said.

Britain suspends extradition treaty with Hong Kong (NYT) Britain on Monday suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong amid worries about a new national security law that Beijing imposed on the former British colony. The suspension comes as London and Beijing find themselves at increasing odds over a variety of issues, including Britain’s move to bar Chinese tech giant Huawei from its 5G wireless networks and growing public anger in Britain over the treatment of the Uighur minority in Xinjiang, an autonomous territory in China.

Japan helps 87 companies to ‘exit China’ after pandemic exposed overreliance (Washington Post) Japan is paying 87 companies to shift production back home or into Southeast Asia after the novel coronavirus pandemic disrupted supply chains and exposed an overreliance on Chinese manufacturing. Alarm bells started ringing in Japanese boardrooms as soon as the virus emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, a major hub of the auto parts industry. Japanese automaker Nissan was forced to temporarily halt production at a plant in Japan in February over shortages of parts from China, while a Japanese consumer goods company, Iris Ohyama, found itself unable to meet surging local demand for masks after supplies to its factory in China were disrupted and export controls out of China were tightened. In March, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government wanted to bring production back home and diversify into Southeast Asia. The following month, the government set aside $2.2 billion in its coronavirus economic recovery package to subsidize that process. China is Japan’s largest trading partner, but Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has been trying for several years to reduce the country’s dependence on its giant neighbor. The 2008 global financial crisis, the 2011 northeastern Japan earthquake and the coronavirus pandemic all disrupted supply chains, while U.S.-China trade tensions are also a factor.

Jordan to reopen airports to tourists in August (AP) The Jordanian government says it will begin reopening airports to international travelers in August after sealing its borders in March to help halt the spread of the coronavirus. Travelers from a list of approved, low-risk countries must pass a coronavirus test at least 72 hours before departure and will get a second test upon arrival in Jordan, Transportation Minister Khaled Saif says. Jordan will require incoming tourists to download Aman, the government’s contact-tracing mobile application, for the duration of their stay in the country.

Swapping the stage for a deli: Israel underemployment rises (AP) A year ago, Cijay Brightman was doing sound and lighting for a Madonna performance in Israel. Now, after the coronavirus wiped out live events, he’s making sandwiches, slicing cheese and serving customers at a Tel Aviv deli. Brightman spent the last 15 years perfecting his craft and doing what he loves as a stage technician. But in the wake of the pandemic, he has been forced to abandon his passion and profession—like thousands of others in Israel—and find any job that will pay the bills. Underemployment is plaguing workers around the world. Although there are no global statistics yet, the phenomenon is expected to grow as the economic crisis around the world deepens, said economist Roger Gomis of the International Labor Organization.

King Salman hospitalized (Foreign Policy) Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz has been admitted to hospital with gallbladder problems, state media reported on Monday. The 84-year-old monarch is the second aging Gulf leader to seek medical attention recently, after 91-year-old Kuwaiti ruler Emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah underwent surgery on Sunday for an as yet unnamed ailment.

Uganda’s Museveni seeks re-election to extend rule to four decades (Reuters) Uganda’s long-serving President Yoweri Museveni has collected papers to seek nomination as the ruling party’s candidate in next year’s presidential election, the party said on Tuesday. Securing a new term would potentially extend the 75-year-old former rebel fighter’s rule to four decades. Though no date has yet been fixed for the 2021 vote, it is typically held in February. The strongest opposition presidential aspirant is pop star and lawmaker Bobi Wine, 38, whose music endears him to the young. In power since 1986, Museveni’s tenure is only surpassed in Africa by Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang, who has ruled since 1979 and Cameroon’s Paul Biya, who has ruled since 1982.

#headlines #news

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chroniclesofamber · 5 years

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THE CHRONICLES OF AMBER & History Lessons II

The first two books of Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber — Nine Princes in Amber and The Guns of Avalon — were written between 1967 and the early 1970s. The Vietnam War cast a long shadow from the 1960s into the first years of the next decade. In Nine Princes in Amber, for example, one of the most memorable episodes of action and conflict occurs in the seventh chapter:

“The sheets of light and heat flapped a steady, welling thunder as we ran, and the waves of warmth beat upon us, washed over us. Soon they were right there alongside us, and the trees blackened and the leaves flaked down, and some of the smaller trees began to sway. For as far ahead as we could see, our way was an alley of fires… We made it to the fork, though, beating out flames on our smoldering clothing, wiping ashes from our eyes… We ran through burning grasses… The interlocked branches of the trees overhead had become as the beams in a cathedral of fire…”

The Vietnam War was part of the nightly news back then. Stories and images of napalm and agent orange falling upon the jungles of Southeast Asia were current at the time and the quote above would have resonated in the American consciousness. But it was not just the horrors of war haunting America. There was also civil unrest and a rebellious younger generation ready to take up arms against the old guard who had nourished the conflicts and tensions leading to the strife stretching from the ’60s into the ’70s.

After the baptism of fire experienced by narrator and main character Corwin — which concludes with the provident arrival of riflemen trained and led by him to defend Amber and position him as the kingdom’s effective ruler — he finds himself at the top of a society struggling with an uneasy and temporary peace. Powerful foes have been unleashed upon the immortal city, and it looks like it may have been an inside job. In fact, it may even be that Corwin himself has provided unintended assistance to the enemy. This self-reflective attitude of examining one’s own role in the evils plaguing the world belonged very much to the troubling era which began with the assassination of President Kennedy and ended with the resignation of President Nixon.

SIGN OF THE UNICORN (1975)

History: The longest gap between the publication of any of the books of The Chronicles of Amber: three years. An air of defeat hangs over America, as well as over places beyond. The Club of Rome puts out its report “The Limits to Growth” and in 1974 the world population reaches four billion. The Apollo 13 failure of 1970 has left its mark, followed by a decline in support for the program dooming the final three missions to cancellation. Apollo 17 therefore sees the last men on the Moon in December of 1972, when one of the most popular photographs ever is taken — the iconic “Blue Marble” image of a nearly full Earth — and soon becomes an emblem of the environmental movement. In contrast to the “Blue Marble,” in the summer of ’72 the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Napalm girl” photograph makes headlines, and less than a year later the last U.S. soldier leaves Vietnam subsequent to the Paris Peace Accords. The war is over and the U.S. did not win it.

The war may be over, but deep problems remain — a description of the years during which Zelazny wrote Sign of the Unicorn, but also a description of the contents of the book itself. “The Troubles” — as the conflict in Northern Ireland comes to be called — of the United Kingdom undergo a rapid escalation: the British Army shoots dead 14 unarmed marchers on terrible Bloody Sunday; the British embassy in Dublin is burned down during rioting all over Ireland; bombs detonate in Whitehall and the Old Bailey; car bombs set by the Ulster Volunteer Force in Dublin and Monaghan kill 33 civilians and injure 300 others.

Meanwhile, a story just as big unfolds on the other side of the Atlantic: Five White House operatives are arrested for the burglary of the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate Hotel. Nixon orders special prosecutor Archibald Cox to be fired over his subpoena of recordings of incriminating White House conversations, but is eventually compelled by the Supreme Court to release the tapes. Impeachment proceedings underway, the public and even members of the Republican Party against him, Nixon resigns in August of 1974 and the unelected Vice President, Gerald Ford, becomes President. Likewise, Eric falls and Corwin steps in as the interim regent of an Amber reeling from war and internal strife, a state of affairs closely matching the condition of America as offered in Nixon’s resignation speech.

Lesson: Corwin finds himself the target of an attempt to frame him for the murder of Caine, his brother Gérard pummels him in a fight and dangles him over a cliff, he is nearly stabbed to death in his suite only hours after Brand is knifed in similar fashion, in the misty city of ghosts known as Tir-na Nog’th he is attacked and comes perilously close to plummeting to his death. In this context, the cautions of his sister Fiona regarding the dangers of wearing for too long the ultimate artifact of power, the Jewel of Judgment, take on new meaning. She warns it can kill him. The information possibly saves his life, as it persuades him to remove the Jewel when at the brink of death. The lesson is bigger than that, however. Corwin learns that power without knowledge or wisdom is dangerous and can be fatal, something which his brother Eric, as king, did not discover in time.

Journey: It all begins with Corwin’s discovery of a crime and a corpse, which leads straight to his learning of Random’s attempt to rescue Brand from his tower. And it ends with Corwin and Random, along with Ganelon, looking down upon the damaged Pattern (also the result of a crime, though they do not know that yet), just a day after Corwin’s meeting with a freshly rescued and recovered Brand. Crimes call out for investigation and from the first pages of the first book Corwin has played the detective. In the opening scene, Corwin has questions for Random and in the final scene he finally has some answers. Now he knows from his interview with Brand that there was a conspiracy by the red-haired faction to seize Amber’s throne, that Dara is descended from Chaos and intended for that throne, that a game has been in progress where he has been but a useful knight and where the broken Pattern before him is the board upon which it has been played.

Watergate, Painful Endings...

...and Perhaps Resurrections — the Mid-’70s

“The sun was that great orb of molten gold we had seen earlier. The sky was a deeper blue than that of Amber, and there were no clouds in it. That sea was a matching blue, unspecked by sail or island. I saw no birds, and I heard no sounds other than our own. An enormous silence lay upon this place, this day. In the bowl of my suddenly clear vision, the Pattern at last achieved its disposition upon the surface below. I thought at first that it was inscribed in the rock, but as we drew nearer I saw that it was contained within it—gold-pink swirls, like veining in an exotic marble, natural-seeming despite the obvious purpose to the design… A dark, rough-edged smudge had obliterated an area of the section immediately beneath us, running from its outer rim to the center.”

Dark times are depicted in Sign of the Unicorn amidst the darkest days of the Seventies. OPEC launches its oil embargo, soon doubling the price of crude, all just after the dollar has been devalued 10%. A recession affecting most of the world ensues, and the oil crisis does not wind down until 1974. Cults, destructive to themselves and often to others, appear in newspapers and on television. The Manson Family is sentenced, the Symbionese Liberation Army abducts and brainwashes heiress Patty Hearst, the Heaven’s Gate UFO cult is founded near San Diego.

Violent groups on the radical left, however, are increasingly foiled and contained: the Baader-Meinhof Red Army Faction is arrested; the Japanese Red Army, in decline after the Lod Airport attack, is defunct as an independent organization within a year of the attack; the Angry Brigade ends its run in a British courtroom.

At the same time, the political left makes gains: Labour’s Harold Wilson returns as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; Helmut Schmidt of the Social Democratic Party becomes Chancellor of West Germany after a spy scandal brings down his predecessor; centrist Valéry Giscard d’Estaing succeeds Pompidou as President of France; the Carnation Revolution overthrows Portugal’s dictatorship and restores democracy; the Democratic Party logs historic victories in the House, Senate and state Governorships. The Old Bailey sees the first woman serve as a judge, the U.S. Congress sends the ERA to the states for ratification, women are finally admitted to Dartmouth College, the FBI hires women as agents for the first time, equal pay for women is mandated in Australia — liberal politics enjoys a resurgence during this period.

Whether intentional or not, the revolutionary red-haired cabal of Amber mirrors the restless idealists of the times, violent and otherwise, hoping to institute change. The overreach by forces on the right, responsible for the deaths of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King Jr., at last seems to come full circle with the resignation of Nixon and a national rejection of the authoritarian wielding of autocratic power. As already suggested, the hubris Eric demonstrates (like Nixon) in crowning himself king and regularly resorting to the most dramatic powers of the Jewel of Judgment brings him to his death on the slopes of Kolvir.

Eric has died, yet while Corwin and Brand both tread recklessly close to death they instead return bearing valuable new information — and, in one case, an enchanted mechanical arm — introducing the theme of resurrection and restoration. The Vietnam War at last is over, the crisis of the Nixon presidency has ended; the world is nowhere near out of the woods, but these events provide scope for respite and relief, and perhaps…hope? Vietnam and Watergate have together represented a perpetual storm cloud over America, a weight upon the world. The oil crisis has been harrowing, but soon leads directly to alternative energy R&D and long-needed improvements in automobiles. The world is still beset with sweeping, deep-seated problems, and the clouds have not truly cleared, but rays of hope are breaking through to shine on both beautiful inspirations and stark realities, much as the brilliant sun of the real Amber illuminates the broken Pattern in the final scene of Sign of the Unicorn.

“‘Then—looking for congruence—that would be about where our own Pattern lies,’ [Random said as we regarded the oval area of smooth, level rock].

‘Yes,’ I said again.

‘And that blotted area is to the south, from whence comes the black road.’

I nodded slowly as the understanding arrived and forged itself into a certainty.

‘What does it mean?’ he asked. ‘It seems to correspond to the true state of affairs, but beyond that I do not understand its significance. Why have we been brought here and shown this thing?’

‘It does not correspond to the true state of affairs,’ I said. ‘It is the true state of affairs.’”

[...to be continued in a future post...]

#chronicles of amber #roger zelazny #sign of the unicorn #the chronicles of amber #the seventies

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massielandnetwork · 3 years

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Thriving in an Economic Bubble during Anarchy

13. The Christian Succession – Stupidity that is Beyond Belief

Summary:

To quote Sebastian Gorka “The Global Jihadi Movement now has a sanctuary the size of Texas, better armed than any of our NATO allies. Biden made that happen. How safe do you feel? Biden declared the war against Jihadis “over” so the government can focus on the “domestic threat” at home. You know who he means, don’t you?”

Background:

Since November 3, 2020, I have witnessed a constant stream of events that come under the heading of “Surreal”, “Unbelievable” and “I have never seen that before”. In August all previous records were shattered. Here is a partial list:

1. Americans in danger were abandoned by Biden and our military leaders.

2. We Americans abandoned at least $85 Billion of OUR weapons for the Taliban to use or sell to Chinese, Russians, etc. to reverse engineer which in the future will put our service men and women in greater jeopardy.

3. Our “leaders” successfully transformed ragtag Taliban terrorists into the 15thstrongest armed force based upon the weapons we GAVE them.

4. Biden looking at his watch suggested boredom while the coffins of the 13 young American soldiers were unloaded from the transport plane from Afghanistan.

5. Biden condemned millions of girls over the age of 12 to become Taliban sex slaves and an unknown number of Christians to be beheaded.

6. The U. S. State Department GAVE the Taliban a list of Americans and the Afghanis that helped us that were left behind, future targets or hostages.

7. The State Department indicated that they are prepared to continue to provide funds to the Taliban.

8. Biden and various officials called this utter disaster an “Extraordinary Success” while the Taliban celebrated our defeat. Who do you believe?

There are reports of two warehouses in Kabul that required high security clearances to enter that are full of undisclosed weapons. One of the news sources also reported pallets of American currency being given to the Taliban. Does that mean Biden paid the Taliban to take Afghanistan? Who got more, the Taliban from Biden or the Iranians from Obama? Who lost?

Some of the ripple effects became obvious last week as Angela Merkel of Germany requested the help of Putin and Russia to get Germans out of Afghanistan. So, Biden has made Germany dependent on Putin for natural gas and security. Is this the beginning of the end of NATO? That cannot end well for the USA, but all the DMs care about is their money and their power. Biden’s investment partners, the Chinese Communist Party, prospered from this event. America?

Apparently, some former special forces members created a volunteer force which rescued more than 700 people in Afghanistan? They had assistance from military officers in Kabul who ignored their orders and aided the effort. I salute the valor of those involved and the Marine Lt. Col. that posted a video demanding accountability over Afghanistan. It cost him his career and abuse is headed his way from the DM’s afraid his action could start a trend. All of this is a massive condemnation of Biden and his administration including the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They should all resign but that would require them to have qualities they lack.

The Impact of Poor Leadership:

Last week I took one of my children to The Cleveland Clinic for some tests. We do not yet have a diagnosis to her condition but after failing for 20 years with the local medical community, we now have some answers, a path of future tests, and hope they will lead to a final, accurate diagnosis and cure. It was a fascinating experience to see the facilities of a world class medical clinic, to talk with the doctors and staff, to learn they are celebrating their 100th anniversary of providing medical care and training, and to compare them with the Medical College of Virginia (MCV). 60 years ago, MCV was on the cutting edge of medicine being the site of the first heart transplant in the world but today is an “also ran”.

Combine that vista of the importance of leadership with the antivaccination demonstrations spreading globally and we can see with singular clarity the difference between organizations that have leaders with a vision for how they want to improve the lives of their constituents and organizations that have leaders whose vision is merely of being in office. The DMs are in the latter group. Because they lack vision, they focus on what separates us. The Bible teaches - When the old folks have no vision, the young folks perish.

The American experiment in self rule is based upon honest elections that allow citizens to express their opinion via elections rather than bullets. Election fraud destroys that critical fulcrum of change. By my count, seven states are now auditing the 2020 election. All 50 states must be audited and election laws changed to ensure future elections are honest. Anyone that believes the 2020 election was honest is suffering self-delusion.

America has prospered under the hand of God because our country enjoyed the combination of Christianity, capitalism, and democracy. That combination focuses on growing the size of the economic pie which thus increases the financial capability to assist those in our society who need help. Marxism fails because it focusses on everyone as a victim of something and so the pie needs to be redivided, a self-destructive exercise that decreases the size of the economic pie.

Economic Forecast:

The Pandemic Bubble Economy continues to function despite historic strong but opposing economic forces. The stock market has risen from a normal Price to Earnings (PE) ratio of 14 to 22 , an indication it is a bubble. The residential market has begun to cool due to what on the surface appears to be a minor increase in mortgage rates in January of this year. With the rate of inflation hitting levels not seen for 30+ years, Governors of The Fed have begun to voice their concerns and call for tapering of the Quantitative Easing (QE) referring to The Feb buying 10-year U. S. Treasuries and home mortgages to force mortgage interest rates lower encouraging new home construction.

New home construction is a key leading indicator of the USA economy because it impacts about 33% of the economy, from construction materials to home furnishings. The National Association of REATORS announced on Monday, August 30, 2021, that its Pending Sales Index had declined for the second month in a row. Some scoffed in January when I forecasted that the increase in mortgage rates post-election marked the peak of residential activity, now obvious.

As The Fed tapers its QE, mortgage rates will rise causing a further decline in all of the real estate market segments including the land market. The highest probability is that an ugly real estate market lies ahead which should become more visible in 12 to 18 months worsened by The Fed needing to focus on inflation. That focus will mean The Fed will be unable to apply their normal remedy to an ailing economy, lower interest rates.

Since Biden has made us dependent on OPEC for oil and wants to force us to more expensive and less reliable “Green Energy” we face a combination of higher energy prices, higher mortgage rates, and higher taxes of a magnitude that each individually would cause a recession. Again I am alone but I believe the second half of 2022 will be quite ugly, a stagnant economy due to higher interest rates, higher taxes, and higher inflation which is called “Stagflation”.

Pray that our Lord and Savior raises up and protects the Patriots that demand forensic audits of the 2020 election in every state. There are now seven states on that path but the other 43 need to step up. Honest elections are the fulcrum of our American experiment. It is not vengeance to demand that (1) our laws be based on Christian morality and (2) that everyone play by the same laws.

Every portfolio should contain some cash but a great piece of land remains The Best investment long term. Capitalism builds wealth, Marxism/Socialism consumes it in self destruction. Pray for honest and forensic audited elections in the USA. Men make plans, but God ALWAYS wins. Stand with God and support the patriots while replacing the Elites/DMs.

“If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God; for it is written “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord”.”

(Romans 12: 18-19) New Revised Standard Version, Oxford University Press)

Stay healthy,

Ned

September 1, 2021

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aydenadler · 5 years

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5 Ways to Celebrate National Nonprofit Day

Happy national nonprofit day! Well, almost.

It's not long until August 17th, which is a day anyone in the nonprofit sector should circle on its calendar: National Nonprofit Day. But it's important for any nonprofit not to make this just another day at the office. It's a day you can use to celebrate on social media, to engage more people with marketing promotions, and to have a positive impact on your brand. Here's why it's so important:

How National Nonprofit Day Got Started

National Nonprofit Day got started thanks to Sherita J. Herring as a way to celebrate the some-1.5 million nonprofits in the U.S. Sherita J. Herring's goal was to make this as important on the day calendar as other vital holidays we celebrate throughout the year. Whether that means celebrating charitable organizations, charitable institutions, or simply celebrating nonprofit professionals, it's a time to celebrate.

Nonprofits across the U.S. include food bank enterprises that help low-income people, local communities hit especially hard by issues since the U.S. recession, and more. Nonprofits help people deal with issues like slow growth in the gross domestic product since the great recession, but they do a lot of good even during periods of economic strength.

Here are some great ways to celebrate National Nonprofit Day without missing these opportunities:

1. Thank Volunteers and Give Something Away

Nonprofits often work because of the engagement of their volunteers. Statistics suggest that over a quarter of all U.S. adults volunteer in some capacity, which means that celebrating volunteers will engage a significant portion of the population. This is a perfect opportunity to not only thank them, but engage with them by giving something away.

Giving something away for free can be a bit challenging, however, so try to align that giveaway with a lead magnet strategy:

Use the celebration to build your email list. By giving away a lead magnet for free—in exchange for an email signup—you can essentially use National Nonprofit Day as a way to promote your newsletter/emailing list.

Use promotion codes to steer people toward your site. People love the exclusivity of promotion codes on specific days—like National Nonprofit Day—because there’s scarcity built right into these offers. They know that their opportunity will dry up tomorrow if they don’t take advantage now.

2. Use the Celebration to Build Social Media Content

Using the celebration as an excuse to share social media content is a great way to increase engagement with lagging Twitter and Instagram accounts. Invite people to behind-the-scenes looks at how your nonprofit is celebrating the day. Are there special items in your office kitchen? Are you celebrating with a unique outdoor event? Are you partnering up with another nonprofit?

If you can create useful content that puts National Nonprofit Day in the spotlight and makes people want to click on your blog or social media channels, you’ll do a lot to ensure that the day doesn’t pass you by.

You don’t have to overthink this. Just recently, Forbes celebrated National Tequila Day with 15 Veggie Cocktails. It’s simply a collection of recipes and photographs that celebrate tequila—yet it’s the perfect content for anyone who’s interested in tequila and wants to celebrate the day with a cocktail.

If you can create cross-channel content that’s specific to what your nonprofit does, all the better. That might come in the form of videos on your YouTube channel, stories on your Instagram account, or blog articles that highlight your achievements over the last year. You might even consider creating an infographic full of nonprofit statistics and trivia, just to encourage sharing.

3. Seize the Opportunity to Launch a New Initiative

Let's say that you have a new fundraiser in mind, and you're not yet set on the launch day. Is there a better time to get people engaged than on National Nonprofit Day? There might be one or two on the calendar, but you'll have to wait until they roll around.

August 17th might not strike you as a particularly strategic day, but it is ideally situated for getting a head start on autumn fundraising activities. And if you don’t have time to build a full campaign, you can use the opportunity as a “soft” launch, uploading an announcement video and sharing it on social media.

4. Highlight Important Stories, Volunteers, and Donations

National Nonprofit Day isn't just a day to celebrate nonprofits—it’s a day to celebrate the people who make nonprofits tick. Chances are, there are people within your sphere who have great stories to tell. Highlighting these important people is a great way to encourage other people to volunteer or contribute to a fundraising campaign.

There are plenty of ways to do this. You can do it low-key with a few social media posts (such as Instagram stories), or you can use cross-channel promotion to highlight someone’s unique story. You can put together ten-minute mini-documentaries and upload them to YouTube; or you can post fun, quirky Q&A sessions on your Facebook account.

Make sure that you include your own call to action to encourage people to be like these volunteers. That means including links to your donation page, your new landing page for a fundraising campaign, or simply linking back to your site for more information. You might also simply leave your business number available and let people call you with their inquiries about volunteering, donations, and more.

5. Make Full Use of the Coming Hashtags

If you want your voice to be heard on social media, it always helps to make strategic use of hashtags—especially if you don’t have a lot of followers.

Use a tracking tool to keep an eye on emerging hashtags as the day approaches. You don’t want to put all of this effort into fresh content for your social media accounts, only to find out that you’re using the less-popular hashtag.

Use A/B testing to try different hashtags as you lead up to the big day. Experimenting with hashtags doesn’t cost you anything and it gives you insights as to what will work the best when you have the most important content to share on August 17th.

You might also do some research to see what worked for brands last year. Using a tool like Google Trends will help you identify the seasonal search terms that got the most traction last year, which in turn can help you direct the tags and headers for your content.

Make National Nonprofit Day a Holiday—Even If It’s Just For You

National Nonprofit Day doesn’t have to be a national holiday for you to treat it like one. If you organize your content and social media channels in preparation for this day, it will help you capitalize on the natural engagement that spreads on social media. The only question is, will you be ready?

from The Grasshopper Blog - Insights for Entrepreneurs https://grasshopper.com/blog/Celebrate National Nonprofit Day/ via IFTTT

#The Grasshopper Blog - Insights for Entrepreneurs

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lvaartebella · 7 years

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Feature: Sarah Lindgren

Raising The Ante On Public Art

Sarah Lindgren is a government employee, which makes her, almost by definition, a bureaucrat - a terrible word with little positive association. Yet, as Public Art Administrator at Louisville Metro Government, she is the top authority on public art in the city, a job description that sounds anything but monotonous.

In conversation, Lindgren speaks of the issues surrounding public art with detail and confidence, but she also effectively illustrates the complexity of the topic. With substantial experience in museum administration with The Speed in Louisville and the St. Louis Art Museum, she clearly has the bona fides for the job.

Public Art Administrator is a job that never existed before 2014, a creation of the long in development Louisville Public Art Master, which in turn gave birth to COPA, the Commission On Public Art. Part of Lindgren’s role is to, in effect, head up COPA. But what does a commission on public art do exactly?

“COPA was established to advocate for all of the recommendations in the Master Plan, which included a position for Public Art Administrator,” explains Lindgren. “My job is to help artists and arts organizations navigate their way through the bureaucracy of public art. What permits are needed? What is required to site artwork in the right-of-way?”

So COPA is an advisory body making recommendations to Mayor Greg Fischer and the Metro Government on such questions as how to adequately archive and maintain the rich history of public art in the city. How much does the general public know about the significance of sculptures that have been a part of the fabric of the city for generations? How often do you drive past the Daniel Boone statue at the entrance to Cherokee Park with any thought to the fact that it was created by one of the most important women sculptors in the United States, Louisville-born Enid Yandell (1869-1934), who studied with Auguste Rodin? How many of us know with assurance where to find all of the Barney Bright statues in the city? Or works by Ed Hamilton?

That archive was one of the first tasks implemented from the Master Plan, with the help of Kristin Gilbert, Lindgren and photographer Luke Seward, who took fresh pictures of many of the pieces. But there also is a need to build consistent public policy towards public art, both old and new.

COPA is what Lindgren calls “a nexus for various areas of expertise to come together to address public art policy.” In some instances, city and state government might cross paths, and if the topic involves an institution such as the University of Louisville, the paths between action and accountability can be difficult to chart. “We also work with city departments and overlay review committees. Depending on the project, it can be a lot of moving parts.”

Most cities have requirements in place for new construction that demand developers include initiatives public space and/or public art, and so does Louisville. “We have a unique formula in the Land Development Code,” explains Lindgren, “which stipulates outdoor amenities or focal points be included in building plans for large-scale developments, or the developer can choose a fee in lieu of the amenity or focal point which goes into a restricted fund for public art.” The result is the establishment of a funding opportunity that will be offered in the next fiscal year, a grant application for funding new public art. The size and availability of this opportunity will, of course, vary depending upon the volume of new construction each year and developers that opt for the fee-in-lieu to support public art. “The fee-in-lieu option was added to the Code in 2010, but the recession slowed down construction. By 2016 with an increase in new development projects, there is also an increase in this type of funding for public art.”

The funding opportunity is just the latest initiative that Lindgren has brought to the Metro Government’s renewed attention to public art. In 2015 she managed Connect/Disconnect: A Public Art Experience, the inaugural project of COPA and Louisville Metro Government’s Public Art, which featured outdoor installations by five artists – Simparch, Jean Shin, Mark Reigelman, Jenny Kindler, and Louisville artist Mary Carothers. The pieces were only in place for a few months, but several have received national recognition. Other projects in various stages of development include:

The Louisville Knot

A project to install public art and lighting features to enhance the Ninth Street underpass, it is being developed in coordination with the Louisville Downtown Partnership. A multi-disciplinary team led by Interface Studio Architects (ISA), based in Philadelphia, and includes Shine Contracting, Louisville; Core Design, Louisville; Element Design, with offices in Lexington and Louisville; and LAM Partners, Cambridge, MA, would seek to turn the area under the 9th Street I-64 ramps into “an engaging and enticing public space tied together by local influences and traditions, providing a destination for exploration, commerce, and play.”

Love In The Street

An initiative by local poet and artist Lance Newman to curate a selection of poems by local poets and stamp them in a newly laid concrete sidewalk on 4th Street, between Chestnut and Broadway. The poems are intended to be love letters to the city. The project has a target completion date in spring 2018.

Bike Sense Louisville

Bike Sense Louisville is a public art project designed by Todd C. Smith. By providing sensor units to 100 Louisville cyclists (Citizen Cyclist Volunteers), data will be translated into helpful maps online as well as drive a public sound composition on the pedestrian Big Four Bridge. The resulting dataset will be open to the public and used by the city at the project's end to help in developing further improvements in bike infrastructure and planning.

It’s fair to observe that the creation of a Public Art Administrator position and the formulation of COPA represent a renewed focus on arts and culture that accompanied Greg Fisher into office, so given the shifting political landscape that characterize America in the last few years, how long can Louisville expect an arts professional such as Lindgren to have a seat at the public policy table?

“Well, my job is as vulnerable as any to a change in administration, but COPA is a public commission without salaries or budget of any kind – members are appointed by the Mayor and serve as volunteers, so it would be difficult to imagine why any new administration would not see their value.”

The recommendations are not limited to the benefit of the current administration or the city of Louisville but also extend to the uncertainty and lack of protections for individual artists. “As an artist, you deserve to work under a proper contract, to be paid appropriately and on time, and, when necessary, to have liability insurance in your project budget provided by your client. I want Louisville to raise the ante in advocating and implementing for best practices creating art in public spaces.”

Public Art Database: http://louisvilleky.pastperfectonline.com/ Explore Public Art: https://louisvilleky.gov/government/public-art/explore-public-art

This Feature article was written by Keith Waits. In addition to his work at the LVA, Keith is also the Managing Editor of a website, www.Arts-Louisville.com, which covers local visual arts, theatre, and music in Louisville.

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