Daily Archives: 12/30/2010

(Community Matters) Interesting posting by David Mixner

The LGBT community must acknowledge that this generation of LGBT baby boomers is getting old in a time with few services to meet their needs as LGBT seniors. Often they are in smaller and smaller living units, scraping by with little food, limited access to healthcare and almost no living facilities to share with other senior LGBT citizens. The few gay men that are still alive after the AIDS onslaught have few or no peers to share their senior years since the disease wiped out so many of their friends. Like it or not, what remains from the pandemic is an epidemic of loneliness among our seniors.

sparks a thought that we should make friends with older gays & lesbians living alone

(Community Matters) big delta between $140mm & $500mm – Facebook lawsuit continues

nyt

(Community Matters) Much complexity and inevitable political strife continue to challenge our friends in Haiti. While the cholera outbreak appears to be “somewhat contained” Haitians are still too vulnerable to not worry about further, even more devastating outbreak. Though, agencies know what to do, how to combat it (and I believe most have funding), the physical and logistical hurdles are just not in Haitians’ favor. Nevertheless, to date, it’s been handled and contained much better than almost any would predict. The same is true with health care in general. Though, news reports suggest the availability of clean drinking water – especially in unsponsored camps – is increasingly a challenge. I’ve asked and there is still a priority for safe drinking water at the projects we’ve funded. In fact, through CharityWater, we’ve match funded a sustainable, fresh drinking water project in Titans Village, in partnership with Concern Worldwide.

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(Community Matters) Last week having lunch with a friend after the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell signing ceremony, we talked about the apparent randomness of events leading up to this legislative success. I found myself comparing events to a business entrepreneur’s success. Investors have learned to place their bets on entrepreneurs at least as much as on products/services. Business plans always change – the environments we assess definitely will change, the positions and alliances of stakeholders evolve, and competitors always surprise us. We’ve learned that the best entrepreneurs react agilely – and yes pragmatically – to an extraordinarily dynamic environment. I hadn’t previously thought of the concept of political entrepreneurs but I am doing so now. Though my analogy isn’t fleshed out, I do feel great that our community has “invested in Barack Obama” and though plans & timelines change, we’re seeing payoffs much higher than likely in any other outcome of the 2008 primaries and general.

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(Community Matters) Sam Harris’ most recent essay on HuffPost

Mr. Harris goes further than I would assuming inherent inequalities, though the reminder that most of us agree on equality of opportunity is important. I’m not at all interested in the idea of a pooled fund for donated trillions,  believing that private philanthropy (definitely including collaborative projects) is likely to unveil the true social innovation gems.