Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 112

a foundation that evolved in response to those it committed to serve

Andy Posner wanted to bring microloans, a much-heralded form of aid in the developing world, to America's "underbanked" populations. When he established Capital Good Fund, it was with the notion that as in the developing world, the loans would be used to spur small-business growth.

What he discovered, though, was that the people he wanted to serve had a big need for plain old personal loans. If they wanted to put down security loans for an apartment or make a car repair, their only alternativ...

A rant on the topic of the insufferable genius

I posted a version of this as a comment on a Goodreads review, but it's more appropriate for an LJ post.

I really hate the notion that talent and genius excuse a person from appalling behavior. The trade-off that people seem to accept and be fascinated by goes like this: "On the one hand, the character is selfish, self-centered, heartless, demanding, you name it. On the other: they're a genius! Such art! [or: such science! or: such insights!]"

Stuff worth doing--art, science, whatever--takes ti...

Three mornings

Yesterday

Yesterday morning in the woods I met a man dressed in bowhunters' garb, using a golf club as a cane as he limped along, accompanied by his lovely, friendly English setter. This man had a face well used to smiling, though he had very few teeth. Our greeting pleasantries were interrupted by snowmobiles, grooming the trail. The second snowmobile dragged a thing like a harrow, un-compacting the hardened snow.





Today

In the Dunkin Donuts this morning, "I'm going to make a man out of you," fr...

seen in passing

Outside the drug dispensary in the wellness center, a older man with thistledown white hair had some kind of musical-instrument-in-progress on his lap. It was bigger than a ukelele, and more or less guitarlike in shape, though not entirely like a guitar, and it was only about as deep as a fiddle. The wood was wheat-colored, raw, and held together by a series of metal clamps. It was, he told me, his own invention, a cross between a mandolin and a guitar. He explained things I couldn't quite un...

Jiji the goalie

To take your mind off the very sad news about Terry Pratchett, here is a 28-second video of Jiji acting as goalkeeper in a game of tinfoil-ball soccer.

yesterday morning and this morning

Yesterday appeared in a blaze of color


today was golden gauze

The new Annie: a conversation

One of my Friday students, who's African American, told me about talking to her younger daughter on the phone. My student had wanted to have a word with her daughter about her daughter's grades (not so good), but her daughter had been too excited to let her get a word in edgewise:

"Mommy mommy, guess what!"

"What?"

"We went to see Annie!"

"That's great--"

"And guess what!"

"What?"

"Annie's a Black girl! And guess what!"

"What?"

"She's the star!"

I didn't get to hear the daughter say all this, but from...

newspaper footprints

I line my boots with newspaper when snow gets in there (which it often does), and then I leave that lining in until such time as I decide it needs to be refreshed.

Here are the old liners, soon to go the way of all things. (Japanese newspaper because Wakanomori brings home old Japanese newspapers from work.)

A response from the creator of the two-dollar challenge

Shawn Humphrey, the creator of the two-dollar challenge (and the author of the post I linked to at the start of my entry on it) shared some thoughts on the limitations, but also the strengths, of his campaign. As cecile_c says, pedagogy is a puzzle: how best to reach people? Shawn speaks from experience. His response is here, but for the click averse, I've posted it below as well. Thanks Shawn, for being such a great model of constructive engagement!

from @BluCollarProf

Can anything good come...

The problem with the two-dollar challenge

I read a really good blog post about the "Do-Gooder Industrial Complex," which offered alternative outlooks on aid, poverty, volunteerism, etc. (specifically in an international context) to the ones fostered by the Do-Gooder Industrial Complex. I was nodding vigorously as I read. But the article ended with a link to the "Two-Dollar Challenge." Almost half the world's population lives on less than two dollars a day, the site says. It exhorts readers to try living on two dollars a day for a cou...