Dear Friends,

“It’s the right thing to do, and the smart thing to do.”

How many times have you heard that phrase? How many times have I written or said it myself?

Many.

I’ve come to think that little phrase — that easy connection between right and smart —let me hold together two things that don’t actually belong together, and it let me avoid choosing between them. Now, events have called the question.

I’ve worked much of my life in the field known as global health, where a good deal of the money — for policy research and advocacy, for product and service innovation, even for the delivery of essential health services — has come from the pockets of taxpayers in relatively wealthy countries, and particularly the United States. Other types of work that the “development community” engages in, from supporting improvements in education to upgrading the ability of governments to hold free and fair elections, has also been funded in large measure by American taxpayers.

In my experience, most of the people working in global health, and in global development more generally, are motivated by the right thing to do part. They know, though, it’s the smart thing to do that shakes loose the funds. So, to make the case for the money to flow, advocates and practitioners have routinely reached for an idea that slides — with the political mood — from enlightened self-interest to strategic self-interest. Spend on aid that improves lives elsewhere; reap rewards at home.

In health, the argument comes in roughly two flavors. One: infectious disease knows no borders, so spending to detect and contain disease on other continents keeps it from reaching our shores. Two: widespread ill health — along with gender inequality, high fertility, and weak health systems — drags down growth and stability, dampening the market and geostrategic relationships that benefit wealthy countries. Lately both get bundled as health security because appropriators like the word security more than they like the word care. That is the whole dynamic in miniature — the language bends toward whatever shakes the money loose.

If you pay attention to the evidence, the right/smart argument gets harder to make outside of health — which has never stopped anyone from trying. Aid has been sold as a way to keep countries from tipping into the “failed state” category; as a way to prevent terrorism; as a way to improve prospects at home for people who might otherwise migrate to Europe or the United States; as a way to build markets for U.S. companies; and — in an argument plucked straight from the Cold War origins of USAID — as a way to hold allies who might otherwise drift toward China.

The right/smart framing hasn’t just been rhetoric. It was built into the federal budget and the institutions themselves. Traditionally, the Development Assistance budget sat within the International Affairs budget — the 150 Account — side by side with the Economic Support Funds: conditioned or unconditioned transfers to governments the U.S. wanted especially close, like Egypt, Jordan, Ukraine, and a few others.

Top on that list was Israel, until the Israeli relationship shifted entirely to military aid, a change completed by around 2008. That shift previewed a the larger story we’re seeing now: the smart quietly swallowing the right, the pretense of development dropped in favor of a straightforward strategic transfer. What happened to one relationship two decades ago has now happened to the whole enterprise.

For years, though, the architecture held the two impulses together. Lobbyists for development causes and lobbyists for foreign governments would join hands to keep the top line of the 150 Account as high as possible, then argue over specific slices of the Development Assistance and Economic Support Fund accounts. In the end, the vote was for the combination. That was the quiet genius of the slash: any individual representative could point to the same appropriation and claim support for right, or for smart, or for both. No one ever had to say which one they meant.

In its institutional form, right/smart looked basically like “USAID/State Department” — though that shortchanges other actors like the Millennium Challenge Corporation and PEPFAR, which had their own structures outside USAID. Sometimes USAID operated with real independence, as under the Obama Administration; at other times it was steered more directly by State. It never held a full set of budget authorities, and it struggled to wring the most good out of the space between State-determined country allocations and Congressionally-determined program allocations. Even at its best, it was working within someone else’s lines.

We are now in a new reality. As of FY2026, the whole right/smart dialectic has collapsed into a single question: how do we gain the most, in the most direct way possible?

The signs are not subtle. The 150 Account has been renamed the National Security Investment Programs. There is no separate account for Development Assistance anymore. USAID is gone, if not forgotten, with a subset of its functions squeezed into the State Department.

And the money Congress appropriates for health now flows more or less like conditioned Economic Support Funds — just to a larger number of countries, particularly across Sub-Saharan Africa. In exchange for these government-to-government transfers, countries are required to redirect their own health spending toward priorities the United States has set, and to hand over access to data that includes sensitive pathogen samples — with no guarantee of access to the vaccines or treatments that result from the use of that data.

Over the protests of virtually everyone who cares about the right thing to do side of the ledger, the Administration has overturned a balance held for more than sixty years. It has done so in a way entirely of a piece with its military adventurism abroad, its tariffs, its retreat from multilateral institutions, its steady alienation of old allies. The we win/you lose approach didn’t just win. It completely upended the tradition, however imperfect, to combine the smart with the right.

None of this is news, exactly. But it is the ground on which all of us now stand — everyone working on, and worrying about, what comes next for global development, and for bilateral aid in particular. And what is built next needs to start from the bottom up.

Much of the work labeled as “reinventing aid” aspires to build a better model than USAID ever was: resources that actually map to where they can improve outcomes, including around global public goods; genuine support for local leadership and country-set priorities; approaches that center those furthest from power; decolonized partnerships built to last. All of it, in other words, the right thing to do.

None of these good ideas will become real and endure until we grapple with a prior question — one the conflation between right and smart let us skip. What kind of global citizen does this country aspire to be?

It is that question, and only that question, that shapes both what we believe to be right and what we imagine to be smart.

What would that conversation even look like? It would be many-sided, but I think it starts with three questions — about what we protect, what we’re willing to do to others, and what we’re willing to give up.

First, care: What planetary assets do all countries and all people depend on — and what will we commit to protecting and sharing?

Second, harm: Under what circumstances will we directly harm others, by military or economic means? What posture — offensive, defensive — will we keep?

Third, sacrifice: Under what circumstances will we support people in other countries even when it disadvantages us?

Starting long before 2028, this country will be having some version of a reckoning about who it is, who we are. Those debates, wherever they play out, will set the terms for whatever we end up calling right and smart — that is, unless we settle for the lazy shortcut, and simply argue to Make Development Assistance Great Again.

I think it’s a moment to ask the big questions that shape the answers about aid.

Some interesting pieces about philanthropy have been published recently:

Chris Chibwana on the limits of power-sharing when funders are the ones who can say “no”

Talia Milgrom-Elcott and Justin D’Angona on the different pathways to sustain philanthropic impact

Al Kags on what’s wrong with global (and other) philanthropic practices

Jewlya Lynn on how AI skills can support more nuanced thinking about systems change

A series in the Stanford Social Innovation Review sponsored by the McKnight Foundation unpacking multiple dimensions of the response in Minneapolis and beyond around Operation Metro Surge.

In recognition of Burkina Faso’s recent ban on NGOs and aid agencies photographing vulnerable people, I will close with this:

Have a good weekend,

-Ruth

Dear Friends -

An attentive reader asked me why my notes have gone from weekly to once-in-a-while. The answer is both simple and not-so-simple. The simple answer is that I write when I feel like I have something to say; if it takes me more than an hour to come up with something I think is worth your time, I don’t publish.

The more complex answer is that I feel less and less like I have something to say because of two aspects of the world we’re living in: First, there is more tearing down than building up going on right now, and — although I am preoccupied thinking about all that — no one needs content from me about destruction and mayhem. There are zillion better sources. Second, this is a disorienting time. We are living in a dual state country (and world), with the confusion exacerbated by reality-bending technologies. I am less sure than I used to be about almost everything, so I’m far more hesitant to commit to ideas in writing.

In response to this confession of overwhelm and uncertainty, my friend said, “Why don’t you just write about something — anything — you are sure of?”

So, in response, I offer a small number of behaviors that are guaranteed to make you a good colleague and leader. Each one is very easy to implement and unlocks team members’ best work.

Decide clearly. The most important contribution any leader can make to their team members is to be clear, ex ante, about who is expected to make which decisions. That clarity needs to be accompanied by a simple commitment: if I tell you a decision is yours to make, I will not second-guess it — even if I would have made a different decision, and even if the results are disappointing. When people know what their responsibilities are and can operate without fear of recrimination, they will do their absolute best. (Good tools: RACI, DARE, and MOCHA.)

Secondary to assigning (or taking on) responsibility for decisions at different levels, but also important, is communicating your own decisions in a timely and transparent way. When possible, this includes sharing the way you’ve weighed tradeoffs, which both makes your thinking visible and let’s people know that their input has been considered even if it’s not directly reflected in the final outcome.

Affirm frequently. Most people walk around with a huge amount of unhelpful negative self-talk in their heads. Whether from the messages received at home or in school, or from social media, or from our natural inclination to overweight the negative, it’s a safe bet that colleagues are on the alert for signals that reinforce their own sense of inadequacy. This is the unfortunate reality whether people declare openly that they suffer from “imposter syndrome” or they bluster their way through life with what appear to be oversized egos. In all cases, the background noise gets in the way of clear thinking and useful risk-taking.

The best way to counter the negative self-talk is with positive, targeted messages about the intellectual, organizational, and cultural contributions people are making — or have the potential to make — within the team and the larger organization. Yes, sure, share information about how specific behaviors are getting in the way of greater success and impact. But, most of the time, recognize the best in people and you’ll see more of it.

Inquire gently. One of the key responsibilities of a leader is to ask questions that get team members to think more deeply. The trick is that you want them to think deeply about whatever they’re responsible for, without thinking so hard and so long that they become paralyzed with all the unanswerable questions that they’re asking themselves — or they anticipate being asked.

Every direct question from a leader carries a message to the team: Ah! That’s what she cares about! Ah! That’s what he doesn’t like. Asking, “Why did you make that choice?” will almost always sound more like an accusation than a reflection of curiosity, and will induce a whole cascade of defensive and/or accommodating behaviors that won’t lead to the best results.

Solving this problem requires only two words: “Say more.”

Let’s practice.

Your direct report comes to you and says they’re choosing to allocate their budget in a particular way. Rather than, “Why are you allocating so much to X?” you say, “Say more.” Invited to expound, they will not feel like they’re on the receiving end of an inquisition, having to pitch or defend. In response to your gentle inquiry, there’s a very good chance you’re going to hear the background thinking, the examination of tradeoffs, the optimizing within constraints. Whatever they say, you’re going to hear what’s important to them, which is information in itself, and you will have have an easy entry point into a meaningful conversation.

Respond generously. We have choices every single day about how we respond to demands on our time, to requests for resources, and to perceived slights. It is tempting — maybe even human nature — to enter into a defensive crouch, hoarding our time, money, and good will. And yet, paradoxically, the more we hoard the less we will have in the end.

I truly cannot count the number of times when acting generously has brought vast benefits back to me. I feel those benefits immediately in the warm glow of having done someone a kindness and, often, in unpredictable ways as people return favors or give me the benefit of the doubt for unintentional slip-ups. The sense of reciprocity and solidarity is so foundational to working and living happily with others that we have to actively cultivate it through — as the bumper sticker says — practicing random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.

Do I always act in a way that is consistent with the good advice above? No, probably not. But am I sure these are behaviors that will make the world — and the workplace — better? Yes, I’m sure about that.

I know you come here for sports commentary, so let me not disappoint. I’ve been intrigued by the observation that the soccer superstar, Lionel Messi, is the player who walks the most in a sport known for ceaseless running up and down the pitch.

I’ll let Benson Taylor of the Sporting News explain:

It’s no secret that Messi spends a lot of time walking, standing, strolling during games. Heading into the match against Switzerland, The Athletic reported that Messi had spent 63 percent of this year’s World Cup walking . . . .

There are times when the ball is deep in the Argentina side of the field, and Messi stands alone near the center line, rubbing his hair. There are times when Argentina counters, and he still walks, sizing up the right moment and direction to break into a run. And there are times when there is action surrounding him, not bothering to pressure when an opponent has the ball a few feet away.

But all the while, his head is on a swivel. He’s watching.

Watching the flow of the players and ball. Watching the spacing. Watching for the right moment to break into a sprint.

He’s constantly sizing up the action. He’ll occasionally direct his goalkeeper or teammates, who are in continuous movement around him, but he always has a sense of when the right moment is right to spring into action.

Well, surely there’s a life lesson in that! Every team benefits from having a member who’s observing, learning, assessing the situation, and figuring out the moment to act. Who know? Maybe you are that person. Try on Messi’s jersey and see if it fits.

And now, your AI-generated moment of Zen (sound up!).

Have a good weekend,

-Ruth

Dear Friends —

Cars: a technology that transformed the world.

On one side of the equation, cars bring freedom, time savings, and access to opportunities that are more than walking distance from home.

On the other side: Automobile accidents take 40,000 [corrected figure] souls and cause hundreds of billions of dollars of damage each year in the United States alone. Cars consume large amounts of energy from nonrenewable sources, contributing to climate change. Access to vehicles, and all the paving that makes it possible to get from one place to another, has led to social divisions that are now almost impossible to heal.

Through the slow churn of public policymaking in this country, partial solutions have been developed to mitigate some of these problems. For vehicle safety, there are crash tests and airbag requirements. For road safety, there are speed limits and design features. For driver safety, there’s age- and competence-gated access in the form of drivers’ licenses. For financial losses, there are insurance requirements. For environment, emissions regulations, gas taxes, and subsidies for electric vehicles and other forms of fuel efficiency. We could make different choices.

At the same time, public policy has also made these problems worse than they otherwise would be. Greater investment in roads has led to lower investment in mass transit. Highway infrastructure also has created the scourge of commuting, and worsened economic and racial inequality. Planners and politicians have routed highways through Black and working-class neighborhoods, depressing property values and and creating physical barriers between races. Suburbanization has contributed to the hollowing out of the vibrancy, employment opportunities, and tax base of many mid-sized cities. Roadways built without provisions for bikers and pedestrians have also contributed to our unhealthy lifestyles.

If we had a crystal ball many decades ago and could have seen into the 2026 version of American car culture, would we have been smart enough to make choices that better served our collective wellbeing? I don’t know. What I do know is that the lessons from our rapid adoption of one world-changing technology might inform what we do about the new one we face — generative artificial intelligence.

When I use Claude, my patient and affirming research assistant and buddy, it’s sort of like driving a car. I have almost no idea how it works but I like the experience of getting to a destination faster than I would on my own. Also, like driving, I’m aware that the investors and engineers behind the creation of this technology are optimizing for profit and performance, not for the betterment of the world, the community, or the self. Each prompt entered makes it more likely that we will suffer from the environmental costs, the safety risks, the social disruptions, and the incalculable loss that comes about when we get out of the habit of thinking for ourselves.

If there are analogs with AI to both the positive and the negative consequences of cars, might there also be analogs to public policy solutions?

On the production of the technology, we could anticipate a whole raft of safety problems and create a regulatory structure to mitigate at least the worst of them. On the deployment, we could — at the social or at least at the organizational level — require a certain level of training or experience before setting people lose on the chatbots and vibe coding. We could create a program of social insurance to compensate for damages when the technology leads to layoffs or goes awry.

We could learn the lesson from the automobile industry and force the environmental costs to be taken into consideration through incentives, regulation, and energy pricing. Having guzzled down our knowledge base, a few companies may be on the verge of also guzzling down a disproportionate share of our energy and water resources.

We can think now, before it’s too late, about how to build the infrastructure that enables AI use in ways that are pro-equity rather than being accelerants of social divisions. This includes consideration of equity in the placement of data centers and the community benefits that are negotiated, the build-out of fiber optic cables to areas that currently are underserved, and the distribution of investment capital to entrepreneurs beyond the usual suspects.

I know these are eye-rollingly ambitious ideas in a moment when the over-rich people who benefit from the collective “bads” seem like they have all the power. But if we give up — if we just enjoy the individual pleasure of driving gas guzzling cars that other people are building and selling, traveling on roads that serve to divide rather than unite — we can easily predict where we will end up: far from home with no way to get back.

Among the tremors-that-may-be-earthquakes in the Bay Area, I’m watching how the philanthropic sector is affected by the incredible “wealth events” that will happen as large AI companies make their initial public offering and then, presumably, increase in shareholder value. If you haven’t yet tuned into this, I recommend reading Nan Ransohoff’s essay, “The Third Wave of American Philanthropy,” which tallies up the many, many billions of dollars that are likely to be dedicated to charitable purposes, and offers ideas about how those can be directed toward the right causes and the right models to support social change.

There’s little doubt that a substantial share of the philanthropic resource allocation will be informed by the effective altruist (EA) frameworks. For those who are depending on EA math and models to make sure their money leads to the greatest number of lives saved, it is likely that they will find themselves learning about malaria bed nets, vitamin A supplements, childhood vaccines, and cash transfers — all tested in controlled studies and determined to yield high returns.

If there is one thing we have learned in global health and development, though, is that the promise of each of these interventions depends on much more than the intervention itself. What matters as much as the rigorous experimental findings is the context in which programs are implemented and the extent to which people value and trust the products and services offered.

And so, for those in the EA crowd who really care about maximizing what their dollars do, I have a suggestion: build and use a prediction market platform to capture the knowledge of people who know about a particular context and the pros and cons of program design. Integrating the “wisdom of crowds” into resource allocation decisions could vastly improve the results.

Where, you might ask, could we find these “crowds” who know such things? Well, as it happens there are close to 300,000 people who have recent experience working in global development who probably have some time on their hands these days. Just find the WhatsApp groups where people are passing around job postings and commenting on Into the Woodchipper and you will find them. There also are lots more people throughout the world who have deep contextual knowledge that could be captured relatively easily.

Melinda Gates and her team have developed an impressive new women’s health strategy. It’s based on a serious assessment of the causes of underinvestment in women’s health throughout the lifespan and focuses both philanthropic and venture investments around promising solutions. This interview provides a good overview.

This!

And this!

Have a good weekend,

-Ruth

Dear Friends -

You may have noticed that the we’re in the midst of a five-alarm fire. Actually, several five-alarm fires, but I’m thinking about the one that seems to be consuming democracy in the U.S. The red lights are flashing on our economy and governmental institutions; one branch of our federal government is lawless, another is comatose, and the third is running around fully exposing its private partisans.

So I got to wondering: how do fire departments organize a response to five-alarm fires? And the answer is illuminating.

Here are the elements of a response to a fire that calls on multiple types of equipment, personnel, and skills:

• Deputy/assistant chiefs are responsible for overall incident command, delegating to battalion/district chiefs for specific sectors of the fire

• Engine companies are responding on-site, using hoses against the flames to directly save lives and property

• Truck/ladder companies are slightly further back from the action, clearing the path and providing aerial support to the firefighters

• Specialized units and EMTs are also called to deploy their particular skills and tools, such as hazmat, collapse/rescue, and air supply

• To provide mutual aid, neighboring departments are called in as back-up to fill in for those who are caught up in a response

It’s admittedly a little bit of a stretch to lean into the five-alarm fire metaphor for the multiple crises that are in the headlines — and in our lives — but here’s what I think we should take away: First, some type of coordination is key; someone has to see the whole set of needs and resources and serve as a communication and coordination hub. Second, there are distinct roles to play, both proximate to a problem and further away in support of those on the front lines. Third, specialized skills are essential and also in short supply: you need to direct them to where they can do some good. Finally, everyone involved needs a back-up so other important but not urgent work can get done, and there’s someone to carry the load when exhaustion hits. The role of back-up is essential, even if it’s behind-the-scenes.

The other reason it’s helpful to think about a five-alarm fire: Firemen are brave. We need to be brave.

It’s annual review and goal-setting time at my place of employment and so time to think about “performance” — a tricky concept in many organizations, and certainly in one where we get relatively little feedback from the outside world and the impact of our work is difficult to measure. It is particularly challenging for managers, who are — by definition — a step or two (or three) away from what is sometimes referred to as “the real work.” So . . . I like the KPIs above for managers: keep people interested, informed, involved, and inspired. If you can do that, you’re doing a great job!

And finally, your moment of Zen . . .

Have a good weekend!

-Ruth

Dear Friends -

In the olden days, there was a running joke about men reading Playboy for the articles. In my own head, there’s an analog about my loyal readers coming back week after week for the hot takes on social movements, philanthropy, and a few other things — but I know in my heart that it just might be for the funny videos.

So here, in honor of Mother’s Day (for those who have or are mothers), is my selection for the week. Enjoy (and then you can appreciate how they’ve sweetened up your algorithm)!

Have a good weekend,

-Ruth

Dear Friends -

A dear friend of mine is on the verge of hatching a new organization. Knowing the people involved and the importance of the work to be done, I have no doubt that it will take flight and soar with or without any words of wisdom from me. But I cannot resist. Extracting lessons from decades in the nonprofit world, working in and observing organizations at many stages in their life cycle, I humbly offer some strategic, tactical, and practical advice (which may be of value to other social entrepreneurs).

Strategic

A unique identity and role from the start. All big change requires multiple actors working toward a common goal; no one organization can do it all. (My favorite framework for this is here.) Being able to articulate not just a broad mission but a specific identity and role (or roles) within a larger (even nascent) movement will make it possible to establish essential partnerships with others. This might be around the audiences that you seek to reach and influence; it might be around your technical capabilities; it might be around your position — or fluidity — within the ideological churn. Whatever it is, be committed to that signature and articulate it at every opportunity.

Hybrid vigor. Great organizational cultures and great ideas require cross-pollination. Tempting as it may be at the start to reproduce the political and social monocultures that we see in many organizations, group-think will soon become a liability. Embrace the complications of bringing together people who have the same goal but different ways to get there, along with as diverse a range of backgrounds and networks as possible. Build an organization from the ground up that welcomes debate, contestation of ideas, 360-degree perspectives.

Tactical

An evergreen name. Several of the organizations I’ve worked with and around have had names that eventually became dated. Those include both those with literal dates in the name, and those that were named in response to a special issue of the moment. While these organizational names can convey a sense of urgency or responsiveness to current interests, at some point — as time marches on and enthusiasms fade — the name becomes an albatross. Build a reputation around a name but not a name around an issue.

People as signals. Know that your first board members and hires will establish your political valence so choose wisely. You have one chance at a first impression and — particularly for policy-oriented work — you want to make it difficult for others to put you in a spot along the ideological spectrum. (Also see strategic point above about hybrid vigor!)

Multiple tools to inform and influence. Anyone with an aim of moving the policy dial needs to have a full toolbox, including — in the United States — at least 501(c)3 and 501(c)4 capacity. It’s challenging to set up all and adhere to all the guardrails, but worth the effort so you can be a utility player.

Strategic communications from the start. Many organizations focus on the steak before the sizzle — for example, by concentrating on producing policy research before thinking about audience engagement. These days, though, the marketplace of ideas sits within the larger attention economy. Success requires a full-blown, multi-channel communications strategy, and investing in that from the get-go is wise.

Practical

Diverse funding. Easier said than done, of course, but diversifying the sources of support will increase organizational resilience. Protect your independence, even — or particularly — if that means diluting founding funders’ investments with other support. In addition, just as people will look at your board and staff to put you in a political box, they will also draw conclusions from your funders; diverse support will help project the identity you’re hoping for. And while we are on the topic of sources of money: make it possible from the start for contributions to come in the form of appreciated equities.

A leadership team built around complementary strengths. No founder has everything needed to start a functioning organization. Take a good hard look at yourself, get advice from those you trust, and hire to make up for your weaknesses. Even consider a co-CEO model — a move that can counteract some of the “lonely at the top” challenges of traditional organizational hierarchies.

Ground rules for funders. Some of the smartest founders I’ve known have set up aggressive rules that they’ve insisted funders follow. These have included: only multi-year general operating support, no tailored reporting or evaluations, participation in annual funder meetings and no ad hoc check-ins in between. While this can seem risky, you have a chance at the start to establish that you are on even footing with funders. Don’t waste the opportunity.

Realistic expectations of your board. Most of your board members are going to do little work on your behalf: they will show up for meetings (unless they are too fancy even for that) and they might host an event for you if you can make it easy for them. Expect no more and you won’t be disappointed.

Here’s the exception: Invite to join the board at least two people who are trusted allies. They may not do more work for you, but they can be counted on to keep board discussions from veering into the unhelpful territory of micromanagement and/or mission creep.

The zero year. Promise no miracles in your first year. You will not be at steady-state spending levels. You will (probably) not be interviewed by every major news outlet. Your ideas will (probably) not be inscribed in legislation. You will, however, be building the ideas, reputation, and partnerships to make all that possible. For more, see this blog post from 2015.)

I am wishing my friend — and others who have the ideas, passion, and talents to take on big challenges — all the best in preparing for lift-off. Go get ‘em!

If you have teenagers in your life, there’s a good chance they have a low opinion of conventional news coverage. A 2025 survey of American teens by the News Literacy Project found that most young people think news outlets are not impartial; close to half believe traditional journalists do more to harm democracy than to protect it, and that they fail to uphold the standards of accuracy and fairness in their work. The title of the survey report says it all: “Biased,” “Boring” and “Bad”: Unpacking Perceptions of News Media and Journalism among U.S. Teens.

It shouldn’t be surprising that young people are skeptical about the value of newspapers and TV news coverage, given the simultaneous explosion in the use of social media (particularly TikTok and Instagram) and the increasingly oligopolistic control over media. One way to combat the disillusionment? Find and share sources of independent journalism like these — and take that teen in your life to see Steal this Story, Please! (hopefully coming to a theater near you). Guaranteed to knock the cynicism out of everyone!

My favorite moment, of many, from the journey of the Artemis II. Wow, this gets me every time.

And now, because even The Onion could not even come up with this, I herewith share the magical mysterious mathematics of the White House. (I would really love to know what the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Commerce are thinking during this episode.)

Have a good weekend,

-Ruth

What’s surprising is where it’s happening: in the very countries that have been the standard-bearers of good governance, transparency, and adherence to a long-term vision of fairness in social and economic development around the world.

In Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, and other European countries, government funding for international aid—known as official development assistance—is increasingly being reassigned to cover the expenses of receiving and resettling refugees within the donor countries’ borders. But thanks to a specific set of international reporting rules, the totals for aid spending remain high—so high, in fact, that those countries are likely to retain their ranking atop the Center for Global Development’s Commitment to Development index.

The shift in funding is dramatic. In 2016, Denmark intends to spend one-third of its total aid budget—some $600 million—to cover refugee support within its own borders. Sweden and Norway are making even more drastic reallocations.

These are countries that have been stalwart supporters of long-term development investments in many countries in Africa and Asia. Their funding has permitted both the public sector and non-governmental organizations to improve education, provide vital health services, protect the rights of women and girls, and expand the infrastructure that allows farmers to get products to market and businesses to create jobs for young people. They have been among the most active advocates for generous, predictable, transparent aid flows, often chastising the United States for failing to adopt effective practices such as participation in sector-wide pooled funding aligned with the priorities of recipient governments. They were also influential in promoting ambitious international goal-setting, codified in the Sustainable Development Goals agreed by UN member states just a few months ago.

The consequences of these budget cuts are profound. Many of the non-governmental organizations we support have learned recently that promised funding will be cut by 30% or more, leaving them unable to finish projects and, in some cases, threatening the viability of the organizations themselves. NGOs have few, if any, alternative sources to draw on. (Although our own funding to them remains steady, we are unable to fill in this sudden gap.) Governments, too, are reeling from cuts in programs that have long been dependent on donor aid. The most likely public sector response will be to seek greater support from other sources, and particularly from China.

But this is more than a story about changing priorities in a stressed-out world; it’s a story about transparency. European donor countries are able to shift resources to needs within their own borders while appearing to be as generous as they have always been for one simple reason: the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) permits “in-donor refugee costs”—expenditures related to receiving and resettling refugees during the first 12 months—to be included in the reported totals of official development assistance. While this has been allowed informally since the early 1980s, and formally since a 1988 Statistical Reporting Directive from the OECD Development Assistance Committee (available in this 2013 report), the practice has gained in popularity in the past couple of years. As the challenge of refugees has grown, governments in Northern Europe have applied the reporting rule with more vigor and less rigor. They have shifted large shares of their aid budgets, including to expenses associated with resettlement past the 12-month mark. Several watchdog NGOs in Europe have tried to draw attention to this budget game, seeking to galvanize opposition to the use of aid resources for donor-country needs. To date, those efforts appear to have failed, in part because the overall “aid” numbers stay high and the pain is being felt far away.

Without question, the explosive increase in refugees from Syria and many other countries is putting a major strain on European countries, and the response demands that resources be mobilized. The money must be found somewhere. But drawing resources down from development assistance is short-sighted, sacrificing long-term benefits and the disrupting important work in progress. And exploiting OECD reporting rules hides the governments’ actions from their own people—taxpayers who, in the past, set the standard for global citizenship. They deserve better, and so do these European countries’ longtime partners in the developing world.

The Global Development and Population Program has had our fair share of those conversations over the past few years. For example, the Foundation realized a few years ago that the resources available in the international agriculture and trade portfolio were not commensurate with the ambitious goals we had laid out; we phased out of relationships with a dozen or so grantees. Last year, we began implementing a new international women’s reproductive health strategy. That has brought some hard conversations with people in organizations that have achieved much, but whose work no longer aligns with our aims. And this is the final year of new grant making for two special initiatives—Quality Education in Developing Countries and Reducing Abortion Need. We were clear about the time-limited nature of these initiatives from the beginning, but somehow it doesn’t really hit home until we start talking about the final grant.

I’ve been part of many of those conversations, and learned that a funder owes a grantee three things: significant lead time, acknowledgement of contributions made, and an extremely clear message that the grant will not be renewed. Our practice is to provide a phase-out grant of at least one year, in as flexible a form as possible, to permit the organization to gracefully phase out work and/or undertake activities that increase the chances that others will step in. We acknowledge contributions made not just in the recent past, but over the whole period of working together, which may be a decade or more. This is a shared history to reflect on and be proud of. Most importantly, we strive to be crystal clear that this will be the final grant, even at the risk of sounding undiplomatic. Tempting as it is to hedge, to leave a little room open for hope, to soften the blow, in the end the best way to honor our work together is to tell it like it is—and then put it in writing so the information can be shared with others, and used as the basis for realistic planning.

I’ve learned something else. It turns out that phasing out support is itself, paradoxically, one way to help organizations move to the next level. When a funder stops supporting a particular program, the grantee is forced to consider whether the work is in fact worthwhile and fully aligned with the organization’s core mission. If the answer is no, then pulling the plug on a distracting effort can be a blessing. If the answer is yes, the grantee is highly motivated to find new funding. We’ve seen time and again that organizations manifest a latent entrepreneurial streak when faced with the words “final grant.” It’s particularly gratifying when we hear that our support has helped to build capacity for research, training, service delivery, or advocacy that is now central to the organization’s mission, and that the leadership is committed to sustaining that capacity through other means.

No one looks forward to these conversations. But changes like this can, in the end, help all of us look forward.

Dear Friends —

In 1773, American colonists boycotted British tea to protest taxation without representation, dumping 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor. It became a catalyst for the American Revolution.

In 1902, Jewish immigrant women in New York City organized a grassroots boycott of kosher butchers to protest a sharp spike in beef prices, blockading shops and pressuring neighbors not to buy. The boycott spread to other cities and successfully drove prices back down.

In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi led an Indian movement to boycott British-made goods — especially salt, cloth, and sugar — in protest of colonial rule and unjust taxation. It galvanized the independence movement and pressured Britain toward eventual withdrawal.

In 1955, Black residents of Montgomery, Alabama, refused to ride city buses to protest racial segregation. The 381-day boycott resulted in a Supreme Court ruling that bus segregation was unconstitutional.

For 30 years starting in the 1960s, consumers, universities, and governments worldwide boycotted South African goods and divested from companies operating there to pressure the apartheid regime. Combined with international sanctions, the consumer and investor pressure contributed to the end of apartheid in 1994.

Starting in the mid-1960s, millions of consumers boycotted California table grapes in support of fair wages and labor conditions for farmworkers. In my own childhood home in upstate New York, the grape boycott was a “teachable moment,” with my parents explaining why we were on the side of the union — and therefore would have no grapes for snack. The boycott ended with growers signing the first collective bargaining agreements in U.S. agricultural history.

In the late 1970s, consumers started boycotting Nestlé over its aggressive marketing of infant formula, which discouraged breastfeeding and contributed to infant deaths in places where clean water was unavailable. The boycott led to the WHO’s International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes in 1981.

In the 1970s and 1980s, LGBTQ+ and union activists organized a consumer boycott of Coors Beer over anti-union practices and discrimination against gay employees. The boycott, which lasted years, pushed Coors to add sexual orientation to its non-discrimination policies, one of the first major corporations to do so.

Consumers boycotted Nike in the 1990s over reports of sweatshop conditions in its overseas factories. Nike eventually adopted a code of conduct for suppliers and increased factory monitoring, setting a new standard for corporate accountability.

Each of these consumer boycotts demonstrated how to leverage capitalism for social change by connecting some key elements:

• Clear, specific grievance - The most successful boycotts had a concrete, easily communicable injustice at their core — a price spike, a discriminatory law, a labor abuse.

• A viable alternative - Participants needed to be able to actually stop buying the product without severe hardship. People could live without beef and grapes, and there were other ways than the bus to get around town.

• Strong community infrastructure - The most effective boycotts had churches, unions, neighborhood networks, or other organizations to coordinate action and maintain solidarity. Boycotts in the age of influencers and social media have been publicized through viral spread and on-line reinforcement.

• Visible economic pain on the target - The targets of boycotts felt the financial and/or reputational damage.

• Sustained participation over time - Boycotts that worked — like the grape boycott and apartheid divestment — maintained momentum for years through continued organizing and media attention.

• Sympathetic public narrative - Boycotts that cast participants as underdogs fighting clear injustice tended to attract broader public sympathy beyond the core group.

• A defined “win condition” - Successful boycotts often had a specific, achievable demand like signing a union contract, repealing a law, or change a corporate policy so both sides could recognize when it was over.

Here’s a boycott worth considering today: move your money, like the folks in Massachusetts who have organized a boycott of Citizens Bank, part of a larger campaign called De-ICE Citizens Bank. Citizens Bank finances the private detention companies that hold immigrants on behalf of ICE. And it’s far from the only large bank that does so. Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase are all working with ICE.

A well organized national boycott could highlight the concrete, documentable relationship between individuals’ deposits and a failing and cruel system. In the face of consumer pressure and reputational damage, banks might change their practices.

While switching banks isn’t costless, it’s also not too difficult. It’s even possible in most places to find an alternative that aligns better with pro-social values, like a member-owned, community-oriented credit union.

Interestingly, big banks have succumbed to this type of pressure before. Between 2019 and 2021, sustained campaigns convinced JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and others to restrict or end financing relationships with private prison and detention operators. One example is described in this article about PNC Bank.

Boycotting banks around their involvement with ICE checks nearly every box of successful consumer actions: clear grievance, viable alternative, a target that hurts when customers leave, a specific win condition, and existing community infrastructure through credit unions, faith communities, and immigration advocacy groups that could help coordinate.

Alongside protests, petitions, and calls to representatives, participation in both national and local bank boycotts would be an active statement of values — and a way to build our civic muscle. It starts with a small decision, made together, that says: not with my money.

In the extremely unlikely event that you need more internet rabbit holes to fall down, here is my new favorite: Good Ads Matter, which has links to dozens of unbelievably powerful ads. While it may not sound like something to spend time watching — particularly after a treatise on consumer boycotts — each one of the ads is a master class in storytelling. Just take a look at the one below and you’ll see what I mean. (Made me cry, and I’m not even a dog person.)

My husband says you will enjoy this:

And I think you will enjoy how the hero’s mom reacted.

Have a good weekend,

Ruth

Dear Friends —

Like more than 10 million other people, I watch the HBO Max hit show The Pitt every week. Described by some as “competency porn,” each hour-long episode dramatizes one hour of a grueling day in a Pittsburgh hospital emergency department. Chronically understaffed and overburdened, the emergency department is a cauldron of modern medical miracles and misadventures, as well as a window into the ways in which we can never escape the vulnerability of our bodies when affected by trauma, acute or chronic disease, or just plain old age. Portrayed with tremendous skill, the assistants, nurses, doctors-in-training, and veteran physicians are all healers who themselves need healing. Can you tell I love this show?

Beyond making great TV, the team behind this production also has an ambition of wrestling with contemporary topics: medical debt, abortion, homelessness, addiction, self-harm, the role of profit and AI in health care, immigration enforcement, end-of-life care, vaccine skepticism, violence against health care workers, burnout, and much more each and every week. The dramatic treatment is as true-to-life and expertly rendered as the care depicted, thanks to a commitment by the producers and writers to depend on input from health care workers, ethicists, and lawyers. It’s a morality play with messages that hit home: Providing health care in 2026 America is brutally difficult.

The storytelling drives home points better than any lecture or research report is likely to do. Episodes of The Pitt are showing up in classrooms, being referenced in policy discussions, and spawning dozens of news articles, podcasts (including the excellent official podcast), Substack posts (!), and even Saturday Night Live skits (see below) about everything from informatics to physician burnout. There are even hints that exposure to the situations presented in the show is making a difference in decision making. A study out of the University of Southern California Annenberg Center, “Life and Death in The Pitt: How Accurate, Authentic Stories Move Audiences to Action,” found that viewers of episodes dealing with compassionate end-of-life care and organ donation were more likely to engage in positive behaviors than were people who had not seen the episodes.

Much as I appreciate each episode, it’s because of this power that I am also frustrated by it. It is not yet showing the other act in the morality play: The causes and consequences of our health problems can be found in the larger society. So far, the show has not pulled back the camera from the medical (and medicalized) world to provide a view of public health, with its many facets. Yes, the social drivers of ill health are the backstory in The Pitt. But there’s an opportunity to make them — and other public health concerns — the center of the action.

It’s time for a spin-off.

A young emergency room physician looks around the overcrowded waiting room and sees that treating patients one by one is a Sisyphean task. She’s starting to question her career choice during an onslaught of patients suffering from intense vomiting and diarrhea, including a newly married couple on their wedding night and two-thirds of their guests.

Amidst saline drips and soiled gurney sheets (cue the special effects department), our protagonist meets the Allegheny County epidemiologist, who’s been alerted by multiple area hospitals to the possibility of an outbreak. The public health detective is collecting and analyzing information that will eventually solve the mystery of a common exposure to E. coli — maybe something like the “wedding from hell.” After identifying the creamed spinach as the culprit, county health officials have to decide whether to shut down the catering business (inconveniently owned by the mayor’s cousin) or even call for a nationwide recall of the bagged spinach used in the dish. That move, sure to incur the ire of Big Food, connects the microbiology to the macro political economy.

Inspired, and eager to get out of the emergency room shitshow, that young doctor then trains for a career in public health and becomes an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer. Each season, she is assigned to a new health department — from Baltimore to Fresno, from the Mississippi Delta to Colorado Springs — each with different public health concerns and different social and political realities.

The stories tell themselves. Incidents could be as varied as those in the Pittsburgh emergency department, and include infectious disease outbreaks, chronic and acute exposure to toxins, addiction at population levels, and so much more. Both idealistic young public health professionals and hard-bitten bureaucratic warriors could be shown using expertise and know-how to unravel public health mysteries, all while interacting with the medical, police, and social service agencies and managing multiple levels of political, budgetary, and legal hurdles.

Just as The Pitt is helping many of us understand the human drama of individuals’ ill health and medical treatment, County Health could shine a light on the social drama of community ill health and prevention. It could be part of the way to communicate to the general public and to policy makers that we will never get better unless we work harder on the social drivers of health.

Two great books about the challenges and promise of public health work:

Josh Sharfstein’s The Public Health Crisis Survival Guide: Leadership and Management in Trying Times

Michelle Williams’s just-published The Cure for Everything: The Epic Struggle for Public Health and a Radical Vision for Human Thriving

My only “fun fact” is that I love country music. (I know, very off-brand. That’s why it passes for a fun fact.)

Here’s my new favorite song

Have a good weekend,

-Ruth

Dear Friends —

My mother had a little repertoire of poems that she would roll out when the occasion called for it. This was the springtime one, which I’ve shared before. It’s in my head today, and if you read it twice through it will be in yours, too.

I Meant to Do My Work Today by Richard Le Gallienne

I meant to do my work today—
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand—
So what could I do but laugh and go?

In that spirit, I’ll keep it short and sweet, with just a few links I liked:

“5 Things Philanthropic Leaders Need to Know about Democracy in 2026,” which highlights findings from a recent Gallup public opinion poll.

“Why Your Own Body is Gaslighting You,” recommendations for 10 micro-habits to help us calm the fight-or-flight response that March 2026 is bringing on.

A couple of entries into the catalog of creative craftivism: “The Statues Were Mostly Men or Nude Women. So These Knitters Got to Work” and “Campaigners Tie Baby Slings to Statues in Call for Better UK Paternity Leave.”

This window into what to actually expect when you’re expecting:

And this window into what’s coming . . . I mean, what’s here already:

Have a good weekend,

-Ruth

Best things first. If you read (or view) nothing else in this post, please take a few minutes to read this poem, or watch the author read it. 100% guaranteed to feed your soul.

You Are Who I Love, by Aracelis Girmay

You, selling roses out of a silver grocery cart

You, in the park, feeding the pigeons
You cheering for the bees

You with cats in your voice in the morning, feeding cats

You protecting the river You are who I love
delivering babies, nursing the sick

You with henna on your feet and a gold star in your nose

You taking your medicine, reading the magazines

You looking into the faces of young people as they pass, smiling and saying, Alright! which, they know it, means I see you, Family. I love you. Keep on.

You dancing in the kitchen, on the sidewalk, in the subway waiting for the train because Stevie Wonder, Héctor Lavoe, La Lupe

You stirring the pot of beans, you, washing your father’s feet

You are who I love, you
reciting Darwish, then June

Feeding your heart, teaching your parents how to do The Dougie, counting to 10, reading your patients’ charts

You are who I love, changing policies, standing in line for water, stocking the food pantries, making a meal

You are who I love, writing letters, calling the senators, you who, with the seconds of your body (with your time here), arrive on buses, on trains, in cars, by foot to stand in the January streets against the cool and brutal offices, saying: YOUR CRUELTY DOES NOT SPEAK FOR ME

You are who I love, you struggling to see

You struggling to love or find a question

You better than me, you kinder and so blistering with anger, you are who I love, standing in the wind, salvaging the umbrellas, graduating from school, wearing holes in your shoes

You are who I love
weeping or touching the faces of the weeping

You, Violeta Parra, grateful for the alphabet, for sound, singing toward us in the dream

You carrying your brother home
You noticing the butterflies

Sharing your water, sharing your potatoes and greens

You who did and did not survive
You who cleaned the kitchens
You who built the railroad tracks and roads
You who replanted the trees, listening to the work of squirrels and birds, you are who I love
You whose blood was taken, whose hands and lives were taken, with or without your saying
Yes, I mean to give. You are who I love.

You who the borders crossed
You whose fires
You decent with rage, so in love with the earth
You writing poems alongside children

You cactus, water, sparrow, crow You, my elder
You are who I love,
summoning the courage, making the cobbler,

getting the blood drawn, sharing the difficult news, you always planting the marigolds, learning to walk wherever you are, learning to read wherever you are, you baking the bread, you come to me in dreams, you kissing the faces of your dead wherever you are, speaking to your children in your mother’s languages, tootsing the birds

You are who I love, behind the library desk, leaving who might kill you, crying with the love songs, polishing your shoes, lighting the candles, getting through the first day despite the whisperers sniping fail fail fail

You are who I love, you who beat and did not beat the odds, you who knows that any good thing you have is the result of someone else’s sacrifice, work, you who fights for reparations

You are who I love, you who stands at the courthouse with the sign that reads NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE

You are who I love, singing Leonard Cohen to the snow, you with glitter on your face, wearing a kilt and violet lipstick

You are who I love, sighing in your sleep

You, playing drums in the procession, you feeding the chickens and humming as you hem the skirt, you sharpening the pencil, you writing the poem about the loneliness of the astronaut

You wanting to listen, you trying to be so still

You are who I love, mothering the dogs, standing with horses

You in brightness and in darkness, throwing your head back as you laugh, kissing your hand

You carrying the berbere from the mill, and the jug of oil pressed from the olives of the trees you belong to

You studying stars, you are who I love
braiding your child’s hair

You are who I love, crossing the desert and trying to cross the desert

You are who I love, working the shifts to buy books, rice, tomatoes,

bathing your children as you listen to the lecture, heating the kitchen with the oven, up early, up late

You are who I love, learning English, learning Spanish, drawing flowers on your hand with a ballpoint pen, taking the bus home

You are who I love, speaking plainly about your pain, sucking your teeth at the airport terminal television every time the politicians say something that offends your sense of decency, of thought, which is often

You are who I love, throwing your hands up in agony or disbelief, shaking your head, arguing back, out loud or inside of yourself, holding close your incredulity which, yes, too, I love I love

your working heart, how each of its gestures, tiny or big, stand beside my own agony, building a forest there

How “Fuck you” becomes a love song

You are who I love, carrying the signs, packing the lunches, with the rain on your face

You at the edges and shores, in the rooms of quiet, in the rooms of shouting, in the airport terminal, at the bus depot saying “No!” and each of us looking out from the gorgeous unlikelihood of our lives at all, finding ourselves here, witnesses to each other’s tenderness, which, this moment, is fury, is rage, which, this moment, is another way of saying: You are who I love You are who I love You and you and you are who

A couple of weeks ago, I shared a capsule version of the story of the Delta Health Center, to illustrate how a few people directly and specifically responded to the needs of one community facing challenges — and ended up creating a system of care that now serves many others. Here’s the same idea, in another form:

Ten years ago, parents of a child with Crohn’s disease (also called inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD) saw that their son was not benefitting enough from the medication he was prescribed. They wrote to a physician friend to ask for advice — and shared an Excel spreadsheet where they had tracked height, weight, dosage, and the results of blood work over many months. The data turned into a dose-response model and then a new, more successful dosing schedule for the boy — an “n = 1” improvement. The experience then led to doctors asking more parents to collect data, and that data turned into more — and more generalizable — dosing regimes. Success!

Managing pediatric IBD requires far more than good drugs. Children and their caregivers have to deal with specialized diets, tube feeding, ostomies, and myriad medical and social challenges and complications. While doctors had a lot to learn about dosing medications through pooling information, they had even more to learn from patients and their families themselves about what it’s like to live with IBD.

The motivation, curiosity, and ingenuity of health care workers and patients led to the creation of a dynamic platform for the exchange of experiences, data, and tips and tricks for management of a complex condition. The more the platform served patients and their caregivers, the more it grew; the more it grew, the more opportunities there were to (as they say) “steal shamelessly and share seamlessly.”

The Improve Care Now network now engages two-thirds of children in the U.S. with IBD, along with their families; more than 100 specialized health care sites; and1,000+ doctors. In addition to sharing the latest research, the platform hosts patient-made videos and other content so everyone can learn from individual patient experiences. The results speak for themselves: in about seven years the network saw an increase in remission rates from 60 to 83 percent, and countless patients have benefited from the positivity and solidarity that comes with being part of a community taking control over its own future.

As if the n = 1 to n = 35,000 achievement wasn’t enough, the Improve Care Now model of a learning health system has now been applied to other conditions, including heart disease, cystic fibrosis, bipolar disorder, and more. That is quite a testament to the power of this idea, which started with the impulse to help one child.

If you’re interested in the model of learning health systems that grew out of the experience with Improve Care Now, search for an excellent talk by one of the network’s founders, Dr. Peter Margolis, “The Architecture of Learning: Systems, Infrastructure, & Leadership for Health System Transformation” on YouTube. (Weirdly, I’m unable to share the link directly.) Highly recommended for any systems thinker.

Hey, all you big idea people: Renaissance Philanthropy is seeking applications for Explore Grants of $10,000–50,000 to support the design and scoping of thesis-driven philanthropic funds, with a particular focus on global health and development. Explore Grants back early work to develop fund theses, identify key bottlenecks, and assess whether coordinated philanthropic capital could unlock large-scale, cost-effective impact. You can learn more here and apply here. Check it out!

I gave you the best thing first, but I’ll leave you with one video that made me laugh this week. Maybe you’ll like it, too.

Have a good weekend!

-Ruth

Dear Friends —

Here’s a semi-indefensible (but still sort of true) generalization from the world of social impact: you’re either a bottom-up “it’s all about the community and the context” person, or you’re a top-down “it’s all about the policies, structures, and systems” person.

People can and do recognize the relationship between the experiences of specific people in specific places, on the one hand, and the larger, somewhat abstract superstructure, on the other. But what you see as primary, as the starting place, as the thing that motivates your work: that tends to breakdown along these polarities.

When we get into the “local” vs. “global” debates, or the “community” vs. “system” discussion, we often draw different conclusions about how to respond to, and even solve, observable problems like housing or food insecurity, poor health outcomes, and education deficits.

Everybody wants healthier, better educated, more financially secure families — or at least everybody I’m talking about here — but the theories about how to get there may differ dramatically. For those who start at the community level, it’s about meeting needs, responding to immediate priorities, and supporting the ability of groups to be more powerful and effective advocates for the community’s interests. For those who start at the system level, it’s about identifying structural barriers to progress and shaping policies in ways that direct money and technical expertise toward the best uses.

There is a way to close the gap, and some of the most inspirational social reforms have shown that way. (Promise or warning: I have several examples to share, so it’ll be one a week for a little while.)

Take the Tufts-Delta Health Center as the first example, founded in 1965 by visionaries from both inside and outside of a desperately poor community. In responding directly and specifically to the needs of people living in the most precarious conditions, the clinic’s creation led, within a few years, to a massive, system-level increase in access to care far beyond the original context.

Here’s a bit of the remarkable story, as told by one of the health center’s co-founders, Dr. Jack Geiger.

In Bolivar County, Mississippi, around 1965, Black people in poverty, particularly the isolated, rural, Black ex-sharecroppers and ex-plantation workers who constituted the vast and silent majority of the Black community, lived in an unceasing, and often losing, struggle against disaster. They were hungry; there was no food. They were unemployed; their skills had been made obsolete by the mechanical cotton picker, the herbicide-spraying crop duster, and the ironies of cotton and other national crop-subsidy, acreage-restriction policies. The median annual family income was $900. They lived in crumbling, patchwork shacks with leaking roofs, rotting floors, buckling walls, gaping windows, newspapers for insulation, and crude stoves for heating and cooking—when there was firewood. Many drank contaminated water from drainage ditches and used dilapidated surface privies for personal sanitation. Infants under such circumstances often ingested their own excrement; children lacked the shoes to walk to school, the clothes to wear to school, or given these, the food to sustain learning. Adults, particularly the stronger men, migrated north to the urban ghettos in search of work, fragmenting families and leaving the elderly isolated and alone. For the rural Black community, basic institutions (such as the Black church) struggled to survive. In the midst of national affluence, for this population hope was a luxury. Survival was the primary occupation.

Community organization at the Tufts-Delta Health Center began in 1966. Training activities began in early 1967 in an abandoned movie theater. Clinical health services began in late 1967 in a remodeled church parsonage. The combined programs of the health center, the local health associations, the health council, and the farm cooperative touched on every major problem area affecting the lives and the health of the rural poor. Programs alone, however, could merely be palliative; the only hope of their long-term survival and long-range effects lay in rooting them in viable, effective, community-based institutions. Thus, even more important than the programs and health and community services was the development of a series of flourishing, active, and effective community institutions. These included 10 local community health associations, each with its own community center and its own programs linked with the health center; the North Bolivar County Health Council, representing all the local communities, developing programs for them and for the entire area, operating significant components of the health center program, and ultimately serving as the owner, the policymaking and controlling consumer body, and the operator of the health center; the health center itself, a modern, 30 000-square-foot facility employing more than 200 people (most of them from the area’s own population) on what was previously a cotton field; and the North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative, related to but entirely independent of the health center and health council, while producing thousands of tons of vegetables to be distributed to its worker-members.

These institutions served the community, and they were staffed by the community: every Black household in the poverty population in all of northern Bolivar County had at least one (and often more than one) adult member actively participating in decision-making, program planning, and program operation through a local health association. Each month, the various divisions of the health center accumulated a total of more than 6000 patient or resident encounters.

That clinic, which is very much in existence today, did not just serve the people of Bolivar County, although that would have been contribution enough. It became the prototype for a much larger reform as the first federally qualified health center under the Johnson era “War on Poverty” efforts to expand access to health care. The national FQHC program now serves 32 million patients each year.

Did government dollars get directed to expand care in underserved areas solely because the Tufts-Delta Health Center showed what was possible? No. But its existence, built on trust and connection with the community, was an essential contributor to the system change.

(For a fantastic interview with Jack Geiger about his early years, listen to this interview.)

Remember, I have a bunch of other local-to-global, community-to-systems examples to share. Stay tuned.

In ways large and small, virtually all social change organizations are manifestations of a belief in, and the power of, democracy. This is true whether the organization’s approach is bottom-to-top, top-to-bottom, insider, or outsider. So almost everyone will find new ways to think about and tell their own story in “How to Tell Better Stories for Democracy,” a report from Democracy 2076. Read it, and see if you catch me trying out a few of the storylines.

Readers with long memories will recall my hopes about voters in the Taylor Swift demographic. (Dashed.) Now, for Swifties and non-Swifties alike, I’m recommending the essay “Learning from Taylor Swift: How to Build a Community-First Membership Strategy.” It’s written primarily for marketers, but has insights for anyone trying to maintain engagement with an ever-more-distractable audience.

The most popular item in last week’s note was the video explaining curling. This week, I offer a very-much-worth-a-listen six-part podcast about the incredible curling scandal, “Broomgate.” No education about curling is complete without it.

And now, the luge:

Have a good weekend,

-Ruth

Dear Friends —

A longstanding framework in sociology posits that establishing trust has three elements:

• ability - people have to believe that you know what you’re doing and how to do it

• integrity - people have to believe you’re telling them the truth

• beneficence - people have to believe you have their best interest at heart

(There are lots of versions of this. The “trust triangle” illustrated above is one that was developed by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss. I also wrote about this framework, albeit a little differently, in mid-2021.)

I think about the balance across these elements all the time, and especially at work, where it is vital to establish trust — and challenging to do so when relationships span levels in an organizational hierarchy (ack! power dynamics!).

From early in our work lives, most of us focus on the first element: demonstrating that we have the ability to successfully complete the tasks in front of us, whether simple or complex. We take pride in a growing set of skills, and feel rewarded by praise for a job well done. Our competence is represented on our CVs; it is the focus of performance reviews and referenced as the basis for promotions. Let’s face it: showing off our expert knowledge can become our whole personality.

While we’re busy making sure everyone knows how much we know and can do, we may well be missing opportunities to hone and reveal our integrity and beneficence — crucial elements in trust-building. In fact, there can be a tension across these elements so we have to act with intentionality to resolve that tension.

When we think the name of the game is primarily about ability, that mindset can get in the way of asking for help or admitting failure. And when we hide our shortcomings, we’re missing the chance to let others know that we are ready, willing, and able to tell the truth.

The same overweighting of “See, I know what I’m doing!” can get in the way of showing that we have others’ best interests at heart. Particularly as people move into more senior management roles, a persistent focus on showing off our knowledge and know-how can look self-involved. We have to make a transition, at least in part, toward supporting others’ skill-building and success.

I’ve appreciated this framework more and more as I’ve progressed in my work life. It has proven to be a good recipe, helping me (and others) find ways to build trust by simultaneously demonstrating all three elements: using the skills we have in service of others’ wellbeing, while being honest about our limits and what we have yet to learn.

There is a secondary benefit to committing energy to the integrity and beneficence parts of trust-building. As we are struggling to articulate the value of being a human worker in the age of artificial intelligence, it is not ability that will differentiate us from the machine. It is integrity and beneficence.

I recently started working with some newish-to-me colleagues and was reminded how handy it is to have a “personal user manual” to share. It’s a quick way to convey information about who you are, how you work, what you can offer, and what you need from others. Highly recommended to share and invite if you’re joining a new team or welcoming a new teammate. And, yes, it’s a good way to be both a truth-teller and an empathetic leader from the very start of a relationship. Lots of examples are available online; here’s one that covers a lot of bases.

Spend 16 minutes watching this video and get more out of the Winter Olympics!

Have a good weekend,

-Ruth

Dear Friends —

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859

Well! That certainly could be written today, couldn’t it? The disorienting extremes. The references to foolishness and incredulity. The rumble of people-power against a king.

Plus the knitting.

Not referenced in the excerpt above, but among the only details I remember about the book itself, is the role of the fictional Madame Defarge, a tricoteuse clacking away at her needles by the guillotine. Beyond enjoying the sight of aristocrats being beheaded, she encoded in her stitches the names of those upon whom she wished the same fate. A memorable character indeed.

Throughout history, knitting has played a role in women’s individual lives — and women’s collective power. In some eras, including Colonial America, the ability to make clothes at home with homespun wool helped sustain economic boycotts. On other occasions, knitters served as spies, communicating military plans in their knit-ones, purl-ones. In houses humble and grand, knitting circles have been the venues for political organizing among peasants, enslaved people, intellectuals, and revolutionaries.

And then there are the soft hats, red and pink. Freed Roman slaves wore felted red caps called pileus to celebrate their liberty. Citizens seeking liberty, equality, and brotherhood during the French Revolution wore bonnets rouges. During the Nazi occupation, Norwegians communicated their resistance by wearing red beanies, or rød topplue. All were knitted, marshalling craft to communicate across communities. Barred from public office, silenced and confined by strict gender norms, women found ways to needle their oppressors. This amateur historian tells some good stories about precisely that.

Which brings us to the modern day. In early 2017, the pink pussy hat made its appearance at the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., around the country, and even around the world. And now, women in Minnesota have started a movement to knit, wear, and share Melt the ICE hats to protest the brutal tactics of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel. (You can find the pattern here.)

If you’re thinking that knitting needles are a poor match for munitions, you are right. But symbols matter, and symbols that embody human creativity and passion matter most. If not, why did the Nazi authorities outlaw those tasseled red hats in Norway in 1942? And while as of this writing Minnesotans are still permitted to wear their fresh-off-the-needles red beanies, FEMA seems to be notably sensitive to memes. It’s only a matter of time before they see the knitted red hats as a threat to those who prefer red baseball hats.

Beyond knitting to send a message, practicing the craft can settle the mind in the midst of chaos. Like many people, I use the rhythm of the needles and the softness of the yarn to soothe my nerves. The more intense the stressors, from headlines to heartache, the more I knit. (In case you’re wondering, I’m currently working on a challenging cardigan with a beautiful dark teal possum-merino blend I found in New Zealand last year.)

Knitted goods are a source of beauty in our lives, whether the patterns are simple or complex. Like other crafts, knitting permits amateurs like me to combine color, form, and skill into functional art. This warms the soul.

Knitting as activism. Knitting as therapy. And knitting as joy. These are possible only because of the designers and the teachers. One who has been among the most influential in making the art of knitting accessible to us all recently died at age 95. Read about Barbara G. Walker’s remarkable life and contributions here.

[A friendly aside for those who are tempted to challenge me on the “knitting is women’s work” assumption embedded in the paragraphs above. Yes, I know the hobby has become increasingly popular among men — including those drawn in by the problematic competitive knitting scene. My own dear son knows how to knit. But knitting, like many domestic arts, is mostly the purview of women and the culture around it is decidedly gendered.]

A song worth hearing today:

During my over-long break from writing these notes (sorry!), I’ve been listening to some fantastic podcasts (while knitting). Here’s a partial list:

One Amendment Explains It All, an interview by Dahlia Lithwick with Sherrilyn Ifill. This is an analysis of many of our current and perennial struggles, and Ifill uses something akin to X-ray vision to expose the bones of our political system.

Has Trump Achieved a Lot Less Than It Seems, an interview by Ezra Klein with Yuval Levin that provides a new way to understand the breathtaking shifts in the federal government.

Fela Kuti: Fear No Man, a 12-.part series hosted by Jad Abumrad, that explores the life and work of Nigerian singer Fela Anikulapo-Kuti.

Rachel Maddow Presents: Burn Order, a six-part series that vastly expanded my understanding of the Japanese internment in the 1940s; it has unmistakable lessons for America in 2026.

Have a good weekend,

-Ruth

Dear Friends —

Vaccines help keep us all healthy. We’re all susceptible to infectious diseases, particularly in infancy and old age. And we all benefit indirectly when others are protected from getting — and spreading — viruses.

Beneath the “all,” though, is the story of differences based not on biology but on social factors that affect our exposure to health risks. Take hepatitis B, for example, which is spread through semen and blood. Needle-sharing among drug users and sex work, as well as being born to a mother carrying the infection, are major risk factors. Given the economic and social disadvantage that puts people in these vulnerable situations, White, non-Hispanic residents of the U.S. tend to have lower rates of hepatitis B than non-White residents; rates are particularly high among Black, non-Hispanic Americans.

That means Black babies benefit disproportionately from getting immunized at birth, which has been recommended for all newborns by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) since 1991. The impact of universal administration of a birth dose of the hep B vaccine has been remarkable, as shown in the graph below. Incidence has fallen across all populations, but particularly and dramatically within Black communities, narrowing the gap across races and ethnicities. It is a massive public health success story.

That is the progress undone today by our government’s current health leadership. The ACIP, now with members handpicked by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., voted to recommend “individual-based decision-making [in which] . . . parents and health care providers should consider vaccine benefits, vaccine risks, and infection risks . . . and that parents consult with their health care provider and decide when or if their child will begin the hepatitis B vaccine series.” So each and every person expecting a baby is supposed to “do their own research,” and share information with their health care provider about whatever risk factors they may have. This is a fanciful idea, and will yield predictable damage for the children we should be most concerned about.

From the restrictions on Medicaid coverage to the diversion of Title X dollars toward “natural family planning” to the undermining of longstanding vaccine policy: every single recent action by the U.S. Government has set us on a path toward poorer health and greater inequality. There is no question about what they’re trying to do; there’s only a question about what doctors, nurses, and all the rest of us are going to do about it.

In this chapter of my work life, I’ve been searching for the right metaphor to describe what I do and who I’m hoping to be.

In earlier eras, I was a builder and (once in a great while) a pathbreaker. There was a lot of creating, producing, exploring. Sometimes the action was step-by-step or brick-by-brick, and sometimes it was less linear — but always with a sense of making something new and better.

Now my work is almost exclusively supporting the success of others who are doing the building and the pathbreaking. Sometimes that means providing a “big picture” view or waving a yellow flag to keep colleagues heading forward. But being the general contractor or a flagman isn’t the right metaphor.

I think I’m settling on “locksmith.”

Some of my work is opening doors for my team, including removing obstacles they’ve been pushing against so they can walk through and focus on the real work. Some is key-making: giving people the skills, context, and connections that let them open doors on their own.

And most of my work is seeking the key or code to unlock the vast potential in each and every one of my colleagues: what can I do to foster motivation paired with self-confidence, alongside a healthy dose of openness to learning from mistakes? I’ve learned over the years that there is no master key. Sometimes people just need you to get out of the way; at other times, they need help getting out of their own way. Figuring out what each person needs and when is rewarding work, in a new kind of way.

The locksmith metaphor isn’t perfect but it expresses the most important thing that distinguishes this career phase from earlier ones: not laying a foundation or charting a new and better course, but helping to unlock the capability of others to do just that.

Queen of Katwe is one of my favorite family-friendly movies — and now we have one more reason to rewatch it.

Don’t miss this part of the story . . .

Have a good weekend!

-Ruth

Dear Friends —

I’m going to toss out some numbers, and then I’m going to add them up.

• About 42 million Americans in 19 million households are eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and without that support they would have a very hard time buying groceries. That’s around 14 percent of American households. [Meaning: a lot of people in this country suffer from food insecurity.]

• There is an employed, income-earning adult in more than three-quarters of households receiving SNAP benefits. [Meaning: a lot of people in this country that are working outside the home still don’t earn enough to feed their families — and a lot of employers are free-riding on public safety net programs rather than paying a living wage.]

• The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour for workers in jobs where tipping is not a routine practice, and $2.13 per hour for workers in tipped jobs. ($2.13 per hour!) These levels have not been changed since 2009 and the purchasing power has diminished by 30% since that point. [Meaning: The federal minimum wage is a poverty wage.]

• While most states have adopted their own, higher minimum wages, in 13 states workers receive the federally-set minimum wage. Georgia and Wyoming have state minimum wages that are lower than federal, but employers are required to follow the national standard; Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and Iowa have state minimum wages set to the federal level. And Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee have no state minimum wage at all, so the federal rate applies. [Meaning: The federal minimum wage has significance for workers across the Deep South as well as in several states that have outsized importance in Presidential elections and in the composition of Congress.]

• Less than 1 percent of American workers earn the federal minimum wage and they tend to be younger workers in food service and other hospitality jobs. However, the wages of hourly workers at more senior levels are often pegged to starting wages. [Meaning: A low starting wage affects income prospects over the long term.]

• More than three-quarters of voters across the political spectrum support raising the federal minimum wage. (Data shown from an April 2024 Data for Progress poll.) [Meaning: It’s an issue that transcends polarization and does not carry the baggage of other policy positions that are associated with partisan identity.]

OK, now it’s time to say out loud what those numbers add up to. If one of the two major political parties in this country could offer up a plausible pathway to increase the federal minimum wage by a meaningful amount, the payoff would be huge both in election outcomes and in people’s lives. A focus on the minimum wage corresponds to the current energy around “affordability” as a driver of voter behavior, and it could part of a compelling narrative around the dignity of work. It would be a useful counterpoint to the headlines about a trillion-dollar pay package. And, most importantly, raising the federal minimum wage would improve the earning power of working people who are struggling to make ends meet. It would permit them to be less dependent on the so-called safety net programs like SNAP.

The federal government has only a few “stroke of the pen” opportunities to improve economic prospects for American workers, starting on the next payday. It’s not going to happen through tax breaks for corporations or through tariffs; it’s not going to happen through taking stakes in technology companies; it’s not going to happen through turning SNAP back on. But it could happen by raising the federal minimum wage.

Meme of the week

Before I changed plans due to the impending airline chaos, my husband and I were going to be ships in the night this week: he was coming home from a short trip right after I would have left for one. In preparation, I made him watch this:

Have a good weekend,

-Ruth

Dear Friends —

Last week was heavy. This week, light(er).

“The Real Way to Boost Birthrates,” by Stephanie Psaki. A very timely contribution. Here’s a taste:

If political leaders want more babies, they need to make parenting more affordable and more compatible with working life. That means better child care, paid leave, flexible work, and affordable housing—not moral lectures about gender roles.

“What Giving People Money Doesn’t Fix,” by Caitlin Tulloch, who writes “While increasing people’s purchasing power can improve their lives, individual spending choices alone can’t solve collective action problems.” If you follow debates about whether cash is *the* solution to poverty, including those around the recent study of child development, read this piece.

A powerful interview with U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin.

While those of us in the United States have the pleasure of watching The Great British Baking Show, we will be deprived of The Game of Wool, a knitting competition, which premieres on Channel 4 in the UK this weekend. Read all about it in “One Contestant Makes Wool Vulvas!”

My new favorite Instagram influencer shares how long it takes to do tasks she’s put off — as in, 18 minutes to complete a task she’s procrastinated about for 3 years. Both a vicarious thrill and an inspiration.

Some dancing.

Have a good weekend,

-Ruth

Dear Friends —

In 2022, I had the chance to go to Gorée Island, one of the West African sites of the slave trade. I stood at the Door of No Return in the House of Slaves. There, I imagined the scenes from the 1530s to 1864, as Dutch, French, Portuguese, and British human traffickers moved a total of 20 million men, women, and children onto crowded boats, sailing across the Atlantic Ocean to a life of unpaid labor, hardship, and unjust punishment among the plantations in Brazil, the Caribbean, and what is now the United States.

That visit, which I wrote a little about at the time, was part of my overdue and never-completed education about the origins of colonialism and, by extension, the global development enterprise. The slave trade was an “extractive industry” of the worst kind, based and sustained on a conception of all people not being created equal. It robbed wealth and social cohesion from Africa, and established enduring relationships of dominance and submission between peoples and between governments.

This past week, I visited one of the sites on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The Whitney Plantation, about an hour’s drive west of New Orleans, bears witness to the experience of enslaved Africans sold into servitude on one of the many sugar plantations in that state, similar to the cotton plantations in Mississippi, the rice plantations in South Carolina, and the tobacco farms in Virginia. At the Whitney Plantation, a descendant of an enslaved family guided a somber tour from the living quarters to the jail to the memorial to men who lost their lives in the 1811 German Coast uprising.

As was true at Gorée Island, walking the ground that was the site of incomprehensible cruelty was both confusing and enlightening. The confusing part is how so many individuals could consider themselves to be people of faith and citizens of a country that professed “all men are created equal” a full century before the official end of slavery. It is hard to understand evil embedded in hearts and minds.

The enlightening part is the origin story of systems of oppression, extraction, and dehumanization that persist. In some ways, it is easier to understand evil embedded in institutions.

Some connections are a straight and solid line. For example, starting in the 1840s, Angola, Louisiana, was home to a cotton plantation where more than 700 enslaved people labored and lived. As the name suggests, many were from the South African nation of Angola, traded by the Portuguese.

A few decades after the Civil War ended in 1865, the the plantation site became home to a prison, which established a practice of leasing out convicts to private individuals and corporations for labor — a significant source of revenue for the state and of hardship for the imprisoned men.

Today, the legacy continues. The largest maximum security prison in the United States is the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, housing 6,300 prisoners in a state infamous for its incarceration rate. While reforms have been instituted, Angola remains a place that forces prisoners to work under the hot sun, picking crops on an 18,000 acre farm.

Other connections are dotted and curved, but still pretty easy to see if you open your eyes. Take the medical treatment of pregnant women, for example. While there was a steady flow of enslaved Africans to be sold to plantation owners starting in 1619, a set of barriers were put into place starting in the late 1700s. As it became costlier and more difficult to import people who would be forced into unpaid labor, plantation owners and overseers wanted enslaved women to bear more children — and to have the mother and child live through childbirth. They wanted more workers through what was termed “slave breeding.”

That was the context for obstetric experimentation on enslaved women that is too gruesome for me to write about here, including surgeries that earned the White Alabama doctor, James Marion Sims, the honorific “Father of Gynecology.” Among the “innovations” developed by Sims was a technique to repair obstetric fistulas, and the modern cesarean section. To this day, Black women living in the Deep South have the highest rates in the country of cesarean deliveries — along with the highest maternal and infant mortality rates.

I don’t know about you, but the American history I learned in the public schools I attended presented a “once-over-lightly” version of how Black people were affected by institutions that were built by White people to preserve and expand wealth and power. Some slavery, an abolitionist or two plus Abraham Lincoln, the Great Migration, flash forward to the Civil Rights Movement starring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., something about bad Supreme Court decisions and good ones, desegregation of schools and brave little girls; now here we are today.

In recent years, I been working on remedial self-education about some big parts I missed. It feels good to learn, even — especially — the hard things.

No funny business today (sorry). I’ll do my best to make up for it next week.

Have a good weekend,

-Ruth

Dear Friends —

One of the many lifelong projects each of us works on is figuring out who we are. Who we think and feel we are determines who we think and feel we are similar to and different than — our very identity. Because we are many things at once, we have some choices to make about which dimension of our identity take precedence at any point and that choice means a lot — almost everything — about our perspective and what moves us to action.

Identities come in five flavors, some of which we have little control over and some of which are fully ours to wear or toss aside. Roughly in order of how much agency we have, from least to most:

• Stuff we are born with. Our sex chromosomes, the amount of melanin in our skin, our sexual orientation, the makeup of our neural pathways, and a small number of other genetic or developmental features that interact with social hierarchies and norms in predictable ways.

• Stuff we are born into. Our parents’ religious affiliation, our place of origin (a Midwesterner, an American, a Ghanaian), our original citizenship.

• Stuff we voluntarily belong to. The religious affiliation we choose as adults, our political party, our neighborhood, our sports and social clubs.

• Stuff we do. Our occupation, our parenthood, our civic engagement, our fandom.

• Stuff we believe. What we believe is right, and what we believe is wrong.

Along each of these dimensions, we can find people who are like us and, along with that, comforting recognition and kinship, an important bond. At the same time, each of these dimensions puts us in relationship with a lot of people with whom we may share little else. In each racial group, for example, people are in a range of occupations and membership organizations. Or go to a parent-teacher meeting at your local public school and you’ll see your fellow parents, yes, but they’ll have been born in different places will be from different religions. No matter how we choose to think about people who are “like us,” we’re going to have to build some bridges to parts of them that are not like us at all.

Each of us embodies all of these dimensions of identity all at once, so we can draw on the insights and perspectives selectively for different purposes. For example, because they are so closely related to social constructs and hierarchies, I think the stuff we are born with and the stuff we do are the dimensions that give us the greatest insight into what’s working and what’s failing in large social systems. To understand the problems faced by people who are living paycheck-to-paycheck, a very good starting place is a conversation with someone working a minimum wage job. To learn about racial injustice, Black and brown people in the United States are the ones who can teach others. This is what the value of “lived experience” is all about.

For the greatest insights about the right solutions, it’s time to lean into the stuff we believe — and to work with the people who believe the same things we do about right and wrong. By this I do not mean perfect agreement and I certainly do not mean the same partisan affiliation. But I do mean alignment with others around basic principles because without that you have no foundation upon which to know whether a possible solution is aimed at achieving the right thing. Personally, I’d seek out people who believe in upholding the dignity of each and every being, in fair and compassionate distribution of resources, and in non-violence. Self-evidently, there are people who believe something quite different about what is right and what is wrong.

And then there is the matter of how to get those solutions from ideas to action. This is where the stuff we voluntarily belong to comes in: the political party, the union, the Rotary Club. Getting from idea to policy to implementation requires using the power of the collective to influence individuals who hold specific forms of legislative or executive power. To say it as plainly as I can: when people who share beliefs about what’s right and wrong arrive at a solution, and it’s shaped around lived experience, they can use their varied political and social affiliations to make it real.

We’re in a lot of trouble in these United States and we have a lot of problems to understand, to come up with solutions for, and then to act on. Many Americans have used affiliation with a political party as the main means of doing all of these things, not realizing that in the process we have made a profound category error. (For an example of this, listen to Ezra Klein and Ta-Nehisi Coates talk past each other for an hour.)

The good news is that we can, if we wish, experience our own identities — and others’ identities — as sources of insight and power rather than threats to be defended against. I am hopeful that we can make it through to the other side if enough people who diverge in in lived experience and group membership come together around the stuff we believe.

Last week the etymology lesson was about the word nemesis. This week, it’s “scapegoat.” This, from the Sydney Jewish Museum:

The word was coined by a Protestant scholar, William Tyndale, in 1530, when he undertook the task of the first translation of the entire Hebrew Bible into English. He found he needed to introduce some new words into the English language in order to make sense of the Hebrew, as he understood it. And where the Torah describes Yom Kippur, he met with a problem.

A key part of Yom Kippur, as described in the Torah, is the ritual slaughter of two goats; one for the Lord, and the other is designated “for Azazel”. Jewish tradition takes “Azazel” as the name of a rocky headland off which one goat, having the sins of the community symbolically placed upon it, would be thrown. The other goat, the one for the Lord, would be slaughtered as part of the general Yom Kippur rituals. This slaughter would bring atonement to the community.

Tyndale however, who practiced Christianity, translated “Azazel” differently. Christian tradition similarly acknowledged that one goat was to be slaughtered for atonement of the community. But the second goat, bearing the community’s sins, was understood to have simply gone free – to have escaped. Tyndale named this goat the “escapegoat”, which evolved later to be used as ‘scapegoat’.

Excellent blog post: Ken Opalo on “The Geopolitics of International Development (After Foreign Aid).”

My husband thought this was the funniest video of the week. I just don’t get it, but maybe you will . . .

And, for no particular reason, here’s one of my favorite scenes from “Portlandia.”

Have a good weekend.

-Ruth