a day

The power went out at my workplace. Do you want to know just how incompetent PG&E is? At around 9:30AM, the power went out. At around 11:00AM, we had an announcement from the building manager that the power would not return until about sometime between 3:00PM and 5:00PM, oh, and there's a slight chance that it might not be on tomorrow either, so you should call this number to see whether you should come in or not!

I came home, and grabbed a snack from the drugstore. While I was waiting in line, a thin, blonde woman in her fifties(?) with a small face told the cashier that she'd caught her husband cheating on her. "On the Internet. And he denied it. Even though I had the credit card bill in my hand, he just shrugged and said 'It wasn't me'." Her hands were shaking as she swept the credit card through. I felt kind of embarrassed, because I don't even know this woman. She looked well-off, in high-heeled boots and an expensive-looking sweater. She looked like she was fighting back tears, and then she said something about her blood pressure being high. Then she told the cashier that she would see her tomorrow and left.

Hao Wu on free speech in China and taking a stand. He was arrested on February 22 by the Chinese.

Today I've been reading How to Change the World: Social Entrepreuners and the Power of New Ideas, by David Bornstein. It's not about nonprofits exactly, but it's about how smart people pushed their ideas to improve the world/society and made it happen, and in doing so, changed the system. It's pretty fascinating.

There's a bit that I really liked:

The new circumstances demanded that people become more ethically self-guiding: People had to be able to put themselves in the shoes of those around them. Those who could not navigate situations in which rules were changing or could not master the skills of empathetic understanding would find themselves unable to manage their behavior wisely and ethically; increasingly, Drayton asserted, they would be seen as "loose cannons" and marginalized within society.

I think some people missed that memo.

oversensitivity

This article about adopted Chinese kids dealing with identity issues had a quote from one of the adoptive moms that just rubbed me the wrong way:

"With an African-American child we had no guarantee that the mother or a social worker wouldn't come and take the child away," McKenzie's mother, Maree Forbes, said. "With the children from China, we felt safe that there wouldn't be anyone to come back to get them."

Uh? So I guess these American parents adopting in China are basically banking on the fact that Chinese women are pretty much powerless over the adoption process and have little recourse to reclaim their children if they want to? These people are lamenting the fact that African-Americans actually have parental rights?

I realize that adoption is a complicated process, but this makes my head hurt.