The Charity-Industrial Complex

Continuing my philanthropic social experiment. This is not a complaint! It's an exploration of the "Charity-Industrial Complex."

Having paid a whole bunch of charities with a concentration on animal rescue and starving children, I now get not only more solicitations but stuff from their mailing lists multiplied by each successful charity hit. I get at least a dozen begging letters every day (not Sunday) asking for my help in this CRISIS CRISIS URGENT DESPERATE any number of causes, not even political. We are stretched to the breaking point but we couldn't let these horses die! Shocking pictures  of animal atrocities. Miserable exotic species captive in awful prison-like zoos! Thousands of kittens experimented on (I knew they would get to the kittens sooner or later) PUPPIES TORTURED! Save the horses: the used-up race horses, Arabian horses, draft horses, abandoned donkeys! SAVE THE DONKEYS! Save the innocent donkeys (remember, all animals are "innocent"). Save innumerable "sweet" dogs and cats, blind dogs, laboratory dogs, helper dogs, vivisected dogs. Dogs for suffering war veterans....how did I get into the veterans section? Police dogs, armored vests for police dogs, 
and all of them worthy in one way or another.
I took a break from giving. There is only so much misery in our world. It won't go away, ever. They send me more stuff. Not only the begging letters, but coins (pennies, nickels, 50 cent pieces) trinkets, magnets, decorative gloves, material made to look "hand written" with an imitative typeface. Piles of paper, blank envelopes to draw us in by curiosity. A deck of playing cards with rescue donkeys on the back side. Please, we're desperate humans and animals, please help us! And the most prolific of all, the "FREE GIFT..." Decorative address labels, coming to me in the thousands like the leaves of fall. 
You've heard this all from me before. What I realize, is that this is...fun! I like reading about the infinitesimal possibility that some human or animal is actually helped by this. You did a good thing. Or maybe you didn't. All of this is carefully manipulated to produce the most emotional response. It's our world but the donkeys and horses are still the beasts of burden.

More Adventures in Kitchen Philanthropy

It was finally clear to me that Charity, with its endless stream of pseudo-transactional "free gifts," is actually an industry, just like the ones that shape our world day after day. Except that you are not expected to pay for your car or your bottled water by "voluntary" donation. I happened across a website for people who manage non-profit organizations (not cited here) and they were talking about the business of putting together "packages" for their clients. I think it goes: you have a cause, but you don't know how to market it. They put together a package for you with options to choose from like address labels, token coins, lists of tickets and vouchers, photographs and graphic design, etc. You just pay them to do it and you specify what you need. Am I right? I know there's at least one professional fund-raiser in this little Facebook circle of mine (Tim).

Another thing I learned is that these small-scale charities (and many of the large-scale ones too) repeat their mailings to me at intervals of about every other month, depending on how much I gave to them. Animal welfare....here comes Pickles the Pig again! Here's Randy the horse who we saved from the "Killer-Buyers!" Crisis! Urgent! Time is running out! How could you let these innocent animals be sent to the slaughterhouse? (All animals in these texts are "innocent" or "sweet," and the repetitive, emotionally intense texts all sound like they were written by the same person, which is probably true. "What do I do for my job? I write blurbs about abused animals for charities. Save the Koalas!")

Meanwhile the suffering only spreads and intensifies, both for people and animals.
I am sailing on a raft of stacked papers over a sea of pain and suffering and horror, hearing endless cries for help in the crisis! crisis! crisis! A few dollars more will especially help here! Your free gift is enclosed.

Kitchen Philanthropy

Kitchen Philanthropy

I decided to assuage my guilt by giving money to various charities. I was not going to actually volunteer to work there but I figured anything would count, even money. 

I picked my favorite concerns: helping starving people around the world, and helping save animals from abuse and misery. I sent my first check in and felt like a generous philanthropist. (I am not revealing how much I gave to anyone.)

Within a week or two I was inundated with a stream of papers. For most of these there is no “do not share name or address.” I found myself buried in the waves of literature and Stuff. I was awash in the outflow of the “charity-industrial complex.”

This is not a complaint, I’m certainly not asking for sympathy. I am just amazed at how much energy and material I received because I participated in charity. 

First was the literature, written with high emotion: CRISIS! URGENT! DESPERATE!  ABANDONED!  ABUSED! The solicitations contained heartbreaking stories of dying animals and people. Dogs beaten and left to die! Horses sent to slaughterhouses for their meat! Innocent little donkeys neglected and brutalized! Orphaned refugee children, Native elders frozen to death…if I read all the literature it blended into one endless scream. How could I not give? These were real, not fictional. 

Next, the charities sent me a dizzying variety of tokens, usually with the message of “how could you not give, now that we’ve sent you this calendar?” I received, paid or unpaid for: Calendars, world maps, “petitions,” “vouchers,” “surveys,” “membership” cards (I received eight Audubon Society cards for one membership), refrigerator magnets, pens, little note pads, a calculator, a manicure kit, tote bags, colorful socks and gloves, coins, a very soft grey blanket, childrens’ trinkets, and dozens of other “we gave you this” solicitations. And most of all was the “free gift,” which was always and everywhere…decorative address labels. Like the snowflakes of winter, the petals of spring, the seeds of summer and the golden leaves of fall, myriad repetitions of my hateful name, address labels by the hundreds, by the thousands. If I had kept them all they would fill my entire kitchen. They were decorated with animals, children’s drawings, mountain scenes, crabs, (I received five copies of  “Save the Bay”), eagles, patriotic motifs, in an endless stream. I wondered how many it would take to use in a campaign mailing. No, I’m not running for anything, except kitchen philanthropist. Can you imagine how many solicitations a real philanthropist with millions of dollars gets? And the small change coins affixed to the gift form paper, I probably have a few dollars' worth by now. And everything was “personified” with The H-Name I Hate.

Lest you think I have become deluded into giving my money into false or wrong charities, I set limits on all my giving. I toss most of them into the trash. I won’t tell you how I judge which one worthy, but I have been seen stuffing the hatch of my car with paper recycling. Those politicians are not going to respond in sympathy to abused little donkeys, and I’m not answering fake “surveys” which are only propaganda. And as soon as they received my donation, they asked for more - naturally…and they wanted me to give every month, too.

URGENT! DEADLINE ! IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED! CRISIS! CRISIS! YOUR GIFT WILL BE MATCHED BY A DONATION…They’ve taken to having their gifts matched in  modest or unreasonable amounts. I have no idea whether that is real or not, or whether any of this is real. Again…have I cast all my money into some corrupt scheme? I have noticed that most of the animal rescue concerns originate from a single post office box address in Merrifield, Virginia. Hey, that’s literally around the corner from me! Should I visit?

My kitchen is full of papers. I am not feeding the hungry here and frankly I don’t know whether any of my payments get anywhere near the starving children. How many has my money fed? How much success is there? I would imagine that very few out of the thousands are eating because of me. But, well, let’s think of the proverbial man on the beach surrounded by stranded starfish. He is throwing them back into the sea so they can survive, one by one. A kid comes up to him and asks what he’s doing. On hearing about his mission, the kid says, But there are millions of them. It won’t matter how many you save. And the man answers as he throws another starfish back, “It mattered to that one.”

40th Anniversary as a Catholic

After more than a year I am returning to writing here on ELECTRON BLUE. Watch out for words. I will be posting commentary and other writing again here. This piece was transplanted from Facebook and will be available indefinitely.

Why I Stay a Catholic after 40 Years

An anniversary with much hesitation to announce here in public. 40 years ago today, May 24, 1979, I was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. This was after eight years of struggle as to whether to join or not. I first found this calling in Rome, yes the real Rome, where I encountered the world of aesthetics, visual splendor, and a paradoxical faith for someone from an atheist-Jewish background. I think it was always the art, the color, and the stories, the rituals and the devotions, and the thousands of years of history that attracted and keeps me there. The aesthetic element is not trivial and not mere "trappings," it is the testimony of a church that believes that the divine entered the material world. I am well aware that for most people the Catholic Church is now revealed to be a place of atrocities rather than piety, and so it is, but the paradox is that I stay although I don't go to church at this time. I also stay because I believe that the Incarnate One, Jesus, is a real entity, not just a name. He is someone I could imagine as a real presence. I have always had wonderful friends and supporters in my faith so thank you, Michael and all the others I would rather not name. I hope this church, the creation of inspired people, can somehow regain its goodness on the planet Earth.

From the Archive: Clear Cut

This is my father, Harold Shapero, standing in what appears to be a barren desert. But actually, it is the future site of the house I grew up in, an L-shaped mid-century modern ranch dwelling where there is no ranch. The earth my dad is standing on is a clear-cut, the kind of complete forest and land removal that is currently done on mountainsides to strip-mine coal or other resources. In this case, the mine would house families. The year is 1955.

This ecologically devastating project, named "Wethersfield," would never be allowed in our more sensitive era. The developers tore out all the trees and leveled a hill to an acceptable grade (though the driveway of our house was always at a noticeable slant). They went into the sandy, rocky glacial soil of New England and built homesites on poured concrete slabs. These houses didn't have any basements. My father is standing where the slab is going to go. If you look carefully at the dirt plain, you can see little markers on rods marking out where each house will be.

The artificial prairie of our lots attracted unusual birds and wildlife. For a couple of years, horned larks built their ground-nests in this environment. These larks usually breed in the Arctic tundra. The developers planted tiny saplings by the open streets, hoping that the trees would survive and be a good habitat.

The tundra didn't last. Once people were there, they loaded in landscaping, extra buildings, more tree saplings, and flowerbeds. Nature did the rest. Native trees and plants re-colonized the clear areas, marching in from protected swampland. By the early 1960s, there were already shadows on the ground. By the late 60s, open meadow habitat birds had gone and forest birds like nuthatches had re-appeared. 

Nowadays you would not believe that this development had once been a clear-cut space of imitation tundra. It looks like a New England forest, shaded by grand maples (the little saplings of 1955) and tall white pines and spruces and yellow poplars. The flat houses which were built in an echo of the "Prairie" style have mostly been replaced by two-story comfort zones. And the home that would occupy the place my father is standing, has been re-built as well, surrounded by the remains here and there of the old mid-20th century settlement.

March 16, 2018

The Return of the Blue Electron

Greetings from the subatomic world. As many of you know, my orange Element, a heavy Element, was crushed beyond repair on January 16 in the particle-race of my urban neighborhood. I was only mildly hurt (bruises) and have recovered. It was necessary to get another car, and this is what I got. It is a Honda Civic with a hatchback door. I have driven Hondas for more than 20 years so I went with what I trust. Aesthetic values were also important; I wanted an orange car but the only orange Honda is the minuscule "Fit" which was charming but tiny. This Civic is basically Honda's smallish utilitarian car, with plenty of cargo space in the back,   a modernist Japanese-anime look to the exterior, and a brilliant metallic blue color almost identical to the original Electron Blue Honda CRV that I used to drive. So...say hello to "Electron Blue 2." (This blog is number 3. Confusing? Yes, like road signs in Fairfax, VA.) I am driving the urban labyrinth in this conveyance now and I'm taking some time to get used to it. It will be a while before I get over the accident but I need to do it. 

I haven't posted to this Electron Blog for quite a while but now that the new particle is glowing on the roads, I will be writing more for it. I will be "re-blogging" some of the material from "Art By-Products" which will remain mostly art-centered. This blog will show some of my photo-restorations and writing about the fascinating places and people from the family archive. And if I have more words to emit, I will do so as part of my "blue-shift."

I Was a Libertard

Blog readers - if any...this essay has taken me months to write. I have not abandoned the Electron, I've just had to look into my past and make sure the embarrassing details are correct. This writing will probably annoy some people, and amuse others. It's also quite long for an Electron text but I felt the need to tell this story given the current state of politics and the pervasiveness of the ideology. If you don't like what you read, feel free to go back to my "Art By-Products" which is a lot easier on the intellect. I would be glad if anyone read this effort. So: here comes the train...

I WAS A LIBERTARD

I used to be a “libertard.” What’s that, you ask, is it like what the unpleasant ones accuse Democrats and liberals with, a “libtard?” No, not what the gymnasts wear, it is not a leotard. I made this one up because it really needs to exist. It’s a name for a libertarian who is as convinced as a fundamentalist of his (or rarely her) beliefs and has proof for all of them. And would gladly lecture you on the subject but you’re not intelligent enough for them to waste time on.

I encountered Libertarianism in the late 1970s and especially in year 1978 when the national Libertarian convention was held in Boston. I had some good friends who were devoted Libertarians and I used to hang out and listen to them. Another major influence on me was reading the “Bible” of libertarianism namely Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” I read this instead of studying for my final exams in graduate school and nevertheless did well academically, though I hated every minute of it and was preparing to leave. 

All of the libertarians I knew were science fiction fans and worked in the tech industry which was a big economic factor in the Boston area. In 1978 the Internet belonged to the U.S. military and a handful of scientists who shared data. Engineering and space calculating folks, almost all of them male, hung out in Harvard Square and their center of attraction not to mention book collecting was the “Science Fantasy Bookstore” presided over by the owner, Bruce Robert “Spike” MacPhee. I  hung out there and listened to the conversations. It was not just politics they discussed, but “alternative”  religion. I first heard of Neo-Paganism at Spike’s store, and it scared and fascinated me. 

Rand was the prophetic author of the Holy Scriptures that no Libertarian can fully escape. The important thing is that Ayn Rand was a science fiction author, not a conventional novelist. She was succeeded by writer heroes such as Robert Heinlein, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, L. Neil Smith, and other macho-techno scriveners. This is added to with conservative theorist authors like Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. These authors are on just about any Libertarian’s bookshelves. Their books often describe, as Rand does in “Atlas Shrugged,” a deteriorating civilization which can only be saved by brilliant engineering geniuses, “enlightened” military warlords, and capitalists of various sorts, reconstructing smokestack industries for the coming Millennium. Does this sound familiar? This is a fantasy by and for engineers and scientists. I listened patiently to countless conversations about how technology would save the world (this is the era of DARPA and the early Internet, after all.) The literary fans were the same people who dreamed of building themselves self-sustaining space or Moon or Mars colonies - with a libertarian social structure of course. Libertarians in Space! They were dosing themselves on Heinlein and Rand, a couple made in a philosophical techno-Utopia, “Galt’s Gulch” in space at the L5 equilibrium point.

If you assimilate (or are assimilated by) Libertarianism, you come into the domain of a weird variation on the clockwork world of the Enlightenment. The world, not just Earth but the Solar System, our Galaxy, and eventually the whole universe, is a great machine of turning gears, moving measured parts, action and reaction, check and balance. And the highest virtue is Reason and Logic, which Libertarians worship to this day. If you are intelligent enough, if you have enough reason and rationality, you can understand the system and see how one follows another, cause and effect, effort and result. And once you understand the system with your imperial wisdom, you can make it work for you.

In this view, there are no accidents, no mishaps, no inborn flaws or inevitable events. Everything has an explanation, and every problem has a solution, which you are responsible for. No begging for help from someone else - if you have the problem, you have the solution. Don’t have a job? Move to another place where there is work. Are you sick?  Maybe you didn’t live a “healthy lifestyle.” You should work harder and make enough money to pay a doctor. Did your car break down? You didn’t maintain it. The combination of reason, rationality, and hard work can turn the wheels of the world. At least, this is the way it is supposed to be. Basically, the world makes logical sense and behaves in a logical and ultimately predictable way. This is true not only for us struggling individuals but for the general social world. Is a company polluting the environment? Organize a boycott and lawful protests to oppose the company, or just ignore it as pollution isn’t that bad for you. Is a store selling inferior merchandise?  Is a provider delivering poor service? Don’t buy it and by the rules of logic, the store or provider will fail. In Libertarian World, not only are you the individual expected to take care of yourself, so is the wider social world. Sometimes, this works. But not all the time. What happens then? What happens if an accident or disability befalls you? You can organize help for yourself, find a job that allows for your disabilities, even seek help from a church or private charity. No one stops anyone from doing voluntary charitable work. But what if that is not enough? Government welfare? No way. “Taxation is theft!” The free market will solve all problems! Even if some poor soul is too disabled or old to work, you should not be forced to hand over your hard-earned cash to help them. You did the work, it was your mind and skill that earned the money. But…in that world how can anyone survive? Even if you did care about them? What if your best was still not enough?

No buts here, libertarian purists. Inexorable logic and reason will explain everything…maybe. Both in the social and the physics world. I often wonder what Ayn Rand would have thought about the findings of quantum mechanics, in which at the smallest level, there is no logic or chain of reasoning, only dismal, sizzling statistics. She actually lived at a time where quantum mechanics was well-known, but she didn’t choose to read about it or find out more about it. Where the “Objectivist Epistemology” depended on classical Greek or Medieval notions about an absolute rational-mind reality, anything that challenged that with a fundamental irrationality was simply unacceptable.

So you may ask me, What on earth attracted me, a typical miserable Eastern graduate student intellectual with a good background in basic knowledge…what on earth attracted me to Libertarianism and their prophetess Ayn Rand? It’s paradoxical. She ranted that “emotions are not tools of cognition!” but what attracted me was the way Randworld made me feel….powerful. I read Rand and wanted to be like Rand’s tall, hard edged blonde or red-haired heroes. I wanted to turn the world’s wheels, too. I wanted not to be an effeminate academic but a mind mover with the ideological wind blowing my cape behind me as the train passed by with a stirring horn blast. I knew the secret now. Rand’s Art Deco stylizing gave me a rush I can still feel today. It was part of why I left academia and became an artist instead…I wanted to re-create that rush in my own art work. And not picturing drippy mermaids or woodsy cottages or big-eyed puppies or girls in their nightgowns standing by golden pillars. I wanted to paint the images that would rev the engine of logic and industrial righteousness for you as well as me. 

The only problem was that it was all a myth. The greatest shame for any Rand-ite was that I could not make a living all by myself. I accepted the crushing shame of not having a high-paying job but instead taking money from my generous parents. The shame of FAILURE. Which I have never escaped. I will never be a slick entrepreneur making millions on some gleaming iconic contraption. Nor will I ever wear a steel-hued satin evening dress. But I still sneaked looks at “Atlas Shrugged” every so often, just for the rush.

It was only when I read Adam Lee’s three-year commentary on “Atlas Shrugged” that the rush was stopped by a concrete block of moral reasoning and practical analysis. Lee is an Atheist blogger under the “Patheos” label and a fiction writer himself. He undertook this chapter-by-chapter evaluation of the Rand Scriptures purely for the need to save would-be thinkers like me from being ground under the wheels of the Objectivist train. He posted faithfully every Saturday and for those years I couldn’t wait for each week’s installment. He brilliantly deconstructed the twisted morality, horrific kinky relationships, proto-Fascism, and other dark smoky labyrinths of violence and wrong thinking, as well as the steaming plot holes.

Adam Lee destroyed the Rand zeppelin for me, but rather than watch it crash and burn I re-integrated the feeling into a line of my own art. You’ve seen my bright-colored geometric abstractions for years. The designs originally come from Art Deco and the early 20th century Bauhaus and the works of Paul Klee or Wassily Kandinsky. But they also come from old Madame Rand, where I can take ruler, T-square, or Photoshop and cast colors into the darkness. They are my skyscrapers, my power plants, my rockets and oil refineries, my technological flames. Now that you know their origin, you may not like these compositions any more. That won’t stop them. There’s always something completely different for you. In the name of the best within us, as the Iron Rand would say.