The Health Care Crisis: Letters from the Real World

Here's a free book you'll want to download:

"Sen. Sanders has put out a booklet of stories from around the country about health-care coverage woes, The Burlington Free Press reported.
"It is my intention to read some of these letters on the floor of the Senate. Every American needs to hear what's going on with health care in this country," Sanders said."

I can speak to the crisis from personal experience. I was part-way through a series of medically necessary orthodontia treatments when my job went away. Continuing health insurance was extremely expensive so I halted the treatments partway done. I had wires glued to my teeth for several years until I got medical coverage again, and the treatment completed. I was lucky; others are not so lucky.

Need more facts? Most bankruptcies in America are due to health bills ... even though most people in bankruptcy have what we laughingly call "health insurance".

It's time for a health care system like Canada's. My Canadian uncles all agree theirs works; ours does not.

If you need more stories, get the booklet. And call your Congresscritters!

Growing a Wig

People think I'm joking when I tell them I'm growing a wig.

But it's true ... and you should consider doing the same.

Until recently, I wore my hair very short. About once a month, my wife would buzz my hair all over with my electric trimmer; it's a very neat look and the trimmings enrich our container garden.

Then someone told me about "Locks of Love". According to its website

"Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 18 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis. We meet a unique need for children by using donated hair to create the highest quality hair prosthetics.

Most of the children helped by Locks of Love have lost their hair due to a medical condition called alopecia areata, which has no known cause or cure. The prostheses we provide help to restore their self-esteem and their confidence, enabling them to face the world and their peers."

Strip away the jargon: they make free wigs for sick kids. Who can't love that?

I had to try; since about the beginning of this year, I let my hair grow. When my friends notice, my reply is always the same, "I'm growing a wig." So far, no-one outside of my immediate family has asked for further explanation. The first few times this happened, I assumed that people were simply not curious, but since the response has been broadly consistent, I guess most people it's another one of my jokes. Hey, folks, I'm serious ... this time!

Naturally, I wanted my work to go to a bona fide charity, and an effective one too. I looked at its public IRS form 990 (summarized at GuideStar website and viewable detail at National Center for Charitable Statistics) which was encouraging but drearily technical; it was easier to read its entry on Charity Navigator. It seemed to be for real and reasonably effective, not terribly wasteful. Good!

While researching, I learned of Wigs for Kids, a similar organization with slightly different technical requirements (e.g. minimum hair length.) Naturally, I checked its IRS form, and it seems bona fide also. Which org should I go with?

Well, currently, my hair is about 5 inches long and growing about half-a-inch a month. I have until about this time next year to decide to whom to give my hair. Currently I'm leaning toward Locks of Love because it's reported on Charity Navigator and Wigs for Kids is not, but this time next year, who knows?

Either way: Growing a crop of hair is one of the easiest things I've ever done. Think about doing it yourself!

Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford and Newt Gingrich go into a bar...

... and the bartender says, "What'll ya have?"

Sanford says, "I'd like something imported."

Gingrich says, "I'll have whatever some other guy was having."

Palin says, "I don't care; I'm quitting early."

The Buddha in the Slug Manual

I enjoyed "The Slug Manual: the Rise and Fall of Criticism" by Jennifer James.

It begins with a great story:

"When a simpleton abused him, Buddha listened in silence, but when the man had finished, Buddha asked him,

"Son, if a man declined to accept a present made to him, to whom would it belong?"

The man replied "To him who offered it."

"My son," said the Buddha, "I decline to accept your abuse, and request you keep it for yourself."

What a great story - and the book is just beginning. The rest of the book is less cosmic, perhaps, but more everyday. It's a 56-page stapleback of examples of the "slugs" (verbal attacks) that people give each other to eat each day, and what to do with them.

Remember - just because someone hands you a slug, doesn't mean you have to keep it!

Sample Free Search

Why code your own site search when Google will do it for you?

Google's Custom Search is easy to set up, inexpensive, and very effective.

• The free version (illustrated below) has ads in the results
• For $100, they'll take the ads off.
• Illustrated is the very basic version that literally took 5 minutes to set up
• There are many options for putting the results within your own website's style, a frame, a separate page ... all the stuff you'd expect Google to do
• Best of all: you can aggregate results from multiple sites. See the 2nd example below!

Searching one site

I needed a prototype custom search of one website to show some buddies, and it took literally 10 minutes to set up:

---

Go ahead, give it a try! (Keep in mind, it searches just that one site).

Remember, the results will be on a very plain web page, because I didn't bother setting it up to match your site's style sheet. It's pretty easy to work with, as you'd expect, since you're dealing with the industry leader.

Searching Multiple Sites!

Imagine a topic that is covered by several sites. For example, information on lawyers in Washington States is spread across one State Bar, multiple County Bars, various specialty organizations and the state courts. You don't want to use plain ol' Google, because that tends to mix results from Washington State with Washington D.C., not to mention Washington University in St. Louis. Instead, you figure out which sites you want to search all at once and here you go:

Try it. For example, search on "PBLAC" to discover that both wsba.org and the Washington Courts have important information on it.

Let me emphasize that the annoying ads can go away if you pay Google a one-time fee of $100. This is a total BARGAIN! for many organizations!

Box Beats Bag!

Let a simple cardboard box replace your grocery bags easily, cheaply and environmentally responsibly.

We all know that plastic shopping bags are an annoying waste, difficult to recycle and expensive, although convenient. Paper shopping bags may be marginally better; at least they're easily recyclable. Better still are reusable bags, made of cotton or some other material. Figuring out the best ways to promote and use these are a hot topic, as, for example, in my blogBuddy SmallFootprints' most recent "Change the World Wednesday" challenge: The Plastic Bag Challenge.

But let me suggest another choice: the humble yet incredible useful cardboard box:

Now, I have and re-use many cotton bags. Over time, they acquire personality; "Ol' Blue" is more than 10 years old and, while slightly faded, still has a lot of use left (kinda like a lot of us!)

But when it comes to serious grocery shopping, I now prefer the humble "Banker's Box". These easily folded cardboard boxes are designed to fit 18 inches of standard sized paper files, which makes them carry about the same as 2 standard grocery bags. They fits nicely into shopping carts and the back seat of cars. Their handles are strong and they don't flop over when you drive.

You should get them for free, as people discard them all the time; they're very reusable and recyclable. I just keep a couple in the car; new uses come up all the time, e.g. quickly organizing various items to be dropped off at different locations. Give them a try!

As with bags, my favorite stores give a small rebate when I bring in my box, so ... as is so often true ... Going Green Means Saving Green!

Tops Tips for Recruiting Volunteer Lawyers

Can you recruit volunteers for your legal aid programs faster, easier and better with these techniques? They worked for me, and I'm not any smarter than you are, so they should work even better for you!

1. ADMIT IT: YOU'RE SELLING SOMETHING!

Recruiting is a sales job.

For many of us, that's bad news: It's hard enough talking to strangers, but trying to sell them something is inconceivable.

But good news: We don't have to be Willy Loman or even Billy Mays.

And better news: There's a huge literature on sales techique. You don't have to re-invent anything; just apply it in a different context. To get started, I suggest The One Minute Sales Person; it's a very fast read and will be useful not only in recruiting voluteers, but in finding clients for your law practice.

(There are gazillions of other books & resources on sales & recruiting; let me know which you have found useful, by hitting "reply" at the end of this post.)

You do not have to admit that you're selling something to anyone else (especially to those you are trying to recruit), but you must admit it to yourself so you can recognize your biggest recruiting/sales problems and find solutions.

2. ENLIST AFFINITY GROUPS!

An affinity group is any interest-based voluntary association, such as a county or subject matter bar association. There are many other definitions but for recruiting purposes, you want the ones that people have chosen freely because they are pre-selected as to their interest.

Affinity groups are especially valuable because they tend to be looking for value to deliver to their members. If you ask them to help recruit volunteers for a worthy cause, they will love you because it adds value to the affinity group. Just be sure to give them full credit and praise, e.g. "The Hells Canyon Bar Association and AACF need you ... "

Affinity groups can be recruited to recruit further volunteers.

Example: For Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers and Families (AACF) I systematically emailed the chief executive and some other officers of every county bar association in Washington State. Following the principle of Personalize! (below) I ensured that the email subject line, and some content within the message, directly appealed to that particular entity. The response was good, with many responding directly that they would forward the information to their members and/or discuss at their next meetings.

(I suppose you could, in theory, recruit volunteers from a non-voluntary group, e.g. if you're organizing a prison breakout, you'll direct your appeals to those who want to escape. But for most volunteering, it works better to approach prospects from some place they're happy to be. )

3. ASK THE IDEAL PERSON!

The people you want to recruit are not going to come to you. You must go to them. This means asking; you cannot avoid it. You can lessen the pain of asking, and the concomitant likelihood of rejection, with a simple procedure:

1. Think of three people who would be ideal for the project
2. Ask them
3. If they say yes: congratulations!
4. If they say no: ask them who else could do the work
5. Repeat until done.

Notes:

• We tend to ask people with whom we are comfortable, rather than those who would be best for the job. That's normal and human; cold-calling (or "cold-emailing" in today's world) is hard because you get rejected a lot. You've got to get beyond it if you want to succeed.
• We also tend to hope that if we just put up a "Help Wanted!" sign, the right person will magically come by and read it. This is not true; as a rule, the people you want are busy! If You Build It They Will Come worked only because the Chicago Black Sox Were Dead And Bored!
• The point of asking the ideal person is not so much recruiting the ideal person right off as it is setting you into the network of ideal or near-ideal persons. Typically, the absolutely ideal person will be too busy to do your project, but almost always will know others with comparable expertise. If you have chosen wisely, it's a subject that they care about greatly and will enjoy discussing briefly with an interested person, so long as you don't abuse the privilege.
• If you cannot think of anyone on earth who could do the work you're thinking of, then perhaps there's something wrong with your project.
• Do not be daunted by the fact that you don't know the person. Certainly it's easier to have someone introduce you, but the only penalty for trying is failure ... and that's also the penalty for not trying.
• Expect to run through several cycles of referrals. Don't worry, this is normal and it can be good: if you make each contact in this cycle feel that they've gotten something out of your contact, they may be useful for your next project.
• Some projects are too big to rely solely on direct asking by you. You need to recruit volunteer recruiters. How do you recruit them? Ask!

Examples:

• In the late 1990s, I telephoned the new Russian Constitutional Court in Moscow and arranged an in-person interview with the Court's clerk. This was probably a first for an American law student, and it lead to some interesting experiences for both of us, but it never would have happened if I hadn't been outrageous enough to ask the ideal person for the interview. Surely your project requirements tend to be less extreme.
• Assembling the staff for the December 2007 Lawyers for Warriors CLE consisted entirely of the "Ask the Ideal Person" methodology. The experts really enjoyed talking about their subject matter and recommending others if they could not attend. Several of them pitched in on my next project, and I was slightly helpful on some of theirs.
  

4. PERSONALIZE!

How many mass appeals did you delete from your inbox today? How many articles in magazines did you skip over?

There is a place for mass appeals for help; however, they rapidly diminish in effectiveness as their number multiplies and the target audience gets tapped out. (The very first lawyer spam actually worked after a fashion, reportedly netting the spammer up to $100,000 although this must be substantially discounted by his subsequent disbarment.)

Broad appeals via official website, print magazine and email are less expensive than personalized appeals, but have serious limits. They can be used by only a few projects; they desensitize the target audience to future appeals. This is a real problem if only a fraction of the audience to which you are broadcasting is qualified for the particular project. Print is an inflexible medium, requiring a substantial lead time; websites are useful only to the audience that visits them, which may not be your ideal recruit; broadcast email is a uni-directional communication.

That doesn't mean that broad-based media is not useful (...see "Authenticate!", below...) but unless you have a lot of money to support them, your campaigns need to go beyond.

Example:

• For our 2008 AACF recruiting campaign, every members of the WSBA who mentioned "military law" as a practice area (and who didn't list an .mil address ... we didn't need to recruit people already providing services) got an email with their name on it. The response rate was excellent!
• To recruit volunteers for our 2009 training in Yakima and Spokane, I sent a personalized appeal to several dozen lawyers in those counties with a practice area of "family law", mentioning in the case of the family lawyer specialists the need for that particular expertise.
• Technological support in this area is broadening rapidly with the development of Facebook Causes, Twitter, and the like. For one example see Support Passage of Agent Orange Equity Act 2009 - H.R.2254

5. Authenticate Your Appeal!

The people you want to recruit will ignore appeals from the Central Bank of Spammerville, but notice a registered letter from the State Bar or Supreme Court. You want to make your appeal seem less like the former, and more like the latter.

(This may be less of a problem if you actually are the State Bar or Supreme Court, but OTOH you may have more of a rep to defend and to spend wisely. You choose!) A good way to make your appeal appear authentic is to incorporate links and quotes from highly trusted organizations. This is where the official announcement on an official website comes in handy; while it may be read by only a few casual site visitors, your link to it in your appeal lends authority to your message.

Example:

• Our 2008 AACF appeal launched before a recruiting article could reasonably be published in print, but the credibility of our email appeals were greatly added by including a link to a message from the Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) as well as contact information at a National Guard Legal Affairs office. Recipients of the appeals could reasonably conclude that WSBA and the National Guard were credible sources of information.
• The 2009 appeal had the added benefit of linking to a report on the 2008 effort. While the report by itself didn't generate a whole lot of new recruits (...it necessarily came out during a slow time for the project ...) it was very valuable in making our 2009 appeal seem credible.

More!

I hope my small experiences above will help you recruit more volunteers more easily.

What have you learned in recruiting volunteers? If you reply below, you can teach me and whoever else reads this!

Pope Joan: Did She or Didn't She?

There are always two questions in any discussion of Pope Joan:

1. COULD it have happened?
2. DID it, in fact, happen?

Donna Woolfolk Cross's delightful "Pope Joan: A Novel" clearly outlines HOW it could have happened, and does so in one of the more unusual historical romances possible:

• Boy meets girl
• Boy loses girl
• Girl pretends to be a boy (it's safer and more fun)
• This girl is really good at her job, and makes it to the top
• Boy finds girl again.

So far, it's a plot that has launched a thousand comedies. But this story is a classical tragedy; the lovers violate the fundamental laws of their society, and can escape Fate for only so long.

Whether one likes the novel qua novel will depend upon taste. It's fast-moving enough, with some romance, some action, some politicking. I enjoyed its range of characters of both genders: some actively like their fate, some dislike it but cannot fight it, and some fight.

But after the inevitable climax of doom, the reader is left to ponder: DID it in truth happen this way?

The author provides a helpful appendix, laying out the known facts. However, the most important facts have already been cleverly introduced in the novel. In the European Dark Ages, a woman of intelligence and strength would have a difficult time due to her gender. Some would be highly motivated to seek escape. Do we not see comparable phenomenon in contemporary misogynistic societies today?

The other big question is whether a woman can pass as a man. Surely this has been resolved in the affirmative many times in our own era. It must have been easier in the uber-Puritanical contaxt of a monastery. (Query: would Joan have necessarily been the first female pope, or merely the first one outed?)

One must also keep in mind that written records of the time are very few, and that the very notion of history of the time was not the objective recordation of facts, but the promulgation of virtue. The elimination of scandalous facts would be felt a matter of duty to the few people who wrote histories in 584, just as it was to Winston Smith some 1400 years later.

To my mind, schooled in Roman Catholic seminary and well-acquainted with Church practice, it is quite plausible that all this might happen. Had it happened, it surely would have been covered up. To my mind, the evidence of the hollow-bottom chair is decisive; surely there were enough wood-carvers in the middle ages that the Pope did not need to read his lines while sitting on a toilet.

However, there is no need to decide the matter. Either way, this is an enjoyable and educational novel. If it has coincidences, so does Shakespeare; if it invents conversations, so does Robert Graves. Unless the very concept of an historical novel is revolting to you, you should enjoy this book.

P.S. it appears a movie version is underway, with John Goodman as the well-meaning but over-indulgent Pope Sergius. The Joan role should be a plum, except of course that the Roman Catholic Church would react with a fury that would make its rage against The Da Vinci Code look soft.

Rooftop Urban Ag Team Begins!

Fun, sustainability, improving our environment, and once again fun is why I like urban agriculture ... and you can too!

Thinking logically, we simply must change our cities from sterile rock faces into natural settings where things grow. Look at your average apartment building from the outside. It's basically a large rock, that absorbs sunlight and emits poop. No wonder cities are hot and stinky!

In the long run, we have no choice but to rework our cities so that nearly every surface that gets sunlight converts it to usable energy and/or biomass. Since we're an intelligent species, we get to pick the biomass, and food seems like a good choice. Not only does it absorb the sunlight and some CO2, it produces food we can consume on premises, further saving energy, and not incidentally providing much pleasure.

On a more emotional level, growing food can be very satisfying. Let's never forget the value of fun! And for those of us with a competitive streak, imagine satisfying the Local Food Challenge

"For one full day this week, eat only local foods. No tropical fruits from across the world ... no veggies that traveled hundreds of miles to get to your table ... only locally grown foods (this includes meats, dairy products, etc., if you eat them)."

...with food from your rooftop!

But, as anyone knows who's worked on a project of any size, there's a lot of detail in implementation that has to be determined experimentally. (Heck even the 787 is being reworked two years after rollout!) Urban agriculture is not simply a question of installing dirt and whatever seeds some centralized authority has determined is best; as I tinker with my pots on the patios, I've discovered that social aspects are extremely important. People interact with the pots! There's a continuing battle (often a losing one) with people who think that naked dirt is better than what they consider a "weed"; Wednesday I came home to discover a lot of "clean" pots, stripped of low grass and ad hoc mulch, suiting the pro-naked-dirt sentiment of a paid plant care specialist. You can only laugh and learn, I suppose.

The good news from this week is that the City of Seattle has DELIVERED! on its plan to use Centennial Towers as one of a number of experiments in urban agriculture. A team delivered some large tubs, soil and starts. The City team and some residents (with myself as Unskilled Labor) assembled the units and the plants are growing as I write. Since it's a City project, the fruit of our work goes to a food bank (no private benefits from public money!) but we're allowed to have as much fun as we want! And I'm learning from the experience many things useful to my own private gardening.

The residential side of our team is very fortunate to have a lead resident gardener who is both a very experienced pea-patcher, and who also knows local food banks very well. Thus she picked plants that local food banks actually want! As you might have guessed, although zucchini is easy to grow, food bank may not want it, since everybody, and I mean everybody, gets way too much zucchini when it's in season ... even food banks!

One quick lesson was that, since some of the plants needed staking, we need sustainable stakes. I contributed some bamboo salvaged from another project, but we'll need more later. It seems to me that we should plant some native bam in an unused pot, to provide structural material for later in the season, or next year. It's little details like these that can be learned only by experimenting.

I'm really enjoying being part of this experiment. By this time next year, it may be possible to have a day of meals grown on our very own building!

But at any rate, what we learn will be helpful for the larger urban rooftop gardens being planned for the future. It's a small seed but promises to bear profusely!