It is said that nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. A day after submitting the Cost of Freedom Project to Start Some Good, I received a message the project was approved.
Start Some Good is a crowdfunding site that connects social entrepreneurs with resources to help us, well, do good:
Start Some Good empowers people from around the world to become social innovators. By connecting social entrepreneurs with the financial and intellectual capital they need to transform an idea for improving the world into a reality, together we can turn ideas into action and impact.
The Cost of Freedom App will empower voters to remove barriers to the ballot box.
Seven years ago, I launched my blog. Today, marks a new beginning as I focus on the development of the Cost of Freedom App, a location-based web app that will provide voters with concise information on how to apply for a voter ID.
Marketing guru Seth Goldin recently observed that if you don't adapt to the post-industrial economy, “never mind the race to the top, you'll be racing to the bottom.” Goldin added:
Instead of waiting around for someone to tell you that you matter, take your career into your own hands. In other words, don't wait for someone else to pick you and pick yourself! If you have a book, you don't need a publisher to approve you, you can publish it yourself. It's no longer about waiting for some big corporation to choose you. We've arrived at an age where you choose yourself.
Sadly, today also marks the death of the “Matriarch of the Blues,” Etta James, whose truth-telling helped me get through many nights.
I will miss Ms. Etta's motherly advice. May she, at last, rest in peace.
Ward Connerly, the race hustler who is paid to oppose affirmative action, is under investigation for allegedly using his nonprofit to line his own pockets to the tune of between $1.2 million and $1.5 million each year.
Ward Connerly, the black businessman who has been the face of the movement to end affirmative action for nearly two decades, is facing accusations from a prominent former ally that he has mismanaged — and exploited for his own benefit — donations to that cause made by fellow conservatives.
Moreover, a group Mr. Connerly founded to advance government policies that are race and gender neutral, the Sacramento-based American Civil Rights Institute, is under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service and by the attorney general of California, according to documents and interviews.
Mr. Connerly has faced accusations of profiteering before, as supporters of affirmative action highlighted his salary in an effort to discredit his cause. But this time, the allegations are more detailed and come from another significant movement figure: Jennifer Gratz, the named plaintiff in a landmark 2003 Supreme Court case that struck down a race-based admissions policy at the University of Michigan.
After she won that case, Mr. Connerly hired Ms. Gratz to conduct research and run campaigns supporting anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives. She resigned last September and, through her lawyer, sent the group’s board a five-page letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Time.
Gratz probably knows nothing about “race music,” but she is affirming a truism: Don't start me to talking.
