One new story and two kinda-sorta updates, after-the-jump …
But first: Top Comments appears nightly, as a round-up of the best comments on Daily Kos. Surely ... you come across comments daily that are perceptive, apropos and .. well, perhaps even humorous. But they are more meaningful if they're well-known ... which is where you come in (especially in diaries/stories receiving little attention).------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send your nominations to TopComments at gmail dot com by 9:30 PM Eastern Time nightly, or by our KosMail message board. Please indicate (a) why you liked the comment, and (b) your Dkos user name (to properly credit you) as well as a link to the comment itself.
Oftentimes, when viewing MSNBC programs, I get up and multi-task (or mute) commercials. Yet just this week, I watched the Rachel Maddow Show (with a late dinner) straight through … and thus finally noticed something … you may have already known (quite well).
Charities (such as Save the Children, the SPCA, Jeff Bridges’ No Kid Hungry, etc.) are all different organizations, serving different causes with different management … and yet all seek the identical donation: $19/month or just 63¢ a day. The few times I sat thru such commercials, I never noticed the commonality.
One newspaper addressed the issue, with this main reason:
Keeping suggested donation prices in the teens tricks people into thinking they're giving less than they actually are. Where a $20 expense might set off budget alarm bells, $19 feels more acceptable even though it's only one dollar less.
It's also easier to convince donors to make recurring payments of $19 rather than $20 a month. If the standard donation amount was a nice round number like $20, people could quickly calculate that that adds up to $240 a year—which may sound like a lot. Twelve payments of $19 come out to $228. While that's only slightly less, some people may not bother calculating the annual cost at all because the math is harder to do in their head.
If charities want to entice potential donors with a seemingly affordable number, why don't they ask for even less? According to Marketplace, $19 is around the minimum that makes sense from a budgetary standpoint. Running charities and advertising them cost money, and organizations don't want all the funds they raise to go into these additional expenses. Donors also want to feel like the money they're giving will make a difference. Nineteen dollars is a big enough figure to feel significant for many people without making a noticeable dent in their wallets.
Another theory they considered (yet dismissed) was that the IRS only requires charities to send donors a year-end statement for charitable donations of > $250 (which $228-$240 would not meet). The authors felt that — at least for most large organizations — they do not want to jeopardize future donations, and use a much lower $ statement cut-off.
This coming Sunday will be the World Cup championship match between France and Argentina (10:00 AM Eastern, 7:00 AM Pacific) on free TV: the Fox network (where you’d watch The Simpsons).
Someone who will not be on hand to witness (much less cover it) is the US sportswriter Grant Wahl, whose wife confirmed that he died last week in Qatar of an (undetected) aneurysm in his heart (and not foul play, as his brother initially feared) at only age forty-nine.
As a Princeton student, he covered the school’s men’s team coached by Bob Bradley (later the US men’s national team coach) who helped him obtain a chance to study in Argentina, which proved to be a career choice helper. Wahl eventually became a Sports Illustrated reporter, who wrote a 2002 essay on a high school basketball player named … LeBron James.
Later he became a full-time soccer writer, and while known for his friendliness among his peers … he was upset at both the financial corruption (and mistreatment of others) by the world governing body of soccer (FIFA).
In a previous Top Comments diary, I noted that he was so upset at the corrupt reign of FIFA president Sepp Blatter, whose 2011 re-election was a foregone conclusion — Grant Wahl sought to be an opposition candidate, if only to have a discussion on the issues. Wahl spoke to many national teams around the world who were sympathetic to his recommendations .. yet afraid to say so.
You can read that story at this link.
Now …... an update
In an OpEd for The Guardian newspaper three years later, Grant Wahl noted that the FIFA brass was so miffed at his attempt to become a candidate:they raised-the-bar at getting a nomination from just one country to five. The following year, however: the new attorney general Loretta Lynch (in conjunction with Swiss authorities) arranged for a raid on FIFA offices, and Sepp Blatter later resigned his office. Although, not before informing a German magazine:
In the stories written about Grant Wahl, one was struck by his fierce battles against injustice: upset at the awarding of this World Cup to Qatar (over horrific working conditions for migrant workers) and his being detained for ½ hour over wearing this T-shirt to the stadium: supporting his gay brother, as well as the LGBTQ+ community (who were deemed persona-non-grata by Qatar).
The other side of him? Reading all of the tributes from members of the women’s teams in prior World Cups (all saying he covered them as diligently as the men’s) and was a friend to other journalists: especially those just getting started.
This tribute from a Canadian journalist seems to capture his spirit.
There are thousands of posts detailing how Grant helped others, the advice he gave them, what he was like as friend, and their favorite article of his (it should be noted, I have yet to see the same piece posted twice).
Even if Grant didn’t know it, everyone has a Grant Wahl story.
In 2011, I was a young journalist, just starting out. I was 25 years old and Toronto-based, trying to navigate my way through a male-dominated industry, on a continent that didn’t really care about a sport I loved (for context, Toronto FC had only been in MLS for four years at that point).
For me, Grant was a rockstar, the type of person you aspired to be like. He was smart, passionate, and, above all else, a good writer. So when this man that I put on a pedestal reached a hand down to pull me up, I was astonished.
But I shouldn’t have been. Because that was just Grant’s MO.
Grant did this for anyone who reached out: he pulled them up, treated them like an equal, and offered whatever he could to help. And that’s why we all have Grant Wahl stories. He was a rarity in the field, not just because of his talent and passion, but because he wanted to bring out that talent and passion in others too. He selflessly worked to build a soccer community in North America.
Before the teams from England and France came out of their dressing rooms last weekend, his assigned seat was not empty .. flowers and a photo were placed there.
And there was a moment of silence for him.
And finally, this past summer I wrote on the interracial married couple who changed my mind about wine reviews: Dorothy “Dottie” Gaiter and John Brecher. They made the subject of wine understandable to me (as they began as newspaper reporters and editors), changing careers later in life and thus avoided becoming such wine insiders they would not be able to relate to the hoi polloi.
I have missed their weekly Wall Street Journal reviews for the past dozen years, but one can find them on social media and The Grape Collective nowadays.
You can read my original post about this delightful couple at this link.
Now …... an interesting family story
Their daughter Zoë is a drummer who has played with many indie groups (and has her own HUSHPUPPY music project). A biracial gay woman, she also struggles with anxiety and depression: which she covered in a (short) single Nervous in March.
On Thanksgiving evening: she was on drums in a pre-recorded all-star band Tonight Show performancebacking Bruce Springsteen and his new album. Her parents … included many photos on their Instagram page (as you might expect).
Now, on to Top Comments:
Highlighted by dkaradzic:
In the diary by News Corpse about 45’s lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize committee for honoring stories about Russian interference in the 2016 election — this comment made by Desert Scientist.
And from Ed Tracey, your faithful correspondent this evening ........
In the diary by OwossoHarpist on the unveiling of the portrait of Nancy Pelosi for her reign as Speaker — gchaucer2 notes (with a reference to her home state) on just how different her portrait will be.
Next - enjoy jotter's wonderful (and now eternal) *PictureQuilt™* below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment featuring that photo.
TOP PHOTOSDecember 14th, 2022
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And lastly: yesterday's Top Mojo - mega-mojo to the intrepid mik ...... who rescued this feature from oblivion:
13) Biden by Denise Oliver Velez +8221) Three big problems. … by RhodeIslandAspie +7024) FTX by Denise Oliver Velez +6826) Marjorie Taylor Greene … by Denise Oliver Velez +6728) Daily Toons … by Denise Oliver Velez +65