This is the second and final part of a series of posts that looks at why I am skeptical that The Giving Pledge will have the kind of impact many people are saying it will. In Part I, I explored how the pledge is likely to have an extremely small impact on total giving, and how little money will likely benefit underserved communities.
Below, I look at how giving by billionaire philanthropists has typically been limited in its effectiveness and has dangerous implications for democratic decision-making.
Billionaire philanthropy has real limits and risks.
Billionaires don't typically like to share power.
Some forward-thinking foundations share power with communities by including grantees or the constituent perspective on their boards. Others share power by giving most of their grants in the form of unrestricted general operating support so that the leaders of the nonprofits can best decide how to spend the money.
But most billionaire philanthropists don't follow these practices. The current trend in philanthropy is to develop highly specific theories of change around narrowly defined issues, and then to look for nonprofits that can carry out the foundation's plan. It's often called "strategic philanthropy." In this approach, the billionaires and their families get to decide what the problems are facing communities and how best to solve them.
"What's wrong with that? It's their money," you might ask.
First, it's not entirely their money. Dollars donated by millionaires and billionaires should be thought of as partially public dollars. Given our current tax code, most gifts by the ultra-wealthy are subsidized at the 35 percent level by other taxpayers. A foundation created with a $1 billion gift is really $650 million from the donor and $350 million from the tax-paying public. When tax-exempt donations are made, the U.S. Treasury forgoes revenue, and other taxpayers pay higher rates to make up the difference.
Second, there are real risks for democracy when we allow billionaires to have undue influence on public institutions. It has been well documented how the charitable choices of the ultra-wealthy are influencing government policy in this country and around the world. For just one example, look to an opinion piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where education historian Diane Ravitch explains, "A foundation's offer of a multimillion-dollar grant is enough to cause most superintendents and school boards to drop everything and reorder their priorities."
Third, having billionaires tightly control the decision-making process is not optimally effective, for three reasons.
- Overwhelming evidence from groups like Grantmakers for Effective Organizations and the Center for Effective Philanthropy shows that when nonprofits receive unrestricted support, they have greater impact. That's because the people closest to the problems, those running nonprofits, often have important insights about how to find solutions. So to increase impact, billionaire pledge-takers would be wise to give more unrestricted funding.
- Research by theorist Scott Page demonstrates that diverse groups make better decisions, so a foundation that has a diverse board is likely to be more effective than a foundation with a small board that includes only the donor and a few members of his or her family. Advisory committees are a good half-way step, but there is no substitute for truly sharing power by adding community perspectives to the board of trustees.
- Another way billionaires often fall short of being optimally effective is that they tend to favor technocratic approaches to solving social problems. Yet, as philanthropy expert Michael Edwards points out in his latest book, many of the most pressing challenges we face are not best addressed with a business-oriented approach. Thorny social problems require investments in civil society and social justice, not technocratic business-driven solutions. Unfortunately, despite the fact that it is well documented that foundation investments in advocacy, community organizing and civic engagement have an incredibly high return on investment, few high-net-worth donors currently focus on promoting social justice in these ways.
Happily, a few of the billionaire donors who have taken the pledge are leaders in social justice giving. Herb and Marion Sandler are among them -- they're big supporters of grassroots community organizing. Jean and Steve Case, too, have devoted more than 30 percent of their foundation's grant dollars to social justice causes, primarily by investing heavily in civic engagement. But these donors are the exception rather than the rule among billionaire philanthropists.
What's needed to mitigate these risks and limitations is for billionaire pledge-takers to recognize that donors, taxpayers and nonprofits are really all partners in pursuit of the common good. We all have certain rights and responsibilities in this partnership. And as true partners, we need to share power. If signers of The Giving Pledge think about their philanthropy in this way, it will help democratize their work and lead to better results.
(For more critiques of strategic philanthropy, check out these posts from Sean Stannard-Stockton, Susan Berresford and William Schambra.)
Final Thoughts
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once noted, "Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary."
As I stated up front, all things considered, I'm glad the Gateses and Mr. Buffett started The Giving Pledge. It's better for our nation and the world to have billionaires giving to charity than to leave vast amounts of their wealth exclusively to their kids. I hope this initiative inspires bolder giving from billionaires, millionaires and the rest of us.
But it's not just the amount of giving that matters. The quality of the giving matters, too.
Thus far, The Giving Pledge has been silent on these questions of quality, following a politically safer route that says implicitly that all charitable giving is noble and of equal value. But that's just not true. The choices philanthropists make determine to what extent the common good is served by their generosity. We should all hope they make good choices.
The Weekly Standard blows the lid off another non-scandal -- and, in the process, all but begs House Republicans to conduct a wasteful and inane investigation:
HHS is Paying Google with Taxpayer Money to Alter 'Obamacare' Search Results (Updated)
The brazenness of the Obama administration never ceases to amaze. Try typing "Obamacare" into Google, and you'll find that the first entry is now the Obama administration's www.healthcare.gov. If you don't particularly like that result, you'll probably hate the fact that you're paying for it.
...
Using taxpayers' money to alter the results of search engines and to control the flow of information is disturbing on multiple levels. It's particularly disturbing when it's done to promote a massive expansion of government power, like Obamacare. And one wonders how – or if – it's even legal.
Perhaps the new House of Representatives will want to ask the unelected Secretary Sebelius to explain how, or why, she thinks such use of taxpayers' money to promote a particular -- and highly unpopular -- political agenda is legally or substantively justifiable.
This is dumb, even for the Weekly Standard (though not too dumb to get Townhall in a lather.)
"Obamacare" isn't a "political agenda," it's a government program, passed by Congress and signed into law by the President. The government has a natural and appropriate interest in making sure the public knows how a new government program works. The public, quite obviously, has such an interest as well.
Buying ads on Google isn't "control[ing] the flow of information," it's buying ads. It isn't a nefarious bribe to get Google to alter search results; it's how Google ads work. Here's the first example that popped into my head:
See what happened there? I typed "the weekly standard" into Google's search box, and Google put an ad for the Weekly Standard atop my search results. That's exactly what happened with the www.healthcare.gov ads in question. Here's a screenshot, from Politico's Ben Smith:
So, this is nothing more than the government buying ads, exactly -- exactly -- like The Weekly Standard does. Is that a scandal? Of course not. The government buys ads all the time. Like those military recruitment commercials you probably see a few hundred times a year. I haven't seen the Weekly Standard denounce that as an illegal use of taxpayer money to promote a political agenda by controlling the flow of information. Good thing, too: Such a complaint would be stupid.
robert shumake
Opinion: Can Oprah Help Restore Civility? - AOL <b>News</b>
Oprah began her new cable television network -- OWN -- at noon on New Year's Day, a network dedicated to the total and complete absence of mean-spiritedness.
500 More Red-Winged Blackbirds Found Dead in Louisiana - AOL <b>News</b>
Days after 100000 fish and approximately 4000 red-winged blackbirds were found dead in Arkansas, 500 deceased blackbirds and starlings were discovered on a Louisiana highway.
John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.
robert shumake
Opinion: Can Oprah Help Restore Civility? - AOL <b>News</b>
Oprah began her new cable television network -- OWN -- at noon on New Year's Day, a network dedicated to the total and complete absence of mean-spiritedness.
500 More Red-Winged Blackbirds Found Dead in Louisiana - AOL <b>News</b>
Days after 100000 fish and approximately 4000 red-winged blackbirds were found dead in Arkansas, 500 deceased blackbirds and starlings were discovered on a Louisiana highway.
John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.
robert shumake detroit
This is the second and final part of a series of posts that looks at why I am skeptical that The Giving Pledge will have the kind of impact many people are saying it will. In Part I, I explored how the pledge is likely to have an extremely small impact on total giving, and how little money will likely benefit underserved communities.
Below, I look at how giving by billionaire philanthropists has typically been limited in its effectiveness and has dangerous implications for democratic decision-making.
Billionaire philanthropy has real limits and risks.
Billionaires don't typically like to share power.
Some forward-thinking foundations share power with communities by including grantees or the constituent perspective on their boards. Others share power by giving most of their grants in the form of unrestricted general operating support so that the leaders of the nonprofits can best decide how to spend the money.
But most billionaire philanthropists don't follow these practices. The current trend in philanthropy is to develop highly specific theories of change around narrowly defined issues, and then to look for nonprofits that can carry out the foundation's plan. It's often called "strategic philanthropy." In this approach, the billionaires and their families get to decide what the problems are facing communities and how best to solve them.
"What's wrong with that? It's their money," you might ask.
First, it's not entirely their money. Dollars donated by millionaires and billionaires should be thought of as partially public dollars. Given our current tax code, most gifts by the ultra-wealthy are subsidized at the 35 percent level by other taxpayers. A foundation created with a $1 billion gift is really $650 million from the donor and $350 million from the tax-paying public. When tax-exempt donations are made, the U.S. Treasury forgoes revenue, and other taxpayers pay higher rates to make up the difference.
Second, there are real risks for democracy when we allow billionaires to have undue influence on public institutions. It has been well documented how the charitable choices of the ultra-wealthy are influencing government policy in this country and around the world. For just one example, look to an opinion piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where education historian Diane Ravitch explains, "A foundation's offer of a multimillion-dollar grant is enough to cause most superintendents and school boards to drop everything and reorder their priorities."
Third, having billionaires tightly control the decision-making process is not optimally effective, for three reasons.
- Overwhelming evidence from groups like Grantmakers for Effective Organizations and the Center for Effective Philanthropy shows that when nonprofits receive unrestricted support, they have greater impact. That's because the people closest to the problems, those running nonprofits, often have important insights about how to find solutions. So to increase impact, billionaire pledge-takers would be wise to give more unrestricted funding.
- Research by theorist Scott Page demonstrates that diverse groups make better decisions, so a foundation that has a diverse board is likely to be more effective than a foundation with a small board that includes only the donor and a few members of his or her family. Advisory committees are a good half-way step, but there is no substitute for truly sharing power by adding community perspectives to the board of trustees.
- Another way billionaires often fall short of being optimally effective is that they tend to favor technocratic approaches to solving social problems. Yet, as philanthropy expert Michael Edwards points out in his latest book, many of the most pressing challenges we face are not best addressed with a business-oriented approach. Thorny social problems require investments in civil society and social justice, not technocratic business-driven solutions. Unfortunately, despite the fact that it is well documented that foundation investments in advocacy, community organizing and civic engagement have an incredibly high return on investment, few high-net-worth donors currently focus on promoting social justice in these ways.
Happily, a few of the billionaire donors who have taken the pledge are leaders in social justice giving. Herb and Marion Sandler are among them -- they're big supporters of grassroots community organizing. Jean and Steve Case, too, have devoted more than 30 percent of their foundation's grant dollars to social justice causes, primarily by investing heavily in civic engagement. But these donors are the exception rather than the rule among billionaire philanthropists.
What's needed to mitigate these risks and limitations is for billionaire pledge-takers to recognize that donors, taxpayers and nonprofits are really all partners in pursuit of the common good. We all have certain rights and responsibilities in this partnership. And as true partners, we need to share power. If signers of The Giving Pledge think about their philanthropy in this way, it will help democratize their work and lead to better results.
(For more critiques of strategic philanthropy, check out these posts from Sean Stannard-Stockton, Susan Berresford and William Schambra.)
Final Thoughts
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once noted, "Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary."
As I stated up front, all things considered, I'm glad the Gateses and Mr. Buffett started The Giving Pledge. It's better for our nation and the world to have billionaires giving to charity than to leave vast amounts of their wealth exclusively to their kids. I hope this initiative inspires bolder giving from billionaires, millionaires and the rest of us.
But it's not just the amount of giving that matters. The quality of the giving matters, too.
Thus far, The Giving Pledge has been silent on these questions of quality, following a politically safer route that says implicitly that all charitable giving is noble and of equal value. But that's just not true. The choices philanthropists make determine to what extent the common good is served by their generosity. We should all hope they make good choices.
The Weekly Standard blows the lid off another non-scandal -- and, in the process, all but begs House Republicans to conduct a wasteful and inane investigation:
HHS is Paying Google with Taxpayer Money to Alter 'Obamacare' Search Results (Updated)
The brazenness of the Obama administration never ceases to amaze. Try typing "Obamacare" into Google, and you'll find that the first entry is now the Obama administration's www.healthcare.gov. If you don't particularly like that result, you'll probably hate the fact that you're paying for it.
...
Using taxpayers' money to alter the results of search engines and to control the flow of information is disturbing on multiple levels. It's particularly disturbing when it's done to promote a massive expansion of government power, like Obamacare. And one wonders how – or if – it's even legal.
Perhaps the new House of Representatives will want to ask the unelected Secretary Sebelius to explain how, or why, she thinks such use of taxpayers' money to promote a particular -- and highly unpopular -- political agenda is legally or substantively justifiable.
This is dumb, even for the Weekly Standard (though not too dumb to get Townhall in a lather.)
"Obamacare" isn't a "political agenda," it's a government program, passed by Congress and signed into law by the President. The government has a natural and appropriate interest in making sure the public knows how a new government program works. The public, quite obviously, has such an interest as well.
Buying ads on Google isn't "control[ing] the flow of information," it's buying ads. It isn't a nefarious bribe to get Google to alter search results; it's how Google ads work. Here's the first example that popped into my head:
See what happened there? I typed "the weekly standard" into Google's search box, and Google put an ad for the Weekly Standard atop my search results. That's exactly what happened with the www.healthcare.gov ads in question. Here's a screenshot, from Politico's Ben Smith:
So, this is nothing more than the government buying ads, exactly -- exactly -- like The Weekly Standard does. Is that a scandal? Of course not. The government buys ads all the time. Like those military recruitment commercials you probably see a few hundred times a year. I haven't seen the Weekly Standard denounce that as an illegal use of taxpayer money to promote a political agenda by controlling the flow of information. Good thing, too: Such a complaint would be stupid.
robert shumake
robert shumake
Opinion: Can Oprah Help Restore Civility? - AOL <b>News</b>
Oprah began her new cable television network -- OWN -- at noon on New Year's Day, a network dedicated to the total and complete absence of mean-spiritedness.
500 More Red-Winged Blackbirds Found Dead in Louisiana - AOL <b>News</b>
Days after 100000 fish and approximately 4000 red-winged blackbirds were found dead in Arkansas, 500 deceased blackbirds and starlings were discovered on a Louisiana highway.
John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.
robert shumake
Opinion: Can Oprah Help Restore Civility? - AOL <b>News</b>
Oprah began her new cable television network -- OWN -- at noon on New Year's Day, a network dedicated to the total and complete absence of mean-spiritedness.
500 More Red-Winged Blackbirds Found Dead in Louisiana - AOL <b>News</b>
Days after 100000 fish and approximately 4000 red-winged blackbirds were found dead in Arkansas, 500 deceased blackbirds and starlings were discovered on a Louisiana highway.
John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.
robert shumake
Most people know credit card companies as high-fee very profitable companies. They have to be making money - after all they sent 20 credit card offers out for every person in the United States last year! Although credit card companies are multibillion dollar industries, there is a small percentage of individuals who have figured out how to make money off the credit card companies.
It's called credit card arbitrage, and here's how it works. There is so much credit available, credit card companies are willing to offer people with good credit a very large credit line, with an introductory grace period of over a year at 0% interest and a 0% fee to transfer a balance onto it. These savvy consumers are making use of these cards, often more than one.
They will sign up for these cards and put the money from the card in a high interest money market savings account. Money market accounts earn about 5% right now. So if you borrow money for 12 or 18 months at 0% and lend it out at about 5%, you are getting a pretty big spread. Once the credit card introductory term is nearing an end, the credit card arbitragers will write a check and pay off their balance with the initial principle that they had borrower, keeping their 5% spread.
Let's look at an example. Let's say that you get a $50,000 credit line with an introductory rate of 0% for 12 months. If you took out the $50,000 and put it in a high interest savings account earning 5%, you would make $2,500 in that year based on the differing interest rates!
If this is such a great thing, why aren't more people doing it? Well, dealing with credit card companies often involves risk. Some people play the arbitrage game and come out quite well and profitable from the situation. Others don't know that it can be done. While others are more adverse to risk and don't want to play that game. Some credit card companies have been "playing games" with their consumers with numerous provisions to where they can increase your interest rate for any number of things, such as if you have too much credit, or defaulted on a loan at another bank! This is what is called a "universal default" provision, and they're growing. If you want to play the arbitrage game, you had better know what you are getting your self into; otherwise you will be in a world of hurt.
robert shumake
Opinion: Can Oprah Help Restore Civility? - AOL <b>News</b>
Oprah began her new cable television network -- OWN -- at noon on New Year's Day, a network dedicated to the total and complete absence of mean-spiritedness.
500 More Red-Winged Blackbirds Found Dead in Louisiana - AOL <b>News</b>
Days after 100000 fish and approximately 4000 red-winged blackbirds were found dead in Arkansas, 500 deceased blackbirds and starlings were discovered on a Louisiana highway.
John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.
robert shumake
robert shumake
This is the second and final part of a series of posts that looks at why I am skeptical that The Giving Pledge will have the kind of impact many people are saying it will. In Part I, I explored how the pledge is likely to have an extremely small impact on total giving, and how little money will likely benefit underserved communities.
Below, I look at how giving by billionaire philanthropists has typically been limited in its effectiveness and has dangerous implications for democratic decision-making.
Billionaire philanthropy has real limits and risks.
Billionaires don't typically like to share power.
Some forward-thinking foundations share power with communities by including grantees or the constituent perspective on their boards. Others share power by giving most of their grants in the form of unrestricted general operating support so that the leaders of the nonprofits can best decide how to spend the money.
But most billionaire philanthropists don't follow these practices. The current trend in philanthropy is to develop highly specific theories of change around narrowly defined issues, and then to look for nonprofits that can carry out the foundation's plan. It's often called "strategic philanthropy." In this approach, the billionaires and their families get to decide what the problems are facing communities and how best to solve them.
"What's wrong with that? It's their money," you might ask.
First, it's not entirely their money. Dollars donated by millionaires and billionaires should be thought of as partially public dollars. Given our current tax code, most gifts by the ultra-wealthy are subsidized at the 35 percent level by other taxpayers. A foundation created with a $1 billion gift is really $650 million from the donor and $350 million from the tax-paying public. When tax-exempt donations are made, the U.S. Treasury forgoes revenue, and other taxpayers pay higher rates to make up the difference.
Second, there are real risks for democracy when we allow billionaires to have undue influence on public institutions. It has been well documented how the charitable choices of the ultra-wealthy are influencing government policy in this country and around the world. For just one example, look to an opinion piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where education historian Diane Ravitch explains, "A foundation's offer of a multimillion-dollar grant is enough to cause most superintendents and school boards to drop everything and reorder their priorities."
Third, having billionaires tightly control the decision-making process is not optimally effective, for three reasons.
- Overwhelming evidence from groups like Grantmakers for Effective Organizations and the Center for Effective Philanthropy shows that when nonprofits receive unrestricted support, they have greater impact. That's because the people closest to the problems, those running nonprofits, often have important insights about how to find solutions. So to increase impact, billionaire pledge-takers would be wise to give more unrestricted funding.
- Research by theorist Scott Page demonstrates that diverse groups make better decisions, so a foundation that has a diverse board is likely to be more effective than a foundation with a small board that includes only the donor and a few members of his or her family. Advisory committees are a good half-way step, but there is no substitute for truly sharing power by adding community perspectives to the board of trustees.
- Another way billionaires often fall short of being optimally effective is that they tend to favor technocratic approaches to solving social problems. Yet, as philanthropy expert Michael Edwards points out in his latest book, many of the most pressing challenges we face are not best addressed with a business-oriented approach. Thorny social problems require investments in civil society and social justice, not technocratic business-driven solutions. Unfortunately, despite the fact that it is well documented that foundation investments in advocacy, community organizing and civic engagement have an incredibly high return on investment, few high-net-worth donors currently focus on promoting social justice in these ways.
Happily, a few of the billionaire donors who have taken the pledge are leaders in social justice giving. Herb and Marion Sandler are among them -- they're big supporters of grassroots community organizing. Jean and Steve Case, too, have devoted more than 30 percent of their foundation's grant dollars to social justice causes, primarily by investing heavily in civic engagement. But these donors are the exception rather than the rule among billionaire philanthropists.
What's needed to mitigate these risks and limitations is for billionaire pledge-takers to recognize that donors, taxpayers and nonprofits are really all partners in pursuit of the common good. We all have certain rights and responsibilities in this partnership. And as true partners, we need to share power. If signers of The Giving Pledge think about their philanthropy in this way, it will help democratize their work and lead to better results.
(For more critiques of strategic philanthropy, check out these posts from Sean Stannard-Stockton, Susan Berresford and William Schambra.)
Final Thoughts
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once noted, "Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary."
As I stated up front, all things considered, I'm glad the Gateses and Mr. Buffett started The Giving Pledge. It's better for our nation and the world to have billionaires giving to charity than to leave vast amounts of their wealth exclusively to their kids. I hope this initiative inspires bolder giving from billionaires, millionaires and the rest of us.
But it's not just the amount of giving that matters. The quality of the giving matters, too.
Thus far, The Giving Pledge has been silent on these questions of quality, following a politically safer route that says implicitly that all charitable giving is noble and of equal value. But that's just not true. The choices philanthropists make determine to what extent the common good is served by their generosity. We should all hope they make good choices.
The Weekly Standard blows the lid off another non-scandal -- and, in the process, all but begs House Republicans to conduct a wasteful and inane investigation:
HHS is Paying Google with Taxpayer Money to Alter 'Obamacare' Search Results (Updated)
The brazenness of the Obama administration never ceases to amaze. Try typing "Obamacare" into Google, and you'll find that the first entry is now the Obama administration's www.healthcare.gov. If you don't particularly like that result, you'll probably hate the fact that you're paying for it.
...
Using taxpayers' money to alter the results of search engines and to control the flow of information is disturbing on multiple levels. It's particularly disturbing when it's done to promote a massive expansion of government power, like Obamacare. And one wonders how – or if – it's even legal.
Perhaps the new House of Representatives will want to ask the unelected Secretary Sebelius to explain how, or why, she thinks such use of taxpayers' money to promote a particular -- and highly unpopular -- political agenda is legally or substantively justifiable.
This is dumb, even for the Weekly Standard (though not too dumb to get Townhall in a lather.)
"Obamacare" isn't a "political agenda," it's a government program, passed by Congress and signed into law by the President. The government has a natural and appropriate interest in making sure the public knows how a new government program works. The public, quite obviously, has such an interest as well.
Buying ads on Google isn't "control[ing] the flow of information," it's buying ads. It isn't a nefarious bribe to get Google to alter search results; it's how Google ads work. Here's the first example that popped into my head:
See what happened there? I typed "the weekly standard" into Google's search box, and Google put an ad for the Weekly Standard atop my search results. That's exactly what happened with the www.healthcare.gov ads in question. Here's a screenshot, from Politico's Ben Smith:
So, this is nothing more than the government buying ads, exactly -- exactly -- like The Weekly Standard does. Is that a scandal? Of course not. The government buys ads all the time. Like those military recruitment commercials you probably see a few hundred times a year. I haven't seen the Weekly Standard denounce that as an illegal use of taxpayer money to promote a political agenda by controlling the flow of information. Good thing, too: Such a complaint would be stupid.
robert shumake
Opinion: Can Oprah Help Restore Civility? - AOL <b>News</b>
Oprah began her new cable television network -- OWN -- at noon on New Year's Day, a network dedicated to the total and complete absence of mean-spiritedness.
500 More Red-Winged Blackbirds Found Dead in Louisiana - AOL <b>News</b>
Days after 100000 fish and approximately 4000 red-winged blackbirds were found dead in Arkansas, 500 deceased blackbirds and starlings were discovered on a Louisiana highway.
John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox <b>News</b> - NYTimes.com
Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.
robert shumake
robert shumake detroit
