Politics

Democrats and Money, Redux

I’m about to post a couple of asks for campaign money (for other people, not me). Before I do that, I want to repost something I wrote during my own campaign two years ago; people seemed to find it helpful.   We have a very short window now until the mid-terms, and if you have […]

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Policy-Makers

There is something fundamentally flawed with a nation composed primarily of politicians whose own lives will not be endangered by changes in policy. Men, making decisions on reproductive rights, whose own bodies will never experience the rigors of pregnancy. The wealthy one-percenters, making decisions about minimum wage, with no understanding of what it means to

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Strategic Planning

Read the board packet for this month’s meeting, and sent a message to the library director in preparation for next week’s 6-hour strategic objectives planning meeting. The library is heading into a big planning sequence, considering where we are and where we want to go next; it’s been almost two decades since the last one.

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Board

I’m at a weird point in my life where it seems like every few weeks I get an invitation to be on a board. That sounds very honoring, but in actuality, it’s mostly come do some free work for us; that’s how working boards for non-profits operate.   Which is just fine, I’m in favor,

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Meeting

Home from the library board meeting, four hours later. I had a little while at the start of the meeting when I wasn’t sure I would be able to hold it together through it; I wondered whether I should excuse myself and go home. I had complete faith that the other board members would do

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Maze

When my kids were tiny, I spend a lot of time at the Maze branch of our local library. It is not a big library, but it was perfect for me to walk to from our little, often claustrophobic, rental house, with my newborn and a toddler. We had a trustees meeting there a few

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Brandon Johnson

Tonight’s meet-and-greet with Brandon Johnson, running for Cook County Commissioner for the 1st district. I was impressed, and will be volunteering for him. Please feel free to come to me with any questions you have, and I’ll try my best to answer them. I’ll also have yard signs! The election is March 20th.

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Doug Jones

I am only just starting to understand what it takes to create an upset like Doug Jones’s — but it often starts with meet-and-greets like the one I just hosted, ten people in someone’s living room, learning about a new candidate. Jones must have had a tremendous cadre of volunteers and staffers helping him get

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4th District

I’m not going to run for Luis Gutierrez’s seat in Congress (which has unexpectedly opened up this week, with a filing deadline on Monday). I flirted, every so briefly, with the idea, even talked it over with Kevin for an hour late last night, had trouble sleeping because I couldn’t stop thinking about it —

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