Now it’s worse. Syrians vie with Lebanese for seasonal and day labor jobs. Prices for everything are higher because of increased demand, but Syrians are more likely to get the support of nongovernmental organizations.
Not surprisingly, a number of Lebanese who were struggling to provide for their families before the Syrians arrived are more than a little annoyed that making a living is even harder now.
Donald Trump and the Long-Delayed Million to Veterans
January 28th, 2016
.. The largest donation, a $1 million check dated May 24 and drawn from Donald J. Trump’s personal account
When Trump said that night in Iowa, “I refuse to be called a politician! Donald Trump gave $1 million, okay?’ what he really meant was, “someday, I might give one million, if I get asked about this boast enough by reporters.”
.. And here’s Sean Hannity last night: “Donald Trump is fighting back against liberal media attacks about how much money he has raised and donated to veterans charity groups.”
.. Yes, there are a lot of legitimate conservative complaints about a partisan, unfair, sneering media that reflexively treats them with disdain. But asking a guy who claims to make huge donations to charity for details about his donations isn’t partisan or unfair or disdainful. It’s basic fact-checking.
.. This is how spun we have become; now asking “which charities, and how much, and when?” is now considered a “liberal media attack” because it irks the candidate. Why should those questions be so vexing if the donations have been made? Because it implies Trump lied that night in Iowa? But the reporters were right! Trump hadn’t made the donation!
.. This is how spun we have become; now asking “which charities, and how much, and when?” is now considered a “liberal media attack” because it irks the candidate. Why should those questions be so vexing if the donations have been made? Because it implies Trump lied that night in Iowa? But the reporters were right! Trump hadn’t made the donation!
Mark Zuckerberg’s Philanthropy Uses L.L.C. for More Control
In the couple’s giving announcement, Mr. Zuckerberg and Dr. Chan said they planned to tackle some of the biggest problems their daughter’s generation might face, including heart disease and cancer, and suggested they would finance research and technologies to address underlying causes of these diseases. They pledged to give away $1 billion a year for the next three years.
Strangers Drowning: Voyages to the Brink of Moral Extremity
Given the choice between rescuing a drowning relative or a total stranger in a situation of disaster, which do we go for? Does a thirty-year-old mother of four have more claim on me than my own ageing parent or unmarried sibling? It seems at first sight that a truly disinterested, truly generous love would make no fundamental differentiation between those who happen to be close to us and anyone else, so any decision about which one to give priority to would have to be made on grounds that had nothing to do with accidents of connection or instinct.
.. MacFarquhar frequently discusses the ideas of Peter Singer, the Australian ethicist whose passionate insistence on a fully rational morality based on detailed calculations of the effectiveness of specific acts and policies has had a huge influence on popular movements such as the Oxford-based Giving What We Can network. Many of the people we meet in the book have been deeply marked by Singer and his followers, who offer a lucid and practical programme for maximising the effectiveness of charitable generosity through painstaking research and unsentimental assessment of results
.. Singer and others are clear that the most effective way you might help in – say – relieving global poverty or disease may not be to work as a grassroots development economist or a medical volunteer in South Sudan, but to take a highly paid job in your own country and donate a correspondingly large sum.
.. But what if ‘goodness’ also had something to do with a quality of relation with those who receive help, not just with the long-distance solving of their problems for them? What if morality had more to do with habit and character, with the grace of receiving as well as of giving, rather than being just the sum total of right actions?