This Week: The Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive! (Plus: "The State of Working America")

"Quote" of the Week

It's Pledge Drive Time!

Basics About the Notes

How to Make a Pledge

What Makes Nygaard Notes Unique (and Worthy of Your Support)?

The State of Working America

 

Greetings,

I was thinking that the series called Media and Propaganda, How It Happens that just ended last week was rather lengthy, and I was right. By the end it ran to over 10,000 words. Yikes! I said last week in this space that I didn't have time to write a book, but you regular readers of the Notes get some large, book-like articles in the meantime! I hope you found this recent series rewarding. A lot of what was in there is stuff that I tell folks in my workshops, or when I occasionally teach classes on media. I thought it was about time I wrote it down. People should know how this stuff works, I figure. It's all part of the Nygaard Notes Experience!

Next week, as the Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive continues (have you made your pledge yet?) I plan to do some catching up on things that I noted during the series, but just couldn't fit in at the time. There's lots and lots of stuff that could go in. Hmm... Maybe this catch-up stuff will take more than one issue. We'll see. In the meantime...

PLEASE PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT FOR NYGAARD NOTES!

Gratefully,

Nygaard

"Quote" of the Week:

This week's "quote" has been made up by your editor for this very special occasion:

"Support Nygaard Notes: Make a pledge TODAY!"

It's Pledge Drive Time!

October is Nygaard Notes Pledge Month. At least, it is this year. I try to do a Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive a couple of times each year. The last one was in April, so I figure it must be about time again. Here's what a Nygaard Notes Pledge Drive is, in a nutshell:

During pledge time I ask readers to make an annual donation, kind of like a subscription; I'm calling it a pledge. Most people make annual pledges. Some people make monthly pledges – whatever you want to do is great!

NOTE TO CURRENT PLEDGERS: I try to send out "official" reminders to renew your pledge after 33 issues, but I am not always prompt about it, due to time constraints. (This is, by the way, an example of how a higher level of donations would make the Notes better—more time to do the clerical work.) So, if you have already sent in your renewal, no point in you reading any further than this crucial point: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

Those of you who have not yet pledged, please read on...

I always say that Nygaard Notes subscriptions are free, and they are. Pledges are voluntary, so no one will stop getting Nygaard Notes if they choose not to make a donation. But I hope many of you do find it in your hearts to make a contribution.

There are other ways, besides donating money, that people can support Nygaard Notes. The best thing you can do is to tell people about the Notes. Sometimes people send me the email addresses of friends so I can give them a "gift" subscription. Of course, subscriptions don't cost anything, so it's an odd "gift." But what it means is that they get something without even asking. (Occasionally the recipients of these gift subscriptions don't like them, and cancel their subscriptions. Not often, though.)

Basics About the Notes

It's been about eight years since I started publishing Nygaard Notes. There are currently about 1,000 subscribers. (I'm aiming for 20,000.) Here is my mission statement:

Nygaard Notes is an independent periodic newsletter written and published by Jeff Nygaard.
Nygaard Notes is concerned with a broad range of issues and ideas,
using humor and plain language to reach out to anyone who believes in
the values of solidarity, justice, compassion, and democracy.

Nygaard Notes is intended to educate, inform, and entertain readers.
Nygaard Notes is also intended to challenge its readers, inspiring them
to move away from passive ways of thinking and toward more
active, creative ways of thinking that lead to positive action.

Since Nygaard Notes is a political project, and not a business, I will never require that people send me money in order to receive a subscription. But, while it is not necessary for each individual to donate to Nygaard Notes, it IS important that many of you do.

How to Make a Pledge

To make a pledge, all you do is make out a check, payable to "Nygaard Notes" and send it to the address found both at the beginning and at the end of this issue of the Notes. You can also go to the Nygaard Notes website at www.nygaardnotes.org and donate ONLINE.

Donations are not tax-deductible, I'm sorry to say. I have not gone the route of becoming an official "non-profit" organization. (This is not to imply that I do make a "profit," however. If that were the case, I would quit my day job.)

How Much To Donate?

There are at least three different ways to think about this issue of "How much?":

Method Number One:

The traditional way is "How much is each copy of this publication worth to me?" I don't care for this method, since it implies that the project is some sort of commodity for sale like a box of corn flakes, but it is one way to think about it. If this is your choice, here are some numbers:

A pledge "year" I consider to be 33 issues. That seems to be how many I put out in a calendar year, although it's quite fluid, as regular readers well know. If each issue is worth a dollar to you, then you could send me $33. Fifty cents each? Then it's $16.50. If you would be willing to shell out eight-and-a-half cents for each issue, then send a check for $2.81. You get the idea.

Method Number Two:

A second way to think about this is to relate your contribution to your own income or wealth. Are you willing to devote one or two hour's worth of your income each year in order to support Nygaard Notes? Then send me that amount. If you make minimum wage, I am more than happy to accept $5.15 or $10.30 for your annual subscription donation. If you make closer to the average household income, then you would make an annual contribution of something like $18 to $36. Using this yardstick, the average American physician would send me $90 to $180 per year. You get this idea, too, I'm sure. In a related way, you could send one-tenth of 1% of your net worth. For the average household, this would be $37. (For help in figuring out your own wealth, the average household income, etc., see Nygaard Notes #138.)

Method Number Three:

Some of you may want to set your own arbitrary annual amount and send that along. Fine. However you like to do it; there are no rules here! The point is that I will record whatever you send and then I will contact you 33 issues later (hopefully) and, if you haven't already renewed your pledge, I will ask you to do so. I will even send a pre-addressed and stamped envelope!

Many thanks to all of you who, this year, have renewed your pledge without my even asking.

Again, this is TOTALLY VOLUNTARY. No one will stop getting Nygaard Notes for lack of a donation. Also, your pledges don't get you any special treatment: All Nygaard Notes readers get the same wonderful treatment—all your letters get replies, all your questions get answered, and so forth—money or no money.

What Makes Nygaard Notes Unique (and Worthy of Your Support)?

One of the things that a lot of newsletters and blogs appear to be trying to do is to give information on the events of the day. As in: "Did you know this?" or "Have you heard about that?" In other words, they attempt to affect WHAT you know. Certainly I do this, as well. But, more importantly than affecting WHAT you know, Nygaard Notes is always trying to affect HOW you know. That's a big difference. A note I just got in the mail illustrates what I mean.

A reader who just renewed her pledge of support for Nygaard Notes (Thank you, Amy!) sent a note along with her check. It was a wonderful note, from a wonderful reader, and she was talking about the just-finished series "Media and Propaganda, How It Happens." She remarked on the idea from that series that the customers for a news outlet are the advertisers, and the product that they sell is readers. She said that "now that I am conscious of it... I have been noticing it everywhere" in the daily news. She even sent me a perfect example that she had clipped from that day's newspaper. This was one of the best notes I could have gotten, partly because she has been repeating the idea "to everyone." (Thank you again, Amy!)

The reason I appreciated this particular comment so much is that it tells me that I am having some effect in one of the ways that I hope to do so. That is, because of something she read in Nygaard Notes, Amy says that she now SEES things differently. Something that has always been there, she now "notices everywhere." That's a big change, and hopefully a useful one.

A big part of what Nygaard Notes is all about is demonstrating a process of discovery, showing how interesting and exciting it can be. Rather than take up the pages of the Notes by repeatedly saying "Look over there!" I try to get people to think about where THEY want to look, and consider some different ways of thinking about what they see when they do. It's fun! And it helps us do good things more effectively.

That's why I say in my mission statement that Nygaard Notes is "intended to challenge its readers, inspiring them to move away from passive ways of thinking and toward more active, creative ways of thinking that lead to positive action."

I think it's unusual for a newsletter to go beyond the providing of information, and to constantly talk about how and where we get our information. People tell me that this is one of the things they find remarkable and useful about Nygaard Notes. Some of those people have already made a pledge of support to Nygaard Notes. If you are in that group, Thank You!

For those of you who also find Nygaard Notes remarkable and useful, but have not yet sent in a pledge of support for Nygaard Notes, NOW IS THE TIME!

The State of Working America

In the midst of the recently-completed Media and Propaganda series, the Labor Day holiday came around. I usually say something about that, so here is a belated item on the state of labor in this country.

Labor Day in the United States means different things to different people. To media folks, one might think that it would offer a great opportunity to talk about, well, Labor. That is, how are workers in the United States doing? Every two years the holiday is the occasion for the release of a comprehensive study called "The State of Working America," a book-length study done by the Economic Policy Institute that is perhaps the best overall look at how working families are doing at the moment.

Very few media outlets covered the report and, when they did, the stories were mostly seen in the "Business" section. (After all, newspapers don't have a "Worker" section, do they?) Of the newspapers that did cover it, not all were interested in dealing with the realities that the report found. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, for example, headlined their (Business page) article, "Alternative View of Labor: Things Are Not All That Bad." The Washington Post ran their story on the front page of the "Style" Section (Really! The Style Section!), with the headline: "It's Labor Day. Must We Talk About Work?"

I guess it isn't very stylish to talk about, but the welfare of the majority of people who work for wages does seem newsworthy to me. So, in that non-stylish spirit, here are just a couple of facts from the report:

"Real income is lower for the typical family than in 2000, while the incomes of the best-off families have grown rapidly."

"African-American families went from a 15.6% gain from 1995 to 2000 to a 4.8% loss from 2000 to 2005; Hispanics from a 24.9% gain to a 6.3% loss; and young families (25-34) from a 12.3% gain to a 5.8% loss."

"Far from being a nation of Horatio Algers who can work their way up even from humble beginnings, we find that many families remain in a similar income class throughout their lives, and children's incomes correspond significantly to their parents'."

Oh, there's so much more! All of which should have been, and should continue to be, on the nation's front pages. You can see the report for yourself on the web at http://www.stateofworkingamerica.org/