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I finished my 2009 books-read list over the weekend—always a fun project. Here are 9 of my favorites from the year:

Sabbath, by Wayne Muller. My favorite book of the year, hands down. This is a book I give reverence to, a book that I found grounding and wise with the occasional slap. Read this if you have many things going in your life and you sometimes feel like you don’t know up from down.

Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed, by Paul Mason. Read this if you’re looking for a better understanding of how the economic meltdown happened, or feel stupid because you still don’t understand what derivatives are or how they work (a lot of bankers don’t, either). Surprisingly fun and compelling for an economics book.

Agenda for a New Economy, by David C. Korten. Read this if you wonder what our economy might look like if it focused more on Main Street than Wall Street.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, by Winifred Watson. Read this if you like period pieces and are looking for something gentle. Bonus: Frances McDormand is in the movie version which has one significant difference from the book.

Call Me Ishmael Tonight: A Book of Ghazals, by Agha Shahid Ali. Read this if you have a fondness for ghazals in particular, poetry forms in general, or if you’re simply looking for a seriously good poetry book. 

Listening Below the Noise: A Meditation on the Practice of Silence, by Anne D. LeClaire. Read this book if the idea of an hour of silence makes your heart sing.

Gardening at the Dragon’s Gate, by Wendy Johnson. Read this if you’re interested in food, health, nature, cooking, gardening, organics, environment, zen, mythology, spirituality, sustainability, obesity, local farming, or community-supported agriculture. A multidimensional book that’s hard to categorize. Happy making.

The Language of Baklava, by Diana Abu-Jaber. Read this memoir if you wonder about the torn life of an immigrant—missing the homeland, the sweet pull of memory, but also anticipation and excitement over the challenges and possibilities of a new country. If you prefer fiction, try Abu-Jaber’s Crescent, which I also read this year and liked very much.

Gut Symmetries, by Jeanette Winterson. I love Winterson. Seriously, I think she could publish a book of ampersands and I would probably think it was brilliant. This novel is a blend of physics and romance (with a dash of horror)—what better combination? Read this if you enjoy books where you think you’re probably missing 30% of what the author is saying.

A good year for books. Happy New Year (a tad late) to you and yours, and best wishes for good books in 2010!

Quarterly Economic Pulse December 2009

The most recent Quarterly Economic Pulse has just been published—local data about the economy and what that means and how it affects the nonprofit sector. The Pulse is a joint venture of Greater Twin Cities United Way and Twin Cities Compass, and this is our third issue (see previous issues here—you have to scroll down a little bit for the links).

The good news: The economy is inching its way out of recession, reflected in Gross Domestic Product, employment figures, consumer confidence and the stock market. Key word: inching.

The bad news: Because this is expected to be a long, slow, jobless (or nearly jobless) recovery with employment and wages depressed through much of 2010, there will be little relief for the social service sector, which is expected to see high levels of need—especially in the areas of food, housing/shelter, and healthcare—continue through much of the year.

However, some hope is better than no hope, and things will eventually turn the corner for the nonprofit sector as well.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for some interesting reading material to start out the new year, check out The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. More on this later….

I’ve been reading Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work, by Matthew B. Crawford for the last couple of weeks, and I can’t remember the last time I felt so ambivalent about a book. (Okay, I checked and it was 2005—Cool Memories by Jean Baudrillard, which alternately infuriated and impressed me.) Shop Class as Soulcraft is having a similar effect. 

For example, passages like the following infuriate me:

So now, if you go to a Toyota dealership to look at a Scion (their cheaper, youth-oriented brand), you get a brochure full of pictures of crazy custom Scions, and profiles of the custom fabricators who have built them, typically with a welding helmet perched just so on their heads, and the obligatory wife beater. 

And: 

If different human types are attracted to different kinds of work, the converse is also true: the work a man does forms him.

I found this annoying sexist writing woven throughout the book.

On the other hand, he challenges some assumptions that many of us hold dear, and with very good reasoning. The one that stopped me in my tracks was higher education in general and advanced degrees in particular. Crawford’s criticism isn’t based on envy; he has a Ph.D. in political philosophy. He was the executive director of a think tank for a while, and is currently a motorcycle mechanic and also a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. 

I think what made him begin to question the value of higher education was his first job after getting his master’s degree: “My new job was to read articles in academic journals, index them under established categories, and write abstracts of about two hundred words.” For someone who loves to read and has a broad interest base, it sounds like a dream job.

But as it turns out, not so much. The job is based on the assumption that in writing an abstract, there is a method that merely needs to be applied. There is no need to actually understand the article. Doesn’t that seem a little odd? The starting quota was 15 articles a day. Indexed and abstracted. Before he had been there a year, the quota was up to 28.

Twenty-eight.

That’s a lot of abstracts. I would be pleased as punch if I could index and abstract five academic articles in one day.

Crawford found that meeting the quota “required me to actively suppress my own ability to think, because the more you think, the more the inadequacies in your understanding of an author’s argument come into focus.” Seriously, a good academic article can take hours to read and fully understand. (A bad one can take even longer.)

He questions the increasing educational credentials many employers require—often without evidence that the additional education will make them better at those jobs. He references a study of air traffic controllers—a job requiring complex decision making—which found an inverse correlation between educational achievement and job performance. Seriously. Think about that.

And that is why I am enjoying this book. It makes me think. It causes me to question some of my assumptions. 

And that is one of my definitions of an excellent book.

Sarah Caruso, the new president and CEO of Greater Twin Cities United Way, officially took the helm on November 30.  She was kind enough to meet with me to answer a few questions while she’s still getting her sea legs.

• Why did you choose this job (CEO of Greater Twin Cities United Way)?

Sarah: This is a really important job in the Twin Cities because United Way has a tremendous impact across so many parts of the community. To me, both the breadth of the work as well as the depth of the work is profound. I was born in St. Paul, I live in Minneapolis: This is my home, and this is the community I want to be part of strengthening. I saw this as the leadership opportunity of a lifetime.

• What do you want to accomplish as the new CEO?

Sarah: In the near term, support and enhance the incredibly strong work of our volunteers and staff. We’re doing great work during really tough economic times, when the demands and needs have never been higher.

• What about the long term?

Sarah: I’m only beginning to realize the possibilities of where we can go with our rich history, strong leadership, organizational knowledge, and committed donors and volunteers.  I think my job in the long term is to create a culture that leads to lasting change in the community that raises our overall quality of life.

• What was your most exciting achievement at the Minnesota Children’s Museum?

Sarah: Developing and growing our leadership in the early childhood community: Both bringing the museum out to the community as well as bringing more of the community into the museum.

• Are you a reader?

Sarah: Yes! I’ve kept a list of the books I read since I was a teenager. Currently, I read about 20 books a year.

• What are some of your favorite books?

Sarah: My favorite business book is Good to Great and the Social Sectors, a monograph by Jim Collins. It focuses on how and why managing a nonprofit is different from a for-profit business. I refer back to it quite often. It’s my foundation as a nonprofit leader.

My favorite fiction book of all time is Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy.

• What newspapers do you read daily?

Sarah: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Star Tribune, and Pioneer Press. We have a big recycling bin.

• What’s your favorite way to relax?

Sarah: Sleep.

• Fruits or vegetables?

Sarah: Both. Maybe a small preference for vegetables.

• What’s something that most people don’t know about you?

Sarah: I’ve been kissed by Michael Jordan.

Thank you, Sarah, for taking time out of your already-busy schedule to talk to me. On behalf of all United Way staff, I would like to say: Welcome aboard!

The New York Times had a great article about food stamps a few days ago. I knew food stamp use was increasing. I may have even heard that it was at record highs. But I don’t think I realized that 1 in 4 children in the United States are now receiving food stamps. One in four. Wow.

One of the things the article stresses is that the stigma around food stamps has declined over the last few years and particularly in the last year, as more and more people are relying on food stamps after losing their jobs. Another thing that has helped is the move to plastic: Food stamps are now loaded onto little plastic cards (EBT cards), just like debit and credit cards, so their use isn’t as conspicuous. They even gave the program a snappier name—the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP for short).

Minnesota is exactly average in terms of participation: Nationally, 66% of those eligible for food stamps are participating in the program (data are from 2007—the most recent available) and the same percentage of eligible people participate in Minnesota. Looking specifically at the working population, there are an estimated 179,000 working people in Minnesota whose income is so low they are still eligible for food stamps. Of those, only 56% are participating in the program (also the same as the national rate). For more detail on participation rates, check out the USDA Report: Reaching Those in Need.

One of the cool things about the New York Times article is the accompanying interactive graphic, which shows participation rates down to the county level. Looking at the data for the nine-county Greater Twin Cities United Way service area, Ramsey County stands out: 12% of the population is on food stamps, including nearly one-quarter (23%) of children. Hennepin County comes next, with 9% overall and 16% of children. But some of the biggest changes are seen in the outer counties: Carver County has seen an increase of 82% in food stamp use since 2007, and Scott County has seen a 70% increase. Increases were substantial in Isanti (58%) and Chisago (54%) counties as well.

If you’ve hit hard times and are wondering if you or someone you know might be eligible for food stamps (or other financial assistance programs), go to Bridge to Benefits and fill out the screening tool—after answering just a few questions, they will tell you what benefits you may be eligible for and provide contact information and links to applications.