Of course “movement” is “risky” - it risks the con man at the pulpit not getting the goodies.
I prefer the way my synagogue does it. They sit down and figure out how much everything costs. They present the “bill” to the congregation, along with information on what gets cut first if people don’t pony up and/or find other funding (a group of folks are talking about a “Cycling for the Synagogue” fundraiser this summer, as an example). There are some folks like me that just don’t have a lot to give (I volunteer my time and labor as I am able because I don’t have a lot of money) and others who have more. So far we’ve manged to raise sufficient funds to keep the lights on, but it’s refreshingly honest compared to the weekly begging I’ve seen at Christian “worship gatherings”.
Locking me in? F that - no way I’d ever come back.
I saw a PBS station do that once, with shows that were “below the line” Some people screeched about it but they got the money they needed to keep the schedule.
Assuming PBS was being honest, well, they were just being honest about the ugly reality of charity-based operations.
Further on that point, if the current criminal regime continues their war on all things grant-like, we’ll be seeing a lot more “pony up or we’re gonna shut down forever” charity appeals.
I don’t consider public radio or public TV to be charity-based. Yes, contributions are entirely voluntary. But I get a lot more than the satisfaction of giving from my contributions, I get the continuation of services which I rely on. There are lots of people along for a free ride, of course, and many of those could probably afford something, and that’s why I wish there would be more of that “here’s what you’ll lose if we don’t get enough contributions” approach to fundraising. That approach just proves that they are a value-based proposition.
These poor kids! And of course this will also add to the suspicion of people who actually want to work around kids: that there must be something nefarious behind it. No details are given, thank goodness.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from true crime shows, along with “never park in the garage if you’re home alone”, “if someone takes out a life insurance policy on you they’re going to kill you”, and “it’s almost never a botched robbery”, it’s “anyone claiming to be a hitman on the internet is definitely a cop”.
And while it’s not 100%, odds are excellent that the fellow prison inmate you try to hire to arrange a hit on the outside, will play along but
reveal your plans to authorities in exchange for a shorter sentence or other considerations.
Or one could always Google “rent a hitman” and land here. Enough folks have taken it for real that several convictions for solicitation for murder have resulted.
ETA: LOL, reading through the Wiki page I discover he’s got a paragraph about DOGE now!
It might be a little more difficult to kill a LEO than a generic citizen, but all that difficulty falls to the hitman, not to the woman. So maybe not so extra-stupid after all.
Somehow I’m getting the vibe about killing him to get his pension or life insurance before he changes it away from her to the next GF. Certainly nothing in the news to support that hunch, but it fits so many TV shows so well that it just has to be real this time.
Which reminds me. My ex-wife is still the designated beneficiary of all my money. Boy will she have a party dancing on my grave. If I disappear any time soon, somebody mention her name to the cops please.
It’s not the killing that’s harder, it’s the getting away with it - cops will work a lot harder to hunt down someone who killed one of theirs, and if they get the hitman, they’ll get his client.
My wife’s cousin is living pretty well on her ex-husband’s life insurance proceeds. He’d remarried, but hadn’t gotten around to switching things. The new wife was a surgeon, so the cousin presumably wasn’t taking money from someone in desperate need of it.
I was reviewing the beneficiary designation for my Vanguard funds. For spouse they had two options; a named individual or “the person I am married to at the time of my death.”
That sounds like a great idea. The HR person who used to hold classes explaining our 457s had many stories about ex-wives inheriting the whole retirement account.
We also have CalPERS, so there’s the possibility that the new wives had gotten those.
I really have nobody else to leave it to, and no desire to fund a charity. I’m happy to not be married to her, but helping her have a better life after I’m gone isn’t distasteful.
I’ve been working my way through a set of steady GFs, but about the time I think we’re becoming stable enough to warrant those changes, things fall apart. Sigh.
