donations - Jezebel

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Women Of Letters
Reminder: Support Education Through Donors Choose
Why Is Sarah Palin's $180,000 Wardrobe Sitting In Garbarge Bags?
Justin Timberlake, Failed Philanthropist • Burned Afghan Teacher Wants Acid Thrown On Attackers
Beau Biden Gets His Seat-Filler And The Financial Sector Gets Your Money

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Diziet_Sma
11/03/09

In reply to Women Of Letters
Annie Proulx is so fucking kick-ass.

"What I find to be very bad advice is the snappy little sentence, 'Write what you know.' It is the most tiresome and stupid advice that could possibly be given. If we write simply about what we know we never grow. We don't develop any facility for languages, or an interest in others, or a desire to travel and explore and face experience head-on. We just coil tighter and tighter into our boring little selves. What one should write about is what interests one."

Amen.
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Mary McCarthyite
11/03/09

In reply to Women Of Letters
Wow: I can't believe she didn't sell them to the NYPL! She could have gotten a pile of dough for all that.

I saw her at a reading once; she was great. #annieproulx
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cate3710
11/03/09

@Mary McCarthyite: I am so, so glad she donated them.

I'm not sure what NYPL's policy is regarding buying papers for archives, but there are definitely places that shell out loads of cash. #annieproulx
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Mary McCarthyite
11/03/09

@cate3710: I work for an archive and manuscript dealer. We sell archives to the NYPL all the time (including Nabokov's, which Proulx mentioned in her statement about her donation). They are one of the biggest buyers of archives in the country -- along with Texas and Harvard -- so they must be over the moon that they got her papers for free. #annieproulx
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Intern Katy
11/03/09

@Mary McCarthyite: Update: Even though the Yahoo News link says the papers were donated, I just received an email from the NY Public Library that says the papers were definitely not donated, but "acquired." #annieproulx
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Mary McCarthyite
11/03/09

@Intern Katy: Thanks. The donation thing didn't make sense to me. These days, a writer of Proulx's stature never, ever donates their papers. Believe me: it's all about the Benjamins. #annieproulx
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linnyt is a walking cliché
10/08/09

In reply to Reminder: Support Education Through Donors Choose
I just donated to the science lab one for my sister who is a woman in science.
#1 still has a way to go.
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HadwinBabazoid
10/08/09

In reply to Reminder: Support Education Through Donors Choose
I donated to another project...no offense to the sciences, but I had to pick a literature/reading project :). So glad one of the book projects already made it!
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Penny_Esq
10/08/09

@HadwinBabazoid: Yeah, I gave to the bookshelf one as well, even though it's not a Jez project, because it's only got two days left before it expires. Not sure which Gawker site that one's linked to.
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Ipomoea
10/08/09

In reply to Reminder: Support Education Through Donors Choose
I just put #2 over the top because I loved Stargirl so much when I read it years ago. COME ON JEZEBELLES WE CAN DO THESE THINGS!
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Penny_Esq
10/08/09

@Ipomoea: Yay! That's two down, two to go! Woohoo!
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Penny_Esq
10/08/09

In reply to Reminder: Support Education Through Donors Choose
Hey, it looks like the #4, the algebra notebooks is fully funded! Yeah Jezzies! And number 2, books for girls, is only $45 away from being completed too! Awesome!
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scootermom
01/23/09

In reply to Why Is Sarah Palin's $180,000 Wardrobe Sitting In Garbarge Bags?
Her political career is also lying around in a trash bag, waiting to be picked up.
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Tart of Darkness
01/23/09

@scootermom: Except for that one piece of toilet paper stuck to her shoe which causes her to yell about the media attacking her children every now and then.

Seriously, someone should tell her.
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AnnieKObama
01/23/09

In reply to Why Is Sarah Palin's $180,000 Wardrobe Sitting In Garbarge Bags?
They are taking a long time probably because these folks are cataloguing all of it carefully to get the tax breaks.
So any tax folks know?- do these write-offs count as business expenses, or charitable donations? or both?
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Shelwood
01/23/09

@AnnieKObama: It's not a tax thing, it's a campaign finance thing. As I understand it, they are under no obligation to recoup the expense. What they need to show is that the clothing was a disposable campaign expense. (There are very, very strict rules about campaigns buying clothing. Rules that were strongly advocated by some senator named John McCain, who made it part of the campaign finance law that bears his name.) So the critical thing is that they get rid of them, either by returning them, donating them, or having someone buy them outright. Their obligation to donate the clothes mostly comes from the RNC having publicly stated that they would, in fact, donate them.
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Tart of Darkness
01/23/09

In reply to Why Is Sarah Palin's $180,000 Wardrobe Sitting In Garbarge Bags?
This is one area where I get a bit annoyed. Does it bother anyone that in a country where we claim that anyone can be President, that it's really that anyone can be President as long as they can hook up the connections to get loads and loads of money? Money that is most likely so tainted by influence that no candidate cannot be said to be bought in one way or another? Money that is so tainted that "we" keep making rules about how tainted it can be and still be legit?

What's more pathetic than a major party picking a VP candidate and then having to buy her the clothes to go on TV? And then when every Tom, Dick or Harriet (haha) seems to be able to skim cash out of somewhere that she can't even keep the damn clothes they bought for her when they'll be out of style in ten minutes anyway?

I loathe Sarah Palin and everything she stands for as much as the next Jezzie, but consider that HRC was able to loan her own campaign $13 million dollars and then write it off and we're worried about Palin's high heeled boots being a criminal violation of the campaign donations act. Who absorbs HRC's write off? Huh?

I don't like the idea that you have to be filthy stinking rich to run for office or be connected to the same old filthy stinking rich campaign contributors to run for office and have a chance of being elected. How can anything change when the sponsorship is always the same?
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gerbilsoutofexile...is cheap and easy
01/23/09

@Tart of Darkness: We live in a culture that values money above all else. It is not something to be proud of, and quite frankly, I don't believe our country would be in the financial mess we are in if it weren't for pure and simple greed.

We also live in a culture of mythology. Not everyone can be President. Not everyone can be rich or famous or a "star." But to face that kind of reality would crush our little "special snowflake" mentality, wouldn't it?

Argh.
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Etoiles
01/23/09

@Tart of Darkness: That's why one of the things I like best about Obama the president and Obama the campaign is that they weren't born with money; they earned it (lawyering and writing are reasonably accessible things to do) and a fuckton of the campaign donations were small donations from individual donors.

This is not to say that the entire system isn't corrupt and disgusting because, well, it is. But that at least not all things are exactly the same...
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Tart of Darkness
01/23/09

@Etoiles: Well I find myself wondering if going from a two attorney income home to a one President income home is going to cramp their style. Unless they have plenty of savings.

Otherwise they're gonna have to buy those crappy Old Navy jeans that stretch as you wear them so the crotch is down around your knees by the end of the day. Just like the rest of us.
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sybann
01/23/09

In reply to Why Is Sarah Palin's $180,000 Wardrobe Sitting In Garbarge Bags?
Where I live that's a pretty damn NICE house.
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applejuice
01/23/09

In reply to Why Is Sarah Palin's $180,000 Wardrobe Sitting In Garbarge Bags?
I've said all along if they wanted to give BIG money to charity they would make up a webpage called "www.buypalinshiz.com" and auction those badboys off.

If there are other people who are anything like many of the ones I went to highschool with (who all STILL seem to have "Palin" pieces of "Flair" and continue put things on their wall about how "great" Palin is "'cause she's a MOM" etc) they'd make a mint and do far more good then just throwing them into some Salvation Army store in a bag.

But they would then have to list it all etc. Probably don't want to go there and show how expensive it all was again...
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HoooooooT
01/23/09

In reply to Why Is Sarah Palin's $180,000 Wardrobe Sitting In Garbarge Bags?
@BabyJane: Can I just say that I'm pretty sure at this point Sarah Palin has nothing to do with the clothes...she prolly has no idea where they are or what has become of them. I don't think that the fact that they're still sitting around or not donated has nothing to do with a failing on her part...

And I know there's like a million reasons you could hate Sarah Palin for but I feel like this is just stupid. Hilary Clinton prolly has the same thing (piles of expensive shit that was bought for her that will never be touched) and you know Michelle Obama will never wear the same outfit twice...I think it's just the nature of being in the public eye.
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linnyt is a walking cliché
01/23/09

@hooooooot: it's making her look bad. she and the rnc should be managing her image if they want her to go far in the primaries.
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wankster
01/23/09

@hooooooot: I totally agree but Michelle did wear that yellow J. Crew sweater twice.
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HoooooooT
01/23/09

@wankster: Haha...I guess I don't see enough pictures. Personally I would be an awful first lady...I'll find a sweater or a shirt I love and wear it every other day for like a month straight. I would prolly get made fun of a lot.
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Tart of Darkness
01/23/09

@hooooooot: I find something I like and buy it in every color...sometimes more than one in a color I particularly like and figure I'll wear a lot.
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returnofthemac
01/23/09

In reply to Why Is Sarah Palin's $180,000 Wardrobe Sitting In Garbarge Bags?
All I can say is the jeans that I've had for the last three years are extrodinarily jealous over the dusty bags full of designer stuff.....damn
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EkaterinaBallerina
01/23/09

In reply to Why Is Sarah Palin's $180,000 Wardrobe Sitting In Garbarge Bags?
Um, well in their defense, when my family makes our donations to Vietnam Vets or shelters, we put the clothes in trash bags. Neatly folded, but in trash bags. However, they sit in our house for a day or two maximum and then they are retrieved. The election has been over for more than two months. They really need to get on it if they truly are donating them. And by donating them, I mean to charity, not entry-level RNC employees with small bank accounts.
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stealthird
01/23/09

In reply to Why Is Sarah Palin's $180,000 Wardrobe Sitting In Garbarge Bags?
Don't you people know all the paperwork you have to fill out before you can donate clothes to Good Will? First you have to catalogue each garment, and write a statement for each garment specifying why you are donating this garment, and each statement MUST contain the following: the barcode number, the name on the label, the point of purchase and approximate number of times the garment has been worn. Then, each statement has to be notarized and filed in triplicate before the Good Will staff can sort through the garments and approve the paperwork. Only after a panel review of each garment and respective documents can the Good Will staff accept a garment for resale at their facilities. So give Sarah a break, it will probably be another fourteen months before that clothing makes it to the end of the donation process!
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Samanthrax
01/23/09

@stealthird: Either my sarcasm meter is fucked up, or I have been donating clothes improperly for years.

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Tart of Darkness
01/23/09

@stealthird: That's why I donate to Salvation Army.
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hellosunshine
01/23/09

@Samanthrax: Ditto - I can't tell if this comment was so full of win or so full of fail, but I'm leaning towards the former, mostly because I can't quit giggling.
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RedVelvetCake
01/23/09

@stealthird: I've donated clothes to charity before and it's not that complicated. You bring in the bags of clothes, tell them what you ahve, and they give you a form verifying that you donated. Sometimes they let you write down the clothes yourself and sometimes they write it down for you.

When it's a large amount of clothing, then yes, you should keep a log of each item (and maybe some photos), but BARCODES? WTF? I have never heard of that before in my life.
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Tart of Darkness
01/23/09

@tinycowboyhats (hellodarling!): In my experiences with Goodwill, I would say full of win because they are unbelievably snooty about when, where and how they will pick up stuff and can be pretty obnoxious about the stuff you donate, too.
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cirocco
01/23/09

@RedVelvetCake: stealthird is being sarcastic.
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