I #design & #facilitate #conferences that become what attendees want & need
🔸 ❤️ to facilitate #connection, #sing, #dance, #meditate
🔸 Author of 3 books on meeting design
🔸 16 years of 900+ posts on #MeetingDesign #facilitation #consulting #LifeLessons #FacilitatingChange, being trapped in an elevator with a Nobel Prize winner & other #stories at https://conferencesthatwork.com
🔸 Brit living happily in #Vermont USA since 1978
🔸 #Nonprofit board member junkie
🔸 Recovering #academic
Some stories have a dark side. Should we support those storytellers among us who use stories for immoral and unethical ends?
https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/event-design/2017/01/stories-have-dark-side
#meetings #EventDesign #stories #ethics #AlternativeFacts #DutyOfCare #eventprofs
It was a Tuesday in 1981 when the San Francisco police kicked in the door.
Inside the small apartment, they expected to find a hardened criminal. They expected a drug kingpin. They expected resistance.
Instead, they found a 57-year-old waitress in an apron.
The air in the apartment smelled sweet, thick with chocolate and something earthier. On the kitchen counter, cooling on wire racks, were 54 dozen brownies.
The police officers began bagging the evidence. They confiscated nearly 18 pounds of marijuana. They handcuffed the woman, whose name was Mary Jane Rathbun.
She didn't look scared. She didn't look guilty.
She looked at the officers, smoothed her apron, and reportedly said, "I thought you guys were coming."
She was booked into the county jail. The headlines wrote themselves. A grandmother running a pot bakery. It seemed like a joke to the legal system, a quirky local news story about an older woman behaving badly.
But Mary wasn't baking for fun. And she certainly wasn't baking for profit.
To understand why Mary risked her freedom, you have to understand the silence of the early 1980s.
San Francisco was gripping the edge of a cliff. A mysterious illness was sweeping through the city, specifically targeting young men. Later, the world would know it as AIDS. But in those early days, it was just a death sentence that no one wanted to talk about.
Families were disowning their sons. Landlords were evicting tenants. Even doctors and nurses, paralyzed by the fear of the unknown, would sometimes leave food trays outside hospital doors, afraid to breathe the same air as their patients.
Men in their twenties were wasting away in sterile rooms, dying alone.
Mary knew what it felt like to lose a child.
Years earlier, in 1974, her daughter Peggy had been killed in a car accident. Peggy was only 22. The loss had hollowed Mary out, leaving a space in her heart that nothing seemed to fill.
When the judge sentenced Mary for that first arrest, he ordered her to perform 500 hours of community service. He likely thought the manual labor would teach her a lesson.
He sent her to the Shanti Project and San Francisco General Hospital.
It was a mistake that would change American history.
Mary walked into the AIDS wards when others were walking out. She didn't wear a hazmat suit. She didn't hold her breath. She saw rows of young men who looked like ghosts—skeletal, in pain, and terrified.
She saw "her kids."
She began mopping floors and changing sheets. But soon, she noticed something the doctors were missing. The harsh medications the men were taking caused violent nausea. They couldn't eat. They were starving to death as much as they were dying of the virus.
Mary knew a secret about the brownies she had been arrested for.
She knew they settled the stomach. She knew they brought back the appetite. She knew they could help a dying man sleep for a few hours without pain.
So, she made a choice.
She went back to her kitchen. She fired up the oven. She started mixing batter, not to sell, but to save.
Every morning, Mary would bake. She lived on a fixed income, surviving on Social Security checks that barely covered her rent. Yet, she spent nearly every dime on flour, sugar, and butter.
The most expensive ingredient—the cannabis—was donated. Local growers heard what she was doing. They began dropping off pounds of product at her door, free of charge.
She packed the brownies into a basket and took the bus to the hospital.
She walked room to room. She sat by the bedsides of men who hadn't seen their own mothers in years. She held their hands. She told them jokes. And she gave them brownies.
"Here, baby," she would say. "Eat this. It'll help."
And it did.
Nurses watched in amazement as patients who hadn't eaten in days began to ask for food. The constant retching stopped. The mood on the ward shifted from despair to a quiet sort of comfort.
Mary Jane Rathbun became "Brownie Mary."
For over a decade, this was her life. She baked roughly 600 brownies a day. She went through 50 pounds of flour a week. She became the mother to a generation of lost boys.
She washed their pajamas. She attended their funerals. She held them while they took their last breaths.
She did this while the government declared a "War on Drugs."
By the early 1990s, the political climate was hostile. Politicians were competing to see who could be "tougher" on crime. Mandatory minimum sentences were locking people away for decades.
In 1992, at the age of 70, Mary was arrested again.
This time, the stakes were lethal. She was charged with felonies. The district attorney looked at her rap sheet and saw a repeat offender. He threatened to send her to prison.
One prosecutor famously whispered to a colleague that he was going to "kick this old lady's ass."
They underestimated who they were dealing with.
They thought they were prosecuting a drug dealer. In reality, they were attacking the most beloved woman in San Francisco.
When the news broke that Brownie Mary was facing prison, the city erupted.
It wasn't just the activists who were angry. It was the doctors. It was the nurses. It was the parents who had watched Mary care for their dying sons when the government did nothing.
Mary turned her trial into a pulpit.
She arrived at court not as a defendant, but as a grandmother standing her ground. The media swarmed her. Reporters asked if she was afraid of prison. They asked if she would stop baking if they let her go.
Mary looked into the cameras, her voice gravelly and firm.
"If the narcs think I'm gonna stop baking brownies for my kids with AIDS," she said, "they can go fuck themselves in Macy's window."
The quote ran in newspapers across the country.
The court didn't stand a chance.
Testimony poured in. Doctors from San Francisco General Hospital wrote letters explaining that Mary’s brownies were medically necessary. Patients testified that she was an angel of mercy.
The charges were dropped.
Mary walked out of the courthouse a free woman. But she didn't go home to rest. She realized that her personal victory wasn't enough. As long as the law was broken, her "kids" were still in danger.
She needed to change the law.
August 25 was declared "Brownie Mary Day" by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. It was a nice gesture, but Mary wanted policy, not plaques.
She teamed up with fellow activist Dennis Peron. Together, they opened the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club—the first public dispensary in the United States. It was a safe haven where patients could get their medicine without fear of arrest.
But Mary wanted more. She wanted the state of California to acknowledge the truth.
She campaigned for Proposition 215. She traveled the state, despite her failing health. She spoke in her simple, direct way. She didn't talk about liberties or economics. She talked about compassion. She talked about pain.
She forced voters to look at the issue through the eyes of a grandmother.
In 1996, Proposition 215 passed. California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana.
It was a domino effect. Because one woman refused to let her "kids" suffer, the public perception of cannabis shifted. The Economist later noted that Mary was single-handedly responsible for changing the national conversation.
She never got rich.
She had always joked that if legalization ever happened, she would sell her recipe to Betty Crocker and buy a Victorian house for her patients to live in.
She never sold the recipe. She never bought the house.
Mary Jane Rathbun died in 1999, at the age of 77. She passed away in a nursing home, poor in money but rich in legacy.
Today, over 30 states have legalized medical marijuana. Millions of people use it to manage pain, seizures, and nausea.
Most of them have never heard of Mary.
They don't know that their legal prescription exists because a waitress in San Francisco decided that the law was wrong and her heart was right.
They don't know about the 600 brownies a day.
They don't know about the thousands of hospital visits.
Mary didn't set out to be a hero. She told the Chicago Tribune years before she died, "I didn't go into this thinking I would be a hero."
She was just a mother who had lost her daughter, trying to help boys who had lost their way.
She proved that authority doesn't always equal morality.
She proved that sometimes, the most patriotic thing a citizen can do is break a bad law.
Every August, a few people in San Francisco still celebrate Brownie Mary Day. But her true memorial isn't a date on a calendar.
It is found in every oncology ward where a patient finds relief. It is found in every dispensary door that opens without fear.
It is found in the simple, quiet courage of anyone who sees suffering and refuses to look away.
Mary taught us that you don't need a law degree to change the world. You don't need millions of dollars. You don't need political office.
Sometimes, all you need is a mixing bowl, an oven, and enough love to tell the world to get out of your way.
Sources: New York Times Obituary (1999), "Brownie Mary" Rathbun. San Francisco Chronicle Archives (1992, 1996). History.com, "The History of Medical Marijuana."
"There are no wrong answers to these questions." That's the most important instruction I give when I introduce The Three Questions.
https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/learning/2011/10/no-wrong-answers
#MeetingDesign #TheThreeQuestions #NoWrongAnswers #eventprofs #assnchat
The U.S. government just banned five people from entering the country -- because it doesn’t like their speech.
This ban, according to the State Department, is necessary to protect free speech.
If that sounds insane to you,
congratulations on your reading comprehension.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s State Department declared the
“Announcement of Actions to Combat the Global Censorship-Industrial Complex,”
which will take
“decisive action against five individuals who have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose.”
The five — former European Union Commissioner Thierry Breton, Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) CEO Imran Ahmed, Global Disinformation Index (GDI) cofounder Clare Melford and HateAid leaders Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon
— are now blocked from getting U.S. visas.
The most instructive case here is Breton.
He did, in fact, try to abuse the DSA to suppress speech.
In August 2024, he sent Elon Musk a threatening letter suggesting that Musk’s planned livestreamed interview with then-candidate Donald Trump could violate the DSA.
It was a blatant attempt at censorship.
And here’s what happened:
The EU rejected him.
Completely.
EU officials went on record condemning the letter,
his fellow commissioners distanced themselves from his threats,
and within weeks he resigned to avoid being fired.
As EU free speech experts noted in a recent open letter:
“Politically, the EU’s checks and balances worked.”
Never mind that no abuse occurred
Never mind that the system self-corrected.
The State Department wants to punish him again
— for his speech.
That theory relies almost entirely on fabricated or grossly misrepresented evidence.
When subjected to actual scrutiny
— including three years of litigation in "Murthy v. Missouri" and congressional investigations
— it collapsed.
Courts found no evidence of coercion.
Platform executives testified under oath that they never felt compelled to moderate based on government requests.
The whole thing was nonsense,
but has become gospel in MAGA circles
https://www.ms.now/opinion/marco-rubio-imran-ahmed-thierry-breton-censorship
Sometimes, consensus is dangerous. Seeking it is hard for large groups. What's important is the journey towards consensus, not the destination.
https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/facilitation/2016/11/consensus-dangerous
#facilitation #GroupWork #consensus #InformedConsent #RomanVoting
As a 'rural' person who grew up with hunts as a regular presence, there's little more alienating than a bunch of sociopathic posh people on horseback descending upon your community with a pack of jittery hounds, in order to dismember a small woodland animal usually encountered in children's stories.
I once read an interview with an Effective Altruist who said that a potential Skynet was the biggest threat facing humanity, during the hottest year in recorded history while the NAC fluctuated alarmingly, and that was the moment I knew Effective Altruists were idiots.
“The reason poverty exists is not because we can’t feed the poor, it’s because we can’t satisfy the rich. That’s exactly what we’re seeing with Elon Musk becoming the first trillionaire. This is a spiritual sickness. What leads a person to accumulate more money than they could possibly spend in a hundred lifetimes when we have people starving in this one?”
- James Talarico, Presbyterian seminarian and Democrat in the Texas House of Representatives
RE: https://newsie.social/@servelan/115792767125261519
Healthcare costs are about to rise significantly for everyone, not just #ACA enrollees—and the #GOP might finally have to take the blame.
Thanks to Trump, a dark fate awaits us — but it can be a GOP electoral death knell too - Raw Story
How many mistakes have you made? Millions or none? It all depends on your perspective. Because learning grows out of every single mistake.
https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/life-lessons/2014/02/how-many-mistakes-have-you-made
Can conference organizers get evaluative feedback on the long-term outcomes of their events? Try The Reminder and find out!
https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/event-design/2015/11/the-reminder
#meetings #EventDesign #evaluations #FacilitatingChange #TheReminder #eventprofs
How can you be certain to bring your event app jewels to my rapt attention? Here are 5 simple tips on how to market event apps to me.
Live with the knowledge that "best", while well worth pursuing, is a moving fluid target. Remember, there will always be a next best thing.
https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/soapbox/2016/07/the-next-best-thing
#marketing #BestPractices #NextPractices #BeingTheBest #status
@riggbeck Drivers are now what I believe Cory Doctorow calls “accountability sinks.” That is, while Musk will say you can safely text and drive using their FSD, if Tesla’s software kills someone they’ll claim that the driver is “reckless” for not paying attention. They want it both ways. Human drivers cause fatal accidents, but we can put them in prison or sue them. Musk believes he and his company should be untouchable. And they largely have been.
There are so many things wrong with the model under which scholarly publishing is running — or trying to run — today. Not least: I received a request from a press today, the 26th of December, asking me to review a book proposal, with a deadline of the 7th of January.
I believe in peer review, and in paying forward the generosity that reviewers have shown my work. And I believe in university presses and the crucial work they do to support the circulation of knowledge. And I know how tough an environment editors are working in today.
But at the end of This Particular Year, with all one might imagine has been required of an associate dean for research and graduate studies in an underfunded arts and humanities college, the only words I have left run along the lines of are you even fucking kidding me with this.
Truer words.
(from the internet, source unknown)
The RAM crisis reminds me of my 2008 article on the ultimate physical limits of computing:
