Like each one of you, I am a broken person. My life is filled with bad decisions, poor excuses and moral failings. I was handed an amazing life — a life that I did not deserve — a life that I constantly took it for granted.

I messed up. I made mistakes.

And now I am headed to prison.

But unlike the other 2.3 million people who are currently behind bars, I will be able to leave.

Why? Because I am going there to work.

After months of prayer and conversation with many of you, I am accepting the role of Chief Development Officer for the Prison Entrepreneurship Program. I have been involved with PEP as a volunteer since 2007, and have worked very closely with them in my role as Executive Director of The PLAN Fund. In fact, nearly 40% of our loans went to graduates from PEP (click here to learn more).

I have never seen an organization that can so effectively transform the lives of both its supporters and its clients. That is why I am making this change:

• Nearly 1% of the US population is incarcerated — the highest percentage on the planet.
• Around 45% return to prison after release (usually within 3 years).
• At the time of their arrest, nearly 90% of them are unemployed.

By contrast, less than 10% of PEP’s graduates will re-enter the justice system. 100% are employed within 90 days of release from prison. Best of all, PEP’s graduates have successfully launched around 100 businesses; some are generating over $100,000+ in annual revenues, and are now employing other PEP graduates.

I am deeply excited about this opportunity for me and my family. I invite you to join me in prison, where you can witness the transformational power of this organization within your own heart. I have a number of “Get INTO jail free” cards ready to offer to those of you who want to join me!

See you in prison!

Take 3 minutes to learn more about PEP at this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcuFknerurk&feature=youtu.be

I pat your back until you fall asleep,
then place my thumb against your shoulder’s edge
and stretch my hand until my fingers reach
the other side of your still tiny frame.
I rest my palm against the place where we
pretend that angels’ wings rise from your back,
and, in my mind, I see the day when you
will truly fly off from this nest we’ve made.

Tonight, the moon was shaped into a grin
that seemed to grow each time you called aloud:
“The moon! The moon! It’s smiling, Daddy! Look!”
And though I know the science of this scene,
I cannot help but wish that it were true:
that anywhere you’ll go, this moon will follow you.

But if you’re like most nonprofiteers, you’re already doing this: you just want to do it better. If that’s you, then here are ten pieces of advice that should help you:

1. Social media is about relationships, not transactions. Don’t expect to see donations immediately spike when you launch a social media campaign.
2. These relationships are long-term, not short-term. You are going to need to put in a lot of time and energy to make them successful.
3. Nothing is free. The time that you and your staff spend on social media is a direct cost associated with it.
4. Integration is critical. There is no point to having a social media presence (a Facebook page, Twitter account, YouTube channel) if it is not integrated into your company’s Web site.
5. Blogging is social. Just because the world seems to be talking only about Facebook and Twitter, don’t forget about blogging. Some of the best ways to use Facebook, Twitter and others is to drive traffic to your company’s blog.
6. Make sharing easy! On your blog and on every page on your company’s site (especially on pages that feature client stories/pictures/videos), ensure that you have buttons to allow readers to easily share on the major social networks.
7. Create viral content. Try to use your social media efforts to create content that people want to share.
8. Establish your subject matter expertise. Don’t just talk about yourself and how great you are; willingly share your knowledge about the industry in which you operate. This is a great way for donors to see that you are the real deal.
9. Turn your donors into your fundraisers. Create campaigns that encourage your donors to recruit their own contacts to follow your social media sites; for example, have a giveaway/raffle to give a prize to one random follower once you reach 1,000 followers on Twitter. Maybe see if you can get a local company to donate one of their products in return for some PR — an iPad? A TV? A weekend at a hotel?
10. Be authentic. No one wants to read a bunch of ad copy on a social media site. Have a personality to your tweets/status updates. It helps if you have one dedicated person to write the content in their own voice.

Thanks for what you are doing for your organization. Building engaging, long-term relationships with donors is not easy… but the next generation of staff/board at your organization will be grateful that you did it.

I am making use
of the one thing I learned
of all the things my father tried to teach me:
the art of memory.

I am letting this room
and everything in it
stand for my ideas about love
and its difficulties.

I’ll let your love-cries,
those spacious notes
of a moment ago,
stand for distance.

Your scent,
that scent
of spice and a wound,
I’ll let stand for mystery.

Your sunken belly
is the daily cup
of milk I drank
as a boy before morning prayer.
The sun on the face
of the wall
is God, the face
I can’t see, my soul,

and so on, each thing
standing for a separate idea,
and those ideas forming the constellation
of my greater idea.
And one day, when I need
to tell myself something intelligent
about love,

I’ll close my eyes
and recall this room and everything in it:
My body is estrangement.
This desire, perfection.
Your closed eyes my extinction.
Now I’ve forgotten my
idea. The book
on the windowsill, riffled by wind . . .
the even-numbered pages are
the past, the odd-
numbered pages, the future.
The sun is
God, your body is milk . . .

useless, useless . . .
your cries are song, my body’s not me . . .
no good . . . my idea
has evaporated . . . your hair is time, your thighs are song . . .
it had something to do
with death . . . it had something
to do with love.

Seeing Terror Risk, U.S. Asks Journals to Cut Flu Study Facts
Studies Suggest an Acetaminophen-Asthma Link

House Republicans Reject Deal for Payroll Tax Cut
Georgia Judge Accused of Misconduct Will Resign

Sunni Vice President Denies Assassination Orders
All Five Aboard Plane Die in N.J. Highway Crash

Finding a Safe Harbor in Male Identity
Cairo Women Protest Over Soldiers’ Abuse

In North Korea, a Blend of Cult and Coercion
U.S. Backs Apple in Patent Ruling That Hits Google

INTERACTIVE FEATURE: The Lives They Loved

——-
All lines in this poem were taken directly from www.nytimes.com on 12-20-2011 without editing

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
― Robert Frost

Drunk, Topless Woman Arrested
Lohan’s Playboy issue breaks records

Cat inherits $13 million
Boehner rejects tax cut deal

‘Occupy’ protests trigger envy, ire in Generation X
Study: Nearly 1 in 3 will be arrested by age 23

As U.S. departs Iraq, it leaves two allies that aren’t speaking
Palestinians rejoice as Israel releases another 550 prisoners‎

Defense in WikiLeaks case claims lax computer security in Iraq
Iran airs alleged U.S. spy ‘confessions’

Marines promoted inflated story for Medal of Honor recipient
Crisis hot line saves suicidal war veterans

Humane Society Targeted by Pro-Shelter Campaign
Graphic: The Shiite factor

Gingrich rails at courts, suggests ignoring rulings
Commentary: We’re ignoring a national threat

"I don't know Hugh Bristler but I don't think I'd like him."

Some time ago, I sat down with famed poet and translator Hugh Bristler. We met briefly in the smoky confines of his oak-paneled office at the College of Overshire. Below is an excerpt from that conversation.

Jeremy Gregg: Thank you for making time to meet with me.

Hugh Bristler: (setting aside a stack of papers) Who are you? Oh, right. “The blogger.” I don’t know who you blew to get in here — probably one of those fucktards in the development office — but keep it brief. I’ve got a young person’s dreams to crush. (puts out his cigarette on the stack of papers by his side)

JG: So, you enjoy teaching?

HB: I enjoy ogling the swinging breasts of young co-eds too stupid to know what a miserable waste they are making of my time. By which I mean to say, yes. Teaching suits me fine.

JG: Your poetry has been criticized as obtuse and hard to decipher. One recent review in the New York Times desribed it as “aloof to the point of mocking its reader.” How do you respond to that kind of feedback?

HB: I think we can now see why the newspaper business is failing.

JG: Do you believe that most people share that view of your poetry?

HB: (scowls) I don’t write blogs, boy; I write poetry. Most people share no view of it all.

JG: So, in your teaching, you obviously encounter young people who question the value of poetry.

HB: (raucous guffawing followed by a fit of coughs, then a drink from his coffee cup… which does not smell like coffee)

JG: …how do you explain poetry to them?

HB: I don’t. It would be like explaining breath to a fish: that which gives us life would give it death. And besides, it’s a fucking fish. It dont speaka da English.

JG: So, you don’t –

HB: (imitating a fish) Ohhh, please, Mr. Poet, tells us about meter! Tells us about rhyme! Weze just a nice little fishy, flabby white belly and big bulgy dull eyes. Weze just waiting for your teeth to sink in…. Oh, no! Mr. Poet! No, please don’t eats us!

JG: Perhaps I should –

HB: (grabs a nearby paper from the stack and tears it with his teeth) No, no, Mr. Poet! Don’t rend our flesh and use our guts as bait to catch our children! No, please, cruel master poet, please!!!

JG: This has been a fascinating conversation, Prof. Bristler. Thank you for your time.

HB: (spitting out the paper and sipping on his not-coffee) I’ll forget you were ever here by nightfall.

JG: I’ll send you a link to the story when it’s finished.

HB: Wait, was this an interview?

JG: (Quickly grabs his things and leaves)

Once my nose crawled like a snail on the glass;
my hand tingled
to burst the bubbles
drifting from the noses of the cowed, compliant fish.

My hand draws back. I often sigh still
for the dark downward and vegetating kingdom
of the fish and reptile. One morning last March,
I pressed against the new barbed and galvanized

fence on the Boston Common. Behind their cage,
yellow dinosaur steamshovels were grunting
as they cropped up tons of mush and grass
to gouge their underworld garage.

Parking spaces luxuriate like civic
sandpiles in the heart of Boston.
A girdle of orange, Puritan-pumpkin colored girders
braces the tingling Statehouse,

shaking over the excavations, as it faces Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens’ shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garage’s earthquake.

Two months after marching through Boston,
half the regiment was dead;
at the dedication,
William James could almost hear the bronze Negroes breathe.

Their monument sticks like a fishbone
in the city’s throat.
Its Colonel is as lean
as a compass-needle.

He has an angry wrenlike vigilance,
a greyhound’s gentle tautness;
he seems to wince at pleasure,
and suffocate for privacy.

He is out of bounds now. He rejoices in man’s lovely,
peculiar power to choose life and die–
when he leads his black soldiers to death,
he cannot bend his back.

On a thousand small town New England greens,
the old white churches hold their air
of sparse, sincere rebellion; frayed flags
quilt the graveyards of the Grand Army of the Republic.

The stone statues of the abstract Union Soldier
grow slimmer and younger each year–
wasp-waisted, they doze over muskets
and muse through their sideburns . . .

Shaw’s father wanted no monument
except the ditch,
where his son’s body was thrown
and lost with his “niggers.”

The ditch is nearer.
There are no statues for the last war here;
on Boylston Street, a commercial photograph
shows Hiroshima boiling

over a Mosler Safe, the “Rock of Ages”
that survived the blast. Space is nearer.
When I crouch to my television set,
the drained faces of Negro school-children rise like balloons.

Colonel Shaw
is riding on his bubble,
he waits
for the blessèd break.

The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere,
giant finned cars nose forward like fish;
a savage servility
slides by on grease.