As a product of a liberal arts education, I have a healthy dose of critical thought coursing through my veins at all times. I can deconstruct and paradigm out with the best of them.

There have been times when I wondered if these skills might just be intellectual… er… self-gratification. But I have come to appreciate the doctrine of thinking broad and asking questions. Not only is it part of my nature (or nurture), but I’m fairly confident that appreciating fact-finding while not taking everything only at face value makes a person more balanced.

Going to business school flew in the face of this part of my world view. Many MBA curricula reinforce the notion that there are always right answers and that smart means you persevere to construct the right model to find them. That’s what makes management more science-y.

Are there right answers and straight lines in life? Yes. But more often than not, there aren’t.

I’ve expressed before on this blog my concern that such an approach produces manufactured and unimaginative thought. Tooliness, if you will. And have been studying a book by a Harvard Business School professor that reveals that people like me, now the outliers in business school, were once embraced by the MBA… er… paradigm (wow, this is the first time I wrote “paradigm” twice in one composition since undergrad).

Recently, the NY Times suggested that liberal arts staples like “multicultural critical theory” may once again become all the rage at post-financial-crisis-thanks-for-effing-up-the-economy-smarty-pants MBA programs. Everything old is new again.

The devastation in Haiti has many of us feeling that we must do something, be useful, however we can. People from the Haitian diaspora have been profoundly moved to action because their own families are in crisis. The rest of us are shaken by empathy and an inherent concern for human rights.

The question is what to do? Donate to relief, of course. But some of us would love to give so much more than our financial constraints allow. We know that we have skills and we would love if they could be put to use in a crisis. Perhaps we hope that doing so would give our professions and experience greater purpose.

Good intentions, good people… sign them up. What’s the problem?

Understandably, relief agencies are overwhelmed and not in any position to train hoards of disaster “newbies.” I’ve worked at enough resource-strapped non-profits myself to know that sometimes well-intentioned volunteers can make your busy day even harder, if they need lots of hand-holding.

I helped start a website for people like myself itching to be put to use, in the hopes that this could help streamline the process of matching people with appropriate skills to the organizations that can make the most constructive use of their time. Perhaps this could mitigate the flow of requests and organize them into something more structured when the time is right for the organizations.

I thought most people who joined this community might be like me, not at all contemplating an actual trip to Haiti but comfortable with the virtual world and willing to “get in where we fit in” from wherever we are. What we got was some of these types but also many, many people who were hoping to sign up for the next available flight.

Understandably, many relief experts caution against this. An under-prepared “vigilante” volunteer might do more harm than good and end up needing to be rescued themselves. However, a number of these potential volunteers are highly skilled and are realistic about the appropriate timeline for volunteering on the ground (i.e. longer term stints in the months/years following the immediate rescue crisis).

I am concerned about the commentary dismissing volunteers or characterizing them all as naive, misguided, humanitarian Rambos out to assuage their 1st world guilt. These are not fair generalizations and what is the constructive purpose of judging people who are inspired to lend themselves however they can without expecting financial gain? It also ignores the fact that a portion of these people are from the Haitian diaspora.

It would be far more useful for those who know the reality of development and disaster recovery to use their time, wisdom and experience to figure out ways to channel these would-be volunteers into something helpful (based on what they have to offer), rather than poo-pooing them from a pedestal.

Dear blog,

I apologize for neglecting you. You mean so much to me. My convoluted musings need a home and you’ve been great about giving them a couch to crash on.

Here’s why I’ve been away…

I’m working with a small web development shop. Actually, I co-founded this little web shop. We wanted to do something meaningful using our skills to help with Haiti relief. In our quest, we found some amazing techie types who were also moved to volunteer their time – including the awe-inspiring innovative crowdsourcing efforts of Ushahidi and Crisis Commons.

To make a long story short, our contribution is a web site that established a network between highly skilled people who want to volunteer to help Haiti and the organizations and individuals who can use their experience and talents. We felt desperate to do something to help and this was what we came up with.

The site has taken on a life of its own: thousands of visitors and hundreds of registered users. Now we’re hearing that people have used the site to connect with other volunteers and organizations, some even forming specialized teams that are planning ways to restore Haiti’s infrastructure in areas such as water and sewage engineering.

It’s a small contribution but we hope it helps. Sadly, it left me little time to think, let alone spend quality time with my blog. Hope you understand. I’m back…

The deep freeze of  ’10, O’ Ten or whatever we’re calling it, has left me committed to learning how to make delicious casseroles. Any excuse to keep the oven on while standing nearby.

I am a recipe rebel. I got the basic premise for this one from a one-pot cookbook I snagged at a sale, but I took many liberties. Fortunately, it turned out amazingly well, as evidenced by everyone getting thirds.

Here’s the lowdown on my version. Let me know if you try it.  Bon appetit.

Inventory

1 large onion

3 small zucchini

Generous number of garlic cloves

½ Cauliflower

½ cup Broccoli

1 yellow and 1 orange pepper

3 turnips

1 cup roasted carnival or butternut squash

½ package soft tofu

1 cup cooked black eyed peas or 1 can

Fresh thyme

Teaspoon sage

Teaspoon oregano

1 ½ cup all purpose flour

1 egg

¾ cup rice milk

Sea salt

Butter or butter substitute

Olive oil

Fresh pepper

Teaspoon White wine vinegar

Tabasco sauce

1/3 cup Vegetable broth

Execution

1. Roast squash —- rub it in olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, cover in aluminum foil and stick in oven at 400 degrees for about 15-20 minutes (until soft)
2. Roast veggies—- chop em to around the same size ( ½-1 square inch-ish),  mix together  and stick them in a 1-2 inch deep glass dish. Mix 4 tablespoons of olive oil with a teaspoon of vinegar, salt, pepper, fresh thyme, sage, Tabasco sauce, and pinch of cayenne pepper. Coat the veggies with the mixture. Let them roast in the over uncovered for about ten minutes. Remove from oven, cover, return to oven for ten more minutes.
3. Blend tofu, seeded and peeled squash, veggie broth, tablespoon of butter, ¼ cup rice milk, salt and pepper (use a blender or beater).
4. Remove veggies from oven. Mix with tofu blend and black eyed peas.

Sift flour with teaspoon of salt. Rub Four tablespoons of butter into flour. Add oregano, salt, pepper. Beat egg with ½ cup milk. Add enough to flour mixture to knead into malleable dough. Roll out dough. Cut out biscuits (I used a little star-shaped cookie cutter). Arrange biscuits on top of the veggies. Return to oven and bake until the biscuits brown. Serve with aged parmesan cheese sprinkled on top (optional).

I found out this weekend that Kim Kardashian makes mucho dinero ($10,000 according to my source) for each time she tweets product endorsements. Makes me wonder if booty implants would have been a better investment than graduate school.

I love Yael Naim’s version of “Toxic” and this performance on French television. It’s worth comparing it to Britney doing the same song on stage. And this would probably considered one of Britney’s better television performances. Pop really kills the soul out of a song, huh. I’m sure that the songwriters are grateful to Yael.

Generations ago, housewives envied glamorous career women. Now career women envy glamorous housewives. What gives?

Donna Reed

Traditional housework is a demanding job. A good deal of it has been outsourced by manufacturing and commercial consumption. Now we have “light” home responsibilities.

Like lots of other people, these days I find myself wanting to be as environmentally responsible and healthy as possible. I’m learning the value of things like growing my own food, using alternative medicine, having a less toxic home, buying less, reusing more, cooking nourishing homemade meals… This is a lot to do.

Many of the things we think of now as “green” living were part of someone’s job. That person was also largely responsible for everything from childrearing to making soap. Clearly, this role is nothing like the lives of “Real/Desperate Housewives,” who make it seem luxurious and spoiled to be a housewife. This is real work.

Wage-earning spouses made out pretty well. In exchange for their financial contributions, they got a gardener, nanny, chef, tailor, housekeeper, barber, nutritionist, interior designer, events planner, etc.

Now I feel like women are trying to be superstars in outside careers and domestic goddesses at home. Even when we try to share responsibilities, in a male/female household, when your place and your kids are looking a mess, who usually ends up with the blame? The woman.

Women should have equal opportunities and never be forced to stay at home. But what is so bad about a single income household, where there is a wage-earner and someone else responsible for domestic responsibilities? I know that you’re probably thinking, “This is just a woman who envies glamorous housewives and is trying to legitimize that envy.” Maybe.

A new study finds that people project their personal beliefs upon the god they worship. An egocentric approach to devotion is probably to be expected. Even those of us who love to argue usually seek some sort of harmony when it comes to prayer. Yankees fans presumably don’t pray to a Red Sox god.

What I do wonder, which this study doesn’t capture, is if polytheistic religions (with more than one god) have the same issues or could they perhaps allow for more complexity. Also, if people are created in god’s image, maybe a there is an aspect of a macro-god that validates even our craziest contradictions.

Acclaimed Native American author, Sherman Alexie, was on the Colbert Report this week. Most of his interview was a rant against the impact of digital media on published literature. Alexie has decided not to make his books available for purchase through Kindle or any electronic book distributor. He argues that digitizing storytelling will ruin its integrity and the ability of artists to earn a living.

The part of me that loves technology bristles at Alexie’s concerns. That part takes serious offense to his disparaging remarks about the “open source culture” of the internet and its devaluation of everything. Ouch. There’s much to rebut this with. He’s being hyperbolic and misunderstanding the brilliant cooperative innovation offered by open source communities.

However, there’s part of me that loves the gritty texture of a book–the same part that collects records and refused to deejay with MP3s until my back started to break from lugging those darn things around. That part empathizes with Alexie and other purists who cherish the authenticity of dogeared leaves of the magical printed word.

Here’s the thing… there are enough of both of those influences to keep old and new school literature alive. Rather than fight the change, we may have to accept that the neighborhood bookstore may persist but more in the form of the neighborhood record collector store. Meanwhile, artists will persist in creating and thriving, as will business interests, in all formats for which there is a demand.