Brad Rourke’s Blog
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Report: Civic Engagement Helps Communities Weather Economy
A report released today by the National Conference on Citizenship, CICLE (the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement), Civic Enterprises, Saguaro Seminar, and the National Constitution Center suggests that “levels of civic engagement in 2006 and 2008 strongly predicted how well states and large metro areas would weather the unemployment crisis…
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Poverty Up, Income Down
The Great Recession officially began December 2007. Here is the impact of the last few years, as released by the Census Bureau today: Real median household income in the United States in 2010 was $49,445, a 2.3 percent decline from the 2009 median. The nation’s official poverty rate in 2010 was 15.1 percent, up from…
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How-To: Framing Issues For Public Deliberation
I created a Prezi that goes through the process I use to frame issues for public deliberation, and filmed a video that walks through it. I thought this might be helpful in talking to colleagues about how I go about doing my work — it is not the only method to frame issues, but it…
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A New Issue Guide: A Nation In Debt. How Do We Pay The Bills?
I am delighted to announce a new issue book developed by the Kettering Foundation for the National Issues Forums titled: A Nation In Debt: How Do We Pay The Bills? This issue guide, authored by my good friends and colleagues Tony Wharton and Noelle McAfee, is the latest in the issue book library of which I am…
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An Entrepreneur
A family member sent me this note recently: I’ve seen a man on the street the last few days that has intrigued me. I finally talked to him a bit this morning outside my office building. Since I’m in the middle of . . . yet another downsizing, I’ve been thinking a lot about the…
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Results From My First Diet
It was the end of June, and I had just returned from vacation with the family. We’d gone to Hawaii, so I spent a lot of time with no shirt. I’ve always thought of myself as a very fit person. I have run regularly since I was 16, I work out, I have done P90X,…
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How To Change Strings On An Electric Guitar
The other day my friend, Dennis Ellington, asked just out of curiosity how I string my guitar. It was hard to explain in writing, but when I was done he said my method is unusual. So I thought it would be easier to demonstrate on video: Here is what I originally wrote: If you are…
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Interview On Building Community
My friend Craig Patterson asked me to cut a short video as a part of a series he was working on. He was asking a handful of participants to respond to the question: “How can we come together as a community to rebuild our community?” Here is my brief response.
