Brad Rourke

Brad Rourke’s Blog

  • Hawaii Votes By Internet

    Last week, Honolulu completed what appears to be the first Internet-only election. In the past, I have taken a very dim view of many election “reforms.” The fundamental idea — that we need to make it easier to vote because people are not taking the time to cast their ballots — seems flawed. People will…

  • Staying Neutral

    I was talking to a friend the other day about a family event he had to attend. For him, such events are not positive. His family is filled with bickering, infighting, recriminations. At group events, he dreads the point that always comes, when one family members starts talking trash about another one, and demands some…

  • Why Social Media Is Like The Telephone Circa 1915

    I have been riveted by a book called America Calling: A Social History Of The Telephone To 1940 by Claude S. Fischer, a sociologist at my alma mater, UC Berkeley. The book is just what you think – a study of social responses to the rise of the telephone as it went from a new…

  • How To Evaluate Online Obligations

    We seem constantly pulled away from reality to tend to online business. For many, this can be vexing. For volunteers intent on helping those around them, it can be even more of a dilemma.

  • I Don't Want Your Email Address Unless We're Friends

      This was sort of odd. I met someone recently, and he gave me his card.  I later sat down to start entering the info in my contact files.   Usually, in such a situation, I would shoot them an email about how nice it was to meet them, etc. As I was processing the…

  • Concerns About Health Care Cut Through

    Today I’m in Dayton to meet with some folks at the Kettering Foundation and the National Issues Forums Institute. One of the things we’ll be talking about is an online version of an issue guide about how we can pay for health care in America. Last weekend I led a candidate training program run by…

  • Free Advice To Candidates

    Last weekend I led a candidate training program run by the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia. I’ve been doing this for a while now. At the end of it, I was reminded of a post I wrote for Rockville Central some time ago, which I have spruced up a bit and am…

  • What's On Your "Stop Do" List?

    Rip Rapson, president of the Kresge Foundation, recently spoke to gathered YMCA’s and gave a chilling overview of the nonprofit sector: Early on in the crisis, we argued about whether the problem would be short- or long-term, about whether we could simply limp through to a resumption of what we’ve come to understand as normalcy.…