As another example of why I shouldn't be given free time nor allowed the notion that I have money or the ability to spend it, I present you with the Shadow Council Foundation and the attendant Shadow Council Scholarship for Academic Malfeasance and Troublemaking Excellence. The as-yet-unfunded Committee would be started with the noble goal of providing scholarships to invididuals as chosen by the august members of the Scholarship Committee.
Obviously, members of the Committee would refuse to give scholarships to anyone who would willingly answer the question "What is your favorite color and how does it make you feel?" And beyond the sheer entertainment value of seeking out the next generation of subversives and intellectual malcontents, we get to give money to further the educations of the most remarkable of students.
Of course, there IS the small issue of money. But that, my friends, is where patience and compound interest comes in.
I've availed myself of some small calculations and if we assume (for ease of simplicity) that there are 10 of us, each submits $100 a year and we invest in growth-stock mutual funds with an annual 12% rate of return, 10 years will get our little fund up to $15,000. Obviously we'd need more money than that, but I'd like to think that at some point along the way, members could give more money and perhaps we could recruit some more affluent donors. Also, if we could get this organization some proper tax-exempt status, we could avail ourselves of the possibility of making a nice proper tax shelter for Wilson and Martinez when they both strike it rich as authors.
Honestly, I think the question you have to ask yourselves is "Why wouldn't we want our own scholarship contest?"
Posted by Vengeful Cynic at October 12, 2009 09:14 PM | TrackBack