volunteer response

Frank Furedi's book, "Invitation To Terror: The Expanding Empire of the Unknown" explores the culture of fear which has developed around terrorism and the ways in which we do the work of the Terrorist for them. As Schmid's definition of terrorism starts:

Terrorism refers on the one hand to a doctrine about the presumed effectiveness of a special form or tactic of fear-generating, coercive political violence...[Academic Consensus Definition of Terorism (ACDT 2011)]

The Treasury Department has announced that hours of bona-fide volunteers and volunteer emergency responders (e.g., us) do not count toward an employer's count of full-time employees or full-time equivalent (FTE) hours. The Affordable Care Act (ACA, i.e. "ObamaCare") requires all employers with more than 50 FTE employees to provide health benefits or pay penalties.

Another video today for people to think about. This is a presentation by a man who created United Hatzalah in Israel: an organization of volunteers who put ambulances on motorcycles to decrease response time and provide support for critical patients while the full-size ambulance fights it's way through traffic. Over the years, his organization has grown to thousands of volunteers in several countries and has become a vehicle for knitting together Jews, Arabs, and Christians.