The Tull Family Foundation donated a large sum of money and over 1,300 pounds of meat and produce to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank; The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 7, 2025

 LINDSAY SHACHNOW , The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; The Tull Family Foundation donated a large sum of money and over 1,300 pounds of meat and produce to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank

"A delivery of more than 1,300 pounds of meat and produce to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank on Thursday came as the Tull Family Foundation stepped up to help out amid an ongoing government shutdown that has left millions across Pennsylvania without access to food assistance.

The food bank, which works in more than 10 counties in southwestern Pennsylvania, estimates a hefty food and monetary donation from the foundation founded by Thomas and Alba Tull will provide more than 150,000 meals to people in need.

The contribution from the foundation tied to the billionaire minority owner of the Steelers reflects a surge in efforts across the community and the country to keep food supplies flowing to those in need. 

On Nov. 1, SNAP cards used by 2 million Pennsylvanians to supplement their grocery budgets were emptied as a result of the shutdown of the federal government. Local food banks — which are designed to provide added support to people receiving SNAP benefits — have been overwhelmed."

ALA Receives Major Gift to Fund Scholarships; American Libraries, December 9, 2024

 American Libraries; ALA Receives Major Gift to Fund Scholarships

"James W. Lewis, of Washington, D.C., fondly remembers trips to the public library in his hometown of New Bern, North Carolina. As a preschooler, Lewis’s parents would take him to the library, housed in the historic John Wright Stanly House.

From those early memories to his more recent involvement serving on the Board of Trustees of the District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL), Lewis has maintained a special connection to libraries.

Lewis has made the largest individual bequest to the American Library Association in the Association’s history. The approximately $25 million bequest is truly transformational and will fund scholarships for aspiring librarians, ensuring future generations of highly educated and committed librarians prepared to meet the informational needs of their communities, according to Leslie Burger, ALA interim executive director.

Lewis’s gift will fund library school scholarships for students with demonstrated financial needs. These scholarships will benefit legions of young people who would otherwise be unable to pursue professional librarianship."

Donald Trump’s One Awful Accomplishment; New York Times, April 29, 2017

Frank Bruni, New York Times; Donald Trump’s One Awful Accomplishment

"The other presidents in my lifetime have at least done a pantomime of the qualities that we try to instill in children: humility, honesty, magnanimity, generosity. Even Richard Nixon took his stabs at these. Trump makes a proud and almost ceaseless mockery of them.

And while I worry plenty that he’ll achieve some of his most ill-conceived policy goals, I’m just as fearful that he has already succeeded in changing forever the expected demeanor of someone in public office.

All around me people shrug and yawn at his latest petulant tirade, his newest baseless tweet, his freshest assertion that the numbers that the rest of us see are just optical illusions and he really did win the popular vote. Even outrage grows boring, and it begins to feel pointless: His obnoxiousness isn’t going to get him impeached.

Besides, the mendacity, the grandiosity: That’s just Trump being Trump. It’s old news by now. Many readers will get this far in this column and wonder why I and other naysayers don’t just let it go and cut him a break. As if we’re stuck on piddling things and his bearing is nothing more than peculiar.

But when something no longer provokes remark, it becomes unremarkable, and the road from there to acceptable is a short one."

"Danny Boy"; robrogers.com, April 19, 2017

Rob Rogers, robrogers.com; "Danny Boy"

The Best Man for the Job is a Woman | Leading From the Library; Library Journal, 10/23/13

Steven Bell, Library Journal; The Best Man for the Job is a Woman | Leading From the Library: "Self-awareness is key to identifying one’s areas of weakness, whether male or female, and then working to build strength in those areas, according to John Gerzema, author of new book The Athena Doctrine, which argues that traits classically considered feminine are essential to effective leadership today. In his surveys of over 60,000 adults, the qualities most desired in leaders were patience, expressiveness, intuition, flexibility, empathy, and many other traits identified by respondents as feminine. Yet 81 percent of those surveyed said leaders required a balance of male and female traits. Gerzema believes that, while masculine traits are still the ticket to top executive positions, a shift is occurring. He advises leaders to aim for somewhere in between Venus and Mars, and identifies multiple trends that point to workplace changes in which a more feminine leadership will emerge as the preferred style... Does the current debate about whether men and women should be more like the opposite sex apply to the library world? It is a predominantly female profession, so one might think that the observation of feminine qualities among the profession’s leaders would be nothing new. Though the statistical over-representation of men in formal leadership positions, such as dean and directors, might suggest that even in our mostly female workforce, it is the male traits that enable individuals to acquire leadership roles. The real challenge, as I see it, is how leaders learn to morph their leadership styles with traits not typically associated with their gender. This may be where self-awareness, reflection, 360-degree reviews, and other techniques are of use in better understanding our own strengths and weaknesses as leaders. Both men and women can learn from each other as well, to develop the skills that individuals seek in their leaders. Each improvement we make, as we adapt these new skills to our leadership style, will help us to boost the quality of library leadership."