Archive - May 2009

This was in the Al Kamen’s Washington Post column, In The Loop, this morning. Kamen was a PCV in the Dominican Republic  in the early Sixties. What with President Obama’s emphasis on volunteerism domestically and internationally, it seemed odd that there has been no announcement of a new Peace Corps director. One name circulating as a top contender for the post is James Arena–DeRosa, now New England regional manager for the Peace Corps in Boston. Arena-DeRosa also teaches developmental research and advocacy at Brandeis University and worked with the aid organization Oxfam International. “Some folks in the returned-volunteer community, a powerful and active lobby, may be less than delighted about this. There’s a strong feeling among some former volunteers — not shared by all of us — that service overseas is a prerequisite for the job, especially with so many former volunteers available. Arena-DeRosa reportedly enjoys strong support from Massachusetts . . .

President Obama released a detailed version of his Fiscal Year 2010 budget to Congress which includes a funding request of $373.5 Million for the Peace Corps.  This request represents a ten percent increase in spending above the current $340 Million funding level for Peace Corps. According to Kevin Quigley, President and CEO of the NPCA, “President Obama’s Peace Corps funding request is a step in the right direction, but it is only a step.” This budget does not call for MorePeaceCorps. It simply means an increase in the number of PCVs to 9,000. And that means approximately 13% increase by the time of the 50th Anniversary. There is no doubling of the agency! This budget now goes up on the Hill and to the appropriations  committees of the House and Senate, but don’t expect miracles from that crowd. Regardless of what Obama said during the campaign, regardless of what members of Congress say, the Peace Corps ain’t getting much bigger during this administration. The . . .

The Ying and Yang of the Peace Corps has always been whether a PCV is an expert technical advisor (written small), or an American just off on a Third World Walk About. The three goals of the Peace Corps give a mixed metaphor to the real reason of being a PCV. Many HCNs see us as CIA agents, and back home in Americans we’re thought of as missionaries without a religion. PCVs for the most part just want a job, want to feel wanted, and need to believe they are getting the job done. So, on the macro side there is this grand design of the whole agency encouraging peace by sending Volunteers into the world and on the micro side there are just men and women-mostly young and inexperienced–hoping that at the end of the tour they will have been somewhat successful. These competing goals are not necessarily bad. . . .

In his history of the PGA, Gerald Astor tells how Fred Corcoran first met George May behind the 18th green during the USGA amateur championship at Winged Foot. Then at a banquet celebrating the 1940 Chicago Open played at the Tam O’Shanter Club, May, the president and principal owner of the club, announced the prize money for the following year would be bumped from $5000 to $11,000, settling it a notch above the $10,000 offered by Los Angeles and Miami for their Opens. May further surprised the audience by declaring admission prices would be slashed to the level of grandstand seats at the ballpark, $1.10. May did much more to cause excitement at his tournaments. He had pros shoot from the front tees; lower scores, he reasoned, would impress people. His first four-day tournament drew 41,000, including 23,000 on the final day. May was also ahead of his time – . . .

When I last worked for the Peace Corps (back in the mid-’90s) there was a lot of talk about the Three Goals of the Peace Corps, but no one seem to know too much about how they came about, or why. Even the few books on the early history of the agency are vague about the who, what, when and how of the Peace Corps goals. Harris Wofford in his 1980 book Of Kennedys And Kings does write about how decisions were made by the Mayfloor Gang who invented the Peace Corps. And since Wofford was with Shriver from the very beginning days of planning the agency, his words are worth reading. Harris writes, “A clear statement of purpose was also required. From the first sessions several purposes had been articulated and some discareded, and Shriver welcomed hard argument among the contending viewpoints. Providing trained manpower for development? Promoting mutual international understanding? . . .

Eugene Burdick and Bill Lederer met at the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference in Middlebury, Vermont. This would have been about 1948. They then went their separate ways, each establishing himself as a writer. Lederer had a Navy background and was the special assistant to the commander of the military forces of the Pacific Area for over six years. He wrote two books based on his career, one entitled All the Ship’s at Sea, the other, Ensign O’Toole and Me.   By the time he met up again with Burdick in 1957 he had made twenty-six trips to Asiatic Pacific countries. He was famous for escaping official functions and going off to meet local journalists and shopkeepers and visiting the homes of the poor. Eugene Burdick was a teacher of political theory at the University of California and consultant to the Fund for the Republic. He had also been a truck driver, bean hoer, ditch digger, . . .

Aaron Williams is Vice President for International Business Development and responsible for representing RTI’s international consulting practice in the Washington DC office. He leads the representational efforts, working with RTI’s senior management team and other staff in expanding RTI’s involvement in the international development community’s dialogue regarding policy and programs concerning the USG and other multilateral donor assistance programs. Related to these efforts, he provides leadership in the development of strategic partnerships with other international organizations and global corporations involved in international development activities. Mr. Williams has over 25 years of experience in policy formulation, strategic planning, and the design and implementation of development assistance programs. Mr. Williams has directed a broad range of development assistance programs in the areas of economic policy development and economic growth, trade and investment promotion, banking and finance, democracy and governance, education, housing and urban development, and public health. In his role as a . . .

Maureen Orth (Colombia 1964-66) was on Morning Joe this morning talking about the Peace Corps and the school she started as a PCV in Colombia. Years ago we were talking about these inexpensive laptops, as a new version of the famous booklockers that were given to PCVs to leave behind in their villages, and/or to be the first books in the first library of their schools. A number of RPCVs said giving PCVs laptops was a terrible idea. Well, Maureen has made it work in her  bilingual public school, using the technology from the program “One Laptop per Child.”  Check out:www.K12wired.com. Maureen also made a pitch for more Peace Corps, saying we need to increase the budget and the number of Volunteers serving overseas. Nicely done, Orth!