August 31, 2009 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Peace Corps Ex-Staffers Do COS On Madoff

Aug 31 2009

In today’s Counterpunch (edited by Alex Cockburn) Pam Martens writes about the “long-awaited investigative report by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Inspector General on how the SEC bungled multiple investigations of Bernard Madoff.” According to Martens, the team that produced this report on one of the most long-running and convoluted frauds in the history of Wall Street included Inspector General H. David Kotz who came to the SEC-IG post in December 2007 after five years as Inspector General and Associate General Counsel for the Peace Corps. The Deputy Inspector General, Noelle Frangipane, also came to the SEC from the Peace Corps where she had served as Director of Policy and Public Information.” At home and abroad, the Peace Corps cleans up the mess!

Reading Poets & Writers

Aug 31 2009

Reading the Sept/Oct 2009 issue of Poets & Writers, a magazine that claims it goes from “from inspiration to publication” I was struck by the numerous ads for writing programs, MFAs, on-line degrees, and workshops given by colleges and universities. While the ads claims to be about teaching writing, what they seem to be suggesting is destination travel. For example, the full page ad for Chatham University in Pittsburgh has a woman with her laptop (by the way most of these ads feature laptops. What happened to pen-and-pencil and yellow pads?) sitting on cliffs high over the Monongahela or the Allegheny, the two rivers that dissect the rustbelt city. Now Chatham College (as it is well known) is up in the hills, miles from the polluted waters of the rivers that made this old industrial town famous before the turn of the last century. Nevertheless, this co-ed is watching white caps under the scripted selling . . .

Archive - August 31, 2009