July 1, 2010 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Afghanistan: You can't get there from here!

Jul 01 2010

In the July 5, 2010 issue of The New Yorker, in The Talk of the Town section, there is a comment made by George Packer (Togo 1982-83) on the firing of General Stanley McChrystal, Obama, and the nine years of fighting in Afghanistan. First a little history. Packer, as some of you will recall, supported Bush and the Iraq invasion. He was right up there with ‘mister personality,’ Christopher Hitchens himself. I had a falling out with George over his support of Bush and “Mission Accomplished,” not that he seem to notice. No, he just went ahead and wrote his award winning The Assassins’ Gate, and got a full time gig at the New Yorker. But he also came around to his senses when he saw what really was happening in Iraq, and now he is getting as pissed off about what is happening at Afghanistan as I am. Packer knows what he is talking . . .

Finding A Job In Publishing: Editorial Assistant # 2

Jul 01 2010

The changing, consolidating nature of publishing staff today is that everyone, even assistants in various departments, are taking on more and more responsibility. In the past, where the job of ‘assistant’ use to mean mainly administrative tasks, today the position comes with more and more duties and responsibilities. That said, there are basically three entry level jobs in book publishing. The first one is: Editorial Assistant An editorial assistant, in addition to performing the universal assistant-duties mentioned above, might be called upon to review incoming manuscripts and provide reports to his/her boss; to go through the “slush” pile of unsolicited queries from hopeful authors, and bring anything worth a look to the editor’s attention’ and to work with agents and authors to ensure that contracts are handled and processed correctly. Today, many Editorial Assistants will have their own authors and projects, and participate in editorial meeting where books are presented by . . .

The View From Belgrade

Jul 01 2010

[Laurence Leamer (Nepal 1965-67) is considered a leading authority on the Kennedy family for his trilogy The Kennedy Women, The Kennedy Men, and Sons of Camelot. He also has written best-selling biographies of Johnny Carson, the Reagan family, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. His latest work is Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach. Here is a piece he published Tuesday on newsmax.com and written from Belgrade.] America Looks Like a Fortress By: Laurence Leamer I am spending time this summer in Belgrade, Serbia with my wife, Vesna, who was born in the Eastern European country. Last week we decided to visit Kosovo, a region that the Orthodox Serbs see as their Jerusalem. There are only a few protected enclaves of Serbs left in Kosovo. The Muslim majority claim that if the land that was once part of the former Yugoslavia becomes fully independent, the Serbian . . .

Archive - July 1, 2010