September 9, 2010 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Peter Hessler Goes Mining In Colorado

Sep 09 2010

Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) has written about China in three lovely books, and lives today in Colorado, where, by the way, he is the very new father of twins! He has now turned his amazing journalistic and literary skills on the southwestern section of Colorado where uranium created a cancer epidemic back in the ’50s. He writes about all of this in the September 13, 2010, issue of The New Yorker. You might want to check it out. It is rather amazing how all the talented RPCV writers have come out of China. I have written about this ‘China gang” before. There is Peter, who published Country Driving: A Journey Through China to Factory in February, and also Michael Meyer (China 1995-97) and his The Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed that was published by Walker in 2008. And other writers as well. These guys are serious and important. You should . . .

If You Can't Get Into The Peace Corps…What About The Priest Corps?

Sep 09 2010

Have you ever noticed how every organization having to do with service or goodness or overseas is someway linked to The Peace Corps! First there was the “domestic” Peace Corps, VISTA; then came National Service, and all those other peace -corps-like-programs, either academic or short term or do-this-and-you’ll-feel-good-programs. Enough already! Well, recently I read about the Priest Corps. Some of you might have heard of Father Andrew Greeley, a Catholic priest, who was (and might still be) on the staff of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, and who is a professor at the University of Arizona. I read his book, PRIESTS: A Calling in Crisis that was published in 2004 by the University of Chicago. In this book, according to Publishers Weekly, “Greeley draws upon the tools of his trade to challenge some stereotypes of the priesthood.” What interested me was one of his “policy implications for . . .

P.F. Kluge (Micronesia 1967-69) Profiled In New Jersey Star-Ledger

Sep 09 2010

[This article by Mark DiIonno appeared on September 9, 2010, in the New Jersey Star-Ledge.] BERKELEY HEIGHTS – Author P.F. Kluge’s life has been a global travelogue, taking him far from his childhood home in Berkeley Heights. The Peace Corps took him to the Pacific Island of Palau, and among his favorite places are the Austria village of Altausse, and the Island of Mallaca in the Bay of Bengal. His novel “Biggest Elvis” takes place in the shot-and-beer and g-string town outside the Navy base in Subic Bay, the Phillippines. “Master Blaster,” due out next year, takes place on Saipan, where U.S. Marines battled Japanese soldiers in World War II. After a life of exploring other cultures, Kluge, 69, decided to rediscover his own. “A Call from Jersey,” which was released this week, takes place mostly around Berkeley Heights and centers around an immigrant story rarely told: that of the . . .

Archive - September 9, 2010