Archive - September 23, 2010

I’m not sure how many of you caught Chris Matthews (Swaziland 1968–70) Hardball program last night (September 22nd), but he spoke about the anniversary of the Peace Corps agency being approved by Congress. I realize Matthews can be annoying, the way he interrupts everyone, but this is an eloquent statement about Peace Corps service and Sarge Shriver, and since Matthews gave it himself, he didn’t need to interrupt! LET ME FINISH WITH THE FACT that today, September 22, is the anniversary — now just one year shy of a half-century — of Congress approving the US Peace Corps. Ask anyone who’s volunteered and they’ll tell you it was the opportunity of their life — the moment they broke out of their world — into a larger one, when they came face to face — on the other side of the globe — with a very different human experience. I went to Swaziland as . . .

A few days ago, while on vacation, I read in The New York Times where the late senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has a book coming out of his letters. The book is entitled, Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary. Public Affairs Press is publishing the book next month. The book was edited by Steven R. Weisman, a former reporter for The New York Times who is now the editorial director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Excerpts from this book appeared this week in New York magazine. In his private–and not so private letters–Moynihan takes a whack at quite a collection of individuals and institutions. He didn’t like Hillary Rodham Clinton’s smugness, thought Spiro Agnew was a demagogue, and complained to Brooks Brothers about the holes in their socks. And then he wrote that the Peace Corps was full of elitists. Well, that got . . .