February 1, 2011 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Being Roger Rosenblatt

Feb 01 2011

I’m a big fan of Roger Rosenblatt. I love his essays on PBS News Hour. I love his soft voice, quiet demeanor, the gentleness of this gentleman. When I grow up, I want to be just like him. I love the way he writes, the smooth elegance of his prose. He is like that polished English butler of English movies who has everything under control and quietly, unobtrusively, brings the dinner party to the dining room table and serves them roast duck under candle light. Besides everything else that Roger Rosenblatt does, he writes books. Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing, just published by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, is his latest. He is also professor of English and writing at SUNY Stony Brook. He teaches students how to write. Though, as he says in his essay, “Can I teach them to become professional . . .

How PCVs Make a Difference….

Feb 01 2011

My friend Jocelyn Zuckerman (Kenya 1991-93 ) who happens to be in Haiti right now writing about their situation (on a grant from the Carter Center) sent me this ‘heads up’ in the NYTIMES. You can read it at: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/when-microcredit-wont-do/ Entitled, “When Microcredit Won’t Do” is written by Tina Rosenberg. Here are a few excerpts that show how the “peace corps connection’ pays off. Greg Van Kirk was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nebaj, Guatemala, a town of about 10,000 people in a mountainous Mayan region. He was an unusual Peace Corps volunteer, having already had one career as an investment banker. He had worked in structured finance for UBS, helping companies do complex deals to buy, sell or lease airplanes and power plants…. Van Kirk worked with a local mason named Augustín Corrio to build a better stove. Corrio took a standard stove design and rejiggered it in various ways. The best . . .

Chuck Ludlam Blasts Coyne….But I Don't Know Why!

Feb 01 2011

Chuck Ludlam (Nepal 1968-70 & Senegal 2005-07) sent me this email from Patagonia. He is traveling there with his wife, Paula Hirshoff ( Senegal 2005-07), and he asked me to post his comment as his internet connections are chancy. He did write as the end of his blast at me, “Please post this as a response to your post.” So here’s what Chucky had to say about me from sunny Patagonia! It’s too bad that John Coyne didn’t bother to read our 150 page report on Peace Corps reform — posted since July 2009 on PeaceCorps Wiki. It would help the readers to see it posted on Coyne’s website. John would find there that we oppose the 5-year rule, which has given political appointees entirely too much power at the agency and destroyed its capacity for institutional memory. He’s also find that the Peace Corps transferred the investigative authority away from the Office of . . .

Archive - February 1, 2011