Archive - July 11, 2011

  Christina Shea Christina Shea: Smuggled Author Event In the new novel Smuggled, a sweeping story that encompasses post-WWII Romania and Budapest in the 1990s, Christina Shea takes an intimate look at the human toll of political oppression. Monday July 18, 2011 7:00 PM 82nd & Broadway 2289 Broadway, New York, NY 10024, 212-362-8835

50 years of esprit de Corps Sargent Shriver, shown with the first Peace Corps volunteers, made the CIA promise never to plant spies in the Corps. (Reuters/Jfk Library) By Katharine Whittemore Globe Correspondent / July 10, 2011 A little name-dropping, and then we’ll move on. Two former New England senators were Peace Corps volunteers: Chris Dodd (Dominican Republic) and the late Paul Tsongas (Ethiopia). Other heavy-hitting ex-volunteers include Donna Shalala (Iran), secretary of health and human services under Bill Clinton, and Reed Hastings (Swaziland), founder of Netflix. And journalists have long been core to the Corps: MSNBC’s “Hardball” host Chris Matthews (Swaziland), Vanity Fair’s Maureen Orth (Colombia), and travel writer Paul Theroux (Malawi). Note: When I say “journalist,” fix on the first two syllables. For as we brook the Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary this year, realize there are now 200,000 former volunteers in our midst – and seemingly all of them kept journals. Go . . .