Archive - 2012

Maureen Orth (Colombia 1965-67) will be on tomorrow’s  NBC’s Today  Show–Wednesday, Feb. 8– supposedly in the 8:30 half hour with videos from China made for www.peacecorpspostcards.com.   She will also be on Morning Joe either Thursday or Friday.www.peacecorpspostcards.com Maureen launched, with her friend Susn Koch this  interactive website: www.PeaceCorpsPostcards.com  shortly after the 50th celebrations to  celebrate the Peace Corps 50th anniversary, and to share the stories of  volunteers across the globe. Susan, an  award winning filmmaker, and Maureen has produced a series of video postcards that feature PCVs and RPCVs. With assistance from American Express and the Bank of America there is a website which allows anyone in the Peace Corps community to post his or her story, picture or blog.  Maureen served in  Medellin, Colombia and is still involved in Colombia  through her foundation www..MarinaOrthFoundation.org. Check out these video postcards at  www.peacecorpspostcards.com And watch the Today Show tomorrow morning. Once again, an RPCV is proving she can get more PR for the Peace Corps than the . . .

Apparently Charles Murray (or more likely, the American Enterprise Institute) has a website offering the following quiz, How Thick is Your Bubble? You answer questions and find out how completely isolated you are in the Belmont or Fishtown bubble. A more detailed quiz is in his book, Coming Apart: The State of White American, 1960-2010. My score–13 out of 20.  Since we’ll be doing a review online shortly of the book, you can take the quiz and then read the review.  Here’s the quiz: http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/story.php?title=how-thick-is-your-bubble

The Florida results are in. (if anyone is awake or paying attention) and this is what I think will happen. Neither Romney or Gingrich will be the candidate. This is what I think will happen. (Remember, I write novels.) Because of this new allocation of delegates, and the fact that Ron Paul will score heavily out west, we won’t have a candidate with enough delegates when it is time for the Convention. Then the Republican Establishment will move in and after several exciting ballets (like the old days) Jeb Bush and, I also think, Tim Pawlenty, will be on the ticket for the Republicans. This gives them automatically two south states, Florida and Texas, and add to that Poleteis’ Midwest states: Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois.

In this morning’s New York Times, David Brooks in an Op-ed weights in on Charles Murray’s (Thailand 1965-67) new book, Coming Apart, writing, “I’ll be shocked if there’s another book that so compellingly describes the most important trends in American society.” Brooks recaps the narrative Murray lays out about our two American societies, and adds a few ideas of his own. “The word “class” doesn’t even capture the divide Murray describes,” Brooks writes, “You might say the country has bifurcated into different social tribes, with a tenuous common culture linking them.” Summing up his column, Brooks has his own solution to the dilemma facing our culture: “I doubt Murray would agree, but we need a National Service Program. We need a program that would force members of the upper tribe and the lower tribe to live together, if only for a few years. We need a program in which people from . . .

Yesterday in the New York Times I read that Jacqueline G. Wexler has passed away at the age of 85. The TIMES called her, “Ex-Nun Who Took On Church.” Indeed she did, and successfully. Sister J. as she was fondly called by her students back in St. Louis, had a slight connection with the Peace Corps during its early days. She was a famous liberal nun in the late Fifties and early Sixties and in 1965 she spoke to a packed room in the State Department at the first Conference of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. I recall her saying, off-the-cuff, that she was the only person in the room dressed in the traditional dress of a foreign country, i.e. the habit of the order of the Sisters of Loretto. A charming and charismatic woman, she was at one time the bane of my existence. So,  I cornered her that day in the hallway of the State Department . . .

Donna Shalala (Iran 1962-64) is back on the front page of the paper. Remember last August 2011 when there was a brief flare up about one of the fancy donors to her college– University of Miami where she is president–who was in jail. He said he had ‘paid off’ football players with gifts? Well, now  the story on the front page of the January 20, 2012, The Chronicle of Higher Education says that she made almost a half a million dollars in 2010 from serving on three companies’ boards. Two of those companies are run by university trustees. “That’s just a no-no,” according to a Jay W.  Lorsch, professor of human relations at Harvard Business School, and someone who has expertise in corporate governance. Donna isn’t the only college president with her hand in the cookie jar. The article entitled, “Board Conflicts Abound for College Chiefs” focuses on several other ‘chiefs’, including the . . .