Archive - December 22, 2016

Today I think, Trump might have a chance to help those old bald white guy after all. Perhaps there is light at the end of the Blue Collar tunnel. The good news is that you, (or most of you) “Baby Boom Generation” are retiring. The reason why that is “good” is because Baby Boomers (51-69) make up 20% of the workforce. That means there are more jobs for Generation X (35-50) and those Millennials.(18-34). As for the rest of us, the Silent Generation…well, we are increasingly that. The bad news is the declining manufacturing jobs. They have declined, according to the Labor Department, something like 35% since 1980. Also, I read recently In a New York Times article that thirty years ago the US had had one of the highest employment rates for women. Today that rate has been outpaced by European and other countries. In 1999, 74 percent of . . .

  The Peace Corps Office of Strategic Information, Research, and Planning (OSIRP) has completed and published a report on the role of Peace Corps Volunteers in eradicating the scourge of small pox.  It is an important historical survey and excellently done. It is a tribute to the work of Volunteers and  a Holiday Gift to the entire Peace Corps Community! The report concentrates on Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and Zaire, but acknowledges the work of Peace Corps Volunteers in all countries in the 60s and early 70s in eradicating this disease.  Here is a summary.  The link to the entire report follows.  Please read it.   “In 1966, the global burden of smallpox was estimated at 10 million cases and 2 million deaths per year. Global smallpox eradication, achieved in October 1977, required country-specific partnerships of national and international resources. As described in this report, Peace Corps and returned Peace Corps Volunteers contributed . . .

The signs that the special role for the Peace Corps in foreign aid was in trouble were all over Washington in March and April of ’61. Wofford ran into Ralph Dungan in the White House mess (Wofford was then a Special Assistant to the President on Civil Rights) and Dungan told him the Peace Corps would be a subdivision of the new AID. “Not if Sarge has anything to say about it,” Wofford tossed off, half joking, but also firmly believing Shriver walked on water. The truth was that all these “new guys” Shriver brought in to work for the Peace Corps believed Sarge could get anything he wanted from the White House. But Shriver was scheduled to leave D.C. and the U.S. Who would carry the fight that was developing in D.C.? Before leaving for his ’round the world trip to secure placements for PCVs, Shriver lobbied Sorensen, Dungan, and . . .