Archive - January 2019

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WITH KENNEDY IN THE LAND OF THE DEAD by William Siegel (Ethiopia)
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David M. Stone, for The Inquirer: “Harris Wofford followed the question where it leads”
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Ethiopia RPCV Doug Mickelson remembers Harris Wofford & Emperor Haile Selassie
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Larry Leamer’s Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace (Nepal)
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NYTIMES Reviews Kristen Roupenion’s New Book (Kenya)
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Let’s honor the life of a great American who took an unconventional path by Michael Gerson
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Peace Corps HQ in Addis Ababa Remembers CD Harris Wofford, 1962-64 (Ethiopia)
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NPCA Gives An Update on Peace Corps and the Government Shutdown
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RPCV Kristen Roupenian (Kenya) book tour
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Chris Matthews (Swaziland 1968-70) Ends Hard Ball Tonight Remembering Harris Wofford
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New York Times: “Harris Wofford, Ex-Senator Who Pushed Volunteerism, Dies at 93”
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Congressman John Garamendi Remembers Senator Wofford (Both Ethiopia)
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Harris Wofford, civil rights activist who helped Kennedy win the White House, dies at 92
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New Books by Peace Corps writers — October, November, December 2018
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HONORABLE EXIT By Thurston Clarke (Tunisia)

WITH KENNEDY IN THE LAND OF THE DEAD by William Siegel (Ethiopia)

  With Kennedy in the Land of the Dead: A Novel of the 1960s By William Siegel (Ethiopia 1962-64) Peace Corps Writers 315 pages January 26, 2019 $20.00 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle)   With Kennedy in the Land of the Dead begins on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Gilbert Stone, a Peace Corps volunteer teacher in Ethiopia returns home shattered and lost in the shadow of his hero. The intervening years tell the story of Stone’s struggle integrating his experience of the Peace Corps and the trauma of Kennedy’s death. His new life as a graduate student in San Francisco explodes into the 1960’s hippie movement. Stone finds himself losing his identity as a member of a commune, alienated from his former life and finally living on the streets of the Haight Ashbury. His battle with drugs, insanity and the anti-Vietnam war . . .

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David M. Stone, for The Inquirer: “Harris Wofford followed the question where it leads”

  Harris Wofford followed the question where it leads by David M. Stone, for The Inquirer January 28, 2019   The admiring obituaries of Harris Wofford’s extraordinary life suggest why such a diversity of people around the country and the world have their own special stories to tell about him. Mine begins in a basement campaign office on Chestnut Street in 1986 during Bob Casey’s successful gubernatorial race. Casey asked his onetime Washington law-firm friend to serve as Democratic State Party chair, a seemingly unconventional role for a former college president and civil rights pioneer. Five years later, after the tragedy of John Heinz’s plane crash over Lower Merion when the governor named him to the vacant Senate seat, I was one of several Casey administration colleagues, including his son Dan, who joined Harris’ campaign and new Senate staff. His landslide upset that November was one more unlikely chapter in . . .

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Ethiopia RPCV Doug Mickelson remembers Harris Wofford & Emperor Haile Selassie

  Doug Mickelson (Ethiopia 1962–64), from Black Earth, Wisconsin, wrote me recently about Harris Wofford to tell me about photographs he had of Harris Wofford when the first group of PCVs to Ethiopia arrived there in the fall of 1962, and of his trip back to Ethiopia with his wife, years later. • “Harris visited us in Yirgalem, Ethiopia, where I was stationed,” Doug recalled, “several times during Fall, 1963 and early 1964.  This photo is of me and Harris leaning against our famous blue jeep speaking with students at our school, Ras Desta.  Harris was very interested to hear about what we were doing directly from the students.  He was very engaging and the students flocked to him. “This picture also appeared in Gerald T. Rice’s book, The Bold Experiment: JFK’s Peace Corps. The photo means a lot to me, especially with Harris’ passing. “I have three other photographs of . . .

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Larry Leamer’s Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace (Nepal)

  Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace Larry Leamer (Nepal 1965-67) Flatiron Books 304 pages January 29, 2019 Kindle $14.99, Hardback $18.29 Where Trump Learned to Rule To know Donald J. Trump it is best to start in his natural habitat: Palm Beach, Florida. It is here he learned the techniques that took him all the way to the White House. Painstakingly, over decades, he has created a world in this exclusive tropical enclave and favorite haunt of billionaires where he is not just president but a king. The vehicle for his triumph is Mar-A-Lago, one of the greatest mansions ever built in the United States. The inside story of how he became King of Palm Beach―and how Palm Beach continues to be his spiritual home even as president―is rollicking, troubling, and told with unrivaled access and understanding by Laurence Leamer. In Mar-A-Lago, the reader will . . .

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NYTIMES Reviews Kristen Roupenion’s New Book (Kenya)

  Sunday’s January 27, 2019 NYTIMES Book Review has a glowing review of Kristen Roupenian (Kenya 2003-05) new collection of stories, You Know You Want This. The review, done by author Lauren Holmes, writes about “A collection of dark tales from the author of the story ‘Cat Person.’ Of the 12 stories in Kristen’s debut book are considered “exciting, smart, perceptive, weird and dark.” For example: one story is about an increasingly precarious sex game, another about an 11-year-old’s birthday party gone wrong. There’s a princess fairy tale (and yes!) a guy in the Peace Corps who’s tormented by his students. That story, entitled ‘The Night Runner’ begins with this sentence: “The Class Six girls were bad, and everyone knew it.” While Kristen is famous for “Cat Person” published in The New Yorker, that story in tone an approach is not unlike all the stories in this collection, which I have just . . .

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Let’s honor the life of a great American who took an unconventional path by Michael Gerson

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Neil Boyer (Ethiopia 1962-64) Let’s honor the life of a great American who took an unconventional path By Michael Gerson Columnist January 24 at 5:38 PM Many of the most interesting and consequential Americans of the 20th century found greatness in politics, military service and diplomacy. Only one took the path of the recently deceased Harris Wofford. After a precocious childhood that included extensive global travel and a stint in the Army Air Forces during World War II, Wofford went to India for several months to absorb teachings about non­violent social change from disciples of Mohandas K. Gandhi. He soon became one of the main conduits of that theory for the American civil rights movement and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Wofford found a place advising then-Sen. John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign. Nearing Election Day, the young activist urged Kennedy to call and comfort Coretta Scott . . .

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Peace Corps HQ in Addis Ababa Remembers CD Harris Wofford, 1962-64 (Ethiopia)

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Kim Mansaray (Sierra Leona 1983-85) current CD in Mongolia. Kim got the photo from Obie Shaw (Central Africa Republic 1990-93) current CD in Ethiopia.  Photograph of HIM Haile Selassie with first PC Ethiopia CD, Harris Wofford, at reception for G1 in 1962 This photo is on the wall of the wall of the Peace Corps Office in Addis Ababa  

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NPCA Gives An Update on Peace Corps and the Government Shutdown

Here is the link to the article posted  on the National Peace Corps Association website which we have posted below. https://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/articles/peace-corps-community-response-to-the-partial-government-shutdown?utm_source=National+Peace+Corps+Association+E- Newsletter&utm_campaign=d220bb5209- “As the partial shutdown of the federal government – the longest in history – enters its second month, it is imperative that our political leaders pass appropriations legislation that will allow the Peace Corps and other federal agencies to get back to work. We are very proud of the service and sacrifice of the thousands of individuals who work for the Peace Corps. Hundreds of these workers remain on the job – many without pay – to make sure the more than 7,000 volunteers serving in the far corners of 65 countries are safe, secure, and receiving basic support.   What exactly does the continued partial government shutdown mean for the Peace Corps? Steady at the helm, Peace Corps Director Jody Olsen assures us that the agency is fine, . . .

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RPCV Kristen Roupenian (Kenya) book tour

  If you want to see and hear Kristen Roupenian (Kenya 2003-05), author of You Know You Want This: “Cat Person” and Other Stories, here are the remaining spots on her cross country Book Tour.   January 24th 7:30 pm Booksmith at the Bindery 1727 Haight St San Francisco January 25th 4:30 pm University Bookstore University Temple United Methodist Church The Sanctuary 1415 NE 43rd Street Seattle, WA February 25th 6:30 pm New York Public Library Mid-Manhattan Library 476 5th Ave New York, NY February 28th 7:00 pm Harvard Bookstore 1256 Mass Ave Cambridge, MA • You Know You Want This: “Cat Person” and Other Stories Kristen  Roupenian (Kenya 2003–05) Gallery/Scout Press January 2019 $24.99 (paperback), $12.99 (Kindle) You Know You Want This brilliantly explores the ways in which women are horrifying as much as it captures the horrors that are done to them.    

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Chris Matthews (Swaziland 1968-70) Ends Hard Ball Tonight Remembering Harris Wofford

During the Kennedy/Nixon campaign Martin Luther King was arrested in Georgia. King’s wife, Coretta, then pregnant with their third child, feared her husband would be killed in jail. Her fear turned to terror after he was yanked from his cell in the middle of the night and taken to a maximum-security prison in Reidsville, Georgia. By the time she reached Wofford, a friend since the 1955-1956 Montgomery bus boycott, she was hysterical. Wofford helped hatch a plan. “The idea came to me… . Why shouldn’t Kennedy just call Mrs. King? She was very anxious. Why can’t Kennedy call and say, ‘We’re working at it; we’re going to get him out. You have my sympathy.’ A personal, direct act.” With encouragement from Shriver, Kennedy placed the call during a campaign stop in Chicago. King was released the next day after Robert Kennedy, his brother’s campaign manager, made another call – this . . .

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New York Times: “Harris Wofford, Ex-Senator Who Pushed Volunteerism, Dies at 93”

  By Robert D. McFadden Harris Wofford with President Bill Clinton during the first national recruitment effort for AmeriCorps volunteers at the University of Maryland in 1999. Mr. Clinton named him to lead the service organization after Mr. Wofford left the Senate.     Harris Wofford, a former United States senator from Pennsylvania whose passion for getting people involved helped create John F. Kennedy’s Peace Corps, Bill Clinton’s AmeriCorps and other service organizations and made him America’s volunteer-in-chief, died on Monday night in Washington. He was 92. His son Daniel said his death, at a hospital, was caused by complications of a fall at Mr. Wofford’s Washington apartment, The Associated Press reported. By the time he became a senator in May 1991, appointed after his predecessor was killed in an aircraft accident, Mr. Wofford was already 65. He had been a lawyer, an author, a professor, the president of two colleges, . . .

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Harris Wofford, civil rights activist who helped Kennedy win the White House, dies at 92

Harris Wofford, civil rights activist who helped Kennedy win the White House, dies at 93 By Elaine Woo January 22 at 1:42 AM Harris Wofford, a Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, university president and lifelong crusader for civil rights who made a crucial contribution to John F. Kennedy’s slender victory in the 1960 presidential contest, died Jan. 21 at a hospital in Washington. He was 92. The cause was complications from a fall, said his son, Daniel Wofford. The scion of a wealthy business family, Mr. Wofford attracted national media attention as a teenager during World War II. He helped launch the Student Federalists group, an organization that sought to unite the world’s democracies in a battle against fascism and to keep the postwar peace. Mr. Wofford became one of the first white students to graduate from the historically black Howard University Law School in Washington. He was an early supporter of . . .

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New Books by Peace Corps writers — October, November, December 2018

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com — Click on the book cover, the bold book title, or the publishing format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance from your purchase that will help support the site and the annual Peace Corps Writers awards. We are now including a one-sentence description — provided by the author — for the books listed here in hopes of encouraging readers  1) to order the book and 2) to volunteer to review it. See a book you’d like to review for Peace Corps Worldwide? Send a note to Marian at peacecorpsworldwide@gmail.com, and we’ll send you a copy along with a few instructions. • Figuring in the Figure (poetry) Ben  Berman (Zimbabwe 1998–2000) Able Muse Press 2017 88 pages $18.95 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle) The poems in Figuring in the Figure are laden with aphorisms, puns, and witticisms meditate on shapes, angles, thinking about thinking, marriage, and . . .

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HONORABLE EXIT By Thurston Clarke (Tunisia)

  “America’s years in Vietnam were full of shame, but the last days of the war saw a remarkable effort at redemption. Breaking rules set by their higher-ups, ordinary Americans—servicemen, diplomats, spies, private citizens—moved heaven and earth to get their Vietnamese friends and allies to safety. Thurston Clarke’s Honorable Exit brings this little-known story to light with the speed and power of a riveting thriller. It challenges us to remember a time when Americans refused to abandon desperate people in a far-off country. It’s a kind of Schindler’s List for America’s lost war.” —George Packer (Togo 1982-83), author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq and The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America • In 1973 U.S. participation in the Vietnam War ended in a cease-fire and a withdrawal that included promises by President Nixon to assist the South in the event of invasion by the North. But in early 1975, when North Vietnamese . . .

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