Archive - 2019

He became famous, in part, by dressing like a PCV, as he was in Panama 1969-70. He created on television “the handy-man-hero aesthetic. The rumpled, but somehow polished workman in a flannel shirt, jeans and work boots.” That uniform has come to be synonymous with home improvement television, with variations worn by current HGTV stars like Jonathan Scott of “Property Brothers” and Chip Gaines of “Fixer Upper.” “He  single-handedly shifted the narrative of an age-old trade,” said Chip Gaines in a long article in The New York Times RealEstate Section of the paper this Sunday, July 7, 2019, entitled This Old House’ Turns 40. Bob Vila was the show’s original host in 1979 and was on the show until 1989. He next had his own show, “At Home with Bob Vila.” Since then he has made periodic cameos on the sitcom “Home Improvement.” The Times article writes that to celebrate . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Alana DeJoseph (Mali 1992–94) Leslie Hawke (Romania 2002-04) was already middle-aged when she arrived in Romania for the first time as a PCV. Thirteen years later she is still there, running a nongovernmental organization she co-founded and continuing the work that earned her an Outstanding Citizen Award from the United States Agency for International Development in 2005. A former editor and publishing executive, and mother of actor Ethan Hawke, Ms. Hawke left everything she knew in New York City to join the Peace Corps, trading a Central Park West apartment and leisurely Sunday brunches for life in Romania. “I joined … to give myself time to think about what I ought to be doing, not really expecting to actually find it in the Peace Corps,” she explains one recent afternoon while sitting in her office in the center of Bucharest, the capital. Around her, many of . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Dale Gilles (Liberia 1964-66) Dale writes… “I have just posted the following on the two Peace Corps/Liberia Facebook pages that I follow.  As for your readers, whether blue or red, whether they support Mayor Pete or not …. they surely would like to see the Peace Corps included in this narrative.  Why not get behind this to push Pete to include the Peace Corps?” Strange — and unfortunate — that there is no mention of the Peace Corps in Mayor Pete’s plans for national service. May I respectfully request that you somehow reach out to him — and ask your colleagues to do the same — asking him to backtrack a bit and start including the  Peace Corps when he discusses these plans. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/03/politics/pete-buttigieg-national-service-plan/index.html https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8kreEg7itlw&fbclid=IwAR0SXIifLO-QUIYbbwMr1VkJri5_tL0tj-Ft0nu6EHC-DdMYi_rbUqGI_qY

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Bill Josephson (PC/HQ 1961-66) CR – Garamendi Statement on Introduction of the PCRA 06-25-2019

To further fulfill its goals to encourage, recognize and promote Peace Corps writers, RPCV Writers & Readers, the newsletter that was the precursor of PeaceCorpsWriters.org and PeaceCorpsWorldwide.org, presented its first annual awards for outstanding writing in 1990. A total of 143 awards have been given since that time. If you have a book published in 2018 that you wish to nominate, please email John Coyne at: jcoyneone@gmail.com The Awards will be announced in August, 2019. The awards are: The Maria Thomas Fiction Award The Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award The Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award The Award for Best Poetry Book The Award for Best Travel Book The Award for Best Photography Book The Award for Best Children’s Book Other Awards Books published in 2018 that have already been nominated are:  Travel Books: The Award for Best Travel Book Why Travel Matters: A Guide to the Life-Changing Effects of Travel . . .

    Garamendi Introduces Bipartisan Peace Corps Reauthorization Act June 25, 2019 Press Release WASHINGTON, DC—Today, Congressman John Garamendi (D-CA) introduced the Peace Corps Reauthorization Act of 2019 (H.R.3456), with bipartisan support. The bill’s original cosponsors include Representatives Joseph P. Kennedy III (D-MA) and Garret Graves (R-LA)—co-chairs of the Congressional Peace Corps Caucus with Congressman Garamendi—and Representatives Albio Sires (D-NJ), Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-AS), and Donna E. Shalala (D-FL). The Peace Corps Reauthorization Act of 2019 (H.R.3456) would provide additional federal funding and resources to advance the Peace Corps’ mission around the world and better support current, returning, and former Peace Corps volunteers. Representatives Garamendi (Ethiopia 1966-1968), Kennedy (Dominican Republic 2004-2006), and Shalala (Iran 1962-1964) are returned Peace Corps Volunteers and Representative Aumua Amata was a former Peace Corps staffer (Northern Mariana Islands 1967-1968). “My wife Patti and I owe so much to our service in the Peace Corps. . . .

    Killer Reunion A Donald Strachey Mystery by Richard Lipez (Ethiopia 1962-64) writing as Richard Stevenson MLR Press Publisher 260 pages May 1, 2019 $14.99 (paperback), $6.99 (Kindle)   Reviewed by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith (Cameroon 1965-67) • Don Strachey, PI, is back, and so is his sharp-witted husband and sounding board, Timmy, “a rational man,” says Don. Damned adorable too, says my own thought patterns based on Lipez’s ability to bring forth a sharp picture of the character on the printed page. Aren’t writers brilliant in that we can create a person out of thin air, and a reader can see him/her/it based on little black marks on a white page? Some writers are better at this than others, Stevenson among the former. (If you haven’t read the first fifteen Strachey’s, Timmy was once a Peace Corps Volunteer, and his resulting unique window on the world helps our PI . . .

Press Release Peace Corps renews partnership with National Peace Corps Association in Austin, Texas 6/24/2019 5:56 PM NPCA President Glenn Blumhorst and Peace Corps Director Jody Olsen signed a joint MOU at Peace Corps Connect. AUSTIN, TX – Peace Corps Director Jody Olsen and National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) President Glenn Blumhorst signed a Memorandum of Understanding June 21 to renew the organizations’ commitments to support the Peace Corps’ mission. The two groups will continue to implement initiatives that promote a better understanding among Americans of other people and cultures around the world and educate the public on Peace Corps programs and service opportunities. The memorandum was signed during the Peace Corps Connect conference—an annual gathering of returned Peace Corps volunteers hosted by NPCA. The 2019 conference took place in Austin, Texas, with the help of the Heart of Texas Peace Corps Association, and centered on the theme “Innovation for . . .

    Rowland Scherman was the first or second photographer for the Peace Corps in 1961. His photographs appeared in Life, Look, Time, National Geographic, Paris Match and Playboy, among many others. He photographed many of the iconic musical, cultural, and political events of the 1960s, including the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, the Beatles first US concert, and Woodstock. He won a Grammy Award in 1968 for his photograph cover of Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits. His published collections include “Love Letters”, an alphabet formed by posed dancers, and “Elvis is Everywhere.” He lived lives today on Cape Cod. [6] Rowland Scherman describes his day as the official photographer for USIA at the March on Washington, 1963. In his book, Timeless–photography of Rowland Scherman, Scherman shows and comments on some of his most famous pictures. A documentary movie was made about Rowland Scherman by Chris Szwedo, called Eye on the Sixties; it has been shown on public television and at the Smithsonian. The film is today at 1 pm on many PBS . . .

CRAIG STORTI INTERVIEWS JOE LURIE ABOUT HIS BOOK “PERCEPTION AND DECEPTION: A MIND-OPENING JOURNEY ACROSS CULTURES” Society for Intercultural Education, Training and Research Newsletter June 10, 2019 | Interview with Joe Lurie, Executive Director Emeritus, UC Berkeley International House Why did you write this book? With YouTubes, tweets and fake news crossing cultures instantly and without context and with a surge of migrants encountering new hosts from different countries for the first time and without preparation, I sensed a growing collision of cultures. The alarming increase in intercultural misperceptions and miscommunications makes it more essential than ever to understand the actual meanings and intentions behind words and actions which may seem abnormal, provocative, even threatening. And so I wrote the book to heighten awareness of these misunderstandings and to provide tools for understanding culture clashes in the news of the day, in business, technology, diplomacy, language, religion, generational divides and migration. . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from David Miron (Colombia 1963-65) The Wall Street Journal June 22, 2019 By Russell Gold Updated June 22, 2019 12:01 am ET Adapted from “SUPERPOWER: One Man’s Quest to Transform American Energy” by Wall Street Journal reporter Russell Gold, to be published by Simon & Schuster, Inc., on June 25. When Michael Skelly first visited the Oklahoma panhandle in 2009, he gazed at a giant grid with squares of corn and grassland. There were few houses, one every mile or so. Half had been abandoned decades ago by homesteaders who gave up to the elements. This pancake-flat landscape, he thought, held the key to overturning one of the greatest misconceptions of the climate-change crisis. For years, the wind and the sun were widely dismissed as niche sources of power that could never fill America’s vast need for energy. But now the cost of solar and wind power had . . .