Archive - 2024

by Mark Jacobs (Paraguay 1978-80) Published in Hudson Review Autumn 2024 In the early hours of April 23, 1996, I was standing under a palm tree in the Plaza Uruguaya in Asunción, Paraguay. The plaza was empty, not just because of the hour, but because everyone in the capital believed a military coup was about to go down. The previous evening, General Lino Oviedo had holed up at an army barracks on the edge of the city, where he was threatening to roll his tanks on Mburuvicha Róga, the official residence of President Juan Carlos Wasmosy.   The coup had not yet happened, but the city—the whole country—instantly shut down. People went inside, closed their doors, and stayed there. Nothing was running, including public transportation. The media went into silent mode. Driving to the U.S. embassy, where I was serving as public affairs officer, I encountered no traffic on the roads. . . .

Diplomat couple from Hawley, Minnesota retires after 2 decades abroad together. The couple met in high school and went on to serve together in the same countries through their entire tenure in the Foreign Service.   From left, Tim Gerhardson, Secretary Antony J. Blinken and Christina Gerhardson participate in a retirement ceremony at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 3, 2024. By Ingrid Harbo Today at 6:14 AM HAWLEY, Minn. — From Hawley, Minnesota, to Harare, Zimbabwe, Tim and Christina Gerhardson have stuck together. Originally from Hawley, Tim Gerhardson (Pakistan 1990-90), a Foreign Service officer, and Christina Gerhardson, a Foreign Service specialist, retired from 22 years as diplomats in the United States Foreign Service in June 2023. The couple met in high school and went on to serve together in the same countries throughout their tenure in the Foreign Service. “We just wouldn’t go otherwise,” Tim Gerhardson said. “We . . .

A book like no other, I Am Maria weaves Shriver’s hard-earned wisdom with her own deeply personal poetry. I Am Maria reminds readers there is strength and love on the other side of all of our hardest days. I am Maria is a powerful collection of Maria Shriver’s own poems that grapple with identity, grief, love, loss, longing, heartbreak and healing. Her deeply personal poems address life’s transitions, challenges, successes and failures. Vulnerable and deeply moving, Shriver’s words are a collection of her life experiences woven into poetry to inspire everyone on their own journey, It is also an invitation for readers to write their own personal poetry, reclaiming the art as accessible to everyone and a tool to look within. I Am Maria is a roadmap for anyone trying to shed the labels, layers, and armor that holds us back from creating a wildly authentic and meaningful life. “I . . .

Rowland Scherman (PC/W Staff photographer 1961-64) writes: “Here’s the guy who started and ran the Peace Corps, R. Sargent Shriver. I was the first PC photographer, 1961-63. There will be more about this wonderful guy in future Substacks.”

Connecticut Public Radio | By Katherine Jimenez Published November 4, 2024 at 5:00 AM EST   Two things brought writer Tom Hazuka to Chile: Spanish and baseball. Hazuka, a retired professor of English and writing at Central Connecticut State University, was a Peace Corps volunteer in Chile during the rule of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, whose decades-long dictatorship resulted in the death, internment and torture of tens of thousands of people. Hazuka’s award-winning memoir, “If You Turn to Look Back,” details his time in the country during the Pinochet years and his return 25 years later following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Hazuka left Connecticut for Chile in 1978 to take a position as a coach teaching young children how to play baseball. He was a recent graduate of Fairfield University and said the initial draw to the country was learning the language. “I already knew French. I was hoping to go to . . .

Rowland Scherman (PC/W Staff photographer 1961-64) was like any other PCV as he traveled the world, photographing PCVs at work. I met him in 1962 in Ethiopia. He would go onto become a nationally known photographer, famous for many of his photographs. This gallery of photographs by Rowland includes images of iconic figures from the 1960s, from musicians Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan, to public figures Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. He has now created a website. Here is one of his first publications with a few of Rowland’s famous photographs..  Bob Dylan Enters the World… In his 1961 inaugural speech, President Kennedy asked us what we could do for the country; and I, like thousands of others, responded. In those days I was what one might call an “advanced amateur.” I knew what an f stop was, and the other basics, but not really much more. By answering . . .

It’s a Small World After All by Dorothy Crews Herzberg (Nigeria 1961-63) IndependentlyPublished 132 pages October 2024 $12.00 (Paperback)   When Dorothy Crews Herzberg joined the Peace Corps in 1961, she was unaware that the program had not yet been approved by the U.S. Congress. The Corps’ proponents were hedging the strategy that having four hundred volunteers already working overseas would strengthen their case. While serving in the Peace Corps Dorothy Crews married Hershel Herzberg, and from 1961 to 1963 they wrote letters to her parents. Dorothy’s father saved and carefully preserved the fragile blue air letters. Every page of “Me, Madam” illuminates the energy of Nigeria immediately after independence. The author’s letters convey with intimacy what it was like to be there as the people struggled to create a new democracy.  

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Wm Evensen (Peru 1964-66) Description John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson: Collection of Presidential Bill Signing Pens. Likely the finest collection of Bill Signing Pens ever assembled. A set of 50 fountain pens, used by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, housed in a 27 1/2″ x 38″ frame with green backing, the presidential seal at the top center, and with the caption “With these fifty pens, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the foundation of the great society which was passed by the historic and fabulous first session of the 89th Congress” at the bottom of the frame. The opened pens measure out to 5.25″ long and the closed capped pens measure out to 6.25″ long. Each pen has a caption box beneath it with the name of the act signed into law and the date of when it happened. While the presentation does . . .

New Executive Director named for White House Initiative on AANHPI WHITE HOUSE Helen Beadreau takes over the helm of the Biden administration’s WHAANHPI. The White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (WHIAANHPI) and the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders announced Helen Beaudreau  as its new executive director. Beaudreau succeeds Krystal Ka‘ai, who was appointed by President Biden in May 2021 as the first Native Hawaiian to lead both the WHIAANHPI and the President’s Advisory Commission. Ka‘ai stepped down from her role as Executive Director on Oct. 5, 2024 and joined the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders on Oct. 7. “Helen Beaudreau has spent her career working to advance equity for underserved communities.” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.  “WHIAANHPI has important work to do – addressing anti-Asian bias, expanding language access, promoting equitable access to . . .

During the 1950s, two societal impulses swept across America. One impulse that characterized the decade was detailed in two best-selling books of the era: the 1955 novel by Sloan Wilson, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, and the non-fiction book, The Organization Man, written by William H. Whyte and published in 1956. These books looked at the “American way of life” and how men got ahead in their work and in society. Both are bleak takes on the corporate world. These books were underscored by Ayn Rand’s ideas as expressed in the novel Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957. Her philosophy of Objectivism proposed reason as man’s only proper judge of values and his only proper guide to action. Every man, according to Rand, was an end in himself. He must work for rational self-interest, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. Objectivism rejected any form of . . .