Author - John Coyne

  Flashpoints of Awareness: Lessons Learned from a Life  by Tarra Judson Stariell (Colombia 1973-74) Ranch House Press November 2023 69 pages $10.99 (Paperback), $4.99 (Kindle) . . . Escondido, CA – Trauma is an aspect of life few of us escape. From psychology to pharmaceuticals to spirituality, many therapies are available for healing and yet, healing from intense trauma remains elusive. Author Tarra Judson Stariell (Colombia 1973-74) knows all too well the challenges and benefits healing from trauma can bring. After joining the Peace Corps she returned to her native California to share a paranormal message she had received, asking her to “return home and share with your family and others that life as you know it on Planet Earth will end if humans do not change the way they are living.” After having desperately sought a way to impart this message from various disciplines, philosophies, religions, and modalities, she ended . . .

Credit…Damon Winter/The New York Times Peter Navarro (Thailand 1965-68) walked out of federal prison Wednesday morning and walked into the Republican convention Wednesday evening to deliver a law-defying, teeth-baring, knife-wielding speech that was one of the more bizarre convention moments I’ve ever seen. Navarro, who was the trade representative in the Trump administration, spent the last four months in the Federal Correction Institute in Miami, having been convicted by a Washington jury in September of contempt of Congress for failing to respond to a subpoena from the Jan. 6 committee. To the audience here in Milwaukee, there is no badge of honor more awesome than a conviction for the sacred MAGA cause, and a prison term elevates that conviction to martyrdom, which is why the party instantly capitalized on his timely release. To the cheering crowd, Navarro milked every moment of suffering in the low-security tropical prison (where you can buy butter-pecan ice cream, . . .

Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World by Casey Michel (Kazakstan 2011) St. Martins Press August 2024 $14.99 (Kindle); $17.71 (Audiobook); $27.90 (Hardcover)       For years, one group of Americans has worked as foot-soldiers for the most authoritarian regimes around the planet. In the process, they’ve not only entrenched dictatorships and spread kleptocratic networks, but they’ve secretly guided U.S. policy without the rest of America even being aware. And now, some of them have begun turning their sights on American democracy itself. These Americans are known as foreign lobbyists, and many of them spent years ushering dictatorships directly into the halls of Washington, all while laundering the reputations of the most heinous, repressive regimes in the process. These foreign lobbyists include figures like Ivy Lee, the inventor of the public relations industry—a man who whitewashed Mussolini, opened doors to the Soviets, and advised the . . .

What’s Happening to the Peace Corps? As of July 8, 2024 there were roughly 2,840 Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) in service overseas. This figure includes Peace Corps Trainees (PCTs) and Peace Corps Response Volunteers (PCRVs). Those Volunteers are currently in 58 countries. What I’ve been hearing is that the agency is laying off host country staff as the Peace Corps cuts back on overseas employees. The agency doesn’t need staff. Fewer and fewer Volunteers are joining our Peace Corps. According to Lawrence Lihosit (Honduras 1975-77) informative book: Peace Corps Chronology 1961-2010 the last time we were as ‘close’ to these recent PCVs numbers was in June 1962 when there were even more PCVs– 2,940 in 27 countries. In the mid-sixties we had these numbers: 1966–15,556 1967–14,968 1968–13,823 By the year 2000 the number of PCVs grew to 7,164. The most PCVs for 10 countries back in the Sixties looked like this: . . .

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) joined developer Gary Cohen to cut the ribbon at the Elle, which was formerly home to the U.S. Peace Corps. By Meagan Flynn July 11, 2024  The building had three lives, and Gary Cohen’s family had engineered all of them. His grandfather developed it into The Vanguard in 1965 — one of the first high-rise office buildings in the downtown neighborhood now known as the Golden Triangle. It housed the U.S. Department of Labor and then, until recently, the U.S. Peace Corps. On Thursday, Cohen ushered in its third life: a new 163-unit apartment building called the Elle — the first office-to-housing conversion project to be completed in the District. He joined Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) to cut the ribbon on the apartment building, which also comes with 8,000 square feet of retail space. A Canadian-based restaurant called Moxies is slated to move in, he . . .

The US Peace Corps has deployed 48 new volunteers who will collaborate with Filipino community members on local projects aimed at fostering relationships and exchanging knowledge and skills. Donald James Gawe, Executive Director of the Philippine National Volunteer Service Coordinating Agency, extended a warm welcome to the 281st batch of US Peace Corps volunteers and expressed his optimism that they will “continue to serve as builders of hope and catalysts of change.” “U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers come from all over the United States and represent the diversity of the American people. They come with a variety of skills and experience to contribute during their service in the Philippines,” U.S. Ambassador MaryKay Carlson said.  

  The US Department of Veterans Affairs and an arm of the US State Department are among a growing list of Microsoft Corp. customers that have acknowledged they were impacted by a breach of the technology giant that was blamed on Russian state-sponsored hackers. The US Agency for Global Media, part of the State Department that provides news and information in countries where the press is restricted, was notified “a couple months ago” by Microsoft that some of its data may have been stolen, a spokesperson said in an emailed statement. No security or personally identifiable sensitive data was compromised, the spokesperson said. The agency is working closely with the Department of Homeland Security on the incident, the spokesperson said, declining to answer additional questions. A State Department spokesperson said, “We are aware that Microsoft is reaching out to agencies, both affected and unaffected, in the spirit of transparency.” Microsoft disclosed in January that a . . .

  Caleb Williams has spent the last two years teaching ninth graders in Richardson, Texas Independent School District. But this August, he will be traveling to Cambodia to teach English as part of The Peace Corps. Williams is originally from Oklahoma, but said he was drawn to Texas schools by better pay and more diverse schools. In his time at Richardson ISD, he’s taught students from all over the world, including Nigeria, Iraq and Burma. He’s also had experience teaching across different achievement levels, having taught on-level, special education inclusion and AP English classes. “It has been great getting to teach the full range of freshman students,” Williams said. “Different kinds of students use different parts of your energy, so it doesn’t feel like doing the same thing over and over again each period.” Of course, finishing out this past school year was bittersweet for Williams after committing to the . . .