Search Results for “gag rule” – Page 3

A Writer Writes — Reflections from a Simpler Time (Philippines)

Dec 25 2020

Reflections from a Simpler Time By Ted Dieffenbacher (Philippines 1967-69) The covid-19 pandemic has forced people all over the world to change — to simplify daily living, to isolate themselves from friends, favorite places, and gatherings that had always enriched their lives. What follows is an odd COVID comparison, about a time when I had to make a dramatic lifestyle change during my time in the Philippines as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) from 1967 to 1969. Single and 22 when I arrived in Santiago, Isabela, I was suddenly challenged to change not only my daily routine but also my way of thinking (and what language to think it in). Peace Corps gave each PCV a cardboard book locker — a few shelves in a sturdy cardboard box. Each had about 60 books in it, and because no two lockers had an identical selection, I was able every so often . . .

A Writer Writes — Mike McQuillan (Korea)

Dec 15 2020

A Narrow Definition of “Winner” Shouldn’t Hide McGovern’s Moral Clarity by Mike McQuillan (Korea 1978-79) An unmarked door opens to a vacant bar where I go seeking news, not booze. Chair-climbing to an aged black and white television, I find a CBS station for the South Dakota Senate update on November 4, 1980, election night in Mitchell, Senator George McGovern’s hometown. Six months before, Greyhound had taken me 1,000 miles from New York City to his last reelection campaign. I traded jeans and tee for a suit and tie in a Sioux City, Iowa diner’s restroom at dawn, then I felt awkward with McGovern’s casually dressed statewide staff in Sioux Falls. “You showed you were serious. That impressed us,” Political Director Judy Harrington would later say. Now, having canvassed house to house through four counties’ farm towns and ranch lands, recorded radio spots, phone-banked, planned events, sent thanks, and . . .

Should the US Abolish the Peace Corps?

Dec 03 2020

The story behind one group’s grassroots effort to do just that by Shanna Loga (Morocco 2006-08) An Injustice! Sep 2020 • For many Americans, the Peace Corps is a treasured institution. It represents the idealism, generosity, and curiosity of our nation and symbolizes our spirit of humanitarianism. We imagine bright-eyed volunteers selflessly digging wells in Cameroon or teaching English in Ecuador. With its founding by JFK and its current mission of “promoting world peace and friendship,” the Peace Corps holds a special reverence in the national consciousness. Objectively, the Peace Corps is an independent US government agency and volunteer program. Peace Corps volunteers receive three months of in-country, international training before serving two-year terms abroad in sectors including agriculture, community economic development, education, environment, health, and youth development. The population of volunteers skews young, white, and female: the average age is 26, 65% are female, and 66% are white. Volunteers work alongside . . .

20 New books by Peace Corps writers: September – October 2020

Nov 02 2020

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 now include 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 marian@haleybeil.com, and we’ll send you a copy along with a few instructions. • Around the Horn and Back by Michael Banister (Ethiopia 1972-74) Ravenous Press 151 pages September 2020 $9.99 (Paperback), $5.99 (Kindle) What would you do with your dad’s broken time machine, a modified “spherical astrolabe?” You could fix it if you . . .

12/28/21: An Update to an Unofficial Guide to Some Resources of Peace Corps History

Oct 14 2020

Here is the current list of unofficial Resources describing the history of the Peace Corps. It is unofficial and incomplete. The public documents are available but not necessarily easily accessible. Few are digitalized. Most are the property of the institutional archives, public, private and certainly university. For example, the training documents for Colombia I, the first Peace Corps group to enter training in June of 1961, are archived at Rutgers University. RPCVs may visit the university and review the materials, a privilege otherwise reserved for students and faculty of the university. RESOURCES An unofficial guide to the locations of resources describing the Peace Corps, and its history. This list is a cooperative effort with RPCV Alana deJoseph, producer of the documentary A Towering Task, her team and the many archivists and librarians at the places cited. Thank you to all . This is the latest information we have. Please . . .

Should the US abolish the Peace Corps?

Sep 21 2020

Thanks for the “heads up” from Concetta Anne Bencivenga (Thailand 1992-94) The story behind one group’s grassroots effort to do just that Shanna Loga (Morocco 2006-08) Medium.com Sep 20 · For many Americans, the Peace Corps is a treasured institution. It represents the idealism, generosity, and curiosity of our nation and symbolizes our spirit of humanitarianism. We imagine bright-eyed volunteers selflessly digging wells in Cameroon or teaching English in Ecuador. With its founding by JFK and its current mission of “promoting world peace and friendship,” the Peace Corps holds a special reverence in the national consciousness. Objectively, the Peace Corps is an independent US government agency and volunteer program. Peace Corps volunteers receive three months of in-country, international training before serving two-year terms abroad in sectors including agriculture, community economic development, education, environment, health, and youth development. The population of volunteers skews young, white, and female: the average age is 26, 65% are female, and . . .

The Man Who Killed Hollywood — RPCV Reed Hastings (Swaziland)

Sep 06 2020

Reed Hastings Had Us All Staying Home Before We Had To Netflix started with sending DVDs — remember them? — through the mail, but now the streaming pioneer sits atop a Hollywood it has thoroughly upended. By Maureen Dowd New York Times Sept. 4, 2020 Does it feel good to be the man who killed Hollywood? “No,” said Reed Hastings, who nurtured Netflix into the Godzilla of the entertainment world. “But, of course, we haven’t killed Hollywood.” At 59, the slender, gray-haired Mr. Hastings remains a mystery in the industry he dominates. “He’s a complete cipher here,” one Hollywood macher said. You won’t find Mr. Hastings hanging with the stars at the San Vicente Bungalows. He doesn’t bellow at the pool at the Hotel du Cap or swan around at premieres. He may show up in line at Sundance, but he’s not cutting the line. He started a delivery system for . . .

David Jarmul (Moldova) “When COVID-19 Forced Peace Corps Volunteers to Evacuate”

Aug 14 2020

How Volunteers over 50 learned the news and are feeling about it now By David Jarmul (Moldova 2016-18) nextavenue.com August 14, 2020 To do something meaningful Kamana Mathur (Nepal), who’s in her early 60s, had just arrived at her Peace Corps post in Nepal shortly before the end of her training when she was told she needed to return home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the first time in its history, the Peace Corps was evacuating its volunteers worldwide. “I was busy chatting with my host family,” Mathur recalled. “Then my colleague called and told me we had to leave. I said, ‘You know, I just sat down to lunch.’” Mathur had left her federal job in Hawaii, she said, “to reinvent myself to do something really meaningful at this point in my life.” During her Peace Corps training in the Himalayas, she’d studied the local language and culture, used . . .

HYPOGRIF IN BUBBAVILLE by Grif Stockley (Colombia)

Jul 25 2020

Explaining Elaine by Rex Nelson Arkansas Democrat-Gazette • Grif Stockley was born into the cotton culture of the Mid-South. His father, Griffin Jasper Stockley Sr., owned a cotton plantation at Lake Cormorant in the Mississippi Delta when the younger Stockley was born in October 1944. The family later moved across the Mississippi River to Marianna, where the father committed suicide during the final stages of cancer. Grif Stockley was 17 when his father died. Stockley excelled in school, serving as president of the student body and enrolling at what’s now Rhodes College at Memphis following high school graduation in 1962. Stockley entered the Peace Corps in 1965 after completing his bachelor’s degree in three years. He worked in Colombia for two years before being drafted into the U.S. Army. After his two-year tour of duty, Stockley began law school at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. He went to . . .

“Exceptionalism Redux” by Mark Jacobs (Paraguay)

Jun 04 2020

by Mark Jacobs (Paraguay 1978–80) Evergreen Review Sue McNally – Maroon Bells, CO (2014) O, let America be America again — The land that never has been yet — And yet must be — the land where every man is free. — Langston Hughes from “Let America Be America Again” In 1990, in the run-up to the first Gulf War, I did a long string of media interviews. I was working as embassy spokesman in Tegucigalpa, and interest in hearing the US case for intervention in Iraq was high. The State Department was regularly sending out updated talking points by cable to be used by people like me. I memorized those points, made them my own in Spanish, then went to the newspapers, the radio, and TV stations ready to be grilled. I was aware, of course, of anti-intervention sentiment in the US and did not dismiss the . . .

NPCA signs a MOU with the International Rescue Committee

Nov 20 2019

RPCVs are working with Refugees, individually, with NPCA organizations, and with local communities. The National Peace Corps Association has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Rescue Committee to further support this work. Here is the link to the MOU: https://bit.ly/2CYzyRl

Migrant Caravans and Social Justice by Mark Walker (Guatemala)

Oct 02 2019

Justice & Responsibility The Plight of the Immigrants from Central America By Mark D. Walker (Guatemala 1971-73) “Migrant Caravans,” made up of large groups of children and adults from the Northern Triangle of Central America, heading to our border to seek safety and a better life is problematic, both for those coming and for those waiting for their arrival in the U.S. The influx of undocumented immigrants has reached a ten-year high, with 66,450 entering recently, according to the Customs and Border Patrol. The existing frenzied political debate and the false narratives it often generates make it difficult, if not impossible, to turn this crisis into an opportunity to better appreciate why so many continue to seek refuge here and to understand our own role, and that of our government, in sorting out the situation, responding in a humanitarian way to those coming and creating some viable solutions to . . .

MOU between Peace Corps and the National Peace Corps Association

Aug 26 2019

Peace Corps and the National Peace Corps Association has signed a Memorandum of Understanding. (https://www.peacecorps.gov/news/library/peace-corps-renews-partnership-national-peace-corps-association-austin-texas/) The actual document may be obtained from Peace Corps – FOIA – 0091. The infomation here is from that FOIA, which was reformattted in Rich Text. Here is an except which defines distinction between NPCA activities and Peace Corps: The Peace Corps reserves and retains the right to determine, establish, direct, and implement programs and activities in accordance with all applicable laws, regulations, its policies, procedures, and subject to the availability of funds. Moreover, the Peace Corps will not be engaged or involved in, or collaborate with NPCA on, or promote or publicize, NPCA’s advocacy or fundraising, or membership drives, or any activities that do not directly relate to the Peace Corps’ mission. MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN PEACE CORPS AND NATIONAL PEACE CORPS ASSOCIATION This Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) sets forth the understanding between . . .

Athleisure, barre and kale: the tyranny of the ideal woman by Jia Tolentino (Kyrgyzstan)

Aug 08 2019

Thanks for a ‘heads up’ from Bea Hogan (Uzbekistan 1992-94) Athleisure, barre and kale: the tyranny of the ideal woman How we became suckers for the hard labor of self-optimization. By Jia Tolentino (Kyrgyzstan 2009-10) From The Guardian (US Edition) Last modified on Fri 2 Aug 2019 06.31 EDT The ideal woman has always been generic. I bet you can picture the version of her that runs the show today. She’s of indeterminate age but resolutely youthful presentation. She’s got glossy hair and the clean, shameless expression of a person who believes she was made to be looked at. She is often luxuriating when you see her – on remote beaches, under stars in the desert, across a carefully styled table, surrounded by beautiful possessions or photogenic friends. Showcasing herself at leisure is either the bulk of her work or an essential part of it; in this, she is not so unusual – . . .

David Mather (Chile) publishes THE BILOXI CONNECTION

Jul 15 2019

David Mather, like many RPCVs, thought that his Peace Corps experience was one-of-a-kind and decided to write about it in novel format. He began writing One For The Road in 2006, and five years later it was published through Peace Corps Writers. It takes place in the foothills of the Andes of southern Chile where he was the most isolated Volunteer in his forestry program, and the novel could well be a primer for new Volunteers. This literary effort, though, was an epiphany for David: he discovered that he enjoyed writing. A sequel, When the Whistling Stopped, soon followed. After that, he began “The Crescent Beach Series,” three novels that take place in a fictitious backwater fishing village in the lawless Big Bend Area of Florida’s gulf coast. The Biloxi Connection is the third in the CB series and his fifth novel published through PCW. Mather’s isolated PC experience in . . .

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