Spot-on! Scott Powers on 10 FL statewide candidates given $5.8 million in taxpayer funds "who arguably didn’t need the money but took it anyway"

Sometimes, all your faithful blogger needs to do to bring something important or worthwhile to your attention is to get out of the way ASAP so you can read it yourself, since there's hardly anything I can add to the original story that could make it any clearer.
As is so often true in those cases, it involves Florida or South Florida politics and government, and what a complete fiasco something was, is or is becoming.

This is such a time as Scott Powers of the Orlando Sentinel shows how Florida's public campaign-finance laws, intended to create a more level playing-field, doesn't, if ever, work as planned.
So why keep it?

Do you keep a compass that refuses to actually point in the right direction?
I don't.

I was always against public-financing of statewide political candidates in principle, even before I read this eye-opening piece on Tuesday night.
After reading it and thinking about the financial implications of continuing the system into the future, I'm even more convinced that it's a well-intentioned bad idea.

Especially now that we all have some idea how much taxpayer money went down the drain.

Or, should I say, provided employment for political consultants and advertising revenue for TV station owners.
I see why THEY would like it and want to keep the system intact, I'm not nearly as sure why we as taxpayers should continue something so manifestly broken and unworkable.

Orlando Sentinel
Central Florida Political Pulse blog

Campaign finance leftovers: taxpayers contributed $5.8 million
Posted by scottpowers on January, 18 2011 9:22 AM

How much did taxpayers contribute to all those nasty campaign ads heading into last fall’s election?

Try $5.8 million, and counting. The latest available reports from the Division of Elections show Florida taxpayers spent more than $5.8 million to bolster the campaigns of 10 candidates for statewide office last year, giving public dollars to individuals who arguably didn’t need the money but took it anyway.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2011/01/campaign-finance-leftovers-taxpayers-contributed-5-8-million.html

The parent Orlando Sentinel article was:
Candidates collected $5.8 million in public money
By Scott Powers, Orlando Sentinel
10:54 p.m. EST, January 17, 2011
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/os-state-public-finance-20110116,0,6550241.story

Reader comments at:
http://discussions.orlandosentinel.com/20/orlnews/os-state-public-finance-20110116/10

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on making tough decisions -Fox News Sunday; he's NOT interested in running for President in 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ScqNYCVb1g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTiHz9D1ckA
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on making tough decisions -Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, January 16, 2011; he's NOT interested in running for President in 2012



Governor Christie Responds To Teacher During Town Hall
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkuTm-ON904


New York Times
Public Workers Facing Outrage as Budget Crises Grow
By Michael Powell
Published: January 1, 2011

FLEMINGTON, N.J. — Ever since Marie Corfield’s confrontation with Gov. Chris Christie this fall over the state’s education cuts became a YouTube classic, she has received a stream of vituperative e-mails and Facebook postings.

Marie Corfield, a teacher in Flemington, N.J., challenged Gov. Chris Christie over state education cuts at a town hall meeting in September. Their tense exchange was posted on YouTube.

“People I don’t even know are calling me horrible names,” said Ms. Corfield, an art teacher who had pleaded the case of struggling teachers. “The mantra is that the problem is the unions, the unions, the unions.”

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/business/02showdown.html




New Jersey Governor Chris Christie: Day of Reckoning
Governor Christie speaks on accountability at a Town Hall meeting in Perth Amboy, N.J., June 15, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evtt-R7Rmdw

The funniest discovery of the new year: "Jeff from Tallahassee" on Red Eye; reminds me of the Steve & Garry, Don & Mike comic genius I miss

Because reality is always the funniest thing.

The funniest discovery of the new year: "Jeff from Tallahassee" on Fox News Channel's Red Eye, broadcast weekdays at 3 a.m.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/red-eye/index.html
See the video at:
http://video.foxnews.com/v/4497479/red-eye-answers-viewer-mail/
No matter how many different video clips of "Jeff" that I see on must-watch Red Eye, he cracks me up every time with his deadpan delivery of not-so-pithy comments.
This guy is a gold mine of comedy satisfaction.
Even when you know what he's going to say.

For me, listening to his droll comments recalls the very best times from the kind of 'Old School' radio I prefer, and of my listening everyday for hours to Steve Dahl & Garry Meier in Chicago on WLS-AM and then WLUP-AM, then FM, while living in Evanston and Wilmette in the mid-'80's, often crying from laughter at work or on the walk from the El station to my home and then once in the house.
I knew their bits and routine better than I knew my neighbors.


1983 Entertainment Tonight video of Steve & Garry, with Mary Hart http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73-7DE_SlmQ


Their insightful observations and repartee with guests, esp. Joe Walsh of The Eagles, plus the best collection of "bumpers" ever assembled, as comedian/actor Richard Lewis was always quick to mention whenever he was a guest of theirs, ensured hours of amusement for their loyal listeners throughout Chicagoland, NW Indiana and southern Wisconsin.

Their hysterical satirical stories about guys-on-the-make flying dates to Palwaukee Airport-in Wheeling- were classic, and always sure to ensure comic paralysis.
Listen to those broadcasts at: http://wn.com/steve_dahl,_airport

There were SO MANY times I'd end up staying at an El stop rather than get in the train car, even when it was absurdly cold, because I just had to hear the very end of the segment or bit they were doing before they went to a commercial break.
If I had a dollar for every time that happened...

I actually preferred listening to Steve & Garry out in the bleachers at Wrigley Field when I went to Cubs games during the week than I did listening to the game broadcast on WGN-AM. I could always tell that many other fans in the bleachers were doing the same thing, because when I took out my earphones, I could hear so many people laughing at the same exact time.

I once was walking down N. Michigan Avenue near their studio and heard them say something incorrect about a subject I knew quite a bit about, so I took the elevator at the Sears Tower up to their office intent on writing a short note with the correct info and passing it on to one of their producers. Or so I thought...

In all the time it had taken me to finally catch an elevator to get upstairs, the duo had gone in to a commercial break and once I walked thru the door, who do I spy but Steve in the lobby wearing one of his Hawaiian shirts. 
Naturally, he asked me what I was doing there.


I explained the whys and wheres, he listened intently to me and eventually agreed I was right, so he said he'd mention the correction on-air later, shook my hand and went back towards the studio.

I was so casual about the whole thing it wasn't until I was at the Main El stop at the Chicago-Evanston city line, where I had to change over to another train that took me up to the Linden Avenue stop in Wilmette where I lived, just a block from Lake Michigan, that it all sunk in.
If only I'd had a digital cameras back then!

Audio: 1/9 - Steve Dahl &Garry Meier -
December 1987 - WLUP AM 1000 Chicago, Illinois
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_P5MH29RquQ
December 5, 2008
Steve Dahl out at CBS' WJMK-FM
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2008/12/steve-dahl-out.html

Years later, while living for 14 years in the Washington, D.C. area, I'd be as devout a listener to the Don & Mike -Don Geronimo & Mike O'Meara- on WJFK-FM, even while I'd also try like crazy in the wintertime to get Steve & Garry on my AM radio after they switched stations, because of the seasonal "skip" that allowed me to start getting distant AM stations around 5 p.m.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_and_Mike_Show
In the future I hope to have a separate post or two about the Don & Mike Show, but this honest 2005 Washington Post article I think gives you some insight into what made them so ridiculously popular and the number-one show in the very competitive Washington, D.C. market, as well as some other cities around the country where they were syndicated.

Don Geronimo's Grief-Stricken Solo
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 2, 2005http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/02/AR2005080200036.html

With both duos, I made dozens of audio-cassette recordings of them on my Sony cassette recorder, a sort of "Best of" mix tape if you will.

I'd take 3-4 of them with me to listen to while away on business trips or flights down here at the holidays, so if I got bored, I'd have something to amuse me or to fall asleep at night in hotels. Something familiar!

As a person who had the radio on in my office all day while living and working in the Chicago and Washington area, it's hardly surprising that having listened to such very talented guys for so many years, it's my opinion that nobody even half as talented as them currently works in the South Florida radio market, otherwise I'd have mentioned it here.
http://www.donandmikewebsite.com/
June 11, 2009
Steve Dahl to launch daily podcasts in partnership with CBS Radio
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/2009/07/steve-dahl-to-launch-daily-podcasts-in-partnership-with-cbs-radio.html
Steve Dahl Show podcasts: http://www.dahl.com/podcasts/weekly
http://www.facebook.com/stevedahlshow
http://dahl.com/blog

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOriginalShockJock

-----
Some recent Red Eye videos worth perusing:


CNN's over-the-top coverage of the Coffee party
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK3oks9xOkE(*Includes THE sexiest woman on American TV, Courtney Friel.)

Canadian Radio Bans 1985 Dire Straits Songhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voUMsybfbPo

Rock station fights back
http://www.youtube.com/user/FoxNewsChannel#p/u/83/M7OuQ0LucvE

Gutfeld: Brokaw's Bar Hopping Fears
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXGkr_CtkHk

See also:
http://www.dailygut.com/

http://activitypit.ning.com/
-----

Phil Rosenthal's Tower Ticker blog at The Chicago Tribune, covering the "Media business in Chicago and beyond."
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/towerticker/

Follow-up to shocking 20/20 Exclusive on Peace Corps - Video Exclusive: Peace Corps Women Tell Stories of Assaults Overseas -and Agency's Indifference

Peace Corps Women Tell Stories of Assaults

In roundtable with ABC News Chief Investigative correspondent Brian Ross, six women describe sexual assault while volunteering overseas. 01/14/2011

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/video/peace-corps-women-stories-assaults-12619514?nwltr=blotter_featureMore

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/slideshow/sexual-assault-peace-corps-12618764

This is the follow-up on The Blotter to Friday's 20/20 Exclusive which was the subject of this post of mine:
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/must-see-tv-tonight-abc-news-2020-on.html

ABC News Investigative Team Blotter
http://abcnews.go.com/blotter

---

See also: First Response Action

"First Response Action advocates for a stronger Peace Corps response for Volunteers who are survivors or victims of physical and sexual violence. We envision a Peace Corps with policies that reflect best practices in all areas of training, prevention and response."

For more information email firstresponseaction@gmail.com.
Visit their website at: www.firstresponseaction.org and their blog at http://firstresponseaction.blogspot.com/


-----
KESQ-TV, Palm Springs, California
http://www.kesq.com/news/26502628/detail.html

Peace Corps Murder Raises Questions On Safety Of Volunteers

By Philippe Djegal, News Channel 3 Reporter

POSTED: 9:35 pm PST January 14, 2011
UPDATED: 11:34 pm PST January 14, 2011
Story and video at:
http://www.kesq.com/news/26502628/detail.html

-------

Newsweek
Goodbye, Hollywood. Hello, Peace Corps!
Newsweek's 43-year old Hollywood correspondent Sean Smith quits his job to join The Peace Corps.
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/19/give-peace-a-chance.html

Look who's back to rock some more? Marie & Per! Roxette - She's Got Nothing On (But The Radio); The Look (LIVE) -Stockholm, 2010

Roxette - She's Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
Directed by Mats Udd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1N-Gf0Fbcg
High Definition version of this video is at: http://bcove.me/s8zormvd

Roxette will be touring starting in February in Russia, playing nearly everywhere BUT the U.S.A.: http://www.roxette.se/tour.php
When last we saw Marie and Per, it was about seven months ago in Stockholm at the great LIVE nationally-televised concert thrown for Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel Westling the night before their wedding.

That was something I'd meant to post here the next day, since there were several other interesting-to-great performances, plus the finale with a Who's Who singing my favorite Elvis song.
Well, better late than never!And dig all the rocking royalty!
Official Swedish Royal Court photo of Daniel Westling & Crown Princess Victoria by Paul Hansen, 2010.



Pre-Wedding Concert for Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden & fiancé Daniel Westling. Roxette sings "The Look" backed by the Swedish Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. June 18, 2010 Stockholms Konserthuset, Sweden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmvonM23JUk
-----


Finale of the pre-Wedding Concert for Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden & fiancé Daniel Westling
a.) Various artists singing "Can't Help Falling in Love" backed by the Swedish Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

b.) Children's choir of Adolf Fredriks musikklasser (Adolf Fredrik School of Music) singing ‘I morr’n är det bröllopskalas’ (‘The wedding party is tomorrow’) backed by the Swedish Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. June 18, 2010 Stockholms Konserthuset, Sweden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfBq3bmEQsY
-----------

For more on Roxette, see:
http://www.roxette.se/
http://www.dailyroxette.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/RoxetteVEVO

You had me at Sofia Vergara! NY Mag Daily Intel blog reports that Nick Loeb may run vs. Bill Nelson in 2012; he's 'reportedly' dating actress Vergara

Actress Sofia Vergara, via photobucket.com

New York Magazine
Daily Intel Main
This Woman Could Be a Senator’s Wife
By Chris Rovzar
January 14, 2011 at 12:15 PM

Nick Loeb, the "tall and handsome scion to New York's Loeb Rhoades banking fortune," had to abandon his U.S. Senate run in Florida in 2009 because his wife left him. He felt it was unfair to conduct a campaign while dealing with such personal turmoil, so he paid back all his donors (out of his own pocket) and called off the run.

Read the rest of this very popular post at:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/01/this_woman_could_be_a_senators.html

As of now, there are 145 comments, and none of the first 20 are about Nick Loeb's personal stance on the role of the federal government in a citizen's daily life.
Imagine that.

The Palm Beach Post's Jose Lambiet http://www.page2live.com/ wrote a bit about the Nick Loeb conundrum last year -and his serious car accident in Bel-Air near Sofia Vergara's home-
http://www.page2live.com/2010/08/24/ex-florida-senate-candidate-nick-loeb-injured-in-car-crash/ which featured this photo essay:
http://page2live.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlargePopup.asp?image=29724487&event=1012290&CategoryID=59758&pSlideshow=1

But then how do you photograph someone's personality?

And a story like this won't stay a secret for long among attention-starved Washington, so The Hill is already saying...
http://washingtonscene.thehill.com/in-the-know/36-news/7823-sofia-vergaras-boyfriend-mulls-senate-run

You all know how much I love Sweden, but from the looks of things, given our particular geographical location in the Sunshine State, Colombia looks to have home-field advantage in this one.


http://www.oceandrive.com/home-page/articles/sofia-vergara-spices-up-primetime

And before you ask, I know nothing about the wife of Mike Haridopolos, the Florida Senate President, who has already announced he's running for next year's GOP nomination to run against Nelson.

http://www.senatormike.com/
http://www.rollcall.com/members/652.html

He looks like he ought to be the number-two at a Hollywood studio and a regular at Laker games, or the lead anchor at an LA TV station: "From the Southland's news leader, Mike Haridopolous, Eye...witness News!"

Talent & Moxie Straight From the Heart of Scotland: Emma's Imagination (Emma Gillespie); This Day, 500 Miles; Wow!

Emma's Imagination - This Day (official video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsS9IwR6n-U

From Emma's debut album, Stand Still

So, tell me that when you watch this video of the amazingly-talented Emma Gillespie, the 27-year old Scottish singer-songwriter whom I've been following for a few months, that you don't see her resemblance to actress Sean Young -whom I love- right?
Wow, what a voice!

The LIVE performance of This Day at Wembley Arena on Sept. 19, 2010 that garnered Emma first-place in Sky1's Must Be The Music talent contest -and changed her life.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkQl034uA8g


http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Showbiz-News/Emmas-Imagination-Wins-Must-Be-The-Music-Final-Sky-1-HD-Talent-Show-At-Wembley-Arena/Article/201009315735117




Emma's Imagination - 500 miles
from BBC Hogmanay Show, December 31, 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz8Dwn-8jPY

BBC: Emma's Imagination returns home to Dumfries

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-12165481

-----

More on Emma at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/EmsImagination
http://www.emmas-imagination.co.uk/
http://www.facebook.com/EmmasImagination

Touché! "Dear Lois" adroitly zeroes-in on Lois Wexler's defense of lobbyist Ron Book and blindsides her something silly over her pal, Judy Stern

Touché! "Dear Lois" adroitly zeroes-in on Lois Wexler's defense of Ron Book and blindsides her something silly over Judy Stern

For weeks, I've been sitting on an already-written blog post after engaging in some candid conversations with Broward County community activists and elected officials throughout the county that have taken me to places that are NOT usually part of my routine.
But live and learn...

The subject of these conversations was the very curious (and disturbing) public stance towards effective enforcement of strengthened ethics laws and standards in Broward County by someone that, until two years ago, I had generally assumed was one of the more dutiful and well-grounded public servants in South Florida.

And who is this mysterious person at the center of this discussion? Broward County District 5 Commissioner Lois Wexler.
http://www.broward.org/Commission/District5/Pages/Default.aspx

A woman that Daily Pulp blogger Bob Norman painted to a 'T' in an October 2, 2008 post titled Billed for Bull, Broward County Commissioners want you to pay for their pet projects, writing in part:
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2008-10-02/news/billed-for-bull-broward-county-commissioners-want-you-to-pay-for-their-pet-projects/

The fun part was listening to county Mayor Lois Wexler defend the money drain. Wexler has slowly transformed herself into a human version of spackling paste, helping to hold together the commission's longstanding culture of waste and mismanagement.

For whatever reason -boredom, tenure, general antsiness- the formerly-astute Wexler increasingly seems tone-deaf to things that once upon a time...
Well, let's just say that I'm far from the only person in this county with 20/15 vision who's noticed the slide towards the slippery side of the slope.

I will have that post here on the blog in the not-too-distant future -Operation Mentos- but until then, I wanted to share with you all the delicious and spot-on lacerating wit of Dear Lois, who has quite properly put Wexler back in her place today on the Sun-Sentinel's Broward Politics blog in a way that just causes me to simply step back and admire it from a distance.
I salute you.

Game, set, match, "Dear Lois."

South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Broward Politics
Broward's Wexler defends lobbyist Ron Book
By Brittany Wallman
January 14, 2011 03:35 PM

As Broward County commissioners weigh what to do about a prominent lobbyist who represents the county and the county's political foe on a huge issue, one person who came to the lobbyist's defense is County Commissioner Lois Wexler.

At issue is lobbyist Ron Book's work for the county and for the Miami Dolphins.

Read the rest of the post at:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/broward/blog/2011/01/browards_wexler_defends_lobbyi.html#comments

See also:
Mentions of lobbyist Judy Stern in the BrowardPalmBeach NewTimes
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/search/index?keywords=%22Judy+Stern%22&x=10&y=10
and of lobbyist Ron Book:
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/search/index?keywords=%22Ron+Book%22&x=0&y=0

Are you sure you don't have a Mentos?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdTe9AuqoT8



The Coke Zero & Mentos Rocket Car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-hXcRtbj1Y

http://www.youtube.com/user/EepyBird

While her opponents are busy trying to brainstorm and reinvent themselves to thwart her, like the Mississippi River, Sarah Palin keeps rolling along..

See my response to this story at TheWrap amongst their reader comments.

Brand Palin Takes a Hit With 'Blood Libel' Video

By Brent Lang
Published: January 12, 2011 @ 7:21 pm

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/after-giffords-shooting-brand-palin-takes-hit-23857


I must admit that I make a mistake in responsing to this post in such haste, as I was wrong about there being only one person quoted, as I forgot about Laurence Barton's comments and...

Then again, I also neglected to attack the asinine 'remain a punching-bag' remarks by John Feehery

“She should let others defend her and keep quiet for a while,” John Feehery, a Republican political consultant and the president of Quinn Gillespie Communications, wrote in an email message to TheWrap.

His comments may be the single dumbest thing I read all year.

Consider this:

In the 2008 Democratic primary -you know, the one that the MSM said was already Hillary's in 2007- if Obama's media acolytes and union pals at SEIU kept attacking Hillary with untrue info and she let it stand for nearly a week, the media would've said that she showed weakness, correct?
Yes, he said in answering his own rhetorical question.

Palin waits five days after being hammered for something she didn't do and is promptly attacked for "inserting" herself into the situation by ABC News.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/01/the-note-obama-palin-and-arizona-a-tale-of-two-speeches.html?cid=6a00d8341c4df253ef0148c78e402e970c

You don't have to want Sarah Palin to be either the face of the GOP or president -and I don't- to know that this was a 'high-tech lynching.' and a probable preview of what the MSM has in store for the GOP this year.

Go ahead, explain the difference in media sentiment.

Welcome to the American mainstream media's 2011 version of civility: They'll attack you and say things that are clearly absurd, then attack you for defending yourself, and when you finally respond, they'll selectively run stories featuring people who never liked you, who then further attack you.
Afterwards, they'll attack you for needlessly "inserting" yourself.

And after it's all over, and the lack of evidence is even more stark, and there are recriminations for the lynch mob, they'll say, "Well, even if it's not true this time..."


My favorite version of Ol' Man River, from the 1936 film starring the amazing Irene Dunne, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028249/



Paul Robeson - Ol' Man River (Showboat - 1936) J.Kern O. Hammerstein II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh9WayN7R-s

Must-see TV tonight: ABC News 20/20 on cover-ups at The Peace Corps re murder, gang rape of American volunteers; Pitt & Jolie as a bad Tarzan & Jane

ABC News 20/20: Parents of Slain Volunteer Say Peace Corps Error Led to Murder
Anonymous Whistleblower's Name Revealed to Suspect Accused of Sexually Abusing Children
By Anna Schecter and Brian Ross
January 14, 2011

The family of a 24-year old Peace Corps volunteer from Atlanta, Kate Puzey, says agency personnel set her up to be murdered by revealing her role in the dismissal of an employee she accused of sexually abusing children at a school in the African country of Benin.

Read the rest of the story at: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/parents-slain-volunteer-peace-corps-error-led-murder/story?id=12607274&nwltr=blotter_featureMore

ABC News 20/20: Peace Corps Volunteer Murder

Cousin of victim Kate Puzey: 'It's hard to be a girl in that part of the world.'

ABC News chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross:
Why Would Anyone Want to Kill Kate?
20/20 Investigation: Scandal Inside the Peace Corps

Story at: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/peace-corps-murder/story?id=12583120



ABC News 20/20: Peace Corps Volunteer Describes Brutal Rape
Jess Smochek said she was gang raped while working in Bangladesh.
January 12, 2011
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/video/peace-corps-volunteer-describes-brutal-rape-12600417

ABC News 20/20 Investigation: Scandal Inside the Peace Corps airs tonight at 10 p.m. Eastern on ABC-TV.

As I've mentioned here previously, I've had many friends from IU and former housemates in Washington, D.C. who were former Peace Corps volunteers in countries ranging from Mali to Nepal, quite literally, Timbuktu to Kathmandu.
In fact, I've even had Thanksgiving Dinner at a friend's home in Northern Virgina and around a large table, been surprised to discover that I was the only one there who hadn't been in the Peace Corps.

I'm sorry to say that the stories Brian Ross tells of a disconnect between Peace Corps HQ and the emotional and physical depredations suffered by American volunteers surprises me not a whit. According to Ross, nine-hundred Peace Corps volunteers have been sexually assaulted or raped in just the past decade. 900!

Yet the New York Times hasn't had a single story about assaults against Peace Corps volunteers since 2002.
It's like they think they're part of the South Florida news media, where stories happening right in front of you don't see the light of day, but Lisa Petrillo news stories -practically infomercials- on eyebrow surgeries for middle-aged yentas MUST make 6 p.m. newscasts.

I've heard days and weeks of stories of both heart-breaking tenderness and of the perils of feeling sorry for people who lived in poverty or near-poverty, and hearing how brazenly evil and corrupt many of these residents were, involved as they were with organized crime and the black market, happy to subjugate their own town or neighboring ones thru fear, violence and physical intimidation, while government workers in their area knew full-well what was going on.

The latter had practiced the art of looking the other way, either due to fear or unwillingness to be the bearer of bad news to some Ministry office.
(That behavior sounds awfully familiar to Floridians, does it not he said knowingly?)

When you know about these sorts of things from having been eyewitness to them, you feel the need to unburden yourself and try to tell others whom you think will profit from knowing the truth, which is why I never tired of hearing these stories from my friends, even if they often were such downers that we were drinking by the end of the story.
Even when I'd already heard the story before.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan described the Peace Corps in a letter as:

“a rip-off by the upper middle classes. Fortunes spent to send Amherst boys for an interesting learning experience in Venezuela,” paid for by “men equally young pumping gas on the New Jersey Turnpike.”

An even more negative and eye-opening view of what often happens when the West tries to help the poor and gets in the way of common sense public policy and hinders the responsibility of the people you're trying to help to actually help themselves, comes in the form of this prescient 2005 New York Times Guest OpEd essay by writer Paul Theroux, whose books and essays I've read for many years and who is, himself, a former Peace Corps volunteer to Malawi.

But Theroux was so much more than the average volunteer, and is more than just a critic of the bureaucracy of empire aid, as this makes clear:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Theroux
He puts his money and his body where his mouth is.

I read this essay in The Times the day it was printed, cut it out and still have it in a folder.
It's a keeper!


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/opinion/15theroux.html?scp=20&sq=%22Peace%20Corps%22&st=cse

New York Times
Op-Ed Contributor

The Rock Star's Burden
By Paul Theroux
December 15, 2005

Hale'iwa, Hawaii

THERE are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment. If Christmas, season of sob stories, has turned me into Scrooge, I recognize the Dickensian counterpart of Paul Hewson - who calls himself :Bono"- as Mrs. Jellyby in "Bleak House." Harping incessantly on her adopted village of Borrioboola-Gha "on the left bank of the River Niger," Mrs. Jellyby tries to save the Africans by financing them in coffee growing and encouraging schemes "to turn pianoforte legs and establish an export trade," all the while badgering people for money.

It seems to have been Africa's fate to become a theater of empty talk and public gestures. But the impression that Africa is fatally troubled and can be saved only by outside help - not to mention celebrities and charity concerts - is a destructive and misleading conceit. Those of us who committed ourselves to being Peace Corps teachers in rural Malawi more than 40 years ago are dismayed by what we see on our return visits and by all the news that has been reported recently from that unlucky, drought-stricken country. But we are more appalled by most of the proposed solutions.

I am not speaking of humanitarian aid, disaster relief, AIDS education or affordable drugs. Nor am I speaking of small-scale, closely watched efforts like the Malawi Children's Village. I am speaking of the "more money" platform: the notion that what Africa needs is more prestige projects, volunteer labor and debt relief. We should know better by now. I would not send private money to a charity, or foreign aid to a government, unless every dollar was accounted for - and this never happens. Dumping more money in the same old way is not only wasteful, but stupid and harmful; it is also ignoring some obvious points.

If Malawi is worse educated, more plagued by illness and bad services, poorer than it was when I lived and worked there in the early 60's, it is not for lack of outside help or donor money. Malawi has been the beneficiary of many thousands of foreign teachers, doctors and nurses, and large amounts of financial aid, and yet it has declined from a country with promise to a failed state.

In the early and mid-1960's, we believed that Malawi would soon be self-sufficient in schoolteachers. And it would have been, except that rather than sending a limited wave of volunteers to train local instructors, for decades we kept on sending Peace Corps teachers. Malawians, who avoided teaching because the pay and status were low, came to depend on the American volunteers to teach in bush schools, while educated Malawians emigrated. When Malawi's university was established, more foreign teachers were welcomed, few of them replaced by Malawians, for political reasons. Medical educators also arrived from elsewhere. Malawi began graduating nurses, but the nurses were lured away to Britain and Australia and the United States, which meant more foreign nurses were needed in Malawi.

When Malawi's minister of education was accused of stealing millions of dollars from the education budget in 2000, and the Zambian president was charged with stealing from the treasury, and Nigeria squandered its oil wealth, what happened? The simplifiers of Africa's problems kept calling for debt relief and more aid. I got a dusty reception lecturing at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation when I pointed out the successes of responsible policies in Botswana, compared with the kleptomania of its neighbors. Donors enable embezzlement by turning a blind eye to bad governance, rigged elections and the deeper reasons these countries are failing.

Mr. Gates has said candidly that he wants to rid himself of his burden of billions. Bono is one of his trusted advisers. Mr. Gates wants to send computers to Africa - an unproductive not to say insane idea. I would offer pencils and paper, mops and brooms: the schools I have seen in Malawi need them badly. I would not send more teachers. I would expect Malawians themselves to stay and teach. There ought to be an insistence in the form of a bond, or a solemn promise, for Africans trained in medicine and education at the state's expense to work in their own countries.

Malawi was in my time a lush wooded country of three million people. It is now an eroded and deforested land of 12 million; its rivers are clogged with sediment and every year it is subjected to destructive floods. The trees that had kept it whole were cut for fuel and to clear land for subsistence crops. Malawi had two presidents in its first 40 years, the first a megalomaniac who called himself the messiah, the second a swindler whose first official act was to put his face on the money. Last year the new man, Bingu wa Mutharika, inaugurated his regime by announcing that he was going to buy a fleet of Maybachs, one of the most expensive cars in the world.

Many of the schools where we taught 40 years ago are now in ruins - covered with graffiti, with broken windows, standing in tall grass. Money will not fix this. A highly placed Malawian friend of mine once jovially demanded that my children come and teach there. "It would be good for them," he said.

Of course it would be good for them. Teaching in Africa was one of the best things I ever did. But our example seems to have counted for very little. My Malawian friend's children are of course working in the United States and Britain. It does not occur to anyone to encourage Africans themselves to volunteer in the same way that foreigners have done for decades. There are plenty of educated and capable young adults in Africa who would make a much greater difference than Peace Corps workers.

Africa is a lovely place - much lovelier, more peaceful and more resilient and, if not prosperous, innately more self-sufficient than it is usually portrayed. But because Africa seems unfinished and so different from the rest of the world, a landscape on which a person can sketch a new personality, it attracts mythomaniacs, people who wish to convince the world of their worth. Such people come in all forms and they loom large. White celebrities busy-bodying in Africa loom especially large. Watching Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie recently in Ethiopia, cuddling African children and lecturing the world on charity, the image that immediately sprang to my mind was Tarzan and Jane.

Bono, in his role as Mrs. Jellyby in a 10-gallon hat, not only believes that he has the solution to Africa's ills, he is also shouting so loud that other people seem to trust his answers. He traveled in 2002 to Africa with former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, urging debt forgiveness. He recently had lunch at the White House, where he expounded upon the "more money" platform and how African countries are uniquely futile.

But are they? Had Bono looked closely at Malawi he would have seen an earlier incarnation of his own Ireland. Both countries were characterized for centuries by famine, religious strife, infighting, unruly families, hubristic clan chiefs, malnutrition, failed crops, ancient orthodoxies, dental problems and fickle weather. Malawi had a similar sense of grievance, was also colonized by absentee British landlords and was priest-ridden, too.

Just a few years ago you couldn't buy condoms legally in Ireland, nor could you get a divorce, though (just like in Malawi) buckets of beer were easily available and unruly crapulosities a national curse. Ireland, that island of inaction, in Joyce's words, "the old sow that eats her farrow," was the Malawi of Europe, and for many identical reasons, its main export being immigrants.

It is a melancholy thought that it is easier for many Africans to travel to New York or London than to their own hinterlands. Much of northern Kenya is a no-go area; there is hardly a road to the town of Moyale, on the Ethiopian border, where I found only skinny camels and roving bandits. Western Zambia is off the map, southern Malawi is terra incognita, northern Mozambique is still a sea of land mines. But it is pretty easy to leave Africa. A recent World Bank study has confirmed that the emigration to the West of skilled people from small to medium-sized countries in Africa has been disastrous.

Africa has no real shortage of capable people - or even of money. The patronizing attention of donors has done violence to Africa's belief in itself, but even in the absence of responsible leadership, Africans themselves have proven how resilient they can be - something they never get credit for. Again, Ireland may be the model for an answer. After centuries of wishing themselves onto other countries, the Irish found that education, rational government, people staying put, and simple diligence could turn Ireland from an economic basket case into a prosperous nation. In a word - are you listening, Mr. Hewson? - the Irish have proved that there is something to be said for staying home.

Paul Theroux is the author of "Blinding Light" and of "Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town."

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