Difference Maker Kim Komenich returns to the Philippines

Pulitzer Prize winner Kim Komenich returned to the Philippines 25 years after the People Power Revolution.

With the eyes of the world on the enormous upheaval, and possible toppling of, the Mubarak regime, it’s easy to forget that it’s been a quarter century since the People Power revolution occurred in the Phillipines.

Kim Komenich remembers, though, and he’s got a fascinating set of projects in the works from those memories.

The Dart Society member won a Pulitzer Prize for his photographs of the revolution that swept Ferdinand Marcos from power and led to Corazon Aquino, the widow of slain senator Benigno Aquino, ultimately becoming the nation’s president.

Twenty five years later, he returned to the Philippines find the people rich and poor who were part of that momentous period.

Komenich brought with him images he took from 1986 to share with the people in those pictures, and to learn from them what life had been like since those tumultuous days.

He explained that being able to go back after such a long period is a luxury that journalists almost never have, and, based on that understanding, feels enormously fortunate to have had the opportunity.

Demonstrating Komenich’s ability to stay current with the new and social media world in which we all live, he is producing a photography book, a film, and an IPad application.

We spoke in a separate context this afternoon, and he said that the streets of Egypt remind him of the eventful days before Marcos’ departure that he documented so skillfully.

We will see whether the story in Egypt ends up more like Iran’s green and crushed revolution, the Philippines or some other outcome.  In the meantime, we await Komenich’s products and the story of his return with interest.

Difference Maker Danny Postel on Iran’s Green Revolution.

Danny Postel and Nader Hashemi bring together many voices in The People Reloaded.

Of all of his many talents, one of Danny Postel’s most signature abilities may be his ability to convene conversations.

Danny brings together people from all different backgrounds and nationalities in person, through his relentless sharing of articles and book titles, through his writing and his editing.

It is the latter aspect of his work, along with his unswerving commitment to following his ideals where they logically lead that is most evident in The People Reloaded, a collection of essays about Iran’s Green Revolution he co-edited with Nader Hashemi.

Obama’s State of the Union, Howard Gardner’s Changing Minds

Standing before a dramatically different Congress than he did two years ago, a sober, greyer Barack Obama delivered a call for America to win the future in his State of the Union address last night.

Although based on a future vision, the speech was largely shorn of the soaring calls for transformation that characterized his historic presidential run in 2008. Instead, in a phrase that was reminiscent of former Mass. Gov Michael Dukakis’s White House quest, Obama spoke about the need for open and effective government.

As he had during the past two years, Vice President Joe Biden sat behind the president.  The person next to him was different, though.  Rather than barrier-breaking Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, the recently elected Speaker of the House, sat in the chair reserved for the nation’s elected official who is third in command.

Boehner’s presence was a reminder of the self described shellacking Obama said his party took in the November elections.  While midterm losses are standard fare in midterm elections, the Republican gains led to their taking control of the House, picking up a number of governorships and making inroads in the Senate.

In order to enact the wide range of proposals he called for, Obama knows he must move beyond the bipartisan rhetoric on which he campaigned and the show of unity and absence of rancor that has filled Washington in the days following the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscon two short weeks ago.

To accomplish this challenging, if not insurmountable, task, Obama has to figure out a way to reach Republicans who for the first two years have been characterized by their implacable, reflexive and unwavering opposition to his proposals.

He might consider reading Howard Gardner’s Changing Minds.

500,000 Page View Mark!

We passed the half-million page view mark!

We did it!

Sometime between the time I went to bed last night and woke up this morning, the blog had its 500,000 page view (I will admit to being a tad obsessive about checking these things.).

That’s half a million, people.

What’s been gratifying for me in recent weeks is how more and more people are coming to the site through different search terms.  The comments have been more frequent and deeper, too.

As always, please let me know how I can improve the community we have gathered, and thanks so much again for all of your support.

I look forward to your comments and suggestions.

Making a difference in life outcomes: the other Wes Moore.

The Other Wes Moore tells the story of two men with the same name whose lives turn out very differently.

I’m writing and thinking this year about people who have made a difference through their life’s work.

I haven’t thought as much, though, about the forces that shape the adults that youth become.

Rhodes Scholar and former White House Fellow Wes Moore has.

His reflections on the influences that led to his life turning out so successfully while a young man of the same age and with an identical name ended up in prison for life without a chance of parole form the basis for The Other Wes Moore.

Tom Connellan’s One Percent Solution.

Tom Conellan preaches the power of steady incremental change in The 1% Solution.

I read an intriguing proposition last night.

It turns out that the appropriate level of improvement one should strive is not 100 percent.

It’s one percent.

That’s the message of Tom Connellan’s The 1%  Solution, a breezy, entertaining and quick book that is told in the form of a story.

Like Eliyahu Goldratt’s The Goal, this much slimmer business novel uses a talented male slump who, like Dante, is alone midway through his life’s journey in a dark wood.

Raymond Carver makes a difference through his stories and poetry.

Raymond Carver shortly before his death in 1988.

SECOND UPDATE:

My brother Mike had this to say:

There was an interesting new yorker article about carver a few years ago which focused on his relationship with his editor (whose name escapes me). Apparently Carver’s sparse style was largely a result of his editor’s cutting and hacking to get to the essence of his stories – Carver’s initial drafts were much more descriptive than spare. Carver was also somewhat emotionally dependent on his editor. The article included some correspondence between the two of them and some pages that had been marked up in pen by the editor as well as a one of the storied (from Cathedral I believe) in its original form. I know Tess Gallagher controlled his estate and papers so I think she was somehow invovled in the article if not the author, as I believe she wanted to get his original style out for people to see. Anyway, it’s somewhat interesting if you’re a fan of his.UPDATE: Friend and stalwart journalist Dan Weissmann offered the following comment:

Hey Jeff– His earlier stories are worth checking out too, although they are, as you might expect, more unremittingly dark. Some heartbreaking– and often bleakly funny– stuff, and the storytelling itself is remarkable. (the sentences! the paragraphs! the understatement! etc.)

“Where I’m Calling From” is a retrospective of his career as a short-story writer, which I think he had a hand in editing not long before his death. A bunch of the stories from “Cathedral” show up there too, but it’s probably the best one-stop-shopping expedition, if you’re curious.

ORIGINAL POST:

My days start early and end late.

At the end, I’m usually reading.

I’ve got a bunch of books next to our bed and have been making my way through them slowly.

Raymond Carver’s short story collection Cathedral is one I’ve been reading a few pages at a time before sleep overcomes me.

Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King on civil disobedience and the rule of law.

Dr. King and Thurgood Marshall shared a fraternity, but differed on tactics to bring about social change.

Thurgood Marshall and Dr. King were unquestionably two titans of the modern civil rights movement, yet they had profound differences in their views of civil disobedience and the role of law.

For more than two decades before King emerged as the leader of the Montgomery bus boycott, Marshall risked his life and gradually chipped away at the “separate but equal” doctrine articulated in the notorious 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case and quickly codified from practice into law in large parts of the country.

Anne Firth Murray’s Paradigm Found

Anne Firth Murray's Paradigm Found contains plenty of useful information for non-profit leaders.

I’m heavily involved in the Dart Society, the journalism organization I was recently selected to lead.

Not having expected to become president this year, I’ve been trying in the past 10 days to learn more about non-profit management, leadership and growth.

Anne Firth Murray’s Paradigm Found contains a lot of useful nuggets and, as the title suggests, an approach toward these topics that I found insightful.

A native Kiwi, Firth Murray started The Global Fund for Women after having worked for nearly a decade at the Bill and Flora Hewlett Foundation.  She draws on those experiences, as well as the words of luminaries ranging from E.M. Forster to Gandhi to Helen Keller to E.B. White, to illustrate the points she makes.

On difference maker Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. King would have been 82 years old today.

Martin Luther King, Jr., by general consensus one of the greatest civil and human rights activists in American history, would have been 82 years old today.

King has been an enduring presence since I was in second or third grade and first heard his legendary “I have a dream” speech. As a senior at Stanford, I did my honors thesis on Dr. King in which I argued that his childhood experience formed the basis for his later non-violent philosophy and attitudes toward women.

While doing the research for that project, I had access to thousands of primary source documents that my adviser Clay Carson and his staff at the King Papers Project, now the King Institute, subsequently published in a series of volumes that continues until today.