Coro Blog

Upcoming Events in SF & D.C.!

New Politics Institute is hosting a California Network Event:

Thursday, March 2nd at 6:30 pm (TOMORROW!)
Ground Floor Palm Room 39 Mesa Street
San Francisco, CA 94129
The San Francisco Film Centre in the Presidio
Google Map

Some more info:

You’re invited to join a group of technology and media professionals who are interested in applying their knowledge and talents to help progressives take advantage of the transformation in media to leapfrog the conservatives and shift the balance of political power in this country.

The New Politics Institute (NPI), a new kind of networked think tank for politics, is holding a gathering in Los Angeles on Feb. 28th and in San Francisco on March 2nd to lay out the beginnings of a new progressive media strategy that will be based on connecting up a strategic network of professionals who can use their private sector experience to directly impact politics.  NPI is an affiliate of NDN (formerly the New Democrat Network - www.ndn.org).

George Washington University's Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet is hosting:

March 7th & 8th
2006 Politics Online Conference
Washington, DC

Some more info:

Are you a Political Tech-Fluential? A community activist, issue advocate or political professional who uses technology to stay on the cutting edge?

If the answer is yes, you're invited to the 2006 Politics Online Conference on March 7th and 8th in Washington, DC, sponsored by GW's Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet.

Our 2006 agenda offers a professional feast - a two day show-and-tell, see-and-be-seen, find-out-what's-on-the-horizon smorgasbord of high-profile speakers, expert advice, vendor displays, scholarly research, and invaluable networking.

New Corospondent Out!

I apologize for not keeping this blog updated. It's been three months since anyone posted anything! Sorry!!

I've been swamped with the launch of my company's new online service, an online community building and publishing platform, which hopefully Coro will be able to utilize. It will also be free to any nonprofit organization.

Anyway, Sandra Tasic (FP StL 02) has lit a fire under my belly by publishing the new Corospondent - Winter 2006. You can download it by clicking here. She did an excellent job in writing it up and putting it together, so check it out!

Coro on Linkedin

For Coro alumni, there is another way for you to connect with your fellow alums. Coro now has a group on Linkedin, the leading online professional networking tool. Visit the Linkedin Group Directory here to learn more about it and to see how other alumni groups and organizations are using Linkedin to create an active networking community.

You can sign up here, but you need to be on a pre-approved list so email me with your name, program and year, and the email you want to be associated with on Linkedin. Afterwards, you can easily sign up and go.

Below is the official invite letter from Linkedin:

Dear Coro Alum,

As an Coro Alumni Group member, we'd like to invite you to make use of a valuable new tool available to Coro Alumni Group members only: the Coro Alumni Group on LinkedIn.  Through the members-only Coro Alumni Group you can:

- Leverage the power of the Coro Alumni Group network to find and reach the new business contacts you need;
- Accelerate your career through referrals from Coro Alumni Group members;
- Know more than a name - view rich professional profiles from fellow Coro Alumni Group members;
- Let other Coro Alumni Group members know what you have to offer to them and their contacts;
- Limit your network searches to other Coro Alumni Group members only, if you wish to do so.

LinkedIn is the leading professional network tool online, used by over 3.4 million professionals worldwide.

Access to special Coro Alumni Group features on LinkedIn is free, and is available to Coro Alumni Group members only.

Whether you use LinkedIn already or you're new to LinkedIn, please join the members-only Coro Alumni Group here:

https://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/1542/18546E3A7744/

Thanks for being a member of Coro Alumni Group!

Fantastic frontline piece on abortion

Last night I saw an excellent frontline episode called "The Last clinic".  The argument is essentionally that pro-choice forces have been losing the fight ever since Casey v. Planned Parenthood in the early 1990s.  The issue isn't necessarily whether or not Roe v. Wade will be overturned but who will have access to abortions and who won't.  Essentially, Casey left it up to the states to regulate abortion as long as none of the regulations posed an "undue burden" on women.  The thing is, certain states have been making it more and more difficult for women to get access to abortions (parental consent laws, spouse notification requirements, waiting periods, etc.) and the courts haven't been overturning the regulations.  For ex, in Mississippi, there is only one clinic left in the state (hence, the name of the episode) and the state legislature has just passed another regulation requiring the clinic to have essentially all of the hospital equipment necessary to deal with any type of emergency that might arise from an abortion procedure (they already have a transfer agreement with a neighboring hospital, so this is unnecessary).  Women are already driving over 200 miles, out-of-state to go to clinics and you can imagine that poor women who don't have cars can't get to these clinics.

What all of this means is that we're heading toward an era where women in pro-choice states have access to abortions and those living in states dominated by pro-life forces will not.  I am personally pro-choice but believe there is room for compromise on some issues (chiefly regarding 2nd & 3rd trimester abortions--many western democracies outlaw them and i have to admit they make me feel pretty queasy).  BUT there is no question in my mind that women should have easy access to abortion in the first trimester.  Banning morning-after pills, parental notification laws, waiting periods, they all pose an "undue burden" as far as I'm concerned.  This country is heading in the totally wrong direction when it comes to abortion and I fear things won't get better with this new court no matter how much alito and roberts claim that roe is a longstanding precedent and they wouldn't tamper with it.

In any case, anyone out there interested in the issue should get hold of the frontline segment.  It's a major wake-up call.

Jimmy Massey... Anti-War Fraud, Bottom-Feeder, Loser

This is a definite must-read article. Between Joe Wilson and Jimmy Massey, it's clear to me that Massey is lower on the scum scale. This man goes around and lies about his experiences as a soldier in Iraq. How he and others went around and killed innocent Iraqi civilians. His book is called "Kill, Kill, Kill."

Jim Massey is seriously stupid. Did he think that he could go around and spread his lies without anyone checking on his statements? That no one like Ron Harris, a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, would also be present during his tour of duty? Unbelievably idiotic and desparate. What desparate souls our media driven society can create. What a sad life.

Michelle Malkin has some great commentary and a summary of links here. Also she has posted the transcript from CNN's interview with Ron Harris:

Former Marine Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey has published a book in France called, "Kill Kill Kill." It accuses U.S. soldiers of atrocities in Iraq, including the killing of civilian men, women, and children.

Our next guest says Massey is lying and he can prove it. Joining us now is "St. Louis Post" dispatch writer Ron Harris. He was embedded with Jimmy Massey's unit in Iraq. Welcome, Ron.

RON HARRIS, "ST. LOUIS POST": Thank you. COSTELLO: You know, if this guy is lying, that's just vile. Because he's saying some vile things about our men and women over in Iraq.

HARRIS: Yes, that's very true. I mean, he is claiming that marines intentionally killed civilians, that he intentionally killed civilians. And at times, he claims that they intentionally killed civilians based on orders from the superiors. And the fact is, it just isn't true.

[CAROL] COSTELLO: OK, let's get to specifics now. He claimed, as you said, that Marines fired on and killed peaceful Iraqi protesters and were sometimes ordered by higher-ups to do that. How can you disprove that?

HARRIS: Well, two or three things. Number one, I was there in Iraq when -- I was in Baghdad when we initially pulled in. I was with Massey's unit. I was embedded with the unit, as were three other -- four other journalists, actually. And we went to that prison and I was there the next morning.

And not only did I not see any protesters, nobody saw any protesters. And not for weeks. Because during that time, it was a very, very dangerous period. It was basically four kinds of Iraqis. There were Iraqis who were happy to see the marines. There were Iraqis who were shooting at the marines and me, too, and the other journalists. There were Iraqis who were looting and that was probably what we saw most of. And there were finally Iraqis staying at home because they were afraid.

COSTELLO: Yes, but Ron, if there was completely untrue, I mean, this guy has made it into pretty big publications like "Vanity Fair." He's written a book that's bee published in France.

HARRIS: Oh, it's been published everywhere. Nobody -- in not one publication or not one broadcast, is there any corroboration. It's just Jimmy Massey's story. Nobody ever called a journalists who were covering him. Nobody ever interviewed the marines, which I did all of. Nobody ever checked his story. They don't even have another source that says on background or another source who didn't want to be quoted. It's just Jimmy Massey's story.

COSTELLO: Well, let's face it -- let's say these stories were true. Would the marines -- wouldn't be forthcoming about that. Oh, yes, we killed innocent Iraqi people. They're not going to admit that.

HARRIS: No, no, no. That's not true. In fact, the marines, we were there embedded with the marines. And the marines did shoot innocent civilians. And we covered that. In fact, covered that -- the photographer with me, Andrew Cartero (ph) shot pictures of innocent civilians who had been accidentally shot by the Marine Corps. We wrote stories and Andy took photographs of a British television crew that was shot and killed by the Marine Corps on the second day of the war.

COSTELLO: Well, Ron, let's go to some of those photos. We have one photo that this photographer took, and it shows two women who are bloody. You say this further disproves Jimmy Massey's story. In what way?

HARRIS: In that case, Jimmy Massey claimed that a 4-year-old girl was shot in the head. That was the particular shooting incident. In fact, there were civilian shot in that car by Marines. Nobody died.

Andrew Cartero, again, the photographer for "The Post Dispatch," took those photographs. And as you can see in those pictures, there are people there. Nobody died. I talked to the medic who treated them. And I traveled with him for more than a month, Petty Officer Justin Poviance (ph). He told me nobody died in that incident.

COSTELLO: Well, let's go to one other picture, and this is really gruesome. So I' going to warn people to turn away if you want to see it. But this a tractor trailer. Jimmy Massey says it was filled with women, children and men. What do you say?

HARRIS: We were there. Those are photographs by Andrew Katraro. I saw it. Michael Phillips from "Wall Street Journal" saw it. Robbie Nesbit (ph) from Associated Press saw it. Those were men on a military base who had been killed by U.S. artillery, but there were no women or children in those tractor trailers. Those tractor trailer were used as sort of a makeshift morgue. They were refrigerated trucks, and they had been killed by American bombing. Initially the military thought that they had been killed by Saddam Hussein. They thought maybe it was a war crime.

COSTELLO: OK, I have to ask you this before I have to let you go.

HARRIS: OK.

COSTELLO: Why would this staff sergeant, Jimmy Massey, lie about these things, and say such terrible things about his own comrades?

HARRIS: Well, one of the things that has happened -- number one, Jimmy Massey, I don't know why, but I can just speculate a couple of things. Number one, Jimmy Massey was honorably discharged for post- traumatic stress syndrome. The second thing, Jimmy Massey has profited off of this. He does have a book. He has a Web site in which he sells his story on a CD for a hundred dollars. I think it's called jimmymassey.com. So it's been profitable for Jimmy Massey to keep telling this lie.

COSTELLO: Ron Harris from the "St. Louis Post Dispatch," thank you for joining us this morning.

"Don't Feed North Korea's Dependency"

Great article by Stephen Linton. I'm not sure if I agree with his subtle point at the end about "Korea would be much less of a headache for everyone if North and South were more dependent on each other — even if it meant being less dependent on everybody else."

Too many variables to discuss here... or I'm too lazy right now. A brief point is that dependency can be good, but as this leads to reunification it really is important on how it occurs and who is influencing whom. In the wildest scenario, if reunification occurs and North Korea has more influence on South Korea (i.e. Communism spreads south) than it's a bad thing and I would not be support of such a process. Anyway, Linton is first a humanitarian rather than a policy-maker, so his interests are different than others. Here is his op-ed:

LONG KNOWN for surprises, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea — better known as North Korea — again shocked the international humanitarian aid community when it announced recently that it wouldn't accept any more emergency food aid.

This edict was accompanied by a request that the U.N. World Food Program, which has been shipping hundreds of thousands of tons of food to North Korea, shift to "development aid" and withdraw the food monitors charged with making sure food goes to those who really need it.

Actually, no one should have been surprised. After all, this is the 10th year since the international community responded to Pyongyang's call for help with one of the largest emergency aid programs in history. From the beginning, North Koreans made it clear that international aid was welcome, but only until they were able to do without it. Numbers have a particular significance in Korean culture, and anything that lasts over 10 years has the odor of permanency.

Apparently, North Korea has decided that it's time for a change. And I agree.

First, contrary to the claim that more than 6 million North Koreans might starve if international aid dries up, there is no food emergency in North Korea today. For two years after the 1995 floods that triggered the famine, countless displaced persons wandered the countryside in a desperate search for something to eat. Some went to China, precipitating the international community's belated interest in North Korean refugees. Most border traffic today is about trade, not hunger. (full article)

AOL Hires Mary Cheney

Bit of odd news. How does one go from being a community liaison for Coors to becoming a programming head for AOL?

Time Warner's America Online has hired Mary Cheney, the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, an AOL spokesman confirmed on Tuesday.

Mary Cheney will work closely with Ted Leonsis, vice chairman of America Online and head of the unit whose function it is to increase AOL's Internet audience via Web-based programming and products, AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham said.

While Graham said Mary Cheney will begin her new job "in the near future," he added that he could not say exactly when she would start, exactly what her title would be, or in which office she would be based. Leonsis works in the company's Dulles, Va., headquarters.

"We are very pleased to have her onboard as part of AOL," Graham said.

"Mary brings a huge amount of talent and skills and insight to America Online from years in public policy, public affairs and business," he said when asked why AOL hired her. "Mary has a strong knowledge of marketing and the online industry in general, as well as the marketplace."

Mary Cheney recently worked as an aide to her father. A high-profile lesbian, she previously served as gay community liaison for Coors Brewing, which had been criticized for making donations to critics of gay rights.  (full article)

President Bush nominates Ben S. Bernanke to succeed Greenspan

President Bush nominated Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, to succeed Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Bernanke's profile from The Washington Post:

Five years ago, Ben Bernanke posed the prescient question in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, "What Happens When Greenspan is Gone?"

President Bush answered on Monday: Replace Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan with Bernanke, a straight-talking Ivy League economist with a reputation for eschewing political ideology.

In the world of economic theory and policy, Bernanke, 51, has espoused targeting inflation, stressed the importance of communication and transparency by the Fed and argued that the final say on debts and deficits lies with the president and Congress.

Born in Georgia and raised in Dillon, S.C., Bernanke was an academic star. In sixth grade, he won the state spelling bee but missed higher acclaim when he faltered on the word "edelweiss," a flower. He got a score of 1,590 on his SAT out of a possible 1,600, taught himself calculus in high school and then focused on economic numbers at Harvard.

After graduating summa cum laude from the Ivy League university in 1975, Bernanke continued his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received his doctorate four years late. His focus during his years in Boston were the underpinnings of the Great Depression and the losing ways of the city's beloved baseball team, the Red Sox.

The former was his field of study; the latter an obsession he eventually shed. A Washingtonian of late, Bernanke recently switched his allegiance to the capital's baseball team, the Nationals.

He was an economics professor at Stanford and chaired the department at Princeton.

Sworn in as chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers in June, Bernanke had served on the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. (full article)

The New Progressive Coalition

Deborah Schneider from FP St. Louis '96 (one of the best classes in Coro history:) has just joined a pretty cool political organization, The New Progressive Coalition, as their Community Resources Director.  Here's an article from the San Jose MercuryNews:

When Deborah Rappaport woke up last November to news that George W. Bush had kept his job, despite the nearly $5 million she and her venture capitalist husband Andy had spent to help unseat him, the Woodside political activist didn't go into hibernation.

Instead, she hatched another million-dollar plan. Today Rappaport, 47, is launching the New Progressive Coalition, a fundraising initiative to support progressive political groups using venture capital methods. Donors are called ``investors.'' Political activists are running ``start-ups.'' The goal is to get the money to the brightest ideas. And, just like eBay and its well-honed feedback system, the members will rate ideas and organizations on the coalition's Web site. Top rating: five stars.

It's only natural. Her husband, Andy Rappaport, is a general partner at August Capital in Menlo Park. The Woodside mother of three has long been active in local philanthropic and educational activities. The couple gave $1 million to the San Jose Museum of Art in 2000, and Deborah now serves as president of the board. She also sits on the Portola Valley School District board.

As Democrats, the Rappaports have long supported the party's candidates, but now the couple believe what they've learned from business can help build a national network of support for progressive groups.

Say you have a few extra bucks lying around and want to support a progressive cause. Give her Redwood City-based NPC $100, go on the group's Web site, www.newprogressivecoalition.com, and start perusing who is looking for your money. You'll find a wide selection. (full article)

Our Deborah's plug:

The New Progressive Coalition is a new political venture whose purpose is to build a powerful network for long-term progressive change.

Most progressives agree that our greatest shortcoming is that we don't have a strong and cohesive network of organizations, activists and investors – a shortcoming that the right wing does not share.

In fact, the right wing has spent billions of dollars over decades to develop their think tanks, grassroots, media and advocacy groups… while progressives have simply ignored building the infrastructure of our own movement.

NPC's goal is to change that.

The idea behind NPC is this conviction: progressives have the talent, the will, the resources and the imagination to succeed.

And, in order to counter the right-wing’s ascendancy, we need to focus on wiring all of our talent and leadership together and building a progressive political machine for the long term.

Now that we’ve just launched our new beta website, NPC is up and running and ready to wire progressive politics by:

* Creating a marketplace of ideas, resources and services for political entrepreneurs and investors of all sizes

* Connecting political innovators (those who wish to start progressive organizations) with political investors (those who wish to provide financial support to progressive organizations)

* Hosting events and online forums to help the progressive community succeed by exchanging winning strategies that can be replicated across the country

There’s much more to come, too, but the simple concept behind the New Progressive Coalition is this: connect the most innovative ideas with the resources needed to turn them into political reality and create a powerful community of action.

So, if you’re concerned about the direction this country is heading in (who isn’t?) and interested in helping to counter the $300 million right wing machine, I invite you to check out NPC’s website and learn more about us.

Yahoo! The Next Gen Media Company? Time Warner of the 21st Century?

Anyway, today I'm checking my Yahoo! email account, which I probably check every other day, and I come across a promotion for "Kevin Site in the Hot Zone"... "One man. One year. A world of conflict." The email reads:

Join award-winning journalist Kevin Sites as he spends one year reporting directly from more than 20 of the world's armed conflicts, uncovering the stories you may not find anywhere else. Get the untold story now.

After reporting from Somalia, Kevin Sites is now en route to his next hot zone: Northern Uganda. For more than 20 years, it has been the scene of brutal conflict between the Ugandan government and a warlord's resistance army.

Follow Kevin Sites as he reports from these conflicts: (map of various locations)

I remember reading about Kevin Sites before and came across some criticism of his journalistic method and integrity. But this is not what came to mind. It is better that I checked out his blog/news site today rather than a few weeks back because of the recent news on Yahoo!'s activities.

Incorporating blogs into their news search, Yahoo! Podcasts (yikes! first wave gets "googled" and now some startups might get "yahooed"),  new search services, and now the promotion of a journalist's blog as another big step towards this new wave of user-generated content. Well, Kevin Sites's blog isn't a typical personal blog, so maybe call it a "small media" service? I don't know what I should call it, but I just found it very interesting that they are signing up and promoting a blogger. Who's next? Will this be a new trend that will spread to mainstream media outlets? Maybe things will never completely move towards a long-tail model of content distribution, but just a long tail of content creation that allows major media outlets more choice to pick the best of what's out there? Who knows. The space is too early to tell, but I definitely give props to Yahoo!.

[tags: yahoo, yahoo!, podcasts, longtail, media]

Harriet Miers The Wrong Pick?

 A fair about of disappointment from conservatives on Bush's pick for the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, and glee from liberals. Here are various posts on this subject. One to note is from Slate's Mickey Kaus on "The Schumacher Strategy":

"Disappointed, Depressed and Demoralized" by Bill Kristol

"Miers is the wrong pick" by George Will

"Stickler Shock" by Bruce Reed (Slate)

"Don't misunderestimate Miers" from The American Thinker's Thomas Lifson

"Intellectual decay" from The American Thinker

Personally, as a Republican, I am disappointed in this pick by President Bush and whoever else on his staff that pushed for Miers. It was an easy pick probably to ensure a conservative, pro-life justice for years to come, but life isn't about the easy choices nor was this a politically wise choice. This was a decision with far greater importance. This was to decide on who would be a guardian and interpreter of our great constitution, and I believe an essential qualification is to have a proven legal mind that reflects this ability. The person doesn't have to be a judge, but at least someone with literature to support their capabilities. George Will and J. Peter Mulhern's state this well:

Furthermore, there is no reason to believe that Miers' nomination resulted from the president's careful consultation with people capable of such judgments. If 100 such people had been asked to list 100 individuals who have given evidence of the reflectiveness and excellence requisite in a justice, Miers' name probably would not have appeared in any of the 10,000 places on those lists. (full post)

The nominee we need wouldn’t necessarily have a degree from the Harvard Law School. In fact, one of the strongest arguments in favor of the President’s second Supreme Court nominee is that she has never been polluted by that institution or any other elite cesspool. Conservatives have long and bitter experience with the effect of Ivy League intellectual pretensions on jurists with second and third rate minds (Justices Kennedy and Souter leap to mind.) The problem isn’t that Harriet Miers, like Justice Jackson before her, lacks a prestigious educational background. The problem is that nothing in her life story even hints that she might have the right stuff to be an important intellectual leader.

Graduating from law school, working as a commercial litigator in a large firm, rising to become the managing partner of that firm, dabbling in local and ABA politics, and signing on with a rising politician to do spade work, are all pretty pedestrian achievements. Those of us who have been around the law a bit know any number of people with similar background and know that many of them shouldn’t be trusted to shine shoes. If Harriet Miers turns out to have the stuff of greatness it will be the biggest surprise since Ulysses S. Grant turned out to be the right general to win the Civil War, and Grant didn’t start at the top.

Conservatives feel betrayed and they should. They have been betrayed. We were promised that W would add some serious conservative firepower to the Supreme Court. He had the chance and he chose to reward a loyal friend instead. Time and some good results may take away most of the sting. But conservatives won’t soon forget that when crunch time came President Bush treated a Supreme Court appointment like a garden variety patronage job. (full post)

Arianna Learns to Love the Blog

Pretty good interview of Arianna Huffington, and she has some strong comments on traditional journalism versus citizen journalism:

Last May, when I first heard that Arianna Huffington planned to launch a blog and news site, I glibly predicted she would attract as much traffic as she did votes for California governor (she ended up dropping out of the 2003 recall election that Arnold Schwarzenegger went on to win).

Frankly, I didn't think a liberal version of the Drudge Report that would depend on the ruminations of blognorant celebrities like Laurie David (wife of Curb Your Enthusiasm's Larry David), octogenarian news anchor Walter Cronkite and actor John Cusack could be anything more than a virtual Hollywood cocktail party.

I wasn't the only one who thought this. Days after the launch of The Huffington Post, Nikki Finke in LA Weekly compared it to "the movie equivalent of Gigli, Ishtar and Heaven's Gate rolled into one. In magazine terms, it's the disastrous clone of Tina Brown's Talk, JFK Jr.'s George or Maer Roshan's Radar." Then Finke gets really mean.

But I was wrong. Not only has Huffington delivered on her promise to create an "innovative group blog," she has created a viable business. In its first month, The Huffington Post started out with more than 700,000 visitors, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. By inking deals with AOL, Tribune Media Services and Yahoo, site traffic has grown to almost 1.5 million readers a month -- a leap of more than 60 percent from the prior month -- who click through 10 million pages.
.....
WN: Some view blogs as being as powerful as the introduction of the printing press, ushering in a new age of citizen journalism. Others view blogging as a fad. What's your take on it?

Huffington: Simply put, blogs are the greatest breakthrough in popular journalism since Tom Paine broke onto the scene. I've been a fan -- and an advocate -- of the fast-moving blogstream ever since bloggers took the Trent Lott/Strom Thurmond story, ran with it and helped turn the smug Senate Majority Leader into the penitent former Senate Majority Leader.

When bloggers decide that something matters, they chomp down hard and refuse to let go. They're the true pit bulls of reporting. The only way to get them off a story is to cut off their heads (and even then you'll need to pry their jaws open). They almost all work alone, but, ironically, it's their collective effort that makes them so effective. They share their work freely, feed off one another's work, argue with each other, and add to the story dialectically. All of which has made the blogosphere the most vital news source in our country -- and led me to take a flying leap into it with The Huffington Post.  (full article)

Salman Rushdie chastises President Bush

HatTip to Slate. Slate's post on a recent Salman Rushdie interview in this month's Reason magazine:

Salman Rushdie takes President Bush to task about the war, but not because he's against it—Rushdie wishes the president would stop insisting the war against terror is not about Islam. Speculating that the motivation behind such proclamations are the specters of political correctness and cultural relativism, Rushdie believes, "You can respect those reasons, but there is a problem of truth." And the truth is that "there is an existing Islam which is not at all likeable." … Even as 500,000 children fester away in America's foster-care system, an article reveals that more states are adopting measures that would restrict adoption privileges by homosexuals, preferring that children languish in orphanages because, as Texas state Rep. Robert Talton says, "At least they have the chance of learning proper values." The article goes on to systematically debunk social conservatives' arguments against gay adoption.—Z.K.

NYC Exploring Leadership Presentations

From Coro New York Leadership Center:

Please join us for the Exploring Leadership end-of-the-summer presentations on Tuesday, August 23rd at 5:00 pm.  The presentation and ceremony will be held at the New York City Department of Education, located at the Tweed Courthouse Building on 52 Chambers Street, in the 2nd Floor Conference Room.  Contact Laura to RSVP at lshmishkiss@coro.org.

Coro’s new year-round Exploring Leadership program was launched on June 28, 2005.  Exploring Leadership engages 26 high school participants from four small NYC public high schools in examining education reform as a lens through which to understand the larger processes through which NYC addresses social problems. During the summer intensive phase, the students participate in internships related to education reform, interview key education leaders from the private, non-profit and corporate sectors, and participate in leadership development seminars. During the school year, the students will educate and organize their peers in their school communities to take action on key education policy issues.   

Exploring Leadership summer internship placements include: New York City Department of Education, New York State Department of Education, United Federation of Teachers, New York City Council, Advocates for Children, Alliance for Quality Education, NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, ASPIRA, Children’s Aid Society, National Center for Schools and Community, Literacy Assistance Center, NYC Immigration Coalition, and Achievement First.  The students have conducted interviews at the office of NY City Council Education Committee Chair Eva Moskowitz’s office; New Visions for Public Schools; New York Life Corporation; the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Robin Hood Foundation, Kaplan, Inc., and the Educational Priorities Panel.

For more information on Exploring Leadership, please click to view Exploring Leadership Program Information.

NYC Coro Alumni Events

HatTip to Corolation. For those of you in NYC, mark you calendars:

"Making the Case for the Arts," Wednesday September 21st, 6:30-8:30pm

"New York Cares Day," Saturday October 22nd

Network with old and new Coro friends at “Making the Case for the Arts,” the upcoming AlumNights event on Wednesday, September 21, from 6:30pm to 8:30pm.

New York City's arts and cultural organizations have played key roles in local empowerment zone and economic development projects, filled a void in public education, and are the top draw for the City's tourists, yet they face multiple challenges.  "Making the Case for the Arts" will examine how arts and cultural organizations—and the individual artists who are the heart of their work—have expanded their reach and impact to serve their audiences and reach those goals.

Invited panelists include The Hon. Kate D. Levin, Commissioner, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs; Ruby Lerner, CEO, Creative Capital; Rory MacPherson, Wallace Foundation; Lowery Stokes Sims, Executive Director, The Studio Museum in Harlem; and Steve Tennen, Executive Director, Arts Connection.  The cost is $10 at the door; location to be confirmed shortly.  Contact mchun@coro.org to RSVP.

AlumNights are fun and thoughtful events exclusively for Coro alumni, providing opportunities to explore the substantive issues of our day and to expand your alumni networks while catching up with old friends and classmates.

Also, mark your calendars for another Alumni event - New York Cares Day! On Saturday, October 22 we'll be joining forces with 8,000 volunteers from across the region to paint a brighter future for New York City students. Come on out for a day of good clean fun, painting, cleaning and revitalizing more than 100 public schools.  Friends and family (kids over 12) welcome!  More details will be sent out in September. Contact Mona Chun at mchun@coro.org for more information.

What Is Great Leadership?

Fast Company's Doug Sundheim has a post on "What is Great Leadership?" It sucks that you can't access the article in this month's Fast Company he links to without subscribing, which is an annoying move by them (most major magazines have the issue online for free for a limited time).

FC's current issue on Leadership got me thinking about the definition of the word. In my consulting and coaching I often ask my clients to define great leadership. The most common answer I get is a list of traits. It usually includes descriptions such as effective communicator, strategic thinker, visionary, smart, charismatic, and straightforward, among many others. I point out that while these lists are interesting and useful, they don't actually define great leadership. They merely define possible characteristics of great leaders. What they don't tell you is how effectively a leader is actually leading.

Something to consider:

Exhibiting leadership traits" doesn't make one a great leader. If you really want to know how well someone is leading, look at his/her followers. How are they behaving? What are they producing? How have they grown? While traits are good at predicting leadership success, only followers' actions can demonstrate it.

Something to try:

1. On a scale of 1-10, rate your leadership abilities based solely on your followers' actions.
2. Write down where on the scale you'd like to be.
3. If there's a gap, what can you be doing better?
4. If you're not sure, check in with some colleagues or staff members.
5. To be a great leader, stay focused on creating an environment in which others can excel.

Questions: How do you define great leadership?

Building the Perfect Team

I have to apologize to the Coro community since it's been a while since I or anyone else has posted here. I've been swamped with my new startup.  Anyway, I'm going to plug for my own article at AlwaysOn and my startup, GoingOn Networks, with a piece that is relevant to many people and not just those in the tech space:

Building the Perfect Team
One entrepreneur's recipe for assembling a startup team that sticks.

For the third time in my career, the excitement of building a company from the ground up is running through my veins. I love everything about this process—from writing the business plan to building the financial model, closing the initial round, developing and launching the product, and recruiting talent. I even enjoy talking about the process and advising other entrepreneurs. In such conversations, however, one topic invariably comes up: team building. As it happens, this topic has been much on my mind of late as I attempt to take my latest venture—the blogging and communications platform GoingOn Networks—to profitability. What better time, then, to present my own boilerplate for successful team building—one gleaned equally from experience and knowledge shared by entrepreneurs and mentors.

While there are countless articles and blog posts that purport to describe what venture capitalists are looking for in startups, none offers the one true formula for success. And as many people are quick to point out, there are plenty of venture capitalists out there who would have slammed the door on Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Bezos if they'd come knocking in their early days.

Not to worry: I'm not writing this to tell you how to position yourself for venture capitalists. For starters, not all startups need or take VC money. (For proof of this, just look at Sam Walton or Mark Cuban. Jason Calacanis has even posted a blog called "Real Entrepreneurs Don't Raise Venture Capital.") The bottom line is that no matter how good your team appears to investors, what really counts is how your team works together in the trenches. Poor team dynamics and failed chemistry can sink even the most promising companies—a fact many founders and investors discover too late.

Without further ado, then, my recipe for building a great team:

Partner with people you trust. My first piece of advice for any budding entrepreneur, and one I always overstate is, "Trust is essential." If you have any doubts about a potential partner, clear the air or steer clear completely. As John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers puts it, "You must ask, 'Are these the people I want to be in trouble with for the next 5, 10, 15 years of my life?' Because as you build a new business, one thing's for sure: You will  get into trouble." (full article)

The 100 Most Powerful Women

ENFrom Forbes:

Our second ranking of the World's Most Powerful Women illustrates how fleeting power is. Megawati Sukarnoputri, the former president of Indonesia who lost her reelection bid, dropped off the rankings. Gone, too, is Carleton (Carly) Fiorina, booted from Hewlett-Packard. The scandal-plagued president of the Philippines, Gloria Arroyo (No. 4), could soon be off as well. Among the newcomers: Yulia Tymoshenko (No. 3), prime minister of Ukraine. (full article)

Coro Welcomes Sue Fisher as new Executive Director for St. Louis Center

From Coro Leadership Center - St. Louis:

Sue G. Fisher, currently the executive director of Nonprofit Services Consortium, will succeed Andy Thorp as executive director of Coro Leadership Center - St. Louis.

Sue brings a wealth of experience in and knowledge about the non-profit sector and management. Prior to joining the Nonprofit Services Consortium, she was executive director of Progressive Youth Center and before that, executive director of The Prevention Partnership. Earlier in her career, Sue was director of prevention services for Progressive Youth Center and director of social health with Life Crisis Services. She has been an adjunct faculty member at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and spent three years as a full time faculty member in the UMSL Department of Health and Physical Education. Sue has served as a judge for the Coro Fellows Selection Day and as an interview guest for Women in Leadership.

Sue currently is pursuing post-graduate studies in Public Policy Analysis at Saint Louis University, working toward a doctorate degree with emphasis in organizational theory and development. She holds a Master of Arts degree in health and physical education with an emphasis in administration from Truman State University and a Bachelor of Science in Education from Drake University.

Sue has tremendous energy and enthusiasm for Coro. Her duties begin Tuesday, September 6, 2005.

AO Innovation Summit 2005

Awesome conference this year by AlwaysOn with some politics mixed in. You can view free webcasts on the site.  Here are a couple of interest (click on title to launch webcast):

Featured Keynote
Sandy Berger, Chairman, Stonebridge International, Former White House National Security Advisor
Jerry Brown, Mayor of Oakland California, former Governor of California
Michael Medved, Radio Talk Show Host, Michael Medved Show
Moderator: Tony Perkins, Founder and Editor in Chief, AlwaysOn

Are You Ready for the Chinese Revolt?
Sandy Berger, Former White House National Security Advisor, Stonebridge International
Dan Burstein, Managing Partner, Millennium Technology Ventures, L.P.
Elizabeth Economy, Director, Asia Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
Cyrill Eltschinger, CEO, I.T. UNITED (China)
Dr. Jichang Guang, Director of Outsourcing Center, Tsinghua Science Park
Joe Schoendorf, Partner, Accel Partners
Moderator: David Scott Lewis, CEO, IT E-Strategies

Why Corporate Executives Should Blog

Great article by General Motors' Viceman, Bob Lutz.

To blog or not to blog? For a lot of senior executives these days, that is the question. The answer, simply enough, is to blog. No better opportunity exists to engage in an open dialogue and exchange of ideas with customers and potential customers.

Since January, I've been participating, along with other members of General Motors' senior management, in the GM Fastlane blog (fastlane.gmblogs.com). We've found the blog to be a hugely effective communications tool and a terrific way to conduct a grassroots, largely unfiltered conversation with GM fans and nonfans alike.

The key is to leave the corporate-speak behind and keep the tone conversational, open, and honest. Anyone who has read our blog sees the real deal, as produced by us and not polished by several layers of trained communications pros.

Another aspect that helps keep things real is the wealth of comments posted by readers and other bloggers. We don't filter out negative comments, complaints, or hate mail. All we do is screen for spam and posts from crackpots using language that most people would find offensive.

It's important that we run the bad with the good. We'd take a credibility hit if we posted only rosy compliments, and credibility is the most important attribute a corporate blog can have. Once it's gone, your blog is meaningless.

If you filter the negatives out, you don't have a true dialogue, so how can you hope to change anybody's mind about your products or your business? And changing minds is priority one at GM. The blog is a great opportunity to tell the public directly about the cars and trucks we have on the market and the ones we're bringing to market soon. It's one of the few chances we have to get the word out without running it through the media filter. Advertising is another avenue, of course, but it has much lower credibility than the blog, where we're engaging in a real conversation with readers. We've also used the blog to address specific media articles that we considered unfair, unbalanced, or uninformed.

To me, the blog is a way for GM to be culturally relevant. It allows us to be on the leading edge of new technology while getting our strong views out there about our cars and trucks. So far, response has been outstanding, with more than 5,000 visits and 13,000 page views a day.

To any senior executive on the fence about starting a corporate blog, I have a word of advice: Jump. (article link)

"Republicans not buying Rove spin"

From the Daily Kos:

I know that this has already been blogged, but I want to focus on two key points on that Rove-themed ABC News poll.

First of all:

Should Karl Rove Be Fired If He Leaked Classified Information?
                Yes     No
All            75%     15%
Republicans    71      17
Independents   74      17
Democrats      83      12

(more here)

Becker and Posner Chime in on Live 8 and Aid to Africa

Great post and comments over at The Becker-Posner Blog:

Aid to Africa: Will it Help?
Accompanied by rock concerts in different countries and a push from activist rock stars like Bono and Bob Geldof, the world's richest democracies, called the G8 nations, met this past week in Gleneagles Scotland to decide how to help African nations. The publicity surrounding their meeting was reduced by the terrorist attacks in London, but they still managed to get considerable newspaper coverage. They committed to $25 billion in extra annual aid to Africa by the year 2010, sizeable debt relief for Africa, trade talks to eliminate agricultural support in the rich nations, and a promise to make low cost AIDS treatment widely available in Africa.

The G8 nations are rich enough to easily afford the increased aid committed to Africa. Perhaps for this reason, some of the activists denounced the aid as too small and miserly. But that these countries can certainly "afford" to spend more does not mean that much greater aid will help the millions of poor Africans. Indeed, it is doubtful whether more aid will speed up economic growth, given both Africa's experience with aid during the past half century, and the evidence from other poor nations that internal reforms that produce sizeable and persistent growth are the only really effective way to reduce a nation's poverty. (Becker's full post)

Foreign Aid to Sub-Saharan Africa
I do not favor foreign aid, debt relief (which is simply another form of such aid), or other financial transfers to poor countries, in Africa or anywhere else. Countries that are not corrupt do not require foreign aid, and foreign aid to corrupt countries entrenches corruption by increasing the gains to corruption. Foreign aid to Zimbabwe, for example, will simply prop up dictator Mugabe.

Foreign aid makes people in wealthy countries feel generous, but retards reform in those countries as well as in the donee countries. Obviously from a world welfare as well as African welfare standpoint Europe and the United States should not impose tariffs on agricultural imports in order to protect their rich farmers. Eliminating tariffs would do more for Africa than giving them an extra $25 billion a year to squander. (It would also increase the wealth of the countries that eliminated their tariffs.) Since there are 650 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa, the extra $25 billion will increase per capita annual income (assuming it isn't squirreled away by corrupt elites) by only $40. Not that such an increase is wholly trivial in relative terms—Nigeria, for example, has an annual per capita income of only about $300, and it is not the poorest country in Africa. But it is unlikely that the poorest people in these countries will benefit from the extra money; even if most of it isn't skimmed off by corrupt officials or squandered on dumb projects, it is likely to stave off fundamental political and economic reforms. (The G8 nations at Gleneagles also agreed to forgive some $50 in African debts to them, but that is a one-time event and its annualized value is therefore much less than $25 billion a year.) (Posner's full post)

Time's 50 Coolest Website 2005

TIME announces their "50 Coolest Websites" for 2005. There are some cool sites I didn't know about. Public Agenda is one of them. It's a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization and was founded by social scientist and author Daniel Yankelovich and former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance in 1975. Another is Clusty, a clustering search engine that groups your search results, is another. Check out the rest.

Live 8

Sorry about the long gap in posts.  I assume you've read or heard about the Live 8 benefit concerts. Last one was today in Edinburgh. Check out the Technorati Live 8 site to read up on the latest news and activities around the globe online and off.

"Reading Blogs In Tehran"

With a population that is 70 percent under age 25 (and a voting age of 15), Iran’s younger voters will play a big role in elections there on Friday. Many of them are turning to blogs to avoid the mullahs’ stifling grip on public discourse. (Listen to the whole radio show)

"The time I flew on the Enron corporate jet to meet Jeff Skilling"

Great story on Enron from Ken Norton:

On Friday, Suzanne and I went to see Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, a documentary based on the book of the same name.  The movie is chock-full of interviews and previously unseen company footage that sheds a new light on the scandal.  Before I saw the movie, I thought Enron was basically a solid company done in by executive greed.  Now I realize it was a scam from the beginning.  I believed the hype: I lost good money on Enron's stock.  I guess I also lost money to PG&E during the Enron-enhanced power crisis in California, so they got me twice.  Watching the movie brought back my own Enron memories.  In 1999 I flew on the Enron corporate jet and met Jeff Skilling.  This is the story. (full post)

"Should You Really Be A Lawyer?" blog

Some of you know that Coro alum, Deborah Schneider (FPStL96), wrote a career guide book:

SHOULD YOU REALLY BE A LAWYER?
The Guide to Smart Career Choices Before, During and After Law School
http://www.shouldyoureally.com/

Now her book's blog is out, so if you're thinking about the legal field check it out!

http://shouldyoureally.blogs.com/

"It's a place for prospective lawyers, law students and lawyers (and their  loved ones) to come for questions and answers about all things related to  law school, job and career decisions."

"Staring Down the Digital Divide"

Just sharing my recent piece at AlwaysOn on the digital divide issue since part of the article was about my group project during my time as a Coro Fellow:

Staring Down the Digital Divide
Bloggers are the haves in the new  new economy, but there are plenty of have-nots as well—and none of us can afford to forget them.

Public Diplomacy and Virtual Worlds

HatTip
to Habitat Chronicles. Interesting project at the USC Center for Public Democracy:

The Public Diplomacy and Virtual Worlds project is a research project examining one aspect of new technology and public diplomacy: the role of video games, specifically Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), in public diplomacy.

The study explores the role of MMOGs in the following ways:

- For U.S. games, as extensions of the U.S. brand and their role in shaping how the world sees the U.S. (for non-U.S. games their role as extensions of identity, image and brand of their respective country);
- As online venues (or virtual worlds) in which people from different cultures come together and shape or form ideas about each other and their respective cultures;
- The unique role that 'localization' plays in public diplomacy (How does framing a game for a community outside the game's country of origin play a role in its impact?);
- Game Design: As public policy play tools that can be used to educate (not train) people about how different cultures work and/or function (e.g. Roleplay Kofi Annan or the President of Russia, etc.). (full post)