Red Cross Society of China

Red Cross Hong Kong

Mercy Corps – Project GLOW

Charity in China

MADRE (women’s rights organization)

Foundation for the People of Burma

Relief International

U.S. Campaign for Burma

Burmese American Democratic Alliance

If you would like to suggest another organization, please do so in the Comments field below.

Also, next Tuesday Dr. Sein Win, Prime Minister of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma will be speaking at the World Affairs Council in San Francisco:

Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Registration: 11:30 a.m.
Program: 12:00 p.m.

“Responsibility to Protect the People of Burma: Time for International Humanitarian Intervention

A nation ruled by a military junta which suppresses almost all dissent andwields absolute power, world leaders are struggling with Burma’s slowresponse and gaining access to the country’s cyclone-stricken region. As thesituation has led some European nations to call for a U.N. resolution tocompel Burmese generals to accept outside aid, Dr. Sein Win joins theCouncil to discuss the United Nations’ principle of “responsibility toprotect” and the situation in Burma. Dr. Win, a first cousin of Aung San SuuKyi, serves as Chairman of the Party for National Democracy and PrimeMinister of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma -outlawed by the military junta and a government-in-exile since 1990.

World Affairs Council Auditorium
312 Sutter Street, 2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94108

Members – FREE, Non-members – $15, Students – $5

To register for the program or for more information, visit theWorld Affairs Council website at www.itsyourworld.org or call 415.293.4600.

Apparently several “capital projects” suggested by our students were overruled as “administratively unfeasible.” I can understand this response to the idea of terracing the courtyard into a mini-amphitheater (one of my suggestions) but there are other good ideas that have been nixed in favor of 4 different scholarship options.

Don’t get me wrong – I would have given my left arm for a scholarship (heck, even $10 – boo on Mike Trevino and his broken promises) to attend GSPP. And I am way more in favor of investing in human capital (especially if that human capital is trained at GSPP) over a few leather couches or some compact flourescent light bulbs. However, suppose everybody donated $100 (above and beyond the $69 spent on cap and gown rental). That would net us $6,500 which – matched by Bardach, Brady, or Kirp – would mean a $13,000 gift. Having recently reviewed my student loan statements, it doesn’t seem that $13K is going to go that far, even if it were invested at a very agreeable rate for several years.

Now, if we all donated $500, that would be a different story ($65,000).

Bottom line – I’m bummed that my idea to install a slide off the living room loft didn’t make the cut.

Whether the Goldman Bandit lives among us remains a mystery. However, the strategy for dealing with a school lunch thief is not:

Lock the fridge; file a police report; store your lunch in your own locker, laced with laxatives; stock your locker with PowerBars; and then go and fight terrorism while feeding your good karma with exquisite snails.

I propose we take this conversation straight to nerdville. With the problem so clearly defined and a list of alternatives that grows daily, I’m calling on one of you to propose some criteria, confront the tradeoffs and then Decide!

There. TELL YOUR STORY! But preferably by clicking the Comments link below and not by replying to everybody on the nonbusiness listserv.

A young man and a young women marry. Very early in their marriage, the man notices his new wife cuts the ends off of her baguette when she warms it in the oven. “Why do you do that?” he asks. “I don’t know, but I think it makes the bread warm more evenly,” she replies. Unconvinced, he asks her where she learned to do it. “My mom always used to do it.” The husband calls the mother and asks her why she cut the ends of her bread off when she warmed it. “I don’t know, that’s what my mom did.” Curious, the young quidnunc calls his wife’s grandmother. “My wife says that you taught her to cut the ends off her bread when she warms it in the oven.” The grandmother chuckles: “oh yes, when I was young, bread was all we could afford. But our oven was very small, so we had to cut the ends off so it would fit inside.”

The point of this story is not that the young bride was wrong about how to heat bread. A ritual that had started for one purpose had “ossified” and become part of this woman’s culture, even when the reason for its performance didn’t exist anymore.

In three weeks, (hopefully all) 2nd year students at GSPP will meet on the UCB Chancellor’s esplanade to celebrate a great (and common) achievement. Most of us will probably don the cap and gown, not because we need added warmth in a damp 12th century abbey, or because flashy dress is considered unbecoming, or even because our master teachers need the colored hood to tell us apart from other graduate students.

Most of us will wear the cap and gown because we consider it a symbol of scholastic achievement. Should a picture of us in this strange regalia be seen by visitors in our home, it will be immediately obvious that we’ve accomplished something. And because, well, that’s just what you do at graduation.

There will be a few that choose not to wear the robe. Maybe they understand how this ritual has been ossified and, seeing that their oven is plenty large, choose not to continue the tradition. Maybe they’re trying to make a statement that they are counter-culture. Or maybe they just want to save $70.

In the end regardless of what we’re wearing, we’re all graduating. We did it. More importantly, we did it together.

I have enjoyed my two years in Berkeley. My wife and I had a baby without incident (nobody yelling at us that we’re overpopulating the world). I sometimes ask that my groceries get bagged in plastic and nobody seems to care. I even wear a red tie to church (that’s right, there are churches in Berkeley). Each time that I talk to my family and friends, I’m happy to report that Berkeley is a nice place to be. And I’m always quick to point out that the stereotypes they refuse to bury are almost FORTY FIVE years old.

Don’t get me wrong. There are people living in trees here, and ladies in pink are singing Peter, Paul and Mary through bullhorns on Shattuck. But the environment here seems different than what I suspect it was forty years ago. And for the most part I like it. (Of course, I wasn’t alive forty-five years ago, so what do I know?)

The community at GSPP is, in my opinion, amazing. As I’ve noted before our classes are full of extremely talented and well-accomplished people, yet often we don’t even know it. Few people put on airs, even fewer publicly remind us how great they are. I love that about GSPP.

This week one of our classmates suggested that GSPP isn’t quite Mayfield and that we’re not the cast from Leave it to Beaver (although Jack Glaser is a perfect Ward Cleaver). She suggests that maybe we’re not as appreciative of diversity and tolerance as we think we are, that our community is based on superficial, patronizing relationships, and that we are unable to tolerate things that are “just annoying or irritating.”

What do you think? Is Bezerkeley (the city or the University) more liberal than you thought? Do you find your classmates thoughtful or kneejerk liberals? Or liberals at all? Would you say that GSPP students are more/less “tolerant” of views they don’t share than others you’ve encountered?