The Good and Bad in the World

There are definitely many perks to sucking at the teat of academia. Between the hours spent at the computer, listening to the cellulite congeal on my thighs, I get to meet interesting people and hear some of the World's leaders and leading experts talk about how they're trying to make this planet a little bit better.

Yesterday, in preparation for an event with a high-ranking Turkish official, I had the privilege of leading a combined American/Turkish security delegation through part of the campus. It was nothing short of hilarious. Imagine two big American State Department guys, a Boston-born ex-cop and a Virginian ex-military, as well as two tall Turkish security officials, one young, smiley, tall and lanky with longish hair, the other with a square face, was mostly silent and smoked a cigarette at the first opportunity. In the same two minute-span on our walk back from the school, the American guys made fun of me for being an environmentalist and the one English-speaking Turkish guy complimented me on my shoes. It's nice to know that someone in the world thinks my beat up Target flats are "fresh."

Friday, I sat in on two events with Jordanian businessman, all-around superstar and founder of ARAMEX Fadi Ghandour. ARAMEX is essentially the FedEx of the Middle East. People like to think that you can't easily do good business in the region, let alone start and new company, but Fadi has proven this assumption wrong several times over. He was also instrumental in founding one of the first successful Arab social networking websites, which spawned a flurry of web-based start ups in the Middle East after it was bought by Yahoo in one of the largest acquisitions of a knowledge-based company outside of the U.S. AND, he's into social entrepreneurship. More specifically, he sees entrepreneurship as a way to solve social problems that governments are failing to address, much like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood have done. Hamas initially won votes in Gaza because it provided essential services that no other entity would. If businesses can tackle the needs of their communities in the absence of government support, gangs and terrorist organizations won't have to. Now that's good stuff.

Earlier last week, we hosted two events to highlight both sides of the current peace talks between Israel and Palestine. Both speakers said nothing is going to happen- surprise, surprise. However, good points were made at both events and I will report on them when I have my notes in front of me.

As one might imagine, given that the events were in Cambridge, Mass, there were only protesters at the Israeli speaker's talk. This guy scared the crap out of me when he pulled a Palestinan flag out of his pants. I thought it was a gun at first. Despite my personal feelings on the conflict, I found his disruption of the event really off-putting and unprofessional, especially since he held the flag backwards for much of the event.

There are more strategic ways to make a point.

This weekend, Wyatt and I went to Berklee's Beantown Jazz Fest on Columbus Avenue. Highlights included lots of free stuff, tasty ethnic food, and two great bands from New Orleans: Jon Batiste Band and the Wild Magnolias. The latter came with Mardi Gras Indians in tow.

Tonight, Noam Chomsky was on "On Point" on WBUR addressing my recent fears that the Tea Party will take advantage of less-than-straight-thinking Americans in this fragile economic time and smother our country just as Hitler did in Germany. Chomsky doesn't think things will happen just like that but he did say the comparison was worth considering. Eek. The show was also good fodder for my campaign to get "On Point" a better interviewer than Tom Ashbrook. I swear that guy is the most socially awkward host on the radio. He kept trying to talk over poor 81-year old Noam and he just comes across as a big tool. Sorry Tom. I love your show but show a little more tact