60 Minutes, Greg Mortenson, Nicholas Kristof and my friend Martina Radwan

While I watched the 60 Minute piece on Greg Mortensen, his book “Three Cups of Tea” and his Central Asia Institute, an organization that builds schools in Afghanistan, I had a very uneasy feeling. I’m a big fan of 60 Minutes, but as little as I know about Greg Mortensen the piece seemed to be a fishing expedition – with smelly fish at the tackle.

I kept thinking: don’t you have bigger fish to fry? So Mortensen took some liberties with his book (big deal) and there are allegations (no proof from what I can tell) that there are irregularities in the books of his charity. REALLY? This man has built many schools for Afghan children, has put many girls back to school and has had the guts to try and fix from the inside with little means. And you go after him? I can think of a hundred stinky other stories that are more deserving of 60 Minute scrutiny.

My friend Martina Radwan who started a wonderful organization “Children of the Blue Sky” talks about the Mortensen ‘affair’ from her point of view as an activist, visionary and executive director of her own organization: check it out.

And while you’re at it read what Nicholas Kristof has to say about Greg Mortensen in his op-ed in the Seattle Times of last week just after the 60 Minute piece aired. As always he keeps a wonderful balance between facts and questions and his description of the ‘real’ Greg Mortensen is quite charming.

Don’t go and punish the wrong guy and as Martina said: if you are going the throw the first stone think long and hard as to how big it is going to be and where it will land. I for one will throw now stones but blow some fresh air gently into Greg Mortensen’s corner and hope we will see more of his great advocacy work to come.

Plagiarism Optional

My dear friend and brilliant filmmaker Anne Flournoy has gone far into the future and into many hearts and laughing muscles with her web series “The Louise Log” – I’m a fan, I’m a big fan. Apparently so are some people at Chrysler too! Check out Anne’s response to a commercial put out by Chrysler Town and Country that has an uncanny (on purpose?) similarity to “The Louise Log”.

Commerce imitating art, commerce plagiarizing? Coincidence? You be the judge.

The Cyber-Gap

The internet has opened up doors to unimaginable wealth of information, education and commerce opportunities; it has enabled emerging pro-democracy movements in Egypt and Algiers, has empowered dissidents around the world and is closing geographical and physical gaps around the world.

The Internet is hands-down a great enabler. At the same time the gap between educated and under-educated, poor and rich, rural and urban, empowered and disenfranchised is growing – rapidly.

How are young people around the world going to engage when they have no internet access? No access to on-line education, commerce, potential jobs and clients, information, social exchange, passing of ideas, or civic engagement? The more our world moves onto the internet the wider the gaps becomes between the haves and have not’s of internet access and economic power. This is also a problem for large patches of rural areas in the United States.

There are huge patches of land, some spanning entire states with a few urban exceptions with no cell phone and internet access through wireless towers, cable or T1 lines. In the US Satellite dishes are the only solution for those remote areas, if they want internet access. Satellites are expensive to install and their monthly fees can be too much of a burden for a house hold budget.

If we want to keep up economically with the rest of the world (Asia foremost and Europe too) we have to make sure that all areas of the United States have access to broadband internet. The lost potential of talent is too great to ignore.