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JerseySmarts.com

Bring Sean Goldman Home – Now

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For those of you living in Tinton Falls, you may know this story of a local man whose son has essentially been kidnapped by Brazil (my interpretation of the facts). Eight-year-old Sean Goldman, son of David Goldman, has been in Brazil ever since 2004. A story on FOX News gives a brief description of how the young boy came to be where he is today:

Sean’s mother took him on vacation to Brazil in June 2004, but instead of returning to New Jersey, she divorced David Goldman and remarried in Brazil. She died last year, but Sean’s stepfather continues to raise him in South America and claims custody rights.

Pretty ridiculous, huh? Thankfully, the House of Representatives passed a resolution yesterday calling for the boy to be brought back home as soon as possible. Also, President Obama is meeting with the Brazilian President today and among the topics they will talk about is the Goldman case. This seems like a no brainer to everyone who hears the details of the case as cited above. Sean Goldman should be brought home and his father should be the one who raises him, not the stepfather who drew his mother away from his father in the first place.

If our top diplomats – as human beings – can’t manage to get Sean back with his father, then how can anyone believe that there is any hope left for common sense and decency in this world? The kid should be home with his dad, period.

Uhhh Ohhh… Guantanamo is Humane!

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Sometime in February I bookmarked a page on the FOX News website that talked about a report on the Guantanamo Bay prison which was prepared for President Barack Obama. Some interesting information pulled directly from the report:

As a presidential candidate, Obama criticized the detention center that human rights groups and many in the international community widely condemned for harsh treatment of prisoners during the Bush administration. The military has defended its actions, saying prisoners have been treated humanely since the center was set up after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The report found the camp to be in compliance with the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3, the international rules that require the humane treatment of prisoners taken in unconventional armed conflicts, like the war on terrorism. The camp’s controversial force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strikes was also found to be compliant with the Geneva guidelines, a second government official confirmed.

I can appreciate that Obama will probably read this report and change his position during the election on whether or not Guantanamo is/was a humane place to keep prisoners. In fact, I would assume that the President is privy to higher levels of information now that he’s the Commander in Chief and that, in this role, he knows things about Guantanamo that we will never know about. I get it – he’s the President, he should know those things.

But what gets me is that you’ll never hear about this story being covered en masse by the mainstream media. You’ll never hear the political extremists come back and say, “Oh golly. Looks like we goofed on that whole ‘inhumane’ thing down at Guantanamo Bay. Our bad!” Not going to happen. However, if this report for President Obama proved the opposite – that Guantanamo was a disaster and that it was an inhumane place to keep prisoners – then you’d have people calling for President Bush’s head right now!

Isn’t that annoying? Isn’t it annoying that we have extremists in the mainstream who will call for the prosecution of a President based solely on their own ideas and thoughts? However, when those ideas and thoughts are proven wrong by the administration of their favorite son, the extremists won’t turn around and say, “Wow. We were mistaken. Our apologies.”

What a sad commentary on the loud voices…

Newt Gingrich – Saviour of the Right?

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As I’ve been doing more and more lately, I was reading through the New York Times online the other day. On their site they have a link to their New York Times Magazine, which generally has much longer articles on specific topics. In the latest edition, they had an article that talked at great length about former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The article, written by Matt Bai, was excellent in describing Speaker Gingrich, his rise and fall in Washington, and his prospects for leading the Republican Party in the future.

I’ve spent some time on this blog reviewing Speaker Gingrich’s books and I think that his stance on many major political issues are in line with what the vast majority of the country wants (likely because he takes stances that 80% of Americans agree with as per his think tank research). Speaker Gingrich may not have the cleanest personal record, but he has an excellent mind for Washington politics. Here’s a line from the article regarding his simple, yet powerful new political stance:

His goal is to turn the Republicans into what he calls a “party of the American people” by linking disparate solutions whose only real relationship to one another is that they demonstrate, in surveys, what he calls “tripartisan” appeal — the broad support of Republicans, Democrats and independents. Gingrich told me he has identified about 100 ideas and positions that command anywhere from 62 percent to 93 percent support among such a cross-section of voters: giving out tax credits for installing alternative heating sources in your home (90 percent); awarding cash prizes to anyone who invents a car that gets 100 miles to the gallon (77 percent); keeping God in the Pledge of Allegiance (88 percent).

This strategy is brilliant, when you think about it. Take the concepts and ideas which form the base of “American Values” (and which most Americans agree with whole-heartedly) and use them as the base for a political platform. Seems like an easy way to victory, right?

Gingrich was fascinated and impressed by Obama’s [inaugural] address (“Those could have been our words,” he told the group), and he advised them to laminate it and keep it close by, so that they could hold the new president to his pragmatic rhetoric.

A few weeks after Speaker Gingrich made this suggestion, Republicans started carrying around laminated portions of President Barack Obama’s inaugural address. However, it is telling that Gingrich suggests that Obama’s words could have been Republican words. In many ways, I think he is correct since most inaugural addresses and State of the Union speeches are nothing more than rallying cries to core American values. Too many times the people on the far left and far right (and the political extremists) refuse to hear the simplicity of the words used during these addresses. Another piece of the article:

“He’s a total idea factory,” [Paul] Ryan said. “The man will have 10 ideas in an hour. Six of them will be brilliant, two of them are in the stratosphere and two of them I’ll just flat-out disagree with. And then you’ll get 10 more ideas in the next hour.”

This little bit refers to the fact that Speaker Gingrich is constantly putting new policy ideas out there to a select few in the Republican party. That’s what the party is missing right now – new ideas. If Gingrich can bring new ides to a stagnant, broken party, he might be able to rejuvenate the Republicans in time for the 2010 elections.

This article is a fascinating read for policy wonks and those who are highly interested in national politics. Bai does a commendable job telling Speaker Gingrich’s story and I highly recommend reading this article if you are so inclined and have the time to do so.

Obama’s Hope on College Affordability

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President Obama gave his first address to the Congress last night and he addressed a variety of topics. The one topic that piqued my interest was his discussions about education and higher education specifically. Higher education affordability for all Americans is one of my major issues as a voter so I thought I’d offer some comments here. The text from Obama’s speech:

I know that the price of tuition is higher than ever, which is why if you are willing to volunteer in your neighborhood or give back to your community or serve your country, we will make sure that you can afford a higher education. And to encourage a renewed spirit of national service for this and future generations, I ask this Congress to send me the bipartisan legislation that bears the name of Senator Orrin Hatch as well as an American who has never stopped asking what he can do for his country – Senator Edward Kennedy.

You know – that’s a very inspiring thought and a good idea. I wonder about how realistic it is in action, though. For example, what will the cost be to the government if High School Student A volunteers X amount of hours in his or her hometown and thus meets the requirements of this program? Will the government pay all of their tuition at a public school? Half? A quarter? What is the number that makes college affordable for a student?

Further, what happens if High School Student B – who is from a better off family than Student A – does the same amount (or more) of volunteering than Student A? Since Student B is from a well-to-do family, then does he or she get anything for their community service? The same end was achieved – citizens served their community. Right?

And what happens when High School Student C needs another 50 hours of community service by the deadline date to qualify for whatever this grant money will be? Are we to believe that if Student C’s family knows people who know people that they won’t write-up false letters showing all of the service hours that Student C volunteered?

I don’t want to sound like a negative guy on this proposal, but it seems like it’s a bit too nebulous right now. I’m all for college affordability so long as 1) it is a program with no discrimination (income included), and 2) it’s fiscally responsible. We didn’t get that information last night. Other than that, I thought the President’s speech sounded more like a campaign speech than anything else, but I had no major fundamental problems with it.

Young Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations

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While reading the latest Nonprofit Quarterly, I came across Paul Schmitz’s piece entitled, “Obama Campaign Provides Lessons for Nonprofits.” If you read this blog, you know that I’m not the biggest fan of the seeming ascension of all things Obama since his election, however I did find this article interesting in that it laid out the five best practices embodied by the Obama campaign. Specifically, I found the fifth best practice to be the most interesting. The fifth best practice was entitled, “Youth leadership.”

In particular, Schmitz says the following:

By virtue of their low pay, long hours, and high-intensity nature, campaigns are always filled with young people. But the Obama campaign recognized and empowered young leadership…The campaign’s all-hands-on-deck approach meant that the top fundraisers and policy advisors – whether they were Goldman Sachs partners, Hollywood stars, or law professors – were expected to canvass door to door and be managed by 22-year-olds. They did so, reporting for duty enthusiastically and building respectful and supportive relationships with these young field organizers rather than questioning them or taking over.

Ah! Talk about music to the young, nonprofit professional’s ears! The biggest problem that I’ve found so far in New Jersey’s nonprofit sector is the entrenchment – for better or for worse – of aging leaders. I cannot stress enough the phrase “for better or for worse” in this statement, though. There are people like Msgr. William Linder in Newark who should be involved in community development at all costs and at all times! This man is a saint for the work that he’s done to bring much needed services to the underserved communities of Newark. The same is true of so many dedicated, older professionals in the state’s nonprofit sector.

However, in my work I find many organizations that have a tremendous glut of young talent who are suppressed under an old style of management. What’s more concerning is that in New Jersey you rarely find high-level executive positions in the nonprofit field being filled by the under 35-year-old crowd. And that’s a shame because it pushes talented folks out of the nonprofit arena and into the private sector. You do see younger folks being named Executive Vice Presidents and Directors of this or that program, but that’s generally in young organizations with less than five employees and they are usually organizations that aren’t too substantial.

What I’ve seen in my own experiences are the elevation of inept individuals with little-to-no leadership skills. Actually – let’s just say that there are NO leadership skills! Anyway, reading Schmitz’s article was nice because it reminded me of how things are supposed to be.