More Holidays, More Videos, and More Stereotypes…

1. Happy International Children’s Day – Another holiday. Another day off. If you asked me to rank the biggest problems with the Cambodian education system, the number of holidays would definitely be near the top. I don’t think there’s ever been more than a two-week stretch without at least one day off.

2. Public Speaking 101 – When it comes to public speaking, Cambodians seem to follow their own set of rules. After sitting through three hours of speeches this morning and countless hours over the last two years, I’ve come up with a list of basic ground rules that most speeches here seem to follow.

1. How long should I speak? Keep your speeches as long as possible. If you can make it hour — great. Two hours– even better.
2. What if nobody is listening? Keep going.
3. What should I do if my cell phone rings mid-speech? Answer it obviously.
4. Where should I look when talking? Straight down at the floor.
5. What should I talk about? Whatever you want. In the pursuit of duration, anything goes.

3. Ann Arbor – A friend of mine sent me this video and watching it really got me excited about moving to Ann Arbor. Even if law school is miserable, at least I know I’ll be living somewhere beautiful…

4. Peace Corps Cambodia in the Phnom Penh Post - It’s not quite the New York Times, but it’s still nice to see Peace Corps Cambodia get a little press…

Former and current volunteers attended the 50th anniversary celebrations at the US Embassy in Phnom Penh. Eighty-one volunteers are now working across 14 provinces and cities in Cambodia. Volunteers began coming to Cambodia only in 2007, said Rodley, and 165 volunteers had served in this country since then.

Greg Bauer, one of 81 Peace Corps volunteers working in Cambodia, said that he has been teaching English and Southeast Asian history to students in Kampong Chhnang and Kandal provinces for the past two and a half years. “I love Khmer food, culture and traditional dance. But in the education system, there are many problems,” he said. “Most teachers have a low salary, so they have no [drive] to work and spend a lot of time looking for other work,” said Bauer, 25, who speaks fluent Khmer.

You can read the entire article Phnom Penh Post article here: Peace Corps Celebrates Anniversary in Cambodia

5. Peace Corps on TV - This Peace Corps 50th anniversary video was made by the U.S. Embassy and was shown a couple of times on one of the main Cambodian TV stations. I know most of you don’t speak Khmer, but if you’re interested in seeing the Peace Corps in action check it out…

6. GO MAVS! - While I still hate the fact that LeBron went to Miami, had he stayed in Cleveland there is no way I’d be this interested in the NBA playoffs. Sometimes having a team that you hate is almost more fun than having a team that you love. Maybe the decision wasn’t so bad after all?

7. The Man Behind the Fear Factory - In the most recent issue of Rolling Stone, Tim Dickinson has written a great profile of Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes. The least surprising part of the article– Ailes bigotry. Just read these two gems below…

Murdoch installed Ailes in the corner office on Fox’s second floor at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan. The location made Ailes queasy: It was close to the street, and he lived in fear that gay activists would try to attack him in retaliation over his hostility to gay rights. (In 1989, Ailes had broken up a protest of a Rudy Giuliani speech by gay activists, grabbing demonstrator by the throat and shoving him out the door.) Barricading himself behind a massive mahogany desk, Ailes insisted on having “bombproof glass” installed in the windows – even going so far as to personally inspect samples of high-tech plexiglass, as though he were picking out new carpet. Looking down on the street below, he expressed his fears to Cooper, the editor he had tasked with up-armoring his office. “They’ll be down there protesting,” Ailes said. “Those gays.”…

Inside his blast-resistant office at Fox News headquarters, Ailes keeps a monitor on his desk that allows him to view any activity outside his closed door. Once, after observing a dark-skinned man in what Ailes perceived to be Muslim garb, he put Fox News on lockdown. “What the hell!” Ailes shouted. “This guy could be bombing me!” The suspected terrorist turned out to be a janitor. “Roger tore up the whole floor,” recalls a source close to Ailes. “He has a personal paranoia about people who are Muslim – which is consistent with the ideology of his network.”

You can read the entire article here: How Roger Ailes Built the Fox News Fear Factory

8. Quote of the Week – “The world is full of jolly places but these do not interest me at all. I hate vacations and luxurious hotels are no fun to read about. I want to read about the miserable, or difficult, or inhospitable places; the forbidden cities and the back roads: as long as they exist the travel book will have value.” – former Peace Corps Volunteer Paul Theorox talking about travel writing: The Places In Between

9. Disappointing - So much for the Arab Spring? According to Fareed Zakaria, very little has changed in Egypt and it’s still being run by a military dictatorship. (Egypt is Still Run By a Military Dictatorship)

In the short-run there are enormous pressures. We think of Egypt as having gone through a regime change. But it really didn’t go through a regime change. Egypt has been run since 1952 by a military dictatorship. It is still run by a military dictatorship.

Mubarak resigned. A few people around him resigned. But at the end of the day the military still holds power.  They have a huge vested interest in maintaining the current system politically, financially and socially. They aren’t going to go quietly into the night.

The great struggle taking place in Egypt is over whether the democratic elements of the new system have the power and skill to erode the strength of the dictatorial elements of the old system. Those dictatorial elements are largely housed in the military.

10. 50 State Stereotypes – And finally, just for fun, 50 state stereotypes in 2 minutes. Some of them are dead on…