I titled it the promise land because even though we may not get there in our lifetimes, even if we experienced hardships and disappointments along the way that i at least still have faith we can create a more perfect union, not a perfect unit union but a more perfect union. Good morning and welcome to a very special edition of Washington Post life. Im an opinion columni for the wasngton post and founding director of the race card project. For this very special conversation this mning i am ined by my dear friend elizabeth alexander, poet, schor and president of the Andrew Mellon foundation for good morning, elizabeth. Goo morning. It is wonderful to be together. It is wonderful to be together and together we bh welcome our gue for this conversation. The 44th president of the unitedtates, barack obama and i assume you recognize that guy in the mide. Good morning, sir. Hello, guys Washington Post brought out t big guns for thi one. [laughter] we are so excited to see you. We are. I am ver
Veteran. The university of colorado boulder hosted this 90minute event. I now have the privilege of introducing the speaker. Wimmium adams grew up in michigan and started his College Career at Colorado College. He also nearly ended his College Career at Colorado College with a freshman year that he describes with characteristic forthrightness as disastrous. He then enlisted in the army in 1966 and did basic training at ft. Knox. The results of various standardized tested qualified him for officer candidate school and he was soon commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the artillery. He went on to the school of warfare at ft. Bragg, where he was trained in language and special weapons. In may of 1968, he was sent to vietnam as an adviser to a very small regional unit in the mecong delta. For a year, he worked with South Vietnamese combat units. In may of 1969, he returned to the United States. He went to college, first after the university of michigan and then with a return to Colorado C
Covering your ass. It was written by his closest and favorite lieutenants including the academic and later columbia scholar gilbert hiett. He was married to Helen Mcinnes which is interesting because she was writing antinovels that made the nazi atrocities about which was also propaganda in the form of fiction. I believe they are recognizable for the style. It is fairly academic and dry. Suddenly, you will come across a chapter that begins, looks like a goat, in terms of one politician, and another politician looked like a horse. This would be dahl trying to liven up an official report. I used it it heavily would be an overstatement. There are portions that are more reliable than others. The dahl section i know what he was doing every day. I knew where he was. I could compare it, track it with his entry in the history and substantiate many of his claims. I was willing to use him there. Other claims made by stevenson i dont mention in the book. I dont think they can be substantiated. Ce
Since at least some of the drama surrounding speeches involved protesters perspective that the day should be about the graduates and not the arguably, contentious views of the speakers. But that is not the path that the speakers at haverford and smith chose. William bowen, former president of Princeton University and Andrew Mellon foundation was as another of Honorary Degree recipients already scheduled to speak sunday at haverfords ceremony. En in his first bite of the apple as he called the initial 10 minute speech he told story that made fun of Honorary Degree holders everywhere. In days leading up to commencement, bowen said via email he was encouraged to Say Something about the rather confused controversy and might look as if you were simply duck it. Bowen did not hold back. He disputed statement by one of the protesters that the berkeley chancellor withdrawal was a small victory for the college. It represents nothing of the kind, bowen said, i regard this out come as defeat, pure
Telling her she would be the next target and that they would kill her. The next day she moved to baghdad. Wait a second. Theres a lot more to that story though. First of all johnnys wife is an incredible woman and we go into more detail in the book. She was threatened quite a lot and thought she was going to die several moments. Finally the episode when she got the bullet she decided she just had to go to baghdad because that was where johnny was. To this point johnnys relatives have been protecting his wife and she decided she had to go. She packed the kids up and they went in a van that was kind of the equivalent of a Minibus Service here and lets say it was four hours and we are kind of rounding things out. About two hours into the trip they were stopped by some terrorists and they took them out of the boston they checked them and they were basically threatening to kill them. Fortunately the terrorists were not looking for johnnys family thank god. They were looking for some other p