Three Cups of Scam

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I’ve previous blogged about how Greg Mortenson’s best-selling book, Three Cups of Tea, was exposed as fraudulent, casting doubts on Mortenson’s idea of peace through education. Now it seems that some donors are wising up to the too-good-to-be-true claims of Mortenson’s imitators:

Former Marine Capt. Rye Barcott heads up a grass-roots nonprofit to help slum dwellers in Kenya. Like other charismatic do-gooders with an interesting story to tell, he has written a memoir to promote his charity and the idea of grass-roots development work. Late last month, he kicked off a 26-city book tour, visiting stores, campuses, businesses and churches as the launch of an ambitious effort to expand the donor base for his group, Carolina for Kibera, which runs a health clinic, a soccer program and other community services in Nairobi . . .
Mr. Barcott is following a template fashioned by a man whom he once considered a hero, Greg Mortenson, author of the best-selling memoir “Three Cups of Tea” and the head of a $20 million-a-year charity for schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mr. Barcott now considers Mr. Mortenson an unfortunate liability. . . .
Mr. Barcott finds himself questioned at many appearances about allegations that Mr. Mortenson’s memoir contains false passages and that Mr. Mortenson’s charity has mishandled millions in donations. Many people are scrutinizing Mr. Barcott’s organization as never before. He worries that potential funders will shy away.
“It alters the conversation in a way that is not helpful,” said Mr. Barcott. . . .

You can read the rest (h/t: Memeorandum). There appears to be no doubt about Barcott’s bona fides, but the problem is that there were no doubts about Mortenson, either, until “60 Minutes” started sniffing around the story. And by attempting to emulate Mortenson’s model — the “charismatic do-gooder” promoting his work with a memoir — Barcott naturally evokes comparisons.

It seems to me that the best system of helping poor people is capitalism. But rich liberals won’t give you a nickel to help spread that message.

So much, then, for my prospect of becoming a “charismatic do-gooder” with a best-selling memoir. But please go ahead and hit the tip jar — it’s for the children!

UPDATE: Bruce Bawer at Pajamas Media:

The fallout from the takedown made it clear that zillions of Mortenson’s fans around the world were shocked by the allegations.
I wasn’t. When I first heard Mortenson speak at a conference two years ago, I was unaware what a big deal he was. Indeed, as far as I can remember it was the first time I’d ever heard of him. I was immediately appalled. He was swaggering, slick, self-satisfied. . . .
[I]t was impossible to forget Greg Mortenson’s name. For he was the star of his own story. The whole point of his talk was how much one brave, selfless individual can accomplish in this world even against the most formidable of odds. And that individual was him. The premise of his spiel was that he’s a miracle worker, pacifying belligerent jihadist types by sitting down with them over three cups of tea and listening to their concerns. Yet the egomaniac I saw that day was somebody you couldn’t picture listening to anybody else for more than thirty seconds. . . .
[T]he whole dog-and-pony show wasn’t really about Afghani children; it was about Mortenson and his book.

Read the whole thing. Bawer wonders if 21st-century Americans are suffering from “bullsh*t detector” malfunction.

UPDATE II: You will perhaps not be surprised to learn that Mortenson’s second book, Stones Into Schools, was on the reading list at the University of Kentucky’s prestigious Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce.

You will, perhaps be surprised that UK professor Robert Farley has declared that Mortenson’s book will stay on the reading list “to indicate the difficulty of monitoring NGO behavior, as well as to familiarize students with the controversy over Mortenson’s work.”

Sure, professor. Whatever you say.

PREVIOUSLY:


Herman Cain Wins 2012 Presidential Forum in Manchester, New Hampshire

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Of course, that’s not the headline you’ll see in the biased liberal media reports about the Americans for Prosperity forum last night. No, no — they’re all about Mitt Romneycare and Tim Cap-and-Trade Pawlenty. But make no mistake about it: Herman Cain won.

Steve Foley at Citizens for Cain passes along this item from a major New Hampshire political blog: An AFP poll taken after Friday’s event found that 62% of 975 respondents rated Cain the most effective speaker at the Manchester forum. Pawlenty was a distant second, with 17%.

Watch the video:

Isn’t it time you joined the online grassroots army at Citizens for Cain?

UPDATE: Guess who ignored Herman Cain’s appearance in Manchester? To repeat what I said before: “The ‘smart’ pundits will keep on saying he can’t win, right up until the moment when they start saying he can’t be beat.”

UPDATE II: Linked by Matt Newman at Race for 2012 — thanks!

UPDATE III: I’d like to call your attention to how the Atlantic Monthly‘s Joshua Green described Cain’s performance:

Herman Cain upstaged him by specifically calling to lower the corporate income tax, the personal income tax, temporarily abolish the payroll tax (individual and employer), abolish the capital gains tax, repatriate profits from overseas (abolishing any taxes on those profits), and, the coup de grace, declaring that all this would pay for itself by spurring economic growth.

Now, this is the straight-out supply-sider position and Green, a liberal, obviously takes a dim view of this argument as policy, terming it an “outlandish conservative fantasy.” In term terms of politics, however, Green’s liberalism doesn’t prevent him from acknowledging that Cain “upstaged” Pawlenty.

Green’s larger point is that “Romney was off in just about every facet of his performance” in what was viewed as Mitt’s unofficial 2012 campaign debut. So Romney stunk it up and Cain scored a “coup de grace” against Pawlenty — as even a liberal reporter could see.

UPDATE IV: Via John LaRosa on Twitter, an Associated Press article in the Boston Herald says “Cain got the evening’s biggest laugh.” And there’s also this report from Julie Hirschfield Davis of Bloomberg News:

The most enthusiastic reception was given to fast-food magnate Herman Cain, the onetime chairman of Godfather’s Pizza, whose preacher-like delivery of his five-point plan of lowering taxes and reining in spending drew frequent laughs and applause.

So he got the “biggest laugh” and the “most enthusiastic reception,” in addition to his 62% showing in the AFP poll. What part of “Cain won” is so hard to see here?

UPDATE V: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Speaking of Instapundit, he is featured in the latest episode of Bill Whittle’s PJTV show, about which The Lonely Conservative has some thoughts. I’d love to stay and chat, but I’m busy trying to update the breaking news of the latest NATO attack against Moammar Qaddafi.


Albert Haynesworth, Victim

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He’s 6-foot-6, 335 pounds, a former first-round draft pick and two-time All-Pro. Yet the Washington Redskins’ defensive end is a victim of . . . err, discrimination:

Washington Redskins player Albert Haynesworth has been indicted on one charge of sexual abuse after a Feb. 13 incident at the W Hotel, in which he allegedly fondled a cocktail waitress’ breast. According to the indictment, Haynesworth told a security guard, “I didn’t touch her” and that the waitress was “a little black girl” and he “doesn’t even like black girls.” Later, according to the indictment, Hanyesworth told detectives “I know what this is about, she is just upset I have a white girlfriend. I couldn’t tell you the last time I dated a black girl. She was trying to get with me.”

As any feminist will tell you, women never lie about this kind of stuff. Continue reading Albert Haynesworth, Victim →

‘The Cetaceous-Like-Homunculus’

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It’s been a while — too long, really — since we’ve made fun of James Wolcott. I stumbled across the picturesque phrasing of Dan Collins at Piece of Work in Progress (quoted in the title), describing the author of this infamous expression of environmentalist misanthropy:

“I root for hurricanes. When, courtesy of the Weather Channel, I see one forming in the ocean off the coast of Africa, I find myself longing for it to become big and strong — Mother Nature’s fist of fury, Gaia’s stern rebuke.”
— James Wolcott, “An Ignoble Confession,” Sept. 2004

A year later, after Katrina hit New Orleans, Wolcott defended that post as the product of “a frivolous vacation mood,” but has subsequently deleted it. Yet with vast swaths of the country now devastated by tornados, Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom decided to remind him of it.

Liberalism: Because People Who
Vote Republican Deserve to Die!

Feminists vs. the FBI

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While the Federal Bureau of Investigation is busy trying to apprehend criminals, the Feminist Majority Foundation is busy hectoring FBI Director Robert Mueller over the meaning of words:

No More Excuses: Change the Definition of Rape
Tell the FBI and Department of Justice:
It’s high time for the FBI to modernize their archaic definition of rape (“The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will”) to reflect the reality of rape in the United States. Please update the Uniform Crime Report so that the definition of rape includes all victims. Every rape should be counted.

Because you see the problem isn’t criminals who commit rape. The problem is an “archaic definition” that doesn’t conform to what feminists are teaching in Women’s Studies programs.

Vanessa Valenti at Feministing whines that the FBI’s definition “hasn’t been updated since 1929” — i.e., during the Dark Ages of Patriarchal Oppression, when the FBI was more concerned with apprehending criminals than placating Women’s Studies majors. So now the Feminist Majority Foundation has set up a site that lets disgruntled harridans hector the FBI director with a single click that sends him this form letter:

Dear FBI Director Robert Mueller,
I was shocked to learn that the FBI uses an archaic definition of rape (“The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will”) to gather statistics for the Uniform Crime Report. This definition, drafted more than 80 years ago, is problematic for many reasons, chief among them that it excludes victims of forced anal or oral sex, rape with an object, statutory rape, and male rape. Moreover, this definition is often used by law enforcement to exclude rapes of women whose ability to give consent has been diminished by drugs or alcohol.
This poses several problems:
1. This archaic definition of what constitutes “real rape” affects perception of the crime by law enforcement, and likely impacts the treatment of rape victims
2. With such an incomplete description, the FBI has undercounted rapes by hundreds of thousands of cases, resulting in an inaccurate understanding of the scope of the problem.
3. Without accurate rape statistics, allocation of funding to (and within) local law enforcement to combat and investigate crime will be misdirected away from this terrible crime.
It’s high time for the FBI to recognize this error and modernize the definition to reflect the reality of rape in the United States. Please update the Uniform Crime Report so that the definition of rape includes all victims. Every rape should be counted.
I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]

You see that their major grievance is that the current definition of rape doesn’t generate enough statistical victims. In other words: Forget about preventing or punishing crime, let’s argue over a “perception” which needs to be “modernized.”

We find this same message repeated at Ms. magazine, by a student writer for the University of Arizona Daily Wildcat, and at Mother Jones magazine (which throws in some gratuitous GOP-bashing for good measure). This is straight out of the Alinsky playbook: Locate a grievance, rally a “movement” to protest the grievance, demonize all opposition, and then — after officials knuckle under to the protests — claim victory on behalf of the aggrieved victims:

“See? Our movement is powerful, necessary and relevant. If it weren’t for our collective activism, the FBI would still be using an ‘archaic’ definition of rape. Sign up now and send us your tax-deductible contributions!”

Feminists are seldom called out and criticized for their tactics because people are afraid of being called “sexist” or — even worse — accused of being “pro-rape.”

This isn’t about rape, nor about law enforcement, but rather it’s about politicizing crime. Never mind the limitations of the 1929 definition (does anyone use the phrase “carnal knowledge” nowadays?), this is an opportunity for feminists to flaunt themselves as the Vanguard of Progress, to remind their cohorts that there is “still important work to be done” on the road to the Utopia of Equality and Social Justice.

“National Offend a Feminist Week” starts Monday — and obviously, these feminists have been begging for it.

Birth Certificate Proves Ace of Spades Was Born on the Forest Moon of Endor

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Some Birthers are stubbornly insisting that the birth certificate released this past week was a forgery. Ace slaps one around for our amusement:

I have learned two uncontestable facts from the Birth Certificate Conspiracy Theory Saga:
1. There is a sucker born every minute.
2. Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4th, 1961.

Much more amusement where that came from.

Excuse Me, Veronique, You’re Stepping On My Narrative

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by Smitty

No bandwidth for the video, but Veronique de Rugy threatens a few cherished notions over on Reason.TV:
Myth 1: Wealthy people pack up and move when their taxes increase.

. . .taxes have little impact on cross-state migration. Instead, the migration impacts of unemployment are much greater. Overall, the results suggest that taxes do not cause out-migration, but they do influence the choice of destination for some migrating households, such as retirees.

Myth 2: Blue states are big government states and red states are small government states.

Only 10 blue states are net recipients of federal subsidies, as opposed to 22 red states. Only one red state is a net payer of federal taxes, as opposed to 16 blue states. Another blue state pays in as much as it gets.

Here I’d like a bit more granularity. VA looks like a mendicant, but, when you’ve got Norfolk and attendant bases, the numbers can be argued. In favor of BRAC, sure.
Myth 3: The federal income tax may be progressive but the rest of the tax system is not, particularly the payroll tax.
Read the whole thing. Once people are done gawking at the Wedding of the Century, this is the kind of sober analysis we’ll need going forward.