[Hac-announce] Hope

[Thomas Platt]

This is what I have just sent to my Milford High School class of 1957:

At this Easter season, here is a different message of hope.  No doubt  
many of you have heard of the breaking scandal surrounding Greg  
Mortenson of "Three Cups of Tea".  Here is Nicholas Kristof's op-ed:

http://tinyurl.com/3dsmpey

excerpt:

I also believe that Greg was profoundly right about some big things.
He was right about the need for American outreach in the Muslim  
world. He was right that building schools tends to promote stability  
more than dropping bombs. He was right about the transformative power  
of education, especially girls’ education. He was right about the  
need to listen to local people — yes, over cup after cup after cup of  
tea — rather than just issue instructions.

I worry that scandals like this — or like the disputes about  
microfinance in India and Bangladesh — will leave Americans  
disillusioned and cynical. And it’s true that in their struggle to  
raise money, aid groups sometimes oversell how easy it is to get  
results. Helping people is more difficult than it seems, and no group  
of people bicker among themselves more viciously than humanitarians.