Dispatch 5/30/11

8:30 A.M. Sitting in my room back home.  The last week has been productive, but disheartening.  The people of Joplin now have to focus on rebuilding their home.  If anyone is interested, there are volunteer opportunities through United Way's 2-1-1 program.  I plan on going down there within the next week.  Last night, I was thinking about how little time a tornado is on the ground.  In just 17 minutes, the tornado ripped through Joplin, causing billions of dollars in damage.

People are living out their summer plans already.  I have a couple friends who are starting the second week of their internships today.  Another friend is holding down six part-time jobs.  I'll be packing in more credit hours at summer school at the University of Kansas.  Historically, summer has been a time for students to recharge and relax, but our culture has found a way to make our schedules busy, hectic, and chaotic during the summer months.

I'll be attending a Get Motivated Business Seminar in Kansas City tomorrow.  Colin Powell, Bill Cosby, Laura Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and Stanley McChrystal will deliver speeches.  Expect a few speaker reviews here on Joe's Musings in the next couple weeks.

International affairs are always an fascinating yet discouraging area to follow.  The uprisings across the Middle East have continued.  Yemen, Libya, and Syria are the three hotspots right now.  The rebels in Libya are running out of equipment and funds, so British PM David Cameron agreed to send Boeing Apache attack helicopters to assist.  Surprisingly,  the dark horse has been Spain.  Thousands of anti-government protestors demonstrated in Madrid against economic cuts.  Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak received the first verdict against him--a $34 million fine for cutting off communications services during the revolution that overthrew him.  The "BRICS" countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa issued a joint statement criticizing Europe's dominance over the International Monetary Fund, calling it "obsolete" and the requested that developing nations be giving a chance to participate more.  The United States announced the removal of a number of troops from Pakistan upon request of the Pakistani government.  Relations between America and Pakistan are very tense.  It will be interesting to see how the two countries interact in the next few months.

Thanks for reading this,

Joe