The Persuasion Broker
Mark Schmitt  A few years ago, I quietly resolved that my goal in my life should be to be more like Herb Sturz. If that seems like an odd goal, then, like most people, you've probably never heard of Herb Sturz. I hadn't either, until I worked at the Open Society Institute, George Soros' foundation, where Sturz was on the board and from which he had created a vast program of after-school activities in New York City. Using Soros' money to attract matching funds from the city and state, he revived the once-forgotten idea that kids should have something constructive to do after 3 p.m. It took a while, and a few long lunches, before I came to understand that the after-school project was only the latest in a very long string of innovative, daring, and successful social projects, most in New York, that began in 1961 with an effort to reform the arbitrary, cruel system of bail for criminal defendants. Sturz is what is now called a "social entrepreneur," although I can't imagine him using that term to describe himself. (And most of those who do claim that title don't have a fraction of Sturz's accomplishments.) There is a surprising justice in that, despite his modest profile, a biography of Sturz has appeared and that it should have been written by Sam Roberts of The New York Times Magazine, who covered New York long enough to appreciate why Sturz's initiatives mattered. People like Sturz, who connect ideas, passion, and money, are the unacknowledged legislators of late-20th-century liberalism. They are neither elected officials nor advocates pushing and pulling on official power. The connectors operate differently, building new structures to test ideas and show they can work, or laying the groundwork for new political possibilities. Sturz's career as a social entrepreneur began from a most unlikely platform: As an editor at Boy's Life magazine in the 1950s, he produced a supplement on the Bill of Rights for students, which got him interested in the Eighth Amendment ("Excessive bail shall not be required" -- not usually one of the fan favorites) and the tremendous inequities in bail that left poor people suspected of crimes sitting in detention for many months without trial, in a system controlled by ruthless private bail-bond firms. With the support of an eccentric, endearing millionaire named Louis Schweitzer, he convinced judges to let young law students interview defendants and recommend that those with strong social and family ties be released until trial. Every person recommended for release showed up on the appointed date. The Vera Institute for Justice, which grew out of the bail project, generated some 60 other projects related to criminal justice, community courts, prison reform, addiction, homelessness, and job training. A supported employment and training program, Wildcat Service Corporation, became a model for supported employment for young people and former welfare recipients in New York and nationally, and a small bus service to help people get to…

 As Health Vote Awaits, Future of a Presidency Waits, Too"If Mr. Obama falls short on health care, his hopes of passing other ambitious legislation like an overhaul of immigration and a market-based cap on carbon emissions to curb climate change would seem out of reach, at least for the rest of this year. Much of Washington would question whether he is weak, some Democratic candidates would run away from him and Mr. Obama would be forced to consider a narrower agenda like that pursued by Bill Clinton after his own health care drive collapsed."Read Article   

   The abortion debate commences Obama's Notre Dame speech sought to move the abortion debate beyond the divide between pro-life and pro-choice  Comments (69) Lola Adesioye guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 May 2009 12.00 BST Article history Going by the uproar that preceded President Barack Obama's visit to the University of Notre Dame last weekend, one would have expected that the university would have been besieged by thousands of protesters. The protests weren't anything near that eventful, however.It was telling that only around 100 protesters showed up, while inside the venue 12,000 people greeted the president with rapturous applause and a standing ovation. Despite the growing criticism that had been levelled at the president from members of the media and the church, it was clear that the overwhelming majority of staff, students, family and friends at Notre Dame were more than happy to have him speak at the graduation ceremony.Commencement speeches, being that they are delivered to a class of graduating students, are supposed to convey a message for the future and leave the graduates feeling empowered, uplifted and excited about facing the world. The president spoke to the Notre Dame class of 2009 within the context of the role that they, as Generation Y-ers, will play as they go out into the world in the midst of an economic crisis, climate change and various other testing global conditions.On that basis, Obama's speech was an excellent one. It was full of quotable lines – such as "we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity: diversity of thought, diversity of culture and diversity of belief" – that I found myself nodding vigorously in agreement with. While a commencement speech is generally not the place to talk about politics, the president – well aware that the eyes of the nation were on him – took the opportunity, and more time than expected, to address the abortion controversy head on. He clearly and directly laid out his stance on the matter – one that is rooted, just like his pre-election belief in an America that would choose an African-American man to be president – in unity, cooperation, understanding and respect for all, including those who disagree with him. Obama's critics have been keen to portray his views as sitting, unthinkingly, at one extreme of the debate. However, those who watched this speech could not help but to have been left with a sense that the president's view on abortion is highly nuanced and broad, far from the zero-sum view that it is convenient – and lazy – to ascribe to him."Those who speak out against stem cell research", he said "may be rooted in an admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son's or daughter's hardships can be relieved." That point could…

 Richard Dreyfuss: Out of the wreckage Hollywood stars on the West End stage are not new. But none is haunted by a past of quite such drug-ravaged turmoil as this one By David Usborne
Saturday, 31 January 2009
GETTY IMAGES The "once-bankable" Dreyfuss was a cruel slap lurking in one review last week of his latest theatre endeavour, Complicit, which has just opened at the Old Vic.For many of us the name Richard Dreyfuss in the credits of a film or on the marquee of a theatre is an instant bonus. "Good cast," we mutter knowingly. He is one of a generation of American actors who seem to imbue their art with an almost demented intensity while never shying from occasional crowd-pleaser roles, in his case in Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. So how is it, then, that Dreyfuss, now 61, who for years reigned as the youngest man to get a best actor Oscar for his lead part in The Goodbye Girl, has begun to irritate more than please us – especially in Britain where he has been spending a lot of time lately, both acting and playing academe at St Anthony's College, Oxford? The "difficult" Richard Dreyfuss, sniped one newspaper writer. The "once-bankable" Dreyfuss was a cruel slap lurking in one review last week of his latest theatre endeavour, Complicit, which has just opened at the Old Vic. Maybe it is old-fashioned snobbery. Aside from being a Hollywood lefty, Dreyfuss has for some time been on a personal quest to encourage the teaching of civics and the mechanics of democracy and evangelises on the subject on American campuses. That's fine, but it seems mildly preposterous that he was until recently a senior associate member at an Oxford college. And what is it that Yankee actors expect to find by hanging out in the West End rather than on Broadway? You might ask that also of Kevin Spacey, who as director of Complicit is sharing in the pain of the reviews. (They have been mostly lukewarm.) Dreyfuss has said that he took the Oxford job "because I was in England looking for something to do, and because they asked me". It is worth noting, though, that he was at a loose end because of that odd saga in October 2004 when he dropped out of his role as Max Bialystock in the West End version of The Producers at the last minute. The ostensible reason was back pain, though Dreyfuss was later to admit that he had been fired because he could not meet the physical demands of the show; his replacement was the none too agile Nathan Lane. So let's add unreliable to the strikes against him. That seems to make sense in the light of the awful publicity he has been receiving thanks to Complicit, in which he plays a US newspaperman under legal pressure to expose his sources for a story on the torturing of…