Ello

Lets kick things off with a report on Natalie’s Columbia appearance.

You guys really didn’t miss anything with the Columbia visit. The
Columbia Political Union, who hosted, didn’t even post flyers until
late Monday evening–I have a night class, and happened to spot one
and RSVP–and there was zero other press about the event. Even
with no press, though, there was still a wait list of over 40
people when I got there, and I got there early (after hearing about
what happened in Cali).

Natalie was beautiful and gracious–she asked security to let the
wait list rejects in, though I don’t think they did. It is true
that there wasn’t a whole lot of discussion about microfinance in
detail, which doesn’t quite make sense to me if the point of the
visit was to promote awareness and not to fundraise, but Natalie
was very articulate. She was definitely appealing to our emotions,
and it was powerful–she talked about first getting into
microfinance as a response to feelings of powerlessness over
violence in Israel/Palestine, for instance.

All in all, I thought the lowkey approach was a bit disappointing,
particularly because microfinance is a really big topic with a lot
of interest at Columbia and a Columbia prof, Jeff Sachs, sits on
FINCA’s board. I left wishing that they had taken the time to
organize on the same scale as the NYU event, or had thought to gear
it more to people who were familiar (at least a bit) with the field,
which perhaps would have given Natalie a chance to say a bit more.

We also have two big photos from Columbia. Thanks to Mira John.

The bigger event yesterday was the NYU visit and we’ll hopefully have more on that later but for now here are a couple small pics.

One
Two

And finally, Orionsaint found this clip from Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. I think you have to be based in North America to get it to work though.

I’m afraid I don’t have time for that new poll now but I’ll be back with it soon.