Who would you write a fan letter to?

There is a history professor by the name of Bob Packett who along with his wife had produced wonderful podcasts on all aspects of history.

After downloading hundreds of his podcasts for free over the last few years, I send him a letter telling him how must I had enjoyed his podcasts and appreciate his and his wife work.

I also included two token BN gift cards with the letter for him and his wife who act as his webmaster.

For anyone who is interest in history here is the link http://www.summahistorica.com/.

Nobody

Only once, a photographer by the name of Finbarr O'Reilly. He mostly takes photos of the the poor in the war torn nations of African.
I was compelled. His work is stunning.
He wrote me back, thanked me and wished me a merry xmas.

I would write to Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, the originator of the Grameen Bank in a tiny Banglladeshi village in 1976.

Grameen Bank began with a simple but revolutionary concept: Loan poor people money on terms that are suitable to them and teach them sound financial principles so they can achieve financial self-sufficiency.

Grameen Bank was created in 1976 when Professor Muhammad Yunus, then head of the Rural Economics Program at the University of Chittagong, loaned $27 from his own pocket to 42 people in the tiny Bangladeshi village of Jobra after seeing the vicious cycle of poverty exacerbated by predatory money lenders. These women only needed just enough credit to purchase the raw materials for their trades. The borrowers repaid his small loans promptly and inspired Yunus to establish the Grameen Bank Project, which then spread among villages and districts across Bangladesh with the help of his devoted students.

In October 1983, the Grameen Bank Project was transformed into an independent bank by government legislation. Professor Yunus founded the bank on a belief that credit is a basic human right and that borrowers are not simply borrowing from a bank, but are committed to a philosophy built upon four core principles: discipline, unity, courage, and hard work. Today, Grameen Bank is owned by the borrowers of the bank and remains devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with microcredit loans that spark initiative and enterprise and empower the poor to lift themselves out of poverty.

As of June 2010, Grameen Bank has disbursed more than $9.4 billion to over 8.1 million borrowers, 97% of whom are women. The bank is represented in 2,564 branches and offers service in over 81,000 villages throughout rural Bangladesh. As a testament to the strength of the Grameen model, there are now 141 Grameen replication projects in 38 countries. The Grameen concept has created an effective and sustainable response to world poverty and the Bank’s success has advanced the concept of microcredit around the globe.

In 2006, Professor Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.” Additionally, in 2009 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Barack Obama, an honor reserved for those that have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States or to world peace or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors." Professor Yunus is widely regarded as the pioneer of the microcredit industry and continues to challenge conventional thinking, identify new ways to empower unbanked entrepreneurs, and explore new possibilities in microcredit and social business around the world.

Grameen America

"New York City is the world capital of banking. In these skyscrapers that New York built, they control world finance. What I pointed out is that they do the banking with the world but they don’t do the banking with their neighbors. We are here to show that there is nothing wrong with doing banking with neighbors. So we hope we will create some confidence in them. If we change the banks' mind, the whole world will change."

- Muhammad Yunus, May 17, 2010,Grand Opening of Grameen America's Manhattan branch

Grameen America was founded upon the belief that the system that has succeeded with remarkable results in the villages of Bangladesh could work in urban America. Professor Yunus believes that for the world to really take notice of the power of microfinance, it has to work in the capital of international finance, New York City. Under the façade of New York City’s grandeur, there exists a huge population of underserved people who do not have access to banks and mainstream financial institutions. Grameen America opened its doors in January 2008 during the largest financial crisis of the modern era.

Despite being a new player in the domestic microfinance industry, Grameen America has experienced considerable growth during its first year. In the first three months, Grameen America disbursed more than $350,000 in micro-loans and had over 165 borrowers.

A Grameen America branch opened in Omaha, Nebraska in Summer 2009, making it the first microfinance instutition in Omaha and Grameen America’s first operational branch outside of New York City. As a result of the growing demand in NYC, Grameen America opened two additional branches in the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn in January 2010. All branches have experienced rapid growth in the short period they have been operational.

Grameen America continues to expand the reach of microcredit across the United States, with two additional branches in development in California and Washington, DC.

Developmental efforts are underway in Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and North Carolina for additional expansion.

I haven't personally written any fans letters, but on a lighter note - my brother used to and he would use my name and address as well.

I was in college and I found a post card with a "hunky" soap star on it - come to find out my younger brother as a joke wrote to him with my name and college address. Great - hopefully no one I knew was working in the mail room that day.

He also had an ongoing writing "pen pal" sort of relationship with an older soap star. I think this older soap star thought my brother looked to him as a mentor sort of relationship - it started as a joke, but they did correspond back and forth for several years.

It was not exactly a fan letter I wrote to Bobby Kennedy, urging him to run for president. His reply was a stock letter his office sent to most letter writers. I kept it all these years, because it bore what looks like his, but is probably an electronically produced signature.

I wrote a couple of fan letters to Phillip Wylie. One urged him to do more screen plays. Another sort of chewed him out for being harsh with 60s left-wing radicals, but also praised the bulk of his writing.

Thank you for replying. Finbarr O'Reilly is amazing. I can't even express what this photo does to me, except to say that it moves me beyond speech:

Believe it or not - I didn't know who Philip Wylie was. Now I do. Thank you.

I'd read about this. Definitely worthy of fans and duplication.

Thank you for the name of Finbarr O'Reilly, Ceili.

Bill - I clicked on a podcast but couldn't get it to come up - I was trying to view the one about the French and Indian war. Do you know what I need to do other than click on it to view it?

I wrote a letter to Roger Cohen once; I've followed him off and on, always interested in what he says whether or not his take mirrors mine or vice versa. It was a short note related to an article he wrote and a book I thought he should know about related to that. No answer. Well, I figure he was busy. Or thought the book was idiotic.

Yeah - brothers...I know of what you speak.
At least your brother got something out of it.

This does remind me that when I was turning thirteen, I was recruited as part of the fan club for the Crew Cuts. That was ok, I was glad to be asked. About a week later, we became the Elvis Presley fan club. I'd never heard of him...

I remember not getting it.

So it goes..







That same year, my friend, well, my best friend, who was clearly more advanced than I (don't worry, I made up for it) as we walked to the neighborhood of a boy she liked (my mother called her boy crazy)... went crazy over Marlon Brando..


I did have a Cannonball Adderley record, though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannonball_Adderley

Would that I still had that...

That reminds me of the time I sent a birthday card to Nikita Khrushchev (same day as me), when I was a kid in the 60s.

Never got a reply of any kind, of course, or a reciprical card.

Ah, yes. The man who banged his shoe at the UN. He declared of the USA: "We will bury you." We got him back by refusing him entrance to Disneyland.

I'm not a writer of fan letters, but the closest I ever got to doing such a thing was to the political journalist, John Pilger, whose work I admired enormously:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pilger

So you get some idea of why he was something of a hero to me?

Once, during my volunteer community radio days, I worked up the courage to ring him in London, for a short interview. He was so utterly obliging, more than happy talk at length .... & wanting to discuss recent Oz political developments ... Such an unexpected response for this amateur reporter that I was rendered almost speechless.

I wrote one to writer Ron Rosenbaum but haven't sent it.

This is incredible to me! What a horrible abuse of power, and what a wonderful use of his skill to expose what happened to these people/

I don't understand how the original high court ruling could have been overturned though. I thought that the UK didn't have the right of eminent domain the way the US does. I'm going to see if I can find out more about why they didn't have the original ruling upheld.
Thanks for posting this msolga.

*I just read about the actual use of eminent domain or compulsory appropriation. Were these people compensated in any way for this land? This reminds me of what was done to the Native American when they were moved off their lands and on to reservations. The incredible thing is that this only just happened in the sixties and seventies.