Quick one – I’ve been meaning to post this. Just a podcast version of what I wrote on TCL (got a shitton of back-and-forth in the comments and on Facebook, which was especially cool since the discussion remained mostly civil and thoughtful), about the Greg Mortenson and Central Asia Institute scandal. I think this topic fascinates us precisely because he’s clearly not Bernie Madoff – there was little on that one to debate regarding good and bad. But here? Not so clear, at least not in my book.
Length: 6min, 7sec.
Audio Player:
Download (let it load, save it, put it on your phone or mp3 player and listen later):
Kelly Cordes 
I think the tone with this podcast and your article is the difference between lying and deceit. What probably cheeses people off is Mortenson’s apparent (emphasis here) deceit- vague denials, qualifiers such as “compressed” timelines, etc.
Secondly, reference NGOs. Having worked in the NGO world and being cynical about many NGOs’ operating costs- 50% of operating costs was more frequent than I thought. From what I’ve read Mortenson was a shade under that.
Third,and this is strictly observation- remember the furor over those 9/11 charities? This sounds similar- chum (CAI/Mortenson) for the sharks (media).
my two bits.
Its weird how your brain can generate different thoughts when you hear at piece that you’ve previously read.
I appreciate the effort to put this into podcast form…..keep it up.
thanks, 3DD. would love to hear how things sounded vs read differently — fascinating to me, really. also makes me think about presentation, news, stories, things we hear in so many realms.