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Vote Smart Just The Facts

"Experts nearly all recommend Vote Smart."

"Vote Smart is a bright light in an often desultory civic culture."

- Bill Moyers

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Media

Final Indonesian Update

2007 August 14 - Media

Good Evening from Medan Indonesia in northern Sumatra!

Over the last two days, I've been wrapping up my lecture tour here in Indonesia with a three-day stop in Medan, the largest city on the island of Sumatra. It's been extremely valuable for me to gain exposure to these additional voices and places here in Indonesia and I'm beginning to understand the true scope and diversity of the place. The nearest equivalent I can offer is that the first week I visited Jakarta, the New York City of Indonesia, made a stop in Yogyakarta, which is like Philadelphia, and now have visited Medan, which is much like seeing Minneapolis or St. Louis. MedaManagen is a large city, but somewhat removed from the urbanized metropolis of Jakarta or the cultural and historic significance of Yogjakarta. While here I have been escorted by a number of incredibly devoted Americans working for the State Department. Sean Stein, the US consul here, is to my right in the first picture. In these first two pictures, you can see me delivering my lecture to a group of youth organizations and discussing ways to duplicate organizations like Vote Smart in developing countries. Kirana, my translator is hurriedly making the translation just to the right of me. Many of the youth leaders were thrilled to here about Vote Smart and joined me for many pictures after the talk.

Today's events were in much the same vein. I spoke to a number of Islamic party officials in the morning and ...