Pre-empting the other fifty things I was either going to do or write about potentially doing this fine spring morning, I am pitching my old pal Jim Yardley the Pulitzer laureate about writing something about Global Heritage Fund in Palo Alto, loosely connected to the philanthropic goals of Jim and Becky Morgan, who also gave the lead gift for the nearby Palo Alto Downtown Library.
In my J.J. Hunsecker meets Jacques Clouseau (and I did not meet Regis McKenna but one of his in-lieutenants named Patrick Corman) way, I stumbled into this topic today at Coupa Cafe. I noticed a young mover-shaker type, and somehow mistook her for a pr flack pictured and described in the Times in 2009, and approached her near the coffee claim counter. She said I was mistaken but kindly did explain who she and her posse actually were. Thanks to the magic (and this is hard for a Luddite to admit) of the search engines, I could quickly size up the opportunity, name drop a few related points and voila! pitch the Times (albeit ex parte) and write about it.
The Times had this recent article about looting in Iraq, by Jack Healy, which GHF (not to be confused with Global Fund for Women) had mentioned on their blog.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/15/world/middleeast/mesopotamia-ruins-at-risk-from-iraqi-residents.html?_r=4
The link to “Fellows” describes the arenas in which GHF is concerned, which includes China (and meanwhile I am reading a catalog about Ai Weiwei, who I think has overlapping interests, with GHF).
Yardley worked with me on the student newspaper at Gunn High in 1981 and we have a loose correspondence ongoing. He won or shared the Pulitzer for work on China some time later, in 2006.
Einstein says all our thoughts and deeds count, so that’s good enough for me, and for “Plastic Alto.” I will edit to add with my actual pitch to him, on behalf of Global Heritage Fund.
edit to add: Have not thought long enough about this to find the actual connection, but my instinct and my coffee buzz tell me that this topic links to the op ed by Tom Bollyky that pops up as I fact check “new york times” and “global heritage fund” about Dr. Jim Kim and the future of The World Bank.
Research shows that the person I pretended to think I might be meeting, a Brooke Hammerling profiled in July, 2009 in the Times (and she knows Roger McNamee) is actually based in Santa Monica and New York so probably does not get to Coupa as much as she would like.
edit to add, again, a couple hours later, but same cup of now cold Coupa Cafe coffee:
and last-ley, if you got a minute if you got a year which is a superchunk lyric, here is jim yardley talking for about an hour to people probably too important to read plastic alto:final edit to add, still morning, coffee cup bone dry: in what little of the Jonathan Lethem book I have found time for I did note his comments on the lameness of not punctuating email properly; but there I go, in my response to JY, which I hope can be chalked up to enthusiasm not disrespect. Way off topic but here is link to Lethem –– note: JY lived in Brooklyn and worked there, before China: all things connected, take the F.
Plastic Alto with Mark Weiss 
this is off topic and here i am self-commenting still but the person I pretended I was thinking I was meeting has 14,000 followers on the leading limit-to-140-characters social media platform, one of the ones I boycott and refusenik:
http://twitter.com/#!/brooke