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I reckon we've had just about enough of this bullshit
Shorter Harper : If you point the war crimes finger at me, I'll deflect it at the troops. Faced with mounting condemnation for government ass-covering over Richard Colvin's testimony about Afghan detaine... ( About that time it suddenly occured to me we likely have international treaty obligations regarding torture which should be looked at regarding rendition, Afghanistan,freeing of our citizens held out-of-country in War Crimes.... )
Dr. John v. Kampen UbuKubuntu - is Gnome 3 off track?
*Having worked on the first Mac OS* the phenomenon of the computer 'desktop'-travesty has always accompanied me. My involvement goes back nearly 27 years. To be frank: visually hardly anything has fundame..
The Existentialist Cowboy - Limbaugh Commits Prosecutable Treason
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy Rush Limbaugh has urged that a military coup overthrow the current government in Washington. That is a prosecutable crime called 'seditious treason' and there is pro...
New IDF unit to fight enemies on Facebook, Twitter http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1131918.html
The Israel Defense Forces Spokesman's Office is to begin drafting computer experts with an eye toward establishing an Internet and new media department unit, Army Spokesman Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu said Monday.
Speaking at the Eilat Journalists Conference, Benayahu said the new department would focus on the Internet's social media networks mainly to reach an international audience directly rather than through the regular media.
Another spying scandal at Gitmo http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/another_spying_scandal_at_gitmo_I7hKkTOEivnunImP6QY4gI
A number of Arabic and Pashtu interpreters at the terror-war detention center at Guantanamo Bay are under active investigation for omitting valuable intelligence from their translations of detainee interrogations, among other security breaches. This could taint some of the evidence at the "9/11 trial" in New York and proceedings against other detainees.
Remarkably, the Pentagon never cleaned up the "mole infestation" at its highest-security facility after the FBI busted a Muslim spy ring at Gitmo in 2003.
The 2003 probe involved at least two Arabic interpreters with high-level security clearance. Senior Airman Ahmad al-Halabi, a Syrian native, and former Army linguist Ahmed Mehalba, an Egyptian native, were later convicted of stealing or mishandling classified documents.
The Village Blogs have adopted Jacob Weisberg's clarion pom poms in arguing that President Obama is having the most transformative first year any Democrat has had since FDR. This strikes me as a ludicrous claim. Chris Bowers discusses Nathan Newman's much more reasonable claim that President Obama has achieved small progressive victories. Chris makes the salient point that Newman's list of achievements are largely a part of a temporary stimulus bill, not lasting, transformative change. I want to add a point I have made before - the biggest change in the first year of a Democratic Presidency since FDR was President Bill Clinton's revamping of the U.S. tax structure. Clinton has been labelled by these same pom pom wavers as an incrementalist, small bore President, but they always ignore, as they must, the most important progressive accomplishment of the past 40 years - the raising of taxes on the well off and the lowering of the tax burden on the less well off enacted by President Clinton. I'll repeat from my earlier post on the subject here:
[I]n 1993, Bill Clinton pushed through the most progressive legislation the US has had since the Johnson Administration. It was called, prosaically, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act.
The Mutual Fund Fraud http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/12/the-mutual-fund-fraud.php
All these government-sponsored savings vehicles—401(k), IRA, etc.—should be set up to strongly encourage people to put their money in indexes. It’s bizarre that the government is, by bipartisan agreement, basically complicit in encouraging people to funnel their savings into elaborate frauds. Why not teach this material to high school and college students? ( Ludicrous proposal : asking the fox to alert the game )
They haven’t. We just call them Treasury Bonds now and sell them to the Chinese. ( Upstaged by a commenter. )
Amy Goodman on Her Detention at the Canadian Border: This is Democracy's Loss http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/amy-goodman-her-detention-canadian-border
Amy Goodman weighed in on Democracy Now about her detention at the Canadian border and what it might mean for assuring that there is still a free press in Canada and that journalists are not intimidated into not covering stories that the government thinks are harmful to corporate interests.
Full segment and transcript available at Democracy Now.
( A look at a seemingly improbable connection : Iran's nuclear power generating program, 'global warming', and infrastructure denial by the 'West' via a propaganda campaign of false claims of 'terrorism' and 'suspicion' . )
World AIDS Day: President Obama Earns a ‘D+’ in Fighting Global AIDS;
In Afghan Debate, Few Antiwar Op-Eds in Nation’s Two Leading Newspapers
President Obama has issued orders for a major escalation of the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan by sending 34,000 additional troops. Has the media helped beat the drum for war? A new study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting reveals pro-war voices outnumbered anti-war ones by a huge margin in the OpEd pages of the nation’s two leading newspapers, The New York Times and the Washington Post.
They don't claim to know who's been naughty or nice, but some Houston charities are asking whether children are in the country legally before giving them toys.
That race remains a serious obstacle in the job market for African-Americans, even those with degrees from respected colleges, may seem to some people a jarring contrast to decades of progress by blacks, culminating in President Obama’s election.
But there is ample evidence that racial inequities remain when it comes to employment. Black joblessness has long far outstripped that of whites. And strikingly, the disparity for the first 10 months of this year, as the recession has dragged on, has been even more pronounced for those with college degrees, compared with those without. Education, it seems, does not level the playing field — in fact, it appears to have made it more uneven.
WTO Chief Pascal Lamy: Free Trade and Interdependence Help Promote Freedom, Human Rights and Civil Liberties
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/1/study_in_afghan_debate_few_antiwar ( I can't speak for other countries : but when I studied Canadian history, the fight to establish a tariff wall so that east-west in-country trade had the same costs as the shorter north-south routes was an ongoing fight for forty years. Reversing that was on Nelson Rockefeller's agenda in 1945. In 1993 the Progressive Conservatives sponsored NAFTA : and went from 153 to 2 seats in the House. The Liberals brought it in; a blatant contradiction to their election platform. Now the minority government { Progressive Conservatives : an honest oxymoron } is doing the bidding of corporate sponsors : despite the near embarassment when the previous Liberal leader nearly managed to bring off a coalition government....until sabotaged by his party. I think we can figure out what happened there : the bagman calleth. )
Canada's new immigration guide is all very back to the fifties. Not the real fifties of course - more a 1950's Pleasantville chamber of commerce directive of prim paternalistic homilies about the value of...
posted by address-withheld@my.opera.com.invalid (Dr. John v. Kampen) at - 1 day ago
*Ubuntu developments go fast* these days, so do the innovations from DeskTop-Builders, like Gnome and KDE. Right there we already encounter the first and possibly most important obstacle for computer-user...
ENVIRONMENT/FASHION - What is the most environmentally friendly garment you can wear? The answer is uncoloured natural leather. And fur too. Its not obvious at first, but let me explain how this is. Leat...
Buy from Magnum Photos
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have lost America's attention, and some would say, never really had it. Despite all the immediacy of new media, America's view of these wars has largely been sanitized, incomplete and remote. Photographer Peter van Agtmael aims to change our perceptions with his compelling new book, 2nd Tour Hope I Don't Die.
From 2006 through 2008, Peter van Agtmael was an embedded photographer who followed the sweep of the conflicts between Iraq, Afghanistan and the United States. He captured the range of the American experience, from chaotic night raids in Iraqi cities to long patrols through isolated valleys in the mountains of Afghanistan. The images are unsparing yet nuanced, revealing tense medical evacuations and graphic casualties of suicide bombings as well as moving portraits of young soldiers and their families recuperating, mourning, and suffering. In the end a delicate humanity emerges amid the chaos and brutality of combat.
The book distills - in van Agtmael's photographs and words - the complexity of that experience from the point of view of a young man seeing many others of his generation facing tough choices, grave responsibilities and unpredictable fates. By turns gritty, haunting, and deeply moving, the book is a cogent reminder of the stark and enduring realities of war.
This is a book about conflict, but also an intimate journey into the lives of the people van Agtmael met and befriended. Just 24 years old when he first went to Iraq, he instantly identified with the soldiers. Their stories are told alongside his own recollections. Specialist Raymond Hubbard lost his leg in a rocket attack in Baghdad on the Fourth of July, 2006, and later collaborated with van Agtmael to create a record of his recovery and struggle to adapt to a new life. Matthew Ferrara's family mourns a son who did not come home from a patrol in Afghanistan.
Soldiers who sometimes initially voiced suspicion ultimately urged van Agtmael to show what was going on in their world because they recognized that, without pictures, it would be as if their experiences never happened.
Alistair Darling has said the Financial Services Authority will be given powers to "tear up" bankers' contracts if pay deals reward unnecessary risk-taking.
The Chancellor told The Sunday Telegraph bankers had to see themselves as "fellow citizens" who had been bailed out by the taxpayer.
The culture should change, with no rewards for practices which had brought the banking system down, he said.
The Financial Services Bill will be part of the Queen's speech this week.
In it the government will outline its remaining legislation between now and the general election in 2010.
"We will ensure that the banking crisis we have experienced over the last two years should never again come at a cost to the taxpayer"
Prime Minister Gordon Brown
Ministers believe that getting tough with bankers will underline the government's commitment to a fairer Britain and create more dividing lines with the Conservatives, said BBC political correspondent Iain Watson.
The Conservatives said the government had "endlessly chased headlines" on bankers' bonuses.
A spokesman said: "The real issue that they have not addressed is that the tri-partite system of banking regulation has failed and we need to put the Bank of England in charge of regulation.
"There is a growing international consensus that it is right to have central banks in charge of regulation."
( My reaction is that scapegoat politics are alive and well. Banking staff did not create regulatory abdication. )
In 1947 the SS Asturias took the first post-war child immigrants to Australia
By Nick Bryant
BBC News, Australia
The story of the British child migrants sent to Australia has been described as a history of lies, deceit, cruelty and official disinterest and neglect.
Before being shipped out to Britain's distant dominion, many of the children were told their parents were dead, and that a more abundant life awaited them in Australia.
Most were deported without the consent of their parents, and commonly, mothers and fathers were led to believe that their children had been adopted somewhere in Britain.
On arrival in Australia, the policy was to separate brothers and sisters.
And many of the young children ended up in what felt like labour camps, where they were physically, psychologically and often sexually abused.
'Awful experience'
In testimony before a British parliamentary committee in the late 1990s, one boy spoke of the criminal abuse he was subjected at the hands of Catholic priests at Tardun in Western Australia.
A number of Christian brothers competed between themselves to see who could rape him 100 times first, the boy said.
Sandra Anker was sent out to Australia when she was six years old
They liked his blue eyes, so he repeatedly beat himself in the hope they would change colour.
As parliamentarians reflected at the time, the term "sexual abuse" seemed wholly inadequate given the awfulness of his experience.
On Monday the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will deliver a national apology to a group known as the "Forgotten Australians".
In so doing, he will recognise, on behalf of the Australian government, the ongoing suffering of some 500,000 people held in orphanages or children's homes between 1930 and 1970.
( This seems timely commentary....more than 60 years after the fact. )
Fresh allegations of abuse by the UK military in Iraq do not warrant a new public inquiry, the Armed Forces Minister Bill Rammell has said.
He told the BBC the claims were taken seriously and would be investigated but that allegations did not mean facts.
He said a special unit within the Ministry of Defence, overseen by him, had been set up to examine the claims.
Lawyers for former Iraqi detainees want an inquiry into 33 abuse claims, which include the rape of a 16-year-old boy.
'Sexually humiliated'
Mr Rammell said there should not be a wider public inquiry because each case first had to be examined and disciplinary action taken if there was evidence of wrongdoing.
He said: "There is no credible evidence that endemic abuse was a coherent part of the way our military operated."
The "vast, vast majority" of the 120,000 British soldiers who had served in Iraq had adhered to "the highest standards of behaviour," he added.
Phil Shiner, Iraqis' lawyer: Abuse in army is 'systematic'
Earlier, Mr Rammell told the BBC seven of the allegations had come in within the last month, and the rest date back "significantly beyond that period".
( Sometimes one should look for historical comparisons to current situations for indications of systemic dysfunction ...as 'alleged' )
Beatings and abuse made Barack Obama’s grandfather loathe the British
The President-elect’s relatives have told how the family was a victim of the Mau Mau revolt
There is a clear link between living to 100 and inheriting a hyperactive version of an enzyme that prevents cells from ageing, researchers say.
Scientists from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the US say centenarian Ashkenazi Jews have this mutant gene.
They found that 86 very old people and their children had higher levels of telomerase which protects the DNA.
They say it may be possible to produce drugs that stimulate the enzyme.
There may be a downside to the plan of boosting the repair processes of DNA because giving the cells more chances to divide may increase the chances of damaging mutations developing and causing cancer.
Professor Tim Spector, King's College
Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team say they studied the Ashkenazi Jewish community because they are closely related so it is easier to identify disease causing genetic differences.
They took blood samples from 86 very old, but generally healthy, people with an average age of 97; 175 of their offspring; and 93 other people who were the offspring of parents who had lived a normal lifespan and could therefore make up a control group, with which the results could be compared.
The calorie counts used as the foundation for diet plans and healthy-eating guidance for the past 18 years may be wrong, a report suggests.
The recommended daily intake of calories could be increased by up to 16%, a draft report by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition said.
Intake levels are currently 2,000 calories for women and 2,500 for men.
But the panel stresses that people should only eat more if they exercise more, given rising levels of obesity.
The committee says its report provides a much more accurate assessment of how energy can be burnt off through physical activity.
A 16% increase would mean that adults could safely consume an extra 400 calories a day, equivalent to an average sized cheeseburger.
The proposals, seen by The Times and The Grocer magazine, are due to go out for a 14-week consultation period.
Final recommendations will then be made after that time.
Health campaigners say the Department of Health and the Food Standards Agency could seek to "sweep this report under the carpet" in a bid to avoid sending out mixed messages in the middle of an obesity epidemic.
Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said it was a "dangerous assumption" to say that adults could safely consume an extra 400 calories a day.
"This is not a green light to eat yourself silly," he said.
( Just as a side note, I seem to recall reading a National Geographic article on families living high in the Swiss Alps years ago. They tended to have a high rate of survival of heart attacks and increased lifespan, presumably associated with routine climbing adding to the stress of walking...and perhaps mountain air. I've noticed the difference of that myself. The thing was..the women were eating 600-650 calories a day and the men 850-950...and 100 years of age was common. That's to the best of my recollection. )
Honda Canada today presented a cheque, prior to the start of the Rexall Edmonton Indy, in the amount of $56,021 to Wounded Warriors.ca from donations collected at the Honda Indy Toronto and the Rexall Edmonton Indy this month. Donations from race fans in Toronto and Edmonton were matched dollar for dollar by Honda Canada. To the left of Canadian race driver Paul Tracy is Jerry Chenkin, executive vice president of Honda Canada. To the right is Captain Wayne Johnston, president and founder of Wounded Warriors.ca.
Martian Factory - Proceeds from the sale of D.I.R.T.: Origin Of The Species limited edition figurine go to the fund use this to link out to thier site: www.martianfactory.com
The Call - Download and support the cause. All proceeds of this original song go to Wounded Warriors www.jeffcallery.ca
Jullian Austin - The Red & White $5.00 dollars off every CD sold goes to "The Sapper Mike McTeague Wounded Warrior Fund".
Rolls-Royce in $2bn engine orders http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8361064.stm
UK engineering firm Rolls-Royce says it has won orders to make $2bn(£1.2bn) of aircraft engines to power Airbus planes for Air China and Ethiopian Airlines.
The orders were announced on the first day of the Dubai Airshow on Sunday.
The $1.5bn Air China order involves providing Trent 700 engines to power 20 A330 aircraft that will be delivered from 2011.
And the $480m Ethiopian order covers Trent XWB engines for 12 A350-900s planes that will begin service in 2017.
Ethiopian Airlines is poised to announce a near-$3bn Airbus aircraft order, say industry experts.
The airline made an initial draft request for the dozen A350-900s in July and is expected to confirm the deal at the air show, the biggest in the Middle East.
Best-selling engines
Airlines have been hit hard during the recession, so the order for engines is welcome news for Rolls-Royce, which has factories in Derby and Bristol making engines, and one in Sunderland making areo-engine components.
The Ethiopian order means Rolls-Royce has sold more than 1,000 of its best-selling XWB engines.
The firm has said the XWB is the most fuel efficient and environmentally sensitive large engine design on the market, with fuel efficiency ratings 28% higher than pre-Trent generation engines.
The government - which is "supporting"* the event - said it hoped religious communities could help tackle problems such as the environment and parenting.
Communities Secretary John Denham said the co-operation of faith groups played an important role in reducing tensions amid provocation by extremist groups.
( * Sounds like the government would like to co-opt the agenda away from more controversial subjects...like media hatemongering,refugee expulsion,military adventurism, immigration dysfunction, slave trade... while promoting the fear of extremism...rather contrary to any concept of community and faith. In other words...institutional causes of tensions. Here's an illustration of what happens when the interests of church and state are joined : irrelevant pageantry. )
Court Silences CIA Operative Despite Yellowcake Scandal http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/11/valerie-plame-silenced Valerie Plame Wilson cannot publicize details of her work as a CIA operative, even though a government official already outed her as an agent in an attempt to discredit her husband, Joseph C. Wilson, a federal appeals court says.
( Joe Wilson was sent on a mission to Nigeria where it was convenient to allege that Iraq was after yellowcake for nuclear weapons use : odd for fertilizer lying all around Iraq. She's the former operator of the Middle East nuclear threat desk for the CIA : note it's still inconvenient for her to tell what she knows, even after the Brewster Jennings network was destroyed by the Bush White House. Iran, perhaps ? They were noted as being targeted by the Cheney disinformation service.)
Public diplomacy is a catchall term for the various ways in which the United States promotes itself to international audiences (as opposed to “regular” diplomacy, which targets foreign governments). These include international media, such as the Voice of America; cultural and educational exchanges, such as the Fulbright Program; and a wide range of information activities, including foreign press centers, speaking events and publications. As the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy notes, the term “was developed partly to distance overseas governmental information activities from the term propaganda, which had acquired pejorative connotations.”
In the United States, public diplomacy’s legislative history also involves propaganda. The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which provided a legal framework for public diplomacy activities, forbids the government from disseminating within the United States information intended for foreign audiences. Other legislation, such as appropriation bills, theoretically reinforces the ban on using taxpayer money for “publicity or propaganda purposes.”
From 2002 to 2008, the Defense Department secretly cultivated more than seventy retired military officers who frequently serve as media commentators. Initially, the goal was to use them as “message force multipliers,” to bolster the Bush administration’s Iraq War sell job. That went so well that the covert program to shape US public opinion—an illegal effort, by any reasonable reading of the law—was expanded to spin everything from then-Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s job performance to US military operations in Afghanistan to the Guantanamo Bay detention center to warrantless wiretapping.
David Barstow of the New York Times wrote on April 20, 2009, “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand,” a stunning exposé of the Bush administration’s most powerful propaganda weapon used to sell and manage the war on Iraq. This involved the embedding of military propagandists directly into the TV networks as on-air commentators. We and others have long criticized the widespread TV network practice of hiring former military officials to serve as analysts, but even in our most cynical moments we did not anticipate how bad it was. Barstow painstakingly documented how these analysts, most of them military industry consultants and lobbyists, were directly chosen, managed, coordinated and given their talking points by the Pentagon’s ministers of propaganda.
“iDiplomacy: empowering the private sector and citizen diplomats in the digital age” is a two-day symposium that will take place at The Gallup Organization in Washington DC on November 9th & 10th, 2009. Participants come from gaming, filmed media, social media, music, tech, the Military, State Department, the Hill and the private sector. This small, invitation-only symposium will help determine the agenda, host(s), plenary speakers, sponsors and invitees to a much larger conference to take place in 2010 that will be open to the public.
Agenda and presenter bios (which I am one) are here. Symposium attendee bios are here.
Years ago, the House Appropriations Committee opened an inquiry into “cultural diplomacy.” The response from the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs at the time was that it was a necessary response to the “enormous sums” our adversary was spending on propaganda, “possibly more than the rest of the world combined.” Below is an excerpt from the newspaper story reporting on State’s defense of its cultural efforts (details on the story are below the fold):
[Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs] said the giving of “ideas” or “propaganda” to other countries had become the “fourth arm” of foreign policy. … Congress and even the State Department did not fully appreciate its value, [the Assistant Secretary] said.
[The House Appropriations Committee Chairman] contended that most of the information [from the State Department] was “slanted” to favor the department’s views and thus constituted a “ministry of propaganda.”
[The Assistant Secretary] replied that everything that emerged from his office was “straight information”; that
any “slanted or one-sided information” always gave the source, thus removing it from the “propaganda classification.
[A]sked why [State’s Public Affairs] had more employees – 3,000, – than the entire State Department had [only four years prior], the [Assistant Secretary] explained the State Department rarely received requests for information [before] but now got an average of 34,000 a month.
During a moment of the apparent recommitment in the United States to soft power, smart power, and the relevance of cultural diplomacy, this conference brings together key stakeholders in the future of cultural diplomacy, including members of the policy community, practitioners in public diplomacy, and academic researchers, to examine the relationship between our understanding of how culture works, the expression of democratic ideals, and how cultural diplomacy functions as part of U.S. public diplomacy.
Former Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Jim Glassman will give the keynote. Discussants include Nancy Snow (Syracuse University), Helle Dale (Heritage Foundation), and David Firestein (EastWest Institute, formerly Senior Advisor to the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy), Frank Hodsoll (Resource Center for Cultural Engagement), John Brown (Georgetown University), Kathleen Brion (Public Diplomacy Alumni Association), and Lawrence Wohlers (Smithsonian Institution). Moderators include Craig Hayden, Amb. Anthony Quainton, and Robert Albro.
The full schedule is below. The event is organized by the International Communication Program at American University's School of International Service and co-sponsored by the Public Diplomacy Council and www.MountainRunner.us (yes, I/this blog are co-sponsoring the event).
More information can be found at the website.
A reminder that I’m teaching an evening course next week, Understanding and Engaging Now Media. Held over 3 consecutive evenings, each class is three hours long (6p – 9p) and is intended to make the student more aware and versed in a global information environment shaped by the convergence of “old” and “new” media.
The three sessions are divided into two modules each and include two guest lecturers.
Day 1 (10 November) covers the “Convergence of Old and New into Now Media” and barriers and constraints to operating in this environment that range from speed, trust & authenticity, legislation, and the blurred roles of consumer and producer.
Day 2 (11 November) begins with a recently retired State Department official briefing on State’s use of new media and the lessons learned. The second half of this session expands on this by examining the tools, methods, and reasons to track and engage people, sentiments, and information.
Day 3 (12 November) begins with a presentation, Adversarial Exploitation of Online Video, by an information operator. The session and the course concludes examples from the world outside national security and discussion.
If you are interested, email me or visit the website of the organization hosting the training.
Many use “strategic communication” (the singular form is most common) and “public diplomacy” as synonyms. While I have done the same, they are actually different. In the enduring debate over the definitions of “strategic communication” and “public diplomacy”, one thing is certain: strategic communication is global and public diplomacy is non-US (or external the geographic territory of the 50 United States but possibly not the territories and possessions).
It is then ironic and mildly amusing to find a job opening for a “Strategic Communications Officer” at State in USAJobs:
This position is located in the Office of Policy, Programs, and Resources supporting the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and serves as Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications. The incumbent plays an important leadership role in proposing and developing programmatic public diplomacy initiatives within the Department and throughout the federal government.
The irony is that the Under Secretary does not to global engagement, specifically the Under Secretary does not do US engagement. That is the job of Public Affairs which she “owns” in title only. US (public affairs) and non-US (public diplomacy) engagement operations by the Under Secretary’s office is so bifurcated that the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs is operationally equal to rather than a subordinate under the Under Secretary. Unless the “Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications” is going to bridge the PA/PD gap in State, specifically within “R”, the title serves little purpose but to dilute and confuse the definition of “public diplomacy.” Is OPPR a step behind and adopting “strategic communication” at a time when the chief user of the title – DOD – backing away? Why is this position not the “Senior Advisor for Public Diplomacy”?
The United States has incorporated a bill into its annual military budget, which will allocate millions of dollars for Persian-language broadcasts. … US President Barack Obama signed the Victims of Iranian Censorship Act (VOICE) into law earlier this week. … Analysts in Iran say the move comes in response to the arrest of members of a US-based terrorist group — the Kingdom Assembly of Iran.
This take on VOICE by an Iranian government news agency is not surprising. What is surprising is the image in the Google News search (see above) that is a bit confusing. The image links to the same story as the headline, indicating they are the same and not a mash-up. It’s 2a, do you know where your brand is?
On VOICE itself, I wrote on the authorization for up to $55 million for State and BBG activities within the National Defense Authorization Act of 2010. As I noted before, the Senate and House defense appropriations committees – the people who put money into the checking accounts the authorizers open – did not go into their conference with VOICE on either agenda. They are unlikely to come out of conference with it, although if they did it would be significant that they are funding activities – activities they vociferously said should be funded - outside of their sandbox. Word is the defense appropriators won’t fund this but that the State Department appropriators - “foreign operations” – will, at least partially.
provides a comprehensive overview of public diplomacy and national image and perception management, from the efforts to foster pro-West sentiment during the Cold War to the post-9/11 campaign to "win the hearts and minds" of the Muslim world. Editors Nancy Snow and Philip Taylor present materials on public diplomacy trends in public opinion and cultural diplomacy as well as topical policy issues. The latest research in public relations, credibility, soft power, advertising, and marketing is included and institutional processes and players are identified and analyzed. While the field is dominated by American and British research and developments, the book also includes international research and comparative perspectives from other countries.
If you are interested in receiving a copy to review, email me and I'll put you in touch with the publisher. Disclosure: I have a chapter in this book, "Operationalizing Public Diplomacy"
Words matter. They are the first introduction we have to groups, people, places, and events. Any person in public relations can tell you their importance in conveying an idea. First impressions matter and different words will cause different reactions (emotional) or conclusions (logical). Often we forgot to think about the listening we are creating with our words. Economic as we must be with words, there are some things which are hard, if not impossible, to avoid, especially in a brief label or title.
Take for example the Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars. The group is comprised of students pursuing a Masters in Public Diplomacy from the University of Southern California (and I believe other universities but USC's APDS chapter is the most active). My friend John Brown criticized the use of "scholar" on his blog, describing it use as "pretentious." John is not an angry old man shaking his cane (he's neither angry nor with a cane, however he is old...), and yet, with the noted exception of Shawn Powers and Craig Hayden (also friends of mine), the reaction in the comments on his post were confused, aggressive and indicative of two groups not speaking the same language. Ironic considering the public diplomat's need to understand the listening created by words and actions.
The APDS use of "scholar" denotes not a level of attainment but a condition or status. Here that condition is that of a graduate student. Even "academic" would not fit here.
Is "scholar" the best word? Perhaps not, but then on a broader level beyond the students, "public diplomacy" is a worse choice.... Related:
Oglivy Exchange's National Security Strategy Lecture Series presents: Price Floyd
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary
of Defense for Public Affairs
Speaking on enhancing communications within the Department of Defense and between the U.S. military and Americans via social media, the new Defense.gov website and other channels.
(Q & A session will follow) Thursday, Nov. 5, 2009 11:30 AM - 1 PM. Lunch will be served
Mr. Floyd will discuss using social media to expand communication within the 18 year old to 25 year old demographic, an important audience for recruiting purposes; building a platform to increase feedback from troops and their families; developing a forum for enhanced communication with American citizens; and ensuring operational security of military actions in the age of Twitter and Facebook. RSVP: Contact Ellen Birek at Ellen.Birek@ogilvypr.com or at (202) 729-4231 DATE: Thursday, Nov.5, 2009 TIME: 11:30 AM - 1 PM, Lunch will be served WHERE:
Ogilvy's Washington Headquarters
1111 19th St. NW, 10th Floor
Washington, D.C., 20036
Since its origins, the IPCC has been open and explicit about seeking to generate a ‘scientific consensus’ around climate change and especially about the role of humans in climate change
I've been 'around' for a few years now, pursuing the shifting goal of a sharable home-made surfers resource site focused on ease of use and variety of mostly adult ( whoa : I didn't say prurient ) content.
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