Clik here to view.
March 17 Public Diplomacy Review
"Multibillion-dollar map of human brain might not be worth it"--Headline in Los Angeles Times; image from article, with caption: A brain scan of white matter fibers, color-coded by directionVIDEOThe...
View ArticleClik here to view.
March 18-19 Public Diplomacy Review
“I don’t even remember how old I am. I wake up each day with a thousand problems, so why should I remember that?"--Abdullah Fadil, who has sold tea since 1982 outside a mosque in Adhamiya, a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
March 20 Public Diplomacy Review
"[T]oday there's a square in Jerusalem named for Pollard."--Bret Stephens, "Don't Free Jonathan Pollard: A man who betrayed his country is no martyr to the Jewish people," Wall Street Journal; image...
View ArticleClik here to view.
March 21 Public Diplomacy Review
"Senate votes to keep White House closed, slaughterhouses open."--Headline in The Washington Times; image fromPUBLIC DIPLOMACYObama Kicks Off First Presidential Visit to Israel - Genevieve Belmaker,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What a U.S. Foreign Service officer knows about a country to which s/he is...
"My specific job for my first tour in Benin will be to represent the United States by serving as the Public Diplomacy Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Cotonou,' [she] said. She acknowledged that Benin is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
March 22-23
Image fromIraq veteran, paralyzed by sniper, prepares to take his own life - Matt Pearce, Los Angeles Times; image from article, with caption: Tomas Young, shown with his brother Nathan in 2007, has...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Death of a Russian Oligarch: Paranoids of the World, Unite!
"Former British ambassador to Russia Sir Andrew Wood, who knew Mr Berezovsky, said he had been a man of vigour who had tended to 'over-egg his importance,' was at heart 'not a bad man' and had been...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Liberal Education and "Nation Branding"
It increasingly seems to me that the notion of "nation branding" -- reducing societies, no matter their "complexity," to marketing slogans -- is at odds to what a Liberal Education suggests -- that...
View ArticleSurrealism Made Fresh
Surrealism Made Fresh, New York Review of BooksAPRIL 4, 2013Sanford SchwartzDrawing Surrealism: an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, October 21, 2012–January 6, 2013; and the Morgan...
View ArticleClik here to view.
March 24-25 Public Diplomacy Review
“Describe the train station in which Anna first met Vronsky.”--Question on the pop quiz given by Vladimir Nabokov to his Cornell students taking his course “European Literature of the Nineteenth...
View ArticleTo beg the question
An rampant error in English usage -- the misuse of "beg the question" -- which is not sufficiently condemned but well exposed at. Thank you GH on Facebook.
View ArticleClik here to view.
Public Diplomacy at its Best? Russian-Papuan Relations
Video, not to be missed by anyone interested in foreign relations, which raises interesting questions about a Russian official's attitudes toward the non-Western world (doubtless shared by many in the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Public Diplomacy: Schooling vs. Practice
The below quotation could perhaps be good advice to aspiring practitioners of public diplomacy on behalf of their country: an advanced degree in PD certainly looks good, but it's PD practice that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Public Diplomacy Review, March 26-27
Kind readers of this report: As mentioned on several occasions, where this summary of PD items first appears is in on the blog, Public Diplomacy Blog and Review (PDPBR). For some reason, however, the...
View ArticleFrom: 17 cultural reasons why this European never wants to live in America
From: 17 cultural reasons why this European never wants to live in America - Fluent in 3 months: Unconventional Language Hacking Tips from Benny the Irish Polyglot2. Everything is “awesome”!I really...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On Cultural Exchange
"No commodity is quite so strange/As this thing called cultural exchange."--So wrote Dave and Iola Brubeck in their musical with Louis Armstrong, The Real Ambassadors. ***Below a comment by yours truly...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Get a USA scholarship! Then you won't get droned!
"[Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara] Sonenshine recalled a recent trip to Pakistan where she held a question-and-answer session with students, who immediately asked how...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Russian-American Relations: Is Vlad Stealing from Yul?
For your amusement, indulge, when you have a moment, in this highlighted video -- Vladimir Putin es James Bond! which illustrates Mr. Putin's "I walk-the-walk" -- and compare its Vlad swaggering...
View ArticleClik here to view.
March 28-29 Public Diplomacy Review
“He will never forgive you for supporting him.”--Boris Nemtsov, Russia’s deputy prime minister during Yeltsin’s second Presidency, warning recently self(?)-hanged Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
March 30-31 Public Diplomacy Review
"Art and mass entertainment and propaganda, they can all be plotted on the same graph, but there is a difference."--Dramatist David Mamet; image fromNEW SITE OF INTERESTThe BBG's globalnewsdashboard;...
View Article