More on US Laos Rapper-Astronomer-Ambassador in Action: She's "on a high" Performing US Public Diplomacy

“Jay-Z she is not, but when the U.S. ambassador to Laos [Karen Stewart, a.k.a. MC Karen] took the stage at a music festival in the Laotian capital of Vientiane the other day she decided to try a

medium not usually employed in diplomacy: She rapped. In Lao. ... The festival also included a graffiti art competition on the theme ‘fake drugs.’ ... Stewart described the experience ... [:] 'After my rap, I was kind of on a high.'”

--Kirit Radia, “US Ambassador, a.k.a. MC Karen, Raps in Lao,” ABC News [includes video on the ambassador, who is also an astronomer]. For more on this event, see.

On astronomers, here's, in a somewhat different context, Walt Whitman: "When I sitting heard the astronomer ... how soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars."  

A Foreign Service officer whom I hold in high regard evaluated MC Karen's performance as follows: "Reverse colonialism/ugly Americanism at its worst."

Image from, with caption: Here I  [MC Karen] am signing a hat for my rap partner-in-crime, MC Loko.