“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 Century,” unofficially called “Dirty Lit” by the Cornell Daily Sun, since it dealt with adultery in Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary. Image from
VIDEOS
Through a screen darkly: Popular culture, public diplomacy, and America's image abroad - Bradley Lecture by Martha Bayles - American Enterprise Institute; above Bayles image via MB
Концерт The Quebe Sisters Band в Спасо Хаус (Concert of the Quebe Sister at Spaso House, [Residence of the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow]) - YouTube; via YB on Facebook
Battle Stations - Mosquito Attack - Pertains in part to combating Nazi propaganda (starting at 17"40')
Вся мощь СССР в одной песне ("All the Strength of the USSR in one song") - Naked Kid
MUSIC
GANGNAM STYLE (acoustic cover)-GARRI PAT - YouTube. Via jamminjoy
PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
US Ambassador speaks on Shahabag and current political situation - Ambassador Serajul Islam's Political Blog: "Daily Sun Maarch [sic] 17, 2013 M. Serajul Islam The US Ambassador broke the long silence of the foreign Ambassadors on commenting on the current political situation in Bangladesh. Ambassador Dan Mozena called a 'Meet the Press' at the American Center in Dhaka recently and interacted with the media at length on Shahabag and the related issues of politics in the country. The Ambassador’s media briefing was significant because it was undertaken after he returned to Dhaka from a visit to the United States.
The Ambassador spoke about Shahabag, Jamat and banning it, the ICT, violence and political instability and the coming elections in the context what he had told people who had asked him questions on these issues when he was in the United States. Nevertheless, an Ambassador does not provide views in a public forum that are not his government’s especially when he has just returned from his country while a political turmoil was raging in the country of his accreditation. Therefore Ambassador Mozena in fact did public diplomacy with his 'Meet the Press' event; informing Bangladeshis what in reality is his government’s views on the current situation in the country." Image from entry
Miss Minnesota USA Promoted U.S. Business and Instilled Good Will in Laos - Paul Mayer, rockycoastnews.blogspot.com: "Paul Mayer serves as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Vientiane, Laos. American diplomats meet interesting people every day. It's one of the things that make our careers so exciting. I've met presidents, Olympic gold medalists, and civic activists. In Montreal, Stevie Wonder told me I was cool. And, in Vientiane, I met a beauty pageant winner who helped American public diplomacy efforts in Laos. This past January, as part of an economic diplomacy initiative, our embassy organized a campaign designed to deepen U.S.-Lao business ties and promote the newly-established Lao chapter of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham). The economy of Laos has emerged as an attractive investment opportunity for American businesses. A number of U.S. companies have already entered the Lao market, but unfortunately operate under structural and cultural disadvantages compared with companies from the region. We, however, have an unexpected advocate for U.S. business in Laos: Nitaya Panemalaythong, Miss Minnesota USA 2012. Nitaya is Lao-American, and her beauty pageant win was widely celebrated by Lao people around the world. When we asked Nitaya to come to Laos, we knew she would help draw attention to American businesses. Her enthusiasm and charm never flagged through a jam-packed schedule of business meetings and public appearances. Our economic diplomacy campaign culminated in a trade fair and fashion show organized by AmCham. With trade booths for more than 15 U.S. companies, the event attracted almost 150 guests, including leading business members and senior Lao government officials.
Beyond her liaison work with the business community, Nitaya was a wonderful representative of the United States. She spoke -- in Lao and English -- at Embassy American Corners and she participated in numerous youth outreach events. She was indefatigable. Nitaya took a journey on the embassy-supported 'Book Boat' --a mobile library that delivers books to children in otherwise inaccessible parts of rural Luang Prabang Province. In Ban Sing Village, we watched as Nitaya spent the morning reading to nearly 100 children. The smiles all around were amazing. Her visits in Vientiane and Luang Prabang helped raise awareness of U.S. government-backed efforts to promote literacy, to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS, to clean up deadly unexploded ordnance, and to support the empowerment of women and girls. She also visited the Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise (COPE), a USAID-funded organization which provides assistance to victims of unexploded ordnance, as well as a vocational training center for victims of human trafficking. Unsurprisingly, Nitaya's visit was met enthusiastically by the people of Laos. The embassy posted updates and a series of video diaries on our Facebook page, and some postings reached a quarter of all Facebook users in the country. The most-liked Facebook post in the embassy's history was one featuring a picture of Nitaya and Miss Laos 2012 at the AmCham fashion show. These online postings captured some of the best moments of the visit, and weeks later, we still feel the good will." Image from entry
Letters from Readers [December 2012] - American Diplomacy: "Sir: As a retired U.S. Information Agency (USIA) officer, I read with great interest the reviews by Dr. Michael Schneider and Mark Dillen of Nicholas Cull's book on the history of USIA during the Cold War. I have no quarrel with those comprehensive and well-written reviews except to note that they failed to name the culprits who killed USIA [see- JB] : the 'odd couple'
consisting of President Clinton's weak Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, and the late, ultra-conservative Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), with a notable assist by the last USIA Director, Dr. Joe Duffey, an ineffectual elitist who jumped ship when the going got tough. Ms. Albright made a deal with the devil and Duffey failed to defend his troops and the Agency with his alleged friends in the White House. Shame! ... [T]he 1999 State - USIA merger is clear for all to see by now. Public diplomacy was banished to the basement of the Fudge Factory, destined to become an afterthought in the arsenal of American diplomacy. What we have now is 'hip-hop diplomacy' and international LGBT programs. Draw your own conclusions. Guy W. Farmer USIA FSO (retired) Carson City, NV" Image from
Urbanism and sustainability as an element of US foreign policy: US Agency of International Development policies - urbanplacesandspaces.blogspot.com: "Lynn Stevens of
He's gone on to reshape much of his consulting efforts around international historic preservation matters. ... [T]he journal Place Branding and Public Diplomacy which I make a point of checking out from time to time. (I can't remember if the Library of Congress gets it online, but I am pretty sure the online journals titles at most large universities have a master subscription to Palgrave Macmillan journals which include it--most DC area college libraries have it, including the Catholic University of America--conveniently located on the Metropolitan Branch Trail and the WMATA red line subway.)" Image from entry. See also John Brown, "A Liberal Education and 'Nation Branding'," Notes and Essays
Czech Radio criticizes RFE/RL for mistreatment of foreign employees, new executive expected to act - BBGWatcher, usgbroadcasts.com
BBG executives and lawyers refuse to settle discrimination cases they know they will lose - BBGWatcher, usgbroadcasts.com: "The union representing the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) employees, AFGE Local 1812, has been pointing out again and again that BBG executives and lawyers are wasting millions of U.S. taxpayers’ dollars by refusing to settle employee discrimination cases in which arbitrators and judges had already ruled multiple times that the agency was at fault."
Voice of Russia and China Radio International sign "treaty" to exchange content - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting
Trip in New Role - Jane Perlez and Bree Feng, New York Times: "Peng Liyuan, China’s new first lady, is glamorous, fashionable and one of her nation’s best-known singers, a startling contrast to her dour-looking predecessors. As she accompanies her husband, President Xi Jinping, on his first trip abroad as China’s leader, Ms. Peng appears ready to carve out a new role for herself. ... At a time when China’s Foreign Ministry is struggling to improve China’s international image, Ms. Peng, 50, who has dazzled audiences at home and abroad with her bravura soprano voice, comes as a welcome gift. ... Concerned about China’s difficulties in projecting a global soft power presence, the government recently established a Public Diplomacy Association made up of former ambassadors and other notable figures.
The association’s task is to make the 'voice of China and the story of China more engaging and more convincing,' said Yang Jiechi, the new state councilor in charge of foreign affairs. Officials now talk publicly about the need for Chinese companies, especially mining and construction conglomerates, to be more sensitive to local needs in Africa and Asia. It could be that Ms. Peng’s star power will push the diplomats into the background. ... Mr. Xi and Ms. Peng have one daughter, Xi Mingze, who is registered under a pseudonym as an undergraduate at Harvard." Image from article, with caption: Peng Liyuan in Moscow for her first visit abroad as first lady. She has cut back on her singing as her husband’s political star has risen.
Anticipation high for first lady Peng’s diplomatic debut in Russia [March 20] - Liu Linlin, Global Times: "China's first lady Peng Liyuan is set to make her diplomatic debut on Monday in Moscow alongside husband, newly-elected President Xi Jinping, whose maiden four-nation tour as head of State also includes attending the BRICS summit in South Africa. ... Feng Shaolei, dean of the Advanced School of International and Regional Studies at East China Normal University, told the Global Times that Peng's upcoming public debut as first lady shows China's push to follow in the footsteps of countries whose leaders are accompanied by their wives or partners on diplomatic trips. 'Peng is experienced in management and international exchanges. China has adopted this advanced idea of public diplomacy, and Peng's experience can help her shine on the international stage,' Feng said."
Annual PPP summit announces national projects to attract investors to Egypt - Daily News Egypt: "[I]n the summit, Amr Hassanein, a professor at the American University in Cairo (AUC), led a panel discussion with Laurence Carter, director of the PPP transaction advisory board of the IFC, the EU’s delegate to Egypt Laura Garagnani, and European Bank Director for Construction and Development John Marquet. ... Garagnani explained the role of the EU in Egypt. 'The EU is not just a
loaner, we’re a neighbour and partner to Egypt, and we try to help through our public diplomacy,' she said." Image from
Raja feels proud on smooth power transfer - nation.com.pk: "Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said that he tried to discharge his responsibilities to the best of his abilities and maintained good relations with the leaders of all political parties, both within and outside the Parliament, in running affairs of the government through mutual consultation. ... He said at the external level, the government spearheaded a broad-based and diversified foreign policy in line with the directions of the Parliament and aspirations of the people. 'We developed our relations with immediate neighbours as well as other friends on the basis of mutual respect, equality, and fair play. Economic and public diplomacy remained a central plank of the foreign policy objectives that the government pursued during tenure. Trade not aid was our guiding principle,' he added."
Obedience to Authority - Public Diplomacy and International Communications: Thoughts and comments about public diplomacy, soft power and international communications by Gary Rawnsley: "My friend, colleague and mentor Philip Taylor used to say that no student should graduate with a degree in Communications Studies without having read Walter Lippmann and Harold Lasswell. ... Students often ask me my recommendation for the most useful or influential books to read. On propaganda, there is a huge bibliography, and Jacques Ellul's Propaganda: The Formation of Men's Attitudes (first published in 1962), a sophisticated theoretical discussion that is rooted in the author's sociological approach, must be close to the top. Let no-one say there is no theory of propaganda: Ellul is evidence of the contrary. It is not an easy read, and certainly I had to take my time with it when I first tackled it during my PhD - but the reader's patience and hard work will be rewarded. ... However, there is another book that I recommend to students of communications and politics. ... The book to which I refer is Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority, published in 1974, though the results of his experiments were first published in the early 1960s. The experiments he conducted are well-known and controversial and raised many ethical questions at the time: they involve persuading members of the public to administer electric shocks to other participants (actors in on the experiment) if they answer a question incorrectly.
The subject is instructed to increase the power of the shocks (of course, this is all fake) and the actor screams in agony. The premise of the experiment is to determine how far someone will go in obeying authority, even when he protests about the harm he thinks he is causing a fellow human being. The participant is persuaded to do so through the manufacture of legitimacy: this is a scientific experiment, and is being conducted by men in white coats carrying clip boards within a laboratory setting. ... I suggest Obedience to Authority is one of the greatest studies of propaganda which turns on familiar and accepted symbolism - how many television advertisements for washing powder or toothpaste feature men in white lab coats holding clip boards - and therefore the creation of trust and legitimacy. To be effective propaganda must be rooted in a particular social setting; we may not feel comfortable doing the things we are asked to do, but if we can be persuaded that it is for a greater - and legitimate - cause (national security, the advance of science) we are more likely to participate." Image from entry
RELATED ITEMS
Israel: Bits, Bytes and Bombs - Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times: Obama embraced Israelis with both understanding and honesty. He noted in his speech: “As Ariel Sharon said — I’m quoting him — ‘It is impossible to have a Jewish democratic state [and], at the same time to control all of [the land of] Israel. If we insist on fulfilling the dream in its entirety, we are liable to lose it all.’" Which is why Palestinians need to drop all their preconditions and enter negotiations and Israel needs to halt settlements and test and test again whether President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the Palestinian Authority can deliver.
Syria ‘chemical’ attack leads to propaganda war - gulf-times.com: Both sides in Syria’s conflict yesterday demanded an international inquiry into a deadly attack they each cite as evidence that the other has used chemical weapons. The deaths of 26 people in a rocket attack on a northern town on Tuesday have become the latest focus of a propaganda war between President Bashar al-Assad’s supporters and opponents, who accuse each other of firing a missile laden with chemicals. The United States and Russia, which back opposing sides in Syria, took contrasting views of the strike on Khan Al-Assal, near Aleppo, which, if confirmed, would be the first use of chemical weapons in the two-year-old conflict.
Robert Ford, the US ambassador to Damascus who left Syria more than a year ago, said his government had no evidence so far to substantiate reports that chemical weapons munitions had been used in Syria on Tuesday. “But I want to underline that we are looking very carefully at these reports,” he added, in testimony in Washington to a US House of Representatives hearing on the crisis in Syria. Ford also said there would be consequences for Syria’s government if it were found to be using chemical weapons, but would not discuss what those would be. The opposition Syrian National Coalition said it wanted an international investigation into alleged chemical attacks in both Khan Al-Assal and Otaiba, a town near the capital Damascus. Image from article
Afghanistan: The Way to Peace - Anatol Lieven, New York Review of Books: The one thing the Obama administration cannot honorably and realistically do is to walk away from Afghanistan with the declaration that it is “a matter for the Afghans themselves.”
This might sound modest and democratic, but it would in fact be an abdication of responsibility for an Afghan mess that is to a considerable extent of America’s own making; and responsibility to the American soldiers—the troop trainers and advisers and others—and officials who will be left in the middle of this mess after US ground troops withdraw next year. Image from article, with caption: Afghan villagers in Paktika province, assembled by US and Afghan soldiers during a search for information about Taliban and Haqqani network activity in the area, October 2011
World’s Largest Embassy Soon to Be World’s Loneliest Embassy - Peter Van Buren, We Meant Well: The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, once intended as a monument to American power in the heart of conquered Iraq, now looks just like our own decayed U.S. cities. Image from entry
See also John Brown, "They're Supersizing the Baghdad Embassy. Big Mistake," Washington Post (July 11, 2004), and "A Modest Proposal: Let's Just Have The New American Embassy in Baghdad in Second Life!" Common Dreams (June 11, 2007)
Rethinking U.S. Security Strategy - Hans Binnendijk, New York Times: The United States faces a more dangerous world with fewer national security resources. The new U.S. strategy will either need to retrench and absorb greater risk or develop more robust global partnerships to pick up the slack. An approach likely to capture the views of Kerry and Hagel is forward-partnering, which would continue to stress U.S. forward-force deployments but with a new purpose: to enable America’s global partners to operate together with U.S. forces and to encourage partners to take the lead in their own neighborhoods. The United States needs to rebalance without retreating. Remaining in a forward posture in order to enable partners to share greater responsibilities meets that requirement.
Spanish parties call Holocaust remembrance ‘propaganda’Leftist and nationalist factions unite to veto resolution described as part of Israeli plot - timesofisrael.com: Spanish Jews accused politicians in Galicia of blocking a resolution for commemorating the Holocaust because they oppose Israel. The speakers of the leftist AGE party and the nationalist BNG party in the parliament of Galicia — an autonomous region in northern Spain — vetoed a draft resolution commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, preventing it from going to a vote, according to the Federation of Jewish Communities (FCJE) in Spain. Resolutions commemorating the victims of the Holocaust were passed in the Galician parliament in 2010, 2011 and 2012 in time for International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27. This year, there was no such resolution.
AMERICANA
Gun deaths shaped by race in America - Dan Keating, Washington Post: Gun deaths are shaped by race in America. Whites are far more likely to shoot themselves, and African Americans are far more likely to be shot by someone else. African Americans tend to be stronger backers of tough gun controls than whites. A Washington Post-ABC News poll this month found that about three-quarters of blacks support stronger controls, compared with about half of whites.
Via MP on Facebook; image from article
RUSSICA
"Boris Berezovsky? Who is that?"
--Russian president Vladimir Putin (2001); see also John Brown, "The Death of a Russian Oligarch: Paranoids of the World, Unite!," Notes and Essays; image from; "kto eto" -- "Who's that"
"Perhaps he felt that nothing was going right for him. He told me one thing that I was touched by, that he nearly cries when he watches Russian TV from Moscow."
--Firebrand ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, regarding Berezovsky
Image from, with caption: [Berezovsky] Chauffeur Mark Pendlebury says he was told to make sure one of the girls [hosted by Berezovsky - JB] missed her flight back to Riga
SOVIETICA
Via DR on Facebook; sign says (loose translation): "Ready for Work and Defense!"
AMERICANA/RUSSICA
For Los Angeles Lady Arm Wrestlers, joy and protest go hand in hand: The Bootleg Theater plays host to the empowerment-charity fest by the Collective of Lady Arm Wrestlers, whose L.A. chapter revels in outrageous shows of force - Taffy Brodesser-Akner, latimes.com: On Valentine's Day, a young woman wearing a button-down shirt, bicycle shorts and a Soviet-era Budenovka hat, along with an adhesive mustache, stood on the stage of the Bootleg Theater. Her name was Russky Business. Her father's Fabergé egg had been stolen, so she was doing arm-wrestling bouts to make money for the repurchase of the egg, always hoping that the right people would see her skills and she would earn that arm-wrestling scholarship to the prestigious Moscow State University.
The audience danced in front of the stage to the Village People's "Macho Man" as a young woman dressed in a black tutu, hard hat and a construction vest with small traffic cones attached at the torso danced up the ramp to the stage followed by a team of burly and enthusiastic construction men. This was Dirt Diggler, a wayward construction worker who, the emcees announced, was "from the depths of the down-and-dirtiest damn places you have ever seen." The two settled down and met face to face. All that stood between them was a high table and a professional arm-wrestling referee. They set their right elbows on the table, clasped hands and got to work. Campier than World Wrestling Entertainment. More self-aware than that 1980s mainstay, the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling. Way more over the top than the 1987 Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling movie "Over The Top." Meet the Los Angeles Lady Arm Wrestlers (LA LAW), the Los Angeles chapter of the Collective of Lady Arm Wrestlers (CLAW), arm-wrestling theater as performance art, fundraiser, women's empowerment vehicle and outrageous entertainment. Image from article
AMERICANA
Mussolini Poised to Invade Ethiopia, 25 Years Ago 1960/09/22 - youtube.com; image from
George Bush's Worst Moments in Office - YouTube
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