April 15

"Philosophy has been trying to put literature in its place ever since Plato banished the poets from his ideal city; and ever since Plato banished the poets from his ideal city, literature has refused to cooperate."

--Book reviewer Paul A. Kottman, Times Literary Supplement (April 9, 2010), p. 31; image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

US takes focus off violent extremism - Nicholas Kralev, Washington Times: "Judith A. McHale, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, said in an interview with The Washington Times that 'a very narrow segment' of the world's population is at risk of turning to extremism . ... Ms. McHale also said 'we can't take our eye off the ball on violent extremist elements [because] they are very real and dangerous enemies to us.'

But 'you risk offending people by creating the impression that we think they are going to go that way, when in fact they don't,' she said. ... The Obama administration also has abandoned the term 'global war on terror' and has rarely used 'war of ideas.' ... Former Bush administration officials and analysts said that, despite certain perceptions, Mr. Bush's public diplomacy was not dominated entirely by countering extreme ideologies and actions. ... 'I'm not on a campaign to make everybody like us,' she [McHale] said. 'I have a high degree of respect for people, but this is not a branding or marketing exercise. It's about building relationships with people around the world who help us move our national agenda forward.'" McHale Image from

Your Tax Dollars at Work Convincing Cubans - Robert Sandels, CounterPunch: "‎Now, from the Brookings Institution, comes 'U.S. Public Diplomay for Cuba: Why It's Needed and How to Do It,' in which former British Ambassador in Cuba Paul Hare makes the case that cultural exchanges, NGOs and even ordinary tourists can help convince Cubans to be more like -- well, the people at Brookings. However, public diplomacy faces a challenge in persuading them. The Ambassador acknowledged after his 2001-2004 assignment in Havana was over that most Cubans want change but not free-market capitalism 'or a US-imposed solution.' ... What is public diplomacy? When Otto Reich ran the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1980s, he used it as a propaganda weapon for the Reagan administration and turned it on the US population. He was accused, among other things, of having engaged in unlawful efforts covertly to bring the US media in behind Reagan's Central American wars. ... Ambassador Hare thinks public diplomacy can help convince Cubans to support US objectives - in other words, assisted suicide. ... [A]ctually showing Cubans what the United States has in mind for them rather defeats the purpose of public diplomacy especially if what you stand for is ending their way of life."

Anti-Semitic Harassment An Assault On Human Rights, ADL Tells Congressional Panel - press release, Anti-Defamation League: "In testimony today before a Congressional panel in Washington, D.C., the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) outlined the major threats facing Jews around the globe and described how the singling out of Israel in public discourse was 'providing cover for the re-emergence of age-old anti-Semitic themes and conspiracy theories' and their violent expression through hate crimes, harassment and vandalism. ... In presenting its recommendations to the committee, the League noted the routine and underreported harassment and trepidation Jews must navigate in their daily lives.

ADL recommendations include: ... •The U.S. should prioritize combating anti-Semitism as part of its bilateral relations with other countries. Reporting on and combating anti-Semitism should be part of the full array of human rights and democracy programming, funding and public diplomacy efforts. •The U.S. must not demur from addressing anti-Semitism with Muslim and Arab leaders. The instruments of U.S. public diplomacy, and President Obama's emissary to the Organization of the Islamic Conference should seek ways to address the issue of anti-Semitism where it is needed most." Image from

Voice of America Director Danforth W. Austin response to a Washington Times editorial critical of VOA's Persian News Network - Press Release, VOA.

The Washington Times hopes Tehran keeps jamming VOA - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting: "Is the Washington Times' news coverage similar to that which it would foist on VOA? If so, this might explain the newspaper's sinking fortunes. The subject of sanctions against any country is subject to debate. If the Washington Times and certain politicians want VOA to interview only those people with whom they agree, the result will be broadcast service akin to those in many of VOA's target countries."

Will more radio to North Korea bring freedom to North Korea? - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting: "'North Koreans willing to tamper with their government radios or buy a $3 radio smuggled in from China have a wide range of choices. Over a dozen radio stations from the United States, South Korea and Japan currently broadcast to North Korea. Voice of America (VOA), one of the most popular stations, has been broadcasting to the North since 1942, while the equally popular Radio Free Asia (RFA) began its Korean service soon after its establishment by Congress in 1997. VOA focuses on news of the U.S. and the world, while RFA concentrates on North Korea and life for the nearly 20,000 defectors in the South. ... While we must be careful not to draw too many conclusions from samples that are far from random, it is not unreasonable to surmise that there are more than a million surreptitious listeners in a population of 24 million. ...

We can do much more to improve broadcasting to North Korea. VOA and RFA only broadcast five hours a day, and the defector stations limp along on shoestring budgets due to widespread public indifference in South Korea.' Peter Beck, Wall Street Journal, 14 April 2010. [Elliott comment:] If Mr. Beck's description of VOA versus RFA were true, it would mean that North Koreans would have to tune to RFA to get part of the news, and to VOA to get the rest of the news. So instead of an unsatisfactory situation subjecting North Korean listeners to inconvenience, we have an unsatisfactory situation in which two U.S. funded stations duplicate one another's efforts. VOA and RFA each broadcast five hours a day, and not concurrently, for a total of ten hours a day. These are the key evening, late-night, and morning listening hours. Additional broadcasts would occur during working hours, yielding diminished returns for the extra expense. A million listeners? Maybe, but we can't conclude that based on any of the available surveys of North Korean defectors. We do know the audience size in North Korea is above zero. Some of the Chinese radios are cheap, but I'm not aware of any decent models with a shortwave band costing three dollars. It is not only indifference in South Korea, but also policy considerations, which prevents the defector stations transmitting from South Korea (including on medium wave, audible on more North Korean radio sets than shortwave)." Image from

Ohne Bürger gelingt die Globalisierung nicht [Without fail, the citizens of globalization -- Google translation] - Daniel Florian Blog: "[A]uch jeder einzelne Bürger beeinflusst heute durch seine internationalen Kontakte das Image seines Herkunftslandes. Daher solle die EU sich die 'Weisheit der Massen' nutzbar machen, etwa durch einen europäischen Fonds, der innovative Public-Diplomacy-Projekte unterstützt.”

"New Russia": Not the Old Imperialist – Lena, Global Chaos:

"Russia, which clearly does not enjoy the benefit of having substantial 'Soft Power' in the West, is still seen as the preferred foreign 'partner' by many in the former Soviet countries. ... Russia has been successful in maintaining its hegemony in the region, ... [which] can ... indicate why it is increasingly difficult for the United States to take over that role in those countries (especially if its efforts go well beyond mere public diplomacy). ... Of course, Russia's public diplomacy (writ large) in the region consists of multiple layers and dimensions, the language arguably being the most prominent of them, but it is clearly appropriate for its audiences there (the centuries-long relationship did affect both sides, in terms of learning and accommodation)." Image from

India, China relations and media coverage: A Public Diplomacy challenge - Madhurjya Kotoky, Public Diplomacy Blog: "The idea of managing media relations by professional managers is a new concept in China and India’s public diplomacy discourse. It has generally been limited to the mandarins in foreign office of both these countries, though, I must admit, China is a bit ahead on this. However, with the exponential growth of the industry in both these countries and also the boom in uncontrolled media like the internet, the need is felt for professional media managers within the government who can decide on the message, control the message, effectively disseminate, pitch story ideas, track and analyze coverage accordingly."

Let It Be - Laura McGinnis, manIC: "On Monday night I attended a presentation on the Vatican's public diplomacy. The takeaway was that the Church largely relies on information distribution, via resources like L'Osservatore Romano, Vatican Radio, Vatican Central Television and the Church website, but that an institutional bias towards secrecy and glacial responses to scandals were major problems. ... For centuries, the Church had a near monopoly on the means of mass communication, and questioning any of its pronouncements was unthinkable.

Still, it has had many, many years to adjust to the idea of non-papal broadcasters. If the Holy See wants to succeed in its goal of spreading the gospel and fostering peace and justice for all, it needs to raise its game and its pace in the global public sphere. And it needs to quickly condemn and resolve crises within its own flock--and I don't mean pop tunes." Image from

Israel Trapped in Nuclear Isolation - Jerrold Kessel, Inter Press Service: "Top-flight nuclear scholars concluded a recent conference in London organised jointly by the School of Oriental and African Studies and the East Jerusalem-based Palestine-Israel Journal with the statement that 'the Iranian nuclear programme has served as a welcome distraction for the Netanyahu administration. (They) have conducted a 'megaphone war' in pointing to Iran as the major threat to the state of Israel and as the primary source of regional instability, in the expectation that this will diminish (or at least mask) domestic and international scrutiny of the faltering peace process. Using the media and public diplomacy, Netanyahu is 'fanning the flames of fear' over an alleged 'existential threat' emanating from Iran.' 'But why the focus only on Iran? What about Israel's nuclear option?' asks Ziad AbuZayyad, a participant in the London conference, and a former Palestinian cabinet minister who in the 1990s headed the Palestinian delegation to the Multilateral Arms Control and Regional Security (ACRS) group in multilateral Arab-Israeli peace talks. 'Does a double standard apply, and is Israel not accountable to the international community?'"

"The world wants Israel's ideas" - Globes: "When it comes to getting across ideological messages, especially through social networks, [David ] Saranga ['currently on unpaid lead from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, after more than 15 years of service [;] [in]n his last post he was ... Consul for Media and Public Affairs at the Israeli Consulate General in New York'] knows what he's talking about. He was the first diplomat who had the wit to read the map of the blogosphere, and to treat Israel like another provincial teenager who considers herself queen of the class. He opened a Facebook profile for Israel (the first ever profile for a country); he was the first to hold a press conference on Israel's behalf on Twitter, at the height of the fighting in Gaza.

He even answered surfers' questions, not all of them easy to digest. At the same time, he opened accounts on MySpace, ran daily blogs, and engaged in what he calls 'non-conventional warfare.' On April 26, Saranga will take this idea getting messages and ideas across through social networks a step further, when, together with the organizers of the TEDxTelAviv event [To follow TEDxTelAviv - on Facebook: www.facebook.com/TedxTelAviv; and on Twitter: twitter.com/tedxtelaviv], he will help to spread a list of Israeli ideas around the world via social networks." Saranga image from

D vs. PD – Levantine, Paul Rockower: "Tom Friedman makes a great point explaining the difference between diplomacy and public diplomacy in geo-strategic affairs in his op-ed today: In the cold war all that mattered was whether a country was allied with us. What matters in Obama’s war in Afghanistan is whether the Afghan people are allied with their own government and each other. Only then can we get out and leave behind something stable, decent and self-sustaining."

The new diplomacy - selles, The New Diplomacy 2010 B: "Public diplomacy is also a new occurrence as more than ever diplomats are engaging with foreign publics to galvanize support for their country’s policies, way of life and culture."

The most important aspect of the new diplomacy – Louky, The New Diplomacy 2010 D: "Public diplomacy is another aspect of the new diplomacy."

Internship at Washington DC embassy of Japan - jassorg.wordpress.com: The Japan Information & Culture Center (JICC), Embassy of Japan is seeking unpaid, part- to full-time interns (12-35hrs/week) for the 2010 summer term.

Internship start date and hours are customized with the academic schedule of the chosen candidate. The JICC is the cultural and public affairs section of the Embassy of Japan in Washington D.C. Our primary role is to promote better understanding of Japan and Japanese culture by providing a wide range of information, educational services, and programs to the public. We strive to build bridges between cultures through various activities, such as film screenings, art exhibitions, an online newsletter, and school programs. For more information on the JICC, visit http://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/jicc/index.htm. ... Internship Qualifications and Requirements: Studies: ... • Major in International Studies, Japanese Studies, Asian American Studies, Public Diplomacy, Political Science, or a related field. ..." Image from

Obama's Nuclear Summit: Did It Matter? - Matthew Wallin, Neon Tommy: "Matthew Wallin is a second-year master's candidate in the Master of Public Diplomacy program [at USC]."

RELATED ITEMS

He's a Dreamer, He's a Realist: In matters of national security, confusion is always dangerous – Daniel Henninger, Wall Street Journal (subscription)

Obama Speech Signals a U.S. Shift on Middle East- Mark Landler and Helene Cooper, New York Times:

Mr. Obama said conflicts like the one in the Middle East ended up “costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure” — drawing an explicit link between the Israeli-Palestinian strife and the safety of American soldiers as they battle Islamic extremism and terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Mr. Obama’s words reverberated through diplomatic circles in large part because they echoed those of Gen. David H. Petraeus, the military commander overseeing America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In recent Congressional testimony, the general said that the lack of progress in the Middle East created a hostile environment for the United States. He has denied reports that he was suggesting that soldiers were being put in harm’s way by American support for Israel. Image from

Israel, Israel, the US and Propaganda's Power - Robert Parry, Consortium News: By even as the Left has undervalued media, two other groups may be overestimating its power to control public perceptions and thus may be failing to adjust to new realities. Those two groups are the U.S. Republican Party and Israel’s Likud government.

U.S. adoptions of Russian children suspended: The Foreign Ministry announcement comes amid outrage over the case of a boy sent back to Russia alone - Associated Press, latimes.com:

Russia suspended all adoptions to U.S. families on Thursday until the two countries can agree on procedures, the Foreign Ministry said, a week after an American woman sent her 7-year-old adopted son back to Russia on a plane by himself. The boy's return -- without supervision or explanation aside from a note he carried from his adoptive mother saying he had psychological problems -- has incensed Russia and prompted aggressive media coverage of foreign adoptions. A U.S. delegation will Moscow "in the next few days" to discuss international adoptions and a possible bilateral agreement, ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said. Image from

ONE MORE QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

"a yeasty mix of sleaze, freaks, pathos, tack, camp, hype, hugs, hollers, gush, fads and tease marinated in tears."

--The Oprah Winfrey Show, according to celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley

AMERICANA



From Boing Boing: This piece by photographer Alex Brown is the latest offering at the 20x200 art project. Alex Brown says: "This photograph was taken in a McDonald's restaurant in Upstate New York. The kid was sitting in the booth on his own wearing a Darth Vader helmet that made the same breathing sound as the character in Star Wars. For some reason, he reminded me of myself as a child. I always wanted a helmet like that when Star Wars first came out but my parents wouldn't buy me one." Sad Vader, indeed, Alex.