“The US Dept. of State International Information Program is casting a male (25 to 45) for a comedic commercial intended for public diplomacy outreach. The piece will be shot in DC sometime during the 2nd or 3rd week of January. It is a paying, but non-union shoot. The piece is wordless - so physical comedy experience and great ‘face’ control is a must.”--freecastingcall.com
Public Diplomacy: America’s Embarrassing Failure to Take Its Message to the World - Lawrence J. Haas – North Star Writers Group: “The intensely partisan debate over foreign policy of recent years has overshadowed one area of broad bipartisan consensus: America’s efforts at public diplomacy in the post-9/11 era have largely failed. … Of all the opportunities that incoming president Barack Obama can seize, none is more important for long-term U.S. national security than the chance to set public diplomacy on an effective course. … The war between the U.S.-led West and radical Islam will be determined as much by the ‘hearts and minds’ of hundreds of millions of Muslims the world over as by our power to destroy terrorists and confront the states that sponsor them.”
Neocons, NYT Demand More War, Torture – Philip Giraldi, AntiWar.com: “Diane Zeleny … is director of communications for Radio Free Europe, a position she was given after being on the receiving end of a grievance filed by the American Foreign Service Association in 2006 when she broke every rule in State Department assignments to obtain a godfathered appointment to head a media response center in Brussels.
Zeleny was allegedly a favorite of the redoubtable Karen Hughes, the self-styled soccer mom turned public diplomacy czarina whose gaffe-filled ‘listening tours’ to the Muslim world were amusingly described in the world media.” On Karen Hughes at
10 Reasons Why The West Will Lose To Islam - David Selbourne, World Views: “If such war [‘the war declared by al-Qaeda and other Islamists’] is under way, there are ten good reasons why, as things stand, Islam will not be defeated in it. 1) The first is the extent of political division in the non-Muslim world about what is afoot. … Divided counsels have … dictated everything from 'dialogue' to the use of nuclear weapons, and from reliance on 'public diplomacy' to 'taking out Islamic sites', Mecca included. Adding to this incoherence has been the gulf between those bristling to take the fight to the 'terrorist' and those who would impede such a fight, whether from domestic civil libertarian concerns or from rivalrous geopolitical calculation.”
Keep On Tweeting In The Free World – Rob, Social Networks: “Are you interested in the world of international diplomacy and the goings on at the State Department, but you are not sure where to get information in real time?
No problem, the State Department has caught the Twitter bug and they want to have a conversation with you. A quick scour of the “dipnote” Twitter site shows that they regularly post updates about what Secretary of State Rice has on her agenda, and that there will be no daily press briefing today, and there is an updated travel alert concerning travel in India. Like everything posted on Twitter, it’s up to you to measure the relative value of the individual tweets. If you desire to get up close and personal with a real diplomat to see what they do each day, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Public Diplomacy Colleen Graffy has her own Twitter feed.“
The Global Twittersphere Discusses Gaza – Jillian York, Huffington Post: Twitter users utilize hashtags to aggregate their content; users can then go to Twitter Search and look for content on a particular subject. In this case, the most utilized hashtag is #gaza, while #gazawarofwords is tracking media bias. A search for other hashtags being used to discuss Gaza brings up #israel, #syria, #baghdad, #2states, and #rafah, among others.
Filtering comments - Matt Armstrong, MountainRunner: “[T]his past week when I posted a rejoinder at the American Foreign Policy Council’s blog about tweeting. I’m not bothered that my comment was rejected, but I did get a laugh that a discussion about public diplomacy that says ‘public diplomacy and strategic communication are not about total transparency’ would censor comments. Well, AFPC practices what they preach.”
Israeli Consulate to host Twitter Press Conference on Gaza - DIP's Dispatches from the Imagination Age: “Tuesday December 30 from 1-3pm Eastern, the Consulate General of Israel in New York will be hosting a 'Citizens "Press" Conference' to discuss the conflict in Gaza IN TWITTER! … The Israeli Consulate's effort is an excellent study in Public Diplomacy 2.0 and an even more interesting use of tactical and nimble public affairs using our ever evolving social networking ecosystem. I've been consistently impressed with the Israeli government's agility and ease of using newer technology tools to communicate their message.
Dozens Gather in Second Life to Protest Gaza Attacks - DIP's Dispatches from the Imagination Age: “Dozens of people have been gathering since Saturday in Second Life at a protest of the recent attacks in the Gaza Strip.
The Egypt and Qatar-based news site, IslamOnline.net, has built a Palestine Holocaust Memorial Museum with scores of pictures of the attacks and people wounded in the attacks drawn news sources around the world. … The gathering is an example of the rich, textured opportunity that 3D immersive spaces like Second Life offer for people to express their concerns about present day issues.”
Netanyahu joins Gaza op PR effort - Gil Hoffman and Jpost.Com Staff, Jerusalem Post: “Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met one-on-one Monday with Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu and Meretz leader Haim Oron and updated them about the progress of Operation Cast Lead. Olmert asked Netanyahu to join Israel's public relations efforts as he did during the Second Lebanon War. Netanyahu's spokesman said he responded affirmatively and without hesitation despite being the leader of the opposition in the middle of an election campaign.”
Operation Cast Lead -- The Second Day - Ari Bussel, Canada Free Press: “Israel’s Operation Lead Cast is concluding its second day. While the air strikes are done with medical precision, Israel is already losing the war in the Public Diplomacy Front. The world is waking up, angrier than ever before. … The Foreign Ministry has nominated Ambassador Gillerman, the former ambassador to the UN, in charge of communications with the Foreign Press. Speakers in all languages have been made available to the foreign press. Constant updates are sent to the Foreign Press from the Foreign Ministry. Foreign Diplomats are briefed. A public relations ‘blitz, a successful exercise?'”
Time Limit for Israel in Gaza? - Stoneman’s Corner: “While it’s clear that Israel had a casus belli, I think many observers outside of Israel will have limited tolerance for a long engagement that will inevitably cause more ‘collateral damage. … Israel can still lose the public diplomacy side of this conflict. It needs to wrap things up quickly.”
Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah Warlords! - log.Tribulationperiod.com: 
“Many signs … suggest that Israel is making an effort, albeit not wholly successful, to improve on the abject public diplomacy of the 2006 war. What is not yet clear, by contrast, is whether the official spokespeople have internalized the necessity to highlight Iran in their message to the world - Iran, the state champion and major enabler of Hamas’s terror-state in Gaza.”
Israel’s Lie Machine is Working Flat Out -- The core issue in this struggle is the illegality of Israel’s brutal occupation. Israel goes to great lengths to avoid and suppress all mention of it and play-acts the pathetic victim - Stuart Littlewood, Middle East Online: “[Israel] uses advanced propaganda skills, and the elaborate Israel lobby network, to persuade western politicians and media to accept Israel’s version of events (and even use Israel’s biased language) and not question its motives. In political PR terms it works wonderfully well. The loony leaders of my own government happily spread the poison and don’t seem interested in halting Israeli aggression and the vaporizing, dismembering and crushing of Gaza’s population. In human PR terms it is a disaster.”
VOA and RFE Cold War history, embellished a bit - Kim Andrew Elliott Discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy
'Terminator' joins Film Registry: 'In Cold Blood,' 'Deliverance' also included - Cynthia Littleton, Variety: “George Stevens Jr., who headed the United States Information Agency (USIA) Motion Picture Service unit from 1962-67, brought in several young talented documentary filmmakers such as Charles Guggenheim, Carroll Ballard, Kent McKenzie, Leo Seltzer, Terry Sanders, Bruce Herschensohn, and James Blue, who directed ‘The March.’ This period ushered in the ‘Golden Era’ of USIA films.
Examining the 1963 Civil Rights March on Washington from the ground-level and focusing on the idealistic passion, joy and synergy of the crowds, Blue’s documentary lets us see the event take shape from the planning stage — with sound checks and worries about whether people will attend — to the arrival of enormous crowds on parades of trains and buses. It culminates in Martin Luther King’s electrifying ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. These USIA films were rarely seen in America because, fearing propaganda, the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act mandated that no USIA film could be shown domestically without a special act of Congress. These films are being rediscovered because a 1990 act of Congress (P.L. 101-246) authorized domestic screening 12 years after release.”
20 Things I'd Like To See in 2009 - Vitalfootball, UK: “14. Joe Kinnear knighted for services to public diplomacy and broadcast journalism. Can you imagine the ceremony at Buckingham Palace? 'Which one of you is Prince Philip?'” On Kinnear, see.
The U.S. Counter-propaganda Failure in Iraq - Andrew Garfield , Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2007, pp. 23-32. Courtesy Bill Fisher
Channel 4's Iran propaganda: Ahmadinejad's Christmas message was an insult to the 100,000 Iranians murdered since the Islamists seized power in 1979 - Peter Tatchell, guardian.co.uk
Can Russia's Opposition Rise To The Opportunity Of Crisis? - Vladimir Milov, RFE/RL: The Kremlin is using all possible propaganda means to divert responsibility for the crisis away from Putin's government, primarily by pointing the finger of blame at the United States and other external forces. Nonetheless, the public is becoming increasingly concerned.
Statement by Foreign Ministry of Georgia - Daily Georgian Times, Georgia: Statement states in part: “[I]t is obvious that using its cynical allegations permeated with the spirit of Soviet-style propaganda and terminology, the Russian side is trying in the most shameless manner to shift the blame for its own culpable actions to Georgia.”
YouTube condemned over Nazi videos: Internet site YouTube has been condemned for showing video clips which appear to glorify Nazi troops - telegraph.co.uk: The videos, some from Nazi propaganda news reels, have provoked the anger of Jewish organisations which called for YouTube to remove the "hugely offensive" postings, including one that features the headline 'Hitler Was Right'.
Israel, Gaza, and Arab regional divisions – Marc Lynch, Abu Aardvark - Almost every Arab media outlet, even those bitterly hostile to Hamas, is running bloody images from Gaza. But as with the 2006 Hezbollah war, Arab responses are enmeshed within deeply entrenched inter-Arab conflicts, dividing sharply between pro-U.S. regimes and the vast majority of expressed public opinion.
Israel, Hamas, and moral idiocy: Much of the world's response is a false moral equivalence that simply encourages the terrorists - Alan M. Dershowitz,
Israel, Stop! Just. Stop - Lorelei Kelly, Huffington Post: Israel, you are better than this. You are not just typical. You have the wisdom of the universe in your borders. You have profound knowledge of why death doesn't fix a problem. You have the USA to help you. Please, put the gun down. Move away from the gun. Just. Stop.
Israeli Attack May Complicate Obama's Plans - Jim Lobe, Antiwar.com: Israel's massive three-day aerial assault on Gaza is likely to complicate President-elect Barack Obama's hopes of aggressively pursuing Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, and it risks inflicting greater damage to Washington's standing in the Arab world, according to analysts.
Obama Fiddles While Gaza Burns - Robert Dreyfuss, Nation
Tragedy in Gaza: Hamas rocket attacks and the deadly Israeli bombing response have set the stage for another violent chapter in the long Mideast conflict; an early cease-fire is urgently needed - Our view: baltimoresun.com: President-elect Barack Obama pledged while seeking office to restore America's reputation around the world. Muslims have expressed hopes that Mr. Obama might find a way to broker a permanent Mideast peace. But that challenge could become unattainable for years unless a way is found to bring an early halt to the Gaza fighting.
Gaza crisis: a crossroads for Obama: It could bring renewal – if Obama is bold enough to stand up to Israel - Sandy Tolan, Christian Science Monitor
Bush, Obama, and the Gaza Blitz - Patrick J. Buchanan, AntiWar.com: Israel's policy of withholding from the weak and innocent of Gaza, women and children, the necessities of life, to punish the guilty who rule at the point of a gun, is a policy that Obama should declare the United States will no longer support with tax dollars.
Has Israel Revived Hamas? - Daoud Kuttab, Washington Post: Just as George W. Bush's misadventure in Iraq played into the hands of radicals and terrorists, the Israeli action in Gaza will produce nothing less than that in Palestine. Let us hope that the Obama administration will see the consequences of what is not only a crime of war but also a move whose results are exactly the opposite of its publicly proclaimed purposes.
Divided on Gaza: Israel's offensive gives Iran and its allies a way to pressure Egypt, Jordan and other Arab "moderates" – Editorial, Washington Post: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has frequently spoken of an emerging coalition of "mainstream" or "moderate" Arab states opposing Iran and its "extremist" allies. One problem with this analysis is that the split is more sectarian than ideological.
Will Obama 'go to' defense? - Frank Gaffney, Washington Times: We should all hope Barack Obama too will recognize the need for a role reversal by deciding early that -- despite his campaign promises and past predilections -- he must strengthen, not savage, our national security posture.
Coming Soon: The 21st Century - E. J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post:
What should fall is the illusion, the idea that the United States is the world's "sole remaining superpower." This notion weakened us because it suggested an omnipotence that no nation can possess. By shedding this misapprehension, the United States could restore its influence. We could rediscover the imperative of acting in concert with others to build global institutions that strengthen our security and foster our values.
LITERARY CRITICISM BY A "WASHINGTON POST" PUNDIT RE CAMUS'S "THE STRANGER"
“It is a book out of my Gauloise-smoking youth, read in the vain pursuit of women of literary bent.”
--Washington Post's Richard Cohen on “The Stranger” by Albert Camus
“Let’s Talk about Something Interesting, Let’s Talk about Me.”
--Anomynous
VIDEO
Tom Cruise Tells Off Some Nasty Zionist Propaganda Operatives – You Tube. See also comments by the New Republic’s Martin Peretz in his 'Do Not F*ck With The Jews.'
HOMAGE, IN THESE "FUCK-YOU" TIMES, TO:
Walter Lippmann, one of the founding members of the New Republic magazine, known for his civilized use of language
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