May 12

"When a Franciscan complained to a Jesuit that his superior had refused him permission to smoke while praying, the Jesuit replied that he had had better luck because he had asked if he could pray while smoking."

--Joseph A. Komonchak, letter to the Times Literary Supplement, May 8, 2009, p. 6; image from

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

The Big Speech - Mark Dillen, Public Diplomacy: The World Affairs Blog Network: "Barack Obama soon will make his second overseas trip as President, visiting Egypt, Germany and France. ...

[P]otentially the most important event on the schedule is a speech to the Muslim world, to be given in Egypt on June 4th. ... This is something new and important in this Administration’s public diplomacy: a speech set in the Muslim world designed to reach out to publics throughout the region." Image from

Welcome to Spokesman Ian Kelly - U.S. Department of State: "Secretary Clinton’s remarks from the top of the May 11, 2009 Daily Press Briefing: I wanted to come down to the briefing room today to formally introduce the new State Department Spokesman and Acting Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs Ian Kelly, and to say thank you publicly to Robert Wood. Ian is a career Foreign Service officer who most recently served on the Russia desk. So it was fitting that the very first bilateral meeting that he sat in on was my meeting and lunch with Foreign Minister Lavrov last week. Ian has spent significant time overseas serving in various public affairs positions that have prepared him well for his new role. He will be a full-fledged member of my senior team, and as such, he will speak authoritatively on my behalf and on behalf of the Department. As you have heard me say many times since becoming Secretary, our ability to connect with people around the world, communicate the foreign policy of the United States, give our own people here in the United States vital information that is relevant to their daily lives has never been more important. ... And I want to thank for a wonderful job and provide my deepest appreciation to Robert Wood. He took over in the middle of a transition and has been drinking from a fire hose ever since. But I have really enjoyed getting to know Robert and I look forward to continuing to work with him as an important contributor within the Department to the Obama Administration’s foreign policy. Both Robert and Ian represent public diplomacy and public affairs at their very best."

Broadcasting Board of Governors Misleads Congress in Its 2010 Budget Request, Hides Its Poor Management Record, and Plans to Terminate More Broadcasts - FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog: "The Broadcasting Board of Governors FY 2010 Budget Request to the U.S. Congress provides for an interesting reading and is a good example of how government bureaucrats try to hide their mistakes and mismanagement of government resources while asking U.S. taxpayers for more money, said Ted Lipien, former VOA acting associate director, who is now president of FreeMediaOnline.org, a San Francisco-based media freedom nonprofit which supports independent journalism worldwide." Lipien image from

Cultures in Harmony - DIP's Dispatches from the Imagination Age: "DIP [Dancing Ink Productions] recently participated in a fascinating cultural diplomacy conference hosted by the Gilman Foundation at White Oak Plantation.

The purpose was to discuss the creation of a Resource Center for Cultural Engagement. We met with many policymakers, luminaries, artists, creatives, and fellow cultural entrepreneurs throughout the three-day retreat. While we haven't yet had time to blog about our reflections, our new friend William Harvey, who runs the non-profit Cultures In Harmony has." Image from

NY consulate launches online 'Holy Land Trivia' game: Ahead of pope's visit, Facebook application gives users chance to test their knowledge of Israel's sites - Ynetnews: "The Consulate General of Israel in New York has announced the release of a Facebook application intended to allow users to discover Israel's holy and modern sites, just ahead of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Israel this week. The application, called 'Holy Land Trivia: From Creation to Creativity,' offers a pictorial encounter with many significant places in Israel, and gives users the opportunity to share their newly-gained knowledge with their Facebook friends. ... David Saranga, consul for media and public affairs in New York who initiated the project, discussed the significance of this application: 'The pope's visit gives us the opportunity to expose people to Israel's historic locations as well as the modern Israel and all its many important sites,' he said." Image from

Year after Kosovo “independence”? - Ing Ana Milosevic, director of Serbian Institute for Public Diplomacy, Adrenola

USC in the News 5/9 to 5/11/2009 - USC Public Relations, University of Southern California: "The News & Observer noted that John Seely Brown [no relation to the PDPBR compiler] of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy was the commencement speaker at North Carolina State University."

Foreign Policy’s “The Cable” changed quote about Emanuel - Wayne Madsen, Online Journal: "[T]he Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, founded to facilitate Arab-Israeli peace in 1979 and on whose board sits former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Margaret Tutwiler (and close friend of former Secretary of State James Baker)." Tutwiler image from

Done with year one - Paul Rockower, Levantine: "The school year is officially over! Done and doner. 2 papers, 2 finals. 4 classes and I'm done with my first year, and very glad to have a second. Another year wrapped in the warm embrace of public diplomacy, clung close to the bosom of academia while lounging in the ivory tower paradise that is Southern Cal. ... Meanwhile, either a Public Diplomacy Roadshow through Mexico and Central America."

Donald J. Kent Press Officer - Obituaries, Washington Post: "Donald J. Kent, 84, a public affairs officer with the American Psychological Association from 1982 to 1987, died April 23 at Sibley Memorial Hospital of respiratory failure. From 1955 until 1979, Mr. Kent was a press and cultural attache with the Foreign Service, stationed in countries including France and the Republic of Zaire." Courtesy LB.

RELATED ITEMS

Bolton to The Hill: Saberi's release a 'propaganda ploy' by Iran - Bridget Johnson, The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room: Because of Iran's about-face on the case of Roxana Saberi — the American journalist of Iranian-Japanese heritage who was imprisoned by Iran on espionage charges — blogs are abuzz today with speculation over whether the Obama administration, which has extended unconditional diplomatic overtures to the Islamic Republic, made concessions to Iran to secure Saberi's release. ... I talked to former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton a little bit ago to get his take on this result. ... To sum it up, Bolton called Iran's move a "propaganda ploy."

Roxana Saberi's plight and American media propaganda - Glenn Greenwald, Salon: the American media should be far more interested in, and opposed to, infringements of press freedoms by the U.S. Government than by governments of other countries.

Yet the former merits hardly a peep, while the latter provokes all sorts of smug and self-righteous protests from American journalists who suddenly discover their brave commitment to press freedoms when all that requires is pointing to a demonized, hated foreign government and complaining. Image from

Islamophobia, anti-americanism still undermine RI-US relations - Ary Hermawan, The Jakarta Post

NZ expert tells US of Chinese propaganda - Rebecca Todd, The Press:

Canterbury University associate professor Anne-Marie Brady travelled to Washington last month to appear before the United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission's hearing on China's propaganda operations. The commission was established by the US Congress in 2000. Brady said China had two propaganda machines, one directed at those in China and another focused on Chinese living overseas. Image from

What Rice Said About the President and the Law - To the Editor, New York Times: "The Torture Debate: The Missing Voices” (editorial, May 7) included a quotation from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that was taken out of context. Earlier in the same exchange, Ms. Rice told the Stanford student, “Anything that was legal and was going to make this country safer, the president wanted to do — nothing that was illegal, and nothing that was going to make the country less safe.”

As this statement from Ms. Rice made clear, the tactic used was legal not because the president authorized it; rather, the president sought and received legal opinion indicating that it was legal before he authorized it. Ms. Rice has consistently addressed the issue of interrogations for years, including public statements made in 2005 on the margins of a trip to Europe, responses to questions posed by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan in September 2008, and, as recently as May 3, at events sponsored by the Jewish Primary Day School in Washington. Colby J. Cooper Chief of Staff Office of Condoleezza Rice Hoover Institution Stanford University Stanford, Calif., May 9. Rice image from

Condi Has Another Torture Convulsion [regarding above letter] - Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog I STILL keep track of Condoleezza's hairdo so you don't have to: OK, so it's not that anything the president wants to do is legal, it's that anything the president has declared legal is legal. Got it. Image from Princess Sparkle pony's blog.

The Electronic Police State: 2008 National Rankings - Cryptohippie: In an Electronic Police State, every surveillance camera recording, every email you send, every Internet site you surf, every post you make, every check you write, every credit card swipe, every cell phone ping… are all criminal evidence, and they are held in searchable databases, for a long, long time. Whoever holds this evidence can make you look very, very bad whenever they care enough to do so. You can be prosecuted whenever they feel like it – the evidence is already in their database.

THIS YEAR’S RESULTS: Our rankings for the year of 2008 show China and North Korea occupying the top spots as the most complete Electronic Police States in the world, followed by Belarus and Russia. Next, however, we leave communist and recently-communist states, with the UK (England/Wales), the United States and Singapore following closely on their heels. We ranked 52 major states. The map below displays their rankings: Nations depicted in Red are the most advanced electronic police states, with an average rank of 3.0 or greater. Nations depicted in Orange are strongly developing electronic police states, with an average rank of 2.5 or greater. Nations depicted in Yellow are lagging (but still developing) electronic police states, with an average rank of 2.0 or greater. Nations depicted in green are states that seem to be going toward the electronic police state model, but not as quickly. Via