--A Foundation says to the unsuccessful applicant: "for your work, we have nothing but praise" -- an example of adianoeta, "an expression that has an obvious meaning and an unsuspected secret one underneath." From Richard A. Lanham, Handlist of Rhetorical Terms (Second Edition, 1991), p. 2; image from
PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
U.S. State Department withdraws Kindle contract proposal - Laura Hazard Owen,
paidcontent.org: "The U.S. State Department, which was considering a $16.5-million no-bid contract with Amazon to provide Kindles, content and services for overseas language programs, has officially withdrawn its proposal, saying it 'intends to conduct additional market research and reexamine its requirements for this program.' ... A State Department spokesperson provided the following statement: [']The Department of State continues to pursue technology that enhances our ability to provide international audiences with relevant, real-time content on U.S. society, culture, and English language learning.
In order to conduct additional market research and further explore technological options for our public diplomacy programs, the Department of State opted on August 15 to end the Request for Proposals for the Amazon Kindle in favor of proceeding with a Request for Information (RFI) process. This action will open to all vendors the opportunity to respond to the Department’s requirements for a mobile learning program.['] ... The National Federation for the Blind filed a complaint with the State Department saying that any agreement to purchase devices that are inaccessible to the blind is a violation of the law, but it is unclear whether the complaint had any bearing on the deal’s failure." Image from article
Tara Soneshine on Public diplomacy - uscenterforcitizendiplomacy.org: "Undersecretary Sonenshine [Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Tara Sonenshine] will be coming to
Victoria Nuland Spokesperson Daily Press Briefing Washington, DC August 15, 2012, U.S. State Department - state.gov: "MS. NULAND: Happy Wednesday, everybody. Before we get started, let me welcome the participants in the Fundamentals of Public Diplomacy class from FSI [Foreign Service Institute, Department of State]. Go forth and do good public diplomacy work. Let’s go to what is on your minds.
QUESTION: I don’t have anything that’s really worthy of starting the briefing, so – MS. NULAND: It’s August. All right." Nuland image from
Art Talk with Battery Dance Company - Liz Auclair, Art Works: The Official Blog of the National Endowment for the Arts: “'Completely unpredictable and uniformly fabulous'—that’s how Jonathan Hollander describes the results of Battery Dance Company‘s Dancing to Connect program. In more than 50 countries, Dancing to Connect has taught young people, most of whom have no previous dance training, how to use movement to express themselves. In just a week, Dancing to Connect teaching artists work with the students to create and perform a dance piece devised entirely from their own creativity. Recently, as part of a Mission Continues Fellowship, Roman Baca—a dancer, choreographer, and former U.S. Marine —collaborated with Battery Dance to bring Dancing to Continue to
HOLLANDER: So many reasons. If the audience is young people, and the State Department is very concerned about the next generation, what country in the world has young people who don’t like to dance? Now, have they ever done modern dance? Have they ever choreographed a dance? Probably not. But we don’t tell them, 'You can’t move this way.' We let them move the way they move. That’s another part of the secret ingredient—we’re not telling them to imitate us. Because that you could not do in a week. Instead we say, 'We think you have it within you and you just haven’t found it yet so we’re going to help you see if you can find it.' 'It' being your own self-expression through movement. Language is less important. Theater couldn’t do this because theater relies on language and words and we’re working in countries like Japan where people study English from a very early age and they can write it and read it beautifully but they can’t speak it…. The University of Freiburg did a study of our program in terms of English-language learning and they found that students were speaking much better English in the dance workshops than they were in their English classes because the motivation was so great. Which also speaks to the motivation of young people to dance. We have been very fortunate to work with the State Department, to work with U.S. embassies around the world. I was a Fulbright lecturer in India in 1992 and an American Field Service Exchange Student in high school so the cross-cultural experience of living in different places, adapting to different cultures, and sharing with people in very different circumstances has been something natural to me, and I’ve bred that culture in Battery Dance Company. One of things that I think allowed us to be successful in working with embassies is because what we want to do is in keeping with their mission and goals. They want to reach the next generation. They want to reach populations that are unexposed to American culture and may not have the opportunity to engage in the arts in a formalized way." Image from article, with caption: Dancing to Connect teaching artists work with students in Madrid, Spain.
Cultural Diplomacy in the Age of... - Paul Rockower, Levantine: "The title of my lecture today at the [State Department] Foreign Service Institute as seen above. I was kindly invited by FSI to lecture about public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy and gastrodiplomacy. They had invited me under the auspices of speaking about 'Cultural Diplomacy in the Age of Social Media' but I put the kabosh on such notions, and spun off to discuss the need for PD 1.0 and 19th Century Statecraft."
Gallup/BBG survey: ‘Massive’ increase in mobile phone, Internet use in Nigeria - Adam Clayton Powell III, PD News–CPD Blog, USC Center on Public Diplomacy: "The use of mobile telephones and the Internet have soared in Nigeria in the past few years, with clear implications for BBG and VOA activity in West Africa. These were the major findings of a survey released here this morning by the Broadcasting Board of Governors and Gallup organization. 73% of Nigerians now reporting owning their own mobile phones, up from 52% three years ago. Cell phone use is more prevalent in cities – 85% of urban dwellers have their own phones. And cell phone use increases with education: among Nigerians with post-secondary schooling, 95% own a cell phone, according to the survey. 20% of Nigerians reported using the Internet – again stronger among the educated and urban dwellers. But that is misleading: Nigerians using their telephones to access the Internet – especially for email, Facebook and other social media sites – do not count that as Internet use. Facebook alone is used by 23% of Nigerians, a number higher than those reporting they use the net. And according to the survey, Facebook is the primary reason most Nigerians want to use the Internet. ... One major reason African use of the Internet
is growing so rapidly is that, unlike in the U.S., the cheapest low-end cell phones can go online. ... Africans’ use of mobile phones to listen to radio was another trend documented by the survey. 39% of all cell phone owners said they listened to the radio on their telephones. The reason: again, unlike telephones in the U.S., African cell phones come hard wired for radio reception. ... But with all of the growth of digital media, who listens to old-fashioned radio receivers? The poor, the old, and people who live in rural areas." Image from, with caption: Nigeria's Mobile Money Providers Struggling.
Pursuing Soft Power, China Puts Stamp on Africa’s News - Andrew Jacobs, New York Times: "At a time when most Western broadcasting and newspaper companies are retrenching, China’s state-run news media giants are rapidly expanding in Africa and across the developing world. They are hoping to bolster China’s image and influence around the globe, particularly in regions rich in the natural resources needed to fuel China’s powerhouse industries and help feed its immense population. The $7 billion campaign, part of a Chinese Communist Party bid to expand the country’s soft power, is based in part on the notion that biased Western news media have painted a distorted portrait of China. ... Beijing’s bid to provide a counterpoint to Western influence, however, is raising alarms among human rights activists, news media advocates and American officials, who cite a record of censorship that has earned China
a reputation as one of the world’s most restrictive countries for journalism. 'We are engaged in an information war, and we are losing that war,' Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned a Congressional committee last year, citing the growing influence of state-backed outlets like Russia Today and CCTV. Many fear that the impact of China’s news media juggernaut will be especially pronounced in countries where freedoms are fragile. ... CCTV News, which claims 200 million viewers outside China, is now available in six languages; one of its latest ventures is an Arabic news channel. To increase its reach — and compete with Western news organizations — Xinhua often gives away dispatches to financially struggling news media outlets in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. At the same time, governments in Europe and the United States are scaling back support for independent journalism in the developing world, even as most private broadcasters and newspapers have closed foreign bureaus." Image from article, with caption: CCTV’s set in Nairobi, Kenya. China’s state news agency, Xinhua, also gives away dispatches to struggling news outlets in Africa.
RT (Russia Today) plans to "sell its video content globally" as its government subsidy decreases - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting
Politicians to Apple: 'Ban Protocols of Zion' app - Gil Shefler, jpost.com: "Israeli politicians joined criticism of Apple on Thursday over a new phone application of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a notorious early-20th-century anti-Semitic forgery, recently made available on its iTunes store.
Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein called on the electronics giant to ban the app, arguing it perpetuated the canard of a Jewish international conspiracy to take over the world. '[Apple] forbids pornography, they should also forbid racism,' Edelstein was quoted as saying." Image from article
RELATED ITEMS
Army suicide rate in July hits highest one-month tally - Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY: Soldiers killed themselves at a rate faster than one per day in July, the Army announced Thursday.
There were 38 deaths either confirmed or suspected as suicides, the highest one-month tally in recent Army history, the service said. Image from article
In latest "insider" shooting, Afghan policeman kills 2 American troops - An Afghan policeman shot dead two American troops and wounded a third on Friday, military officials said, bringing the number of U.S. forces killed in such “insider” shootings to nine in 11 days.
Image from article, with caption: Afghan police check vehicles Herat, where security has been intensified ahead of Eid al-Fitr, a festival marking the end of Ramadan.
As Afghanistan turns: The shake-up in Karzai's government portends the nation's divided future - Sarah Chayes,latimes.com: Afghans and experienced observers say a plausible scenario upon the large-scale departure of international troops in 2014 is either disintegration into civil conflict or a de facto division of power along ethnic lines, with a Pakistan-backed Pashtun bloc in the south and east lining up against one or more northern non-Pashtun blocs that might well gain military support from India and Uzbekistan, if not Iran.
Steps for a more active U.S. policy in Syria - Stephen J. Hadley, Washington Post: A more active Syria policy does not involve U.S. airstrikes or “boots on the ground,” although the use of force should remain on the table to further pressure Assad.
One hopes that U.S. military intervention will not be necessary. But that will be the case only if the United States provides appropriate numbers of antitank and antiaircraft weapons — despite the real risk that some weapons may fall into the wrong hands — so that U.S.-vetted opposition units can counter Assad’s stepped-up use of aircraft and helicopters against his own people. That way, when Assad falls, it will be the Syrian people who have toppled him. This is what Syrians clearly want. But they also want, need and deserve a little help from their friends. Image from
Latest UN Syria Report Compiled by Washington Think-Tanker - americanoverkill.com: The UN is by no means pluralistic. It is a tool of the corporate-financier interests of the nations that dominate it, specifically interests emanating from Wall Street and London and those in their geopolitical orbit. Not only is the most recent UN report on Syria throwaway propaganda, it may serve as an exhibit in future war crime tribunals leveled against those conspiring against the people of Syria.
Israel's Iran Itch - Roger Cohen, New York Times: Iran is not enriching uranium, as it claims, for a power plant of epic dysfunction. But nor has it yet united the various elements needed to make a bomb.
If it ever makes the decision to do so, I expect the U.S. military response to be swift and devastating. The wise choice for Israel is therefore patience. Image from
The Constant Israeli Hype Over Iran - Nima Shirazi: mwcnews.net: Hype, based on dubious claims and false information, is nothing new when it comes to American and Israeli warmongering.
What Obama Isn't Saying About Iran: The sanctions aren't 'crippling,' Tehran isn't isolated, and there aren't any tough American red lines - David Feith, Wall Street Journal: Would this president, so dedicated to multilateralism (except where targeting al Qaeda is concerned), launch a major military campaign against Iran even without Russian and Chinese support at the U.N.? Do Iran's leaders think he would? Or have they noticed that American officials often repeat the "all-options-on-the-table" mantra as mere throat clearing before they list all the reasons why attacking Iran is a terrifying prospect? Those reasons are plain to see. An attack could lead to a major loss of life, to regional war, to Iranians rallying around their regime, to global economic pain. And it could fail. But the question that counts is whether these risks outweigh the risks of a nuclear-capable Iran. That's a hard question for any democratic government and its citizens to grapple with. The Obama administration's rhetorical snow job only makes it harder.
The Right to Counsel at Guantánamo Bay - Editorial, New York Times: Lawyers for the government and for detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are scheduled to square off in federal court in Washington on Friday over new rules imposed this spring by the Obama administration restricting access to counsel for prisoners not actively challenging their detention. They are neither fair nor constitutional. The rules are unconstitutional because they deny detainees an essential right and meaningful court review. By giving such discretion to the Guantánamo commander, the Obama administration asserts virtually unbridled executive power. It has taken a regrettable step in undermining the rule of law. Below image from, with caption: An image of President Barack Obama is put up at Guantanamo Bay.
Obama turns back the clock on Guantanamo - Baher Azmy, Washington Post: Far from closing the prison camp as he promised, President Obama is steadily returning Guantanamo to the secretive and hopeless internment camp that he vilified as a candidate.
Another Casualty of War: Soap Operas - Syrian production companies have shelved new shows; investors with ties to President Bashar al-Assad’s government have found their bank accounts frozen; and viewers throughout the Arab world have called for a boycott of Syrian satellite channels. A tax break issued by the government has failed to revive the industry. While the outcome of the fighting is uncertain, one thing seems clear: in losing the soap opera, the Syrian government has lost one of its most powerful means of spreading ideas and political messages, both within and beyond the country’s borders. One of the most popular soap operas ever, “Bab al-Hara” or “The Neighborhood’s Gate,” recounts the adventures of the inhabitants of an old Damascus neighborhood who, regardless of their sectarian backgrounds, were united in their opposition to the French. It may have been propaganda, but for a while, it worked.
Facebook removes Hezbollah pages - New Europe: The policy against terror incitement and hate propagation of the social site has forced the elimination of all the pages belonging to Hezbollah and the group’s television network Al-Manar, Israel Radio reported. Facebook took this decision after Hezbollah's appearance in 2004 on the State Department’s list of terror organizations. The site uses this list to decide “which groups may be involved in the promotion of violence," explained Frederic Wolens, a Facebook spokesperson.
This policy was also extended to Al-Manar -- also placed on the list in 2004 for being a propaganda arm of the political group -- whose official page was deleted on 16 August. Hezbollah never had an official page, but its community site was also removed. Last month, Apple and Google took steps to eliminate Hezbollah from their online stores, including an app for streaming Al-Manar videos. Image from article
Keep calm and read this column; How a British WWII propaganda poster obtained modern meme status - Heidi Stevens, chicagotribune.com: The first encounter prompts a smirk, maybe even a chuckle: "Keep calm and call mom." The second sighting, "Keep calm and eat a cupcake," raises questions about overexposure. By the third, fourth and fifth encounters—"Keep calm and drink vodka," "Keep calm and go shopping," "Keep calm and love cats"—you start experiencing dueling senses of immunity and hypersensitivity to this once-charming, now-ubiquitous slogan. The original phrase, of course, is
"Keep calm and carry on," coined by the British government's Ministry of Information in 1939 as part of an effort to boost morale at the outset of World War II. An agency called His Majesty's Stationery Office designed three propaganda posters, all featuring King George VI's crown, to be displayed around Great Britain. "Your courage, your cheerfulness, your resolution will bring us victory" and "Freedom is in peril" were plastered throughout the public arena. The third -- "Keep calm and carry on" -- was reserved for display in the event of a German invasion. When a German invasion never happened, most of the "keep calm" posters were reportedly destroyed, but one was discovered in 2000 in second-hand bookshop Barter Books, whose owners made and distributed copies. The copyright had long since expired, so the image is now public domain -- hence the ubiquity of the original saying and its myriad knock-offs. Image from article
"I don't want fair treatment—we want propaganda" - Sharon Lurye, chicagoreader.com: "While writing a preview of the Abbie Hoffman Died for Our Sins Theatre Festival, I stumbled across an interview taken with Hoffman himself in 1969. The Yippie rabble-rouser was sitting in jail at the time, awaiting trial for conspiracy to foment a riot at the 1968 National Democratic Convention in
to [a] quote from the interview, where Hoffman talks about propaganda: LAPORTE: So you're not getting any fair treatment [from the media] at all? HOFFMAN: I don't want fair treatment—we want propaganda. We want newspaper guys dedicated to the overthrow of the system. I mean the concept of fair reporting is as ridiculous as the concept of a fair trial. 'I think propaganda is a journalist's enemy,' Bogira argued, defining propaganda as 'trying to make a case for something rather than trying to discover something—trying to win converts to your cause.'" Image from article, with caption: Abbie Hoffman in rabble-rousing mode
AMERICANA
(A) Putting pro-gun theory to test, man shoots himself in backside - Dan Turner, latimes.com
(B) From: "Fashion Victim: Condi Shills For Some Damn Sports Team," Princess Sparkle Pony's Photoblog; see also John Brown, "10 Percent Intellectual": The Mind of Condoleezza Rice," PR Watch (2008)
IMAGE
--Lavender fields, France; via AB on Facebook
ONE MORE QUOTATION FOR THE DAY
"LAPORTE: If your revolution succeeds, what kind of government do you plan to have? Or do you plan to have any government?
HOFFMAN: (looking in an address book) Wait a second, I'll look . . . it's under 'G' . . . no government.
LAPORTE: Well, let's talk a little about you. Where are you from and . . .
HOFFMAN: What's the difference as to what kind I want anyway? I mean I'm just one of the people just like you, I mean what kind do you want? Did you ever think about it?
LAPORTE: I'm a reporter, I can't have opinions.
HOFFMAN: Yeah . . . you sound like a tape recorder, you know? They don't have opinions either, you know? Why do you want to be somebody without opinions? Is that like a long spent desire of yours?
LAPORTE: Well, I have opinions and most of them are closer to yours than to the other side.
HOFFMAN: Oh, I doubt it, they're not closer to mine.
LAPORTE: I think so.
HOFFMAN: God, mine are ridiculous, why do you want them closer to mine?
--From an interview by a 16-year old reporter with Yippie Abbie Hoffman, sitting in jail in 1969
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