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John Brown aggregates all the most recent public diplomacy related news, including current issues in U.S. foreign policy, international broadcasting and media, propaganda, cultural diplomacy, educational exchanges, anti-Americanism, and the reception of American popular culture abroad.

FEBRUARY 24, 2005
by John Brown

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY PRESS REVIEW, FEBRUARY 24

(SECTION C - SCROLL DOWN)
WEEKLY EDUCATIONAL EXCHANGES SUPPLEMENT BY MS. JENNIFER BRIGHAM, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

(SECTION D - SCROLL DOWN)
FAT – L’ETOILE SOLITAIRE, LETTER FROM PARIS

QUOTATIONS FOR THE DAY

“ICH BIN EIN FRANKFURTER.”

--Talk show host David Letterman, joking (February 23 on CBS TV) about what President George W. Bush might have “said” when he got off the plane in Frankfurt

“I AM NOT THE PROPAGANDA MINISTER.”

--Russian President Vladimir Putin; cited in “Russian Press Ask Bush: Who Says We’re Not Free?” (Reuters India, India, February 24)
LINK

“IT IS DISTURBING THAT AN ARTIST CAN BE IMPRISONED FOR REPLICATING A MASTERPIECE FROM THE SISTINE CHAPEL ON THE SIDE OF HIS ART STUDIO.”

--National ACLU Legal Director Michael J. Steinberg, regarding the case of artist Edward Stross, sentenced to prison last week for his mural depicting a bare-breasted figure on a building in Roseville, Michigan, in suburban Detroit, his variation of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Man,” illustrating a half-naked Eve; cited in Joanne Laurier, “Michigan Artist Sentenced to Jail over Mural Nudity” (World Socialist Website, February 24)
LINK

“SHE CAN CONVERSE ON 35,000 TOPICS, FROM PHILOSOPHY TO MOVIES TO SCULPTURE.”

--Journalist Keith Bradsher, regarding Vivienne, the product of computerized voice synthesis, streaming video and text messages, who will be available for a monthly fee of $6, not including the airtime costs paid to cellphone operators or the price of virtual chocolates and flowers; cited in Bradsher’s “Meet Vivienne, a 3G Girlfriend” (International Herald Tribune, February 25)
LINK

A) PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

1. OBAMA FIELDS QUESTIONS FROM PACKED AUGIE HALL - KURT ALLEMEIER (QUAD-CITIES ONLINE, IL, FEBRUARY 24): Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., took part at a town hall meeting with a standing-room-only audience at Augustana College’s Wallenberg Hall. When asked about cuts to the Peace Corps budget, Sen. Obama said programs like that, as well as international broadcasts and promoting more foreign student programs, can help improve areas of diplomacy. “National security depends on a strong defense and a victory in the battle of ideas,” he said. “We’ve been very poor in the field of public diplomacy.”
LINK

2. BEWARE THE PUBLIC DIPLOMACY DISASTER: LOOKING BEYOND ISRAEL’S WITHDRAWAL FROM GAZA...- AMITAI ETZIONI (FORWARD, FEBRUARY 25): The recent flurry of peace moves is indeed cause for hope, but in the rush to put forward a positive face, Israel appears to be setting itself up for a major public diplomacy disaster. Jerusalem has repeatedly implied that it will accord full sovereignty to Gaza and eventually to a Palestinian state, but security considerations make it clear that Israel will have to maintain some control over these territories. Israel has long recognized that when it comes to its national security, it cannot go by what opinion makers consider right and true. So, what is to be done? Speeches, press briefings and other public-relation efforts will do little good, although even that much is not being done. Instead, creative thinking is required that will take into account perceptions and not merely legal clauses and facts on the ground.
LINK

3. OTTAWA INCREASES FOREIGN AID $3.4-BILLION - BILL CURRY (GLOBE AND MAIL, CANADA, FEBRUARY 24): In addition to the increased number of foreign postings, Canada’s diplomatic corps will likely be pleased to see $40-million over five years in the budget for “public diplomacy and cultural programs.” The money will be used to finance overseas displays of Canadian culture, such as music, art and movies. Long viewed as separate from diplomacy and trade, the so-called “third pillar” of Canada’s foreign policy had been rumoured to be in line for deep spending cuts.
LINK

B) RELATED ITEMS (Pentagon TV channel, 4; Arab satellite TV, 5; tsunami PR, 6; propaganda, 7-9; Russia, 10-14; Europe, 15-21; Iraq, 22-23; Egypt, 24; U.S. foreign policy, 15-27; Rice, 28-29; other, 30)

4. COMING TO A FLAT SCREEN NEAR YOU: THE PENTAGON CHANNEL: IF YOU HATE THE TRUTH, YOU’LL LOVE DOD TV! - ARIANNA HUFFINGTON (SALON, FEBRUARY 24):  The Pentagon Channel, a 24/7 niche network brought to you by the Department of Defense, started last year as an internal public relations unit within the Pentagon and designed to keep U.S. soldiers and their families informed about all things military. The the network is now expanding its reach to the general public. A number of cable systems, including Time Warner, already carry the Pentagon Channel—and the Dish Network will soon begin beaming the station to its more than 11 million viewers right alongside the half-dozen porn channels the satellite giant offers. DoD television execs (there’s a new phrase) say Pentagon Channel viewers can expect programming that is “a mix between CNN and C-SPAN”—combining military news and lifestyle shows with live coverage of military briefings, speeches by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and congressional appearances by The Man himself, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld.
LINK

5. ARAB SATELLITE TELEVISION: THE WORLD THROUGH THEIR EYES—WITH 150 CHANNELS TO CHOOSE FROM, ARABS ARE ARGUING, COMPARING AND QUESTIONING AS NEVER BEFORE. WILL THIS BURST OF FREER SPEECH BRING DEMOCRACY ANY CLOSER? (ECONOMIST, FEBRUARY 24): Amazingly, the American government still has no permanent, camera-trained spokesman capable of delivering its views in polished Arabic. Surveys conducted by Shibley Telhami of Washington’s Brookings Institution have found little difference in the attitudes towards America—or indeed towards most issues—between Arabs who watch al-Jazeera and those who don’t. He has even found that, in some Arab countries, viewers of America’s CNN were more anti-American than viewers of al-Jazeera.
LINK

6. EX-PRESIDENTS AS PITCHMEN: TOUTING GOOD DEEDS - NORMAN SOLOMON (ILCA ONLINE, WASHINGTON D.C, FEBRUARY 24): Instead of boosting the U.S. Treasury’s commitment—or, heaven forbid, devoting a major portion of the Pentagon’s aircraft and vessels to swift delivery of aid to remote stricken areas—Bush dispatched two ex-presidents to the PR rescue. The pair appeared on major TV shows and taped a television commercial before heading off on a four-day whirlwind photo-op trip to Asia. The president emeritus of an elite national-security club, the Council on Foreign Relations, has praised the PR game while urging that it be played more deftly. “People do watch and see what we do,” said Leslie Gelb. “Here’s an opportunity to remind people of the good we do, and he [President Bush] can do it without changing his policy on Iraq or terrorism.” After a career that has spun through revolving doors of media and government, Gelb knows a lot about propaganda.
LINK

7. DANNY SCHECHTER, “WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION” FILMMAKER, DECLARES WAR ON THE WAR PROPAGANDA MACHINE” - BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW (BUZZFLASH, FEBRUARY 24)
LINK

8. VENEZUELAN BLASTS U.S. IN SPEECH: IN A SPEECH TO THE OAS, VENEZUELA’S FOREIGN MINISTER REPEATED CHARGES THAT THE WHITE HOUSE IS TRYING TO UNDERMINE HUGO CHAVEZ’S GOVERNMENT, INCLUDING A PLOT TO KILL HIM - PABLO BACHELET (DULUTH NEWS TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 24): Venezuelan government officials have said within the past week that the U.S. government is mounting a propaganda campaign to isolate Chávez in the OAS. The State Department has denied the allegations.
LINK

9. SUSPENDED PROPAGANDA FACILITIES REBORN AS MILITARY RADIO - (YONHAP, FEBRUARY 24)—South Korea’s border propaganda broadcasting facilities have been reborn as an educational radio station for the military, eight months after they were halted in accordance with inter-Korean rapprochement agreements. In mid-June, South and North Korea halted decades-long propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts along their tense 248-kilometer land border. The South’s “Voice of Freedom” station, for instance, had boomed out propaganda broadcasts towards the North for about 15 hours a day.
LINK

10. REALITY MUGS US ALL - SUZANNE FIELDS (WASHINGTON TIMES, FEBRUARY 24): Pressure has been building from both right and left for the president to challenge Mr. Putin, and it’s the neocons who have pushed the hardest. Neocons are not “soft Wilsonians” like former President Jimmy Carter, writes Max Boot, but “hard Wilsonians” who want Americans to lead others without foolishly relying on them. A neocon, in Irving Kristol’s famous quip, is “a liberal who was mugged by reality.” Today reality has mugged us all.
LINK

11. TO RUSSIA, WITH TOUGH LOVE - STROBE TALBOTT (NEW YORK TIMES, FEBRUARY 24): A move by the United States to evict Russia from the Group of 8 would only play into the hands of nationalist forces who believe in their country’s uniquely “Eurasian” destiny, which implies an authoritarian domestic order and a foreign policy that combines intimidation of other former Soviet republics and xenophobia toward the world at large. A better approach would be to take advantage of the summit meetings’ calendar. The group is due to gather in St. Petersburg in the summer of 2006. They can use the next 16 months for a campaign of quiet calibrated diplomacy to confront their colleague with a choice: If Mr. Putin allows adverse trends in Russia to continue, his guests in St. Petersburg will go public with their disappointment.
LINK

12. BEYOND PUTIN’S SOUL – EDITORIAL (LOS ANGELES TIMES, FEBRUARY 24): The U.S.-Russian relationship is likely to sour in Bush’s second term. It needs some souring, in light of Putin’s recent autocratic behavior. On Monday, Bush rightly warned Moscow it needs to “renew a commitment to democracy and the rule of law” if it wants good relations with the United States and Europe. The admonition was the latest in a deserved series of public expressions of U.S. concern about increasing Kremlin control over the media, parliament, regional governments, the legal system and the economy.
LINK

13. RUSSIA’S FORGOTTEN WAR – (BOSTON GLOBE, ILYAS AKHMADOV, FEBRUARY 24): The United States should now take two steps: In official statements and in talks with the Russian delegation at Bratislava, it should make clear that a negotiated end to the Chechen war is the only means to stop the descent of the North Caucasus into chaos, and, by extension, Russia’s retreat into tyranny. Hopefully, European political leaders will also take up the call. Concurrently, the United States should form an expert group to develop unofficial contacts with the Chechen and Russian sides.
LINK

14. DOMESTIC CRITICS’ EYES ARE ON BUSH IN EUROPE - DAN BREZENOFF, LONG BEACH (LETTER TO THE EDITOR, LOS ANGELES TIMES, FEBRUARY 24): “Re ‘Bush Speech Chides Russia,’ Feb. 22: I hope President Bush got a hearty laugh when he called on Russia to ‘renew a commitment to democracy and the rule of law.’ Surely his European audience knew that with actions and words, this president has consistently placed himself beyond the reach of both constitutional and international law. This is the administration of Abu Ghraib, Alberto Gonzales and torture flights to Egypt. This is the president who altered two centuries of American policy with an illegal, preemptive war—no congressional declaration or U.N. approval required.”
LINK

15. GERMANS TRUST PUTIN MORE THAN BUSH - JUAN COLE (INFORMED COMMENT: THOUGHTS ON THE MIDDLE EAST, HISTORY, AND RELIGION, FEBRUARY 24): “A Die Welt article … reports that over-all, the German public trusts Vladimir Putin more than it trusts George W. Bush. I was struck that it doesn’t trust either one very much, and that even in West Germany they are in a virtual tie. It is a sad commentary on the trans-Atlantic relationship, and is almost completely the fault of George W. Bush.”
LINK

16. BUSH’S HARSHEST CRITICS - MARKUS RETTICH AND WOLFGANG STOCK (WALL STREET JOURNAL, FEBRUARY 24): U.S. President George W. Bush is about to wrap up his fence-mending tour in Europe, and it seems that both sides have been sincere in their desire to improve at least the atmospherics in the trans-Atlantic relationship. The same cannot be said about Europe’s media. A study by Media Tenor—a German-based international media research institute—shows that leading European newspapers and TV stations still produce twice as many negative statements about the U.S. as positive ones (even if that criticism slightly decreased from December to January). The finding that European coverage can be more critical of the U.S. than even the Arab media mirrors results of previous Media Tenor studies. Does European media coverage paint the wrong picture of America? Content analysis alone cannot answer that question, but it can show that journalists in different countries create different realities. In addition, these findings can help explain why public opinion research has found that “anti-Americanism is deeper and broader now than in any time in modern history,” as the Pew Research Center stated in a recently published report.
LINK
PAID SUBSCRIPTION

17. CONTAINING BUSH: THE PRESIDENT DOESN’T SEEM TO REALIZE IT, BUT THE EUROPEANS STILL DON’T BUY HIS NEOCON VISION—AND THEY’VE BACKED HIM INTO A CORNER ON IRAN - SIDNEY BLUMENTHAL (SALON, FEBRUARY 24)
LINK

18. THE ROVING EYE - BUSH DOES BRUSSELS (PEPE ESCOBAR, ASIA TIMES):  Bush’s trip may have been to Brussels, but it was all about Asia (China) and the Middle East (Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Iran). Bush insisted at all stops he now wants a “partnership” with Europe: Chirac and Schroeder, on the record, praised the new tune, but their diplomats insist that only facts will test the rhetoric. “It may be the same wine in a different bottle,” quipped a diplomat. Bush certainly did not engage in his trademark born-again Christian fundamentalist rap that makes cultured Europeans cringe. But he insisted he wants to see “an arc of reform from Morocco to Bahrain, passing through Iraq and Afghanistan,” which for many a European still means regime change by force.
LINK

19. SORRY, NO FREE DINNER! - LI XUEJIANG (OPINION, PEOPLE’S DAILY, BEIJING, FEBRUARY 24): Bush will not return home from his Europe tour empty-handed, for the two sides not only share the same values, but also still have mutual needs. But neither smiles nor handshakes can bring the two parties into pre-Cold War closeness, since it’s no easy job at all to balance US unipolarization and hegemony against European multi-polar needs and independence inclination.
LINK

20. DESPITE TALKS, U.S.-GERMAN RELATIONS STILL TROUBLED - THOMAS PILSCHKE (DAILY OCOLLEGIAN, OK, FEBRUARY 24): “The increasing anti-Americanism in Germany stems from [a] culture of pacifism and strong opposition to nationalism. We should worry about it. Anti-Americanism is especially present among German elites: students, professors, writers, artists and journalists … . I am also worried about American’s self-centeredness. Here, news channels rarely cover foreign countries. With the exceptions of Iraq or Iran, the rest of the world’s affairs are crammed into an 80-second broadcast … . In both countries, we have to learn to forget our own cultural background for a moment, and to think from the perspective of the other. The United States as a world power should be able to understand its allies. Otherwise it will lose its predominant position in the long term. We Germans, however, should question ourselves as to whether dull anti-Americanism helps us with respect to the challenges which lie ahead for the global community.
LINK

21. GERMANS BELIEVE DEBT OF GRATITUDE HAS BEEN SETTLED - ROGER BOYES (TIMES, U.K., FEBRUARY 24): There seems to be little chance of Germans rethinking their opposition to Mr. Bush: there has been a fundamental change in German attitudes to the United States. “Never in the history of the United States was anti-Americanism so broadly spread and so deeply anchored as today,” Mariam Lau, one of Germany’s shrewdest commentators, said.
LINK

22. AN IRAQI’S PERSPECTIVE - A LETTER TO GEORGE W. BUSH - GHAZWAN AL-MUKHTAR (ISLAMONLINE, FEBRUARY 24): We do not hate America for its “freedom” or “democracy.” We don’t hate America. We hate the crimes, the destruction, and the devastation committed by America against the innocent people in our country.
LINK

23. ART VS. MONOPOLY OF TRUTH - JOHN FAUPEL (ISLAMONLINE, FEBRUARY 23): Hidden Persuaders: One of the oldest cultures in the world has just been destroyed by one of the youngest, whose only understanding is money and the glitzy artifacts it can buy. Now, under the guise of “reconstruction” begins the systematic rape of the hearts and minds of that nation by the “hidden persuaders.”
LINK

24. EGYPT’S BRUTAL ANSWER – EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, FEBRUARY 24): Egyptian president Mubarak’s answer to Mr. Bush’s appeal for steps toward reform has been to order a new wave of anti-American incitement in the state-run press and to have his goons rough up a man who proposes exactly the moderate, step-by-step change that Mr. Bush advocates—and that Egypt desperately needs. Mr. Mubarak is no longer testing Mr. Bush; he is spitting in his face.
LINK

25. THE DOWNSIDE OF DEMOCRACY: WHAT IF THE U.S. DOESN’T LIKE WHAT THE VOTERS LIKE IN THE MIDEAST AND BEYOND? – JUAN COLE (LOS ANGELES TIMES, FEBRUARY 24): The fact is, democracy is an unruly process; it doesn’t always yield the results we want or expect. Bush likes to talk in terms of good versus evil, to suggest that the forces of freedom and democracy are doing battle with the defenders of tyranny—but he should be aware that the world isn’t always that simple. If Washington falls back on its traditional responses—covert operations, attempts to interfere in parliamentary votes with threats or bribes, or dependence on strong men like Musharraf—the people of the Middle East might well explode, because the only thing worse than living under a dictatorship is being promised a democracy and then not really getting it.
LINK

26. BUSH GOES FROM ALARMIST TO POLLYANNA WITH EASE - HARLEY SORENSEN (SF GATE, FEBRUARY 21): If democracy and freedom are “on the move,” as Bush claims, then we should be leading the charge, not demeaning ourselves by sponsoring or condoning medieval regressions such as torture.
LINK

27. EVEN COWBOYS NEED FRIENDS: BUSH AND BLAIR’S ILLEGAL WAR IN IRAQ HAS NOT MADE THE WORLD A SAFER PLACE - ONLY RESPECT FOR INTERNATIONAL LAW CAN DO THAT - PHILIPPE SANDS (GUARDIAN, FEBRUARY 24): The present effort by the US and Britain to remake the global rules will not succeed. It does not mean that new circumstances—failed states, terrorism and the emergence of non-state actors in particular—do not require the existing rules to be continually assessed, and to be modified where necessary. Nor does it mean that some of the global rules are not in need of a thorough overhaul, to make them more efficient and accountable to parliaments and to the people. But change is a process which inevitably requires cooperation and a broad degree of support. It cannot be imposed at gunpoint.
LINK

28. WHY CAN’T A MAN BE MORE LIKE A WOMAN? - TINA BROWN (WASHINGTON POST, FEBRUARY 24): There were so many blunders of tone in the first Bush term it needed Condi Rice in her Jackie O pearls to go and suck up to wounded European leaders in advance of the presidential visit. By the end of the week Mr. Bush’s diplomatic cholesterol will have spiked from having to feast on the foie gras of Old Europe. It’s easy for Condi to switch from standing on Putin’s corns to gazing into Chancellor Schroeder’s eyes and laughing coquettishly at his Germanic jokes. That kind of thing is harder for Bush—and off the table for Rummy.
LINK

29. I’LL LINK TO THAT: HUNTER THOMPSON, LARRY SUMMERS, HILLARY, CONDI AND THE INTERNET’S PATRON SAINT (OPINION JOURNAL FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EDITORIAL PAGE, FEBRUARY 24): “Condi Rice. The new secretary of state has been doing something both different in public and, I suspect, not without meaning. When she meets with the leader of another country and poses for the handshake photo-op she never looks at the leader. She always looks at the journalists witnessing the event instead. She gives them her warmest, most connected smiles. Then, when the picture taking is over, she turns to the foreign leader with a more neutral look, makes eye contact and chats. I don’t think this is an accident. I suspect it is the administration’s way of finally fighting back against 50 years of embarrassing and compromising pictures of American leaders meeting with leaders such as this, this and this. The Bush White House doesn’t want those pictures. They may be inconvenient down the road. And so administration members on meeting foreign leaders give all their jolly warmth to the moment, as it were, and not the man. Interesting.”
LINK

30. A LESSON IN FOREIGN EXCHANGE: AN IMMIGRANT AND A LOCAL TEACHER HELP START A SCHOOL IN UGANDA - TARA BAHRAMPOUR (WASHINGTON POST, FEBRUARY 24): A Ugandan man, John Wanda, moved to Arlington nine years ago after his wife won a visa in a U.S. State Department lottery. Finding work as a bookkeeper for the American Chiropractic Association, Wanda worked his way up to become vice president of finance and administration.Last year he opened the Arlington Academy of Hope, a $60,000 U-shaped building in Bumwalukani that enrolls 200 children between the ages of 5 and 15. The school brought in trained teachers from Kampala, Uganda’s capital, 155 miles away, and pays them $200 a month, far more than government schools pay. Classes are limited to 40 children—low for Uganda—and students receive uniforms and a hot lunch. Instruction is in English, as it is in most Ugandan schools.
LINK

C) WEEKLY EXCHANGES SUPPLEMENT

The following articles are related to educational and cultural exchange programs. Specific topics in this supplement include USG-funded exchange programs (e.g., Fulbright scholarships, Ron Brown Fellowship, International Visitors) as well as issues relating to student visas, study abroad, and NGOs involved in exchanges. The articles are aggregated weekly by MS. JENNIFER BRIGHAM, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

C.1) USG–FUNDED EXCHANGE PROGRAMS (SCROLL DOWN TO SECTION C.2 FOR OTHER TOPICS)

1.  NUMEROUS US PROGRAMS BACK PALESTINIAN WOMEN’S DEVELOPMENT (Press Release, All American Patriots, Sweden - Feb 23, 2005): The United States sponsors numerous programs that support Palestinian women in politics, business, legal empowerment, medical care, food supplies, and education, according to a fact sheet released by the State Department’s Office of the Senior Coordinator for International Women’s Issues February 22. LINK

2.  WORLD’S FIRST SERVICE ORGANIZATION REACHES CENTENNIAL BIRTHDAY (Press release, PR Newswire - Feb 22, 2005):  Chicago’s Rotary One, the world’s first service organization and the founding club of Rotary International, with its 1.2 million members in 166 countries, will celebrate its centennial with a documentary produced by filmmaker Rick Roberts to air Thursday, February 24, 2005 at 7PM on WYCC-Channel 20 in Chicago.  It will air nationally in the near future. The actual anniversary, Wednesday, February 23, will be recognized with a black-tie ball at the Chicago Hilton & Towers that honors Harriet M. Fulbright, Ambassador of the Fulbright Scholarships.  LINK

3.  VISITING CZECH TEACHER ADJUSTS TO LIFE IN THE U.S. - GEORGE BASLER (Press & Sun-Bulletin, Feb 23, 2005) In the Czech Republic, where Milan Kovar has taught for five years, he rarely has to raise his voice, the 30-year-old teacher said. In America, he has to be more animated, more outgoing and yes, louder to hold students’ attention. Raising his voice is just one adjustment Kovar has had to make as he spends the year teaching global studies at Whitney Point High School as part of the Fulbright Teacher and Administrator Exchange Program. LINK

4.  SLIDE SHOW EXHIBITION (South Bay News, NY - Feb 22, 2005): On Thursday, March 3, at 11am in the Ward Hall Great Room, Painter Brian Rutenberg will present a slide show of paintings at Farmingdale State University. This event is co-sponsored by the Distinguished Speakers Program and the University Club. Brian Rutenberg has had over eighty exhibitions throughout the United States and is widely considered one of the finest young painters working today.  (Rutenberg is a Fulbright Scholar and was awarded a 2004 Fellowship in Painting from the New York Foundation for the Arts.) LINK

5.  TAPPING THE PULSE (Arts Calendar, New Zealand - Feb 22, 2005): From February 24th until May 8th The New Zealand Film Archive plays host to “Tapping the Pulse” a survey of film and video works by Philip Dadson created between 1971-2004. “Tapping the Pulse” will be presented in 3 three-week cycles: Body, Geography and Sonics and will include a live musical performance from Dadson on March 30th. In a career which spans more than 30 years Dadson has created a body of music and video art that has been exhibited around the world. (Dadson has been the recipient of many an honour including a Fulbright Fellowship, an Antarctic New Zealand Artist Fellowship and the prestigious Arts Foundation Laureate Award.) LINK

6.  TODAY’S BUSINESS BRIEF - UNH PROFESSOR AWARDED FULBRIGHT TO SOUTH ... (Portsmouth Herald News, NH - Feb 20, 2005): DURHAM - Associate Professor Igor Tsukrov, a mechanical engineering professor in the University of New Hampshire College of Engineering and Physical Sciences received a Fulbright Award to study in South Africa this year. Tsukrov, a resident of Lee, departed for the University of Kwazulu-Natal in Durban last month. He will teach and conduct joint research at the school’s Center for Composite Materials for six months. LINK

7.  SCRIBES TALK ETHICS AT WORKSHOP (Chandigarh Newsline, India - Feb 18, 2005):  A workshop on media ethics, sponsored by the Public Affairs Division of the US Embassy, saw participants discussing ethics-based issues that they faced everyday and during their tenure as journalists. The topics chosen for the workshop dwelt on questions like how to deal with privacy of the subject, whether the rape victims should be named or if minors be photographed. They also deliberated on the question of whether journalists could have political ambitions and if they should retire after joining politics. (Dr Shakuntala Rao, visiting Fulbright senior lecturer was one of the distinguished moderators.) LINK

8.  FELLOWSHIP OFFICE NOT VOCAL ENOUGH (Georgetown Independent (subscription), DC - Feb. 23, 2005): With over 6,500 undergraduates attending Georgetown University, the fact that the office of the Fellowship Secretary advises only fifteen students annually, according to Dr. John Glavin, is unacceptable. The university offers aid and direction to its students for fifteen distinct fellowships, including the Rhodes, Fulbright and Marshall grants as well as lesser-known awards. LINK

9.  BUDDING AUTHORS WIN RANKIN’S HELP (BBC News, UK - Feb 18, 2005): Crime writer Ian Rankin has gone back to his roots and is setting up a student scholarship programme for would-be young authors. The brains behind the Inspector Rebus series plans to financially support three Fife College students a year for the next three years. (In addition to many other awards, Rakin was elected a Hawthornden Fellow and received the prestigious Chandler-Fulbright Award.) LINK

10.  JURY AWARDS FORMER SCHOLAR $40K FOR ATTACK ON HER FIRST NIGHT IN ...- TERRY ROMBECK (Lawrence Journal World, KS - Feb 17, 2005): A former Fulbright scholar at Kansas University will receive more than $40,000 from a Lawrence hotel found partially responsible for an attack that occurred in August 2001. She sued the hotel in July 2002 because, she said, lax security was partially to blame for the attack. Shamieh left KU as scheduled in April 2002. (She had been accepted to attend the doctoral program in public administration at the University of Southern California but decided to stay in Beirut instead.) LINK

C.2) OTHER NEWS ON EDUCATIONAL AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE ISSUES

11.  FRANK JAO ELECTED CHAIRMAN OF VIETNAM EDUCATION FOUNDATION (PR Newswire (press release) - Feb 22, 2005): The Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF) announced today that Mr. Frank Jao, CEO of Bridgecreek Development Company, has been elected Chairman of the Board of Directors. “Frank Jao is an exceptional person and leader,” said Herb Allison, Jr., the outgoing chairman of VEF. “He is superbly qualified to help VEF accomplish its mission of expanding educational opportunities for Vietnam’s talented young people and strengthening the friendship between the United States and Vietnam.” LINK

12.  2 GIRLS GRADUATE AT DMZ SCHOOL -KOREA HERALD CORRESPONDENT (Korea Herald, South Korea - Feb 17, 2005): DAESEONG-DONG IN DMZ - This serene village of 220 people nestled in the southern half of the 4-kilometer-wide Demilitarized Zone was crowded with dignitaries, military officers and reporters Wednesday for a tiny but unique graduation ceremony for two students at the Dae Sung Tong Elementary School. This tranquil farming village was formed in the aftermath of the 1953 Armistice Agreement that ended the Korean War.  North Korea and the U.S.-led United Nation Command each agreed to build a model village on either side of the DMZ to extol their respective superiority. LINK

13.  US-VIETNAM FRIENDSHIP ORGANIZATION DEBUTS (Thanh Nien Daily, Vietnam - Feb 23, 2005): The American Vietnamese Friendship Organization, which aims to promote art and cultural exchanges between the two countries and help poor children, made its official debut in New York City Tuesday night. With more than 100 U.S. businessmen, artists, journalists and social activists attending the ceremony, renowned Vietnamese pianist Nguyen Thi Chau Giang, thanked all the supporters for helping the organization carry out its missions. LINK

14.  OUTREACH TARGETS IMMIGRANTS - DONNA GRAY (Glenwood Springs Post Independent, CO - Feb 23, 2005): The Colorado Trust has awarded $75,000 each year for four years to a group of community service organizations to bring immigrants together with their community for mutual aid and understanding. Sandy Swanson of the Family Visitor Program visited the Garfield County commissioners to hear their views on how to help immigrants fit in.
LINK

SECTION D)

FAT – L’ETOILE SOLITAIRE (LETTER FROM PARIS)

My credentials are impeccable to be part of the conversation on why French women are not fat. I am fat, and I live in Paris. I have also been fat in several other countries and can emote at length (and width) on International Attitudes toward Avoirdupoids. 

First, I must tell you that there are fat people in France.  There are not nearly as many as in the US, and the fatties here are less fat than the truly industrial models we specialize in. I am amazed that all of the chubbies here in Paris do not run around naked because most stores only carry sizes for victims of a wasting disease. I was at a bus stop here in the 16th, and a woman of substantial proportions approached me and asked where I got my clothes. (One thing about coming from an overweight country is that you can get attractive clothes in what they euphemistically call “women’s” sizes.) I told my plump questioner that I bought everything on the Internet from the States. Alas, she wailed, she had access to none of that. So, she queried, what did I do with my clothes when I was tired of them?  “I give them to the Church,” I replied, and she clapped her hands and said that she got all of hers from the Church, so could we cut out the middle man?  A few days later, the same woman and I met by chance in the local hardware store and made plans for when she would come by to get some outfits. She left the store, and the woman behind the counter, another woman of some heft, asked, “And what about me?” Obviously there is a market just waiting to be tapped. 

As a parenthetical thought, you have to remember that entering a store which caters to the generously proportioned is ipso facto an admission that you need extra sized clothes. You would be amazed at the Hindenberg-sized people who swear that they wear a size 10 and would expire of humiliation if seen walking into a Lane Bryant’s. When I was little, they had a Chubbette line for plump girls and Husky sizes for boys. The mere mention of those brand names was enough to send any kid into a complete decline. So, the French chain for chubs will need to come up with some soigne name. As a parenthetical thought to the parenthetical thought, people used to refer to the three rotund mistresses of an African ruler as Les Trois Graces (The Three Graces) which sounds lovely and which also is the way The Three Fatties (Les Trois Grasses) is pronounced. 

But back to being fat in France. Portions here are smaller; people smoke more; there is less tolerance for fat; people exercise more.  I am not talking about gyms and Pilates and other such organized torture.  If you live in a city, you walk. You can’t help but get some exercise if you walk even the minimum amount to and from the bus stop or the subway station. And if, by the way, you take the subway, you don’t need a Stair Master because you will climb lots of stairs to get in, around, and out of the metro system. 

Tolerance of obesity varies greatly from place to place.  In Europe, it is, in general, viewed with distaste, although I hear that Southern European countries prefer a woman with some volume. In America we deplore obesity while eating a pound of French fries at one sitting.  (Could our love affair with French (freedom?) fries be part of a long-term Gallic conspiracy to send us all into cholesterol overload?).

Less-developed and “traditional” societies tend to appreciate women of substance. In Mexico, people used to say, “Bones are for dogs; meat is for men!” as they eyed a well rounded form. In South Asia, sexy movie posters featured plus size women in capri pants, and a fatty was a hotty there.  In many African countries, fat is good. A colleague in one country came down with malaria, amoeba, and giardia simultaneously, and she emerged from a near-death experience thin for the first time in her life.  She was thrilled, but, as is so often the case, she started regaining the weight.  One of her African colleagues told her that she was getting fat, and she sighed and agreed.  He continued, “I am glad because you had lost a lot of your authority.” If you look at it dispassionately, it makes sense to have a taste for the tubby. After all, a guy would have to be rich to feed a woman my size. It’s rather comforting to find yourself a symbol of status rather than a candidate for a stapling operation. I always go through a certain re-adjustment period when I travel. As underdeveloped countries appreciate overdeveloped women, travel to those places means that you get a shot in the self-esteem. 

So, why are French women thin?  There is no magic reason. There are no magic diets.  If you study any diet or regime, you will find that, in general, if you eat less and exercise more you will be thinner than your next door neighbor who eats more and exercises less.  I can hear someone here leaping up with the “glandular” argument. The number of people with a bonafide glandular condition is vanishingly small; the number of people who claim that condition is as large as they are. So, either push back from the table or move to a country which will celebrate your pulchritude.

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