Category: General

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

This is a guest post by Anya Landau French, who directs the New America Foundation/U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative. This post originally appeared at The Havana Note.

(photo illustration by Kevin Van Aelst; reprinted with permission from the New York Times; used with Parag Khanna’s article, “Waving Goodbye to Hegemony“) The Washington Post recently posted an interesting search tool to scan President Barack Obama’s key speeches, policy statements and media interviews. What fun this can be, I (and we) thought.

It’s invite only, a small group, no subs — but on the record. At the Nixon Center, it will be Chas Freeman vs.

I’m back from Germany, where I was participating in the Friedrich Naumann Foundation’s Transatlantic Dialogues Program. It was an eye-opening, whirlwind experience.

This was an interesting session that got a lot of reaction at the Aspen Ideas Festival. US News & World Report publisher Mort Zuckerman and I had a polite dust-up over US-Israel policy and about President Obama. Katty Kay, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, James Fallows and Elisabeth Bumiller were on the panel with Andrea Mitchell moderating.

(click picture above to enlarge) This is a nest currently occupied by three osprey in Chestertown, Maryland — just in front of a house I frequently try to escape to. Recently, I saw a couple of osprey fighting in mid-air with a bald eagle.

Approximately 300,000 returning Iraq and Afghanistan war vets — a number equivalent to nearly 25% of America’s active duty military — suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. While Veterans Administration Secretary Eric Shinseki has just announced streamlined procedures to help these veterans secure support services, this long term social “cost” is staggering.

Yesterday, when I was at this meeting with Special Representative to Muslim Communities Farah Pandith and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Cheryl Benton, Benton asked me off camera if I followed the LeBron James stuff.

(Photo Credit: Enrique De La Osa/Reuters) This post, which originally appeared at The Havana Note, is a guest note by Tom Garofalo, a consultant for the New America Foundation/U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative.