Today the latest edition of DIPLOMAT magazine arrived. I opened it to find an article written by me which I could not remember writing(!). So I read it with much enjoyment and appreciation. Check it out. It describes my attempts as an argumentative young diplomat to persuade the Embassy in […]
The punditry gushes forth re Tony Blair and his memoirs. Here on the Right is Simon Heffer, quiet Ayn Rand fan and very conservative in all respects, liking Mr Blair (whom he knows) but being baffled by the poor writing: It appears to be a book written in tune with […]
Christopher Myers, the newly appointed ‘Special Adviser’ to Foreign Secretary William Hague, has resigned amidst a gush of crass innuendo from Guido and others re a possible homosexual relationship between Hague and Myers. Willaim Hague’s statement on the issue has dignity and barely concealed anger – one of the most remarkable (and […]
Working on some slides for a Mediation Technique presentation in Geneva next week. Mediation as a professional discipline has some core assumptions. One of the most noted is the idea that there are three levels in the way people look at disputes, namely PIN: Positions Interests Needs Thus Kosovo. The […]
Sigh. Another thoughtful and intelligent website to read: Big Questions Online. Try this one by Susan Jacoby: When my friend saw one of her favorite young Afghan-American women — a high school senior — weeping in the dining room, she asked what was wrong. “Oh, madam professor,” the girl replied, […]
Finally! The ‘feedback’ compilation arrives from a course I ran a few months ago for EU colleagues in Brussels on the general theme of Ethical Dilemmas in Diplomacy. Everyone is dutifully tasked to complete these forms at the end of a course. A bundle of these forms show trends. Were the […]
Over at Business and Politics I peer at the BBC through a powerful microscope. Droll opening paragraph, or at least I thought so.
Should women be allowed to go topless? That’s the question posed by National Go Topless Day. Which maybe you missed last week. Too bad. Yet it somehow seems to me to be the wrong question, or at least it is replete with all sorts of curious assumptions which may need challenging: […]
Back from Warsaw this afternoon to find myself at 12th place on the 2010 Total Politics UK Libertarian Blog list. Up from 17th place last year, and just below the Adam Smith Institute. Wo! Big Libertarian climber this year is Anna Raccoon, jumping from from 13th place to 6th. Here […]
Part of next week will be spent giving some Speechwriting Training. One of the things I have been taught on my Mediation training is the technique of ‘reflecting back’. In other words, a good mediator (so it is said) is not one who shows ‘neutrality’ by being aloof and detached from […]
