Humor International Politics
i'm really itching to hop back on a plane & travel again. we leave for montreal next friday for the annual meeting of the american academy of religion (ok, if npr doesn't make me a grown-up, does attending a conference?)... but i have a feeling that will do little in the way of satisfying my urge to travel. the travel books on my livingroom shelves -- with dog-eared pages & margin notes galore -- are taunting me. plus, i think i can give blood again... i haven't been allowed to do that for most of the last three years. i'm a huge supporter of blood-giving, but if i'm eligible again that means i've been hangin' out in the US-of-A too long & i need to load up my suitcase(s) & take off.there are countless destinations still on my list of must-sees. i'd really like to go to croatia. i had a political science professor @ depauw who was from croatia. he was a really interesting guy with a wicked sense of humor. i took a class with him on religion & politics. he used to talk about how beautiful croatia was (is). based on my google image searches since then, i believe it:
tyler has the UK bug -- he'd love to live there temporarily someday. not opposed, i must say. i loved living in london for a short summer & would welcome the opportunity to go back if we could make it work. of course, it's difficult to make those kind of plans in advance, especially considering that neither of us are sure where we'll be in two, five, ten years. the more i think about the future, the more i think law school & perhaps a second master's in international affairs or middle eastern studies would be a wise decision after i finish my MA here @ miami. if i can get to a semi-fluent level in arabic someday, perhaps some doors would open.
tonight's going to be a cozy night in on the couch. hoping to get some preliminary thesis research done in addition to the usual work. i did some housekeeping a bit ago, so now i've given myself permission to relax with the warmth of the microfiber & the laptop. i had a fantastic time last weekend with depauw friends who came to visit, but now it's time to get caught up on some work. i've just had a quick dose of mark harmon on NCIS, so now i should be able to focus. my study break will be working out my plan of attack for the AAR conference -- have to make a schedule for myself so i don't miss any of the good stuff. a few authors i like are going to be giving presentations -- for example, mark juergensmeyer from UC santa barbara. he wrote a book called the new cold war? religious nationalism confronts the secular state. from what i remember of it, i found it interesting. the discussions he'll be involved in @ AAR look promising.
5:44-6:08p
UPDATE: This post is a continuation of the post immediately below it, Mr. Mubarak Goes to Washington.
Al-Shorouk has an occasional annoying habit of committing acts that can’t properly be considered journalism, in which they find some press release or conference agenda then print it as news. Which it is, in the sense of conveying to the reader something that he or she may not have known, but it’s also just a glorified press release.
TBE has decided to adopt it as a modus reportandi as well. This just in:
TBE has noticed an asterisk next to Gamal Mubarak’s name on the Arab Global Forum’s agenda, along with those of many other attendees. The asterisk means that he is an “invited guest,” a rather ambiguous term that could signal a) that other attendees and panelists are uninvited but since they have a well-known propensity to crash conferences and convene wildcat panels, the organizers have thrown their collective hands up and decided to put them on the agenda; b) Gamal (along with Saad Hariri and many others) have been invited but haven’t responded, acting like primo dons just because they can; or, c) that asterisk is a mark of distinction, the technological/technocratic version of the military medal that would’ve been pinned to their chests in the olden days.
Burned After Reading
The agenda, which al-Shorouk rather breathlessly said was “secret,” is in fact labeled “confidential” but is also freely available on the conference’s own website, which makes us think that either al-Shorouk’s reporter was overly credulous or else was trying to pull a fast one.
No “Robust Public Option” for Egypt?
Al-Shorouk also missed the one panel in the program that could have started a (justified or not) firestorm in the Egyptian press: Minister of Health Hatem al-Gebaly’s participation in a panel on private investment in health care. As is well understood in both US and Egyptian politics, entitlements, once enacted, are sacrosanct, and people react strongly at the slightest hint of privatization and/or doing away with benefits. That’s why Republicans (and a few Democrats) are fighting tooth-and-nail to defeat health care reform in the US, and why social security was such a political winner for Democrats in 2006 and removing food subsidies was such a political loser for Sadat in 1977.
Some Notable Absences
By TBE’s count there is exactly one Republican invited or attending (excluding Roy LaHood), and that’s Chuck Hagel, who is basically the Republican version of a “tenured radical.” Considering the party’s current direction, that’s not unexpected, we suppose, but tokenism is a powerful force in US politics…
Likewise the lack of Arab journalists invited to sit on panels (or just sit pretty on the dais while others do the talking, as the case may be). There are a large number of prestige US journalists attending, but we don’t see any Arab scribes of similar stature in the program.
Bottom Lines
Having carefully weighed the evidence, we’re inclined to believe that Gamal and his entourage will attend, despite some initial skepticism, for the following reasons:
- As the original article pointed out, the event is co-sponsored by Egypt’s International Economic Forum, and is primarily oriented toward Egypt and the Gulf.
- Claude Smadja, founder of principal of Smadja and Associates, is no joke. He was previously the Managing Director of the World Economic Forum, and we’re sure his firm was brought on board in part to leverage his contact list.
The age-old journalistic question, “Who’s paying for this shindig?” still applies.
Dept. of Unintentional Humor
A cheap joke, we know, but the hotel name… Hello? Couldn’t they have held it at the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City? It’s sooooo much more convenient to the shopping at Tyson’s.
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