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Begin New Search Political Geography New York Publication Year within 25 Years

191. A "New" Strategy for Afghanistan and Its Region

Publication Date:
08-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, Princeton University
Abstract:
The Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD) at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs convened a private workshop, “A Strategy for Afghanistan and Its Region,” May 7-10, 2009 in Triesenberg, Liechtenstein. The workshop's aim was to discuss in-depth the strategy of the Obama Administration toward Afghanistan and its region and to formulate additional recommendations. Some twenty leading international experts from the region, Asia, Europe and the United States participated. The meeting was co-funded by LISD, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Stiftung für Selbstbestimmung und Internationale Beziehungen (SiBiL) in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. The workshop was co-chaired by Francesc Vendrell and Wolfgang Danspeckgruber.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Islam, War, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, New York, and Europe

192. Equality Law in an Enlarged European Union. Understanding the Article 13 Directives

Author:
Dimitry Kochenov
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Abstract:
When you are on the subway in New York, it is difficult not to notice numerous Spanish language information posters about equality and non-discrimination, such as 'Housing discrimination on the basis of sex, race, ethnic origin… is unlawful'. They not only state the law: a telephone number in the corner informs you of where to call to make sure that if you are the victim of discrimination, help is available. Have you seen such posters in a Romani language in the Prague metro? Or in Arabic on the trains around Rotterdam?
Topic:
Law
Political Geography:
New York and Europe

193. Corrie: Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie

Author:
Ida Audeh
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Palestine Studies
Institution:
Institute for Palestine Studies
Abstract:
Corrie: Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie Reviewed by Ida Audeh Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 38, no. 9 (Winter 2009), p. 103 Recent Books Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie, edited and with an introduction by the Corrie family. NewYork:W.W. Norton and Company, 2008. xx+295 pages. Notes to page 310. Acknowledgements to page 313. $23.95 cloth.
Political Geography:
New York

194. Qadhafi at the UN: How to Be Washington's Friend

Author:
Dana Moss and Max Mealy
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
This week, in a striking symbol of improved U.S.-Libyan relations and Tripoli's reengagement with the international community, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi is set to address the UN General Assembly. Previously, Qadhafi refused to visit the UN headquarters because it was located within the borders of "an enemy of humanity." Although the dynamic has changed, in the aftermath of the release of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, the convicted perpetrator of the Lockerbie bombing, few have high expectations for Qadhafi's UN visit. Nevertheless, the Libyan leader could capitalize on his visit to draw closer to the Obama administration, although it is impossible to know how Libyan domestic considerations or other factors will impact Qadhafi's behavior in New York. These may eventually dictate a more inflammatory path.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Islam, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, New York, Washington, Arab Countries, and North Africa

195. The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder New York: Bantam, 2008. 976 pp. $35 (cloth).

Author:
Daniel Wahl
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
Nine-year-old Warren Buffett is in his yard playing in the snow. Warren is catching snowflakes. One at a time at first. Then he is scooping them up by handfuls. He starts to pack them into a ball. As the snowball grows bigger, he places it on the ground. Slowly it begins to roll. He gives it a push, and it picks up more snow. Soon he reaches the edge of the yard. After a moment of hesitation, he heads off, rolling the snowball through the neighborhood. And from there, Warren continues onward, casting his eye on a whole world full of snow (prologue). Many decades later, Alice Schroeder, a former insurance analyst at Morgan Stanley and the author of The Snowball, is sitting in front of Warren Buffett, one of the world's richest men. "Where did it come from," she asks, "Caring so much about making money?" Buffett leans forward, "more like a teenager bragging about his first romance than a seventy-two-year-old financier," and begins to tell his story: "Balzac said that behind every great fortune lies a crime. That's not true at Berkshire [Hathaway]" (p. 4). Thus begins The Snowball, one of the most highly anticipated biographies of the past few years and the first to be written about Buffett with his full cooperation. As its full title indicates, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life sets out to present Buffett's thinking, not only about business but about life in general. Among the many topics this hefty volume explores are those individuals who influenced his thinking. A major figure in this respect is Buffett's father, whom he idolizes and from whom he learned a crucial point when it comes to judging both oneself and others: The big question about how people behave is whether they've got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard. I always pose it this way, I say: "Lookit. Would you rather be the world's greatest lover, but have everyone think you're the world's worst lover? Or would you rather be the world's worst lover but have everyone think you're the world's greatest lover?" . . . Now my dad: He was a hundred percent Inner Scorecard guy. He was really a maverick. But he wasn't a maverick for the sake of being a maverick. He just didn't care what other people thought" (p. 33). In addition to the valuable lessons he learned from important figures in his life, Schroeder shows how Buffett's own interests and thinking during childhood contributed to his development. Schroeder reveals him to have been an efficacious child, intensely interested in collecting and processing facts. . . .
Political Geography:
New York

196. Fred Astaire by Joseph Epstein New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. 198 pp. $22 (cloth).

Author:
Scott Holleran
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
In the light and lively Fred Astaire, author and journalist Joseph Epstein offers an excellent overview of the career of the world's greatest male ballroom and tap dancer. This short biography, part of Yale University's Icons of America series, is like its subject-accessible yet elegant. Astaire began his dance training at the age of five after his mother, Johanna Austerlitz, brought him to New York City in the hopes of grooming him and his talented older sister, Adele, for careers in show business. Attending dance school with his sister, young Frederick took to the art form and was soon rehearsing with Adele in routines developed by their instructor. Changing their last names to "Astaire," the brother-sister act hit the theatrical circuit and began a professional career that lasted many years and included appearances on Broadway with Al Jolson and Fanny Brice; and work with famed showman Flo Ziegfeld, who paid the duo an impressive $5,000 per week during the Depression (pp. 12, 15). After Adele retired at the age of thirty-five, Astaire sought fortune in Hollywood. Shortly after being famously dismissed by a studio executive as "Balding. Can't sing. Dances a little." (p. 18), Astaire was noticed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and signed to a three-week contract for $1,500 per week. His first role-playing himself in Dancing Lady opposite Joan Crawford-proved that he had potential as a screen star.
Political Geography:
New York

197. The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants by Jane S. Smith New York: The Penguin Press, 2009. 368 pp. $25.95 (cloth).

Author:
Daniel Wahl
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Objective Standard
Institution:
The Objective Standard
Abstract:
In 1849, millions were starving due to a then-mysterious disease that "in a matter of days, if not hours, could transform a thriving field [of potatoes] into a slimy, foul-smelling patch of rotting vegetation" (pp. 38-39). Everywhere, plants were "extremely inconspicuous, [tasted] terrible, or [went] to seed in a fast and fabulously prolific way, leaving nothing behind to harvest." And plants had evolved characteristics by which they survived just long enough to reproduce, characteristics that were unsuitable for feeding a large and fast-growing population (p. 40). But all this was about to change, and dramatically so, thanks to a man born that year: Luther Burbank (p. 6). In her new book The Garden of Invention: Luther Burbank and the Business of Breeding Plants, Jane S. Smith presents the life of this extremely influential but mostly forgotten plant breeder and businessman, emphasizing his innovations and the methods he used to develop and sell them. Burbank displayed some mechanical ingenuity as a child, but, Smith reveals, apart from this, nothing in Burbank's background suggested that he might become an inventor of new plants (p. 19). Though young men of his time were encouraged to work in an academic setting, Burbank, fond as he was of the outdoors, was unsure whether he wanted to follow suit-until, at the age of 21, he picked up a copy of Charles Darwin's The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication. Smith describes this book as a "detail-crammed response to those who had criticized On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection as a hypothesis unsupported by sufficient proof" (p. 27), then concisely sums up what Burbank read: From gooseberries to gladioli, Darwin compiled his evidence: plants changed in response to outside stimulus (like the cabbages Darwin described that changed their shape or color when planted in different countries), and these changes could happen within a short time span (like the hyacinths he said growers had managed to improve from the offerings of only a few generations earlier). The causes of the changes were still largely unknown, but their occurrence was a fact beyond dispute. This was evolution measured in human time (p. 28). Burbank took from the book several big ideas-each of which Smith relates in an easy-to-read style: The first was that it was possible to force the emergence of latent differences in fruits and flowers, even to the point of generating what seemed to be entirely new varieties. Still more exciting was Darwin's tentative suggestion that selecting, grafting, hybridizing, or simply moving a plant to a new environment might spur changes that would persist over generations. According to Darwin, these alterations were often inadvertent, but as Burbank immediately realized, such happy accidents could also be deliberately pursued. The creation of new plant varieties, something far beyond the familiar efforts to breed the best of an existing stock, did not need to wait for the slow accumulation of natural advantages Darwin had described in his Origin of Species. Evolutionary change could be accelerated by human intervention (p. 28). Darwin's words "opened up a new world" for Burbank (p. 27). Not only did the book give him an intellectual framework for viewing the world and man's place in it, but an advertisement on the last page of Burbank's edition of Darwin's tract (for a book called Gardening for Profit) enabled him to see for the first time his place in it. He would not have to choose "between the outdoor life and the inventor's bench" after all-plant life "could be a subject for experimentation and improvement, and a commercial garden could provide a good living for an imaginative and enterprising man".
Political Geography:
New York

198. Los Angeles' Preparedness for Terrorism

Author:
Clark Kent Ervin
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
This is the second in a series of reports about various cities' pre-paredness for terrorism and/or natural disasters. It is the outgrowth of a series of roundtable discussions in 2007 and 2008 in New York, Chicago, Houston, New Orleans, and Los Angeles among key federal, state, and local government officials in each such city, as well as private sector stakeholders, and think tank/academic experts on homeland security and counterterrorism. The series was financed by a generous lead grant by the Ford Foundation, supplemented by additional grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the McCormick Foundation, and the Houston Endowment. The goal in each city was to identify best practices that can be replicated around the country; to identify any gaps in preparedness; and to recommend to policymakers ways and means of closing any such gaps.
Topic:
Security, Terrorism, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
United States, New York, and Chicago

199. Obama's Address to the Nation on the Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan, December 2009

Author:
Barack Obama
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
President Obama gave this address on December 1, 2009 at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, War, Armed Struggle, and Fragile/Failed State
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States, and New York

200. Sadık Ünay, Neo-liberal Globalization and Institutional Reform: The Political Economy of Development Planning in Turkey

Author:
Ziya Öniş
Publication Date:
10-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2006, 221 pp., ISBN. 978-1600210709. Ziya ÖniÅŸ, p. 177Insight Turkey, Vol. 11, No.4, 2009, p. 177
Topic:
Development and Reform
Political Geography:
New York and Turkey