Too many men, men, men, men…
Today the Wall Street Journal ran a story about President Obama’s micromanagement style, illustrated with a picture by Pete Souza of President Obama at a briefing before a health-care meeting with Senate Democrats in June.  It’s a photo of six men and Obama, with various looks of consternation, fatigue, frustration, [...]

Signs of intelligence at the CIA - We are finally going to aim for foreign language proficiency in our intelligence gathering teams.

Why is a applying a simple principle a “rare combination of creativity, analysis, engineering and an understanding of graphics” at Google, where some of our best and brightest go to work? What’s up with our educational system?

During college I went on an overseas study program to Iran. I went back a few years later and lived in Iran from 1972-1978 and hold the country dear.  As a trained and experienced mediator, I humbly make the following suggestions:
Please accept the invitation to go on Iranian TV.
Know that Persians are deeply philosophical, love [...]

The Bush administration does not understand diplomacy and issue-based negotiation, so they drop more bombs.
With reference to:
U.S. dropping more bombs on Iraq by Charles Hanley (AP) 06 June, 2007. Commander in Chief Bush II has doubled the rate of bomb dropping on Iraq from 229 bombs in 2006 to 239 year to date. [...]

I’m reminded of the children’s books, Frog and Toad by Arnold Lobel. In one of them about growing plants, Frog decides he’s going to force his seeds to grow faster. The story leads him to the realization that he needs to be sure they have sun and water and good soil, and they [...]

RE: House Panel Approves a Record $48 Billion for Spy Agencies
By Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writer, May 4, 2007
$48,000,000,000. $48,000 million. $48 billion. In contrast, in 2006, the Department of State spent $16 billion. The Agency for International Development spent $10.5 billion (and 85% of our foreign aid [...]

Humans can learn skills. Communication, conflict resolution, problem-solving, mediation, group facilitation and negotiation are skills that are taught and can be learned. For each of these skills there are distinguishing characteristics of newbies and experts. So far, the evidence says that all the major players in the Bush II administration are newbies–their [...]