Category: Appearances (vintage)

This Thursday: Speaking on implications of withdrawal from Iraq

If you’re in the Washington DC area on Thursday morning, note that I’ll be participating in what looks like (PDF) a pretty informative event. It’s brought to you by the Middle East Policy Council, former home of my esteemed friend, Amb. Chas Freeman:

    You and your colleagues are invited to the 57th in the MEPC’s Capitol Hill Conference Series on U.S. Middle East policy:
    U.S. Withdrawal from Iraq:
    What are the Regional Implications?
    SPEAKERS:
    James F. Dobbins
    Director, International Security and Defense Policy Center, RAND Corporation;
    Former assistant secretary of state and special envoy to Afghanistan
    Ellen Laipson
    President and CEO, Stimson Center; former vice-chair, National Intelligence Council
    Helena Cobban
    Publisher, JustWorldNews.org; author, Re-engage! America and the World After Bush
    Lawrence J. Korb
    Senior fellow, Center for American Progress; former assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration
    MODERATOR:
    Thomas R. Mattair
    Consultant; book review editor, MEPC; author, Global Security Watch – Iran: A Reference Handbook
    Thursday, July 16, 2009, 9:30 – Noon
    Capitol Visitor Center, HVC-215
    R.S.V.P. Acceptances Only: (202) 296-6767 or E-mail: info@mepc.org

Videos from the recent Georgetown University CCAS conference

… are now up on the website, here.
This is a fabulous resource. I shall certainly be coming back to it again and again. Many of the presentations were extremely important and well done: I learned so much from attending the two days of the conference.
The schedule for the conference is at the top of that web-page. Then scroll down to see the videos, which are not in the same order.
(My performance looks okay. One small mis-speaking– a reference to 40 Hamas people being incarcerated in the West bank, as opposed to 60 Hamas parliamentarians— and some possibly overdone, BBC-style hand gestures…. But it’s the way I communicate in large-group settings, so what can I do?)
Anyway, big congratulations to the CCAS staff for having gotten this up on the website so speedily. Just one small caveat: those presenters who relied heavily on Power Points get a bit short-changed since the videos don’t, I think, cue to those.

My recent talk at the Palestine Center

… is now up on their website, here.
I’ve watched the first one-third of it, and noticed that at about 9m50s I mis-spoke, saying “counter-intelligence” instead of “counter-insurgency” when describing the security doctrine under which Israel has quadrillaged the whole of the occupied West Bank.
Apart from that, it looked like a good representation of what I wanted to say at the event, which was held March 31.
My big thanks, again, to the Palestine Center for hosting me there, and also for shooting and webhosting the video record of it.

Short piece on J’lem on ‘The Nation’ website; DC talks next week

I have a short piece on Jerusalem on The Nation‘s website today. I’ll be working on one more short piece for the website and a couple of longer pieces for the print mag over the month ahead.
Also, in case some of you haven’t looked at the top of JWN’s left sidebar recently, I thought I should tell you about my upcoming stand-alone talk in DC. It’s a sort of trip report– okay, a collection of highlights from my recent trip; and it’ll be at lunch-time on Tuesday, March 31, not April 1, as I’d earlier told some people.
Finally, at the end of next week I’ll be taking part in the G.U Center for Contemporary Arab Studies’ symposium on “Palestine and the Palestinians today”. I’m contributing to the very last of the symposium’s panel discussions, on the Friday afternoon. I’m expecting to have learned a huge amount from the other presenters before then.
The two DC events both require pre-registration.

Panel discussion Washington DC Thursday

If you’re in DC Thursday evening, come along to a panel discussion on the Gaza crisis that I’m participating in, at Georgetown University, at 6:30 p.m.
The other participants are:

    Tamim Barghouti
    Lama Abu-Odeh
    Tom Neu
    Josh Rudner, and
    Noura Erekat.

The discussion is organized by GU’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and will be held in McNair Auditorium, in Old North Building on the main campus.

LA, Seattle, San Fran, Santa Barbara…

… book-related events coming up soon now.

The following talks will all be related to my book Re-engage! America and the World After Bush. In most of them I’ll be focusing quite a lot on the “shifting global balances” theme that’s in Chapter 6 of the book…

Here’s the schedule:

  • Oct. 14: 12:40 p.m. book talk at Riverside City College, 4800 Magnolia Ave., Riverside, CA. Further info, contact Marylin Jacobsen
    (951) 222-8160
  • Oct. 15: 11 a.m. book talk at California State University, Long Beach, Multicultural Center. Cohosted by the Center for Peace and Social Justice, the Center for International Education, and the International Studies Department.
  • Oct. 15: 4 p.m. Presentation at UCLA’s Von Grunebaum Center for Middle East Studies, West Los Angeles, CA. Title: “Shifting global balances: Outlook for the Middle East.”
  • Oct. 16: 12:15 – 1:30 p.m. Brown-bag lunch and reading at the Evergreen Library, Evergreen State University,  in Olympia, WA.
  • Oct. 16: 4 p.m. get-together with participants in the GRuB program, Olympia, WA.
  • Oct. 16: 7 p.m. Public discussion and book signing at the University of Puget Sound, near Tacoma, WA.
  • Oct. 17: Speaking to an international affairs class at Univ. of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA.
  • Oct. 18: 1:00 p.m. Meeting with interfaith peace strategists, Berkeley, CA.
  • Oct. 22: Meeting with international affairs class at Santa Barbara City College, Santa Barbara, CA.
  • Oct. 22: 5- 6:30 p.m. Lecture at UC-Santa Barabara. Title: “The Middle East and the Shifting Global Balance.” HSSB, Room 4020.
  • Oct. 25: 8 a.m.- 12:30 p.m. Featured speaker at the UN Day celebration held by the Santa Barbara Coalition for Global Dialogue, Santa Barbara, CA.

Come if you can! And tell your friends.

US west coast events in October

If you live in or near Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, or Santa Barbara, then I’m heading your way this month. Most of these events are book discussions, open to the public, about my book Re-engage! America and the World After Bush.
Here’s the schedule. We haven’t put in all the times and details yet. But there is probably enough information here for you to be able to Google the institutions involved– and my name– and find out what you need.
As we get the detailed info, we’ll be posting it on this web-page.
The help of JWN readers and fans in publicizing these events would be much appreciated!

  • Oct. 11: Noon-time book discussion and potluck hosted by the Orange County (CA) Friends Meeting.
  • Oct. 13: Events at Redlands University, Redlands, CA (details t.b.a.)
  • Oct. 14: Noon-time event at Riverside Community College in Riverside, CA. 
  • Oct. 14: Evening reception and book talk hosted by the Inland Southern California World Affairs Council at the Mission Inn in Riverside, CA.
  • Oct. 15: 11 a.m. book talk at California State University, Long Beach, cohosted by the Center for Peace and Social Justice, the Center for International Education, and the International Studies Department.
  • Oct. 15: 4p.m. book talk at UCLA’s Von Grunebaum Center for Middle East Studies, West Los Angeles, CA.
  • Oct. 16: 12:15 – 1:30 p.m. reading at the Evergreen Library, Evergreen State University,  in Olympia, WA.
  • Oct. 16: 4 p.m. get-together with participants in the GRuB program, Olympia, WA.
  • Oct. 16: 7 p.m. Public discussion and book signing at the University of Puget Sound, near Tacoma, WA.
  • Oct. 17: Speaking to an international affairs class at Univ. of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA.
  • Oct. 18: 1:00 p.m. Meeting with interfaith peace strategists, Berkeley, CA.
  • Oct. 22: Meeting with international affairs class at Santa Barbara City College, Santa Barbara, CA.
  • Oct. 22: 4-6 p.m. Discussion of recent Middle East events, hosted by the Center for Middle East Studies, UC-Santa Barbara.
  • Oct. 23: Possible event at the Orfalea Center for Global Studies, UC-Santa Barbara.
  • Oct. 25: 8 a.m.- 12:30 p.m. Featured speaker at the UN Day celebration held by the Santa Barbara Coalition for Global Dialogue, Santa Barbara, CA.