Currently in Congress 1 - 15 September 2005

The latest issue of Currently in Congress is available on the U.S. Mission to South Africa's IRC webpage: http://pretoria.usembassy.gov/wwwhic00.html

Congress returned to Washington from their summer recess a few days earlier than scheduled in order to rush through various measures relating to Hurricane Katrina relief. These include multi-billion dollar spending bills, tax relief, welfare payments, job creation, and student loan repayment relief.

This issue also includes information about the Combat Meth Act and the hearings of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts.

Hearing topics include Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts, U.S. foreign aid programs to Europe, how charities meet the needs of America's communities, protecting street children, U.S. and India relations, and Medicaid reform.

Previous issues are archived on the website.

Gapminder

Gapminder is "a non-profit venture for development and provision of free software that visualises human development. " The idea behind this Swedish initiative is to present health statistics and data in such a way as to enhance public understanding and awareness of world health and development challenges. See , for example, what Gapminder has done in its presentation of the UNDP's "Human Development Report 2005".

New foreign policy journal

And while on the subject of foreign policy, a new journal was launched recently.

The following summary comes from Bruce Gregory, directory of the Public Diplomacy Institute at George Washington University:

The American Interest, Vol. 1, No. 1, Autumn 2005. This new journal seeks "to analyze America's conduct on the global stage" and "examine what American policy should be." Edited by Adam Garfinkle, its editorial board is chaired by Francis Fukuyama and includes Anne Applebaum, Peter Berger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Eliot Cohen, Josef Joffe, and Walter Russell Mead. Articles of interest in this first issue include its defining statement, a collection of short articles on the sources of American conduct, and a conversation with Secretary of State Rice.

http://www.the-american-interest.com/cms/main.cfm

Here is an extract from its statement of purpose:

"The American Interest (AI) is a new and independent voice devoted to the broad theme of "America in the world." Our agenda is threefold. The first is to analyze America's conduct on the global stage and the forces that shape it--not just its strategic aspects, but also its economic, cultural and historical dimensions. American statecraft is not simply about power but also purpose. What is important to the world about America is therefore not just its politics, but the society from which those politics arise--including America's literature, music and art, as well as its values, public beliefs and its historical imagination.
The AI's second aim is to examine what American policy should be. It is our view that the challenges and opportunities of our time transcend the assumptions and vocabulary used by both the Left and Right in recent years, and that we need to move beyond the defense of obsolete positions. We therefore seek to invite the best minds from a variety of professions to engage in lively and open-ended debate founded on serious, sustained arguments and evidence. We wish to provoke and enlighten, not to plead or to please the guardians of any ideology. We take a pragmatic attitude toward policy problems, privileging creativity and effectiveness over contending orthodoxies.
Third, though its name is The American Interest, our pages are open to the world. The simple and inescapable defining fact of our era is that America is the foremost actor on the world stage. For good or ill, the United States affects the lives of billions because of its dominance in military, economic and, ever more so, cultural affairs. Hence, the AI invites citizens of all nations into the American national dialogue, convinced that Americans have much to learn from the experience and perspectives of others."

Posted by Tel Aviv IRC
# posted by Ralph Amelan : 1:13 PM

New CFR site

The Council on Foreign Relations launched an impressive new website last week which aims to be a "First-Stop Nonpartisan Resource on U.S. Foreign Policy and International Affairs"...according to their press release , “Cfr.org is Rapidly Becoming the Google for the Foreign Policy Set.”...no less! Features on the new site include:

• Nearly 200 Background on the News fact sheets on world events and
  critical issues.
• More than 300 exclusive expert interviews conducted by cfr.org consulting
  editor Bernard Gwertzman, former editor-in-chief of nytimes.com, and former
  foreign editor and diplomatic correspondent for the New York Times.
• A selection of Must Reads culled by the Council to point our audience to
  the most innovative thinking on U.S. foreign policy.
• Region and issue briefs by Council scholars.
• Essential source documents ranging from constitutions and speeches to
  international agreements and treaties.
• Articles and congressional testimony by Council fellows and other
  experts.
• Timely on-the-record transcripts, audio files, videos, and webcasts from
  CFR meetings in New York, Washington, DC, and around the country.
• A world events list with links to twenty-four global calendars.
• Nearly 100 links to national and international think tanks and their
  work.
• Independent Task Force Reports and Council Special Reports on today’s
  most urgent issues.
• Advance highlights and excerpts from Foreign Affairs, recently ranked the
  most influential media outlet in the United States, according to a study of
  U.S. opinion leaders.

Scipionus

For people who are wondering about the state of homes/neighborhoods in New Orleans, Scipionus might be of some help....here is a description from wired.com
"Since Scipionus.com launched Wednesday, it has become a giant visual "wiki" page, attracting tens of thousands of visitors who are collaborating in creating a public document of astonishing detail."
Here's an example, one of hundreds of entries: "9/8/05 4800 Block of Loveland reported to have approx.18-24 inches in houses. Added 09/08 21:53." We are inching towards virtual reality!

Transatlantic Trends

The 2005 issue of Transatlantic Trends, an annual public opinion survey examining American and European attitudes toward the transatlantic relationship, was released today. Excerpt from the press release:

"DESPITE EFFORTS BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION, EUROPEAN OPINION ON UNITED STATES REMAINS UNMOVED
~More Europeans than Americans support democracy promotion as a foreign policy objective~

WASHINGTON, DC (September 7, 2005) — A new survey of Americans and Europeans released today finds that six months after George W. Bush’s ambitious outreach to Europe, European public opinion toward the United States remains unchanged. Both Americans and Europeans feel relations have stayed the same. The survey also reveals that Europeans desire a more independent approach from the United States on international security and diplomatic affairs...."

Library Clips

For current awareness blogs that follow neat new tools for librarians, Library Clips comes near the top of my list. And its RSS feed is at the top of the list on the left..

Ask not what your college can do for you....

but what your college can do for your country! Washington Monthly's College Guide rates U.S. colleges according to the following criteria: "Universities should be engines of social mobility, they should produce the academic minds and scientific research that advance knowledge and drive economic growth; and they should inculcate and encourage an ethic of service." Makes an interesting contrast to the better-known U.S. News and World Report rankings.

When Amazon.com Is Not Enough

For book reviews and a lot more about the book and publishing world, try some of these sites:

Allreaders.com is a spiffy array of book tools and includes a precision search engine to extract titles from a treasure chest that cross matches books by plot, era, character, and even mood.

Dead Trees Review is the work of a single reviewer who reads voraciously and writes solid, short reviews. www.geocities.com/SoHo/Coffeehouse/4587/mainpage.html.

The Book Report Network pulls together Bookreporter.com, AuthorsOntheWeb.com,ReadingGroupGuides.com and others -- all sites where there are reviews and other interesting book features.

BookPage.com adds author interviews to the mix of reviews.

BlackBookNetwork.com covers the territory for authors of African heritage.

And if you never have visited the sites of the New York Review of Books (www.nybooks.com) or the New York Times Book Review (www.nytimes.com/pages/books/index.html then skip your coffee break and go there today. The wonder pen-and-ink sketches of David Levine are there for the asking and the NY Times archive goes back to 1997.

School Matters

SchoolMatters, at www.schoolmatters.com, seeks to "give policymakers, educators, and parents the tools they need to make better-informed decisions that improve student performance." Provides detailed information for public schools down to the zip code level, as well as comparative statistics and data.

View 26,000 Operas at Once!

New York City's Metropolitan Opera, known to listeners worldwide for its radio broadcasts of live performances, has now created a free database that has entries on all performances since the Met opened in 1883. Find your favorite singer, find reviews, find cast lists, find photos - it's all there in a user-friendly fashion. Go to metopera.org. Select Met History from the toolbar and click on Launch Database.

Public Agenda Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index: Americans Perplexed and Anxious About Relations with Muslim World

"The American public sees the web of issues surrounding relations with the Islamic world as the fundamental foreign policy problem facing the nation — but they have little idea what to do about it. The inaugural edition of the Public Agenda Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index finds the public's concerns are dominated by issues that all lead back to the central theme of Islam and the West: the Iraq war, the global war on terrorism, and the public image of the United States abroad. To be issued regularly by Public Agenda, the Index is designed to explore the public's long-term judgments and beliefs about America's role in the world. Supported with funding from the Ford Foundation and produced as a joint project with Foreign Affairs magazine, the index covers more than 25 different issues through more than 80 different survey questions."

Religion Facts

This looks like a good site for facts/info about religions:
http://www.religionfacts.com/

RSS4LIB

Dear all,

I am in Oslo IRC in Norway. I have just found an interesting blog site for all of us. Please visit RSS4LIB for Innovative ways libraries use RSS.

Prakash

Book tips from Teens Worldwide

While visiting "Youthink! Action=Results ", a site the World Bank runs for their youth audiences, I came across this link to Unicef where kids from all over the world make suggestions about books to read. The posts are pretty recent and the kids add interesting insights like "Don't read the hard classics". Try these out when serving possible audiences of secondary school age. The book site comes in English and French.

Youthink! http://youthink.worldbank.org

Unicef http://www.unicef.org/voy/discussions/showthread.php?p=18310

IRO Moscow

Islamist extremism in Europe

New CRS report: "Islamist extremism in Europe" can be found at: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/terror/RS22211.pdf

Smithsonian Wonderland of Global Sound

Smithsonian Global Sound is a part of Folkways Recordings where you can download world music at 99 cents per unit. While music inquiries are a rarity at most IRCs, you will probably be able to think of innovative uses for this extraordinary resource. A search of US resources revealed 1250 entries from the last 50 years or so. Give it a listen!
http://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org/

Posted by IRO Moscow

Guide to blogging software

If you're confused about blogging software and technology, Susannah Gardner's article "Time to check: Are you using the right blogging tool" is helpful. Includes a "blogging software comparision chart" and a glossary of common blogging terms.

Stateline.org

Stateline.org provides politics and policy news, state by state. The site was created by the Pew Institute in 1999 and was intended primarily for reporters covering state issues. Information can be sorted by state or by issue, and the site provides both email alerts and rss feeds.

TRADE AND BUSINESS INTERNET RESOURCES

WEBEC'S INTERNATIONAL TRADE PAGE
http://www.helsinki.fi/WebEc/framef.html
The Internet is a treasure trove of information for business research -- if you know where to look. You can spend hours surfing through meaningless Web sites, or pay subscription fees for information that's useless to you, and end up with nothing to show for your efforts. That's why I like this next site. WebEc's International Trade Page ( http://www.helsinki.fi/WebEc/framef.html ) has tons of links to some of the best international trade research on the Net. WebEc has been around for 11 years, and it's a site for economists, but don't let that scare you off. As I said, it's got some of the most useful, and cost-effective, research online, in all areas of economics. Scroll down the list of links to international trade, and you'll see a Who's Who of organizations, institutions, and publications, with research and reports you can download for free. In addition, there are plenty of other categories of economic research you can look at, simply by clicking on topics in the left column.

Redesigned NARA site (and soon a new Thomas?)

NARA launched its redesigned website on July 20. Lots of interesting stuff there, including much useful information for genealogists. A redesigned Thomas site was announced last fall, with rollout scheduled to coincide with the convening of the 109th Congress. It was supposed to look like this , but we're still waiting...

LOC New Site for Cataloging Training

Cataloger's Learning Workshop is a clearinghouse portal for cataloging and metadata training resources for information workers. The scope of Cataloger's Learning Workshop includes bibliographic information training in the context of formal library and information science degree programs, as well as continuing education for library practitioners. Cataloger's Learning Workshop is a cooperative project of the Library of Congress, the Program for Cooperative Cataloging, and the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services, a division of the American Library Association. View it at:

http://www.loc.gov/catworkshop/
Posted by IRO Moscow

CyberCemetery

This site, at http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/ is worth checking when looking for publications from defunct govt. agencies. I looked for OTA, for example, and found a great many publications in full text, dating as far back as to 1972. Excerpt from the site: "The University of North Texas Libraries and the U.S. Government Printing Office, as part of the Federal Depository Library Program, created a partnership to provide permanent public access to the Web sites and publications of defunct U.S. government agencies and commissions. This collection was named the "CyberCemetery" by early users of the site."

Some recent PD articles

Mark Lynch, Watching al-Jazeera. Wilson Quarterly, Summer 2005

The June 2005 issue of American Quarterly includes 3 articles about public diplomacy:

Liam Kennedy and Scott Lucas, Enduring Freedom: Public Diplomacy and U.S. Foreign Policy
Penny von Eschen, Enduring Public Diplomacy
Ron Theodore Robin, Requiem for Public Diplomacy?

Both American Quarterly and Wilson Quarterly are available to the IIP community through that wonderful resource, the Ralph Bunche Library.

Center for Global Development

The Center for Global Development is " is dedicated to reducing global poverty and inequality through policy-oriented research and active engagement on development issues with the policy community and the public." The CGD's Ranking the Rich survey ranks the wealthy nations in 6 categories:

# Quality of foreign aid
# Openness to developing-country exports
# Policies that influence investment
# Migration policies
# Support for creation of new technologies
# Security policies
# Environmental policies

This provides a different and more nuanced picture of wealthy nations' commitments to international development than the standard comparisons of per capita aid volume.

John Brown's PD Press Review

John Brown, a former foreign service officer and now a faculty member at USC's Center on Public Diplomacy, provides an RSS feed of his public diplomacy press review. (excerpt from the website): John Brown aggregates all the most recent public diplomacy related news, including current issues in U.S. foreign policy, international broadcasting and media, propaganda, cultural diplomacy, educational exchanges, anti-Americanism, and the reception of American popular culture abroad.
This USC site has much information and many interesting projects regarding public diplomacy, including a public diplomacy wiki and a project on anti-Americanism

Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP!)

Protecting your intellectual property at home and abroad

Growing global trade in pirated and counterfeit goods threatens America's innovation economy, the competitiveness of our leading companies and small manufacturers, and the livelihoods of their workers. Bogus products - from CDs, DVDs, software and watches to electronic equipment, clothing, processed foods, consumer products, and auto parts - are estimated to account for up to seven percent of global trade and cost legitimate rights holders around the world billions of dollars annually.

Developed over the last year, the Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP!) is the most comprehensive initiative ever advanced to smash the criminal networks that traffic in fakes, stop trade in pirated and counterfeit goods at America's borders, block bogus goods around the world, and help small businesses secure and enforce their rights in overseas markets. STOP! underscores the Administration's continuing commitment to level the playing field for American businesses and workers. And it builds on the Administration's solid track record of real results in combating global piracy and counterfeiting.

www.stopfakes.gov

Supreme Court

For questions about the Supreme Court appointment the recent (July 6) CRS update on the SC Appointment Process will come in handy. The July 20 issue of Al's Morning Meeting also contains interesting tidbits for people whose focus is on the SC these days.

E-Podunk

e-Podunk is celebrating its 5th anniversary, a good occassion to revisit this useful site. From the "about us" section: "ePodunk provides in-depth information about more than 25,000 communities around the country, from Manhattan to Los Angeles, Pottstown to Podunk. Our listings also include geocoded information about thousands of parks, museums, historic sites, colleges, schools and other places across America."

Blog Software Comparison Chart

Software Comparison Chart may be found here:
http://www.ojr.org/ojr/images/blog_software_comparison.cfm