by Admin | Apr 28, 2013 | News
Wish for a peaceful world and a developed US during President Obama’s second term was the main content of a talk between the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Administration and former US President candidate Michael Dukakis in Hanoi on April 9.
Prof. Michael Dukakis, former Governor of Massachusetts State and Chairman of the Boston Global Forum, expressed his desire to live in a world without wars.
He wondered about the US ’ military engagement policy in 150 countries, with over 830 military bases across the globe. He also emphasised the need to end the money-consuming global network war, which many countries are pursuing.
According to the US professor, building a world without nuclear weapons where everybody lives in peace and prosperity is the policy of President Obama as well as of the Vietnamese Government and other countries in the world.
He said he supports the peaceful settlement of all international disputes, suggesting an expansion of the United Nations Security Council’s members to 21.
Michael Dukakis expressed his belief that the US economy, especially the real estate market, will recover in the next four years under President Obama’s leadership.
During the first term of office, President Obama brought the US economy out of a recession and implemented an all-people health insurance policy for local residents, he added.
He highly valued the fine development of Vietnam-US relations over the past years, saying Vietnam is the best example of conciliation that countries engaged in war should follow.
Michael Dukakis is world-renowned as the former Massachusetts Governor, who served for three terms starting in 1975, 1982 and 1986. As a close friend of Vietnam , he took part in many demonstrations against the US war in Vietnam.-VNA.
Hanoi, April 10, 2013.
Vietnam+
by Admin | Apr 14, 2013 | Event Updates
The first shot fired by the Patriots on the Concord North Bridge near Boston, Massachusetts, in 1775 has been described as the “shot heard ‘round the world” and the beginning of the American Revolution. This historic event also represents the birth of a fledgling Nation, one driven soundly by the quest for personal freedoms and democratic ideals.
Another “shot heard ‘round the world” happened in the proud City of Boston on the day of the one of the country’s most famous athletic events, the Boston Marathon. This time, however, there was no Paul Revere around to alert the unsuspecting citizenry of an impending attack, nor did the attackers, whom we now refer to as “terrorists,” reveal themselves and their intentions. With no rules of engagement for waging what many call an act of war, the cowardly bombings that took place near the finish line of one of Boston’s finest traditions took and maimed the lives of many innocent victims. And in the context of what occurred not too far from Boston in 1775, this terrible act can be viewed as an assault on the very “personal freedoms and democratic ideals” that the Patriots of America’s colonial times so bravely fought to obtain.
On this tragic day and its immediate aftermath, ripples of terror could be felt across the Nation and the world. But the City of Boston did not stand still, nor did it give up and surrender. True to its history, Bostonians, along with so many “friends of Boston,” rose to the occasion just like their revolutionary ancestors during the period of our country’s birth. Once again, the people of Boston demonstrated, individually and collectively, that they are a true beacon of hope and inspiration for the Nation and the world. Moreover, they showed that “Boston Strong” is much more than a simple tag line; on the contrary, it comes with deep meaning and is an undeniable force to be reckoned with!
It is no wonder that one of Boston’s most historic neighborhoods is called “Beacon Hill.” Symbolically, especially at such an important time in Boston’s history, one could not choose a better name—one that conjures up fitting images of hope, inspiration, and innovation. And for a city that prides itself as being the “Athens of America” because of its vast intellectual and cultural roots and resources which, we should add, include its longstanding commitment to the Boston “Marathon,” another direct link to Greek antiquity, the image of Boston following the recent tragic events will not be tarnished. On the contrary, the defiant spirit of Bostonians, like the Spartans in ancient Greece, will not allow that to occur and, as a result, the image of their great, beloved City will only become stronger!
It is against this backdrop and within this resilient environment that the Boston Global Forum comes into existence. Indeed, there is no better place than Boston to engage the best minds from around the world to solve problems in positive, innovative, and meaningful ways. There is no better time than now to leverage the expertise and resources found within and linked to Boston in service to humanity. Both the Nation and the world are looking to Boston and observing how it responds to life’s most formidable challenges. The Boston Global Forum is an integral part of this response and, importantly, is destined to become a true manifestation of the deeper meaning of “Boston Strong.”
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Alexander Pattakos, Ph.D., member of The Board of Thinkers, Boston Global Forum. Alex is the Co-founder of The OPA! Way®
by Admin | Apr 13, 2013 | Members
Andrea Olmstead is the leading authority on modernist American composer Roger Sessions, with four books and a Grove article on Sessions: Roger Sessions and His Music (UMI Research Press, 1985), Conversations with Roger Sessions (Northeastern University Press, 1987), The Correspondence of Roger Sessions (Northeastern, 1992), The Revised New Grove Dictionary (2001) Sessions entry, and Roger Sessions: A Biography (Routledge, 2008). The biography documents Sessions’ work and life in great detail, providing intriguing and previously unavailable information, and charting five touchstone areas through Sessions’s 88 years—music, religion, politics, money, and sexuality—in addition to presenting a radically different view of his musical technique.
Olmstead is also the author of Juilliard: A History (University of Illinois Press, 1999) and of numerous articles in The Journal of Musicology, Perspectives of New Music, The Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute, Tempo, Musical America, and The Musical Quarterly.
The recipient of three National Endowment for the Humanities Awards, Olmstead has also been a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome six times and a Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts on four occasions. She has taught music history at conservatories for 36 years. Olmstead held the Christopher Hogwood Research Fellow for the Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra and Chorus from 2005-07
by Admin | Apr 13, 2013 | Editorial Board
John Huey serves as Editor-in-Chief, overseeing the editorial content of all Time Inc.’s U.S. magazines, websites, and other digital content, including TIME, People, FORTUNE, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, and Real Simple.
Before becoming Time Inc.’s sixth editor-in-chief in 2006, Huey served as editorial director of Time Inc. since July 2001. Before that, Huey was editor of the FORTUNE Group since February 2001. Previously, he was managing editor of FORTUNE since 1995. In 1997, while running FORTUNE, Huey was named Advertising Age‘s Editor of the Year. In 1998, he was named Adweek‘s Editor of the Year; and, under his leadership, FORTUNE was named to Advertising Age‘s list of the best magazines in both 1999 and 2001. Also in 2001, FORTUNE was ranked No. 1 on Adweek‘s “Hot List” of the industry’s top 10 magazines. Huey was named one of the top 10 magazine editors in the country by the Columbia Journalism Review.
A native of Atlanta, Huey graduated from the University of Georgia and served in the U.S. Navy as an intelligence officer before embarking on his journalistic career at a small weekly newspaper, the DeKalb New Era. He worked briefly at the Atlanta Constitution before joining the Dallas bureau of The Wall Street Journal in 1975. After a stint as the Journal‘s Atlanta bureau chief, Huey moved to Brussels in 1982 to help launch the Journal‘s European edition as its founding managing editor and later its editor.
Huey joined FORTUNE in 1988. In 1989, he was founding editor of Southpoint Magazine, a Time Inc. regional monthly that folded in 1990. In 1992, he co-authored Sam Walton: Made in America, the autobiography of the late founder of Wal-Mart. The book was on The New York Times best-seller list for several months.
Huey serves as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Overseas Press Club. He is also an advisory board member of the Poynter Institute and sits on various non-profit boards.
by Admin | Apr 13, 2013 | Board of Thinkers
Swanee Hunt was the Founding Director of the Women and Public Policy Program, and the Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is currently core faculty at the Center for Public Leadership and senior advisor to the Working Group on Modern Day Slavery at the Carr Center for Human Rights. She has taught The Choreography of Social Movements at Harvard College and lectured at Harvard’s business, law, divinity, and education graduate schools.
An expert on domestic policy and foreign affairs, Hunt also chairs the Washington-based Institute for Inclusive Security, conducting research, training, and advocacy to integrate women into peace processes. Her seminal work in this area began when, as the US Ambassador to Austria from 1993 to 1997, she hosted negotiations and international symposia focused on stabilizing the neighboring Balkan states and on the encouragement of women leaders throughout Eastern Europe. Building on her extensive work with US non-governmental organizations, she became a specialist in the role of women in post-communist Europe.
Raised in a corporate family in Dallas, Texas, Hunt made her mark as a civic leader and philanthropist in her adopted city of Denver, where for two decades she led community efforts on issues such as public education, affordable housing, homelessness, women’s empowerment, and mental health services for two mayors and the governor of Colorado.
Ambassador Hunt is a specialist on women in politics, conducting research, training, and consultations with women leaders in some 60 countries. Working with an advisory team of 40 national leaders from both political parties, she serves as convener of a non-partisan effort to double the number of women elected to the highest levels of US government. She is also active in Democratic politics, focusing on increasing diverse representation and bringing together supporters, political leaders, and candidates. During Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, she co-organized Serious Women, Serious Issues, Serious Money, a Denver symposium widely considered the first time such diverse women gathered to provide major financial backing for a national political campaign. In 2008, she convened Unconventional Women, a day-long program featuring more than 20 female political leaders for an audience of 3000 in Denver, concurrent with the Democratic National Convention. She then co-created Women’s Voting Circles, engaging more than 1200 activists to bring 10,000 of the least likely to vote women to the polls for President Obama. Hunt is also leading a national action plan to stem the rise in prostituted sex through a market model that addresses not the supply but the demand, using changes to legislation and law enforcement practice as levers for change.
Hunt is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; she has authored articles for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy Magazine, International Herald Tribune, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News, Huffington Post, et al. Her first book, This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace, won the 2005 PEN/New England Award for non-fiction. Her memoir, Half-Life of a Zealot, was published in 2006. Her third book with Duke University Press, Worlds Aparts: Bosnian Lessons for Global Security, was published in July 2011.
Hunt holds two master’s degrees, a doctorate in theology, and six honorary degrees. She has received numerous awards from groups as varied as the United Methodist Church, United Way, Anti-Defamation League, American Mental Health Association, National Women’s Forum, International Education Association, Boston Chamber of Commerce, and International Peace Center. In 2007, Hunt was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. A composer and photographer, she is a trustee of the Free for All Concert Fund, building a $20 million endowment to ensure that all individuals in the Boston region will have regular and permanent access to the rich world of classical music.
