John Brown's Notes and Essays

The Peninsula Qatar , Published: 31 Jul 2022 - 07:58 am | Last Updated: 31 Jul 2022 - 07:59 am  image (not from article) from  a video Doha: The promotional campaign for “Qatari Public Diplomacy in Latin America” concludes, launched by the Global Public Diplomacy Network, which is chaired by the Cultural Village Foundation “Katara”, with the participation of a select group of ambassadors, diplomats, media persons, and sports and art stars in Latin America, together with the involvement of major news corporations, TV broadcasters, and media groups.  In this light, H E Oscar León González, the Cuban Republic ambassador to Qatar, was pleased by the promotional campaign for Qatari public diplomacy, which is led by Katara Public Diplomacy Centre, in Cuba and Latin American countries. His excellency asserted that the campaign contributes to raising historical bilateral relations between the friendly nations, in addition to the role it plays in strengthening close cooperation i...

image from article: A teacher in Ohio felt a growing desperation after the shooting in Uvalde, Texas. “We just feel helpless,” she said. Credit...Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times From a front-page headline in The New York Times (on line), in an article by Sarah Mervosh, July 31, 2022, 3:00 a.m. ET

image (not from article) from   RON ELVING, NPR July 31, 2022 5:00 AM ET [ original article contains photographs and additional links] This past week, in the midst of many competing events, the nation's news-aware and money-savvy cohorts   gave their undivided attention   to a professorial-looking fellow calmly reading from a piece of paper.   The bespectacled reader was Jerome Powell, who bears a weighty title as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank. While he is unknown to most Americans, his economic power is sometimes said to rival that of the president himself.  And while few voters may be thinking of Powell as they go to the polls in November, all will be coping with economic conditions strongly influenced by Powell's little-known institution.  The Fed is the latest Washington power center trying to smile for its closeup — caught in the bright glare of contemporary media attention. Like the Supreme Court, which has been barr...

Far-left activists, scholars and journalists dominate the debate with views most black Americans reject . by  Jason L. Riley ,  The Wall Street Journal , July 26, 2022 6:20 pm ET   image (not from the article) from :  Brother from Another Planet “The Brother From Another Planet” is a low-budget science-fiction comedy released in 1984.   It tells the story of an alien who crash-lands his spaceship on Ellis Island and spends the next few days wandering around Manhattan. He looks like a normal black man and can understand what people are saying, but he can’t speak. This leads everyone he encounters to make assumptions about him—where he lives, why he’s there, what he wants—based on appearances. It’s all speculation premised on preconceived notions. I do a fair amount of public speaking and am sometimes asked about my personal background. People want to know how I turned out the way I did, but I’m not always certain what they’re getting at. How did I become conserva...

George Stevens’s 1956 movie based on Edna Ferber’s novel stars Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean in a multigenerational tale of a Texas family as sweeping as the changes in their state and country image from article: Rock Hudson in ‘Giant’    PHOTO: WARNER BROS/KOBAL/SHUTTERSTOCK By Peter Tonguette, The Wall Street Journal , July 29, 2022 5:37 pm ET In the American popular consciousness, the idea of a work of art that takes measure of our great, flawed, messy nation looms large. Debates have raged over which book is the Great American Novel, and the competition is no less stiff in the realm of cinema.   From D.W. Griffith’s Revolutionary War epic “America” (1924) to John Ford’s Cavalry trilogy, including “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” (1949), to Robert Altman’s portrait of country-music stars and strivers, “Nashville” (1975), filmmakers have long been tempted by the prospect of telling the American story writ large. Few films have more fully tapped the medium’s c...

image from article, with caption: " Former president Donald Trump's golf bag and towel are seen during the pro-am of the LIV Golf tournament at his club in Bedminster, N.J. (Seth Wenig/AP) From: Mariana Alfaro, Rick Maese and Ellen Francis, "Trump uses presidential seal at N.J. golf club amid ethics complaints," The Washington Post , Updated July 29, 2022 at 11:24 a.m. EDT|Published July 29, 2022 at 6:23 a.m. EDT

image (not from article) from: " 45+ Deep Conversation Starters to Bond with Friends and Family " Above quotation from " the delicate deal between Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)," an article by  Hans Nicols, "Democrats moving full steam ahead on Manchin's spending bill," Axios, July 28, 2022.  Full Schumer quotation from the article: "Every one of my Democratic senators has my phone number and I talk to them directly. That's how you keep a caucus that runs from [Sen. Bernie] Sanders to Manchin together. Conversation, not email. Talking ."

image (not from article) from By David Segal , The New York Times , July 29, 2022, Updated 1:51 p.m. ET Excerpt:  ROTTERDAM, Netherlands ... “When I was about 11 years old, we had an American boy stay with us for a week, an exchange student,” she [Ellen Verkoelen, a City Council member and Rotterdam leader of the 50Plus Party, which works on behalf of pensioners] recalled. “And my mother told him, just make your own sandwich like you do in America. Instead of putting one sausage on his bread, he put on five. My mother was too polite to say anything to him, but to me she said in Dutch,   ‘We will never eat like that in this house.’”

The rise of hybrid work has impacted the economies of America’s downtowns. But in the long term, these less-crowded cities could lead to a new urban renaissance.  image from article, with caption:   PHOTO:  JAMES STEINBERG By Justin Lahart , The Wall Street Journal , July 29, 2022 5:30 am ET In 1948, E.B. White wrote that nobody should come to New York City to live unless he was willing to be lucky. For New York and other big U.S. cities to renew themselves after getting hollowed out by the pandemic, they will need an influx of people looking to try their luck. Success could radically change them, but failure could leave them badly hobbled.  When the pandemic first struck in early 2020, big American cities emptied, and the closer you got to a city’s center, whether you called it Midtown or Downtown or the Financial District, the emptier it looked. People with the option to work from home decamped for the suburbs and beyond, and even as Covid fears eased, many...

image from below article,  with caption: Brad Pitt’s lithe skirt spawned a deluge of Twitter takes.  PHOTO: MARKUS SCHREIBER/AP PHOTO Jacob Gallagher, The Wall Street Journal , July 29, 2022 8:02 am ET: "Mr. Pitt’s dangly skirt may have set a new benchmark for obscurity. It was designed by Haans Nicholas Mott, a virtually unknown, New York-based designer who is carried in no stores and operates a 'referral-only' business, according to GQ. The clandestine designer has no publicly available email, website, phone number or address and the Wall Street Journal could not reach him." 

image (not from article) from image (not from article)  from   Peggy Noonan, "The Lonely Office Is Bad for America [:] Employees may like remote work, but it tends to break down both organizational and national culture," The Wall Street Journal , July 28, 2022; see also Justin Lahart, "How Can Big Cities Get Us to Live There (Again)? [:] The rise of hybrid work has impacted the economies of America’s downtowns. But in the long term, these less-crowded cities could lead to a new urban renaissance," The Wall Street Journal , July 29, 2022 5:30 am ET

image from a video of "Some Like it Hot," containing the famous closing line, "nobody's perfect" " A 2021 index by Transparency International listed Ukraine as Europe’s second-most corrupt country, after Russia."  From:   Anna Hirtenstein, "A London Hedge Fund Wants Its Money Back From Ukraine [:] Richard Deitz sees his case as a test not just for him as an investor but also for Ukraine,'" The Wall Street Journal , July 28, 2022 5:30 am ET; see also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CH7sXaXe5A

image (not from article) from "Ivan Panko said he has worked on a factory floor in South Carolina throughout the pandemic without ever testing positive for Covid-19. He said he believes vaccinations and brushes with pathogens during his time in the military protected him from the virus. "' My body’s been exposed to so much crap,' he said." From: Julie Wernau, "HEALTH: Think You’ve Never Had Covid-19? Think Again [:] Most people have been infected with the virus, epidemiologists say, even if some don’t realize it," The Wall Street Journal , July 25, 2022 5:30 am ET

Sergei Shoigu,  Sergej Kužugetovič Šojgu, M inister of Defence of the Russian  Federation From Wikipedia , the free encyclopedia  From the entry: "Notable people Sergei Shoygu  (born 1955 [in Tuva ]) Snoygu image from Wikipedia   image (not from above enry)  from image (not from above entry) from , with caption:  Krukesh wrestlers from Kyzyl,  the capital of the Turva [JB - sic] republic, await their term turn on the field of battle    More on Tuva from Wikipedia , the free encyclopedia: Jump to navigation Jump to search For other uses, see  Tuva (disambiguation) . This article  needs additional citations for  verification .  Please help  improve this article  by  adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources:   "Tuva"  –  news   ·   newspapers   ·   books   ·   scholar   ·   JSTOR   ( Jan...