FAO Quotables

"But being right, even morally right, isn't everything. It is also important to be competent, to be consistent, and to be knowledgeable. It's important for your soldiers and diplomats to speak the language of the people you want to influence. It's important to understand the ethnic and tribal divisions of the place you hope to assist."
-Anne Applebaum

Showing posts with label millenial. Show all posts
Showing posts with label millenial. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Weekly Reading: Treating People Well, Happiness, Lent, Cleaning up Cereal, Partition and Confrontational, Loud Israelis

Playing a little catch up on my weekly readings.

A New Business Strategy: Treating Employees Well
Who would have thought right?  Great article on B-corporations and King Arthur flour in particular.

http://worldhappiness.report/
Yes, happiness is a difficult thing to quantify but this report is a great start.  Figuring out a country or a person's concept of happiness is one of the single most important thing you can do if you are a diplomat/foreign area officer working in a foreign country.

Ash Dykes Madagascar Journey
The man who traversed Madagascar on foot...and who wrote, filmed and blogged about it.

The baffling reason many millennials don’t eat cereal
Perfectly sums them up.  They don't cereal because they don't like to clean it up...seriously...they don't like to clean up the bowl...of empty cereal.

If my church does not practice Lent, should I?
Great post by an old friend from our church in DC.

Navy Medal of Honor Awardee Inducted into Pentagon's Hall of Heroes
Great video.

Goldwater Nichols 2.0
Mandatory reading for Foreign Area officers.  Great CSIS breakdown on the 2016 SASC hearings on defense reform and interagency changes.

It’s Time to Seriously Consider Partitioning Syria
Stavridis opines on partition.  Here's my own argument for partition, in general.

A helpful graphic that compares how EMOTIONALLY EXPRESSIVE and how CONFRONTATIONAL people of various cultural backgrounds generally are.




Monday, December 14, 2015

Weekly Reading List: ISIS, ISIS baby, Running Free, Squanto, Advent Habits, Running Free and African borders

There Is Only One Way to Defeat ISIS
Short explanation: crack down on the financial flow from Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.

What ISIS Really Wants
Published this past March, this is THE definitive 'scenesetter' on ISIS and its origins--a terrifying read.

The origins of ISIS, explained in 3 minutes
Ezra Klein breaks it down a very complex subject in a digestible manner.

You Can't Understand ISIS If You Don't Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia
A good historical background on Saudi.

The Islamist Tantrum People are dead in Paris because Europe decided to make a fetish of its tolerance for intolerance.
A great read and a challenging article about the dangers of unguided tolerance.

Infographic: The Screening Process for Entry to the United States for Syrian Refugees
21 Steps is quite thorough BUT not one of them involves checking their facebook/twitter accounts.

The Miracle of Squanto’s Path to Plymouth
This story will blow your mind!  I never had any idea about Squanto's incredible path.

BreakPoint This Week: Advent and Christmas Habits
A good reminder about preparing ours hearts for Christmas

Run Free - The True Story of Caballo Blanco
Born to Run is one of my favorite books and made me fall in love with running.

The "Real" Map of Africa: Redrawing Colonial Borders
Fascinating look at what makes a state a state and the wide disparity in Africa.