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NATIVE AMERICAN LECTURE SERIES COMES TO CONCLUSION

Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an edu-cated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its spe-cially commissioned color graphics. Many famous scientists, including Einstein, have contributed articles in the past 166 years. It is the oldest continuously pub-lished monthly magazine in America.

In March 1996, Scientific American launched its own website that includes articles from current and past issues, online-only features, daily news, weird science, special reports, trivia, “Scidoku” and more.

Source: Wikipedia

November - December, Issue 10 - 2011American Resource Center Newsletter

U.S. Embassy Helsinki

PEEK INTO ARC’S MAGAZINE SHELF

Amerikka - hiekkaan valuvia unelmia

Helsingin Sanomien toimittaja Pekka Mykkänen (Yhdysvaltain-kirjeenvaihta-ja 2006-10) kertoo kirjastaan ”Amerik-ka – hiekkaan valuvia unelmia” ja siitä, mitä viime vuosien taloudelliset, poliit-tiset ja yhteiskunnalliset mullistukset koetaan Yhdysvalloissa.

Amerikka-kirjasto, Kansalliskirjaston auditorio (Yliopistonkatu 1, 2. krs) torstaina 8.12. klo 17.30.

Tilaisuuden järjestävät: Suomi-Amerikka Yhdistysten Liitto ja American Resource Center.

UPCOMING EVENT

Since the beginning of October the Ameri-can Resource Center has run a lecture se-ries about the Native American Indians at the National Library. The topics have varied from major battles to education and from the history of medicine bundles to the legal confrontations in the 20th century. The eight lectures were all inspi-rational and attracted wide, enthusiastic crowds.

American Resource Center would like to thank all the au-diences, lecturers, and the Finnish Native American As-sociation for making the lecture series successful.

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Disclaimer: The views expressed on these websites are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect U.S. Government poli-cies. These links are being provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement or approval by the ARC or the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki, nor can we bear any responsibility for the accuracy, legality, function-ality or content of the external site or for that of subsequent links.

WEB PICKS

American Life

American Exceptionalism Subsides: The American-Western European Values Gap. Pew Research Center, November 17, 2011. As has long been the case, American values differ from those of Western Europeans in many important ways. Most notably, Ameri-cans are more individualistic and are less supportive of a strong safety net than are the publics of Britain, France, Germany and Spain. Americans are also considerably more religious than Western Europeans, and are more socially conservative with respect to homosexuality.http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/11/17/the-american-western-european-values-gap/

Changing Times; Jill Abramson Takes Charge of the Gray Lady by Ken Auletta. The New Yorker, October 24, 2011.Jill Abramson is New York Times’ first woman executive editor.http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/10/24/111024fa_fact_auletta

Getting Real by Louis Menand. The New Yorker, November 14, 2011.George F. Kennan’s Cold War. “The one puzzle in John Lewis Gaddis’s first-rate biography of the diplomat George Kennan, which Gaddis began in 1982, when his subject was seventy-eight, and waited nearly thirty years to complete, since Kennan lived to be a hundred and one, is the subtitle. The book is called “George F. Kennan: An American Life” , and the most peculiar thing about Ken-nan, a man not short on peculiarities, is that he had little love for, or even curiosity about, the country whose fortunes he devoted his life to safeguarding.” http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/11/14/111114crat_atlarge_menand

The Glory of Oprah by Caitlin Flanagan. The Atlantic, December 2011.Why the “talkinest child” understands women and the power of television better than anyone else.http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/12/the-glory-of-oprah/8725/

The Tablet Revolution and What it Means for the Future of News by Amy Mitchell, Leah Christian and Tom Rosenstiel. Pew Research Center Report, October 25, 2011.Eleven percent of adults now own a tablet computer. About half get news on it everyday, and three in ten spend more time consum-ing news than they did before. But contrary to what some in the news industry hoped, a majority say they are not willing to pay for news content on the devices, according to the most detailed study to date of tablet users and their news consumption habits.http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/tablet

Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites by Amanda Lenhart et al. Pew Research Center, November 9, 2011. Social media use has become so pervasive in the lives of American teens that having a presence on a social network site is almost synonymous with being online. Fully 95% of all teens ages 12-17 are now online and 80% of those online teens are users of social media sites. Many log on daily to their social network pages and these have become spaces where much of the social activity of teen life is echoed and amplified—in both good and bad ways.http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Teens-and-social-media.aspx

Economy and Politics

America Really Was That Great… But That Doesn’t Mean We Are Now by Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandel-baum. Foreign Policy, November 2011. Is America still exceptional? The question has become a contentious issue in American politics over the last few years. But the answer has implications that go well beyond the political fortunes of Republicans and Democrats in the United States. It affects the stability and prosperity of the entire world. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/america_really_was_that_great

BlackBerry: Still No. 1 by Sara Jerome. National Journal, October 15, 2011.The BlackBerry outages that spread across the globe this week may prompt more congressional staffers to switch to trendier kinds of smartphones. But because of cybersecurity concerns, that may not be so smart.http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/blackberry-still-no-1-20111013?mrefid=site_search

How Walmart Is Changing China by Orville Schell. The Atlantic, December 20011.The world’s biggest corporation and the world’s most populous nation have launched a bold experiment in consumer behavior and environmental stewardship: to set green standards for 20,000 suppliers making several hundred thousand items sold to billions of shoppers worldwide. Will that effort take hold, or will it unravel in a recriminatory tangle of misguided expectations and broken promises?http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/12/how-walmart-is-changing-china/8709/

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Occupy Wall St.: Who’s Behind the Mask by Drake Bennett. Bloomberg Businessweek, October 26, 2011. David Graeber likes to say that he had three goals for the year: promote his book, learn to drive, and launch a worldwide revolu-tion. The first is going well, the second has proven challenging, and the third is looking up. Meet the anthropologist, activist, and anarchist who helped transform a hapless rally into a global protest movement.http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/david-graeber-the-antileader-of-occupy-wall-street-10262011.html?chan=magazine+channel_top+stories

Why Americans Won’t Do Dirty Jobs by Elizabeth Dwoskin. Bloomberg Businessweek, November 9, 2011.In the wake of an immigrant exodus, Alabama has jobs. Trouble is, Americans don’t want them.http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/why-americans-wont-do-dirty-jobs-11092011.html

Will Obama Be Running Against the Economy? Washington Quarterly, Fall 2011When the conversation turns to the 2012 presidential race, it usually doesn’t take too long before someone suggests that Republi-cans have little chance of winning next year. Some argue that Republicans don’t have a bluechip candidate who can beat President Obama; others that too many prominent contenders concluded that the incumbent is unbeatable, and as a result, they opted not to run, thinking they might have a better chance of getting elected in 2016. A very different view holds that, if you had to predict today whether President Obama will be re-elected, you would be better off if you knew what the economy will look like in 2012. http://www.twq.com/11autumn/index.cfm?id=459

Global Challenges

Saving the Euro Will Mean Worse Trouble for Europe: Charting the Disastrous Choices Ahead by Vivien A. Schmidt. Foreign Affairs, November 28, 2011. Markets are reeling because Europe’s leaders have only offered up half-measures to resolve the crisis. Not until Brussels, Paris, and Berlin realize the fundamental flaw in their current approach -- a lack of real political and economic integration across the eurozone -- will there be an end in sight.http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136694/vivien-a-schmidt/saving-the-euro-will-mean-worse-trouble-for-europe#

Top Global Thinkers 2011: 2011’s Global Marketplace of Ideas and the Thinkers Who Make Them. Foreign Policy Magazine, December 2011. A year ago, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei -- ranked 20th on Foreign Policy’s 2010 Global Thinkers list – said of Hosni Mubarak’s regime, “I see a decaying temple, almost collapsing. It will fall sooner rather than later.” What a prediction. This year, we’ve devoted the top spot on our 2011 Global Thinkers list to 14 brave individuals who are helping to bring democracy to the Middle East, from Wael Ghonim, the Google marketing executive who helped launch Egypt’s revolution, to Yemen’s new Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Tawakkol Karman. The spirit of popular revolution goes beyond those 14 in the top spot, from the ambassa-dors whose WikiLeaked cables helped send activists into the streets to the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who continues to stand up for free expression in the face of state oppression. But we didn’t stop at just listing the world’s top thinkers and their big ideas; we took a look at what they’re reading, and, once again, surveyed this group of intellectual heavyweights for their views on everything from China’s rise to the next revolution (#OccupyUSA?).http://www.foreignpolicy.com/2011globalthinkers

International Relations

Blowback in Somalia by Jeremy Scahill. The Nation, September 7, 2011.Five years ago, Yusuf Moahamed Siad (Indha Adde) was one of Al Qaeda and the Shabab’s key paramilitary allies and a commander of one of the most powerful Islamic factions in Somalia fighting against foreign forces and the US-backed Somali government. He openly admits to having sheltered some of the most notorious Al Qaeda figures and to deceiving the CIA in order to protect the men. Perhaps more than any other figure, Indha Adde embodies the mind-boggling constellation of allegiances and double-crosses that has marked Somalia since its last stable government fell in 1991. While the US and other Western powers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on arms, training and equipment for the Ugandan and Burundian militaries under the auspices of African Union Mission in Somalia, the Somali military remains under-funded, under-armed, poorly paid, highly undisciplined and, at the end of the day, more loyal to their clans than to the central government--that’s where Indha Adde’s rent-a-militia comes in. Here, Scahill discusses how US proxy wars helped create a militant Islamist threat. http://www.thenation.com/article/163210/blowback-somalia

The Wisdom of Retrenchment: America Must Cut Back to Move Forward by Joseph M. Parent and Paul K. MacDonald, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2011.The United States can no longer afford a world-spanning foreign policy. Retrenchment -- cutting military spending, redefining for-eign priorities, and shifting more of the defense burden to allies -- is the only sensible course. Luckily, that does not have to spell in-stability abroad. History shows that pausing to recharge national batteries can renew a dominant power’s international legitimacy.http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136510/joseph-m-parent-and-paul-k-macdonald/the-wisdom-of-retrenchment

‘You Have the Watches, We Have the Time’, Newsweek, October 2, 2011.Afghanistan: Ten years of war in a land where your enemy will fight you forever.http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/02/10-years-of-afghan-war-how-the-taliban-go-on.html

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ARChive

Studying in the USA -Education Exposé Brings Students and Educators to the American Resource Center

SEASON’S GREETINGS FROM THEAMERICAN RESOURCE CENTER!

U.S. Embassy Helsinki celebrated the International Education Week by or-ganizing the first Studying in the USA -Education Exposé at the American Re-source Center. Nearly 60 high school and university students as well as educa-tion administrators visited the event and gathered information about visas, grants, exchange opportunities, internships and universities in the U.S.

U.S. Embassy would like to thank local partners as well as all the participants for a successful event!

I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. ~Charles Dickens