AARDVARK

Tuesday, September 30, 2008 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM Marvin Center, Elliott Room, Room 310800 21st Street, NW Public Diplomacy and the War of Ideas: Agendas for the Next Administration Hady Amr, Director, Brookings Doha Center; Fellow, Saban Center for...

All hail C.C. Sabathia! The Brewers are going to the playoffs for the first time since 1982!! I still remember skipping school as a freshman in high school in Milwaukee to go see Brewers opening day in 1983 (an excused...

This has been an absolutely draining week... besides the usual teaching and life (and even one whole blog post!) I gave two big public talks (and failed to find time to write up either of them, sorry), attended two private...

Way back on September 16, I succumbed to optimism on the Iraqi provincial elections law based on reports in the Iraqi press that a deal had been reached. I was particularly pleased about this because of very credible rumors (and...

Just a reminder: on Monday, September 22, the Institute for Middle East Studies at GWU and the Project on Middle East Democracy are hosting a discussion between myself and the leading Egyptian democracy activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim on the "U.S....

Amir Taheri is getting some attention today with a remarkable piece in the New York Post alleging that Barack Obama "tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence. According...

A few days ago I noted with dismay the appearance of a bunch of proposals to revert to the old provincial elections law if the Parliament could not soon come to agreement on a new one. I said that I...

This morning I went to hear Under Secretary of State Jim Glassman and Ambassador Dell Dailey speak at GWU's Homeland Security Policy Institute on the topic of "Toward a Comprehensive Approach to Countering Terrorism." Glassman, who kindly pretends admits to...

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } The Perfect Pout, originally uploaded by aisforaardvark. It just doesn’t get much cuter …

FYI, I'll be appearing at two events next week here at GWU which readers may find interesting. Hope to see you there! Monday, September 22, 2008 A Time of Transition: U.S. Impact on Reform in a Changing Middle East A...

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh told al-Sharq al-Awsat yesterday that provincial elections elections would be held with the old law at the end of December if the new one couldn't be quickly passed. There have actually been a flurry...

As usual, my blog posting comes far too late. A few months ago, this could have been an encouragement to go to Brussels and see an interesting exhibition, but typically me, I write about it when it's almost over. Two days left, to be precise. So I was in Belgium last weekend, mostly to meet friends (like Zoe and Quarsan), see a Sun Kil Moon concert and gain weight by eating lots of fries, mussels, carbonades and stoemp, but particularly bad weather on Sunday persuaded me to see two exhibitions -- apart from the Pavilion of Temporary Happiness (made of 43,000 empty beer crates -- so much about temporary happiness) there was of course the Bozar (Palais des Beaux Arts), which is always good for interesting exhibitions. It's not only rockn'roll, baby features art exhibits by rock musicians -- Alan Vega, Antony, Bent van Looy (Das Pop), Bianca Casady (Cocorosie), Brian Eno, Chicks on Speed, David Byrne, Devendra Banhart, Fischerspooner, Jonsi Birgisson (Riceboy Sleeps), Kembra Pfahler, Kyle Field, Laurie Anderson, Miss Kittin, Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeah's), Patti Smith, Pete Doherty, The Kills, The Residents and Yoko Ono, an obvious concept if you consider how many musicians started out as art students. Mixing the old and the young, the established and the upcoming, the settled and the unsettling made for an interesting show of strikingly varied quality -- enter a room and you'll immediately notice what and how much a certain musician has to say and is able to express through visual arts. Some of the exhibits were stunning, others seemed oddly flat and void of substance. Pieces that impressed me were of course Yoko Ono's massive installation "Ex It" with trees coming out of coffins; Nick Zinner's photographs and Brian Eno's meditative "77 million paintings". David Byrne's tree diagrams were funny in his usual way; the Residents' photographs were good, but known from album cover art; Devendra Banhart's drawings intriguing if a bit schizophrenic; and The Kills' video installation and polaroids surprisingly effective. Eno's "77 million paintings" is an application of his music to the visual arts by presenting a seemingly static, but really very slowly changing image. You don't really notice that anything is changing, but after a while you realize that you are staring at a completely different image. And why was I not surprised that Pete Doherty made his drawings using his own blood? They were better than I expected though. It's not only rock'n'roll, baby, 20 June to 12 September 2008, Bozar, Rue Ravensteinstraat 23, 1000 Brussels, Belgium. Catalogue available from Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com.

This afternoon I spoke at a standing room only panel discussion in the Congressional office buildings about U.S. policy towards Egyptian democracy hosted by the Project on Middle East Democracy. I don't think I made any new friends in the...

Brian Katulis and I (with Peter Juul) have a new report out today from the Center for American Progress: Iraq's Political Transition After the Surge: Five Enduring Tensions and Ten Key Challenges. You can download the report here. The piece...

After months of rumors and speculation, Prime Minister Maliki has now issued a decree that the government of Iraq will take over the salaries of the Sons of Iraq starting on October 1. I've heard that this process will start...

Just did a quick interview on al-Jazeera English about Bush's speech (it's the first time I've been on since Dave Marash left - I miss the big guy, and take his concerns very seriously). Might as well throw out the...

A quick note on the debate surrounding Adel Abd al-Mehdi's interview on al-Arabiya expressing his fears of a military coup, which I tagged last week. Sam Parker throws some cold water on the story here, reading it as general rhetoric...

Terry Pratchett has a new book out soon. Yey...................