Local Aldermen Call for Improved University-Community Relations

Shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday, Chicago aldermen Willie B. Cochran and Toni Preckwinkle addressed the relationship between the University of Chicago and the surrounding community in a talk to Harris School students. The two aldermen agreed upon the need for the University to develop a stronger relationship with its surrounding communities, especially regarding its recent land acquisitions in Washington Park.

Speaking about the history of the area, Cochran said that the Woodlawn community was stable until the 1950s, when demographic changes and divestment ushered in a new era. “Gangs game in, arsons took place, and homicides occurred, and it destabilized the community.”

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Former Tribune Editor Discusses Media Ethics in an Online World

“There was a time when carrying the New York Times under your arm was a symbol of refinement and prestige,” said Warren, suggesting that declining newspaper revenues are a sign of diminishing cultural value. Even though the U.S. population has more than doubled since 1946, the number of newspaper readers has decreased.

Warren argued that a professional press corps plays a significant and needed role in the United States. “At best, journalism brings a sense of order to our society, outlining what is important for our citizens and politicians to hear,” he said. “It is [also our] public mission to keep officials accountable.” As journalism has accumulated a public trust over the past few decades, it has become a type of watchdog for politics.

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Unintended Consequences in Iraq Leave U.S. Foreign Policy in Need of New Direction

Ambassador Peter Galbraith, former U.S. diplomat and foreign policymaker, visited the Harris School on Tuesday, November 9 to discuss the Iraq War and other key foreign policy issues. Critical of the Bush administration’s policies in Iraq, Galbraith outlined what he saw as the central failures in the Middle East, and he offered his perspective on how the next administration should move forward.

“Global leadership is about more than just the size of your military or the size of your economy,” he advised. “Leadership depends on people being willing to follow your lead; it is essential that you listen to them. You can only lead people in a direction in which they want to go.” He noted that this strategy of incorporating local perspectives was used successfully in the Balkans in 1993.

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Fertility Rates Key to Global Well Being

Robert Engelman, author of More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want, visited campus on Wednesday, October 29, and discussed his book in which he followed human evolution to track a historical story of population. Central to his research is the importance of women as the agents of reproductive decision-making. The talk was cosponsored by the Center for International Studies and Harris School student groups—the Committee on International Affairs and Public Policy and the Chicago Environmental Policy Association.

“Women want more. Not more children, but more for their children,” Engelman outlined as the crux of his argument. Evidence shows that throughout history women have taken an active role in the planning and prevention of pregnancies to ensure that their existing children get the attention, food, and protection they need to thrive.

Read on here.

Journalist Steve LeVine Discusses Georgia-Russia Relations

On Wednesday, October 22, journalist Steve LeVine visited the University of Chicago to discuss the recent violence in Georgia as a part of the International House’s World Behind the Headlines Series. During his talk, LeVine outlined both current and possible future U.S. foreign policy in the Caucasus.

LeVine, a foreign affairs correspondent for Business Week, discussed the Georgian-Russian conflict in South Ossetia in early August. Though Russia openly invaded Georgia’s borders, the Western world failed to act to deter Russian aggression. LeVine said that from Russia’s perspective, the move made sense. “Putin is seeking Russia’s strategic interests; it’s the U.S. [that] doesn’t understand [its] own interests in the region.”

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(xi, xii)

the associations of traincars and railstops
     are so strong that Even in this English-speaking Homeland, the corn-and-soy fieldsites of
my youth, darkened as we fall into night--
     streetlights and mainstreets, floodlights on
     harvest equipment, the men out oh-so-late
     these days, fighting to beat the natural rhythms of
     light-and-darkness, autumn chill
The Associations, though, of passengercars and
     kidprint-smudged windows, reflections of
     ourselves, are so strong.
Are So Strong, that the faded foreign tongues
     reemerge as stronger-than-whispers
     back of my mind; the distinct crisp chill of
     open door air brings me to a place Not Here,
     though not anywhere but.
Knowledge knocks me out of this reverie as the backlights
     are too omnipresent, and I again know that
     i am where i am.
A path of sunflowers, now, outside the window
     and at once we are in Rural Hungary-- Inács?--
     and together, we breathe in. able, for the
     first time, to Be.

dear mom

Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Challenges Chicago Students to Promote Democracy, Human Rights

Nobel Peace Prize winner and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi spoke at the University of Chicago on Wednesday, October 15, about promoting human rights via democracy throughout the world. She inspired the audience with her determination and challenged them to join the cause. The event was a part of the Harris School’s Aon Global Leadership program and the International House Global Voices series.

Speaking through a translator, Ebadi pointed to democracy as “the one and only human rights law” in the world. She pointed to certain countries in violation of that law, including China and Cuba for their restriction of opinion and the United States for its violation of civil rights under the guise of national security.

Read more here.

i was

"i was the flicker, flame, butterfly ablaze, my husband's bride who wanted to fly in search of mythical rainbows beyond the rain. i was marked by something good or evil, but that would never leave me. "

~Ana Castillo, The Mixquiahuala Letters

My husband came for his selfish wife, embittered by shame or embarrassment for her not returning dutifully after the privilege of running off on her own for two months.
i was the flicker, flame, butterfly ablaze, my husband's bride who wanted to fly in search of mythical rainbows beyond the rain. i was marked by something good or evil, but that would never leave me.
It was apparent i was no longer prepared to face a mundane life of need and resentment, accept monogamous commitments and honor patriarchal traditions, and wanted to be rid of the husband's guiding hand, holidays with family and in-laws, led by a contradicting God, society, road and street signs, and, most of all, my poverty. Its drabness.

generation \y\

we are the restless
we are the willing
we are the question
we are the now.

we are this moment,
we are the found.

we are the being
we are the breathing
we are the believing.

we are this moment,
we are the sound.

we are climbing
we are withdrawing within

we are the sin.

we are the forging
we are the lonely
we are the flurried
we are beginning.

we are the saved.
we are the sin.

Navigating global trade: World Trade Centers boost local economies with trade leads, regulatory help and resources on government requirements

“There are a lot of perceptions, especially when dealing with China,” she said. “In general, people want to know about whatever has been in the news recently. What we spend a lot of time doing is breaking down false expectations.

“We have people come in with incredible ideas, but we really have to break it down for them,” Vivirito said. “One of the things we do is recommend that you establish credible business here before you try to import or export something. You need to establish credit, make a name and reputation for the company. We can guide them through the entire process.”

Check out the PacificShipper for the full story.

something unsaid

.what i didn't tell you, daddy, on that
weekendyousurprised Me
(came just to look me in the eye)

a patio dinner, with folkmusic
justlikebackat Home
and microbrew pilsners to wash down

Pizza, greek olives, and a caprese salad.

)already knew, you'd said, the moment
we breathed hello, i, out-of-breath
havingrunupfiveflightsof Stairs,

Gone: when you arrived. unexpectedly.(

i should have known.)

and, again, saying goodbye in a car lingering
outside Ben and Jerry's, you attempting to
rid the evidence like a molotov cocktail
--strong suspicions on both our parts of your being diabetic.

::the ambassador, she told me, looking me in the eyes,
you need to thank him for what he's given you.
yes, i said, i-- thank him.

postcard

alpha

'disheartened and disappointed,' she had written, 'in your failure to turn in quarterly reports.'

and sincere eyes, from across the table, in anger and frustration, replied to me the words the other she would not hear.

'disheartened and disappointed'
(perhaps)
in the three drive-bys this year to our facility
in the paralyzation of my son's basketball teammate
in the 'wild, wild' reputation of west oakland.

clumsily, later, i said why i'm attracted--
no attracted but drawn to--
him as a mentor as a moment as a model:
strength in the face of these truths.

yes, i am leaving.

i-ii-iii

it was a mundane happening, today, but what happened was anything but. there were several years matured in merely one day, and clarity came on i-80 and on a street of water.

i. when you, a soul (old) friend, were silent in a space where there was beckoning for noise: i knew. it was something. (there was no quietesse flowing through the slender walls; no; the great conductor two-by-fours and drywall seem to be). but today it was not the noise but mine eyes which were opened to what i had not wanted to see... everything i had not wanted...

ii. when a breath of fresh air came in sincerity and )immaturity( sobriety: afterwards, i knew. i could bear it all and, finding we had nothing in common, reflect on the artificial turf we both shared of a common neighborhood and dream. we are so far apart, yet, respectfully, we are One.

iii. (and no, there was no beforemention of this), but i Am So Thankful For You (the us that is you and the me that is us and the seamless movement into one Another that is everything forward from this moment, with or without gems refracting deep light).

all of these culminated into a spoken sentence, which, looking back, was the nadir yet the poignant profanity of it all. lord, i believe there is a purpose.

i promised a friend i would write...

and winding down. and gearing up. prayers for peace in our lives, natural breaths live here. saturdays-sundays-mondays spent with 8-year-olds and becoming more intimate with inner city life. callous with words and emotions with teenagers. over-bearing and over-planning the next steps of love. fast forward to the 32 hours of motionlessness movement through the Great States to that which was never home (again) to me, but which i will always call home. glib one-sided conversations before dusk, and cocooning into the covers and a lover's arms.

but the bay-breeze, the sun on the water and standing afoot berkeley's campanile, dialing my father, and reporting on the visibility to the golden gate: moments which i will never relive nor get over. no, i will not remember the lonliness and the solitary hours choosing strength and independence, choosing what i should become instead of who i am, )was there ever a choice though?(

so while winding down, shall i retrace these hundreds of footsteps pounded into the east bay through jogs of frustration, hope, and happiness. footsteps uncovering unchained patterns in no snow of a rapid fall from an ivory tower and accompanied by a sincere commitment to the work of those little people (like us) who possess only a genuine desire to Change.

there was Change written on these sidewalks in colorful shapes and with permanent spraypaint. you were the one who chose not to look. and i, distractedly, continued to pound the pavement and fly by.

what is

filled with vaguely-remembered emotions, in awe of these steps that arise from my feet. to return home, to fulfill those raisins in the sun of my love. to return to exile lonely, familiar italia.

i am
aching for my love to sweep me off my feet
i am awaiting new fallings-in
i am awakening from two years of short-term workplans and recording milestones of minutiae
i am slowing down and returning to a vast past of no horizons and breathing in every moment

love & leave.

Haas School will launch Asia business center

UC-Berkeley's Haas School of Business will launch an Asia Business Center in the fall to build on its historic connections with the Far East and the region's huge influence on the Bay Area economy

Elizabeth Vivirito, a spokeswoman for the Bay Area World Trade Center in Oakland, which provides assistance to local and international businesses engaged in export and import of manufactured good and services, said the Haas center should provide important business, educational and cultural connections between the East Bay and Asia.

From the East Bay Business Times

blood

reflections on a weekend:

and how does one measure impact, in a statistically-bedded society where black is still black and

what does one count, to track the nominal progress we make daily, secondly, moment-arily, in this One Love movement, in this story we call

Oakland. and how does one gauge if she should return, day-in and day-out, dreary-eyed and losing momentum in the down-hill battle through the flatlands, my sometimes heartlands, where beauty resides in the upturned faces of father's daughters, seeds of hope while they remain young (and only young)

and this turned from all about them to a shaky conviction that these uncoordinated and unrequited actions are achieving the necessary minimum to move the foot of the mountain, or move them one foot up the mountain, in any or just one thrust forward, just one

sentence, she found, could destroy the years it took to gain that respect and that trust, because weakness let the light in.

but the young girl's tears, bewildering to her at her announcement of leaving, could not even convince her of her impact, preferring to explain them as few in a series of adult leavings and lettings-down

no, she said, was not me but the unfailing falling of those from grace whom used to be there and were revered, one more retracted hand to the footstools of grace proving yet again that god is what the white people say he is: favoring the rich, western, white faces of middle america and minutemen as they protect their own

i am another retracted hand and another moment fleeting and fleeing an Eternal Truth.

As US Trade Deficit Narrows, Bay Area Exports Continue to Grow

Oakland, Cal.- December 22, 2007- Bay Area seaports saw their export value grow 31.27% in the third quarter of 2007 from their third quarter 2006 values while imports remained flat. The US deficit on international trade in goods decreased 8.65% over this period, a sign of nationally increasing export levels. Future growth in exports at local ports may be hindered by a shortage of containers in the Midwest, where much of our nation's exported agricultural commodities originate, and infrastructure limitations.

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