from NYU School of Continuing & Professinal Studies – Global Affairs Division: scps.global.affairs@nyu.edu
that years ago made it possible for us to introduce Sustainable Development to the Achademe.

LEARN FROM THE EXPERTS

Our faculty are practitioners and experts in their field.
They bring their real-world experience to life for their students.
Join them this summer!

World Politics: Confrontation or Cooperatiion? (GLOB1-CE9284)
Multiple sections, 8 weeks, begins May 14

Ralph Buultjens is a historian, author, and the former Nehru Professor and Professorial Fellow at the University of Cambridge. He was awarded the Toynbee Prize for Social Sciences in 1984. He is a well known media commentator featured on major networks such as the BBC, CNN, and ABC. He has also served as a consultant to the United Nations and major international organizations. At the Carnegie Council, Professor Buultjens served as trustee from 1978 to1984 and was Senior Fellow for several years. His numerous publications include: Conceptualizing Global History (with Bruce Mazlish, 2004) The Destiny of freedom: Political Legacies of the Twentieth Century (Louis Nizer lecture on public policy, 1999) Politics and History: Lessons for Today (1986), and The Secret Life of Karl Marx (1985).

Superstorm Sandy, NYC, and Climate Change (GLOB1-CE9023)
Saturday, June 15, 9am-5pm

Jesse Cameron-Glickenhaus is a former climate change advisor to Palau Mission to the UN. While at the Mission, he worked closely with Ambassador Stewart Beck to draft, advocate for, and pass the first United Nations General Assembly Resolution to recognize climate change as an issue of international peace and security. He is currently pursuing his J.D. at NYU School of Law where he served as the Staff Editor for the Environmental Law Journal in 2012-13 and currently serves as the Journal’s Submissions Editor. He received the Guarini Center on Environmental and Land Use Law Summer Internship for 2013. As a legal intern for the Environmental Defense Fund, Cameron-Glickenhaus researched and drafted memos and an amicus brief related to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proceedings.

The United Nations‘ Role in the War on Terror (GLOB1-CE9998)
Mondays, 6:45-8:50pm, 8 weeks, 6/3-7/22

Howard Wachtel is a Franklin Fellow in the Political Section (Sanctions Unit) of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York, where he focuses on the al Qaeda/Taliban, Cote d‘Ivoire, Sierra Leone, and Iraq sanctions regimes. During the course of the year, Howard will be monitoring each of these regimes, attending Security Council sanctions committee meetings, and contributing to the negotiation and drafting of Security Council resolutions related to each regime. He comes to the U.S. Department of State from Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett LLP, where he is a litigation associate. Mr. Wachtel is primarily responsible for USUN’s interaction with the Security Council on issues related to al-Qaeda/Taliban sanctions (the “1267 regime“). He is responsible for providing guidance and recommendations regarding the strategic direction of the 1267 regime, including new measures to address recent litigation challenging the regime and to ensure that the regime adapts to the evolving nature of the terrorist threat.

Creating a Nonprofit in a Global Landscape:
A Comprehensive and Practical Approach (GLOB1-CE9943)
Monday-Friday – June 17-21, 2013 (one week intensive)

Brad Heckman is the founding Chief Executive Officer of New York Peace Institute, one of the nation’s largest community dispute resolution and mediator credentialing agencies. Previously, he served as Vice President of Safe Horizon, New York’s leading victims services and violence prevention agency. In that capacity, he oversaw the agency‘s Mediation, Families of Homicide Victims, Legal Services, Anti-Trafficking, Batterers Intervention, and Anti-Stalking Programs. Mr. Heckman served as International Director of Partners for Democratic Change, for which he developed community peacebuilding centers throughout Eastern Europe, the Balkans, South Caucasus, Latin America, and the former Soviet Union. He received NYU-SCPS’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 2012, and serves on the boards of the National Association for Community Mediation, the New York City Peace Museum, and the New York State Dispute Resolution Association.

==================================

 TODAY – LAST EVENT OF THE SEMESTER!

In Print with James F. Hoge, Jr.

Featuring Michael Levi, David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment and Director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change

The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America’s Future

TONIGHT!
Thursday, May 9
6.30-7.45pm
RSVP here

When Mayor Bloomberg took over the day to day running of New York City, he cancelled all recycling programs because he thought their bottom line was in the red. Eventually he accepted the fact that paper recycling was suffering because there was actually theft of the paper put out for hauling by the city – so it was clearly profitable to move them to the recycler. He gave in, and only papers were recycled.

Then he was told that metal and  plastic containers have to be collected separately because there was no landfill space and hauling them out of State was a bigger loss then collecting them – so he decided to collect them in separate containers but they were never sorted out to become primary material for a world-wide growing recycling industry.

Oh well – the latest news tell us that he decided before ending his third term in office to collect plastic. We still are not convinced that he saw the “City-Light” – that is the fact that running a city is a service and not a business. 

—————————————————————————————–

New York Times Editorial – April 30, 2013.

The Mayor Rethinks Recycling

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Published on-line: April 29, 2013

On recycling in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has come a long way. After taking office 11 years ago, Mr. Bloomberg eliminated a major chunk of the city’s recycling program to save money. Many New Yorkers were outraged. He was, they said, littering the earth as well as missing a chance to convert waste to energy.

He has since become a passionate convert. With about 20,000 tons of garbage hauled from the city every day, Mr. Bloomberg has been working hard recently to restore the city’s recycling program to its pre-2002 levels. On Wednesday, he announced that any rigid plastics including toys, yogurt cups, food containers and such can finally go in clear recycling bags. It is the city’s biggest expansion in recycling in more than two decades.

A day later, he announced that 100 restaurants in the city, ranging from the sophisticated Le Bernardin to the boisterous Chipotle eateries, have promised to start reducing their food waste by 50 percent. Some of it will be donated to food kitchens or charities like City Harvest. But a lot will go to commercial composting centers outside the city. There, the discarded leeks and potato peels can be turned into energy or compost that, ideally, could help farmers produce more leeks and potatoes.

Tackling organic waste is a big task. Every year, the city adds mountains of watermelon rinds, coffee grounds and other organic plate scrapings to the waste stream. Most of it goes to landfills where it festers and sends methane pollution into the atmosphere. As alternatives, city officials are experimenting with organic recycling at 68 schools and one Manhattan apartment building. Green markets across the city accept bags of leftovers, and a new system of curbside recycling of organic garbage is scheduled to start soon in Staten Island.

The city’s recycling rate has yet to reach the pre-Bloomberg level of 20 percent. But the mayor wants the city to reuse 70 percent of its waste by 2030. That’s a big challenge for his successors, but at least these latest efforts finally move in the right direction.

What the following article does not dare to mention – seemingly not to hurt the Koches – is that the troubles of the citi-opera – the high culture second New York City opera – the one that was created in order to give home to new experiments in opera, light opera/operettas, and musical theater – the kind of material that could not be put on the stage of the Meropolitan Opera – having lost two seasons at the time of reconstruction of the building – just could not afford it anymore – and one might even think that they were not to the Koch Brothers tastes.

Now the information is as follows: The David H. Koch Theater is a building intended for theater and ballet, modern and other forms of dance, part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts located at the intersection of Columbus Avenue and 63rd Street in New York City. Originally named the New York State Theater,^[1] the house has been home to the New York City Ballet since its opening in 1964 – that did return to the renamed building.  It also served as home to the New York City Opera from 1964 to 2011 – that did not return to the renamed building.

The theater occupies the south side of the main plaza of Lincoln Center, opposite Avery Fisher Hall.

Many in New York liked the look of the interior of the original building with the huge Promenade its two large statues by Elie Nadelman sculptuers and actually found nothing wrong with the building and its use. When the Lincoln Center’s decision to redo and rename the building – the decision was received with extreme alacrity by various organized groups.

The oil and gas money of the Koch Brothers serves to lubricate right wing policies in the US – among these also the Climate Change deniers – but then there is also a patina of art covering their name – the like of putting the Koch name next to Lincoln.

In July 2008, oil-and-gas billionaire David H. Koch pledged to provide $100 million over the next 10 years for the purpose of renovating the theater and providing for an operating and maintenance endowment. It was renamed the David H. Koch Theater at the New York City Ballet Winter gala, Tuesday, November 25, of that year. ^[2] The theater is to bear his name for at least fifty years, after which it may be renamed; the Koch family retains the right of first refusal for any renaming. {The Wikipedia}

Also:

Mr. David Koch is an executive vice president and a board member of Koch Industries, based in Wichita, Kan., and owns a diverse group of companies with more than $100 billion in revenues and 80,000 employees in nearly 60 countries. The companies’ brands include Stainmaster carpet, Lycra spandex, Quilted Northern tissue and Dixie cups and tabletop products.

Koch Industries, founded in 1927 by Mr. Koch’s father, Fred, with a fleet of oil-delivery trucks, became the nation’s largest privately held company in November 2005, when it acquired the paper maker Georgia-Pacific for $13.2 billion.

Born in Wichita, Mr. Koch earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to which he donated $100 million for cancer research in October.

Other charitable donations have included $20 million to the American Museum of Natural History in 2006 for the David H. Koch Dinosaur Wing. That same year he promised $20 million to Johns Hopkins University’s medical campus in Baltimore, a gift that resulted in the new David H. Koch Cancer Research Building.

Mr. Koch also serves as the board chairman and chief executive of the Koch Chemical Technology Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries, and on more than 20 nonprofit boards, including those of American Ballet Theater, the American Museum of Natural History and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Mr. Koch’s home in Aspen, Colo., famous for its New Year’s Eve parties in his bachelor days, boasts trophies from big-game hunts with his father in Botswana and Mozambique. A pair of 130-pound Ugandan elephant tusks frames the dining room. He and his wife, Julia, have three children.

Mr. Koch, a major contributor to the Republican Party and supporter of conservative causes, was the vice presidential candidate on the Libertarian ticket in 1980. In 2003 he helped establish the nonprofit Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which supports free-market policies and promotes government spending limits. It split off from an earlier Koch-backed enterprise, now called FreedomWorks, which promotes similar goals.

In short – he is a most important financial backer of everything connected to the Tea Party.

In recent years Mr. and Mrs. Koch have become fixtures on the New York social circuit. They were honored at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s annual corporate benefit, at the Food Allergy Ball in 2005 and at the American Museum of Natural History in 2006.

His taste in real estate made news in 2006 when, seeking more space for his family, Mr. Koch sold his apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue, once owned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and moved to 740 Park Avenue, home to business titans like Ronald S. Lauder and Mr. Schwarzman.

Mr. Koch said that he considered Mr. Schwarzman’s gift to the library an inspiration. “I admire people like that immensely — who have great wealth but are generous in terms of supporting worthy causes,” he said.

=========================================================

www.nytimes.com/2013/04/27/arts/music/city-opera-might-do-best-at-city-center.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130427

Critic’s Notebook

Why Not Have City Opera Go Home to City Center?

via New York City Center

The New York City Opera started at City Center in 1944. Above, the center in more recent years.

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

Published in the New York Times : April 26, 2013

“We are playing to our strengths,” Mr. Steel said in an interview. Looking ahead to the 2012-13 season, he said that City Opera would be “out in the city with four brand-new productions of unusual works.” That, he asserted, “is what our audiences are interested in.”

Maybe so. On Saturday night at City Center, the company presents the final performance of its fourth and last production of the 2012-13 season: the director Christopher Alden’s zany, slightly surreal and exhilarating staging of Offenbach’s operetta “La Périchole.”

Say what you will about today’s City Opera being only a remnant of its former self, artistically Mr. Steel has delivered on his promise. This season he presented bold productions of four unusual works. At least three, including “La Périchole,” have been must-see events for operagoers in New York.

“La Périchole” was the second consecutive production at City Center, the company’s birthplace, which it left in 1965 to take up residence in Lincoln Center, in what was then the New York State Theater (now the David H. Koch Theater). It felt like a homecoming to see the company on the City Center stage. The renovated City Center is now much more inviting and comfortable. And whatever they did to that theater improved the acoustics. It might make sense, and would certainly simplify things, for City Opera to move back there. Many challenges would be met if the company had a home.

The season began in February at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with the director Jay Scheib’s dazzling staging of “Powder Her Face,” the 1995 debut opera by the audacious British composer Thomas Adès about the real-life sex scandal involving the Duchess of Argyll. Much of the buzz concerned the scene in which the mezzo-soprano Allison Cook, playing the Duchess, reflected on her sexcapades while some two dozen fully naked men casually strolled by. But the production also involved an inventive use of live videos, with a camera following characters to back rooms. For a week “Powder Her Face” was the most daring theatrical event in New York.

The following week, also at the academy, was Britten’s “Turn of the Screw” in an updated production by the director Sam Buntrock, who gave a “Poltergeist” twist to this 19th-century tale of a governess who comes to the haunted house of two orphaned children under the care of an absent uncle. If this was the least adventurous offering, it was still a novel take on the opera, and the cast was terrific.

The company’s return to City Center happened this month with a Rossini rarity, “Moses in Egypt,” a stirring biblical drama, in a production by Michael Counts that used arresting videos to depict night skies, desert landscapes and, in the final scene, the parting of the Red Sea. The opera world has been talking about the potential of video to make possible a new kind of old-fashioned spectacle. This production pointed a way.

And now there is Mr. Alden’s manic “Périchole,” Offenbach’s comedy about a couple, struggling street singers in Peru, who become entangled with the country’s daffy viceroy. As played by the dynamic bass Kevin Burdette in this production, the viceroy is a demented, jittery and sex-crazed ruler in some vaguely modern realm that could be Miami Beach as much as Lima.

So where does this leave City Opera for the future? Mr. Steel made inspired choices of works and directors. All four shows were artistically strong. But because City Opera must rent space and build each production to order, it had to crowd its offerings into concentrated periods of two weeks each: the first two at the academy in February; the second two at City Center this month, for a total of just 16 performances.

This now seems to be the template for City Opera: to offer four productions each season with the hope of expanding in the future. To his credit, as Mr. Steel explained in a phone interview, for the first time in a decade City Opera has balanced its books. Its operating budget of about $12 million may not be much. But it pays the bills. When might the company extend its season?

“As soon as we have the money,” Mr. Steel said, an answer that should reassure his board and patrons.

Unlike any opera company that maintains a home, City Opera has no chance to coast, in a good sense, by regularly bringing back successful past productions. I am not just talking the distant past. What about productions Mr. Steel has presented since taking charge in 2009? I long to see again Mr. Alden’s revelatory production of Bernstein’s opera “A Quiet Place.”

The time has come to end the debate over whether Mr. Steel’s decision to abandon Lincoln Center was a visionary move or an act of desperation. The old City Opera is no more. Those who do not remember the company from its days of decades ago can read about it in the conductor Julius Rudel’s new memoir, “First and Lasting Impressions,” written with Rebecca Paller. Mr. Rudel recounts his 22 years as City Opera’s director, not just the triumphs and adventures, but also the follies and backstage contretemps.

It is amazing, though, to look at the archives of City Opera and see how many productions the company offered at its height. For example, during the 1969-70 season (the combined two-month fall and two-month spring seasons), the company presented 21 productions, not just lots of standard repertory, but things like Shostakovich’s “Katerina Ismailova” and Ginastera’s “Bomarzo,” for a total of 145 performances.

During the interview Mr. Steel spoke of the company as having two main bases: the Brooklyn Academy and City Center. Yet each will be used only once next season. Mark-Anthony Turnage’s outrageous yet moving opera “Anna Nicole” will have its American premiere at the academy in September; Mr. Alden’s new production of Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” will play City Center in April 2014.

Mr. Steel, who has a keen interest in overlooked 18th-century operas, will offer a true rarity, Johann Christian Bach’s “Endimione” in its American premiere at El Museo del Barrio in East Harlem, an intimate space ideal for Baroque works. And City Opera will present a co-production of Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” with St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn that will utilize the warehouse’s entire 13,000-square-foot space.

All enticing. Yet as long as City Opera remains a roving company presenting a handful of productions in various theaters, it is going to be harder to cultivate a strong profile and build loyal audiences. Mr. Steel has a tenacious commitment to his vision of a traveling opera company. The truth is he may not see other options.

If Mr. Steel and his board would like to settle down somewhere — and there are compelling arguments to do so — the place seems obvious: City Center, where “the people’s opera” opened its doors in 1944.

This April 25, 2013 file photo shows Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, left, the mother of the two Boston bombing suspects, speaking at a news conference in Makhachkala, the capital of the southern Russian province of Dagestan. At right is her sister-in-law Maryam. (photo credit: AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev, File)

BOSTON (AP) — Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhohkar Tsarnaev was moved from a hospital to a federal prison medical center, while FBI agents searched for evidence Friday in a landfill near the college he was attending.

Tsarnaev, 19, was taken from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he was recovering from a gunshot wound to the throat and other injuries suffered during a getaway attempt, and transferred to the Federal Medical Center Devens, about 40 miles from Boston, the US Marshals Service said. The facility at a former Army base treats federal prisoners.

——————–

and CNN writes about the statement by an unnamed US official:

Russian authorities intercepted a communication in 2011 between the mother of the accused Boston Marathon bombers and someone who may have been one of her sons “discussing jihad,” a U.S. official with knowledge of the investigation told CNN’s Susan Candiotti.

The Russians turned over their intercept of the conversation — which the official described as vague — to the FBI only in the past few days, the official said.

——————

and a Canadian Professor reviewing the stand at the UN of an American who has been seriously discredited in the past but continues to be employed by the UN:

As reported by Irith Jawetz from the UN in New York City:

Reception at the United Nations on the occasion of the 65th Anniversary
of the Independence  of the State of Israel.

On Monday, April 15th, 2013, which was actually the Day of Remembrance for the fallen soldiers
in Israel and one day before the actual Yom Haatzmaut, which is the Independence Day,
Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations – H.E. Mr. Ron Prosor – invited us to a reception at the
Ambassador River View Tent, United Nations Headquarters in New York City.

The weather was beautiful and the view from the tent overlooking the East River was magnificent.

The guests were mainly UN people, Ambassadors, staff members,media and  leaders of the Jewish
Community in New York.

The band was an Israeli band who has performed for the Ambassador in the past and the main attraction
was the famous Grammy winner Israeli singer and violinist Miri Ben Ari.

Ambassador Prosor gave a short welcoming address. He started by expressing condolences to the victims
of the terror attack in Boston, which has occurred only a few hours before and to the people of Boston.
He then welcomed all the guests and thanked them for coming to celebrate this important day for the State of Israel.

Ambassador Prosor is known for his sense of humor he quoted Sir Winston Churchill, who is his role model – who once said:
“The good thing about reaching your 65th birthday is that you know, when you wake up in the morning, that you can
always take a nap in the afternoon.”    He then went on to say that – as President Obama would testify after his
last visit to Israel -  this is a country that will never nap, even when reaching its 65th birthday.
He then continued to note Israel’s achievements in the last 65 years in, among others, the fields of technology, innovation,
art,  music and education.

As an example for Israel’s innovative skills he introduced an Israeli company “Woosh” whose motto is -
“Positive Drinking – on the Street”.     We thought this would interest our readers.

Woosh offers residents and tourists of major cities a revolutionary solution for purified and cool drinking water across the
city on the go. Designed water station will be located on cities streets, allowing passers-by to fill each empty bottle they
have with tasty water at the push of a button. In every Water Station, there is a patent pending state of the art purification
system which is based on a very powerful purifier that does not have any harmful side-effects on the environment.
Another central and unique Woosh feature is cleaning of the user’s personal re-usable bottle.  Think what this will
do to eliminate all the plastic bottles people keep buying. Woosh will contribute to a significant reduction in waste polluting the environment.

We took part at a demonstration of the Woosh water station and were presented with a bottle to take home.

It was a very successful reception, incorporating fun, food, drinks, music, friendships and also a lesson in the environment.|
A breath of fresh air and a taste of clean water in a tent – at a usually dreary looking UN complex of buildings.

Dear Pincas,

This year, the Climate Reality Project will conduct trainings around the world for the next generation of Climate Leaders, who will in turn become part of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps. Already, more than 4,000 Climate Leaders from 58 countries are educating people about the climate crisis and how we can solve it. I want to personally invite you to join this global community of change-makers.

Click here to learn more about the Climate Reality Leadership Corps and apply to become a Climate Leader and join this global community today.

More than ever before, the climate crisis is creating a new reality for millions around the world. From Australian farmers losing their crops to bushfires, to New Yorkers rebuilding neighborhoods devastated by Superstorm Sandy, to crippling droughts throughout Central and Eastern Asia, Mexico and the Southwestern U.S. that are compromising the regions’ food security—the consequences of the climate crisis are growing more intense. Even as the severity of the climate crisis grows, many people don’t yet understand how it touches them personally or what they can do about it.

We need more Climate Leaders across the world to lead a carbon conversation about solutions and spread the truth about the climate crisis. Join us to become one of these leaders today.

In a three-day training, including sessions that I lead, Climate Leaders learn the latest climate science and best practices for connecting the dots between the facts about climate change and the daily lives of their audiences, in simple and accessible terms. They emerge as energized and skilled communicators with the knowledge, tools, and passion to educate and empower diverse audiences and communities to help solve the climate crisis. I invite you to become a part of this network.

Click here to apply for our training in Istanbul in June or in Chicago in July.

Together, we have an enormous opportunity to communicate the reality of climate change. With your help as a Climate Leader, we can do this person by person, family by family, and city by city. I have faith that when enough minds are changed, we will cross a threshold, and we can accomplish this goal together. Apply to join us today.

Sincerely,

Al Gore
Chairman, The Climate Reality Project

===================================================

Dear Pincas,

In order to win the fight to protect our climate, we have to change the climate in our government. 

Kick dirty energy money out of the State House in Albany

Big Money from Big Polluters has polluted our democracy. The coal, fracking, and other big polluting industries have spent approximately $10 million since 2000 writing checks to politicians[1] to try to get their way.

And just yesterday we get another huge scandal involving campaign finance in Albany and New York City.[2] Governor Cuomo and state legislative leaders have already expressed their desire to pass legislation that would fix these problems. Major newspapers have even said this is the next big fight in Albany.[3] But for our leaders to act, they need to hear from you that we are ready to stand up and fight for it.

Tell our leaders — get money out of politics in Albany now!

A coal-fired power plant or fracking well might give us asthma, heart attacks, or cancer. But the money those same polluters spend on politicians is just as damaging — causing gridlock in Albany, giving them permission to pollute more, and preventing New York from moving to the clean energy, 21st century economy that we deserve.

Getting big money out means your voice, and the voice of other average New Yorkers, will be heard above the lobbyists and big donors.

Clean up New York politics – tell Governor Cuomo and your legislators to support fair elections reforms.

Fair Elections will transform how Albany does business by empowering small donors, lowering campaign contribution limits, ending lobbyists’ pay-to-play schemes, and encouraging stronger enforcement and transparency. Our leaders want to take the necessary next steps, but they need to hear you are behind them.

Hundreds of you joined Michael Brune, Sierra Club executive director, and Governor Andrew Cuomo last month as they told New Yorkers how fair, citizen-funded elections can put environmental priorities on the level with the fracking lobbyists and corporate polluters. Dozens of other good government, labor, environmental and social justice organizations are collecting signatures on the same petition. Together we can make fair elections a reality. 

Add your voice to theirs in Albany by sending a message to your representatives to support fair elections.

Thanks for all you do to protect the environment,

Jennifer Tuttle
Organizing Representative
Sierra Club

P.S. After you take action, be sure to forward this alert to your friends and colleagues!

References

[1] National Institute on Money in State Politics, FollowtheMoney.org “Industry Influence – New York – Energy & Natural Resources Contributions to All Candidates and Committees 2000 – 2012“
[2] William K Rashbaum and Marc Santora, New York Times “Lawmakers Charged in Plot to Buy Spot on Mayoral Ballot” April 2, 2013.
[3] Albany Times Union, “Now Fix Those Elections!” March 31, 2013.

Bridging Cultures: Poetic Voices of the Muslim World • After over a year of planning and hard work by  City Lore Director of Poetry Programs, Catherine Fletcher, City Lore is proud and excited to announce the launch of Poetic Voices of the Muslim World, a two-year initiative funded by NEH’s Bridging Cultures grant comprising programs and performances presented against the backdrop of a traveling exhibition and companion website, that will be presented in six cities across the country. www.Citylore.org

Incorporating dialogue and performance, music and visual art to celebrate poetry of rare power and beauty — including ancient oral traditions still practiced today, literary forms that have flourished for more than a millennium and contemporary poetic arts — Poetic Voices of the Muslim World was developed in collaboration with national poetry library and literary center Poets House to fully explore the crucial role that poetry plays in Muslim cultures.

The initiative opened in Los Angeles and Jacksonville, Florida, in March 2013; will move to Washington, D.C. and Milwaukee in September 2013;
and Detroit and New York City in March 2014.

See the website (still in progress) and explore the exhibit here.

THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE IS INVOLVED IN A GLOBAL REPORTING INITIATIVE (GRI) - Reporting on Sustainability with a G4 in their sight or front line - G4 is GRI’s fourth generation of Sustainability Reporting Guidelines and is now in development. G4 is part of GRI’s commitment to the continuous development of its Guidelines.

They say: The next generation of the GRI Guidelines – G4 – should address requirements for sustainability data, and enable reporters to provide relevant information to various stakeholder groups. It should also improve on content in the current Guidelines – G3 and G3.1 – with strengthened technical definitions and improved clarity, helping reporters, information users and assurance providers.

The Information they talk about is non-financial information and it could be thus part of very positive intent, but we are not sure if it preaches also the importance of true financial reporting that includes the so called externalities – or the passing on of the true expenses on the public at large – these ought to be part of the financial implications that make up the value of a stock and ought not be covered by bamboozle.    

At this stage we can just say that we do not know what that G4 will be like and that we have no information about the first three generations of guidelines that this posting – as received – talks about. It looks to us like some gibberish that business is throwing at the innocents.

We did our research and found:
 www.globalreporting.org/reportin… for G3
and - www.globalreporting.org/reportin… for G3.1 – a  photo showing Asian faces.
then - www.globalreporting.org/reportin… for the new G4 saying -

North-American G4 Campaign: The kick-off event at the New York Stock Exchange  –
11 April NYC

G4 Campaign Sponsor

Register here for 11 April, New York

We are getting ready for our Global Conference in Amsterdam. Our 2013 Global Conference on Sustainability and Reporting (brochure) will be held on 22-24 May in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

We would like to give you the opportunity to meet with the Focal Point USA team at the New York Stock Exchange (GRI Sector Leader) on the 11^th of April. In the morning of the 11^th, we will explain what’s happening at the Global Conference, how you can join our Delegation and what side events will be organized in the USA and Canada. Next to this update, a Master Class will be held by our newest Certified Training Partner Deloitte who will refresh your knowledge of GRI. Here you can hear from Eric Hespenheide (Global Leader, Climate Change and Sustainability Audit and Enterprise Risk Services) and Kristen Sullivan (Partner, Sustainability Services) which items of GRI’s reporting process have remained untouched and receive an update on the G4 revisions. This event will be an interactive session where we will be joined by long-standing GRI reporter HP. Ellen Jackowski from HP will speak about their sustainability journey and Rina Levy from Bloomberg LP (GRI Sector Leader) will interview Ellen about the way in which HP discloses sustainability information. After the Master Class, there will be a networking lunch, after which our Organizational Stakeholders can join us for CR Magazine’s 100 Best Corporate Citizens Event.

The Global Conference: a three-day, multinational event will include the latest information on sustainability and reporting, training sessions, workshops and unique networking opportunities. Most importantly, the next generation of GRI’s Sustainability Reporting Framework: the G4 Guidelines, will be launched. The event will host 1500 thought leaders and practitioners from all over the world and various constituencies: investors, regulators, businesses, civil society and mediating institutions. And..  Amsterdam in spring is the best host city for inspiring dialogues and new ideas.

Please note that Tuesday 21 May is the North American Networking Day!

As GRI’s US office were facilitating North American participation in the Global Conference by creating a special North American Delegation. You are automatically part of the Delegation when you are either a Founding Sponsor, a Sector Leader, a Certified Training Partner, an Organizational Stakeholder or a G4 Campaign Sponsor.

Special private events are being developed for Delegation members to complement the overall Conference and to provide Delegation members with tailored G4 information. In addition, we are organizing several special events and Master Classes in North America to introduce and educate our Delegation as well as the larger network on the latest G4 Guidelines. After attending the series of 3 Master Classes, participants will receive an acknowledgement. All G4 Campaign events will be announced on our blog.

You can access the Global Conference program (which is under development) here, and you can register here.

For more information about the G4 Campaign and sponsorship opportunities: griusa@globalreporting.org.

Please email us if you would like to join CR Magazine’s 100 Best Corporate Citizens Event.

Name:
 Kick-off event GRI’s North American G4 Campaign at New York Stock Exchange – Master Class 1: GRI Refresher and G4 Update.

Date: April 11, 2013

Location: New York Stock Exchange, 11 Wallstreet, New York City, NY 10005, USA

Host: New York Stock Exchange and G4 Campaign sponsor HP

Description: 

AGENDA

9.30 am – 10.30 am GRI Update by Mike Wallace and Marjella Alma on GRI’s Global Conference and G4 Campaign. Find out how you can join our official delegation!

10.30 am – 12.30 pm Master Class 1 – GRI Refresher and G4 Update – organized by GRI’s Certified Training Partner Deloitte featuring HP (reporter perspective) and Bloomberg (Sector Leader; data user perspective)

13.15 pm 25 of our GRI Organizational Stakeholders can join the CR Magazine’s 100 Best Corporate Citizen Announcements; email GRI to reserve your spot

4-5 pm CR Magazine Reception

Register here for 11 April, New York

Confirmed attendees

Addison
AT&T
Bloomberg LP
BPA Worldwide
Casazza Herman LLC
CECP
Context America
CRM Communications
Curran & Connors, Inc.
Deloitte
Donnelly Mechanical Corp
Ernst and Young
FMC Corporation
Framework LLC
General Motors Company
Global Development Solutions, LLC
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
Governance & Accountability Institute, Inc.
GRI Focal Point USA
HP
IFAC
ING U.S.
IRRC Institute
Lilium Consulting, LLC
Monsanto
Morgan Stanley
New York Stock Exchange
NYU-POLY     –  New York University that includes now also the former technically excellent Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.
Owens Corning
Renewthink Inc.
ROC One
SASB
Stewardship Action Council
SustainAbility
The Linley Company
The Mosaic Company
USGBC
W R Beer & Co.

We decided on this posting, not just because of the New York Times Op-Ed Article of today, but in effect we followed the subject watching the fate of Mayor Bloomberg’s efforts in New York to legislate the decrease of intake of sugar by his charges in the city – efforts that were overturned by a judge who thinks you cannot force people to do the right thing for themselves if this right thing harms the interests of the lobby of the sugar industry. We had a chance to talk about this in Vienna as well, and clearly agriculture interests here are just as opposed to get people to use less sugar, as their co-professionals in the US.

But then last Saturday I had a chance to sit in at an Ayurveda class and learned about ethics and healthy food. The meeting was at the Sant Mat Center at Siebensterngasse 16a/2 in the 7th District – 1070 Vienna.

Dr. Daniel Scheidbach was the speaker and a Text-book was on the table.

www.santmat.at      –     www.ayurveda-akademie.org     —  www.yourdosha.at   — are sights to get further information.

The system here is that one has to enjoy his food and has to go about with ethics in choosing his food. The system is vegetarian plus milk. No meat, fish or foul or eggs are allowed. The vegetables are eaten cooked and not raw.

The elements are Space, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth and our body has Vata, Pitta, and Kapha elements that describe our own nature.  Bitter, Sour, Sweet, Salty are our tastes and they are determined by our nature. Each person will adjust his food to his nature and you have the license to eat whenever you feel hungry. Children start out as Kappa and can emerge. I got the feeling that the body is holy and you are supposed to enjoy the intakes.

You eat breakfast, a main meal and in the evening before 6 PM – no snacks unless you are hungry.

You take in one third solids, one third liquids and you leave one third for your VPK. You always make sure you drank enough.

You never eat yogurt at night and you drink milk warm – not cold – and not plain but with Ghee.

The best position for eating is Vastu – South East – that is where the sun power emanates.  

My purpose in bringing up this introduction is to show that it is not just the monotheistic Abrahamic religions that dealt with the relationship between our body as a Holy shrine and the food we take in – as such the following article becomes even more to the point. We must push back the forces of commercialism that make us overeat – this because we want to be healthy in mind and body. Power to Mayor Bloomberg who is out on his one man crusade to show the Americans that health care starts at home by opposing the media that makes us over-eat and obese, or alternatively bulimic and self starved.

Kerstin and Mark Rosenberg have established the Ayurveda Yoga Academy at Birstein, Germany, and on April 6, 2013 will celebrate 20 years since the inroad this Yoga system made in Europe.

=================================================

THE NEW YORK TIMES — OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

THE TALMUD AND OTHER DIET BOOKS

By Jonathan K. Crane

Published: March 26, 2013

Related:   “Anti-Bloomberg Bill”   —   Mississippi Bars Local Restrictions on Food and Drink (March 14, 2013)


From Atanta, Georgia, the home of Coca Cola Headquarters:

 HARDLY a week goes by without yet another study documenting the increasing prevalence of obesity in America. Most of us take seriously the fact that close to 70 percent of American adults are now either overweight or obese, and most are willing to consider various ways to mitigate the problem.

Yet the solutions frequently trumpeted, like taxing sugary beverages, are top-down and invariably meet with strong resistance.
In fact, Mississippi recently passed a bill essentially barring federal restrictions on what its people may eat or drink.
Most Americans don’t want to be told what to consume. They want their fill.

Perhaps a different approach can be considered, one that begins from within. Instead of fixating on indulgence and excess, as do so many top-down and outside-in efforts, we should focus on what it means for each individual to be sated.

Satiety, the feeling of being satisfied, is inherently idiosyncratic: everyone has her or his own sensation of being full. What sates my hunger will be different from what sates yours. Nevertheless, what sates our hunger will be less than what you might imagine.

Long before cooking shows and diet fads, many ancient civilizations understood this balance. The Greeks, for example, worried that excessive consumption would disrupt the four humors constituting the human body. They, like the ancient Buddhist and Confucian traditions, encouraged moderation as the golden mean. Judaism, Christianity and Islam added to those arguments theological overtones: eating too little could be as spiritually damning as eating too much.

The prophet Isaiah, for example, inveighed against the Israelites for vainly fasting when so much injustice surrounded them. Such fasting, and particularly fasting only for self-affliction, was sinful, rabbis of the Talmud said. But the Talmud also counseled “removing your hand from a meal that pleases you.”

Christianity, especially through the teachings of Pope Gregory I and Thomas Aquinas, identifies gluttony as a mortal sin. More than just excessive desire for food, gluttony involves eating irregularly (snacking), being preoccupied with eating, consuming costly (sumptuous or unhealthy) foodstuffs and being fastidious about food. And the Koran insists that improper and wasteful eating incurs God’s wrath. Eat well and live well, Islam teaches.

Of course, every civilization and religious tradition has its exceptions. Many Jewish households are celebrating lavish Passover Seders this week, and many Christian ones will have Easter feasts on Sunday. Celebrations like these are highly regulated, however. Not every day or every meal is meant to be a feast or a fast, and the one who feasts or fasts too much sins. It is far better, these traditions hold, for people to eat only the amount that satisfies them.

Among these old arguments is the novel idea of eating less than what fills one’s belly. The Talmud teaches that people should eat enough to fill a third of their stomachs, drink enough to fill another third, and leave a third empty. (A hadith in the Islamic tradition also teaches this.) Rashi, a medieval French rabbi, interpreted the Talmud to mean that the final empty third is necessary so that the body can metabolize emotions. If one ate until one’s belly was completely full, there’d be no room left to manage one’s emotions and one would burst asunder.

However absurd this may seem to us today, it made physiological sense in the premodern world as the emotions were considered physical things that, like food and drink, were metabolized by the body. A body stuffed with food and drink is full only of biology; it leaves no room for biography, for what makes us human.

The medieval physician and legal scholar Maimonides similarly instructed people to eat and drink less than what filled their bellies (he thought the stomach should be three-quarters full). Moreover, they should eat slowly. Modern science corroborates Maimonides: it takes about 20 minutes for the brain to receive messages from the stomach that it has had enough. Satiety can be achieved with less food than one might think, and it requires more time to reach it.

Of course, one need not be a theist to experience satiety. One needs only a belly. Perhaps these old ideas could inspire new ways of addressing the complex weight problem in America. They could help us reduce the amount of food we put on our plates, which would lower the tonnage of otherwise good food discarded every day. And they could mitigate the costly and debilitating diseases associated with our current eating practices.

This approach is personalized: everyone is empowered to be in control of his own satiety. It is adaptable, changing as a person ages and ails. And although it is not exactly nonhierarchical if you believe it’s God’s will, at least it is not imposed by any human government. Finally, it is sustainable, as it promotes a culture that views limitless consumption with suspicion. Capitalism may abhor contentedness, but our bodies need us to heed it.

We have to realize that enough is enough. We should stop asking ourselves, “Am I full?” and start asking, “Am I satisfied?”

——————————————-

Jonathan K. Crane, a rabbi, is a professor of bioethics and Jewish thought at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.

NY Soda Ban Goes Down and Mississippi Passes Anti-Bloomberg Bill.

    Tuesday was supposed to be a day of celebration for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg when the new limits he proposed on big, sugary drinks (aka the soda ban) were supposed to take effect. Yet, on Monday, a judge blocked the proposed ban, calling it “arbitrary and capricious” and making many New Yorkers happy knowing that large soda drinks are not going anywhere. At least not for now.

“It’s the right thing to do from a civil liberties point of view. Granted, people should make better decisions, but why not educate people rather than dictate to them what to do?” Sean Doolan told the New York Times. “If you want to drink large drinks and become obese, that’s your right,” added another fellow New Yorker who was interviewed at a movie theater on West 42^nd street.

Not surprisingly, you could hear a similar sentiment from the American Beverage Association, which brought the lawsuit on behalf of companies like Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. Chris Gindlesperger, spokesperson for the association, told NPR that “the real issue here is that New Yorkers are smart enough to decide for themselves what’s right to eat and drink, and they don’t need government help doing that.”

For the beverage companies it wasn’t just a moral issue. I suspect that their sigh of relief was greater than Bloomberg’s sigh of disappointment. This was a fight they fought hard, knowing that it might have consequences on a much greater scale than just New York City itself, as Bloomberg called for other cities around the world to adopt similar limits.

The new regulation, which would have limited the size of sugary drinks served at restaurants, movie theaters and other food service establishments to 16 ounces, not only directly connected soda drinks and obesity, but also reminded many, including investors, that even the powerful beverage industry is not immune to regulatory risks. In other words, for the beverage industry, the soda ban was nothing but trouble.

In an article it published in July 2012, under the title Absurd: Ridiculously Unreasonable, Unsound and Incongruous, the American Beverage Association explained why it believes there’s nothing wrong with the current situation.

“We’re delivering what Americans want and helping people find the beverage that’s right for them with our Clear on Calories initiative. By placing new calorie labels on the front of every bottle, can and pack we produce, we’re giving consumers the information so they can choose the beverage that is best for them and their families.”

If you think you’ll find support for this perspective or validation of the association’s claim of a weak link between soda drinks and obesity in the judge’s decision, then you’re wrong. Actually, in his ruling, state Supreme Court Justice Milton Tingling wrote that “the reasonableness for enacting the Rule meets the criteria under Article 78 standards.” The reasons he found the ban arbitrary and capricious have nothing to do with the need to regulate soda drinks or their link to obesity, but with the loopholes in the ban.

“It is arbitrary and capricious because it applies to some but not all food establishments in the city, it excludes other beverages that have significantly higher concentrations of sugar sweeteners and/or calories on suspect grounds, and the loopholes inherent in the rule … serve to gut the purpose of the rule,” he wrote.

Tingling also found that New York City’s board of health, which approved the ban last September, had overstepped the authority it was granted to fulfill its mission: protecting against and preventing diseases. “That authority,” the judge said, “does not include the power to limit or ban a legal item under the guise of ‘controlling chronic disease.’”

Bloomberg said he would immediately appeal, and as the Times reported, he fiercely defended the rationale for the rules at a quickly arranged news conference, saying, “I’ve got to defend my children, and yours, and do what’s right to save lives. Obesity kills. There’s no question it kills.”

So while this fight is far from being over, at least the American Beverage Association was happy to hear on Tuesday that there’s one place in America where it shouldn’t expect any trouble in the near future, or more likely. never. On the same day that judge Tingling knocked down Bloomberg’s ban, it was reported that lawmakers in Mississippi are moving ahead with a bill that is widely known as “the anti-Bloomberg” bill.

As NPR reported, the bill, now on the governor’s desk “would bar counties and towns from enacting rules that require calorie counts to be posted, that cap portion sizes, or that keep toys out of kids’ meals.” If you wonder why a state with the second highest obesity rates in the country (32.2 percent) would block such preventive measures, you could check with Rep. Gregory Holloway, a Democrat who ushered the bill through the state House.

Holloway explained that the goal is to create consistency in nutrition laws across the state. “We don’t want local municipalities experimenting with labeling of foods and any organic agenda. We want that authority to rest with the legislature,” he told NPR.

While aspiring for consistency is certainly an argument that shouldn’t be dismissed, I guess it’s no wonder that the bill, as NPR reported, was heavily supported by groups like the restaurant association, the small business and beverage group, and the chicken farmers’ lobby. They definitely know who is going to benefit from this bill.

————

Raz Godelnik is the co-founder of Eco-Libris and an adjunct faculty at the University of Delaware’s Business School, CUNY SPS and the Parsons The New School for Design, teaching courses in green business, sustainable design and new product development. You can follow Raz on Twitter.

WE BROUGHT THAT QUESTION UP BEFORE EVA GLAWISHNIG, HEAD OF THE AUSTRIAN GREEN PARTY, AT A MEETING IN VIENNA, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2013, at A PUBLIC MEETING IN  “THE HOUSE OF THE INDUSTRY.” THE OBVIOUS PROBLEM BEING IF WE CAN LEGISLATE SO PEOPLE DO WHAT IS BEST FOR THEM – THIS BECAUSE IN THE END WE ALL DO PAY FOR THE TRANSGRESSIONS OF THE MANY THAT ARE BEING FUELED BY THE MEDIA WHICH IS IN COHOOTS WITH THE INDUSTRY.

HER APPROACH, AS WELL AS Mr. HERMAN ZOUBEK, OWNER OF A LARGE AUSTRIAN BIOFARMING ENTERPRISE – ADAMAH – WAS THAT IN A DEMOCRACY WE MUST APPROACH THIS VIA AN EDUCATED PUBLIC. TO THIS I ARGUED THAT WITH THE WAY THE MEDIA AND THE ADVERTISING BUSINESS ARE STRUCTURED, THE EDUCATED PUBLIC IS A FICTION.

See also please – www.heute.at for a 15 minutes clip of the event that was organized by Eva Dichand, publisher of the “Heute” Austrian free-of-charge daily – thus largest newspaper.

Event at the Asia Society in New York – “The US and Asia in 2013: Challenges and Opportunities”

by Irith Jawetz at the Asia Society House on Park Avenue, New York City, Monday March 11, 2013.
Talk by Thomas Donilon, U.S. National Security Advisor on “The U.S. and Asia in 2013:  Challenges and Opportunities.”

Introductory remarks were by Ms. Henrietta Fore, Co-Chair of Asia Society and Chairman and CEO of Holsman International, a manufacturing, consulting and investment company.

She stressed the importance of the Series of talks at the Asia Society – “Beyond the Headlines” -  and said that the Asia Society shares views of cooperation, alliances, and links between the United States and Asia. There are many challenges in the relationship between the US and Asia, she said – especially when it comes to North Korea -  but the opportunities for cooperation outweigh the challenges, she sad. Her approach to foreign policy was a business woman line – the issue being that challenges and opportunities were understood in business terms.

Ms. Fore continued by introducing the speaker – Mr. Thomas Donilon.

Thomas Donilon is the new National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama. 
From 2009 to 2010, he served as Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor.  He chaired the State Department’s transition effort in 2008.  Prior to this, he was a partner at O’Melveny & Myers LLP and served as a member of the firm’s global governing committee.  He has worked closely with and advised three U.S. Presidents since his first position at the White House working with President Carter. 

He served in the Clinton Administration as Assistant Secretary of State and Chief of Staff of the Department. In this capacity he was responsible for the development and implementation of the Department’s major policy initiatives, including NATO expansion, the Dayton Peace Accords, and the Middle East Peace process. He was awarded  the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award in November 1996. His interest in policy does not mean business first. What was he doing at Asia Society during this lunch-time break?

Mr. Donilon started his presentation by acknowledging his good friend Richard Holbrook who was a real “Asia hand” and credited him for dedicating all his efforts to peace and cooperation everywhere. Now – that was the answer to the question in my head. Mr. Danilon came to honor the departed Mr. Holbrook and not because of those present there.

Donilon gave a general review of the Obama Administration’s goals in Asia for his second term.

The world’s economic, political, and strategic center of gravity is shifting toward the Asia-Pacific.  Since its first days in office, the Obama administration has therefore pursued a rebalancing of foreign, economic and defense policy priorities toward the Asia Pacific. This reballance, according to National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon, is working to “sustain a stable security environment and a regional order rooted in economic openness, peaceful resolution of disputes, democratic governance, and political freedom.” 

The United States has been over weighted in some area, i.,e. the Middle East and under weighted in other area, i.e. Asia – and the Obama Administration will make sure to strengthen the ties between the US and the Asia Pacific region.

He mentioned the friendship and cooperation with Japan’s new leadership, with China’s leadership, the friendship with India, and a solid commitment to the security of the Republic of Korea, and announced that the new woman President of the Republic of Korea, Ms. Park will visit the White House this coming May.

The challenges are mainly with North Korea. For 60 years the United States has protected the Republic of Korea and will not accept any nuclear programs in North Korea. There will be consequences if North Korea continues to pursue its nuclear goals. However, there will always be a window open for talks if North Korea changes its course. He brought as example the country of Myanmar with whom the US has now a good relationship. North Korea could take an example from Myanmar.

Mr. Donilon touched upon the good relationship between the US and India, Indonesia, a country that is personally close to Mr. Obama, and China. In relations to China he mentioned that a military dialogue is necessary, economic relations are opening up, however there are problems regarding the cyber security. The Internet has to be open, secure and reliable and there are still concerns in that field.

He further mentioned the TPP, Trans Pacific Partnership, – an organization which now has 11 members, but could be a podium for many countries to join and cooperate for free and open trade between the countries.

In conclusion, he again stressed that the ties between the United States and Asia are a very important subject in the Obama Administration.

Ms. Suzanne DiMaggio, Vice President of Global Policy Programs at Asia Society read a few questions, one relating to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As for Afghanistan Mr. Donilon stressed that the plan is still to have the Afghan forces take over the security of their country
with the US forces in an advisory capacity as of May 2013, and the full withdrawal of US troops from that country by September 31, 2014. The main goal is to defeat Al Qaeda and to ensure that Afghanistan does not become a future haven for terrorists.

As for Pakistan there have always been problems between the US and Pakistan especially after a crisis, i.e. the capture of Osama Bin Laden, but the US is committed to work through those problems and to ensure a stable Pakistan.

Mr. Tom Nagorski closed the session with a concluding remarks thanking Mr. Donilon for his excellent speech and also thanking him for his kind remarks regarding Richard Holbrook.

Tom Nagorski is Executive Vice President of the Asia Society since October 2012 following a three-decade career in journalism – having served most recently as Managing Editor for International Coverage of ABC News. Before that he was Foreign Editor for World News Tonight and a reporter and producer based in Russia, Germany and Thailand. He is the recipient of eight Emmy awards and the Dupont Award for excellence in International coverage as well as a fellowship from the Henry Luce Foundation.
He looked like he understood why Mr. Donilon spent his time here and the fact that the business community ought to understand better the motives of an umbrella approach to foreign policy that comes with a reset away from the oil region.

Since my return to Vienna about ten days ago, I witnessed the Erdogan negation at the Hofburg of the UN tooted Alliance of Civilizations but found two activities at the renovated Nestroyhof in Leopoldstadt – or Vienna’s ever multicultural former village – now the city’s second district that you cross on the way to the Vienna International Center (VIC) – home of the UN offices in Vienna (UNOV). Because of this I decided to dedicate a posting to the history of a theater in this area – no less – “THE PLACE” – HAMAKOM.

—————————————

HISTORY of a VIENNA Second District THEATER at the NESTROYHOF  the HAMAKOM.

Stormy Years 1898 – 1938

On the ground floor of the Nestroyhof, an Art Nouveau rental building, designed and built in 1898 by Theodor Herzl’s friend and Zionist supporter, Viennese architect Oskar Marmorek, opened first the „Etablissement Nestroy-Säle“.

The „Mazzes Insel“ (matzah island), long a Jewish residential and business district, was turn-of-the-century heart of a new epoch of Jewish theater. Yiddish language ensembles, cabarets and small theaters sprung up bringing the Jewish life of Vienna and Eastern Europe to the stage.

Here they confronted the Viennese Kasperl (Punch & Judy) and Viennese Posse (Vaudeville) traditions, initiating a totally new style of theater, a multi-cultural counterpart to mainstream culture. The Theater in the Nestroyhof, became a potpourri showplace of a wide variety of theater groups and styles, contributing greatly to the internationality of modern metropolitan life in Vienna.

After the „Etablissement Nestroy-Säle“ filed for bankruptcy the Varieté theater „Folies Comiques“ opened its portals, presenting among others, Karl Kraus’ “Trianon” theatre troupe with the Austrian premiere performance of Franz Wedekind’s „Pandora’s Box“. Later, Theater “Reklame” added a cinema in a further tract of the building and a bar („Tanzbar Sphinx“) opened in the theater’s cellar. The bar and cinema remained in business until the fall of Stalingrad in 1942.

From 1904 to 1918 the „Intimes Theater“, a small literary theater led by Emil Richter-Roland and Oscar Friedmann produced Austrian premieres of Gorki, Strindberg, and Maeterlinck and later French comedies produced by Emil’s wife Josefine. Performances in the Nestroyhof were periodically forbidden by state censors during political crises.

Jakob Goldfliess led the „Jüdische Künstlerspiele“ in Nestroyhof from 1927 – 1938, and as anti-Jewish restrictions grew increasingly focused his program on themes of anti-Semitism. He presented famous Yiddish language actors and ensembles and touring groups such as the „Jüdisch-Akademischen Theaters“ from Moscow, the “Budapestern” and the Hebrew language “Habima”.

Lost Years 1938 – 1997

In 1938 the „Jüdische Künstlerspiele“, along with the rest of the Viennese and European Jewish theater world, fell victim to Nazi persecution.

The property was aryanized in 1940 (Arianization is the genteel word used for stealing Jewish property, or applying pressure to get it for ridiculously low prices in parallel with seeing the Jews disappear), and taken over by the industrialist Polsterer family. Restitution procedures in 1956 led to a, today still debated, out of court, settlement between the descendants of the building’s rightful owner, Anna Stein, and the Polsterer family, who still maintain possession of the property today.

The war-damaged building was renovated in 1955 and the onetime theater space served a succession of commercial tenants, most recently housing a supermarket until 1997. Upon their vacating of the premises, the drop ceiling and plasterboard walls installed in adapting it for commercial use were removed, revealing the magnificent theater structure hidden below. Ironically this temporary misuse of the theater led ultimately to its preservation.

Rediscovery of the Theater 2004-2007

Rediscovery inspired a row of cultural initiatives in attempts to re-establish the theater in the Nestroyhof as a cultural and artistic center. Theater groups and cultural organizations presented performances, art exhibitions and events dealing with themes of Diaspora, racism and social exclusion. The unclear situation of tenancy, lack of direction and inconsistent profile made long-term planning impossible. Towards the end of 2007, the Polsterer family was again setting sights on the theater’s commercial value and on halting all cultural activities in the space.

New Initiative 2008

A new privately funded initiative by theater director Frederic Lion (who’s Theater Transit, staged, et. al., the production „Abendfüllend“ by Antonio Fian, in 2006 in Nestroyhof), begun in May 2008, managed to obtain an open-ended lease, thus saving the space from an imminent return to misappropriate commercial use. Under the direction of Frederic Lion, the group Theater Nestroyhof Hamakom developed a concept for the total use of the space and its long term reactivation within the Viennese theater landscape. This concept won the support of the city of Vienna’s Cultural Bureau for September 2009 to December 2013.

The initiative is working towards the realization of a lasting and necessary restoration of the theater structure.

Conception

The history of the Theater in the Nestroyhof has been a century of repeated contestation of its right of existence. Even in its current fragile condition, scarred by abuse, deterioration and destruction, the theater space contains a spirit and energy which inspires artists with confidence, strength and fantasy. Its tragic heritage and historical grandeur, aesthetic and spatial presence reveal a topos, awakening enthusiasm and fantasy in searching for traces of the past and recounting stories of the present.

Under the direction of Frederic Lion and his team, the Theater Nestroyhof Hamakom has chosen this location in the urban village of Vienna’s second district as a performance platform for social friction, diverse fields of thought and movements happening in Vienna and anywhere. The projects will be aligned along the fissures of the current global human and cultural interaction and movement, exclusion and delimitation, remembrance and identity, flight and asylum.

The place, Theater Nestroyhof, in all its manifestations, real and imagined, is not a spiritual ghetto; as for every theater, its strength has always lain in its limitless ability to free itself. The Nestroyhof name, with its longstanding tradition, has been embellished by the Hebrew word “ha makom”, meaning “the place.” This expression includes a transcendental form of remembrance and spiritual localization that inspires an exciting pursuit of possibilities to expand and abolish existing borders.

______________________

TEAM

Direction
Frederic Lion – Artistic Director & General Management

Production, office management
Johannes Gruner – Program & Production Coordination, Organization, Communication

Dramaturgy
Susanne Höhne - Dramatic Advisor & Play Readings Supervisor

Contact
Theater Nestroyhof Hamakom
Nestroyplatz 1 / 1020 Vienna
 contact at hamakom.at

 johannes.gruner at hamakom.at

Googling for “What If: Imagining the Habsburg Monarchy as Today’s Center of the World” I got the following links on page 1.

The idea seems fascinating and not farfetched and it serves as a title of a new book that is being presented by Central European and Germanic institutions in New York City. Considering that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was in effect a multicultural United Nations of its time – it is fascinating to think what it could have meant as an example for today’s European Union and even the UN. We were flabbergasted  finding ourselves in the google list – reference # 4 as we also ask – what if the rather benevolent Habsburgian Dictatorship would have survived and become a model for empire building that allows for the benefits of multiculturalism as an ideal Alliance of Civilizations? What if?

What if? This question is the central theme of the book in German titled Der Komet, written by Hannes Stein, and published by Galiani in Berlin, Germany.

What if the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand had not been shot in Sarajevo? What if the 20th century had never existed? What if the house of Hapsburg still existed today? What if Auschwitz had just been a railway junction in Galicia? What if the Germans had not started two World Wars and organized the largest genocide in history but had settled the moon instead? What if Lenin had died in Zurich as an unknown journalist?

“Absurd and believable, strange and ridiculous, sophisticated and surprising, wonderful and bizarre, hilarious and tragic, completely unconventional: a fabulous book dealing with a fantastic world in which you lose yourself in its obliqueness” – Vea Kaiser

Hannes Stein (born 1965 in Munich) grew up in Salzburg. He studied English and American studies as well as philosophy in Hamburg. After spending a long time in Israel, Stein immigrated to the US where he currently lives in Riverdale. He worked as a journalist for various German newspapers and magazines (FAZ, Spiegel, Cicero, Merkur) and has been the editor of “Literarische Welt” in Berlin. At present, he works as cultural
correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. So – he seems to have lived the history he attempts to stir up.

——

1. Austrian Cultural Forum New York: BOOK PRESENTATION …

   www.acfny.org/event/hannes-stein-der-komet/

   WHAT IF? IMAGINING THE HAPSBURG MONARCHY AS TODAY’S CENTER OF THE WORLD The Austrian Cultural Forum NY is pleased to host an evening of …

2. Calendar, Deutsches Haus | NYU

   deutscheshaus.as.nyu.edu/page/cultural.program.calendar

   Discussion. What If: Imagining the Habsburg Monarchy as Today’s Center of the World. What would have happened if? That is the question that is at the heart of …

3. What If | German | NYU

   german.as.nyu.edu/object/dh.event.WhatIf030713

   What If: Imagining the Habsburg Monarchy as Today’s Center of the World. What would have happened if? That is the question that is at the heart of Hannes …

4. From the host of the Alliance of Civilizations – Sustainabilitank.info

   www.sustainabilitank.info/…/from-the-host-of-the-alliance-of-…

   6 days ago – Sustainabilitank.info: The Sustainable Development Media Think Tank – From the host of the Alliance of Civilizations – an interesting meeting at …

5. What If: Imagining the Habsburg Monarchy as Today’s Center of the …

   www.clubfreetime.com/vieweventdetails.asp?ID=161077

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   What If: Imagining the Habsburg Monarchy as Today’s Center of the World. March 7, 6:30PM. What If: Imagining the Habsburg Monarchy as Today’s Center of …

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   THURSDAY, March 7 at 6:30 PM “What If: Imagining the Habsburg Monarchy as Today’s Center of the World” Hannes Stein (cultural correspondent for Welt and …

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   THURSDAY, March 7 at 6:30 PM “What If: Imagining the Habsburg Monarchy as Today’s Center of the World” Hannes Stein (cultural correspondent for Welt and …

8. Habsburg Monarchy – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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   Today part of, Austria … The Habsburg Monarchy (or Habsburg Empire) is an unofficial appellation … The “Habsburg Monarchy / Habsburg Empire” term was born only posteriorly in the early … World War I …. a b “Czech Republic – Historic Centre of Prague (1992)” Heindorffhus, August 2007, webpage: HeindorffHus-Czech.

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   The Nationalities Question in the Habsburg Monarchy: – Center for …

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   journalists in Europe and America now compare the old Habsburg monarchy to the disoriented East Central Europe of today and hold up the former as a … The implication of these historians’ arguments is that if East Central Europe is not … general celebration of the Habsburg monarchy as “an experimental station for world …

10. Eurozine – The European Union and the Habsburg Monarchy …

    www.eurozine.com/articles/2012-12-10-cooper-en.html

    Dec 10, 2012 – What killed the Habsburg Monarchy was the four years of pounding by artillery that followed. … This last name is an aspiration; but what is the use of an aspiration if … of the new military technology, we live today in a world of uncontrolled … of states, its collapse will not begin at the centre, but at the edges. If …

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DER KOMET

BUCHPRÄSENTATION  -  MARCH 17, 2013, 7 PM

Der Schlüsselsatz dieses Buches findet sich ziemlich weit hinten, gesprochen wird er anno 1914, am 28. Juni, vom österreichischen Thronfolger. Er lautet „I bin doch ned deppat, i fohr wieder z´haus“. Sprach‘s, kehrte auf dem Absatz um, und ging samt leicht verletzter Gattin zurück nach Wien.

Grade waren sie in Sarajewo beim Weg in die Stadt von einem Attentäter mit einer Bombe beworfen worden, die gerade noch einmal abgewehrt werden konnte – möglichen weiteren Angriffen wollte er sich und seine geliebte Frau nicht aussetzen.

Hätte er dies damals wirklich so gemacht, wäre es nie zu dem zweiten Attentat am selben Tag gekommen und die Welt könnte so aussehen, wie sie es in Hannes Steins Debütroman tut.

Es gab keinen ersten Weltkrieg und damit auch keinen zweiten, einen ‚kalten‘ solchen natürlich erst recht nicht. Seit Jahrzehnten herrscht Friede auf der Welt (von einigen japanischen Aggressionen gegen asiatische Anrainerstaaten abgesehen). Amerika ist ein unterentwickelter Kontinent, der weitgehend von Cowboys und Hinterwäldlern besiedelt ist. Technische Neuerungen gehen in aller Regel von Deutschland aus, einem weitgehend charmefreien doch hocherfolgreichen Land der Erfinder, Bastler und Tüftler: eine Art Strebernation im europäischen Staatsklassenzimmer. Frankreich, die Schweiz und San Marino sind die einzigen Republiken, der Rest Europas ist solide in der Hand uralter Monarchien.

Wien wiederum, wo Hannes Steins Der Komet spielt, ist das ziemlich behäbige Zentrum der westlichen und damit der ganzen Welt (denn in den britischen, französischen und deutschen Kolonien tut sich nicht viel), eine Stadt voller Juden und Psychoanalytiker und natürlich einem Monarchen – Seiner Kaiserlichen und Königlichen Majestät, Franz Joseph II.

In dieser Szenerie lässt Hannes Stein seinen jungen und etwas tumben Protagonisten Alexej von Repkin eine Liaison mit einer verheirateten Gesellschaftsdame eingehen, deren Mann gerade auf dem Mond weilt (eine deutsche Kolonie, auf der der Österreicher aber in seiner Eigenschaft als k.u.k Hofastronom arbeiten darf). Die Nachrichten allerdings, die er von dort sendet, sind dramatisch. Ein Komet rast auf Kollisionskurs auf die Erde zu. Voraussichtlicher Einschlagtermin: Mitte September 2001.

“What If: Imagining the Habsburg Monarchy as Today’s Center of the World”

THURSDAY, March 7 at 6:30 PM

Discussion by Hannes Stein (cultural correspondent for Welt), in conversation with Martin Rauchbauer (Director of Deutsches Haus at NYU).

Hosted by Austrian Cultural Forum New York.

DEUTSCHES HAUS AT NYU 42 Washington Mews. All events take place at the Deutsches Haus unless otherwise noted. Tel.: 212.998.8660 www.nyu.edu/deutscheshaus