Tag: news

• November 9, 2025

  #55: An Absence of Appropriations

  The federal government of the United States of America has been closed for 40 days.  This ongoing shutdown already set the record as the longest in history, and it is still going.  Approximately 670,000 federal employees remain furloughed while another 730,000 continue working without pay.  Those of us working in the latter category are known…
• September 29, 2025

  #54: UNGA 80

  In September 2023, my coworkers and I experienced our first United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).  To those unfamiliar with the foreign affairs conference that takes place annually in New York City, I wrote in Blog #27 about the opportunity I was given to explain the event to a curious young man and his family while…
• December 25, 2023

  #30: Operation Santa Claus

  U.S. government employees who are experts in economics, politics, defense, agriculture, trade, security, technology, public relations, environmental issues, and other topics are dispersed in nearly 300 locales across the globe.  But diplomacy is not a unilateral concept.  In fact, it doesn’t work at all without reciprocity.  This is precisely why there are a few thousand…