#diplomacy and book history seminar

[the-music-keeper]

I'm going to die. (It's fine.)

Pray for me, all. Comps are about to kick my behind.

Musical Diplomacy/Book History

1. Loscocco article. (That was a really well-written article.)

Comps

2. Study the baroque materials. (*sigh*)

3. Study the classical materials. (*another sigh*)

4. Study the Schumann materials. (My advisor always gives constructive feedback but good Lord this is his literal specialty.)

5. Study the theory materials. (I should be able to do a quick review of my assignments from the class -- this is why I kept them all.)

Adulting

6. Gym trip #1. (Done.)

7. Laundry. (Done.)

I'm taking the thesis off the list this week because I really, really need to focus on comps. If I get some done this week that'll be awesome, but it will be after and only after I successfully complete my comps.

[leftpress]

louisproyect | July 10th 2019 | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

On their Gray Zone website, Max Blumenthal and his mini-me Ben Norton (aka Ned Borton) have just come out with a 5,600 word diatribe against the Socialism 2019 Conference in Chicago. Most people still tethered to the planet would understand that the main political questions raised by the DSA/ex-ISO conference was whether support for Democratic Party candidates is tactically permissible. Instead, the two geniuses were playing Vishinsky-like prosecuting attorneys making the case that “Socialism is now apparently brought to you by the US State Department”.

They dug up every connection that conference speakers had to inside-the-beltway NGOs and government agencies like the NED to read the DSA and ex-ISOers out of the radical movement. One would think that these two nitwits would put more energy into helping the left put together a conference that did not have such nefarious ties. I can recommend some left groups that are as unsullied as them: Workers World, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Socialist Equality Party, the Spartacist League and Socialist Action. These five groups have never been implicated in smoke-filled room deals with officials of the Deep State, to be sure. In fact, if all of them got together to stage a Communism 2019 Conference, they wouldn’t need to line up a Hyatt hotel. A church basement would do just fine.

To turn NED funding, or any other such body, into a litmus test as to a group’s leftist credentials is a problematic methodology. Its main problem is that it turns the nation-state into the unit of analysis rather than the social class.

For example, they excoriate the China Labour Bulletin for taking money from the NED but do not say anything about what it stands for. If you go to their website, you’ll find articles, for example, on coal mine safety in China that contains such data:

The Daping coal mine in Zhengzhou, Henan province, where 148 people died in a gas explosion on 20 October 2004, had been inspected and approved for an annual production capacity of 900,000 tonnes. In 2003, the mine produced 1.32 million tonnes of coal, and from January to September 2004 it had already produced 960,000 tonnes. Similarly, the Sunjiawan coal mine in Liaoning province, where a gas explosion killed at least 214 miners on 14 February 2005, had been approved for a production capacity of 900,000 tonnes, but its actual output in 2004 was 1.48 million tonnes. The Shenlong coal mine in Fukang county, Xinjiang province, where 83 miners died in a gas explosion on 11 July 2005, had a safe production capacity of only 30,000 tonnes, but during the first half of 2005 alone it had already produced almost 180,000 tonnes of coal.

You will find absolutely nothing about “regime change” in the CLB. It is simply one of the few voices Chinese workers have making their case. If the NED provides funding for their work, there is no stigma as long as the money comes with no-strings-attached.

The truth is that the NED and similar bodies from George Soros’s Open Foundation to Human Rights Watch will always try to take advantage of protests in every corner of the world in order to influence them. Why would anybody expect anything different? To be consistent, you’d have to condemn the student movement in Egypt in 2011 in the same way you condemn CLB. In fact, Global Research—Gray Zone’s closest relative—did exactly that. Tony Cartalucci put it this way in an article titled “The US Engineered “Arab Spring”: The NGO Raids in Egypt”:

It is hardly a speculative theory then, that the uprisings were part of an immense geopolitical campaign conceived in the West and carried out through its proxies with the assistance of disingenuous organizations including NED, NDI, IRI, and Freedom House and the stable of NGOs they maintain throughout the world. Preparations for the “Arab Spring” began not as unrest had already begun, but years before the first “fist” was raised, and within seminar rooms in D.C. and New York, US-funded training facilities in Serbia, and camps held in neighboring countries, not within the Arab World itself.

In 2008, Egyptian activists from the now infamous April 6 movement were in New York City for the inaugural Alliance of Youth Movements (AYM) summit, also known as Movements.org. There, they received training, networking opportunities, and support from AYM’s various corporate and US governmental sponsors, including the US State Department itself. The AYM 2008 summit report states that the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, James Glassman attended, as did Jared Cohen who sits on the policy planning staff of the Office of the Secretary of State. Six other State Department staff members and advisers would also attend the summit along with an immense list of corporate, media, and institutional representatives.

Can you tell the difference between Tony Cartalucci and the Gray Zone? I can’t.

Much venom is sprayed at Anand Gopal and Dan La Botz for the same kinds of reasons. Gopal is an acclaimed journalist who has made repeated trips to Syria from Turkey without Baathist approval. As with other reporters who refuse to write propaganda for the dictatorship, he had to find other ways to interview Syrians. He would crawl beneath a barbed wire fence on the border and follow painted rocks that were place there by villagers to avoid land mines. In a talk on Syria recently, Gopal argued that part of the explanation for the failure of the revolution was that the leadership were small proprietors in the local governments of rebel-controlled territory that insisted on preserving private property relations. If this book is nearly as good as his book on Afghanistan that was a Pulitzer prize runner up, it should gain widespread attention. Meanwhile, Blumenthal’s reporting on Syria is the same as Vanessa Beeley’s, just regime propaganda. At least Beeley went to Syria, even if was limited to 4-star hotels and tea parties with the dictator. Can you imagine Sidney Blumenthal’s golden boy crawling under barbed wire fences and stepping close to land mines to get a story? I can’t.

The attacks on Dan La Botz are just as apolitical. I am just as opposed to La Botz’s special pleading for the reactionary student movement in Venezuela as Blumenthal and Norton but I wouldn’t dream of smearing him as a State Department tool. In fact, this kind of attack has roots in Stalin’s demonization of his opponents who were supposedly trying to overthrow the USSR because both they and the capitalist media described him as a ruthless dictator.

In channeling Stalin, these two pinheads make sure to use the word “Trotskyite” throughout, a term that is a dead giveaway for politics that have largely died out after the collapse of the USSR and the transformation of the CPs into Eurocommunist type parties, except for the KKE in Greece that is cut from the same cloth as Gray Zone.

Looking back at the history of the radical movement, you will find many attempts to take advantage of imperialist rivalry. For Blumenthal and Norton, the only imperialist powers in the world are those in the West. China and Russia are clearly seen by them as anti-imperialist states even though the subjugation of the Uygurs and Syrians that Gray Zone defends are clearly imperialist in character. If Uygurs and Syrians are expected to pass their litmus test, it would mean suicide since the world is divided into two major geopolitical blocs. For all of their ranting against the White Helmets from receiving funding from the West, you would be hard-pressed to see how else they could have assembled a first responder team that has saved thousands of lives. Obviously, Gray Zone must believe that bombing hospitals is warranted in rebel-controlled territory since all the patients are likely carrying the dread sharia-law virus.

Fortunately, people like Roger Casement and others trying to exploit the differences between Anglo-American and German imperialism didn’t take Gray Zone type advice.

Who could blame Irish freedom fighter Roger Casement for trying to strike deals with Kaiser Wilhelm to get weapons to liberate his people? During a period of inter-imperialist rivalries, it was not considered a betrayal of socialist principles to look for such opportunities. In Roy’s case, there was the added dimension of his writing the theses on national liberation adopted by the Comintern. How could you cozy up with imperialists and then write such classic statements of Marxist policy?

This is not to speak of V.I. Lenin’s stance with respect to the same bogeymen. In “To the Finland Station”, Edmund Wilson describes the uneasy feelings that some of his comrades had that were by no means as disgusting as Gray Zone’s attack on Socialism 2019:

In the train that left the morning of April 8 there were thirty Russian exiles, including not a single Menshevik. They were accompanied by the Swiss socialist Platten, who made himself responsible for the trip, and the Polish socialist Radek. Some of the best of the comrades had been horrified by the indiscretion of Lenin in resorting to the aid of the Germans and making the trip through an enemy country. They came to the station and besieged the travelers, begging them not to go. Lenin got into the train without replying a word.

Even after Hitler took power, some nationalists continued in the same vein, the most notable among them Subhas Chandra Bose who relied on both German and Japanese support for an army that could liberate India. Despite this marriage of convenience, Bose was politically on the left and an admirer of the USSR. Indeed, Stalin’s nonaggression pact with Hitler served his policy aims well as indicated by his 1941 Kabul Thesis written just before he travelled to Germany to consult with the Nazis:

Thus we see pseudo-Leftists who through sheer cowardice avoid a conflict with Imperialism and argue in self-defence that Mr. Winston Churchill (whom we know to be the arch-Imperialist) is the greatest revolutionary going. It has become a fashion with these pseudo-Leftists to call the British Government a revolutionary force because it is fighting the Nazis and Fascists. But they conveniently forget the imperialist character of Britain’s war and also the fact that the greatest revolutionary force in the world, the Soviet Union, has entered into a solemn pact with the Nazi Government.

While some sought advantage by aligning with the axis, others found the allies more amenable to their broader goals. While he would eventually find himself locked in a deadly struggle with American imperialism, Ho Chi Minh had no problem connecting with the OSS during WWII as recounted by William Duiker in his 2000 biography “Ho Chi Minh: a Life”:

While Ho Chi Minh was in Paise attempting to revitalize the Dong Minh Hoi, a U.S. military intelligence officer arrived in Kunming to join the OSS unit there. Captain Archimedes “Al” Patti had served in the European Theater until January 1944, when he was transferred to Washington, D.C., and appointed to the Indochina desk at OSS headquarters. A man of considerable swagger and self-confidence, Patti brought to his task a strong sense of history and an abiding distrust of the French and their legacy in colonial areas. It was from the files in Washington, D.C. that he first became aware of the activities of the Vietminh Front and its mysterious leader, Ho Chi Minh.

The next day, Patti arrived at Debao airport, just north of Jingxi, and after consultation with local AGAS representatives, drove into Jingxi, where he met a Vietminh contact at a local restaurant and was driven to see Ho Chi Minh in a small village about six miles out of town. After delicately feeling out his visitor about his identity and political views, Ho described conditions inside Indochina and pointed out that his movement could provide much useful assistance and information to the Allies if it were in possession of modern weapons, ammunition, and means of communication. At the moment, Ho conceded that the movement was dependent upon a limited amount of equipment captured from the enemy. Patti avoided any commitment, but promised to explore the matter. By his own account, Patti was elated.

Right now, the biggest question facing the left is class independence, something clearly of little importance to Ben Norton who is a big Tulsi Gabbard fan. In this interview, he is positively glowing about her political growth even though she had “odious” views in the past.

Trying to stake out a position that will stand out in a crowded “anti-imperialist” left will be tough for Norton and Blumenthal. You can read the same sort of thing in Consortium News, Moon of Alabama, Mint Press, Off-Guardian, 21st Century Wire, DissidentVoice, Information Clearing House, et al. To separate themselves from the pack, my advice to the two careerists is to find some sugar daddy that can throw some money their way. Ron Unz of UNZ Review not only has deep pockets but lots of sympathy for their tilt toward Russia and Syria. That is if you can put up with his neo-Nazism.

[Read More On LeftPress.org]

[uniqueshiksha-blog]

HOW TO PREPARE FOR IAS/UPSC/CSE DURING COLLEGE?

Your time at college is like a plethora of opportunities in your platter to explore new areas of interests, read extensively, participate in extra-curricular activities and take up leadership roles, and manage your studies and assignments at the same time. You must never fall short of extracting the best of the opportunities thrown at you. All this, while preparing for UPSC, may seem a humungous task, but if you have the zeal and passion in you, you can be the all rounder you want to be.

Why from college? You may wonder. To repeat, the time is full of opportunities, not only for outdoor activities, but also with an opportunity to learn and grow. Consider the following points:—

o    Library, Wi-Fi, Books: Who stops you from going to a library in college? It is like a blessing for a UPSC aspirant where they can sit, read, learn, and open up their minds to a variety of new ideas, thinking, and opinions. You can at-least start by spending 2-hours daily reading and analyzing The Hindu newspaper, gain knowledge from periodicals like The Frontline, Economic and Political Weekly, National Geographic, Science Reporter, etc. Later, in non-exam days, you can start reading NCERTs, and read the standard books, collect your doubts, and consult your seniors. Professors and Seniors Colleagues: Never underestimate the power of experience, which no amount of knowledge can surpass. Interact with your seniors; learn from professors, clear out the concepts where you get stuck, no one’s stopping you. Unleash your thirst for knowledge, to know more, to learn more, and keep growing. Speak little, listen more, and keep your ears open even if you do not agree at some point! 

·         Leadership Roles, Ground Realities: Does your college offer you an opportunity to go and teach children in slums? Or voice your opinions in a debate on an important topic? Or attend seminars to learn from knowledgeable people? It is there for you to go and learn, get the exposure, know about ground realities. Work with NGOs’, see how works of the Government are executed at the ground level, and take up internships. You must keep visiting the websites of various Ministries of the Government of India and get hold of opportunities that they offer to college students and participate, for example, Sameer (Students and MEA Engagement Program) launched by the Ministry of External Affairs to expand the outreach of the mission to take Indian foreign policy and its global engagements to students across country and also to look at diplomacy as a career option. 

WHAT SUBJECT TO OPT FOR?

If decided with your optional: Have a liking for History? Want to take up that subject as an optional? Go for BA (Hons.) History programme and read the subject thoroughly. Write your exams well, read everything from the syllabus, and be sincere with yourself. If not decided with your optional: You must opt for a graduation course with the subjects that you really love to read. Be it English literature, or any other language course, or any science or math subject, or any of your favorite humanities or commerce course. Pragmatically speaking, you really have to be thorough and good with your optional, so feel free to explore so that you make a smart choice that you will thank yourself for in the later phase of your UPSC journey. On a broader perspective, make sure to make a smart choice while choosing your electives, the more they coincide the UPSC GS syllabus, the better it is as they will give you a competitive advantage over other beginners. This will also help you a lot in managing and utilizing your time smartly enough to make the most out of it. 

TESTING YOUR PREPARATION:

It is very important to keep testing your preparation from time to time, asses where you are, and keep improving. Never get let down by the marks in your tests, always take them as a torchlight that show you the path to improvement. While joining a test series in the first year itself is not recommended, you must always go and attend open-mock tests conducted by coaching institutes in your city, and always make sure to spend quality time analyzing them. All it takes is one Sunday to write a test and analyze, you may watch a good movie with your peer group the next Sunday, only if it is related to UPSC, and that too when you are in your First year.

In your final year, when you’ll be nearing your exams, and getting done with graduation, make sure you join a test series that suits your schedule and rigorously test your preparation and prepare well for your First Preliminary Exam Attempt. 

FINDING A PEER GROUP:

Never think you are alone in this preparation. You must find a peer group that sustains on healthy competition and rigorous preparation that helps you revise and clear your doubts, and participate in healthy group discussions. Talking to different people from different walks of life will give you a new perspective in ground realities and help you grow as a person, and an insightful future administrator. Just in case you don’t find such a group, keep focused on your preparation, make good friends, enjoy your college life and keep working hard. Remember, you are not there just to slog. Enjoy your preparation, and the only way you can do it is by living it.

[personalcoachingcenter]

Be Successful In LEADERSHIP with these Invaluable Tips

New Post has been published on https://personalcoachingcenter.com/be-successful-in-leadership-with-these-invaluable-tips/

Be Successful In LEADERSHIP with these Invaluable Tips

Being a good leader seems tough. And as we’ve seen throughout history with exiled kings and mutinied ship captains, it’s no easy task to inspire others. It’s easy to get down on yourself and doubt that you have what it takes.

But, like everything in this course, we’re here to tell you that you can do it! The idea of a natural-born leader is a bit of a myth, and it’s possible for anyone to become a leader… or at least more leader-like.

So today, we’ll show you how leadership styles can be different, which skills are most effective, and how to make sure your team stays in sync. I’m Evelyn from the Internets. And this is Crash Course Business: Soft Skills [Intro Music Plays] Nowadays, the word manager has a bad rep and reminds people of a demanding, inflexible, or out-of-touch boss.

On the other hand, a leader is seen as a supportive, visionary, or proactive boss. But those are just stereotypes. A good manager has to have good leadership skills. Managers play a big part in shaping a company’s culture.

They influence behavior and productivity, and set the vibe, which is why organizations are so different. It’s like how Amazon has 14 codified leadership rules that lead to high productivity, but a lot of burnout and competition.

Or how Walt Disney focused on creating a magical experience by calling park visitors “guests” and employees “cast members.” People usually don’t quit companies. They quit managers. We all have at least one story of a boss we couldn’t stand.

So that’s part of why leadership skills are so valuable. Here’s the thing, though: a leader isn’t just a manager or a larger-than-life historical icon. Sure, there are standout activists like Marsha P.

Johnson or supreme court justices like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A leader can be anyone who works well with others and inspires them to achieve their goals. Like a sports team where some players help out just as much as the captains or coaches, in business you can show leadership in small ways too.

An effective leader creates a positive and productive environment. An ineffective leader creates a negative environment with a lot of tension. Leaders have 7 core skills: forming strong relationships, making effective decisions, coordinating teamwork, communicating well, being ethical, motivating others, and providing direction.

Basically, they help bring people together to accomplish things that nobody can do alone! And there are lots of different leadership styles, so you can pick what works best for you and switch it up in different situations.

Like, you wouldn’t deal with a difficult customer the same way you’d pitch a new client. Commanding leaders live by a “do what I tell you” philosophy. They’re forceful, blunt, and straightforward, like a military commander shouting at their troops.

This style is good for getting things done fast or when someone really isn’t listening, but using commands too much can make people frustrated. When it’s warranted, some commanding leaders are effective.

But it can be associated with bad leadership. Visionary leaders give general guidelines and set broad goals, but they basically let people find their own path. They’re the “come with me” leader.

This style is great if your team thrives without much direction. But if you’re less experienced than the rest of your team, you could be perceived as too idealistic and it could rub people the wrong way.

Affiliative leaders focus more on relationships. They’re the “people come first” leaders, who try to solve conflicts by accommodating and making people happy. This style can help us feel supported and motivated… but it can also come at a price.

If people are placed too highly above performance, some people may start slacking off. Democratic leaders are most likely to ask, “what do you think?” They want to build an environment where people are involved in making decisions and most everyone agrees with each decision.

This style can make sure decisions are fair, but it can also make them slow. If a meeting is already taking an hour, we do not need a sharing stick. We need a fast decision! You know the phrase “do as I say not as I do?” Well, pacesetting leaders want you to “do as I do, now.

” They’re more likely to set a highly ambitious goal and adhere to their own high standards. This style can work well for a team of highly motivated people or overachievers, but perfect is the enemy of good.

And it can be exhausting to keep up with a pacesetting leader. But coaching leaders, like every pee-wee football coach, are all about providing support, offering advice, and helping people change and grow.

They’re likely to say, “try this.” This style of guidance is usually helpful, unless the team is super experienced and just wants to get work done without a lot of input. To visualize all of these leaders, imagine telling a team to solve a puzzle in the office break room.

A visionary leader would give an inspirational speech about how everyone has the power to put together a great puzzle, then show examples of teams who solved puzzles as a benchmark. An affiliative leader would use the puzzle as a tool to build a sense of community and get people excited to work on other projects with each other again.

A democratic leader would survey everyone to figure out the best way to put the puzzle together, and then divvy up the pieces each person needs to handle. A pacesetting leader would set a timer and then dive straight in, while expecting everyone to put together as many pieces as they are.

And a coaching leader would show people how to fix the pieces they tried to jam together in a frenzy, and provide a good book on puzzle-solving for everyone to read. Now, this is super simplified. People are complicated and can’t be separated into neat little boxes, so we blend leadership styles together.

Someone like Michelle Obama is usually described as a charismatic leader. She may blend visionary and affiliative styles together and use diplomacy and charisma to smooth things along. And the leadership style that works best for your company or team may not work in everyone’s.

Oprah may be great at leading those book clubs, but she probably wouldn’t be a great hockey team coach. So while leadership seminars and retreats may seem flashy or help you network a little, they’re not going to magically change you into a great leader overnight.

That’s not how anything works. To see how to judge who you should take leadership advice from, let’s go to the Thought Bubble. You’ve been working at a popular ethical clothing brand for about five years, and you’ve just been promoted to lead the communications team.

Together, you’ll write press releases and develop multimedia campaigns for all your new products. You’re understandably nervous. You’ve never led a team before, and you really want to do well. So before you start, you book a ticket to a 2-day leadership conference in Brooklyn.

There are hundreds of attendees, a charismatic keynote speaker, and panels of entrepreneurs. You hear about people’s successes and failures, and by the end of the weekend you’re feeling inspired. But when you get home and review your notes, they’re mostly a list of meaningless buzzwords.

You realize you felt super empowered because of the environment, not because of the information. Most of the advice was pretty superficial, like “be the mentor you wish you’d had” and “be free to be yourself.

” And those hyper-specific leadership tips from that venture capital tech firm CEO don’t really apply to your job. Every organization is different, so seek out advice from people with leadership styles you admire.

That’s way better than listening to blanket statements from people that just seem like influential leaders. Instead of going to generic conferences, read articles from academic sources like The Harvard Business Review.

Or find advice from experts who study and teach business and organizational management. You’ll still need to think critically about anything you read or hear, since everyone has their own biases. And even the best articles won’t lead to instant success, even though they can give you new ideas to try.

The absolute best way to become a better leader is to practice. Try different styles and learn from mistakes to find the approaches that work best for you. Thanks, Thought Bubble! Just in case you’re wondering, Crash Course Business isn’t a leadership seminar.

We’ve got some pretty awesome academics putting together research-based advice. Good leadership essentially boils down to the golden rule, with a twist. Treat others as you want to be treated — and listen to how they want to be treated, because you’re different people! One of the best ways to build people up is to provide positive feedback and genuine praise.

We all like to know that we’re appreciated. We tend to underestimate how much recognition can really mean to people. So, awards like employee of the month or a handwritten thank you note can go a long way to show we’re invested.

Just don’t go handing people plastic keychains as a thank you for 40 years of service. We celebrate achievements all the time with retirement parties, birthday parties, graduation parties, and baby showers.

So we can do it for business achievements, too. Plan an event like a nice dinner to celebrate the end of a big project and reflect on good things that happened. And if your budget is tight or your team is small, you could put together something informal, like going out for drinks to welcome a new coworker.

Nothing brings people together in an office like free cake. Also, it feels good to see positive feedback empower others, but we don’t need to celebrate everything. If your coworker’s best friend’s dog just had puppies, put cute pics on the fridge and leave it at that.

No matter what your company’s celebration style is, your achievements always matter. And you can definitely develop the skills to lead and help other people feel appreciated. So if you take away nothing else from today, remember: Anyone can focus on building leadership skills.

Life and work can change a lot. Pick a leadership style that works for you, but you may need to switch it up. Follow the golden rule, and celebrate achievements to boost team spirit and productivity. No matter how good a leader is, office politics can get complex.

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[newstfionline]

North Korea’s Nuclear Arsenal Threatens China’s Path to Power

By Jane Perlez, NY Times, Sept. 5, 2017

BEIJING--The two men stood together on the reviewing stand in the North Korean capital: a top official in China’s Communist leadership wearing a tailored business suit and a young dictator in a blue jacket buttoned to his chin.

Liu Yunshan, the visiting Chinese dignitary, and Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, tried to put on a show of friendship, chatting amiably as the cameras rolled, but just as often they stood silent, staring ahead as a military parade passed before them.

Nearly two years have elapsed since that encounter, the last high-level visit between China and North Korea. The stretch of time is a sign of the distance between two nations with a torturous history: one a rising power seeking regional dominance, the other an unpredictable neighbor with its own ambitions.

China has made little secret of its long-term goal to replace the United States as the major power in Asia and assume what it considers its rightful position at the center of the fastest-growing, most dynamic region in the world.

But North Korea, which defied Beijing by testing a sixth nuclear bomb on Sunday, has emerged as an unexpected and persistent obstacle.

Other major hurdles litter China’s path. Yet North Korea--an outcast of the international order that Beijing hopes to lead, but also a nuclear state in part because of China’s own policies--presents a particularly nettlesome challenge.

China’s path to dominance requires an American withdrawal and a message to American allies that they cannot count on the United States for protection. But North Korea threatens to draw the United States more deeply into the region and complicate China’s effort to diminish its influence and persuade countries to live without its nuclear umbrella.

At the same time, the strategic location of the North--and its advancing nuclear capabilities--make it dangerous for China to restrain it.

“North Korea may not be the biggest problem to China, but it does add a unique and very serious dimension to China’s task of supplanting America in East Asia,” said Hugh White, a former strategist for the Australian Defense Department. “That’s because it is the only East Asian power with nuclear weapons.”

Even if the United States steps back from the region, Mr. White added, “North Korea’s capability means China can never be able to dominate the region as much as its leaders today probably hope.”

The Trump administration has bet on China to stop North Korea’s nuclear program, shunning talks with Mr. Kim and gambling that Beijing can be persuaded to use its economic leverage over the North to rein it in.

But in doing so, the White House may be misreading the complexity of China’s relationship with North Korea, one that successive generations of Chinese leaders have struggled to manage.

There is growing resentment against Mr. Kim inside China, both in the general public and the policy establishment. China keeps North Korea running with oil shipments and accounts for almost all its foreign trade. But to many Chinese, the young leader seems ungrateful.

A three-day academic seminar in Shanghai last month brought together some critics, who question North Korea’s value to Beijing as a strategic buffer against South Korea and Japan--and warn that the North could prompt them to develop nuclear weapons of their own.

“The cost is to continue to alienate Japan, enrage the United States and irritate South Korea,” said Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University. “If Japan and South Korea feel forced to go for radical options like nuclear weapons, it will badly affect regional diplomacy.”

The spread of nuclear weapons, he added, would thrust China into “a new Cold War” in Asia, perhaps with a beefed-up American military presence. That would frustrate Beijing’s ambitions for regional supremacy while also leaving it vulnerable to being labeled an enabler of nuclear proliferation, tarnishing its international reputation.

“A balance of mutually assured destruction in Northeast Asia will not be a satisfactory situation for anyone,” said Bilahari Kausikan, a former foreign secretary for Singapore. “But it will not necessarily be unstable, and it may be of some small consolation to Washington, Tokyo and Seoul that the implications for Beijing are somewhat worse.”

President Xi Jinping is said to be aware of such risks and to have privately expressed disdain for Mr. Kim.

But like his predecessors, he has resisted punishing sanctions that might cause North Korea’s collapse and lead to a destabilizing war on its border, a refugee crisis in China’s economically vulnerable northeast, or a unified Korean Peninsula controlled by American forces.

All these possibilities could pose as much a problem for China’s plans for ascendancy in Asia as an arms race in the region. And if North Korea somehow survived, it would remain on China’s border, angry and aggrieved.

From Mr. Xi’s perspective, a hostile neighbor armed with nuclear weapons may be the worst outcome.

China has more nuclear-armed neighbors than any country in the world: Russia, India, Pakistan and now North Korea. But that situation is partly one of its own making.

The origins of North Korea’s nuclear program can be traced to a deal in 1976 between an ailing Mao Zedong and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, then the prime minister of Pakistan.

India had tested its first nuclear bomb two years earlier, and Mr. Bhutto wanted to keep up. China viewed India as a potential threat; the two had fought a brief border war. So it agreed to help.

The particulars were ironed out by Pakistani visitors to Mao’s funeral, according to the account of A. Q. Khan, the nuclear physicist who founded the uranium enrichment program of Pakistan’s bomb project.

In 1982, China shipped weapons-grade uranium to Pakistan. And in 1990, it opened its Lop Nur test site to Pakistan and secretly let the country test its first nuclear bomb there, according to “The Nuclear Express,” a book by two veterans of the American nuclear program.

The United States, upset by China’s behavior, including its sale of missile technology across the developing world, pressed it behind the scenes to stop and persuaded it to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1992.

But Beijing’s recognition of the risks of proliferation came slowly, and the genie was already out of the bottle. In 1998, when India conducted five nuclear tests, Pakistan responded with a public test of its own less than three weeks later.

At about the same time, Pakistan was sharing nuclear enrichment technology with North Korea--including centrifuges, parts, designs and fuel essential for its nuclear bombs--in exchange for Korean missile technology and design help. Pakistan later accused Mr. Khan of acting on his own, but he maintains that he had the government’s blessing.

By 2002, the trade was so brazen that Pakistan sent an American-made C-130 cargo plane to North Korea to collect a shipment of ballistic missile parts, a flight that was detected by United States satellites.

While China wanted Pakistan to counterbalance India, it is less clear how it would have benefited from the North’s obtaining nuclear technology. Beijing’s ties with South Korea were improving at the time, but its relationship with the North had hit a rocky patch--again.

Mao is often quoted in the West as saying that North Korea and China are “as close as lips and teeth.” But his actual words, an ancient Chinese idiom, are better translated, “If the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold.” He was warning that China would be in danger without North Korea.

In 1950, Mao sent more than one million Chinese soldiers, including his own son, into the Korean War to help the North fight the United States. By the time the armistice was signed three years later, more than 400,000 Chinese troops had been killed and wounded, a sacrifice in blood that one might have expected to forge a lasting loyalty between the two countries.

But there has always been an edge to the relationship, bred at the start by two Communist rivalries--between Mao and North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-sung, and between Mao and Stalin, who both saw themselves as overlords of the new state created after World War II.

Then Kim showed who was in charge, purging a faction of senior leaders with Soviet connections in 1955 and moving the next year against more than a dozen members of an elite North Korean military group with ties to Mao. Several were arrested while a handful escaped to China.

The Soviets urged Mao to join them in retaliating against Kim. Chinese troops had not fully withdrawn from the North yet. But Mao demurred, according to a recent article by Sergey Radchenko, a professor of international studies at Cardiff University, citing newly declassified documents from Russian archives.

For the most part, Mao tolerated North Korea’s displays of disloyalty because he was afraid of losing it to the Soviet Union, which was the North’s main economic benefactor and provided it with aid that Mao could not match.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, though, China enjoyed more room to maneuver. In 1992, seeking trade, it established diplomatic relations with South Korea, infuriating the North, which was suddenly poorer and more isolated than ever.

From then on, according to Shen Zhihua, a historian of Chinese-Korean relations, “The treaty of alliance between China and North Korea became a piece of scrap paper.”

China now imports more goods from South Korea than it does from any other country, while the South counts China as its largest market for both exports and imports. One of President Xi Jinping’s first foreign policy initiatives sought to take advantage of those ties and weaken the South Korean alliance with the United States.

But North Korea got in the way. After the North conducted its fourth nuclear test in early 2016, South Korea’s president at the time, Park Geun-hye, tried to call Mr. Xi to ask for his help in restraining the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un.

Ms. Park’s aides were unable to arrange the call, according to local news reports. Chinese analysts said Mr. Xi was unwilling to accept Ms. Park’s demand for “the most severe” sanctions against the North.

By refusing to abandon Pyongyang, Mr. Xi lost ground in Seoul.

Ms. Park strengthened relations with Washington and agreed to deploy a missile defense system that Beijing opposed.

For more than a decade, the United States has asked China for talks to discuss what each nation would do if North Korea collapses--but China has resisted, worried that agreeing to do so would be a betrayal.

Among the most pressing questions: Where are the North’s nuclear weapons and who would secure them? How would the two countries’ military forces avoid clashing as they raced to do so? And what should the Korean Peninsula look like afterward?

The Pentagon has asked Beijing to discuss such “contingency plans” since the presidency of George W. Bush, but on each occasion, the Chinese response has been silence, according to a former United States defense official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the subject.

“The Chinese are concerned about how the North Koreans would react,” said Ralph A. Cossa, the president of the Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu. “I think it stops the conversation in the room.”

As tensions have climbed in recent weeks, questions about what China would do in a crisis remain unanswered. But there is a broad understanding that Beijing would be opposed to American forces crossing the 38th parallel that divides North and South Korea.

Global Times, a state-owned tabloid that reflects the opinion of some segments of the party elite, published an editorial last month warning North Korea that China would remain neutral if it attacked the United States.

But the editorial also said that China was prepared to stop any attempt by American and South Korean forces “to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula.”

“The common expectation,” said Yun Sun, a scholar at the Stimson Center in Washington, “is that China is prepared to intervene to preserve a functional North Korean government, as well as the survival of North Korea as a country.”

[nationtriallawyer]

Steven Gursten – Remarkable Customer Service = Extraordinary Law Practice

In this episode of Trial Lawyer Nation, Michael Cowen sits down with Michigan trial lawyer and owner of Michigan Auto Law, along with 3 other law firms, Steven Gursten. As an early adopter of internet legal marketing, Steven has built his firm to become extremely successful in Michigan and is recognized as having the TOP verdict in the state 8 out of the last 12 years, as well as success throughout the country.

Steven recalls in the first 10 years of his practice making it a goal to be a great trial lawyer and have attorneys all over the state refer him cases. To get there, he still recommends lawyers set aside 30 minutes to an hour every day to read and study some area of law. IE: Mondays would be opening statements, Tuesdays might be cross examining, Wednesdays – closings, Thursdays – medicine, and Fridays he wanted to become an expert on the Michigan no-fault law. Even now, Steven utilizes the massive amounts of information he’s accumulated, learned from, and still references. Similarly, Michael recalls and shares a story about learning through the process of proofreading a book another attorney in his office was writing and both agree the continuation of learning after passing the bar is extremely important.

Fast forwarding from 4 attorneys in his first practice to now having 20 attorneys across 4 diverse practices, Michael and Steven discuss the two very different disciplines of running a law firm vs. trying cases, both of which they do very successfully. He also goes into detail on some of the systems he has put in place as a solid foundation, in order to handle the hundreds of cases coming through his different practices, and how much he has embraced different technologies throughout the years. Steven also brings up a great point that in today’s online society, good lawyers will now more than ever be rewarded and bad lawyers will be punished because of Google reviews, Avvo, and other similar review sites, which makes customer service even more important. Meanwhile, those same systems are the ones which help great law firms stay on top of their cases and communicate with their clients to avoid the potential pitfalls easily avoided through systematic communication. Topics such as discussing what not to post on social media or making sure the client is going to their doctors’ appointments can have hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of impact on a case when communication is stagnant. Steven goes on to say that the same type of communication can also have a huge impact when it comes to keeping referring attorneys in the loop on shared cases, citing a recent case he referred to Michael in which he was extremely impressed with the follow up.

The conversation shifts when Michael asks Steven how he’s able to have the other 19 attorneys in his office use all of the systems he has in place. Without hesitation, Steven points to the culture of his firm which has guided everyone in the same direction, keeping them on the same page, regarding the inner workings of the practices. He is also quick to point out that establishing this type of culture starts with the ownership of a firm, and regardless of tenure no attorney should ever be above talking with their clients, which is something he tries to instill in each of his attorneys. Steven also shares some of the small things they do to build the culture, such as whenever they receive a great review, they send it out to everyone in the firm to further demonstrate its importance to the firm as a whole and praise those who are walking the talk.

So many great insights on running a successful firm (too many to list in this brief description) come from Steven and Michael throughout this episode, even down to the psychological testing Steven does with everyone in his firm which helps shed light on their ability to deliver a quality customer experience. Steven also shares several thoughts for those who are trying to build their practices, which any attorney can leverage to not only work in their practice but also on their practice.

The conversation transitions to traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) to which Steven again delivers a mountain’s worth of information in rapid succession. Steven is gracious enough to lay out not only the basics of how TBI cases are identified but also the more intricate and subtle ways clients who’ve suffered from a TBI are not only identified but also misunderstood, as Michael asks him questions to bridge the gap between customer service and delicate TBI cases. Steven’s view of customer service is engrained so deeply in him that even during this part of his conversation with Michael, he can’t help but note its importance when working with those who have suffered a TBI.  Things like displaying a positive image online in order to be seen as approachable, being cognizant of the tremendous diplomacy it takes to work with clients who have had a TBI, and doing everything in your power to genuinely make things as easy as possible on the them. Perhaps THAT is why he doesn’t encounter many of the problems or issues other attorneys do.

Background on Steven Gursten Steven Gursten is recognized as one of the nation’s top attorneys handling serious auto accident injury and wrongful death cases, and No-Fault insurance litigation. He is head of Michigan Auto Law, the state’s largest law firm handling car, truck and motorcycle accident cases for more than 50 years.

Steven has recovered top-reported verdicts and settlements for car and truck accidents for multiple years, including a $34 million truck accident settlement in 2014 with Ohio co-counsel.   In this capacity, Steve was named a Michigan Lawyers Weekly “Lawyer of the Year,” after recovering one of the largest truck accident settlements in Michigan history, as well four other top-reported trial verdicts in previous years.

Steven frequently lectures at legal seminars throughout the country on trial advocacy, trucking litigation, and traumatic brain injury cases.  He is the annual moderator and speaker at the “Advanced Motor Vehicle Litigation Seminar,” offered through 360 Advocacy.   He is the current President of the Motor Vehicle Trial Lawyers Association and a Past Chair of the American Association for Justice (AAJ) Trucking Litigation Group.  Steven is also the chair-elect of the AAJ Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group.

In addition, he serves on the executive boards of the Melvin M. Belli Society and represents the state of Michigan in the Taos Trial Lawyers Society, an invitation-only group of distinguished trial attorneys from around the country.

For more info on Steven Gursten visit: https://www.michiganautolaw.com/firm_profile/attorney-steven-gursten/

[jennab5617305-blog]

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[the-music-keeper]

It's quarter to one in the morning. For once in my life, I didn't send in my final seminar paper less than sixty seconds before the deadline.

One last thing tomorrow. And then it's finally over.

[the-music-keeper]

Kept forgetting to cross things off the list because of the time crunch.

But I did, at long last, get everything on the list done. For once in my life. The thesis has passed the formatting review and now I just need my advisor and reader to say "yup, this is fine" and tell me I can deposit it. And my advisor hasn't seen any of the case studies -- he's only seen the introduction. But there's nothing more I can do until I get the feedback from my advisor and my reader.

So tonight, I relax. Or try to, anyway.

[the-music-keeper]

Nope, the stress isn't ending until May 1.

It's fine. I'm fine. (I'm not fine. I was up until 5 AM this morning. That's not fine.)

Musical Diplomacy/Book History

1. Prepare a bibliography. (I already have my books, which is helpful. I think a lot of my other sources aren't going to be as academic as I'd like, which is annoying.)

2. Prepare a thesis statement. (This is one of those times I might have to pull something out of thin air and hope that's the direction I end up going.)

Thesis

3. Write a 5-page analysis of "Viva La Vida." (One of two case studies in the first chapter.)

4. Write a 5-page analysis of "Edge of Glory." (The other case study in the first chapter.)

5. Write a conclusion. (I give up on making this more than one or two pages. Whatever the conclusion is is the conclusion.)

6. Format my thesis. (Fix the footnotes, insert title pages and all that yada yada.)

Adulting

7. Laundry. (As always.)

Gym trips got sacrificed this week. I didn't have a choice.

Can I just say how many regrets I have right now?

[the-music-keeper]

March has been stressful, but I think I'm almost out of the worst of it.

Depends on how much of my thesis I finish this week. *groan*

Thesis

1. Collect some reviews. (I need to get reviews for five songs, I think? Maybe four.)

2. Collect some detailed Reddit comments on all the case studies. (Eight, to be precise.)

3. Case study #1. (Seriously, I've got to at least get this one done.)

4. Case study #2. (And this one.)

5. Case study #3. (Also this one.)

Research Assistantship

6. Watch the video from my last guest lecture. (My advisor always has good constructive feedback, which I really appreciate.)

7. Prepare the next guest lecture. (Got it done in time, don't worry!)

Adulting

8. Laundry. (As always.)

9. Clean the bathroom. (I actually got this done on Saturday night???)

10. Raise hell with my doctor's office. (Insurance tried four times to get the office's submission for prior authorization updated. Four times. And the office was unresponsive. And now I'm out of tester strips.)

11. Gym trip #1. (Thursday night.)

12. Gym trip #2. (Friday night.)

I need to get some sleep. And then I need to start working in earnest.

[the-music-keeper]

Objective #1 is done and I'm really looking forward to discussion tomorrow!

[the-music-keeper]

Objective #1 is done. I'm praying I don't have a bunch of heavy assignments next week, because if so, I'm going to be in trouble.

I'm already in trouble, to be quite honest.

[the-music-keeper]

Yeah, I didn't make a to-do list last week.

Trust me, there's plenty to do this week, even with spring break.

Musical Diplomacy/Book History

1. Write a short paper on a work in the Novus thesaurus musicus. (Done.)

Thesis

2. Case study #1. (I need to get at least four done.)

3. Case study #2. (This is the only substantial break I'm going to have before I have to submit my thesis for the formatting review.)

4. Case study #3. (So I absolutely have to write like my life depends on it.)

5. Case study #4. (Can you see how panicked I am through the screen? I'm so panicked.)

Comps

6. Study. (I have to study like my life depends on it because comps are in TWO WEEKS???)

Research Assistantship

7. Create a song index for my advisor's book. (Yup. Definitely famous last words.)

8. Create a general index for my advisor's book. (See above.)

Adulting

9. Laundry. (Well, that's one thing off the list at least.)

10. Gym trip #1. (This happened this week!)

11. Gym trip #2. (This also happened this week.)

12. Gym trip #3. (Huh. I actually did go to the gym this week.)

I thought I knew stress before. I was, sadly, very incorrect.

[the-music-keeper]

Objective #3 is ... done for the week? I actually picked up a nice handful of sources while I was at work today, and honestly I'm very pleasantly surprised at myself!

[the-music-keeper]

Just finished Objective #2 -- I started reading the article, took a catnap about halfway through, and then finished the article. It seemed to work.

Objective #12 got done earlier. My friend couldn't join me tonight, so I took a step class.