.Brian Beedham, foreign editor of The Economist for a quarter of a century, died this week, aged 87 F or nearly all the 25 years leading up to the collapse of communism in 1989, two intellects dominated the pages of The Econ- omist. They were Norman Macrae, as dep- uty editor, and Brian Beedham, as foreign editor. Their marks were influential, endur- ing-and quite different. Norman, who died in 2010, relished iconoclasm, and orig- inal ideas sprang like a fountain from his ef- fervescent mind. Brian, bearded, tweed- jacketed and pipe-smoking (or pipe-pok- ing), held ideas that were more considered. It was he who provided the paper’s atti- tude to the post-war world. In that world, nothing was as important as seeing off communism, which in turn could be achieved only by the unyielding exercise of American strength. This view was not in itself unusual. What made it re- markable, and formidable, were the clarity, elegance and intellectual power with which it was propounded. No issue demanded the exercise of these qualities more than the Vietnam war, and probably none caused Brian more an- guish. A man of great kindness, and with- out a hint of vanity or pretension, he was far from being either a heartless ideologue or a primitive anti-communist (though he never visited either Russia or Vietnam to put his opinions to the test). But his unwa- vering defence of American policy drew criticism from both colleagues and readers. Why did he persist in pounding such a lonely trail, even after it had become clear that the American venture in South-East Asia was doomed? The short answer was conviction. His anti-communism was born of a love affair with America. As a young man, at Leeds Grammar School and Oxford, his politics had been leftish. They might have stayed that way. But in 1955 ambition bore him from the Yorkshire Post to The Economist where, after a few months, he won a Commonwealth Fund fellowship and with it a year study- ing local politics in the South and the West of the United States. In America Brian dis- covered a national ideology based on indi- vidualism, bottom-up democracy and an active belief in liberty that meant pro- blems could be solved at home and na- tions could be freed abroad. This was ex- actly in tune with his own emerging ideas. The dispassionate romantic Coming from drab, class-ridden, 1950s Brit- ain, Brian might have stayed. But he felt in- dubitably British. The Suez crisis was be- ginning just as he left for America in August 1956; he so strongly backed the in- vasion of Egypt that he volunteered his ser- vice to the British military attache in Wash- ington, ready even to give up his new American adventure to fight for this hopeless cause. And though he later became enthusiastic about direct democracy (an en- thusiasm, like that for homeopathic pills, which was fostered by his links with Swit- zerland through Barbara, his wife), he was a monarchist to the end. Suspicious of intellectuals, Brian rel- ished exposing the soft, less-than-rigorous- ly-thought-out (he was fond of hyphens) orthodoxies of the liberal left. As foreign editor, he liked to draw unsparing compar- isons between the Soviet Union and the Nationalist regime in South Africa: to deny freedom on the basis of ideological convic- tions, he argued, was no less objectionable than denying it on the basis of colour. It was no doubt Brian’s command of words that helped to make him our Washington correspondent in 1958 and then, in 1963, foreign editor. In this role he wrote leaders on all manner of topics, often argu- ing a difficult case: for nuclear weapons, say; for supporting Israel (another of his unshakable causes) when sentiment was running otherwise; or indeed for the do- mino theory itself, which was never so ringingly defended. Brian was equally skilled as a sub-edi- tor. Articles that arrived on his desk with no clear beginning, end or theme were turned, apparently effortlessly, into some- thing perfectly sharp and coherent. More annoyingly for authors, articles that were perfectly coherent were sometimes turned with a few tweaks, deft as a paw-dab from one of his beloved cats, into pieces that said something quite different from what had been intended. A statement of fact might be qualified by “it is said” or the American invasion of Cambodia would become a “counter-attack”. These intrusions could be difficult to square with The Economist's tradition of open-mindedness; especially as Brian’s own mind was more contradictory than it seemed. His favourite conversation-part- ners were men like Henry “Scoop” Jackson and Richard Perle, hawkish intervention- ists; but he also had an acquaintance, al- most friendship, with at least one kgb man at the Soviet embassy in the 1980s. Away from work, the world he was analysing weekly was kept at bay. He did not own a television set, and found the best use of computers was to listen to American civil-war songs. Some of his pieces were pounded out on an ancient Ol- ivetti in a turret of Barbara’s family castle in the Alps, surrounded by peaks and clouds. Deep down he was a romantic, capable of great human feeling, whose head con- stantly seemed to remind him to keep a rein on his heart. He wrote sympathetical- ly and perceptively about Islam, and mov- ingly about refugees-especially boat peo- ple, and especially if they were Vietnam- ese. They were making his point for him....The Economist May l6th 2015
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.................................................................................................................................................................america's media crisis started with its biggest brands...Help teachers and children generatethe most exciting jobs creation game? A 21st C mashup of a board game like monopoly, a quiz like trivial pursuits, and both a mass media and an app such as jobs creation sharkette tank?. more : why not blog your peoples search for world record jobs creators ..last 7 years of generation of changing education
1 the board - maps of large continents and small islands, of super cities and rural villages, transportation routes for exchanging what people make connected to webs like Jack Ma's gateways where 3000 people co-create live for a day before linking in their networks (Notes on valuing freedom and happiness) join 25th year of debating whether we the parnets and youth can change education in tine to be sustainable
2 rules of jobs-rich trading games - lifelong grade 1 to 69, beginners to experienced connecting many previous games - eg game 1 if your region has no access to a seaport, how are trading dryports developed
3 backup every trial game ever played including successes & failures, searchable by valuable collaboration factors; geographically neighbouring, match particular skill (eg electrical engineerings) around the world
3.1 cases and the cultural lessons from future history that worldwide youth will need to translate if they are to be the sustainability generation
3.2 unexpected joys; eg often the most exciting innovations for linking the sustainability generation come from communities that had the least connections - eg some of the games best players are the women and girls who developed bangladesh as 8th most populous nation starting with next to nothing at independence in 1971; case sino-english translation of world record book of jobs creators- can you help us translate this into other mother tongues - isabella@unacknowledgedgiant.com us we chat line 240 316 8157 - click to diary of good news youth journalism trips 8 to china, 1 korea, 3 arab emirates, 13 bangladesh 1 to japan

Wednesday, December 31, 2008

2008 could twin sister supercity be joyful answer to world recognition that us banking is not sustaining anyone least of all americans' poor

The Economists Unacknowledged giant Norman Macrae penned his last leaders for co-publication dhaka and dc students and women4empowermnent networks of open learning dec 2008 -click souvenir brochure celebrated at The Economist boardroom remembrance party 2010
......

PARTNER WITH PUBLISHERS World Record Book -and games - of Job Creation
father unfunsihed project- how open learning between suster capitals could sustain millennails -helpus search for emergiing clues as human race rises to 4000 times more spend on global communication tech 2030 versus 1946



MY EXPLORATORY VIEW
yazmi need to stay in top platforms of what is a trillion dollar market or 64 trillion dollars if like my family you see open learning as only orbit bank to millennial sustainability; in my concept yazmi doesnt need to be as big in turnover as say khan but far bigger in mutliplying goodwill and how millennials map way above zero sum direct trades- (ushahidi kenya is developing world leader but it does have some senior staff in dc -basically ushahidi is a gps twitter tool but  only scales projects through youth ihubs that are governed to be all the as happiest of youth tech wizardry) - my understanding is stefanos family is trying to be ethiopia portal into that and is looking for ethiopians biggest crop project that intel could help turn big data to small farmer advantage (which with one pop stars signing invest 10% in agriculture out of Ethiopia last years and performing with jim kim and apple Believe in yourself | D'Banj | TEDxWBG)- could have tested if dc and addis aba truly are sister cities (i realise its a poison chalice ethipains have as being biggest diaspora in the most anti-youth capial but..,maybe only yazmi is worldwide enough to bridge such duets)

happy to be corrected- to date all dc's feed future public-private partenerships leave youth out! in a magical way yazmi learning cant leave youth out of PPP


 trusted most by top 10 curricula designer - eg the kim/farmer/abed trio who knowhow tens of millions of girls could save healthcare- probably 10 hours of radio broadcasting aimed at sorting out which primary school teachers wanted their students to graduate into community health would be what needs to be taped first with farmer and kim 

i think my tokyo friend can navigate japans best

if we work on both side of mit and abdul latif saudi (my friends best ex japan partner) then that can be a second top 10

if we can get one of above 2 then it will be easy to explain yazmi to sir fazle abed especillay as brac is mit in dhaka and now the world largest cashless banking thanks to mit-legatum (dubai) support www.bkash.org

I am desperate to search s.korea now i realise that china is a separate entity- however a new zealander who started applying my dad's mad open elearning logics in 1984 sold 10 million books to chinese parents with surprising impacts in some localities as well as chinese superports like singapore - so maybe i can do better in a few weeks

googlie
as testimony to their fathers work the yokoi family are passioante about indonesia
back in 2013 china overtook usa as largest SME direct exporter with 40 billion dollars of direct exprts - its projected to grow 4 times by 2018 with usa less than dounble- but what could chnage the game is if makers markets and womens crafts have one export portal - if he understood his mothers work in indonesia this would be what obama spend post 2016 on

naila given your relations with gates foundation and turner foundation -which one or neither would ever collaborate with open learning- and if neither what is the startyegy og woen empowerment, un and open elarning since sustainability is a load of greenwash when its not action learnt

I can get into any mad avenue agency and confront them on greenwashing but I need partners to scare them out of image and back to reality -sopmething I have edited many journals and books on but now need to make sure The Economist is retrained on in time for 1ts 175th anniversary of emdiuating end poverty in 2018





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