Author Archives: Alli

Facebook wants to know. This is the question the Facebook alert system asks you if you are marked via your locational status as someone within the geographic proximity of an attack, natural disaster or otherwise life-threatening situation (Toor, 2016). The … Continue reading →

Houston, he’s landed. Yesterday, Scott Kelly, the first American astronaut to spend almost an entire year in space, landed safely in Kazakhstan to cheers from his fellow earthlings (Farey-Jones, 2016). Kelly, who spent the last 340 days of his life in orbit … Continue reading →

In Hawaiian, the word “Pono” means “righteous, the one, the whole.” It’s also the name of Neil Young’s new music player that has quite a few people talking. While the merits of the player, which has a hefty price tag … Continue reading →

At what point does “edgy” become offensive? Do social themes become diluted when they are integrated into promotional campaigns for commercial sales? Is poor taste relative to our cultural perspective or universal? And who gets to decide? As we’ve learned … Continue reading →

I would like to close out this semester’s blog with a note about someone I worked with who gave her life working in communication. Anne Smedinghoff worked with me at US Embassy Kabul. She was killed in early April while … Continue reading →

In the majority of Afghanistan, women have re-attained their freedoms. Many women now can live, work, get an education and vote. With the increase in rights and security, the response has been an outcropping of women in the legislature, education, … Continue reading →

Entering a war zone as a strategic communicator is always tough. Coming in fresh, you quickly see people’s hopes and dreams of fixing the crisis “lay scattered across the desert floor” (Lawrence, T.E.1922). In Kabul, the future of the Afghani … Continue reading →