Omar Ha-Redeye taught a seminar on Online Reputation Management at the Leveraging Social Media session held at the Schulich Executive Education Centre on Monday, March 28, 2011.

Omar Ha-Redeye conducting a training session on social media for the public sector on Wednesday, March 9, 2011, for the Masters Certificate in Public Management at the Schulich Executive Education Centre (SEEC).

Apparently some people do have warm, fuzzy feelings for tax agencies (an issue discussed during the presentation), and this press release was received around the same time of the presentation:

“I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of people of all nations.”

Omar Ha-Redeye spoke to Charles Adler on his radio show.

They discussed the book by Robert Shiller and George Akerlof, Animal Spirits – How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why it Matters for Global Capitalism.

A summary of a talk by Shiller at UWO is posted at LawIsCool.  Adler interviewed the Nobel Prize winning author Akerlof, followed by a discussion with Omar Ha-Redeye.

He also asked about the role of government managing the economy.  Specifically, he asked about President Obama’s move to axe GM chief Rick Wagoner.

A recording of the interview can be heard here.

In his first interview in the Arab world, Obama states the following:

“…start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating — in the past on some of these issues — and we don’t always know all the factors that are involved. So let’s listen.”
“Ultimately, we cannot tell either the Israelis or the Palestinians what’s best for them. They’re going to have to make some decisions. But I do believe that the moment is ripe for both sides to realize that the path that they are on is one that is not going to result in prosperity and security for their people. And that instead, it’s time to return to the negotiating table.”
al Qaida leaders and Osama bin Laden “seem nervous” now that they don’t have George W. Bush as a recruiting tool
“There’s no actions that they’ve taken [i.e., terrorists] that say a child in the Muslim world is getting a better education because of them, or has better health care because of them.”
“We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith’s name. I cannot respect terrorist organizations that would kill innocent civilians and we will hunt them down. But to the broader Muslim world what we are going to be offering is a hand of friendship.”
“I have Muslim members of my family.  I have lived in Muslim countries.”

Full text of the interview here.

The whole world’s attention was focused on the inauguration of President Barack Hussein Obama.

The Volokh Conspiracy provided an interesting and amusing piece on how Condoleeza Rice was actually the first black president for 1 min. between 12:00 and 12:01, from George W. Bush to Joe Biden.

Obama’s inaugural speech, the speculation of many prior to today, was highly praised.  But there was ample room for criticism as well, considering the global community has probably never paid such close attention to an American president.

Jordan Furlong picked this sentence as his favorite,

[To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that] we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

Furlong rightly noted that an important first step would be not propping “various dictators up.”

Canadians generally might have taken issue with these words:

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have travelled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

Let it be told to the future world … that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive … that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet (it).”

Those patriots were known as traitors in what is now Canada.  And that enemy, and the common danger…  well, that’s us.  These positions, which are probably to be expected of any American leader, are much more difficult to reconcile with his statements in the same speech calling for leadership and unity.  It does make it easy to relate to blanket characterizations of contemporary threats, because at one time we too were the threat..

Other Canadians have referred to the speech as a “cliched dud.”

But in a refreshing opening move, Obama announced as one of his first acts in office that prosecutions at Guantanamo Bay would be suspended for 120 days.  The world will be watching when the rest of his promises come through.

Change IS Here

Jean-Michel Picher (LLB/MBA ’06) spoke at UWO Law on “Working for Change on the Obama Campaign: An inside view on the election that made history.”

Picher worked on Barack Obama’s recent presidential campaign in the U.S. As an American citizen, he has a long history of political campaigning, including John Kerry’s Presidential campaign, working for former prime minister Paul Martin, and Ken Dryden’s Liberal Leadership in February 2007.

Before joining the Obama team, Picher completed his articles at Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP in Toronto in June 2008.

The video from the Progressive Bloggers Meetup has been posted by Garry Wise.

The video features Deb Prothero of Seeing Red in Southwest, Omar Ha-Redeye of Law is Cool and Slaw, and Jennifer Smith of Runesmith’s Canadian Content.

The topic of the interviews was the impending election in the U.S.  Everyone interviewed supported Obama of course.

Another interview from the last Podcaster Meetup in Toronto just went live.  NinjaRadio of Hot Fossils and Rebel Matter Show has an interview with Omar Ha-Redeye, Connie Crosby (Community Divas) and Shadow and James.

Strangely, the conversation turns to Omar’s voice, but also podcasting and podcamps, Twitter and of course a touch of  politics considering the time of year.

There’s also a really neat picture that just had to be reproduced here.

From Time Magazine

The most important thing that Barack Obama brings to the presidency is his willingness to reason. He won his presidency not as a black American but as a reasoning American who happens to be black. America needs a change from the reign of “obtruding false rules pranked in reason’s garb” — to use John Milton’s words. Attacking Iraq for an imagined link with 9/11 was daft. Having unaffordable health care is not a reasonable way to run a rich society. Destroying the environment is not smart. Spreading the wealth a bit in a deeply unequal society is not as offensive to reason as it appeared to Joe the noncertified Plumber.

The economic crisis has been caused by doctrinaire economic policies, and the solution calls for remedial actions that are reasoned — and seen to be reasoned, to generate confidence. In politics, the alienation of the world is not only because the U.S. has been so unilateral but also because the unilateral choices often have been so dumb.

Reasoning also demands re-examination. Obama has to reassess whether he has got the right balance in policies on trade. On Afghanistan, he must examine how to balance his military toughness with the building of social infrastructure there and finding ways and means of getting Pakistan’s energetic — and largely secular — civil society on his side, not against him. Obama may have to reassess some of his campaign rhetoric while firmly retaining his largehearted reasonableness.