eNewsHound

This city always gets to me.  Every time I come to New York, thinking that I’ve already seen it all, I end up seeing more, or at least something new.  The last time I was here, holing up in my usual spot where I can find hospitality that agrees with me, I was setting things in place in my room, and had my music playing off of my laptop.  I always like to start a project by listening to the Pogues, it has something to do with a streak of superstition that I blame on my Irish grandmother.  So when the Thousands Are Sailing song came on, it was background music until the lyrics started to dig into my unconsciousness.

This song is about New York, and it’s particularly about the Irish experience here after the potato famine in 1947.  It moves forward in time, past JFK, and into the present, or at least the 80s when the song was written.  It’s got a happy beat, like all their songs, but an incredible sadness buried in it, just like all their songs, too.  This is a song that tells the history of the Irish crossing, and lamenting all of those who never made it across the ocean.  I think of my great-grandmother, born in one of these coffin ships during the passage, and think of how tenuous that life was, and the soft miracle that she made it into the world.

The song was written by one of the long-term Pogues, Phil Chevron.  He was writing about his own experience in visiting New York, after learning about it through the eyes of Irish history.  It’s a very patriotic song, and one of the best kinds of patriotic songs, revealing deep sadness and tragedies that are the bedrock of the lives of those who see promise, and keep pushing on in spite of the difficulties of the struggle.  Chevron is working more in theatre now, having survived a very rough bout of living as a Pogue, and his vast experience in musical forms are coming to light in the recent and splendid work.

Often when we think about campaigns and elections we think of rallies, shaking hands, holding babies, and endless commercials on television.  While it is still important to get out into the streets and talk to people, we are quickly creating a more technological approach to campaigning.  These days most politicians use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites to keep their potential constituents informed about their policies and their progress on the campaign trail.

With an increasing number of people going online to investigate each candidate, their policies, and their history, it is more important than ever that politicians utilize online reputation management.  It only takes a few minutes for the opposing party or an overzealous competitor to post derogatory comments or blog about a candidate and seriously damage their reputation and, potentially, their campaign.  With established reputation management, damage control in such a situation would be minimal if at all.  On the same token, search engine optimization services can help boost the ranking on the candidates personal and campaign websites.  This will also help voters find the most accurate and direct information for each candidate.  By properly ranking their sites, candidates can share with voters their policies, past terms in office, as well as their voting history if they served in the Senate or Congress.

The internet is constantly revolutionizing the way we live, work, and vote.  As more information becomes available online, the more we use it to research and investigate products, services, and candidates.  For candidates it has never been more important to stay on top of their campaign and what it being said about them.  For voters it has never been more important to stay informed, but, on the other hand, it has never been easier.

The field of anti-money laundering is a growing field, as the war against terrorism and corruption continues, jobs in this market are available for those who are qualified and certified. There is an organization that is member based, that will serve to educate those interested in this kind of career as well as to help the development one’s career and networking opportunities. This is the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS). Along with personal development, the organization also offers resources and services to the businesses and the financial institutions of the world as they all attempt to step up their efforts to take down such criminals and criminal activity.

They will not only come into the institution and offer training courses, but they will audit the policies and procedures that serve to identify and those who are knowledgeable in this field, and who will offer their special services in the regulations and procedures, and efficient policies surrounding the goals of the anti-money laundering field. Their mission has been to sufficiently advance the professional skills, experience and knowledge of all those enforcement agencies who have been dedicated to the prevention and detection of such cases of money laundering throughout the world, as well as the combined efforts of the policies and the procedures.

These are not just simply procedures to be practiced, they are laws that are enforced by the federal government as a result of the US Patriot Act and the US Bank Secrecy Act. The ACAMS will help institutions to better understand the laws, so that they are able to stay in compliance with them. For most companies it is best to have one person overseeing the procedures, a compliance officer. ACAMS provides training in this area, so that those officers become certified as specialists in the field of anti-money laundering. This is a wise investment for the financial institutions and the companies required to follow the laws of the two Acts, as they will serve to prevent any cases or alleged cases of money laundering from happening within their businesses.

The FCPA, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act sets out to ensure that no American company will become involved with foreign companies that may have connections to such acts of corruption as terrorist financing and money laundering.  These two criminal acts are often found hand in hand.  Two countries most noted for corruption in these current times are Somalia and Burma.

They have made it to the top of that list for a few years running, a list compiled by Transparency International.   This list rates countries based on the perception of the public, and of the politicians and officials of each given country.  The same list reveals that the countries with the least amount of corruption, remain to be New Zealand, Finland and Denmark.

What has been concluded by political scientists, is that the countries that are either developing, or torn apart by war or conflict, tend to rank at the top of the corruption list.  These are places wherein the public and private institutions remain perpetually crippled or in many cases are simply non-existent.

There are many accusations that can fly, especially from foreign countries, towards the situations in Burma and in Somalia, but without access to resources and funding, these countries are on one their own, basically, and each citizen remains responsible for just doing the best that they can in any given moment.

Until 1988, Burma was the jewel of the region in Southeast Asia, but now through this corruption, the mismanagement of the government, and repression, this is one the worst places to attempt to live and to exist, in any healthy fashion what so ever.

Anarchy and violence has been the curse in Somalia since 1991, when Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown by warlords.  These gangsters have since turned on each other, and the country is a mess because of it.  Control is being sought however, as it is every one’s dream to just live, to just simply live in harmony.

The visit to Pyongyang this week by the New York Philharmonic – and American patrons of the orchestra – provided their North Korean hosts with an unaccustomed show of defiance.

During one of the carefully scripted tours of the capital prior to Tuesday’s concert, two dozen well-to-do Philharmonic patrons surprised their omnipresent guides by refusing to toss flowers before the enormous statue of the late “Great Leader” Kim Il Sung, father of the current leader, Kim Jong Il.

“They offered us flowers at the hotel to put in front of the statue,” says G. Chris Andersen, founding partner of GC Andersen Partners, a New York investment banking firm. “We declined that opportunity, saying we don’t do that in our country.”

That small act of defiance was one sign of an ambivalence shared by many of the more than 100 musicians, who flew to South Korea to give the final concert of the tour Thursday. While deeply moved by extraordinary displays of hospitality as well as the cheers of the audience, some of the musicians were uncomfortable about playing in a nation suffering from lack of food as well as political persecution.  Read more