U.S. Department of State
Other State Department Archive SitesU.S. Department of State
U.S. Department of State
U.S. Department of State
U.S. Department of State
U.S. Department of State
The State Department web site below is a permanent electronic archive of information released online from January 1, 1997 to January 20, 2001. Please see www.state.gov for current material from the Department of State. Or visit http://2001-2009.state.gov for information from that period. Archive sites are not updated, so external links may no longer function. Contact us with any questions about finding information. NOTE: External links to other Internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein.
U.S. Department of State


Departments:

Letters to the Editor

Please send your
letters by e-mail to
Letters to the Editor.


From the Editor

As we put the wraps on our December issue and face a new millennium, we also pause to look back at what the past year has brought.

We continue to be thankful for the loyalty of our readers, and we are grateful that we were able to reward your loyalty recently with full-color printing, starting with November's issue. Some of you at our far-flung posts may not have received your copies yet, and we will be working with others in the coming year to improve distribution.

We are encouraged by the number of new Foreign Service members coming on board and by the thousands who have expressed interest in taking the Foreign Service written exam, showing that interest in Foreign Service careers is as strong and vibrant as it has ever been.

We are encouraged, too, by the fact that all but five of our Foreign Service Nationals injured in the bombing of our embassy in Nairobi have returned to work. Among those still recuperating at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., is Livingston Madahana, who suffered serious eye injuries. He and his wife Judith, who has been with him during his recuperation, were expecting a baby girl when we went to press. Frank Pressley Jr., who was injured seriously in the same explosion, and his wife Yasemin, also an embassy employee, who miraculously escaped injury, were blessed with a baby boy last spring after arriving at their new post in Frankfurt.

So the season and symbols are real. We enter the new century celebrating life, imbued with hope and anticipating the new challenges the millennium will surely bring.

Carl Goodman


We encourage your responses to particular articles featured in State Magazine Online. We do, however, reserve the right to edit parts of letters for space requirements. Only signed letters will be considered. Names may be withheld upon request.



Hail, Octavian

Your feature on Thessaloniki, Greece, in September's issue reawakened very pleasant memories of our assignment there 30 years ago. Even then, excavations for basements and sewers were often halted because of the discovery of ancient Greek and Roman ruins.

It was not Julius Caesar, however, who defeated Brutus and Cassius at Philippi in 42 B.C. (Julius was assassinated two years earlier.) The victors were Julius' adopted son Octavian and Antony. Octavian had formally taken his adoptive father's name and was called Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus--until he gave himself the exalted name of Augustus.

John G. Peters
Retired consular officer
Montgomery Village, Md.


The Original Names, Please

I had less sympathy than I might have for the parents of the 4-year-old who, in your September issue, suffered misapprehension that his Foreign Service officer mom was "going to die" instead of "going to Dar." That's because of a practice unworthy of us as members of foreign affairs agencies: We shorten or abbreviate the names of cities or countries.

I feel uneasy when a diplomat from another country talks familiarly about "Philly." I consider it disrespectful to the Argentines and Uruguayans when the British call Rio de la Plata "River Plate" instead of Silver River. In the case of Dar es Salaam, it is even worse because the full name has a valuable meaning in the original language (haven of peace).

If we want to enjoy a special feeling of status as insiders, I recommend that we use original language names with original language pronunciations.

Dan W. Figgins
Retired Foreign Service officer,
Raleigh, N.C.


Donors Always Needed

The number of donors to the leave donation program varies from bureau to bureau. From January to July there are fewer donors, and the donations are smaller, averaging between 4 and 40 hours. From August through December, however, the donations range from 24 to 80 hours and sometimes more. The number of donors increases, too, toward the end of the year. And although there are hundreds of donors yearly, more are always needed.

Veda H. Grimes-Barton
Bureau of Financial Management and Policy


Invaluable

My compliments to you and your staff on your October edition. The articles were excellent. I look forward to reading every issue of State Magazine, an invaluable publication.

Nicole Peacock
Bureau of Public Affairs

   

HomePage | Previous Department | Next Department