The Foreign Service Journal, December 2013

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | DECEMBER 2013 13 AFSA Scholarship AFSA.org/Scholar AFSPA afspa.org AFSPA CIGNA Dental www.afspa.org/dental AKA StayAKA.com BlueCross BlueShield extras.FEPblue.org Clements Worldwide clements.com Embassy Risk Management embassyrisk.com The Hirshorn Company hirshorn.com/afsa WJD Management wjdpm.com 50 Years Ago November 22, 1963 3:30 p.m. EST P resident John F. Kennedy was shot two hours ago. .... Our Journal was on the press at the time of these events, and as we write these words many of our Foreign Service colleagues have not heard the tragic news. We will leave to others the well-thought-out and deserved tributes to the stature and integrity of this man as he tried to meet the overwhelming responsi- bilities of the high office which he held. To the extent that we can control our own personal sorrow and grief, we shall here pay tribute to his great efforts to handle our foreign policy problems in full consciousness of the United States’ role of leadership in the Free World, and his inspiration to the Foreign Service to meet the challenge of its role in the field. None of us will forget his advice to AFSA that those who can’t stand the heat should get out of the kitchen. He never spared himself, even when the heat was intense—as indeed it was a year ago in October during the confrontation with the Soviet Union over the missiles in Cuba. Amidst the confusion which reigns at the moment of writing, the finest tribute we can pay to this great leader is to rededicate ourselves to meeting the standards of excellence which he demanded of all who served the nation. —Untitled editorial statement, FSJ , December 1963. sprang into action and began posting and archiving deleted posts on its site. Unfortunately for Westerners, FreeWe- ibo does not translate Chinese-language tweets into English. However, if you type an English word into the search box, it will show you posts that use that term. —Steven Alan Honley, Editor Spain Zones Out A s the Journal prepares to go to press, the United States has just moved from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time. (As the saying goes, “Fall back in the fall; spring forward in the spring.”) So we were intrigued by news of a Spanish initiative to toughen up the country’s tra- ditional casualness about timekeeping. While many Spaniards defend the practice of taking afternoon siestas and eating dinner late at night as sacrosanct, the National Commission for the Ration- alization of Working Hours says the coun- try’s lifestyle is simply unsustainable. Not only is the current setup detrimental to promoting work-life balance and gen- der equality, but it is seriously impeding Spain’s economic productivity. Complicating matters further, Spain— unlike Portugal and the United Kingdom, which have the same longitude—is aligned with the Central European time zone, as it has been ever since World War II. The commission believes that finally eliminating this historical anomaly will make the country’s workers healthier, hap- pier and more productive. There is certainly no doubt that Spain is in dire need of an economic boost. Could the commission’s proposal be a step in the right direction? Only time (zones) will tell. — Valerie Sanders, Editorial Intern n