November 13-19, 2003

mixpicks

"America and the Middle East After Saddam" honoring Samuel J. Savitz with keynote speaker Kenneth M. Pollack

The Foreign Policy Research Institute and FleetBoston Financial go into attack mode -- albeit nicely -- for the FPRI's annual dinner this week, when they honor Philly's Samuel J. Savitz, a former Army Reservist, as well as board member of PAFA, the Mann and the Kimmel; the evening will also feature speaker Kenneth Pollack, former director for Persian Gulf Affairs, and Near East and South Asian Affairs for the National Security Council. Maybe that doesn't sound great for the digestion. But if you can eat heartily, knowing kids are getting killed in a far-off region that hates our intervention -- have the veal, already. Pollack's books like The Threatening Storm (Random House) as well as his role as CIA Iraq-Iran military analyst and director of research for the Saban Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the Brookings Institution, make him more than just your average fright-frantic, spin-mastering, spastic TV pundit -- more fair than O'Reilly, more frank than Franken. Your dinner dollars benefit FPRI, a nonprofit organization that funds scholarships devoted to study of "critical foreign policy issues."

"America and the Middle East After Saddam" honoring Samuel J. Savitz with keynote speaker Kenneth M. Pollack, Thu., Nov. 13, 6 p.m., reception (followed by dinner and awards), $350, Four Seasons Hotel, 18th and the Parkway, 215-732-3774, ext. 105.

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