Steverson Collection Book Club

http://www.amazon.com/socialNsecurity-Confessions-Social-Security-Judge/dp/1449569757

The American Corner in Veszprém provides up-to-date, accurate, and tailor-made information on issues related to the U.S. Citizens of the region are welcome to visit the Corner to gain information about the the American educational system, arts, sciences, and economy. In addition to that, our aim is to create links and foster communication between Hungary and the U.S. The Corner focuses mainly on educational, cultural and business issues connecting the two nations. Besides providing basic services, we organize conferences, meetings, exhibitions, and performances.

Detailed Info Website:http://www.americancorner.hu
Company Overview:The American Corners (AC) program is a United States Department of State-sponsored initiative inaugurated worldwide more than 10 years ago.
American Corner Debrecen is a cultural and information center supported by the Embassy of the United States, the City Council of Debrecen and the University of Debrecen.
Mission:The basic function of the American Corner is to make information about the United States available by providing access to current and reliable information about the U. S. via book, video, and DVD collections, the Internet, and through a wide range of local programs.
We hope to bring the American culture closer to the Hungarian people and therefore foster international cooperation.
Products:Knowledge, cheerfulness, friendship... ALL FOR FREE :)

After the Opening Ceremony of the Steverson Collection on 23 April, 2009 the
American Corner Veszprem was excited to announce the start of the
Steverson Collection Book Club. The Club's aim is to give the reading public a chance to get
acquainted with the vast collection of books in the generous donation from Judge London
Steverson and his family. This Book Club is be run by booklovers, for booklovers.
The members are at the heart of all the club does.

Variety is at the heart of our Club. The Steverson Collection contains thousands of used and rare English language books on a variety of subjects of interest; such as, History, Humor, Satire, Myths & Legends, Philosophy, Poetry, Shakespeare, Religion, Reference,
Travel & Leisure, Exploration (The Silk Road, The Spice Route, The
Northwest Passage, Antarctica, The North Pole, and more..)

Steverson Collection Book Club (www.ekmk.hu) meets every Tuesday in the American Corner.
Do you like reading? Join the unique Steverson Collection Book Club. Meet new friends. Memberhip is free, the language English. win a valuable English language book every month. Date and time: 16:30-17:30, September 27, 2011. Venue: American Corner, Eötvös Károly County Library and Cultural Institute, Veszprém, Komakút tér 3.

Join The Steverson Collection Book Club and meet new friends from 16:30-17:30 every Tuesday at the American Corner. Do you like reading? Are you interested in English language books? Memberhip is free, the language of the program is English. Date: August 30, 2011. Venue: American Corner, Eötvös Károly County Library and Cultural Institute, Veszprém, Komakút tér 3.

(Hungarian)
(Részletek) Steverson gyűjtemény könyvklub (Steverson Collection Book Club)
Minden kedden 16:30-17:30-ig az Amerikai Kuckóban.

Szeretsz olvasni? Érdekelnek az angol nyelvű könyvek? Csatlakozz az
egyedülálló Steverson-gyűjtemény könyvklubjához, és ismerkedj meg új
könyvekkel és új barátokkal! A részvétel ingyenes, a program nyelve
angol.

Időpont: 2011. Augusztus 30. 16:30-17:30.
Helyszín: Amerikai Kuckó, Eötvös Károly Megyei

Tony Curtis Received Cultural Diplomacy Award Same Day As Judge Steverson.

Tony Curtis died September 30, 2010 at the age of 85. He will be remembered as both a Hollywood heartthrob and an actor with a gift for comedy. As the author of his own story he was met with mixed reviews. He was the son of Hungarian immigrants. On April 23, 2009 at about 5:00 PM at the American Embassy in Budapest, Hungary he was awarded the Cultural Diplomacy Award by Ambassador April Foley with Jeffrey Levine, the Charge d'Affaires, and Carolynn Glassman, the Cultural affairs Officer at the Embassy.

Mr. Curtis was not the only person to receive the Cultural Diplomacy Award that day in Hungary. Earlier in the day at the American Corner in Veszprem, Hungary Judge London Steverson had been presented with a Cultural Diplomacy Award. It was the opening day of the annual America Week Celebration in Hungary. The highlight of the day was the official opening of the Steverson Book Collection at the Veszprem Public Library. The Steverson Collection was a donation of over 5,000 books to the American Embassy and the people of Hungary from Judge Steverson's own personal collection. Judge Steverson's wife was born and raised in Veszprem, Hungary.

Marjorie Kehe of the christian Science Monitor had this to say about this talented Hungarian-American. Curtis wrote his own life story twice, once in "Tony Curtis: The Autobiography" (1993) and then again in "American Prince: A Memoir" (2008).

In general, "The Autobiography" was better received. Library Journal wrote, "This is Tony Curtis's story in his own words, and it is a corker. His depiction of a boyhood as a poor New York City street kid ... is moving as well as philosophical and is a recurring theme throughout his life and remarkably diverse career.... This is a literate, first-class "star" autobiography, frank and absorbing but not for the prudish."

Publishers Weekly, however, was tougher on Curtis, commenting that,"If Curtis's vanity didn't interfere, one could more readily sympathize with the man as a survivor of a mean childhood and the drug addiction from which he is recovering. Unfortunately, he blames most of his troubles on others, beginning with his parents."

USA Today said of "An American Prince" that it was "[f]illed with fond recollections of [Curtis’s] friendships with the famous and powerful but punctuated, too, by harsh words for Hollywood legends he says did him wrong…. Curtis spares few intimate details about his years as a Hollywood lothario, including his teenage affair with a redheaded, ponytailed Marilyn Monroe.”

Most readers, however, seemed to feel that while Curtis's recounting of his childhood in a tough Lower East Side Manhattan neighborhood (the son of Hungarian immigrants, he didn't learn to speak English till he was 5) was absorbing, Curtis's bragging about his conquests of the opposite sex (he was married five times and had many affairs) was unappealing. ("Fun for a while, then kerplunk .... falls, like a promising cake gone bad," wrote one Amazon reader.)

In the end, however, it is not Tony Curtis the writer or even the man who will be remembered as much as it will be Tony Curtis the actor, star of "Sweet Smell of Success" (1957), "The Defiant Ones" (1958), "Some Like It Hot"(1959), and "Spartacus" (1960). And perhaps that would have been fine with the man who wrote, in "American Prince," that “All my life I had one dream and that was to be in the movies.”

EU Plans to Fingerprint all American Tourists

European Union (EU) leaders plan to fingerprint American and all foreign visitors. Also new steps have been proposed to keep out illegal immigrants as part of a sweeping security overhaul proposed 19 June 2008.

The measures are similar to those already in place in the United States, and have prompted concerns about privacy and the rights of those seeking refugee status in the EU. But EU leaders suggested security is paramount.

At a summit, they said crafting a common border and immigration policy for Europe by 2010 "is a key priority for citizens" and pushed efforts to reach agreement to the top of their political agenda.

In a declaration the EU leaders ordered their governments to draft legislation on tougher new border security measures to ease the way toward a more seamless immigration and asylum policy.

These would include fingerprinting and screening for all visitors who cross the bloc's borders and using a satellite system to keep out illegal immigrants.

The screening would apply to everyone: Those who need a visa to enter EU nations, such as visitors from most African nations, as well as those who do not, such as U.S. citizens.

Foreign tourists on Paris' Champs-Elysees seemed to shrug off the proposed measures as part of the new world security landscape.

"I'm all right with fingerprinting, since I suppose it will enhance safety," said Gary Gordon, an attorney from Lansing, Mich.

Florida teacher Bridget Schmidt said she had "no problem" with fingerprinting, but added, "I don't feel any safer in the United States because they fingerprint people."
If all 27 EU governments approve all the immigration and security proposals mentioned in the 19 June declaration, that would represent one of the largest security overhauls in the European Union and could cost billions of dollars.

The EU leaders brushed off heated criticism from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of a related new EU law on returning illegal immigrants. The law sets loose Europe-wide standards on how to treat illegal migrants in detention and expel them.

Chavez threatened Thursday to cut off oil and bar investment opportunities to EU nations if they applied the new rules, which were passed by the European Parliament.
He claimed the EU law would lead to mass deportations of migrants who would have to be housed in "concentration camps" until they were expelled.

The rules do not foresee that, but set out basic rights, including access to food, shelter and legal advice to illegal immigrants and bind EU nations not to detain them for more than 18 months before deportation or releasing them.

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg laughed off the threat.
"As far as I know, Venezuela supplies oil mostly to the U.S. ... so it would not be that much of a deal," he said.

Slovenia's Prime Minister Janez Jansa, who chaired the two-day summit, said Chavez' reaction was "perhaps exaggerated, perhaps they come from not understanding well enough what this means."

Jansa also insisted the broader new proposals adopted by EU leaders Friday would not curb personal freedoms.

"This directive might be a problem for some but it is a step toward a solution on this issue, so that the EU can really provide for liberties, freedoms on which it is based, without jeopardizing these freedoms," he said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said he would make immigration a top priority when he takes over the EU presidency from Slovenia next month.

The EU leaders said they would intensify work on approving measures that include how to attract highly skilled workers, what rights to give non-European residents and signing pacts with other countries to ensure they take back illegals caught in the EU.

"Modern technologies must be harnessed to improve the management of external borders," the leaders said. They asked their justice and interior ministers to present border proposals, including a Web-based pre-travel authorization system for foreigners by 2010.

Setting common security standards at airports, harbors and land-border checks is meant to filter out illegals and catch crime gangs and terror suspects before they enter the EU's 24-nation passport-free travel zone.
Friday's 19 June agreement is meant to revitalize efforts to draft common immigration standards, which were first launched by leaders in 1999.

Progress on crafting other common immigration rules has been bogged down by the complexity of aligning national immigration rules and strong disagreement over whether national authorities should give up control over who they let into their countries.

A Most Dangerous Place To Visit.

MOST DANGEROUS CITIES FOR AMERICANS TO VISIT

The US State Department has issued travel warnings for Tijuana, Mexico, the most dangerous city for Americans to visit close to home. Innocent bystanders are being killed.
Newspaper reporters have disappeared. Middle-class business men and their families are being kidnapped. Innocent tourists are being shaken down for bribes by local police. The U.S. State Department issues regular travel warnings, which are recommendations to avoid certain cities or countries.

Faced with the assassinations of top police officials, beheadings of suspected narco-trafficers, body parts being thrown on the beach at Rosaritos, Baja Calafornia, rolling gun battles on public streets, and a deadly shootout in a hospital in Tijuana in April 2007, Mexican President Felipe Calderon has dispatched over 30,000 federal troops to combat the violence. In Tijuana Federal Troops went from one precinct to another and removed the guns from the local police, because many were suspected of carrying out executions for the drug cartels. It appears that the violence is getting worse. The newly appointed director of the anti-drug intelligence force was shot dead in Mexico City. In the State of Sonora across the Arizona border, a gun battle left 22 people dead and many more wounded.

More than 1,000 people have been killed already in 2007 in drug-related violence, according to the Mexican newspaper El Universal. In 2006 more than 2000 people were killed in drug-related violence. More than 200 police officers have been killed. It is not clear whether the police were killed because of their involvement in fighting the drug trade or because they were a part of it says Jose Arturo Yanez of Mexico City’s Professional Police Training Institute. Mexico has become the second deadliest country for journalists behind Iraq. A survey in March showed that 85 percent of the people believe that President Calderon’s action will only lead to more violence.

A video last month on the website YouTube showed a man being beheaded next to the message “Do something for your country, kill a Zeta”. That was a reference to the hit men for the Gulf cartel that is believed to be warring against the Sinaloa cartel for the lucrative drug routes into the US.

Anyone visiting Mexico for more than a quick, one time, sight-seeing visit needs protection says risk consultants such as New York-based Kroll Inc. One of the first things to keep in mind, says Kroll's Senior Vice President Kelly McCann, is that the U.S. government is not going to rescue a civilian in the event of a kidnapping or hijacking overseas. "That is a huge misconception," says McCann. "Overseas, there is no responsibility by the U.S. government or its consulates to save you." "The guiding rule is to ask yourself if you are prepared and informed," says McCann. "You can travel safely in Mexico, but you have to do it right, such as avoiding known drug trafficking areas or red light districts”.



Fear of being kidnapped is prompting some of Tijuana's middle-and upper-class families to move across the border to San Diego County neighborhoods where they feel safer.
A Tijuana businessman said his family paid several hundred thousand dollars for his release after he was kidnapped this year. The family never reported the incident to police, he said. Afterward, he and his family decided to move into San Diego and San Diego county.

Victor Clark Alfaro, director of the Tijuana-based Binational Center of Human Rights, said more kidnappings have occurred over the past few years, mainly because drug trafficking groups are finding kidnapping to be a relatively easy way to earn quick cash.
"It's a way to finance their activities," Alfaro said.
In a recent interview with Tijuana's Frontera newspaper, Jaime Valdovino Machado, president of the Tijuana Chamber of Commerce, said the city's business people "don't feel secure" because of crime and kidnapping risks. "It's a binational culture, and the question of living in Tijuana or not has been around for many years," said Daniel Romero Mejía, president of the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial de Tijuana, an umbrella group of business organizations.
Typically, families that make the move have dual citizenship or U.S. residency status through family or marriage.
Nine kidnapping cases were reported to Mexican state authorities in 2005 in Baja California, according to Raúl Gutierrez, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office.
But that number is believed to be low because many cases are not reported to police. Family members often are afraid that it would anger the kidnappers or that local police are in collusion with the kidnappers.
"It's common that one learns when talking with friends of the middle or upper classes that this or that person has been kidnapped, and that's how you usually find out because they aren't usually made public," Clark said. "The statistics don't reflect the reality."
In one of case, he said, the family paid $150,000. In the other case, he said, the family paid $1 million – and then moved north of the border. That person still maintains his business in Tijuana, Clark said.
Most families don't want to talk about the experience. The kidnappers' method typically is to grab people at gunpoint as they are on the way home or headed to work. Most of the victims are men.
The Tijuana businessman who contacted the Union-Tribune shared details of his kidnapping but asked that they not be published out of concern for his safety.
Abraham Cecena, an agent with Prudential California Realty's Chula Vista office, said he is seeing more people from Tijuana moving to places such as Eastlake and Rancho del Rey.
"It's something that is becoming of greater concern to people down there, especially affluent families," he said. "The crime over there is just getting out of hand, from what they are telling me, and they don't feel safe."
The communities that people are moving to are the same places where some members of Mexican drug cartels – who also commit kidnappings and abductions – live for similar security reasons.
In 2004 a man charged with participating in kidnappings for the Arellano Félix drug cartel was linked to a home in Otay Lakes. Others with ties to the cartel, such as money laundering suspect Ivonne Soto Vega, have been found to be living in upscale communities such as Bonita.
U.S. law enforcement officials say they also have noticed that kidnappings have prompted people to move north.
Kroll Inc., an international risk consultant, estimates that 3,000 kidnappings occur in Mexico each year. In Latin America, only Colombia surpasses Mexico, according to the firm.
Those who don't move are taking greater precautions, said Ron Kimball, president of a San Antonio-based company that bullet-proofed 50 cars for Mexican residents last year.
The company, Texas Armoring Corp., equipped six of those for Tijuana families, Kimball said.
"In almost every case, they have told me that they had a family member who has been kidnapped and rescued by ransom," he said. "Normally, it's people involved in major industries like banking or ranching."
Armoring a sport utility vehicle can be done in 90 days and costs about $70,000, Kimball said. The idea is to give the driver enough time to survive an ambush and drive out of danger, he said.
Victor de la Garza, an assistant state attorney who oversees Baja California's organized-crime investigations – including kidnapping cases – didn't return phone calls. If convicted in Baja California, a kidnapper faces 20 to 40 years in prison.
Kidnappings of business people or other residents are typically committed by drug trafficking groups or by rings that specialize in kidnappings.
Those are different from the abductions that drug trafficking groups carry out against rivals, informants or people who owe them money. In those cases a ransom may be collected, but the person is often killed.
Mexican federal authorities often intervene in cases that have a strong drug link. But sometimes residents turn to them to investigate other kinds of kidnappings because they see federal agencies as more trustworthy.
An official with the Mexican attorney general's office in Tijuana said federal agents are investigating three kidnapping cases not connected with drug trafficking groups. The official declined to be named because of the agency's policy against talking with the media.
The rings evade authorities by negotiating on phone lines routed through other cities or countries to make the calls harder to trace. Kidnappers often leave the community once their job is done.
While most kidnappings last a week to a month – enough time for the family to negotiate and sell off assets to pay the ransom – quicker variations have emerged.
"Express kidnappings" take place when a person is targeted for a smaller amount of money – such as $5,000 to $30,000 – and is released within a few days after the family provides the cash.
Other groups have used extortion to commit "virtual kidnappings" in which a caller demands money from people so that they won't be kidnapped. In 2003, 10 members of Tijuana's business community reported such threats, and some ended up placing as much as $40,000 in designated bank accounts.
Romero said ensuring the safety of the city's business class is important for keeping and attracting investment. He said Tijuana's business leaders have been meeting with police.
"We need a greater police presence in the area to prevent these kinds of activities," Romero said.