Since then, Americans have had little interaction with Cuba and most know little about the Caribbean country or its culture. But a group of seven Cuban musicians is trying to change that - one New England school at a time.

Economic shortages and the U.S. embargo make it difficult to get most sporting equipment there. For skateboarders, it was nearly impossible. "We both said right away, 'We are going there,' " Lecour recalled.

With roughly 10,000 instruments from more than 200 countries, the place would have been cacophonous if they were all playing out loud. Instead, wireless headphones activate when you walk up to a display, which has the instrument itself as well as a video showing a musician playing it in its native setting.

Americans bring some distinctively American perspectives to the employment of different instruments of power, hard and soft.

An agreement between a prominent local tribe and US and Afghan forces in one of the most contested areas of Afghanistan to help stop Taliban attacks could mark an important moment in the war.

The United States lost an exceptional public servant last month with the passing of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and I lost a friend and mentor. I came to know Holbrooke during the negotiations that ended the war in Bosnia and brought a diplomatic solution to a war-torn people.

In one respect, media coverage of the WikiLeaks release of classified American cables has resembled American diplomacy itself: lots of attention paid to conflict zones (Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Gulf) and economic competitors (Europe, China), but not a whole lot of interest in less restive, less threatening locales. Latin America, for example.

Last month, NBC announced it had bought the Voice of America, as we noted at the time. NBC planned to use the name for a weekly musical series that will premiere on the network in a few months to compete with "American Idol." We also speculated that even sophisticated viewers here and in other countries might confuse the NBC "Voice of America" musical with that other Voice of America, the U.S. government's international broadcaster.