End of 2010: Lessons Learned

What have we (or I) have learned during the last year of the Aughts or the first year of the Teens, depending on how one counts?

• Failure seems to be the best way to get ahead (see Sarah Palin).
• George Bush has more class than Rumsfeld or Cheney, by staying off of the scene.  Of course, he could just be engrossed in a really good comic book.
• 3D is not going to work as profit sauce, added to movies that do not need it to increase the ticket prices.
• Obama might be really smart after all.  Was the burst during the lame duck session too little too late or was it a showcase in how to get the Republicans to hang themselves?  I don't know, but I do think that the Republicans are going to have a hard time since the institutions and expectations will be working against them now, rather than for them.
• Karzai is corrupt.  Oh, we knew that.  We have learned that there are few, if any, levers to get Karzai to help out much. 
• I am a sucker for a superhero tv show/movie/whatever.  While The Cape is getting mixed reviews, I am very much looking forward to it.  
• I am really going to miss current research project when it ends hopefully sometime in the middle of 2011 as it kicks ass, not just in terms of the substance, but in terms of where I get to go to do the work (2010: Canberra, Sydney, Wellington, Copenhagen; 2011: Brussels, The Hague and in between) and to talk about it (2010: Konstanz, Northwestern, Mt. Holyoke, Laval; 2011: Monterrey).
• Concussions are changing football and will continue to do so.
• Quebec nationalism is not going to away anytime soon.
• There is much, much more to learn about beer.
• My efforts to coin terms do not go very far.
• The Zombie fad is not just hard to kill, but seems to be spreading.  Even scholars are attempting to understand the International Relations of Zombies.
• Narcissistic crusaders can be really annoying, especially when they are so hypocritical as to demand openness everywhere except by themselves (yes, Assange is a db and then some).
• That using a list of past posts is always an easy way to come up with a blog post when one is lacking imagination or simply lazy.

Awful Aughts? A Preliminary Progress Report

I have seen some articles arguing that the Aughts were a particularly bad decade, and my first response was to say:

"Nay!  Certainly, we had some serious tragedies around the world from 9/11 to Iraq to the reversals in Afghanistan to the tsunami and Katrina to ponzi schemes, popping bubbles and the Great Recession.  Oh, well, it does not look to good.  But the 90's had Bosnia, Rwanda, and some other bubbles bursting."

And then I realized that the Aughts, in many ways, were a crappy decade, especially ending with such economic difficulties, political morasses (is that the plural of morass?).  Too many disasters at the national (eight years of Bush/Cheney) and global levels (multiple wars, failed progress on a variety of fronts).

Personally, it was a very good decade, as you can tell from this post or this one.


So what upsides beyond my own life did we see from the decade past?

• Politically, we saw some extensions of democracy, despite some reversals as well.  Serbia is no longer run by Slobo Milosevic.  We saw political movements that tried to push democracy forward with some successes.  Despite some difficult economic situations, Eastern Europe has remained democratic and free. 
• While the economies of the West are in trouble in the short term, if we think about global averages, then the combination of economic dynamism and large populations in China and India probably mean that more people are better off now than ten years ago.  And that is a longer term trend.
  
• We have avoided major wars that the US didn't start.  That is, no major conflict between India and Pakistan since the Kargil Conflict.
• The internet and associated technologies have made information far more accessible.  While this raises a variety of challenges, the ones facing the greatest challenges are the authoritarians.  More information, despite much of it being sketchy, should lead to greater transparency, more accountability, and more time wasted on Facebook.
• The US elected an African-American to be President.  As I walked through the Lincoln Memorial yesterday, this one outcome was very much in the forefront of my thoughts.  While my mother fears that she will not see a female President in her lifetime, I think Obama's election was such an historic event that it is ok that we must wait another eight years or so for that precedent to be set.

Obviously, more happened, but I am tired from a long road trip back from DC.  Any thoughts?

I refer to this as a preliminary progress report as it will require some time and distance to know the costs and benefits of the past ten years.

Best Word of the Aughts

There is at least one site that has the top catch-phrases of the Aughts [the list is chock full of NSFW].  Their #20 is my number 1 and it is no contest.

Favorite Authors of the Aughts

I am cheating here because if I listed favorite books, I might have a stack of Harry Potter books, and that would be not terribly interesting.

1. J.K. Rowling.  I have enjoyed reading and re-reading the entire series, and the books on cd helped on the long drives, especially the move from Texas to Virginia (thanks to JC and LB for the idea and the loan) and from VA to Montreal.  For a ranking of the HP books, see here.
2. John Sandford.  I spent the first part of the decade catching up on his prey series and realizing his John Camp identity was, well, his stuff too.  And now he has a second series of Minnesota based mysteries. 
3. Malcolm Gladwell.  His work can be problematic at times, but he definitely has influenced my thinking and introducing me to some social science I should have know.
4. Bill Simmons, ESPN's Sports Guy.  I have not read his second book yet, but given all of his posts at ESPN.com, I probably have read as many or more of his words than these other folks.  And I plan to start reading his Book of Basketball on Dec. 25th.  And I am not a basketball fan.
5. Rob Neyer.  Writes fun baseball books.  I wish his column at espn was free accessible.
6. Tom Vanderbilt.  Traffic and now numberous Slate posts.
7. Tom Ricks.  Wrote Fiasco, about the decisions and processes driving the invasion of Iraq (good to read along with George Packer, Gordon and O'Hanlon, and Chandrasekaran) and the Gamble, about the surge.  His blog is quite informative as well.
8. Phil Gordon. All I have learned about poker, I have gotten from Gordon (and Harrington).  His pokeredge podcasts are also quite good.  His style of play and his reasonable attitude about everything match mine pretty well.  And I do miss his interplay with Dave Foley on celebrity poker.

Someone Else's Aught List: Newly Obsolete Items

The New Yorker has a neat item--those things that became obsolete in the Aughts.  They cheat and include behaviors as well as doo-hickeys. 

Here is some of the list:

• Answering Machine.  Voice mail killed the machine, although Tiger demonstrated that leaving messages on the new technology is as bad as Jon Favreau's message in Swingers (New Yorker referenced that big movie moment).
• Maps.  GPS (or for cheapos folks like myself, google map printouts)
• Cathode-ray TV's.  We are 50% there.  Really want a tivo/DVR so that we can put the VCR in this category....
• Smoking in Bars.  See, behavior, not just technology.
  
• Fax Machines.  Still used, but on their way out for sure.
• Cassette Tapes.  I am still angry at myself for spending a few more bucks to buy a particular model of Honda Accord in 2001 (days before 9/11) that had a dual system of CDs and cassettes since I had heaps of cassettes.  Of course, cassettes are now dead, and the car was stolen.  Now, my musical problem are the cords that connect my ipod to my car--they tend to break easily and they only work when there is no radio interference.  Tempted to buy a new radio for the car so that I can have a direct input.  But given my Montreal luck, that car/radio would be stolen too.
• Polaroid.  Never had one.  Love digital cameras.
• Rolodex.  I keep business cards organized and not scanned.  The one time I had all the cards scanned, someone broke into my office and stole the computer and the scanner.  Hmm, theft as a recurring theme of the Aughts.
• French franc and other European currencies.  The Euro has now established itself.  Weee!
• Floppy disk.  I guess technology moved as quickly in the 90's, but we went from disks to key drives awfully quickly.  I remember that my first computer with a hard drive had 20 megs, and now this tiny thing has 4 or 8 gigs.  Time to start speaking like an old man---in my day, we had to walk up hill to and from school .....
• Phonebook.  See how many of these the internet killed. Al Gore is bad for business!!

Can we add any others to this list?  What other technologies or behaviors have become largely obsolete? I will ponder and get back to you, but perhaps you will beat me to it.

Big Moments of the Aughts

I am stealing from Lil Steve as he steals from me: what were the big life-changing events for me over the past ten years (distinct from how things are different as I approach 2010 from where I was in 2000)?

1. Getting tenure (2000) Natch.  No more Colonel Hogan--I went from senior junior faculty to junior senior faculty.  But I never really enjoyed a tenured moment at TTU, as I immediately left town for:
2. A Year in the Pentagon (2001-02).  This would have been an amazing experience that changed many things, even if 9/11 didn't happen on the first day of my second week.  Included a trip to Brussels/Naples/Sarajevo/Tuzla.
   
3. Ties That Divide Published (2001).  Cool cover.  I long feared that someone would say what I wanted to say before I got there. 
   
4. Moving to McGill and Montreal (2002).  Canada really is more than just a colder version of the US.
5. Trips to Budapest and Bucharest (2002-04).  I had a series of amazing times in Hungary and Romania as I researched my next book.  Interviewing folks turns out to be the funnest part of the job.
6. First Cashout (2005).  Started playing online, the video game that pays me.
   
7. ISA in Hawaii (2005).  Took my family to a conference in Hawaii.  Best moment--my daughter losing a disposable camera while climbing Diamond Head.  Great history/tourism as well.
8. Disneyland/San Diego family trip (2007).  Happiest place on Earth indeed.
9. Afghanistan (2007).  Boys and then toys and then some.  An incredible experience.
10. Kin or Country Published (2008).  Best part--I can now speak of my "first book" and my "second book."
11. Jessica starts playing ultimate, wins the first tournament she enters (2008).  Takes me along for the ride.
12. Start Blogging (2009).  Writing out loud turns out to be useful for thinking about stuff. 
    
13. Summer of research travel: Paris, Berlin, London (2009).  Great conversations, terrific food (and beer), great tourism.
14. Ultimate peaks (2009)  Member of winning team of grandmaster tourney in September and then in November I finish the fall season with a Moo-dive! 
    

Key Moments, dates uncertain:

1. Picking up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, early Aughts.  The addiction that keeps me thrilled for the entire decade.
   
2. Jessica starts to ski with extreme confidence (2006 or 2007).  Somewhere around here, skiing with Jessica moves from being mildly fun to kickass experience as she starts taking me into the bumps and trees.
3. Become a regular on TV (2007-2008 ish), as CTV Montreal's Afghanistan expert (10 days in country does the trick).
4. Join Facebook, originally to catch students cheating on take home exam, but becomes incredibly handy for catching up with all kinds of folks.
5. Start going to brew pubs and ordering the sampler. 
   

I am sure I am leaving some stuff out.  And, no, all of the major moments with my wife occurred in the 1980's (meeting, moving in together) and 1990's (marriage, first kid, second kid, televised scandal, etc.).

Best What Else?

Ok, music, TV, film for the aughts are done.  I have to ponder books next (although just listing HP 1-7 could do it), but what other stuff should I create absurd or ill-considered rankings?

CNNSI has best football stuff.  I am sure other sports stuff can be ranked (best games, best plays) although my selection would be spotty since much of that stuff blends together. 

Best fashion trends?  Not for me since I am not a fashionista.  Best new cuisine?  Um, I have added Lebanese food to my repertoire thanks to my time in Quebec, but otherwise not too much has changed.  I am now better educated about beer.  But best beers of the Aughts?  Probably not. 

Best scandals?  Steve's most egregious mistakes in the Aughts?  

I will, in a few days, consider what I have learned or how I have changed since 2000.

Readers, let me know and I shall be your servant.  In other words, grading is damaging my imagination (although my students will disagree at 9am tomorrow morning when they start their final exam).

Best TV of the Aughts: Doomed by Short Memory?

In my continuing effort to generate comments on my blog, here is my first draft of best TV show's of the Aughts, and, again, the disclaimer is that I only consider shows that I watched (sorry Wired).*

Best Dramas (in order--to gratuitously generate more comments):

1. Mad Men.  Does so much so well.  Instructs me on what life was like just before I was born (kids playing plastic bags); Great Acting; Interesting spin on Advertising and business; Great Character development.  Perhaps it is my favorite now because it is on-going, but I have more enthusiasm for this show than any other.
2. Sopranos.  Great acting, great writing.  Really set the model for all subsequent dramas.
   
3. Deadwood.  Hell if it is accurate at all about the time, but it had a fascinating villain (who was more complex than any other), great characters, a nice depiction of cooperation under anarchy (for the IR geek that I am), some compelling plots.  How did towns spring up out of nothing?  This is one possible story.  The only real downside is that it was only on for three seasons.  And it should have won a special Emmy for most creative swearing
4. Friday Night Lights. Criminally ignored by the Emmys and the public. Great depiction of family/work life/teenagers.  What does a father do when his girl gets drunk or dates his QB?  Everything I know about fatherhood I learned from Coach Eric Taylor.  "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose." Indeed. 
5. Band of Brothers.  Just one season (mini-series or not?) of a moving, accurate, deep portrayal of one unit from the US through Normandy, the Bulge and to Victory.  I am very much looking forward to the "sequel" in 2010 which does for the Pacific what this series did for the American experience in Europe.
6. Lost.  An endless mind@#$.  The fate of this show hangs in its final season, as there are many questions that have yet to be answered, and the potential reboot in the aftermath of last season's finale may or may not make the previous seasons moot.  To do so entirely would be greatly damaging to the entire series (not unlike what happened with BSG).  The show has been a wonderful combination of drama, science, comedy (Hurley in a VW van), mystery and theology perhaps. 

Honorable mentions:  

• Closer and Weeds are both fun shows but my viewing has been disconnected due to the time/space conflicts between the US and Canada.  
• Battlestar Galatica was heaps of fun and most watch TV, but fell short of greatness by how it started and ended.  The characters in the first season were so incredibly stupid that my wife could not watch: hey, let's give the scientist who talks to himself a nuke and then let's forget we gave it to him.  And the last episode--not the angels part but the rest of it--ok, we are in Earth's past and might want to lose our technology, but given how often they fought over other decisions, is this really going to go down that easily?  And they all split up from each other?  Even Lee and his dad?  Still a fun, fun show.
• Rescue Me.  An amazing show in the aftermath of 9/11, but so brutally depressing at times that I could not sustain a commitment to watch.
  

Best Comedies (this was an easier and harder list--not so many great ones in this decade, but not necessarily in order):

• The Office (US version).  I have not seen much of the UK version.  This year's focus on the decline of the American corporation has taken the show beyond mere hijinks to actually just a bit relevant.  They need to get Jim and Pam back to being intelligent and fun again, but otherwise an excellent blend of cringe and laughing.
• How I Met Your Mother: Interesting replacement for Friends and Seinfeld.  New Yorkers, mix of single and married, presenting competing theories of social behavior.  And presenting the best forum for Neil Patrick Harris.  Amazing how they have hung so much on a show with such a potentially limiting premise.
• Big Bang Theory.  I was reluctant to join the fun, but the Spew family compelled me to watch.  And then I had to run out and get the DVDs for the season I missed.  Geek supremacy has arrived.  Perhaps the best display of science on TV (outside of Mythbusters).
• Scrubs. Whimsy.
• South Park.  I watched it less consistently in Canada since new shows were on Friday and then Saturday nights, but still brutally funny, always on target stuff.

I never caught Arrested Development, so I could not rank it.  Again, one I will eventually see on DVD.

Reality TV:
 I don't watch such stuff much, but two shows do stand out: the aforementioned Mythbusters (which I would like more if I didn't have to watch marathons whenever I am in the US in a hotel or house with only one TV--the Spew kid dominates the remote control like Tiger Woods dominates golf and now gossip news); and Joe Schmoe.  Joe Schmoe was actually a parody of the reality TV shows, with one real person and a bunch of actors playing the usual cast of characters.  It was hilarious--the best TV Spike has produced thus far.  And it gave us Kristen Wiig, who is used way too much on SNL but still one of its best talents.

The Most Important TV Show of the Decade:
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  While the Colbert Report can be funny and is a wonderful exercise in who will go along with his routine (and what his followers will vote for), The Daily Show has become the single most important check on the media and on politicians.  Showing 1991 Cheney discussing the difficulties of occupying Iraq vs Cheney 2003 talking about parades, Bush as candidate vs Bush as President on nation-building, etc.  It almost seems like only this show has an archive of what politicians have said and is willing to occasionally compare and contrast.  Very funny, usually insightful, and now expected to be better journalists than a source of fake news, which is the height of irony.

For this, I post the classic Jon Stewart defense of his show and the failures of the rest of the news media:











*I am certain that I will be abused for this, but I will eventually rent the series and can then re-rank.

Best Movies of the Aughts

As I have promised, I am starting to consider the decade from 2000-2009 now that the next one is nigh.  As my past six months of blogging or so have indicated, I am a big fan of movies and my tastes run the gamut.  I like to be entertained and occasionally moved.  My standards are that, nothing more than that, so I may not have high falutin' tastes and most folks should disagree with me!

Two notes: only movies I have seen myself, not movies that everybody thinks is swell; and some clips will have inappropriate language, drug references and the like.

First, the best comedies (not necessarily in order):

• Shaun of the Dead/Hot Fuzz.  Both movies are simply wonderful--they are funny, contain some decent action and play very snarkily with two of the classic genres--the monster movie and the buddy cop movie.  Hot Fuzz actually plays more in my head--the Greater Good--than Shaun but the latter takes the Z and runs with it. 
• Team America:  Trey and Matt engage in a wonderfully profane send up of the action movie and then some.  They show little mercy, and they do it all with marionettes.  And it is a fantastic musical (montage is safe for work). 
• Tropic Thunder: Of all the movies of the past ten years, this one made me laugh the hardest.  It just hurt and hurt.  And Robert Downey Jr was simply amazing as the Australian method actor playing a dude playing a dude.
• Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle:  The best trash movie of the decade.  The basic quest movie with drugs, sex and a career-changing cameo by the now legend-(wait for it)-ary Neil Patrick Harris. 
  
• Best in Show: Dog show, neurotic people, great talented people riffing. 
• Anchorman: 70's San Diego, the best comic fight scene I have ever seen. (although the clip here is very weak but the best I could find).   No commercials, No Mercy!! For that alone, this movie rates top ten status.
• 40 Year Old Virgin: The best of the Apatow gang's efforts, although most of the others rate pretty highly as well (Pineapple Express and Superbad could go here as well).
• Borat.  Very nice.  With Letterman to sell the movie.
• Hoodwinked: Best animated comedy of the decade, wildly underrated with perhaps the best performance by a mountain goat of a decade.  Plus Anne Hathaway and schnitzel on a stick.
• Hangover.  Ok, Harold and Kumar might have been replaced by this movie as the best trash movie of the decade. I mean, Mike Tyson!!  "I don't know they gave out rings at the Holocaust."
• Dodgeball.  I cannot believe I originally forgot this one.  The movie contains the best parody of a 1950's instructional video and the best cameo by an athlete (Lance Armstrong's withering contempt for Vince Vaughn).  Plus the five D's of dodgeball: Dodge, Dip, Duck, Dive and Dodge.  Not to mention the best send of sports coverage--ESPN Ocho!
  

Second, best drama/action (many more movies to consider):

• Spider-man (and the second one as well): Perfectly realized the comic book.  Iron Man is nearly in the same class.  Perfect casting, some nice twists on the old story (webbing!), and a very creepy villain.  Doc Octopus was great in the second. Sam Raimi was given a great responsibility and handled with class.  Plus some Bruce Campbell in each one.  Just amazing.  Dark Knight is a great movie with some fantastic scenes and a phenomenal performance by Heath Ledger.  But the movie has a big flaw--the Joker has too many completely unbelievable traps (the ferries, the hospital, etc) that could not have been done on the fly and would have been detected.  X-Men and X-Men 2 are pretty close as well, but Spidey just rocks.  From Aint It Cool on S-M 2:
  

  And if Mary Jane's "Go get 'em, Tiger" didn't have you walking out of the theater on air, you weren't a Spider-Man fan to begin with.

• The Incredibles.  I think this move is superior to the Pixar flicks likely to make it onto the various lists (Wall-E and Up).  Classic superhero tale with some very nice takes--no capes indeed.
• District 9.  Pretty sharp movie on its own and with the social/political parallels.
• Flags of Our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima.  Together, just a great effort to show war from two opposing perspectives. 
• Lord of the Rings.  Seriously in need of editing, but a great realization of a classic tale.  Complete with some wonderful lines (Don't Tell the Elf!)
• Memento.  Insert lost memory joke here.
• Beautiful Mind.  The best depiction of mental illness plus some game theory.
• Gladiator:  Yes, I was entertained.
• Bourne Identity:  Best of the three.  Adrenalin. 
• Brokeback Mountain: Great performances, path-breaking, potentially society-altering movie.

Close calls include Casino Royale, June, Little Miss Sunshine, United 93, 300, Sin City, Hotel Rwanda, Last King of Scotland, Cast Away and the Harry Potter flicks. 

Best Documentaries (I don't see many):

• No End in Sight.  Devastating account of the Iraq War's "planning."
• Fog of War.  Robert McNamara considering the lessons learned through the mistakes he made.  Quite spooky given the parallels to Rumsfeld, including their appearance.

 Other categories?  Omissions? Arguments?

End of Teaching in the Aughts

I have taught my last lecture in the 2000's, with the next one coming in the teens or whatever 2010-19 will be called.  Today is my last seminar in the aughts. So a few thoughts are in order.

Before starting, I just checked and I have blogged a lot about teaching--no surprise--so let me just focus on how the aughts were different for me (and perhaps others) in terms of teaching.

• I was teaching at Texas Tech in 2000 and McGill in 2009.  So that probably colors (or colours) much of my thinking.  So consider that a caveat....
• Cell phones went from being a rare nuisance to almost as common as cough in the age of H1N1.  I joke that it used to be only drug dealers who had cell phones and pagers, but that makes me sound really old.
• I would not say that the majority of students bring laptops to lectures and seminars, but it is pretty close.  It was exceptional in 1999.  I have not found them to be distracting in lectures.  They may be distracting the students who have them or those nearby as they facebook or play games like farmville.  Laptops in seminars, I find, are far more distracting as students page through documents online to get the right quote or through their stashed notes to figure out the answer to a question, which impedes the natural conversation and give and take.
• Technology has gotten much, much better.  I used to have frequent problems in launching my slides on the big screen, but that is no longer a problem.
• The internet has been both boon and bane in terms of plagiarism.  That is, it is easier for students to cheat and easier for us to catch them, even if we don't use a site or program designed to catch them. 
• The net has definitely made it far easier to add graphics, check facts, and incorporate videos and other stuff into my teaching.  Does this make me an edu-tainer?  Well, for 600 students every fall, mixing it up keeps them awake and perhaps plays well to different learning styles. 
• Are the students any different?  It may be hard to separate the Tech/McGill differences from the nineties vs aughts.  Certainly, the choice of attire is different--from sweats and baseball hats to, ahem, less than I would expect in a cold climate.  I have not really seen a change in the McGill students over time in terms of how hard they work or in their intelligence.  There may be a creeping entitlement--that students are surprised when slides are not posted ahead of time and get somewhat uppity when the automatic recording system for the big class does not work (usually once or twice a term).  It teaches them moral hazard--that insurance schemes such as secondary sources of notes may lead to unfortunate consequences as they engage in risky behavior (ditching classes).  

Overall, I have found myself loosening up (I ended up youtubing too much and had to pull back a bit) and enjoying teaching more.  I give the occasional extremely biased lecture (like this week's about Iraq--see next post) with a warning that it is biased, but then I can really rip into the material with passion.  Quite cathartic.

So, my teaching has changed over time.  I focus a bit more on policy thanks to my time in the Pentagon, I am more willing to experiment, and I enjoy it far more (well, except for the grading and letters of recommendation).

I do love my job even as I encounter various bumps in the road.  When I was in my first courses in graduate school, I wondered if I was up to this stuff.  I considered my alternatives---policeman, firefighter, astronaut, cowboy.... ok, thinking like a ten year old, but I could not think of anything better than this.  And I still cannot--I have chosen the perfect career for my personality:

1. It allows me to embrace my narcissism by compelling the attention of large groups of young folks;
2. I can talk for almost as much as I want.
3. The students keep forcing me to learn every day.
4. I don't get bored because the world is a fun combination of change and consistency.  And everything changes every few months in an academic environment--the class, the students, etc. 
   
5. I control my time and what I do and how I do it.  The year in the Pentagon taught me that hierarchy is not my natural environment.