2024: The Year in Semi-Spew

 It was a year of great contrasts as we lost some important people but also ventured to new places and had some great experiences including the second half of my penultimate sabbatical.  I lost my mother in May, and Mrs. Spew lost hers on Christmas/Hanukah eve.  For both of us, these women played the most significant roles in shaping who we are and how we parent our kid who is damn near 30.  Neither death was a big surprise as both were declining for some time, which meant that 2024 involved a lot of stress about how to manage their respective situations.  

We (meaning mostly me) managed such stress with perhaps more terrific travel in this one year than in any other (I am too lazy to do the math).  It started with an amazing ski trip to Japan with my sister, her guy, and his kids.  Upon return, I immediately went with my brother and then my cousin and his family to a few Magical places--lots of thrilling rides, heaps of silliness, lots of time with the next gen.  We also celebrated

And then very shortly afterwards, I started the first half of my Humboldt Award time in Berlin (second half to start in just over a month).  It was really well timed as my host, the Hertie School, had an event shortly after my arrival on whether Europe was really at a watershed moment and whether countries were acting accordingly.  While in Europe, I got a chance to do something I have always wanted to do--experience the Alp in Alpine.  I also went to Finland to do some fieldwork, and then Mrs. Spew came for some tourism in the middle of Germany and then northern Italy.

I spent more of 2024 working on the previous book project than the next one as we met with some challenges along the way.  In discussing this, someone asked us why it takes so long to publish an academic book, so I had some thoughts.  And then we finally got a book contract for our legislatures and oversight over the armed forces and got the book into the publication process!  

Mrs. Spew's round number birthday by embracing our 1970's-80's by going to a Springsteen concert!  Oh, and I finished the year with another great ski trip with my sister to Mount Bachelor in Oregon. 

Being a doomsayer at various events around Ottawa was a consistent activity for the year, where I predicted that a Trump victory (that I considered unlikely) would be catastrophic.

Defence policy was major news in Canada this year with a defence policy update that came out in April and was revised in July to appease allies.  In the summer, we got a new CDS!

One recurring theme this year was the state of Canadian civil-military relations.  It is not just one part of my research agenda, but an ongoing challenge for the Canadian government and armed forces.  The backlash against culture change is definitely on, and one measure was how many of my posts got comments from people who thought the entire leadership crisis was overblown.  I guess having not one but two heads of the military disgraced was not sufficient?  What is a little obstruction of justice after all?   I will probably post soon about this effort to deny the severity of the GOFO culture crisis even though the fans of the old order will have deaf ears.  Oh, and I have been identified as part of a Liberal party conspiracy to cancel someone has a platform at a national newspaper (despite my best efforts apparently). 

In the broader civil-mil world, lots of discussion about the politicization of the armed forces.  I wrote about it occasionally on the blog and definitely built into the next wave of grant applications.  And those grant applications dominated the latter part of 2024, so much so that I fell behind on the Canadian civ-mil edited volume project.

As we anticipate a very turbulent 2025 with Trump taking power in the US and Canada facing elections at some point soon, I am hoping that our family learns how to get by without our respective matriarchs.  They will be missed.  I hope you and yours have a much happier 2025 despite the political madness.