Smartphones Ahoy!

Ok, couldn't sleep very well so more short posts:

“The social norm is that you should respond within a couple of hours, if not immediately,” said David E. Meyer, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. “If you don’t, it is assumed you are out to lunch mentally, out of it socially, or don’t like the person who sent the e-mail.” NY Times

So, I guess, my obsession with the net is actually normal and sends the right message?! Still have to rely on wifi (funny how I type wife whenever I try to type wifi) rather than an iphone, as I am still not willing to pay the additional freight on my cellphone package.

“If you fight corruption, it fights you back"

Excellent article in NYT on limits of fighting corruption, especially in Africa, full of great quotes.

“Going after big fish hasn’t worked,” he said. “The fish will not fry themselves.”

"more than $1 trillion a year is paid in bribery globally."

A few years ago, I was tempted to shift my research into corruption--a pretty natural leap from ethnic conflict and civil war. I felt that corruption would be to IR and comparative politics in the 2000's (the aughts?) what ethnic conflict was in the 1990's. I may still do a bit of statistics on it, but I have a hard enough time figuring out what the rules of engagement are for the various contingents in Afghanistan. Trying to figure out what kinds of corruption exist in country x or y or across the planet would be tougher still. And starts to get into international political economy, which is not one of my areas of strength. So, I am in Paris now asking officers and civilians about the factors shaping shifts in France's military operations, rather than in Africa, asking why some anti-corruption folks live and others die.

Not a bad project for an ambitious grad student.

Paris, Day 4: Less Tourism, More Sun?

Today’s focus was on the work—two interviews and no tourism. But I did notice a couple of things along the way:

* I don’t remember Roma (Gypsies) 22 years ago. I might not have been paying attention, but my guess is that there are more Roma in Paris, hanging out at tourist sites like the Tour D’Eiffel and Le Louvre, begging. I have caught on to a regular routine—a person acts like they have found a ring on the ground and ask the target if it is their ring. The idea, I guess, is to get a donation in exchange for the “found” ring. Not sure how French social policy applies to the Roma, but they seem to be left alone, which is an improvement over other countries (Czech republic to name one).

* Learning to reply to anyone coming up to me asking if I can speak English with a blank response. Which is kind of funny since I look around during my walks, and am glad when I spot Americans, so that I feel a bit more at home. Since I don't feel that way in Canada, I guess I feel at home there. Hmm.

* Definitely more advertising and more stores trying to sell language lessons, including English.

* I think I have grown up--now I don't select restaurants based on whether their advertised menu includes mousse au chocolat as their dessert. I am willing to eat different desserts now!

* Some thoughts on various elections later tonight [ok, I lied, maybe tomorrow].

Vocational Hazard?

Once again inspired by a Drezner post, I wanted to address the question of the academic career. As the Chronicle of Higher Education suggests, DANGER: HERE BE DRAGONS!! The next bubble may be in academia-we have outpriced out market with $50k tuition, parents with no home equity to borrow from, banks not willing to provide credit, private colleges are losing their endowments, and public schools are threatened by state budget crises (and provincial ones up in Canada). At Duck of Minvera, there has been a discussion of academia as a vocation. Given the panic voiced over the past year at Political Science Rumor blog and the potential academic crash, what should we tell our students?

I have been telling the aspiring law students to apply their economics--supply and demand--suggesting that we have enough lawyers and that they might want to consider another path. The student usually comes back with a justification for some unfilled niche (like international law, environmental law, etc.), and I write them a letter of recommendation anyway. Well, what about aspiring Political Scientists?

To be clear, this is a great job, but, kids, don't try it at home. Let me first enumerate some of the reasons why this is a great job, then why it should be avoided like the plague. And then the one key ingredient that is all the difference in the world.

What is great about prof-ing?

1. Control over one's work. You research what you want (more or less); you teach what and how you want (given certain constraints). The relative balance of teaching and research is shaped by one's location and ambition. Some places value teaching more, and, if you are happy there, then that is where the focus is. If not happy (your ambition and your present circumstance are not a match), then a balancing act of one kind is required. And so on.
2. You control your allocation of time. Yes, you may have more stuff to do than time to do it in, but when you do it and how you prioritize is up to you. Now, there may be consequences (remember Indiana Jones climbing out of his office window to brush off his students--but the guy got his research done!).
3. No one really can control you after tenure. While this might be seen as a license to commit gross acts of shirking, it means that you have no boss. Indeed, even before tenure, you have no single boss but a department as a supervisor. Yes, this can be hazardous to one's mental health, but having a deranged boss in the private sector is underestimated by most academics.
4. I am in Paris and soon will be in Berlin on someone else's dime. Doing important research, I think, but not 24 hours a day.

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! the Downsides:

1. Location, location, location: It becomes very, very hard to get a job where one wants to live. If lucky or very, very competitive as a candidate, you might end up in a place that you end up loving. But lots of jobs are in locations that have some or many undesirable features. I spent six years in a town with a zero percent growth rate, despite the fact that all of the communities nearby (small farming towns) were de-populating and sending their people to the town.
2. Job Security: Ha! Well, after tenure, things may be splendid, but fewer jobs are tenure-track, and getting that first job is becoming harder and harder, and this current economy will make it much more difficult. One ends up competing with folks who have been out for a few years but unhappy with their location, with folks who have been on a post-doc or three and have had time to develop a research record (but those who get post docs and don't publish are not so competitive). There is no guarantee that what you study will be hot or interesting by the time you finish grad school. Think of the Soviet scholars in 1990. Will counter-insurgency and miltias be has hot six years from now? Don't tell my grad students. You cannot game the system nor should you try, hoping that you can guess what is hot. The best you can hope for is having an inherently interesting idea and approach with a strong research design and some good pubs before going out on the market.
3. Social diseases: Two come to mind here. First, if one is single in grad school, you are most likely to become attracted to another academic. BAD MOVE--finding one job is hard enough, finding two is very difficult. Some of my friends have managed it--by being extremely excellent. Second, social skills are not a requirement for an academic career and the job security of tenure means that what may have been kept under the covers can fully bloom in the hothouse atmosphere of tenrue (ooo). So, colleagues may end up sharing their dysfunctions. This can be managed, but only if other colleagues join you in marginalizing the evil, insane, crazy or stupid.
4. Delayed gratification: five to seven years of poverty, followed by uncertainty, and potentially minimal raises before, during and after tenure.

So, why do it? If you have an intense curiosity, then it is an ideal job for engaging that thirst. that is perhaps my take on the Duck's vocation discussion. It is an occupation that requires some significant sacrifices, like others, of course. What makes it worth it is the ability to pursue one's curiosity as far as it will go. I went to grad school thinking I would research stuff like my current focus on multilateral military operations, but my curiosity for the intervening years was drawn (and will be drawn) towards the international relations of ethnic conflict.

If you are not deeply curious, find something else to do. Let me know if I am wrong--I am curious.

Colbert Uber Alles

So, I have not been able to see Colbert rock Iraq, since his show is not on any of my channels in Paris.

but this quote says it all:

“I know his persona is all pro-American,” Lieutenant Klempan said, trying to explain the math of Stephen Colbert and “Stephen Colbert” and which one of them had come for what reason. Finally he gave up.

“I’m glad either one of them showed up,” he said.

Iraq is now the backwater, and Afghanistan is the show, along with the economy. That will change as things continue to fall part (see ricks.foreignpolicy.com for updates on the unraveling). But, good to see that Colbert is spreading the joy.

Progress in Afghanstan?

Just a quick mention of a piece in the NY Times. It does a nice job of illustrating the challenges facing the US, NATO and the Afghan government to build an Afghan army and police force. In my trip in Dec 2007, everyone said that the Army was several years ahead of the Police, in large part because the effort on the police had slipped through the cracks (or blame Germany?). I kept noticing an assumption that the slope of the police improvement line would be the same as the slope on the expansion of the Army line. I raised doubts, suggesting that training police would be harder--given the temptations and the complications. When I asked General Hillier about this, he was one of the few to see it the same way. And this article, more or less, suggests that the police puzzle is not going well. Not good as this stuff is essential for any kind of success.

Also cited this piece as it mentions a Colonel who was my boss's boss when I was in the Pentagon--now Major General Richard Formica. He helped me get placed on the Joint Staff on the Bosnia desk, so it is nice to see him getting an interesting job.

Paris, Day 3: Heights and History

Today, I started to do real work. Well, the interview was at 4pm, so I still had more time for more tourism. I did not go to the top of the Tour D'Eiffel as the long was way too long. Instead, I took the stairs--good exercise and was lucky to go up without getting stuck in the stairs behind a group of students.

It seemed like the most common language, after French, might just have been German. Probably English, but it would have been ironic after the D-Day ceremonies to have more Germans than other folks on the symbol of Paris.

I then went over, in the rain, to the Hotel Des Invalides--now a history museum and tomb of El Shorty. I posted earlier about the history experience. I then went to my first interview with a scholar working on French civil-military relations, among other topics. Turns out he is wondering how European parliaments do oversight, while I am wondering (overlapping with the project that has brought me to Europe) about British-style parliaments and oversight of militaries. I hope to go to Australia and New Zealand next year to pursue that set of questions, as they are most comparable to Canada (thanks for the suggestion, Paul Martin).

World War Notes

My trip has been chock full of good and bad timing. It was good timing to go to the Musee d’Armee a couple of days after the 65th Anniversary of D-Day. The most striking part of the French presentation of les Mondiales du Guerre was its span of time: 1871-1945. I am used to thinking of 1918-1945 as a single war with a somewhat peaceful interregnum. But to include the loss of Alsace and Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War/German war of unification in 1871 is quite interesting. Some of the displays are somewhat contradictory. Some of the text suggests that the German invasion in 1914 and the Schlieffen plan were failures, but others demonstrate how close the Germans came to Paris.

There was an interesting wing of the museum dedicated to the resistance fighters, and the price paid by these folks and the cities in which they resided became abundantly clear. I tend to be a Charles De Gaulle skeptic, but he was the focal point of the effort during the war. His being difficult with Eisenhower and the others was probably necessary. [His being difficult to the Anglophones of Quebec not so much].

It was noted in one of the displays that the future of Europe was drawn up by FDR, Stalin, and Churchill at Yalta sans France. The favorable coverage of the Soviet Union in the displays was a bit surprising, not because of the Soviet role in the war (see below) but just that these displays were a bit more favorable than ones I have seen elsewhere.


D-Day Clarification—A Bit Late But Still Relevant
This past weekend was the 65th Anniversary of D-Day and a particularly meaningful one, given the age of the surviving veterans. My picky point has to do with the way the invasion has been portrayed—yes, it made history, but not by saving Europe from fascism. Stalingrad and the overwhelming wave of Soviet forces doomed Nazi Germany. Without a successful invasion, it is most probable that the Soviet Union would have defeated Germany on its own. D-Day made a big difference, not via the defeat of Germany, but by dividing Europe for fifty-four years and perhaps even fostering the end of Communism in 1989.
France would have been liberated—but from the south via the invasion from the Mediterranean. This effort was important, less for liberating France, and more for providing an additional route for fuel, ammunition and other supplies. If the invasion of Normandy had failed, this might have become the main effort. But, this would have delayed the arrival of Allied forces upon the German frontier, leading to a division at or near the Franco-German border.

This would have meant a united Germany under Soviet rule, and Austria would have been in similar shape.

The question then is would this have prolonged the Cold War, given the absence of a robust West Germany in the Western camp? Or a shorter cold war, given the costs of occupying the rest of Germany?

This is all hypothetical. The main point is that the emphasis on D-Day ignores the reality that the Soviet Union kept far more Germans busy in the Eastern front, killed far more of them, and bore a great deal more casualties. Indeed, while some in the West wanted a rush to Berlin, Eisenhower and others were content to let the Soviets pay the price and gain the prize.

Last World War II Note

While checkout in Napoleon's tomb, I realized that the old men near me were D-Day vets. A quick glimpse of the passes they were still wearing indicated that I had guessed right. With Obama back in DC, this was my proximity to greatness du jour.

Last WWI note:

Near Napoleon's tomb was a monument/statue for Gen. Ferdinand Foch, leader of the French army during much of World War I. Given how poorly the allies performed for most of the war, I am not sure any of them deserved monuments. Likewise, there was a display that referred to the Mutinies among the French soldiers in 1917, and the references in the displays were pretty fair to the mutineers, except downplaying it with something like "only 40 plus were executed." Oh my.

Update I: Read some about Foch, and can see why the French lionize him. Preventing defeat is a huge task, something that his WWII successors failed to do, despite this picture. So, mea culpa.

Update II: Finally got a chance to upload the pics from today, and it reminded me of a display about the performance of the French Army in May/June 1940. It suggested that the French army dealt the Germans some significant blows, but given that the French army with the British outnumbered the Germans and had equal numbers of tanks, I am not sure this is very impressive. I am sure that individual units fought hard and honorably, but the larger tale of military performance (and civilian leadership) in 1940 was of a tragic collapse.

Paris, Day 2: Romancing the President

I was lucky enough to get almost until 4pm (local time) sans rain. But my streak of days within rain in Paris remains perfect. Took more pictures just to prove that the sun was out today. And the began with a near-Obama encounter and then was interrupted later in the day with yet another Obama-created crowd scene.

More Impressions and Stories from Paris:

• Forgot to mention the strangest interaction: A block away from the Arc d' Triomphe, an Italian man in a new VW bug asked me for directions. Immediately, I should have walked away because a) I don't know anything about driving in Paris; and b) the Arc and the circle of Charles De Gaulle is perhaps the easiest location in Paris to spot on a map. Anyhow, once I made it clear I could not help him, he then started to show me these two coats (he said they were Valentino--too bad Stefanie VH was not there to help me out] and he made it seem like they were gifts--I was already refusing to take them. But then he asked for some money so he could drive back home to Milano (all of this was in fractured italo-franglais) as he lost his money at the casino, or so he said. When I indicated that I had no spare cash, he wanted his card back and was a bit huffy. So, my guess is either the jackets had fallen off of a truck or were knockoffs or both.
  
• Very strange to watch the last couple of games of the French Open en francais while in Paris while I type this.
• Far more English (and other languages) on the signs in the metro system and elsewhere in Paris than in Montreal.
  
• More kids on the streets and in the parks than the stories about declining birth rates in Europe would suggest. But then again, I posted earlier about anecdotes versus stats.
• My day stated with Ile de la Cite and the Notre-Dame Cathedral. Before I got to the Cathedral, I had cross a street lined with police and people waiting to watch something pass. It pretty much had to be the big O.
  
• Once inside the Cathedral, I was struck with my usual thought when inside immense religious constructions of periods before 1900 or so--Built on the back of the peasants.
  
• The next major destination was the Pantheon, where a bunch of famous people are buried and where Foucault's pendulum is, well, swinging. Will have to post later with some ideas for other Pantheons (with much debt to the ESPN Sports Guy, who must have inspired the French).
• Walked around quite a bit and then hung out at the Jardin de Luxembourg, which is next to the Assembly and Senat. Nice combo of kid's games and gardens. And palm trees?
  
• Followed with some more walking, including by a side street blocked by a police car. And with heaps of people. Obama was clearly inside (could not see him, just evidence of his proximity) as the crowd, the cops and the Chevy Suburban with DC plates all indicated that the President was inside, shopping, I think. Perhaps I will go back later in the week to see what kind of place it is.
  
• Quit a bit early due to the onset of rain sans umbrella.
  

Paris, Day 1

While I hang out in the hotel room, resting my feet, I thought I would post a few observations and report on a few experiences during my first day in Paris.

1. I am probably going to have to revise my claim that the Mall in DC is the best National Capitol. Paris is not nearly so well laid out in terms of the main government buildings, but is pretty spectacular.
2. Parisians are far more spunky than I remember. Perhaps these folks are from other parts of France.
3. Probably picked the wrong time to come--D-Day, French Open, some sort of soccer tournament (again, see the pic) or something, etc.
4. More homeless/beggars than I remembered.
5. I regressed quite quickly to the tactics I used when I was a poor undergrad traveling for a month on $25/day (including hostel) at a time when the US and its allies deliberately depreciated the dollar, as opposed to now. So, lunch was crepe at one stand along the walk, croissant at another shoppe, and then creme glacier. Saving my per diem for dinner.
6. I am getting old--5-6 hours of walking seems to tire me out more than it did 22 years ago, but then again, my memory is not so good.
7. Watching x-files in French is even more strange.
8. Had to fill out a form to let Air France know where I was, in case someone had H1N1 flu on the plane. And halfway into the flight, there was an annoucement--is there a doctor on board? I showed impressive restraint by not leaping up and saying "Yes, how can I help?"
9. I twice blew a fuse in the hotel with the surge protector. The stuff seems to work fine sans surge protector. Still nervous, but if I can use my laptop in romania, why not Paris?
   

Finally, it is hard not to take pics of the Eiffel Tower, even crappy ones of myself:

Out to Work

I am currently in Paris, getting ready to interview officers and politicians about France's Afghanistan missions this week, and then next week, do the same in Berlin. So, blogging is likely to be light unless I find a really cheap wifi source.

So far, Paris is just the same as it was when I was last here 22 years ago--wet!

Obama: Realist or Liberal?

President Obama has been labeled a Realist. But is he? Does it matter? Well, IR theorists have long cared about Realism, defined in a very specific way. That is, realist approaches focus on the role of power in international relations, the necessity or even drive to pursue it, whether to maximize power itself (offensive realism) or to maximize security (defensive realism). In a world without government, countries must rely upon themselves and cannot really trust anyone else to protect them. Liberalism, always Realism's competitor, is not so idealistic as the Realists (who thrive on having a better label) would have people believe. Liberalism emphasizes the existence of conflicts of interest, not just conflicts over power, and that there can be areas where interests can coincide [And this idea of Liberalism is not the same as being a liberal in the American political context--actually it is more like Adam Smith and those folks] .

Ok, so much for IR Theory 101. There is a constant temptation to refer to Obama as a Realist because he sees the objective realities and wants to work with them, rather than deny the existence of tradeoffs and try to impose his own vision on the world. Just because Obama is not Bush does not make him a Realist even if he is realistic. Obama seems to emphasize again and again with the Russians and now with the Muslim world that there are both shared interests and conflicting interests, and that ignoring one or the other is unrealistic and unproductive. While he may be perhaps overly optimistic that the conflicting interests will not get in the way of the shared interests, it makes to try to do so. Many of our conflicting interests are, indeed, irresolvable. But if we can agree to disagree and make some progress on the issues over which we can cooperate, then wouldn't that be a realistic way to go?

Focusing on power is becoming increasingly problematic--because American leverage is a declining asset. Each element of American power is a bit less superior than it was eight years ago. The US military is overstretched, so it is not as useful a bargaining advantage against the Chinese, the North Koreans, or the Iranians. Yes, US planes and other weapon systems are still the best, but they are more finite than they used to be. The economy, well, let's not go there. Bush frittered away the political capital that was one of 9/11's few upsides. The US still has some powerful levers, but it is also dependent and constrained. While one way to bargain is to push people around, another is to see where bargains can be struck without much coercion.

Obama will have to be realistically Liberal, including seeing the limits of US power and figuring out how to use US power in those areas where there are deep conflicts of interest.

Race is Rough

As this article points out, the issue of race (or any key cleavage in any society) is just tough to handle. Minorities get asked to be spokespeople for their group. This was a particularly difficult problem in my prior job where I frequently would have a small class of 25-30 or so, with only a couple of Hispanics, perhaps one or two African-Americans, and often only a handful of females. I tried to provide a new-fangled alternative means for students to participate--via web-based discussion boards--so that students would not always be asked to represent.

Of course, as others have pointed out, this situation is a bit different, as those who are accusing Sotomayor of being a racist remind me of the classic car-ride situation--those who smelt it, dealt it. Limbaugh, Gingrich, and the others have been so astonishingly hypocritical that they have had to backtrack, at least a bit.

As I indicated earlier, I thought this was a pretty sharp choice, and the Republicans would probably do more self-inflicted harm. Sotomayor will not please everyone, but who wants that?

The Man vs. the Tank: Coups and Would be Coups

In today's NY Times, there is a piece on Tiananmen Square [see also Slate]--amazing that it has already been 20 years. The pictures of the man in front of the tank remind me of the central question when the military ends up playing a role in the domestic politics of the society--will the military use force and against whom? China differed from the transitions going on at the same time in Eastern Europe as its military used force against its people. The Romanian "revolution" had some violence, but the military ultimately sided with the people against the Securitate and the Ceauşescus regime.

If the Chinese military had stood aside, things may have turned out differently. The problem for dissenters and for governments is that it is never really clear what the military, or, to be more precise, enough of the relevant elements, will do at the moment of decision. There is plenty of academic work on coups, including the factors associated with coup attempts, coup-proofing strategies, and the like. Indeed, coups were the original focus for much of the literature on civil-military relations.

I am still a relative new-comer to civil-military relations, but, thus far, I have not been convinced by any one argument or by the body of research that we know much about this key tipping point.

Of course, this raises another question--when do we want a military to intervene? Would the loss of civilian control of the Chinese military in 1989 have been a good thing? I am always reminded of the commander of the Soviet strategic rocket forces calling the mobile missiles back to base in the 1991 coup to prevent them getting into the wrong hands (I think I am remembering this right) even though he had no authority to do so. So, the good news is that this guy made the right call for securing the weapons. But the bad news is that he acted without any authorization--loss of control. We got lucky, I suppose.

And then there is Pakistan.

Montreal's Past and Future Decline

In today's newpaper, there is a story about a possible opponent to Mayor Gerald Tremblay: Louise Harel, the woman who pushed for the merger of the various jurisdictions on the island of Montreal and activist within the Parti Quebecois. Oh joy!?

First, a bit of background. Montreal used to consist of many different municipalities, but then all of them were forced to become a single entity--the merger. Most of the suburbs on the west part of the island, including where I reside, opposed this, seeing it in part as a cash grab since the West part had more savings and higher property value tax bases. Since then, the merger has produced much stronger unions (as it unified the police unions, firefighter unions, blue collar unions), much controversy over spending and taxation, and none of the efficiences that were supposed to happen. The Montreal government, like the Quebec one, seems to have way too many politicians.

Tremblay, in my humble opinion, has been a freaking disaster (a technical term). He has sought grand projects when the city's metro system needs basic maintenance. For instance, he wants a tram to run up and down a few streets, when we need more buses and metro cars. He then complains when people oppose the grand projects. Perhaps the people have been burned by the big dreams of the past, such as the Olympics which created mountains of debt and a stadium that rains concrete down upon the empty seats (empty even when the Expos were playing there). The suburban trains ran very poorly this winter because it was cold. Hmmm, first time it was cold in the winter? I don't think so.

I can go on (as the frisbee players in my car did, without my spurring them at all). So, competition might force some accountability, right? Well, for reasons I have yet to fathom (any help from my readers?), the opposition seems to want Louise Harel to be the opponent.

I find this newest move in Montreal politics to be incredibly depressing since

• many of the problems in Montreal have been due to the PQ's hostility to the city (both the PQ and the ADQ have run against Montreal in past provincial elections, taking advantage of the rest of the province's resentment towards the big city and as the city has fewer assembly seats than it should);
  
• sovereignty as a campaign has done a fair amount of damage to Montreal;
• the merger has done little to improve things.
  

If these are the options for the future of Montreal, then the outlook is grim. Montreal is a great city in terms of its people, its culture, its ultimate frisbee community, its universities, and all the rest, but its politics seem destined to undermine it all.

Ask the Reader: Paris, Berlin, London

I am headed to Europe a couple of times over the next few weeks. First to Paris and then Berlin to ask the folks in each capitol about their country's mission in Afghanistan. And then I get to go to London a few weeks after the first to talk about what I have learned, and the implications of caveats/national restrictions for the future of NATO peacebuilding (pretty sure that I will be pessimistic).

It has been 22 years since I have been to Paris and London (other than changeovers at the airports) and I have never been to Berlin, so I am seeking any suggestions for activities and restaurants (within a reasonable budget) for any and all of the three cities.

Anyone?

Movie Awards: MTV and Otherwise

I was never in the habit to watch the MTV Movie Awards, but enjoyed last night's show. The highlights were, of course, the Andy Samberg song about the cliche of tough guys walking away from explosions without looking at them and Bruno's interaction with Eminem. While the actual outcomes of the awards were pathetically predictable--Twilight uber the rest, I have always enjoyed the MTV contribution of Oscar-worth categories: Best Fight, Best Kiss, and the WTF award (a new category).

Of course, the Bruno entrance will be this year's WTF winner, but how about the awards for May's movies? Having seen only three of them (Wolverine, Star Trek, Night at the Museum) challenges my ability to consider thoroughly all that has been offered thus far, but now that the first two have been out for a few weeks, I can ramble without too much spoiler-osity.

But, if you have not seen these three movies, don't read below [SPOILER ALERT]

• Biggest Surprise: That the optimistic, idealistic Star Trek would produce a body count that would exceed Wolverine's by several orders of magnitude.

• Best Use of Time Travel To Ignore the Canon: Star Trek--with its plot device of time traveling genocidal Romulan miners, JJ Abrams has created a new canvas to write a Star Trek saga.

• Best Use of History: Wolverine's climatic battle occurs at Three Mile Island, so that we now know the truth behind the 1979 "accident."

• Best Villian: None of the Above: Eric Bana had little material to work with. He was fine, but Trek has produced greater villains, so that this movie cannot compete with Wrath of Khan. The Riker character in Wolverine was even nastier than I had expected, but lacked some charisma. Night at the Museum 2's big baddie (played by Hank Azaria) was amusing, but not very scary and not that smart. My guess is that we will have to wait for HP6 for Voldemort to show these guys how it is done.

• Best Female Performance: Amy Adams, easily above the rest. She monopolized the charisma in Night 2. In other hands, the Amelia Earhart character might have been quite bad (even potentially Jar-Jar-esque). Zoe Saldana was great in Star Trek, but mostly just had to smolder. Again, she did it well, making it credible to the audience that Spock might imitate his father and choose a human mate. Wolverine's lover, played by Lynn Collins, was fine but not outstanding.
  

• Best Male Performance: Tough call between Zach Quinto and Chris Pike. Pike probably had the harder role since playing Kirk with just the right amount of Shatner is fundamentally more challenging than playing Spock. Both were great, and the next movies should be heaps of fun with these two leading the way. Hugh Jackman was fine as Wolverine, but he did not have to do as much.

• Best Fight: Might have been the opening battle in Star Trek--multidimensional, exciting, compelling. I will have to watch ST and Wolverine again to compare. The battles in Wolverine were well-staged, with Ryan Reynolds doing some interesting stuff early on, and nice realization of Gambit's powers.

• Best Intentionally Comic Moments: Any scene with Simon Pegg. His Scottie was terrific, and he stole every scene. Wolverine was hamstrung by the fact that it was not only an origin movie, but a tragic one. Wolverine is supposed to be a very damaged character, so not so much room for comedy here. Night 2 had many funny moments, and was better than I had expected.

• Best Kiss: Spock and Uhura. No contest.

• Most Unintentionally Comic Moment: Had to be Wolverine as a tragic story, there were several moments that were so unrealistic to produce a guffaw.

• Most Unrealistic Plot Device: Really, the rest of the fleet was busy, so they had to fill a bunch of ships with academy students where Spock was first officer and Kirk was able to jump into the big chair. Really?
  

• Biggest WTF Moment: Towards the end of Star Trek, the viewer suddenly realizes that there will be no time-traveling to undo the damage done by the Romulans. Count on the guy behind Lost to come up with the mind-@#$# moment of the summer.

• Best Summer Movie Thus Far: Star Trek, easily. Wolverine was a fun movie and was better than the reviewers suggested, but a tragic origin movie is simply not going to be as enjoyable. Plus Star Trek did a great job of giving each of the characters key moments. The new "Bones" was phenomenal, the chemistry was great among the players.

• Biggest Disappointment: Hearing that the director and star of the new Terminator movie contemplated killing off John Connor and letting the machines win. So much for the franchise. Will eventually see the movie, but much less enthused now.

• 2nd Biggest Disappointment: Didn't get a chance to see Up yet.

• June's Best Hope: Land of the Lost, with Year One also promising to bring the funny. The next Transformer movie might be fun, might be a lot of noise. The downside of my trip to Europe will be that next month's movie posts will be longer on speculation and less on actually seeing the movies.
  

General Failure

Devil: Did you know, beginning in the late 19th century, corporations were granted all the rights of the individual, but none of the annoying responsibilities. They lack, almost by design, any kind of moral compass, conscience, or compassion. Basically, corporations are a way to enact sociopathic behavior on a grand scale. In short, they're what makes this country so damn great. [From the recently cancelled series Reaper]

I am not a specialist in international political economy or the auto industry, so I guess I can only react with schadenfreude to GM's bankruptcy. Others are blogging about a dying industry, but my reaction is twofold (given that non-American car companies seem to be doing ok, including those with significant production in the US): a bit of sympathy since part of the crisis is due to stuff out of the control of the auto industry--the collapse of the financial sector and the credit crunch; and a grim acceptance that long term interests tend to get swamped by short-term incentives.

In the short term, it made complete sense to focus on gas-guzzling vehicles, epitomized by the Hummer brand (perhaps most appropriate name in the history of manufacturing as its future .... you can guess the rest), as these kinds of vehicles had more profit per unit than the more efficient models. Obviously, at some point, fuel prices were going to rise and Americans would finally turn away, albeit belatedly and slowly. Was there planning for this? No, of course not, as the folks running the corporations were focused on the short term profits and short term stock prices, for which they were over-rewarded.

This is a classic problem in politics as well as economics--how to build in incentives for leadership focused on the longer-term? I think it is probably easier in the corporate world, as one could devise reward systems that have payoffs down the road--post-dated bonuses, for instance. Many stockholders are exactly that--long term holders of stock--they should have incentives and power to force corporate types to focus on the medium and long terms.

In politics, this is much harder--elections cannot be that far away if we want any kind of accountability. Indeed, France used to have a seven year presidential term, which gave significant autonomy of the tyranny of the short term, but recently changed their constitution. Again, increased autonomy can still lead to bad outcomes--witness the role of the Fed in the derivatives shenanigans.

One of the key themes of For Kin or Country is exactly this problem--does a politician pursue what is best for their key constituency (kin in the case of irredentism) or what is best for the country? We end up finnessing it by focusing on other interests and identities that offset the power of the kin rather than clearly showing how and when politicians can look to the long term. It is not that Iliescu of Romania or Orban of Hungary focused on the long term interests of their countries, but that they could pursue nationalist agendas without incurring the costs and risks of war. Yet, one possibility strikes me now that we did not develop in the book--in the case of Romania, democratic consolidation was facilitated by corruption--that one could leave power when an election is lost, because the corruption income will be there when you return after a term or two.

So, I do not really have a good answer for the political world, but it is a problem of enduring relevance. For the economic world, I can only hope that the folks who enriched themselves with the obviously short-sighted policies at GM and Chrysler put their money in the stock market, or, better yet, with Bernie Madoff and his ilk. That would be ironic and just.

Stone and Enslave: Selection Bias in Religious Readings

This weekend was a religious event for the Saideman clan as my brother's girls were bat mitzahed. This tradition is actually somewhat new as my generation was essentially the first where the girls were given some of the same opportunities/traditions that the boys had always received. Now, the synagogues and temples have women in leadership roles--not in all of them, but more than when I was growing up.

Anyhow, during a three-hour service, one has much time to reflect. Rather than reflecting upon my life, I reflected upon religion. During the service, portions of the Torah (old testament) are read, and we had books that contained the Hebrew version, an English translation and then some footnotes and other explanatory text. The Torah is read progressively through out the year, and it was my good luck that the sections read for this week were from Deuteronomy--the rules (613 commandments in addition to the famous ten). The previous week's passage was on the rules of food--what is kosher and what is not. Eagles--not kosher, bunnies--not kosher. I guess Seals (given my last post) would not be kosher, although they were not specifically mentioned.

This week, there were instructions on what one should do with someone who disparages God. If you have two witnesses and a hearing, the rules indicate that the person should be stoned to death. There were also instructions on how to treat slaves (you release them after seven years unless they want to stay, then they are your slaves forever); how to distribute income, including forgiving debts every seven years, and, the next section (I read ahead out of curiosity) had some rules on war, such as forced labor for those cities that give up, and killing all the males and enslaving all the children and women if the target (town/city/whatever) resists. While that might have been the style of the time, it surprised me a bit since this religious document was legitimating (perhaps even requiring) what we would easily consider to be war crimes today.

It reminded me, as the gay marriage debate often does, how much selection bias there is in one's reading of the Bible and any other religious document. There is so much that is specific to the time period, so it is obvious that we have "progressed" and have developed new beliefs and norms so that normal behavior two or three thousand years ago is abhorrent today. This may not invalidate the entire text, but should raise questions about the use of such texts to justify public policy. If one cites any passage or dictum as being a justification by itself for any course of action---just because it is in the Bible, the Koran, whatever, well, again, these books contain other passages that the cite-er would find extremely problematic. As I would remind my students, just getting a citation to support your argument does not mean that the argument is valid or persuasive.

Finally, I found the experience ironic as I ended up carrying the Torah (as a favor to my brother to be involved in the service for the two girls since I would not read any of the service stuff), containing this week's passage--instructions for stoning me due to my stated beliefs and lack thereof.

Bloodthirsty Canadians

When I first moved to Montreal, I was surprised to see so many people wearing fur. Not a majority, of course, but far more than I saw in Vermont despite the similar temperatures. It became clear to me that fur is not murder in Montreal and not in Canada (although I still have a hard time distinguishing some of the features/cultures of life here that are Quebec and those that are Canadian--more in a future post). But, as Kids in the Hall remind us, fur trapping is part of Canada's history, a key part of its origins. So, I think I understand better than I did seven years ago why Canadians get so upset when the rest of the world protests the annual Seal Hunt. Or, as I call it in my Intro to IR class, Seal Clubbing (it is a wonder that my teaching evaluations are not negative).

The hunt is again in the news because of EU efforts to boycott seal products and because of some symbolic politics. The Governor General [who is, technically, the head of state and the commander in chief (in lieu of the Queen)], Michaëlle Jean, snacked on a seal pup heart as part of a celebration of Nunavut's tenth anniversary as a discrete governing unit. Canadians, when defending the hunt, position themselves as defenders of a key first nations (referring to the indigenous peoples of North America) tradition. Of course, it is also a significant business for parts of Eastern Canada (Quebec, some of the Maritime Provinces), facing much EU criticism these days.

Indeed, when asked why she did it, the GG said: "Take from that what you will." So, yes, she was sending a message. But, other GG's have participated in similar rituals, so this should not be surprising.

I was surprised a few years ago when Paul McCartney become persona non grata in Canada because his wife at the time, Heather Mills, protested the seal hunt. Only after his divorce was he again accepted by Canadians (despite the fact that he is still not a huge seal hunt fan). But that controversy proved to be educational. Hunting and trapping is one of the few historical and cultural processes that bind all Canadians--anglophone and francophone. While Western Canadians may be a bit less enthusiastic about it, the right to hunt and trap fur seems to be, dare I say it, as widely accepted up here as the right to bear arms is in the US. Ok, perhaps that is over the top, as there is less opposition to the seal hunt here than there is activism for gun regulation in the US.

The portrayal of the EU boycott is quite interesting as the local reports how devasting the sanctions will be, despite the reality (cited in the same paper) that the market for Seal products is not the EU but elsewhere (Russia, Japan, China, etc), and that the seal industry really is a small part of the regional economy. Of course, as I lecture in my intro class, this is yet again a story of concentrated pain--that those who suffer from a decline in the seal industry will feel the pain intensely and will have good reason to mobilize politically--and their small size actually facilitates collective action. Tapping into a component of Canada's identity inflates the political power of this small group, just like other small but disproportionately influential lobbies around the world.

To understand such stuff does not require suspending our models of rational political behavior, but does require some appreciation for symbolic politics and national identity. Does this mean my latest book, which considers how instrumental political behavior interacts with national identiies, can explain the Canadian bloodlust for seal clubbing? Uh, no. Plugging my book here would be gratuitous.