Explainer Explains Just About Everything

The Explainer column at Slate is just about the best column I read on a regular basis.  Not always good news, but always clear explanations of something that is puzzling. 

So, today's is on amputations.  Lovely.  Well, the question is how to do deal with crushed limbs, and I had thought that the problem was more the limb's future and its possible infections. But no, the problem really is the crush syndrome, where the limp presents several big threats to the rest of the body, including dramatically altering blood pressure and sending toxins to the heart and kidneys. Just when you thought things could not be worse for Haiti, well, they can be.

Your Friendly Neighbhood Taliban

The Taliban organization has apparently been trying to improve its appeal to the Afghan people.  Mullah Omar put out a new code of conduct last spring focusing on minimizing civilian casualties, which in some ironic ways strongly parallels the Petraeus playbook.  This effort reflects both the strength and the weaknesses of the Taliban--that they have a greater presence throughout the country, but it is a presence of fear rather than support.

I just read a piece on of my students that focuses on the different ways militias can appeal to domestic and international audiences, with marketing juxtaposed with coercion.  Seems like the Taliban have realized that pure coercion has its limits, too.

So, how does the Taliban appeal to a people that they have been threatening and harming for more than a decade?  Ethnic appeals:

The latest refrain of Taliban commanders, their Internet magazine and from surrogates is that the insurgency represents Afghanistan’s Pashtuns, who are portrayed as persecuted by the Afghan government. “Pashtuns are suffering everywhere; if you go and check the prisons, you won’t find any prisoners except Pashtuns; when you hear about bombings, it is Pashtuns’ homes that have been bombed,” said a Taliban commander from Kandahar Province who goes by the name Sangar Yar.
While Pashtuns have been disproportionately affected by the Western military offensive, the insurgency is active predominantly in Pashtun areas where it is difficult to separate civilians and fighters.

This suggests some pretty strict limits on how far the Taliban can go, given that the Pashtuns are the largest group, but largely based in the south.  And it also suggests some weakness, as Karzai is Pashtun, and if he were to become a bit more effective, then these ethnic appeals might not go that far.  Indeed, so far, the Pashtuns are far less coherent as an ethnic group than our theories usually postulate.  Tribal divisions within the Pashtuns, plus the tendency for folks to have short-term loyalties to broader affiliations (Afghanistan as a pick up basketball game [coined by Dexter Filkins]) undercut appeals to Pashtuns, although that identity does facilitate the cross-border support from Pashtuns in Pakistan.

So, where do we stand now?

At the moment, the dueling propaganda wars seem to have reached a stalemate.
“People have no choices; they are in a dilemma,” said Abdul Rahman, a tribal elder and businessman in Kandahar. “In places where the Taliban are active, the people are compelled to support them, they are afraid of the Taliban. And, in those places where government has a presence, the people are supporting the government."

Sounds like Stathis Kalyvas has found a new place for his approach to apply since his theory focuses not on organizations or ideologies but how the folks on the ground react simply to who is controlling the area or is it hotly contested.

And this means that the surge might actually work, if everything else comes together.  If the government and ISAF can be present where the population largely resides--population-centric warfare--and be seen as relatively effective and relatively restrained (do no harm), then the Afghan people will lean to the government.  But the big if's are about what the government does, once it has a presence in a spot--does it steal and abuse the people?  Or does it make a bit of a difference in a positive direction?  There is only so much the guys with guns (the ISAF military effort) can do.

The Future of the Newspaper

The NYT is going to be costly next year--for those folks who read enough articles per month, they will have to pay get access.  Or not.  I think the Slate piece probably has it right--the Times needs to take advantage of the 40 million pairs of eyeballs it gets rather than shrink the set to only those who pay. 

I would pay if the price was not too high.  How about you?  Invest in the NYT?  Alternative news source?  Or find ways to defeat the NYT wall?

Cheesy Movie Quotes

For a change of pace, here's a fun way to waste ten minutes* (but not entirely safe at work--and very inappropriate in a few key spots--no kids allowed):


I lost track of how many Padme-Anakin romantic moments were included, but it does cause one to wonder what would have happened if just the romantic stuff in the prequels was fixed ....

On the other hand, Batman seems to show up only when it is Clooney with his sidekick Chris O'Donnell.

No surprise that Showgirls shows up a lot.  Or Arnold.  Or Nic Cage or Travolta. 

Sam Jackson in Snakes on a Plane is just wrong--not cheesy at all plus it was by popular demand.
And I really enjoyed the President's speech in Independence Day.
I must say though some of these are less cheesy and more classic.  All in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.

Your favorites either omitted or included?

Just remember, you can be my wingman, anytime!

*  Does the link rather than embedding absolve me for the nastier quotes?

Living La Vida Montreal

This morning, I attended a talk by a Canadian colonel who had recently been second in command during a recent rotation in Afghanistan.  These are fairly regular events--that the Department of National Defence (yes, acronym is DND!) Public Relations folks organize talks, large and small, throughout the country to explain what has been going on and so forth. 

The talk I attended was of the small kind--mostly military analysts and academic types.  The fun thing about today's talk was that it was almost entirely in French.  This made sense since most of the attendees were native Quebecers and were quite bilingual.  I usually consider myself the most unilingual person in town, but while I missed some of the subtleties, I caught most of the gist of the talk.  It was pretty much the standard "Whole of government" discussion, but I cannot get into the details since the talk was held under Chatham House rules. 

I ended up focusing a bit less on the substance (since I was missing much of it) and more on the English expressions that snuck into the talk, like driving force.  I have noted previously that the standard term for the small units of outsider military folks embedded in Afghan battalions are known as Omelets, which refers to OMLT's--Observer, Mentor Liaison Teams.  And during my trip in Dec 07, I was most amused when officers would say that they need more Omelets in Afghanistan.  Well, what could be sillier?  Well, since the french for team is equipe, the French acronym for the same thing is ELMO, so "we need more ELMOs" is just about the silliest thing I can imagine a NATO official saying. 

The real downside of the talk was its mostly canned slide variety.  Of course, I certainly missed heaps of nuance due to my French-lessness, but the most interesting pieces of information were in response to my question about coordination between the higher ups and the other players in the Kandahar area, which is increasingly complicated by increasingly larger (and varied) American presence. 

What The Tea-Baggers/Brown Voters Have Taught Me

That American people, or enough of them anyway, can overreact at the drop of a hat.  During the history classes growing up, we were always reminded of the Palmer raids and red scares after World War I and McCarthyism during and after the Korean War.  Hysteria and fear driven by a real but distant and quite weak red menace. How could this happen?  The 20th century equivalent of witch hunts?

For the past year, I have been hearing about socialism this and communism that.  Red herrings, indeed. But the efforts by opponents of health care reform to play upon these "ancient hatreds"/fears has worked--folks who would benefit from reform opposite it.  Well done.  And so now I can see how folks might overreact to the threat of real or semi-real communism if they get this upset over imaginary communism.

So, is it more American to accuse other folks of being un-American?  Or is it more American to expect to see reason win out?   Give that we have had a House Un-American Activities Committee and that the previous administration was essentially on the record as seeing reality as an unnecessary obstacle during the planning process, I guess I would vote for the former.  And that makes me a bad Liberal since Liberals expect that with reason and good information, people will bargain and reach decent outcomes.

PS  And I have also learned that the Democrats are often lousy campaigners--attacking Curt Schilling as a yankee?  Jeez.  Talk about clueless.

Mysteries Lose a Big Heart

Robert B. Parker, author of the Spenser series (and a few others), died yesterday.  His main character was clearly what Parker hoped that he himself would be: smart, passionate, loyal, romantic, loving, and irrepressible.  The TV series with Robert Urich did not do a bad job of capturing the books.
I found Parker in college thanks to a loan from a friend.  I then gobbled up his previous books and then would have to wait each year for the new Spenser novel.  Over time, Parker decided that one book a year was too limiting, so he came up with two other series:

• Jesse Stone, police chief in small town and an alcoholic on his last chance.  Tom Selleck plays Stone in a series of TV movies.
  
• Sunny Randall, a female Spenser with a complicated romantic life.  Originally designed to produce material for Helen Hunt (for movies or TV, I forget).
• a young adult series covering Spenser's early life.  The good news for me is that I have not read those books yet, so at least there will be a few new Parker novels for me.
  

He also wrote westerns, including Appaloosa, which was recently made into a movie with Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen, a novel about a private eye protecting Jackie Robinson (Double Play), and he even dared to finish an incomplete Raymond Chandler novel: Poodle Springs.

Why do I love Parker's books so much?

1. The basic idea of a private eye who was too much of a smartass to stay in the police force certainly worked for me.  Also, each book usually started with one case becoming something else entirely.  And firing Spenser never seemed to work.  But that is just the criminal side.  
2. I learned a bit of how to cook from these novels despite the fact that they are not culinary mysteries a la Diane Mott Davidson.  Spenser had an interesting relationship with a rival who then became, for want of a better term, his sidekick--Hawk.  Over the years, the novels accumulated a bunch of distinct recurring characters who each added heft to the stories. 
3. Spenser appreciated women, like all good Gumshoes.  He ultimately became a one-woman man, but his books continued to notice the other women in the best tradition. 
4. Parker's dialogue, no matter the context, crackled.  Each book was and is so much fun to read.  If you have not had the pleasure, do so.
5. Parker, via Spenser, not only had a strong sense of himself, but how people should be.  What a man should be.  These books were, cheesy as they sometimes could be, pretty important to me as I was growing up. 

 It is perhaps ironic but ultimately quite perfect that the last Spenser he wrote (at least the last one published while he was alive--who knows how many manuscripts he had on his desk--where he died) was entitled The Professional.  Indeed.

Dave Explains It All

“I’m telling jokes and making fun of Jay Leno relentlessly, mercilessly, simply for one reason: I’m really enjoying it.....It’s just fun!”

Indeed, it is, Dave.  Indeed, it is.

Senator Reid--Amateur Sociologist?

Reid has perhaps gotten more play for his use of the word "negro" showing how old he is than for his remarks on skin color.  Or not, perhaps both, but the Daily Show last night featured the first more than the second.  Anyway, Reid was doing something unwise in politics--speaking the truth.  Sociologists have spent much effort seeking to understand not just race but the darkness of skin.  Shankar Vedantam posted a very clear op-ed today summarizing much of the work in this area: that light skin color leads to more favored outcomes than dark skin color.  Indeed, politicians understand this and run ads linking opponents to folks with darker skin color. 

To be clear, this dynamic is not unique to America's race relations, as folks in India use skin-lightening products as well.  What this does show is that the politics of race can be far more complex than we often think.  I have always regretted not taking more sociology as an undergrad, and I have yet another reason to do so.

Amazing Algorithms

I posted a few months ago on the joy of google's suggestions when you start to type in the box.  Turns out there is a big "bug"--typing "Islam is" gets you nada.  Zilch.  Zip.  Check out the story and consider google's 2010 trending. 

Night Games

For an excellent run-down of the history of late night shenanigans, see this slate piece that relies heavily on Bill Carter's book on the previous round of host-musical chairs.

Original Sin

Marc Lynch posts on the de-Baathification crisis in Iraq:

The combination of improved security, the self-interest of a wide range of Iraqi groups and politicians, and the clear U.S. commitment to drawing down its military forces have generated some real positive progress but the unresolved institutional and political conflicts remain clearly evident. 

The problem is how to get the Shiites to allow the Sunnis a chance to participate in the government.  This has been the challenge since Bremmer and the US disbanded the army and issued the first de-Baathification order.  The Sunni Awakening always raised the question of what happens when the Americans depart, and the Shia have been most reluctant to embrace their former adversaries.  Take a look at Marc's post--he is far more articulate (not to mention knowledgeable) about this issue.

For me, it comes down to the basic hypothesis I have been pushing lately--that the question is not the absence of government, but the balance any government runs between deterring the potential bad guys while reassuring the rest of the population that the government is not going to be oppressive.  Which reminds me, in three years, will anyone be asking the loons on the right about Obama's supposed concentration camps?  Hmmm.  Never mind.

Pat Roberson Does Some Good

There is a voodoo doll of Pat on ebay, and the bidding is at $790!


HT to Chip Gagnon

Typecasting? Really? Really?

So, a new study has confirmed once and again that profs tend to be more liberal than the populace:

A pair of sociologists think they may have an answer: typecasting. Conjure up the classic image of a humanities or social sciences professor, the fields where the imbalance is greatest: tweed jacket, pipe, nerdy, longwinded, secular — and liberal. Even though that may be an outdated stereotype, it influences younger people’s ideas about what they want to be when they grow up.

The article then goes on to talk about nurses.  Um.  Ok.  That might be true for those gender-typed disciplines (physics).  But really the interesting approach would be to compare the social scientists and natural scientists inside and outside academia, as these folks seem to have made a choice of some sort.   Or had a choice made for them.

Or not: "Intentional discrimination, one of the most frequent and volatile charges made by conservatives, turned out not to play a significant role."

What does separate profs from others?

Nearly half of the political lopsidedness in academia can be traced to four characteristics that liberals in general, and professors in particular, share: advanced degrees; a nonconservative religious theology (which includes liberal Protestants and Jews, and the nonreligious); an expressed tolerance for controversial ideas; and a disparity between education and income.

 The advanced degree is, well, a requirement.  So, the question would be--what gets smuggled in with that correlation?  Why do some seek advanced degrees?  My guess, sans data, is that advanced degree probably does not tell us much.  However, it would be interesting to look just at the pool of advanced degrees and then see why some folks go one way (prof-ing) and everyone else goes another.
Non-conservative religious theology and tolerance of controversial ideas go hand in hand--one must be willing, more or less, to follow the research.  And to relish in counter-intuitive findings since those are the ones that get the rewards most of the time.
Income.  Ah!  Perhaps liberals are more likely to be profs because they value other stuff than just income?  It is clear that the income for profs, compared to others with similar levels of education, is lower, so some twisted gene must be responsible for academics seeking a career that pays less.  Perhaps liberals are actually more risk averse than conservatives so that they choose lifetime employment over higher average income but more career uncertainty.

To really get at this, one might want to figure out what determines both political ideology and job choice.  What is someone a liberal or conservative?  My Americanist colleagues have read far more of this than I so they could provide a clue (help, lil' Steve?).  But that would seem to be the right way to proceed as there are many characteristics associated with ideology and not all of them might be relevant for career choice.

There is probably something to this identity stuff:

To Mr. Gross, accusations by conservatives of bias and student brainwashing are self-defeating. “The irony is that the more conservatives complain about academia’s liberalism,” he said, “the more likely it’s going to remain a bastion of liberalism.”

 It may be the case that the academy is actually not so much liberal but more not conservative as conservatives have been avoiding it.

Finally, Applying Politics to Football

Usually, folks take football metaphors (blitz, fourth down, hail mary pass, etc) and apply them to politics.  Mike Lombardi, former NFL exec and now superb analyst, reverses the analogy and brings in Gladwell to boot:

I’ve heard from many people in and out of the league asking what Lane Kiffin has ever done to deserve three good jobs. One reader reminded me of the Warren Harding theory in Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Blink.” Gladwell illustrates this theory using the story of former President Warren Harding, whom many historians have claimed rose through the political ranks to assume the office of the president based largely on the power of his classically attractive "tall, dark, and handsome" physical appearance.
With no discernable political skills, other than an impressive speaking voice, Harding shrunk from the responsibilities of his office and is now often identified as one of the worst presidents in history. Voters allowed their deep-seated prejudices about the connotations of physical attractiveness to make their decision. Is this what the officials at Oakland, the University of Tennessee and USC have done? Only time will tell if Kiffin is like Harding, but right now all signs point in that direction.

 Kiffin's career is yet another reason why I hate college sports.  Kids choose which school to go to based on which coach recruits most effectively and then they cannot transfer easily when that coach defects.  Kiffin was at Tennessee for all of one year.  The power imbalance in college sports is so much worse than pretty much any other place in sports since the kids are not guaranteed more than one year scholarship at a time.

Graphic Xenophobia

The NYT has a set of posters from across Europe depicting appeals to xenophobia.  Given that my recent book with Bill Ayres argues that xenophobia can be a positive force for peace, how squirmish does this make me feel?  A lot.

A key argument of Kin or Country is that people are less likely to support irredentism (foreign policies aimed at reuniting lost territories inhabited by ethnic kin) if they do not want to share their country with "others" even if those others speak the same language.  If one imagines a successful irredentist campaign as producing a massive wave of immigration, then one can see why many folks might be less enthused.  So, we claim in the book that fear/intolerance of others may deter violence between countries. So, we suggest in the book that there may be a trade-off between international peace and domestic harmony.  Not that we should go around creating hate towards various groups, but that we should recognize that the effects may be more complex than usually considered.

The problem here is that this form of xenophobia directed towards Muslims within is unlikely to create peace outside.  Creating policies that restrict the rights of Muslims to practice their religion or in some other way segregates and discriminates against them is only going to antagonize Muslims around the world.  At a time where Al Qaeda's popularity is severely diminished, the last thing we want to do is to reverse that trend.  Not only does such xenophobia not diminish inter-state violence (unlike the forms it takes in our book), but also the domestic dynamics are much more destructive as well.  Marginalizing Muslims at home seems to be the wrong way to go.

The posters accompany an article that interviews one of the graphic artists behind the posters. 

“If what we do stirs up controversy, then we’ve already won the election,” he told me, a thought echoed when I met with Marc Bühlmann, a political scientist here. “All these right-wing populist parties have learned to get TV and newspapers to show these posters over and over with the excuse of asking, ‘Should we allow such images?’ ” Mr. Bühlmann said. “The aim in making the posters is to be as racist as possible, so then when critics complain, the populists can say elites don’t want ordinary people to know the truth. And the media fall for it every time.”

Kind of reminds me of Cheney and Robertson.  If we could just learn to ignore the crackpots .....

Or if some people were not so cynical:

Mr. Segert knows why. A 46-year-old German (yes, an immigrant himself in Switzerland), he is the father of two adopted children from North Africa, although he declined to talk about his personal life. He was happy, on the other hand, to discuss work, which he volunteered he would gladly do for the Green Party or Social Democrats, if they hired him. “For me it’s an intellectual exercise,” he said, as if cynicism were a point of professional pride.

I think I have to turn in my cynic badge.

Guys Left on the Shelf

While there are many things one can say about the Haiti disaster, I just wanted to note that both the US and Canada have a few more units left on the shelf than I was expecting.  The Canadians are sending 1,000 troops and the US is sending a significant hunk of the 82nd airborne division.  Both forces are mighty stressed.  While they may not be able to fight yet another war someplace, it is good to know that there is some remaining capability to react to horrific events like this one. 

Interactive Unemployment

The NYT has a good interactive graphic that shows who is paying the price for the recession.  And the results are entirely unsurprising:

• Education matters--better to be a college graduate than a high school grad, and better to be hs grad than not to graduate.
• Race matters--better to be white than Hispanic, better to be Hispanic than African-American
• Age matters--better to be old than not, and being young really sucks.
  

With perhaps one exception: it is better to be a woman than a man.

You can play with the combinations to see how you or a particular combo fit.  I am not surprised but disappointed nonetheless that the education breakdown does not include post-college degrees.  Of course, what I would really like to see is the political scientist unemployment rate when compared to other PhDs!

Lessons from Fort Hood

SecDef Gates presented the results of a review in the aftermath of the Fort Hood shooting.  It looks like a pretty sound effort.  I am not surprised by the first part of this quote, and very unsurprised by the second part.

“Force protection programs are not properly focused on internal threats such as workplace violence and self-radicalization,” he said. “The problem is compounded in the absence of a clear understanding of what motivates a person to become radicalized and commit violent acts.”

 I am not too sure social scientists have that down either. 

Aside from the problem of not knowing how to predict or anticipate people who are becoming more radical, the larger problem is a consistent one--putting together different pieces of information so that patterns do emerge.  This is tricking for all intel--foreign and domestic--underwear bomber, radical military types, terrorist networks, etc.  The techno-mage that figures out how to do this right (and, yes, there are database programs) is going to be rich.  Data-mining only works if one can put the stuff together.

The Devil Replies

Dear Pat Robertson,
I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll. You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.
Best, Satan 

Great letter to the editor by LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

and ht as always to lil' Steve for the facebook sharing