Why Kansas City Royals Are a Lousy Team

Because they let Darth Vader throw out the first pitch at their minor league team's Star Wars day.
More importantly, we can learn two things from this event.
First, we can all get along:

Here, we have a Stormtrooper proposing to a Naval Officer.  If these kids can put service rivalry aside for love, we should all be able to work together.















Second, in the next photo, we discover that UnderArmor (my favorite sports gear company) helps equip the Empire.

The symbol on the Stormtrooper's head gear gives away Underarmor's double dealing.  I do not know how I feel about wearing the same heatgear and coldgear as the minions of the Emperor. 

Either/Or vs Both

Fred Kaplan has another excellent column addressing the cuts that SecDef Gates wants to make in the defense budget.  The basic point is that Gates is trying to change how the Pentagon operates but not really cut spending much.  Gates wants to change the culture, trying to reduce the number of expensive senior officers, reduce reliance on contractors (woo hoo!) and so forth, and shift savings towards procurement.  That is: reduce overhead and get more stuff.  Kaplan notes that this is probably unsustainable in a time of deep budget deficits where the military is really the heart of the non-mandatory spending.  Kaplan almost makes it seem that Gates is fooling himself into thinking that smaller but steady growth in the defense budget is likely.  Perhaps. Or perhaps Gates is cutting the overhead before he is compelled to cut further into the procurement side of things. 

It is clear that Gates is serious about buying stuff that is necessary and no more.  He is already running into heaps of opposition for cutting F-22 engines from the shopping list and for other cuts, but I don't think Gates is unrealistic.  The defense budget is going to have to go down.  It is just too big at a time where deficits are too big and the foreign threats are relatively small.  The US is spending way more than the rest of the world.  Some of the budget declines will occur "naturally" as the Iraq mission goes away, but we are stuck in Afghanistan for a few more years.  So, the US will have to really re-think how many subs it needs, how many carriers it needs, and so forth.  The number of brigades may be less likely to be cut given how stretched the Army is right now, as the past decade has taught us that war is still labor intensive, revolution in military affairs be damned.

But Kaplan is right, basic questions will need to be asked--what do we need, how many do we need, what tradeoffs need to be faced.  Gates is right--the era of endless money is at an end. 

Waiting Has Its Costs

It seems inevitable that the US military will drop Don't Ask, Don't Tell [DADT].  SecDef Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mullen oppose the status quo, and are seeking to change it.  They face opposition inside the military and inside the Congress, but the requirements of wartime are on their side--that we need qualified people, and sexual orientation should not disqualify them.  So, it is going to happen eventually.  But they have decided to go through an extensive review, including a survey, to make sure to cover their asses do it right. 

What is the cost in waiting and delays?  This.  The conflict between the integrity required for a good officer and the lies required by DADT forced one of the best cadets to leave West Point.  These are precisely the people we need leading the military as it ends two wars and recovers from the breaking point.  Well, tries to recover.  So, the delays mean the loss of more of the future of the Armed Forces.  I understand the politics of the situation requires some caution, but, at this point, I wonder if there are any supporters of DADT who would ever vote for Democrats/Obama anyway.  I guess the change will come shortly after November--after the next set of elections.

It will be late but perhaps not too late. 

The Americans are Coming, The Americans Are Coming

I find it funny that just as I return to the German case for the book on NATO and Afghanistan that the NYT starts a series on a particular military unit (1st BTN, 87th Inf Regiment, 10th Mountain Division) that just so happens to be working in and near Kunduz, smack in the middle of Germany's sector.  The deployment of significant numbers of Americans into RC-N (Regional Command-N) is part of the larger surge, but has also been read as an explicit critique of the German effort.  While ISAF has been undermanned throughout Afghanistan for its entire existence, this was seen as much less of a problem for German troops in RC-N than Canadians in Kandahar. 
Even more striking in this article is that the focus of this unit and of the article is on the police mission, for which the Germans used to have the lead responsibility not just in RC-N but in the entire country.  But they are largely omitted except for this:

The Afghan security forces have their own trust issues with troops from NATO. In April, German soldiers fired on a truck carrying Afghan soldiers rushing to the aid of a German unit caught in an ambush in the Chahar Darreh district. Six soldiers died.
“We are not afraid of the enemy; we are afraid of the Germans,” the district police chief, Gulam Maideen, said.

To be fair, any country that is new to an area will be seen as perhaps a bit more trustworthy since the longer a country has been deployed to a spot of Afghanistan, the more likely it has killed the wrong people.  

The real difference between the US and German effort in Kunduz is this:

So building mutual trust was crucial, and commanders with the battalion said the best way to do that was to be with the police night and day: “Live, train and operate,” they called it.

Perhaps most troubling: "The Afghans spoke no English, the Americans spoke no Dari or Pashto, and there were only two translators, neither of them fully fluent in English."  This late into the game and we still are so short of people who can communicate.  This is a critical gap.

Best Perspective Redux

Edgar Wright explains why bystanders in his new movie, Scott Pilgrim vs the World, do not seem all that impressed by the fights despite their very magical nature:

“It’s like magical realism,” says Edgar Wright about the lack of onscreen interest provoked by the movie’s duels. “Magical things happen, and it’s just accepted in the logic of this universe that this is the way it goes. It’s like a musical in a sense. In Grease, nobody ever says at Rydell High, ‘Did you see it yesterday when everybody sung, ‘Summer Nights’ with all the harmonies? Yeah, they were all up in the bleachers! It was amazing!’ That was my feeling with the fight scenes. They’re like musical numbers.”

Wow, that makes more sense of musicals than I ever considered.  Of course, Edgar Wright is best known for Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, two movies frequently referred to here.  Anyway, I like his perspective, especially on The Greater Good:

Theme of the Week: People Have Way Too Much Time

I posted earlier the clip that shows all of the lightsabers that were ignited and retracted for all six Star Wars movies.  And now, all (or at least some) of the cigarettes in Mad Men, again demonstrated that some folks (whoever put this clip together) have heaps of time to blow:


Best part is the insertion of Brady Bunch in a key point.

And, yes, I am wasting time watching and re-posting it.  Oh well.

Strangest End Credits Ever

My family went to see the Other Guys with Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg last night.  It was quite entertaining as a spoof of the buddy cop movie and general silliness ensued.  It opens with Sam Jackson and Dwayne Johnson (the Rock) as hero cops that engage in outlandish acts of destruction while pursuing criminals--incredibly over the top.  But most interestingly, it ends with a serious of graphs and figures to illustrate the inequalities in the economy, including an illustration of Ponzi schemes, the ratios of CEO pay to workers, the costs of the bailouts, the number of people who got bonuses after the bailouts, and so on.  I expect to see rants about inequality by my lefty friends. 

I don't expect to see it at the end of an action comedy, although one of the key bad guys in this movie was a hedge fund type, played by the always funny Steve Coogan, who was moving money around to cover up his previous losses.  So, there was an element running through the movie of a bit of outrage about the financial folks who abused the economy.  I just wish life imitated art--that more of the folks responsible for today's mess did make bad deals with Chechens and Nigerians like the Coogan character as a bit of karmic payback would provide more than a bit of schadenfreude. 

One spoiler after the break:

Numbers and Metrics: Who Counts?

I have been thinking about metrics of success in counter-insurgency since my trip to Afghanistan in 2007.  Officers involved in the ISAF effort made it clear that they did not see body counts as a way to measure success--that is, killing lots of Taliban was not the way ahead.  I do wonder sometimes if the Taliban does use body counts as a metric, given their efforts over the past few years.  The enemy, however united or not, is killing more ISAF soldiers, more Afghan soldiers and police and more Afghan civilians.  The latest numbers--that more Afghan civilians are dying even as the outsiders are doing a better and better job of avoiding collateral damage--are not very surprising. 

The trends to show that the ISAF effort to minimize the harm it does is working.  Intent is not always successfully implemented, especially by a large and unwieldy alliance.  There has been controversy about "courageous restraint"--limits on the rules of engagement that do increase the risks to the ISAF soldiers.  These trends indicate that these risks are paying off in terms of leading to less collateral damage.  Whether that leads to more support among the populace is another thing entirely.


But is this what success looks like for an insurgency?  The Taliban still seems to be largely unpopular throughout much of the country, perhaps proving one of my grad student's points in her dissertation--coercion is a limited tool for gaining support from the populace.  The question remains--who is getting blamed and who is scoring political points now?  Do the people of Afghanistan recognize and blame the Taliban or the outsiders for the violence?  The violence does increase with a greater operational tempo by NATO and its partners, but the violence is mostly a series of explosions triggered by the Taliban.  I would not be surprised if the Afghan people are confused and blame both sides.  After all, it is the job of ISAF not just to do no harm but also to protect the population, and these trends indicate that ISAF is not doing that well on that score.

However, as predicted before, the surge would be accompanied by greater violence.  The real question is what happens next? Will the presence of more and more troops lead to more security on the ground as the troops are dispersed from large bases and live among the people?  And, of course, protecting the populace from the Taliban is only the first step.  Protecting them from rapacious government types would be the next one.

Be Careful What You Ask For

When the US Supreme Court ruled that corporations could donate money like people can, it raised a whole lot of issues.  But the unintended consequences may, just may, bite the corporations on their asses (if they can be people, they can have asses).  The focus is on Target, which has donated to anti-gay lobbying groups, as has Best Buy.  As this piece suggests, Target is now appropriately a target for boycotts.  What does this mean?  Well, it may mean that corporations and their unaccountable bosses may learn from this experience and avoid taking sides in hot political battles.  Or they may decide that the boycotts may not really be that harmful.

It if funny because in the old days (of Mad Men), companies were worried about their advertising appearing in or near controversial political messages.  Now, companies are willing to sponsor controversial political messages. But the internet may just serve as a balance to the cash that these corporations can dump--that the information can get out pretty quickly because our American form of corruption is still pretty transparent.

If I was a smart CEO, I would have preferred that the Supreme Court stayed out of it.  Better to have no ability to take sides than to face lots of difficult choices about all kinds of issues.  After all, once you can condemn a company for supporting one side of an issue, you can condemn it for not supporting your side.  Either you are for us or against us.....  as both GW Bush and Anakin Skywalker asserted.  Perhaps they may not be role models, but political combatants will use that view to "target" any corporation that is not sufficiently enthusiastic for their cause.

People worried that companies would have endless $$$ to fund lobbying that would give them lower regulations, more tax benefits and so on, but the dollars here may, ultimately, be swamped by the complexities of their involvement in other issues.

As always, be careful of what you ask for.

Mad Men's Very Happy New Year

Just a few thoughts about the ringing in of 1965, as I ponder the following year.

Spoilers, of course.

SW Parody of the Day

HT to Ain't It Cool: Blaxploitation meets Star Wars:

Gone But Not Forgotten

The summer of Freaks and Geeks continues.  We had a bit of an hiatus due to overnight camp and then a family vacation got in the way of good TV.  We are enjoying it very much, even if the show often has Apatow-ian bursts of painful squirming comedy, like Sam walking through school wearing a Parisian night jumpsuit.  Ug.  I am proud to say I never tried to feather my hair like he did.

Anyway, before getting the new duds (meant both ways), Sam asked his dad for money to go shopping, and his mom started to plan to take Sam, including a stop at the Magic Pan.  Yes, the Magic Pan!  This led Mrs. Spew and myself to engage in a bit of reverie about this unique bit of foreign food in the malls of 1970's America and then we had to explain it to my daughter.  Foreign food is not so foreign to her, as we now have all kinds of options at the average American/Canadian mall.  Plus we live in the land of crepes, so the idea of a creperie in a mall is not so strange.  But it was to us back then.

And that led to a brief discussion of Shakey's Pizza.  What did they have in common?  Both chains got much attention for showing the making of the food.  You could see the automated crepe machine at the Magic Pan, and I do remember seeing pizza dough being tossed at Shakey's.  I think we first encountered Shakey's in Maryland, and my NY pizza-loving family was far from enthused.  I remember this as one of the first distinct moments as the family outlier--that I liked this pizza and the rest did not.  Just like they like wine and I drink beer. 

Anyhow, Magic Pan is gone, Shakey's has retreated to international waters plus California, Georgia and a few other places.  I am trying to remember a restaurant that sold spicy shrimp and sangria, but the name is eluding me now [update: Beefsteak Charlies!].*  What other restaurant chains have come and gone?  I am far less nostalgic about Arthur Treacher's except for its potential inspiration of the competing fish food chain in Fast Times:

So, the question to the readers: what chains do you fondly remember but cannot find anymore?



*  The wikipedia entry is pretty useful--I remember the all you can eat shrimp, but not all you can drink elements (I was usually a designated driver with my enormous 1971 Buick Elektra so I am not surprised that I don't remember that).  And the entry also reminded me that there was a location on the other side of the street from Mrs. Spew's office when she worked in NY while I was still in college.

Best Zombie/Pizza Ad Ever

Check this out:


Choose wisely, as your choices will determine whether the guy delivers the pizza or dies in the attempt.  Just good wacky Zombie fun.


HT to Ain't It Cool News

Poverty's Endless Consequences

Slate's Explainer addresses the question of why so many Americans cannot swim.  Between 37% to 54%, depending on the study.  Yow!  That is simply stunning.  I knew the percentage would be significant but between one third and a half?  It turns out that these numbers are highly correlated with ethnicity and income.  African-Americans have the lowest percentage of swimmers, and, not coincidentally, "Black children between 5 and 14 years old are more than three times as likely to drown as their white peers."  Kids who get the reduced-cost lunches (a way to measure who is poor) feel twice as uncomfortable in the shallow end. 

So, this reminds me that poverty's impact is more complex and less visible than we might ordinarily consider.  Poor people drown.  They not only have health problems, nutrition issues, live in areas with more crime, but they drown.  And of course, no irony intended, this drowning problem is merely the tip of the iceberg.  There are probably lots of other kinds of outcomes that we would ordinarily not connect with poverty but are related.

Inequality will always exist, and I actually do not have a huge problem with the fact of inequality as I think capitalism is better than alternative economic systems (just as democracy can suck at times but is better than the alternatives).  It is not the fact of inequality but the depths/heights/skewness of it.  Being at the bottom end does not have to be so nasty.  And yet we are cutting pre-K education programs to cut the deficit.  Of course, that cuts one kind of deficit perhaps (very marginally so) while deepening a more substantial deficit--the human capital deficit.  We owe a great deal more to the folks at the bottom end, and, with less education at the beginning, we will owe even more. 

Phew! Eight Lowest-Paying Majors

Nice to see poli sci is not on the list of concentrations leading to poor wages: social work, athletic training, recreation and leisure, interior design, religious studies, horticulture, education, and culinary arts.   Of course, political science is not on the list of top paying majors either (mostly engineering and hard science stuff). 

Most striking about this list is that these majors are applied (even religious studies, sort of), focused on getting training for a specific kind of job.  They are not part of the classic liberal arts and sciences set of majors (again, religious studies is perhaps the exception), so it is striking that studying for specific jobs leads to poorer pay than  more general educations that sharpen (theoretically anyway) critical thinking, writing, communication skills that might just have a wee bit more flexibility down the road.  The list does not mention English, Sociology or Philosophy (who knows, they might be on the bottom 15 list, or not), so even these majors help folks develop skill sets that are marketable in some way, despite what folks on Avenue Q might sing.


Of course, the irony is that I am using money to argue that the pursuit of knowledge is better than the pursuit of money.   Ooops.

Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

Afghanistan President Karzai is upset that American efforts to help his government find corruption found some corruption.  One of his top aides was arrested by an Afghan unit supported by the American effort.  Ooops.  I guess it is ok to go after corruption as long as it only nails folks who are on the outs with the el Presidente for life Karzai. 

At issue are two powerful anticorruption organizations set up in the Ministry of the Interior, initially with the president’s approval, known as the Major Crimes Task Force and the Sensitive Investigative Unit. American agencies, including the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration, are extensively involved in the units.

The title of this post is, of course, sarcastic.  Of course, Karzai is going to block serious anti-corruption efforts.  Nothing he has done over the past couple of years has helped to build lasting, accountable institutions so why should he start now?  This particular event is especially problematic as the American effort is shifting in two related and highly significant ways--it is trying to deliver more money through the government rather than through contractors and it is trying to have more accountability at the same time.  All I can say is: good luck with that.

Lost Epilogue

Really?  Really!  Really??!!  Really!
Right here.
I don't know how long it is going to stay up and available but go now.  Run, do not walk.  I will not spoil.  But will eventually post about it.
The shorthand: this is what answers look like!

UPDATE:  They pulled it.  Funny because Lindelof on twitter did not seem upset about it, but apparently Disney likes its DVD sales.  

Preparing for the Fall

The Simpsons has done a fine job over the years of tweaking grad students:


A little gallows humor is probably appropriate as we are about to start the next cycle in the academic job market.  Due to keen strategic planning a series of coincidences, I have more students on the fall job market at one time than ever before. 

The good news is not just that they are all very bright and doing interesting, relevant work, and they are hardly identical.  They will mostly not be competing for the same jobs I have failed to produce carbon copies xeroxes clones--each has a different mix of strengths, skills, interests and experiences.  Each works on political violence but vary in how much focus is on the international side of things.  They vary in the processes they emphasize (the strategies of armed groups, the pressures and opportunities of international aid, the key actors in failed states, the targeting of some groups and not others).  The geographic foci border on each other but rarely overlap (Israel/Palestine for one, Somalia/Afghanistan/Pakistan for another, Indonesia for a third, a bunch of SE Asian countries for the fourth) [why mostly Asia?  I have no clue--again an accident rather than by design].  That is not a surprise since I have no geographic focus--just whatever my question of the day requires. 

So, we are preparing for the job market this fall at the same time we are preparing for the next few years (which is why I was thinking of long term vs short term) as things shake out.  Not every candidate will be successful the first time.  In this market, few will be.  Next year, they will be more competitive with dissertations completed (only one has a completed dissertation this fall), with more publications, more teaching experience, etc.  So, we need to plan for today and tomorrow--how to compete well this year while completing the dissertation and publishing so that they are more competitive next year.  This is not bad training since multi-tasking is a huge part of the academic enterprise.  Might as well get used to it. 

To be clear, each one will be a great hire this year with heaps of potential to make significant contributions.  That potential will simply be clearer to see next year with longer records.  If you are interested in employing any of them (or all of them!), I am easy to find.  You can learn more about my students on my website.

Light Saber Much?

This video is most interesting to any Star Wars buff:


It documents every light saber ignition from start of the original trilogy through to the prequels and then retraction going backwards.  My first reaction is: wow, very few light saber appearances in the original trilogy and heaps in the prequels.  Is this why the original is better?  Is less more?  Um, no.  The light saber stuff in the prequels was among the best parts--the battle scene with Darth Maul was the highlight of the Phantom Menace.  The action in the prequels was quite good.  The other stuff in those movies was lacking--story, dialogue, direction, acting, casting--but the action rocked nonetheless.

Any thoughts by the other SW geeks reading my blog?

Re-evaluating Jimmy Carter

Apparently, beer production was de-regulated during Jimmy Carter's presidency, producing this outcome:

Not quite good enough to make him Best President Ever, but perhaps the past president who has affected my life most obviously until I go on Medicare.