Sunday, June 17, 2012
Montreal Ultimate: Covered in Spirit Sauce!
While I have enjoyed teaching the undergrads at McGill, the amazing restaurants in town, and the annual comedy festival, there is no doubt that my favorite part of Montreal has been its incredibly vibrant ultimate frisbee community. I have played a bit less the last couple of years--1-2 nights a week due to my frustration with traffic and due to, well, a body that heals slower, but it will be missed greatly even though there is ultimate in Ottawa. So, I am posting some pics this morning to mark my last night of Montreal ultimate tonight.
I have played on many teams and in many leagues and tournaments. I started out playing indoors with Spanking Monkeys. We were lousy but had good spirit.
I picked up with BMFHard for my Tuesday nights for the first several summers. I learned a lot playing with these folks as Bobby Lee was the most focused captain I ever had, getting us to learn a series of tactics and strategies.
Ultimate Angels was my Thursday team for many summers. Great spirit, mostly Francophone so my French improved (as much as it could).
In the summer of 2011, the Montreal Ultimate Association started a new league on the very western edge of the island. This meant much easier driving, so I grabbed this opportunity with both hands. It started out quite small with only four teams, with many folks who were relatively new to ultimate. I started out with Rhubarb--who had great spirit and deceptive talent. I was switched to a less successful team (whose name now escapes me) to help make it more competitive. We were always short players, but had fun. I played with Rhubarb again in the fall league.
I played in a heap of tournaments. Most were beginning and end of the season tourneys with my various summer league teams. I did play for a few teams that competed in the more competitive tournaments that the AUM hosted in Montreal with teams from all over Canada and the Northeastern US: the Just for Laughs tourney and Jazzfest, including this one:
My favorite experience was with the Montreal Grandmasters (over 40 years old) team in the annual tourney. In 2009, we ran the table and won the tourney pretty handily. I learned that beer tastes far better when sipped from a championship cup.
My absolute favorite experience has been playing with General Admission for the past six or so years. We played in the Concordia U intramural league (almost entirely taken over by non-Concordia students) including the past couple of winters in their temporary dome. This team, with its changing personnel, combined the best of both elements: competitive and spirit. It was always a smart, competitive team that played hard and when we played in the GA-style,we won much of the time. It was also a very silly, spirited team, so we had a lot of fun with each other. Tonight is my last game with GA. I will miss quite a bit all the folks who cycled through that team
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| Spanking Monkeys 2003 |
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| BMFHard 2006 |
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| Ultimate Angels 2004 |
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| Ultimate Angels 2007 |
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| 2011 West Island Summer Team |
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| Rhubarb 2011: Original WI Team |
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| Swingers, Comedy fest 2008 |
My favorite experience was with the Montreal Grandmasters (over 40 years old) team in the annual tourney. In 2009, we ran the table and won the tourney pretty handily. I learned that beer tastes far better when sipped from a championship cup.
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| GA 2011: Fall Champions: Moo! |
My other post has some pics of some of my favorite people and moments (I don't want to crash your page or mine with too many pics).
Montreal Ultimate: My Last Night in Montreal
The best part of the scene here in Montreal has been the spirited folks I have played with and against.
I get the last word: Moooooooooooo!
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| Hard's most spirited moment? |
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| Lindsay rocks! |
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| She is Sparta! |
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| See, I actually run sometimes |
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| Committee meetings are underrated |
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| Yet I agreed to play with Chris's GA team |
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| Funny foul call? |
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| Doug cannot possibly be suggesting a play to Sheillah |
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| As long as Mike was around, I was not the oldest guy on the field |
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| Most spirited Lindsay |
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| Next gen ultimate |
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| Old guys cannot remember the lyrics to their cheer. |
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| Moo! |
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Summer Lovin' ... Movies
I used to post more about the movies I have seen, but other stuff has taken priority. I have now seen three of the big summer movies: Avengers, Snow White and the Huntsman, and Prometheus. I saw the last one this evening. The ranking is easy: A > SW > P. My wife cackled all the way home about Prometheus, but I actually liked it, but not as as much as the others.
Avengers ranks at the top for a variety of reasons, including giving me enough material to post here and here with applications of political science. It was also most entertaining from start to finish, had great humor and great action. Snow White was surprisingly good. Not a great movie, but not bad. Charlize was better in Snow White, the dwarves were great, Kristen Stewart was actually not bad, and Thor was a bit less good here than in Avengers.
But let's go beyond the break for Prometheus:
Avengers ranks at the top for a variety of reasons, including giving me enough material to post here and here with applications of political science. It was also most entertaining from start to finish, had great humor and great action. Snow White was surprisingly good. Not a great movie, but not bad. Charlize was better in Snow White, the dwarves were great, Kristen Stewart was actually not bad, and Thor was a bit less good here than in Avengers.
But let's go beyond the break for Prometheus:
Stress This!
Apparently, academics are in one of the most stressful professions.
That we have not much in the way of real hierarchy means that there is only so much that folks can do to us. The secret is this: most of our stress is, dare I say it, self-imposed. We worry about our status, about where we publish, about whether we get invited to reindeer games, about how others are doing. The reality is most of our deadlines are self-imposed, except, of course, the tenure clock.
The hardest part and most stressful part of this business of academia is that it does involve fairly constant rejection: from journals, presses, foundations, other funding sources and so on. One can opt out of much of this, especially after tenure and many do.
While I have been writing this post, my favorite twitter combatant and I have been arguing about status and how the competition for status causes stress, that it is a zero-sum game. That there are finite spots in the most prestigious journals and so on. But this competition is not so straightforward--that there are many ways to play it so that one can get the status one can be satisfied with. One can publish in quantity even if that means rarely hitting top journals. One can aim for top journals and have fewer pubs. One can try to write the most citation-baiting piece they can. One can focus on policy-oriented outlets. One can focus more on teaching and service, which might inhibit promotion but provide job satisfaction. One might decide to teach and do nothing else (good luck to any chair to force that person to do more than that after tenure). One can do more media stuff to raise one's profile. One could blog and tweet to gain attention and status. There are many, many ways to play the game, as the goals are largely self-determined.
I know that I will never be the top guy in my field, that I will never be hired by Stanford or Harvard. There is always a bigger fish--but I don't need to be the biggest fish to be happy. I just need to be recognized by my colleagues in my dept and outside of it as someone who does good and interesting work. I need to do work that interests me, and I need students who engage me.
Even status competition, which does affect getting outside offers, salary and ego, pales in comparison to real competition where one can get fired, where a promotion of someone else can radically change how you do your work from day to day--yes, there are a-holes in our business but there is limited damage they can do. There is only so much that anyone can tell an academic how to do a job--what to teach, how to teach, what to research, how to research.
I am much happier as an academic, even in my darkest days, than I could possibly be if I were in the financial sector, in a law firm, or in a doctor's office. If one screws up as a doctor, people die. If I screw up, well, I can edit or revise tomorrow. That the stakes are actually quite low is a key reason why the stress is minor and largely self-imposed.
The irony here is that academics are trained and employed to think comparatively yet we forget to do so when we consider our profession. It can have its stresses, but compared to other professions with higher stakes, with less job security, with less pay, risk of concussions, it really is not that bad. It really is what we make of it.
Of course, if one does not have a tenure track job in this profession, your situation will be most stressful (even if no lives [other than one's own]) are at stake.
There's evidence that support for academic staff is needed. A 2008 report from the University and College Union (UCU) revealed that most universities were failing to meet the standards for psychosocial working conditions set out by the Health and Safety Executive.Perhaps we academics are more likely to report being stressed? I think we talk about it more, whine about it more, but is our job more stressful? Yes, there is a heap of uncertainty on the academic job market. The reality is that if you do land a tenure track job (not as many jobs are TT as there used to be), then the stress is modest. Why? Because most places give tenure to those who are on the TT track. While I have complained and complained about my situation at times, I am too well aware that I have had job security and great working conditions. My chair could say stupid stuff, and I could ignore him. Often. Try that in a law firm. Try that in a corporation.
An academic study three years earlier drew similar conclusions. The authors of 'Occupational stress in UK higher education institutions: a comparative study of all staff categories' highlight the main cause of stress to be job insecurity, followed by stress relating to work relationships, control, resources and communication.
And the phenomenon is not restricted to UK HE. The Guardian, the newsletter of CUPE Local 3902, the representative of 7,000 education workers at the University of Toronto and Victoria University, published an article last year about occupational stress in Canada, with women and academics between the ages of 30 and 39 revealed to be the most stressed.
That we have not much in the way of real hierarchy means that there is only so much that folks can do to us. The secret is this: most of our stress is, dare I say it, self-imposed. We worry about our status, about where we publish, about whether we get invited to reindeer games, about how others are doing. The reality is most of our deadlines are self-imposed, except, of course, the tenure clock.
The hardest part and most stressful part of this business of academia is that it does involve fairly constant rejection: from journals, presses, foundations, other funding sources and so on. One can opt out of much of this, especially after tenure and many do.
While I have been writing this post, my favorite twitter combatant and I have been arguing about status and how the competition for status causes stress, that it is a zero-sum game. That there are finite spots in the most prestigious journals and so on. But this competition is not so straightforward--that there are many ways to play it so that one can get the status one can be satisfied with. One can publish in quantity even if that means rarely hitting top journals. One can aim for top journals and have fewer pubs. One can try to write the most citation-baiting piece they can. One can focus on policy-oriented outlets. One can focus more on teaching and service, which might inhibit promotion but provide job satisfaction. One might decide to teach and do nothing else (good luck to any chair to force that person to do more than that after tenure). One can do more media stuff to raise one's profile. One could blog and tweet to gain attention and status. There are many, many ways to play the game, as the goals are largely self-determined.
I know that I will never be the top guy in my field, that I will never be hired by Stanford or Harvard. There is always a bigger fish--but I don't need to be the biggest fish to be happy. I just need to be recognized by my colleagues in my dept and outside of it as someone who does good and interesting work. I need to do work that interests me, and I need students who engage me.
Even status competition, which does affect getting outside offers, salary and ego, pales in comparison to real competition where one can get fired, where a promotion of someone else can radically change how you do your work from day to day--yes, there are a-holes in our business but there is limited damage they can do. There is only so much that anyone can tell an academic how to do a job--what to teach, how to teach, what to research, how to research.
I am much happier as an academic, even in my darkest days, than I could possibly be if I were in the financial sector, in a law firm, or in a doctor's office. If one screws up as a doctor, people die. If I screw up, well, I can edit or revise tomorrow. That the stakes are actually quite low is a key reason why the stress is minor and largely self-imposed.
The irony here is that academics are trained and employed to think comparatively yet we forget to do so when we consider our profession. It can have its stresses, but compared to other professions with higher stakes, with less job security, with less pay, risk of concussions, it really is not that bad. It really is what we make of it.
Of course, if one does not have a tenure track job in this profession, your situation will be most stressful (even if no lives [other than one's own]) are at stake.
Saturday Silliness (NSFW)
Busted a gut. If you don't mind a bit of cursing, check out this Conan in Chicago bit. My ribs now ache:
Friday, June 15, 2012
Parodies Gone Awry
I don't know whether to be proud or embarassed that the Oberlin administrations made a parody of Hangover.
The HangOber from Oberlin College on Vimeo.
It has great production values, mixed acting, and only a few decent jokes but overall disappointing writing. Too much devotion to the source material? That the President of the university played two parts pretty decently says good things. Overall, I give then an A for effort, but only a B for the movie. A's were not easy to get at Oberlin.
Best line is towards the end, explaining why the Pres does not have a sunburn.
The HangOber from Oberlin College on Vimeo.
It has great production values, mixed acting, and only a few decent jokes but overall disappointing writing. Too much devotion to the source material? That the President of the university played two parts pretty decently says good things. Overall, I give then an A for effort, but only a B for the movie. A's were not easy to get at Oberlin.
Best line is towards the end, explaining why the Pres does not have a sunburn.
A is for Army, not for Accountability
My twitter-stream is chock full of ire this morning. Why? Because the American Army seems to think that accountability is, what, Canadian? When a Canadian general has improper relations with a subordinate in Afghanistan, he is immediately re-called, court-martialed and reduced in rank. When an American colonel engages in a variety of crimes and breaks a bunch of regulations--including fraud, bigamy, conduct unbecoming an officer, he gets fined. His wife's take:
Perhaps Colonel James Johnson III was protected by the West Point background. Perhaps because his father was a three-star general. Whatever. It sends a clear message that Colonels are essentially above the law even though they often have the job of enforcing behavior. Sure, he lost his job as commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, but he should have been sent to jail and reduced in rank.
This is just awful, awful, awful. So, the Army seems to have similar ethical problems as the USAF. Lovely.
"Justice was certainly not served," Mrs. Johnson wrote. "This is a reinforcement of the notion that if your father is a general, and or, you are a colonel or senior leader, and or, you graduate from West Point, you can be found guilty of illegal activity, and conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman in the United States Army, and yet you can retire with full pay and benefits. Its my opinion that this is not a good message and does not reflect the Army values.
Perhaps Colonel James Johnson III was protected by the West Point background. Perhaps because his father was a three-star general. Whatever. It sends a clear message that Colonels are essentially above the law even though they often have the job of enforcing behavior. Sure, he lost his job as commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, but he should have been sent to jail and reduced in rank.
This is just awful, awful, awful. So, the Army seems to have similar ethical problems as the USAF. Lovely.
Twitter Retrospective
In honor of my 20,000th tweet (which I messed up by hitting enter as I was editing it), I thought I would consider the past few years of many, many, many really short messages.
Like many, I was a twitter skeptic. I didn't think one could say much or learn much in 140 characters. However, the ability to have links to websites and pics shrunk immediately meant that twitter is an incredibly way to share stuff. Much more handy than just telling people where I am going or what I am doing.
I have not maintained a consistent twitter profile. My twitter stream is much like my blog posts here as much as I thought that I could maintain distinct personalities. But my lack of filter/attention deficit disorder means that both outlets are pretty scatter-shot. I cover mostly the same topics now in both areas, with the addition that I use twitter to advertise my various blogs here and thither.
The key advantage of twitter for me, compared to blogging, is that it is far more interactive and conversational. I have had interactions with a range of people from all over the world on a variety of topics from Australia's efforts in Afghanistan with a couple of Aussies yesterday to folks studying Yemen to TV critics to Ottawanians long before I actually move there to folks deeply embedded in policy-making debates in DC (think tank dwellers and beyond). The past year's highlight was participating in Twitterfightclub, which allowed me to meet and learn from a bunch of national security experts.
Thanks to twitter, I do not feel like I am Rudolph anymore. Or at least, my red nose is useful for something. I don't really believe I have "klout" on things like cafes, Dubai, Android, Oslo, Media, Social Justice, Pirates, the Dark Knight, Georgia or Advocacy, despite klout.com may think. But I do not feel as left out as I used to feel. The joy of twitter is that one can select who to follow, which can help to create a very biased worldview, and folks can choose to follow me or whoever, creating virtual communities. I have found these electronic communities to be pretty damned supportive and definitely very engaging.
I find it both strange and thrilling to have followers. What a concept. I do respond to most folks who engage me on twitter, and have found these conversations to be entertaining, engaging and educational. Thanks!
I absolutely spend far more time on twitter than I should, but I get so much more information about things I need to know about, thinks I want to know about, and thinks I could not care about. For someone whose primary personality flaw isimpatience being a lousy listener sloppy indiscreet narcissism curiosity, twitter is incredibly addictive and fun. I look forward to the next 20k tweets which will be mostly the same except for less stuff on Montreal roads, Quebec politics, undergrads (since my new job will not involve teaching undergrads) and more stuff on Canadian politics, Ottawa, and complaints about food selection (Montreal is hard to beat).
Like many, I was a twitter skeptic. I didn't think one could say much or learn much in 140 characters. However, the ability to have links to websites and pics shrunk immediately meant that twitter is an incredibly way to share stuff. Much more handy than just telling people where I am going or what I am doing.
I have not maintained a consistent twitter profile. My twitter stream is much like my blog posts here as much as I thought that I could maintain distinct personalities. But my lack of filter/attention deficit disorder means that both outlets are pretty scatter-shot. I cover mostly the same topics now in both areas, with the addition that I use twitter to advertise my various blogs here and thither.
The key advantage of twitter for me, compared to blogging, is that it is far more interactive and conversational. I have had interactions with a range of people from all over the world on a variety of topics from Australia's efforts in Afghanistan with a couple of Aussies yesterday to folks studying Yemen to TV critics to Ottawanians long before I actually move there to folks deeply embedded in policy-making debates in DC (think tank dwellers and beyond). The past year's highlight was participating in Twitterfightclub, which allowed me to meet and learn from a bunch of national security experts.
Thanks to twitter, I do not feel like I am Rudolph anymore. Or at least, my red nose is useful for something. I don't really believe I have "klout" on things like cafes, Dubai, Android, Oslo, Media, Social Justice, Pirates, the Dark Knight, Georgia or Advocacy, despite klout.com may think. But I do not feel as left out as I used to feel. The joy of twitter is that one can select who to follow, which can help to create a very biased worldview, and folks can choose to follow me or whoever, creating virtual communities. I have found these electronic communities to be pretty damned supportive and definitely very engaging.
I find it both strange and thrilling to have followers. What a concept. I do respond to most folks who engage me on twitter, and have found these conversations to be entertaining, engaging and educational. Thanks!
I absolutely spend far more time on twitter than I should, but I get so much more information about things I need to know about, thinks I want to know about, and thinks I could not care about. For someone whose primary personality flaw is
Thursday, June 14, 2012
No Such Thing as Bad PR (Protest Category)?
I see that it is now students' turn to seize defeat from the jaws of victory. Just as we see a spate of articles outside of Canada that, more or less, gullibly swallow the student line on things, the student protestors start indicating their contempt for the cops by, well, Nazi-saluting them. Holy bad photo op, Batman!
Sure, they are trying to be snarky and sarcastic and are not really indicating that they are Nazis or prefer fascism. They are trying to do the opposite. I get that. But it does look really bad on TV and in newspapers. It allows folks to take offense, as they are wont to do when Nazis are invoked.
To be abundantly clear, there are damn few parallels between Maple Spring and the uprisings around the world that have Spring in their name. This is not Prague Spring, where the Czechoslovaks sought to democratize in the face of Soviet tanks in 1968. This is not Arab Spring, where folks protested against dictatorship. This is a year where we actually had a spring in Montreal--nice weather, that is. Yes, the riot police have targeted some bystanders, but compared to other outbreaks of dissent, the level of repression, even in Bill 78, is modest.
So, likening the Montreal police to the Nazis just makes the students look like they are the ones that are out of touch, that they are the ones who have lost perspective, that they are the ones who need to re-think. Indeed, even the leader, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, of the more extreme group, CLASSE, has disavowed this even as he was slow/reluctant to disavow the violence of the spring (smoke bombs in the metros, vandalism, violating injunctions). Perhaps he knows his PR better than he knows what civil disobedience really is (emphasis on the civil).
I am not really offended by the outbreak of Nazi-esque salutes. I am not surprised. As this goes on and on, the organizations involved on all sides have more opportunities both to make bad decisions and to lose control of their supporters/agents. On the other hand, I am offended by folks who buy into the rhetoric too easily. Maple Spring, my ass!
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| From the National Post |
Sure, they are trying to be snarky and sarcastic and are not really indicating that they are Nazis or prefer fascism. They are trying to do the opposite. I get that. But it does look really bad on TV and in newspapers. It allows folks to take offense, as they are wont to do when Nazis are invoked.
To be abundantly clear, there are damn few parallels between Maple Spring and the uprisings around the world that have Spring in their name. This is not Prague Spring, where the Czechoslovaks sought to democratize in the face of Soviet tanks in 1968. This is not Arab Spring, where folks protested against dictatorship. This is a year where we actually had a spring in Montreal--nice weather, that is. Yes, the riot police have targeted some bystanders, but compared to other outbreaks of dissent, the level of repression, even in Bill 78, is modest.
So, likening the Montreal police to the Nazis just makes the students look like they are the ones that are out of touch, that they are the ones who have lost perspective, that they are the ones who need to re-think. Indeed, even the leader, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, of the more extreme group, CLASSE, has disavowed this even as he was slow/reluctant to disavow the violence of the spring (smoke bombs in the metros, vandalism, violating injunctions). Perhaps he knows his PR better than he knows what civil disobedience really is (emphasis on the civil).
I am not really offended by the outbreak of Nazi-esque salutes. I am not surprised. As this goes on and on, the organizations involved on all sides have more opportunities both to make bad decisions and to lose control of their supporters/agents. On the other hand, I am offended by folks who buy into the rhetoric too easily. Maple Spring, my ass!
Defining Civil War Again, FFS!
CNN has a post today pondering whether Syria is or is not a civil war. It almost gets things right and then cites a bunch of people with strange ideas. I have posted about this before, but because there seems to be much confusion and it is so easy to crap all over the CNN post, here we go.
The post does mention folks reporting the classic definition: two or more sides (that each has killed at least 100 so that it is not just a mass killing [genocide/politicide may co-exist with civil wars but are not the same thing]) of some severity. The 1000 battle death total is arbitrary--it could be 100 or 500 or 10000. 1k was borrowed from the inter-state war scholarship because it made for less measurement error. Using a lower threshold, like 25, might mean missing heaps of conflicts and maybe mis-coding things that are not really civil wars.
But the point is that a civil war is a violent set of events involving two or more sides, contesting the governance of a country. It can be separatist--the contest is over who governs a spot of territory within the country. It can be about regime change. It can be revolutionary--who gets to re-shape the social and political order. The goals are political--not just an outburst of violence aimed at another ethnic group--that would be a riot. Two or more sides, violence, who governs.
A popular uprising may or may not be enough to be a civil war--depends on whether there is two-sided violence that is more than just a single outburst. So, this line is not entirely right:
Other folks? Not so much.
Assad? Well, we don't expect him to get it right. A sectarian conflict can be a civil war if the state is the target. Two groups fighting with each other is often called communal conflict and may not be a civil war, like the battles between Hindus and Muslims in India are violent, but not aimed at the state. But plenty of civil wars are "sectarian" if that means ethnic or religious--that groups with different identities combating to control the government is very much a civil war. Sectarian conflict and civil wars are not mutually exclusive.
Michel Weiss is simply wrong:
throne government lose. Biafra lost its battle to secede from Nigeria--it did not become equal, it got crushed. Many civil wars can be sustained for a very long time, especially if one side chooses to engage in an insurgency. Not all insurgencies are civil wars, not all civil wars are fought via insurgency.
Steven Heydermann suggests there is some threshold that has not yet been crossed. Where is that threshold? For most scholars of civil war, a civil war exists if it is in one part of a country--it does not have to be all over the place. If Libya and Lebanon are the "models" for civil war, it is not clear why Syria is not, as he insists, given the size of the opposition in Libya last year vs Syria this year. Now I am really confused.
Jeff White, a fellow at an institute, at least makes it clear that this is his definition (which is a good thing since it is not one shared by many):
This is all reminiscent of Rwanda where folks avoided calling it a genocide since that seemed to require an international response. BUT there is a convention against genocide that requires a response. Responsibility to Protect is not nearly as established, but perhaps may be responsible for some of this hedging about the Syrian civil war.
I read this piece because someone complained via twitter--did we really need such a long piece defining civil war? No, we didn't. The article could have stopped after Biddle's quote, Chakravart's or Fearon's. Oy.
The post does mention folks reporting the classic definition: two or more sides (that each has killed at least 100 so that it is not just a mass killing [genocide/politicide may co-exist with civil wars but are not the same thing]) of some severity. The 1000 battle death total is arbitrary--it could be 100 or 500 or 10000. 1k was borrowed from the inter-state war scholarship because it made for less measurement error. Using a lower threshold, like 25, might mean missing heaps of conflicts and maybe mis-coding things that are not really civil wars.
But the point is that a civil war is a violent set of events involving two or more sides, contesting the governance of a country. It can be separatist--the contest is over who governs a spot of territory within the country. It can be about regime change. It can be revolutionary--who gets to re-shape the social and political order. The goals are political--not just an outburst of violence aimed at another ethnic group--that would be a riot. Two or more sides, violence, who governs.
A popular uprising may or may not be enough to be a civil war--depends on whether there is two-sided violence that is more than just a single outburst. So, this line is not entirely right:
"Syria did not start out as a case of civil war because the opposition to the government mainly took the form of a popular uprising in March 2011," she said. [Anuradha Chakravarty, assistant professor of political science at the University of South Carolina,]One could say that it started out as repression and then become a civil war once folks started fighting back. Which is what Chakravarty then says. So she is very much on target as are Stephen Biddle and James Fearon who are also cited in this article.
Other folks? Not so much.
Assad? Well, we don't expect him to get it right. A sectarian conflict can be a civil war if the state is the target. Two groups fighting with each other is often called communal conflict and may not be a civil war, like the battles between Hindus and Muslims in India are violent, but not aimed at the state. But plenty of civil wars are "sectarian" if that means ethnic or religious--that groups with different identities combating to control the government is very much a civil war. Sectarian conflict and civil wars are not mutually exclusive.
Michel Weiss is simply wrong:
"Civil war suggests the previous state that exists all but failed and collapsed," he said. In some regions, the government lacks control and there is a "growing equalization" of forces, he said.The article had just cited Fearon's example of the US Civil War, where the US was hardly a failed state in the north. Indeed, most civil wars are between various groups and a government that still exists. The contest is often uneven and "equalization" is hardly inevitable. Indeed, many contenders to the
Steven Heydermann suggests there is some threshold that has not yet been crossed. Where is that threshold? For most scholars of civil war, a civil war exists if it is in one part of a country--it does not have to be all over the place. If Libya and Lebanon are the "models" for civil war, it is not clear why Syria is not, as he insists, given the size of the opposition in Libya last year vs Syria this year. Now I am really confused.
Jeff White, a fellow at an institute, at least makes it clear that this is his definition (which is a good thing since it is not one shared by many):
"My definition of civil war is a situation which is characterized by conflict between two, or more, segments of society. I still see the situation in Syria as one of fundamentally an armed and unarmed insurrection against the government. That is, the people are fighting the state, not each other."Um, huh. So, the American Civil War is not a civil war, since the South fought the US government? One of the problems with fixations about failed states and the ethnic security dilemma (sorry about that) is that governments do not disappear once the firing starts--they are combatants. Not just any combatant but the one with the most guns and most capability much of the time. What would Jeff White call this thing where people fight the state, if not a civil war? What was Libya last year? Oh, and by the way, when people are fighting the state, the state is made up of people who fight back. White's entire definition is not of civil war but of ethnic conflict. Not all civil wars have ethnic cleansing.
This is all reminiscent of Rwanda where folks avoided calling it a genocide since that seemed to require an international response. BUT there is a convention against genocide that requires a response. Responsibility to Protect is not nearly as established, but perhaps may be responsible for some of this hedging about the Syrian civil war.
I read this piece because someone complained via twitter--did we really need such a long piece defining civil war? No, we didn't. The article could have stopped after Biddle's quote, Chakravart's or Fearon's. Oy.
Falklands Retrospective
I have been engaging in a twitter conversation as a result of a tweet about the Falklands war, which ended thirty years ago. The tweet was in response to a British retrospective that referred to the war as doing the impossible. I reacted immediately to this because my memory of events in 1982 did not register expectations back then as impossible.
Well, apparently some folks did think the UK effort to re-take the Falkands/Malavinas was impossible. That the islands were too close to Argentina for the British carriers to safely operate, that the British jump jets (Harriers) were unproven against fast jets (Harriers are slow), and so on.
Why did I think then that this was not impossible? Well, my mother worked for the US Navy at the time, ordering spare parts for planes, including the Harrier. So, perhaps I had overly high expectations (which were met, they did fine). I was also reading a lot of books at the time on the US submarine campaign in the Pacific, so I expected (if I am remembering correctly) that the British sub advantage would matter a a great deal. Indeed, after a British sub sunk one of the biggest Argentine warships (the Belgrano), the Argentine navy became a non-factor. Perhaps I was a bit stuck in the past/racist to think that the Brits easily handle any third world country because I was, well, 16.
The real key is that Generals and Admirals are such lousy politicians that it messes up their day job expertise. This case is the classic exemplar of a diversionary war--that the Argentine junta sought a fait accompli against the Brits to distract their population from their illegitimate government and its poor handling of the economy. Otherwise, they would have waited a year or two because the British were planning on cutting back on its navy, including several of the ships that played a key role at the time. And, as a democracy, the Brits made these plans quite public. As my twitter conversation partner mentioned, winter would have been a better time given the difficulties of operating in bad weather.
Anyhow, I was surprised by the "impossible" word. Hard, yes. Impossible, obviously not in retrospect but not even at the time, at least to young me and to Maggie Thatcher. I didn't agree with her on much, but on this, sure.
Well, apparently some folks did think the UK effort to re-take the Falkands/Malavinas was impossible. That the islands were too close to Argentina for the British carriers to safely operate, that the British jump jets (Harriers) were unproven against fast jets (Harriers are slow), and so on.
Why did I think then that this was not impossible? Well, my mother worked for the US Navy at the time, ordering spare parts for planes, including the Harrier. So, perhaps I had overly high expectations (which were met, they did fine). I was also reading a lot of books at the time on the US submarine campaign in the Pacific, so I expected (if I am remembering correctly) that the British sub advantage would matter a a great deal. Indeed, after a British sub sunk one of the biggest Argentine warships (the Belgrano), the Argentine navy became a non-factor. Perhaps I was a bit stuck in the past/racist to think that the Brits easily handle any third world country because I was, well, 16.
The real key is that Generals and Admirals are such lousy politicians that it messes up their day job expertise. This case is the classic exemplar of a diversionary war--that the Argentine junta sought a fait accompli against the Brits to distract their population from their illegitimate government and its poor handling of the economy. Otherwise, they would have waited a year or two because the British were planning on cutting back on its navy, including several of the ships that played a key role at the time. And, as a democracy, the Brits made these plans quite public. As my twitter conversation partner mentioned, winter would have been a better time given the difficulties of operating in bad weather.
Anyhow, I was surprised by the "impossible" word. Hard, yes. Impossible, obviously not in retrospect but not even at the time, at least to young me and to Maggie Thatcher. I didn't agree with her on much, but on this, sure.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Mad Men Is So Frustrating
Oops, what I mean is that the coverage of Mad Men is So Frustrating. I enjoy listening to podcasts and reading reviews/recaps of this show and a few others. Alan Sepinwall and Dan Fienberg, Tim Goodman, and the folks at Grantland are the ones I listen to/read the most consistently. I, of course, select out and do not listen to folks who are very scathing. I understand that I identify with that which I like and do not want to have my feelings hurt by listening to stuff that makes me feel bad by association (a lesson Spew Junior should follow). Also, folks who are really brutal about Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, etc. are obviously wrong, so why listen to them?
Anyhow, I explain my frustration below the break, as I must refer to this entire fifth season of Mad Men, Breaking Bad, the two seasons of Game of Thrones, Sopronos, Friday Night Lights, and Lost. So, spoilers dwell beyond:
Anyhow, I explain my frustration below the break, as I must refer to this entire fifth season of Mad Men, Breaking Bad, the two seasons of Game of Thrones, Sopronos, Friday Night Lights, and Lost. So, spoilers dwell beyond:
Peacekeeping and Violence
My latest at CIC: Peacekeeping involves violence http://bit.ly/M3q8zm Obvious? Yes. Needs to be said again and again
Games of IR
If only I was still teaching Intro to IR, I could use the Game of Thrones Game. Indeed, I cannot think of another piece of pop culture that could provide distinct characters to each of 600 students. Alas, this will have to do:
'Game of Thrones': The Board Game -- powered by Cracked.com
H/T to PT.
'Game of Thrones': The Board Game -- powered by Cracked.com
H/T to PT.
The Pug Strikes Back
H/t to Joshua Foust for tweeting this bit of brilliance:
Josh seems surprised that his Pug/Star Wars tweets get more play (RT's) than his policy stuff. Um, duh, dude! Star Wars is universal--his opinions not so much.
Oh and he also tweeted this:
Just more proof of the pop culture supremacy of Star Wars. Anyone do this to Buffy or Matrix or Bradbury (to use Mrs. Spew's comment)?
Josh seems surprised that his Pug/Star Wars tweets get more play (RT's) than his policy stuff. Um, duh, dude! Star Wars is universal--his opinions not so much.
Oh and he also tweeted this:
Just more proof of the pop culture supremacy of Star Wars. Anyone do this to Buffy or Matrix or Bradbury (to use Mrs. Spew's comment)?
Status Addiction
The NYT has a piece on trends on frequent flyer elite status. I did not care about such stuff because, well, I didn't travel enough to qualify or even care that much about perks. But then I engaged in this most recent project, which involved a couple of trans-oceanic flights a year, leading to Silver status at United. I almost hit gold, but didn't feel it was right to fly someplace at the end of 2011 just to get some more mileage to put me over the top. If I had known that United (and the others) were going to devalue Silver a bit, as the article discusses, I might have taken just one more flight.
What have I gotten with my Silver status for the past couple of years (pro-tip: going to Australia once a year makes hitting Silver much easier)?
No, I am not the George Clooney character in Up in the Air, but I am thinking a bit more about how to max my points.
What have I gotten with my Silver status for the past couple of years (pro-tip: going to Australia once a year makes hitting Silver much easier)?
- I got free access to Economy Plus seats--which do have more space--discernibly more room. Last year, I could choose my EP seats earlier--new change to silver means it is a check thing which means less of them.
- I have been bumped to first class a couple of times, including once with my daughter on the way back from Orlando (wife was on separate flight to sneak across the border with expired permanent residency card).
- Getting on the plane earlier than other folks. I don't have a lot to cram in the bins (just my computer bag), but with more fees for baggage, other folks fill them up quickly, so getting on early is desirable.
- I get to put one bag into the cargo hold for free when on United but not on its partners (Air Canada). Sometimes, my bags come out first since they are supposed to be priority.
No, I am not the George Clooney character in Up in the Air, but I am thinking a bit more about how to max my points.
Winning Theme Song?
Maybe, as recommended by https://twitter.com/#!/ConBGone/.
Why does this video work? Well, the gauzy lens-ing helps to obscure things, not unlike the denial sauce NATO likes to pour on stuff at times. There are explosions! "A world with too much choice" sounds like one with wars of choice to me. "Be Anywhere"? Ok, then: Afghanistan!
Any other suggestions for theme song for "NATO and Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fighting Alone"?
Why does this video work? Well, the gauzy lens-ing helps to obscure things, not unlike the denial sauce NATO likes to pour on stuff at times. There are explosions! "A world with too much choice" sounds like one with wars of choice to me. "Be Anywhere"? Ok, then: Afghanistan!
Any other suggestions for theme song for "NATO and Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fighting Alone"?
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Unbeatable NBA Finals Prediction
Tonight starts the finals between two teams we should hate: the anti-team Heat and the stolen Sonics. I will root for the latter as I really enjoy how the Thunder play, even if I dislike how they got to OKC.
But the big prediction is this: people in the media will develop really strong opinions and over-react to every single twitch along the way. As the games progress, you will see commentators alternatively blasting Lebron as an awful teammate and as a tremendous player. You will see people condemning the Thunder if they lose and switching stances when they win.
I have not followed basketball that much in my life, but I have taken to listening to sports podcasts (in addition to other ones I like). I was behind in my listening, so I kept hearing out-dated opinions, like the Spurs are inevitable, like the Celtics had no chance and then the Heat had no chance. By listening just a few days late, I was able to amuse myself with being out of synch with the wildly swinging pendulums.
My basic question is this: does the proliferation of media require over-reactions to every single event? Any series that goes more than four games is going to have ups and downs. Many matches of good teams will either go six or seven games. But perhaps we always need to react to the latest event. Everything new is bigger/better/louder than that which is old. For instance, is this the golden age of the sitcom? Parks and Rec & Community would suggest sure, but that would mean forgetting the era of Taxi/WKRP/MASH/Newhart/Cheers/Soap/Barney Miller/Happy Days/etc. There is a recency bias, but the b-ball coverage takes it to an absurd degree where the most recent game is all that matters.
So, here is my prediction: heaps of over-reactions.
But the big prediction is this: people in the media will develop really strong opinions and over-react to every single twitch along the way. As the games progress, you will see commentators alternatively blasting Lebron as an awful teammate and as a tremendous player. You will see people condemning the Thunder if they lose and switching stances when they win.
I have not followed basketball that much in my life, but I have taken to listening to sports podcasts (in addition to other ones I like). I was behind in my listening, so I kept hearing out-dated opinions, like the Spurs are inevitable, like the Celtics had no chance and then the Heat had no chance. By listening just a few days late, I was able to amuse myself with being out of synch with the wildly swinging pendulums.
My basic question is this: does the proliferation of media require over-reactions to every single event? Any series that goes more than four games is going to have ups and downs. Many matches of good teams will either go six or seven games. But perhaps we always need to react to the latest event. Everything new is bigger/better/louder than that which is old. For instance, is this the golden age of the sitcom? Parks and Rec & Community would suggest sure, but that would mean forgetting the era of Taxi/WKRP/MASH/Newhart/Cheers/Soap/Barney Miller/Happy Days/etc. There is a recency bias, but the b-ball coverage takes it to an absurd degree where the most recent game is all that matters.
So, here is my prediction: heaps of over-reactions.
Bad Pop Social Science
Slate posted a piece on the academic study of pop culture. It found that academics studied Buffy the Vampire Slayer most. Well, actually, no, it found that more folks studied the Buffy than the Matrix, the Simpsons, Aliens or The Wire.
This led to a FB discussion of selection bias. We can discuss the merits of these five and ponder why the Simpsons did so poorly (perhaps we need a consistent plot progression?), or why the Wire is under-valued yet again. That the 2nd and 3rd Matrix movies sucked so much that they sucked all the air out of the studying the Matrix enterprise? But what is most obvious is that this "study" is that it ignored the big, enduring elements of pop culture that we have been obsessing about for years/generations: Star Wars, Star Trek (which is tossed off as an side), Lord of the Rings, and, more recently, Harry Potter. Using just the Berkeley source, Star Wars appears to be ahead of Buffy. Using scholar.google:
Star Wars has the most citations but probably the most error given the aforementioned SDI bias. What this does show is that the classics (old) double more or less Buffy while the new (Harry) has 50% more citations. In terms of which papers have the most impact on average, again Star Wars prevails but Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter lead the rest (and probably have fewer accidental cites along the way). Harry Potter has the highest rate of cites per year since all of JK's stuff came out since 1997. This produces the highest H-index. Buffy performs quite well, certainly outclassing the Matrix because, well, quality does matter after all. The Simpsons do pretty well. Aliens? Scary but not worthy of citations. Star Trek is a steady performer, among the leaders across the border, and with fewer false positives than Star Wars. The Wire, well, hard to measure since even restricting P&P searches to social sciences gives way too many non-The Wire hits (same goes for Breaking Bad and Mad Men). I guess folks will have to settle for The Wire remaining the best TV program in most folks' minds and perhaps the best application of social science in a TV show.
Aside from the lesson that Slate does apparently poor pop social science, what can we learn from this exercise (other than my priorities are lousy--I should be doing something other than this--including my summer project of finally watching season one of Buffy)? That we live in a golden age of pop culture and its over-analysis? That Harry beats Buffy? That Star Wars and Star Trek fans have something else over which to fight? That the Matrix really did suck? What conclusions do the readers have?
Of course, one could argue that I have some selection bias myself--that this was hardly a systematic study of pop culture. There might be other books/tv programs/movies that get more analysis than these. But I did do due diligence, web 2.0 style by crowdsourcing first. Certainly, one can do this better if one is writing a dissertation. And surely someone is.
This led to a FB discussion of selection bias. We can discuss the merits of these five and ponder why the Simpsons did so poorly (perhaps we need a consistent plot progression?), or why the Wire is under-valued yet again. That the 2nd and 3rd Matrix movies sucked so much that they sucked all the air out of the studying the Matrix enterprise? But what is most obvious is that this "study" is that it ignored the big, enduring elements of pop culture that we have been obsessing about for years/generations: Star Wars, Star Trek (which is tossed off as an side), Lord of the Rings, and, more recently, Harry Potter. Using just the Berkeley source, Star Wars appears to be ahead of Buffy. Using scholar.google:
- Buffy produces 6k hits;
- Star Trek: 30k;
- Star Wars: 51k (affected by Reagan's naming of the Strategic Defense Initiative);
- Lord of the Rings: 22k;
- Harry Potter: 32k.
| Papers | Cites | Cites per paper | Cites per year | H index* | Most cited piece | |
| Buffy TVS | 100 | 4303 | 43 | 269 | 28 | 836 |
| Harry Potter | 83 | 6770 | 81 | 339 | 43 | 1296 |
| Lord of the Rings | 100 | 8339 | 83 | 83 | 33 | 1961 |
| Star Trek | 100 | 7192 | 72 | 153 | 37 | 926 |
| Star Wars | 100 | 9915 | 99 | 275 | 37 | 816 |
| Simpsons | 100 | 3164 | 32 | 44 | 24 | 507 |
| The Matrix Trilogy | 100 | 973 | 10 | 22 | 14 | 100 |
| Alien Movies | 100 | 370 | 4 | 2 | 9 | 54 |
Star Wars has the most citations but probably the most error given the aforementioned SDI bias. What this does show is that the classics (old) double more or less Buffy while the new (Harry) has 50% more citations. In terms of which papers have the most impact on average, again Star Wars prevails but Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter lead the rest (and probably have fewer accidental cites along the way). Harry Potter has the highest rate of cites per year since all of JK's stuff came out since 1997. This produces the highest H-index. Buffy performs quite well, certainly outclassing the Matrix because, well, quality does matter after all. The Simpsons do pretty well. Aliens? Scary but not worthy of citations. Star Trek is a steady performer, among the leaders across the border, and with fewer false positives than Star Wars. The Wire, well, hard to measure since even restricting P&P searches to social sciences gives way too many non-The Wire hits (same goes for Breaking Bad and Mad Men). I guess folks will have to settle for The Wire remaining the best TV program in most folks' minds and perhaps the best application of social science in a TV show.
Aside from the lesson that Slate does apparently poor pop social science, what can we learn from this exercise (other than my priorities are lousy--I should be doing something other than this--including my summer project of finally watching season one of Buffy)? That we live in a golden age of pop culture and its over-analysis? That Harry beats Buffy? That Star Wars and Star Trek fans have something else over which to fight? That the Matrix really did suck? What conclusions do the readers have?
Of course, one could argue that I have some selection bias myself--that this was hardly a systematic study of pop culture. There might be other books/tv programs/movies that get more analysis than these. But I did do due diligence, web 2.0 style by crowdsourcing first. Certainly, one can do this better if one is writing a dissertation. And surely someone is.
* from P&P: H-index aims to measure the cumulative impact of a researcher's output by looking at the amount of citation his/her work has received. Publish or Perish calculates and displays the h index proper, its associated proportionality constant a (from Nc,tot = ah2), and the rate parameter m (from h ~ mn, where n is the number of years since the first publication).
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