Marc Maron, on his popular WTF Podcast, made an offhand remark that he does not prepare for his comedy performances. He feels that preparing is for cowards, that you need to be ready and willing to fail in your work since there is a fine line between a unique achievement and total failure. Skirting this line led him to ruin many times in his career, but it has also led him to the transcendent place he is at now. He has reached the heights of...
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Sunday Linkage: Rwanda at 20 Years
Today, April 6, 2014, marks twenty years since the day someone shot down a plane on approach to the Kigali, Rwanda airport, killing everyone on board. That plane was carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, who had just returned from Arusha, Tanzania-based negotiations over a power-sharing arrangement intended to put an end to Rwanda's civil war. All hopes of a peaceful settlement ended with the plane's destruction. Overnight, roadblocks...
Accountability in Public Service Provision: Lessons from a Film Festival
This Saturday's highlight was the screening of the film Powerless at the Environmental Film Festival at Yale, where I was honored with the opportunity to participate in a panel on the film. Begin with the trailer, and then go see the entire film. It's excellent. The film depicts the desperate situation of the Kanpur Electricity Supply Company (KESCO) in Uttar Pradesh, India. Due to widespread electricity theft, the company incurs heavy losses...
Post-ISA Blogging: Does “Star Wars” Count as Science Fiction?
Many Ducks are posting about their highlights from #ISA2014. Mine - aside from the Bloggers' Reception and the many smart junior scholars I met in the lobby - was a meta-theoretical twitter conversation with former Duck Patrick Thaddeus Jackson occurring as I was headed to the airport. First the context. Just before departing, I live-tweeted Chris Tenove's "Representations Beyond Borders" panel (description here) after my presentation on same....
Friday Nerd Blogging
Game of Thrones Season 4 premieres this Sunday. For your viewing parties, check out this website for Westeros-inspired fare. For those of you not yet familiar with the show, and therefore ill-advised to read Season 4 commentaries, here's a helpful series trailer to whet your appetite. (She said with a straight face.)
Thursday Linkage: Slouching towards Semester’s End
While Amanda is a glutton for punishment with both ISA and Midwest appearances, my wife and I are tag-teaming it - ISA for me and Midwest for her. In between diaper changes, Finding Nemo, and oatmeal, here is what I'm reading. Cambridge refuses to publish book on Putin for fear of libel, the IPCC Fifth Assessment report on climate change impacts is out, Japan cancels a whale hunt after ICJ ruling, China bags clean mountain air, no climate...
Mid-Week Linkage
Fewer linkage posts lately due to conference travel, grad admissions season, linkage burnout etc. Here's a few for your clicking pleasure: Human Security: Chemical weapons are alleged to have been used on civilians in Benue State, Nigeria. Daily Kos on why the protests in Taiwan are being under-covered. I have mixed feelings about this Guardian photo-story about children born to genocidal rape survivors in Rwanda, but it's well worth a look....
Social Media and Protests
[Note: A more detailed version of this post appeared at my personal blog.] The Cairo protests that ultimately led to the ouster of Hosni Mubarak received a great deal of attention on Twitter—the most used hashtag in 2011 was #egypt—leading much discussion over whether we were seeing "a Twitter revolution." But the mere fact that protests occurred at the same time as an increase in calls for regime change on social media does not establish that...
An East-West Bridge for Ukraine
[Note: This is a guest post by Joshua B. Spero, Associate Professor of International Politics and Coordinator of International Studies at Fitchburg State University.] Since the Russia-Ukraine crisis accelerated with Russia’s territorial consolidation in Ukraine, Europe is back on the radar screen as great powers and international institutions struggle to de-escalate this security dilemma. After President Obama’s European trip and coordination...
Translating Conference-Speak
I’m leaving for the Midwest Political Science Association conference this afternoon, a wonderful 3 days since I returned from ISA. I’m a little (*cough*) “conferenced-out” – it wasn’t a good idea to do both conferences so close to each other. I am excited, however, to see all the fabulous IO panels at Midwest. As I finished up the last of my conference slides this morning, I was reflecting on the “conference-ese” we all use and what our...
Data Street Cred
I am not known for being a statistics whiz. I have published quantitative work, but I am seen, rightly so, as more comfortable with qualitative work, comparing apples and oranges. Still, I had the gumption to offer advice on twitter about data today. What and why? GDELT was a new dataset that seemed to promise heaps of utility to those who wanted to study event data--which are counts of particular events of interest and handy for analyzing...
Patricia Weitsman Scholarship
Patty didn't want flowers, so instead endow a scholarship at Ohio University. This is from an email her husband sent out to her supporters: Please visit Ohio.edu/ Give and note in the online form that the gift is in memory of Dr. Patricia Weitsman and request that funds be designated to The Patricia A. Weitsman Memorial Scholarship, or call (740) 593-0732 to make a gift via phone She was such a great person, a terrific teacher and influential...