Hi Ducks. Here are your Monday links: The Disorder of Things has a great post on "Cavity Searches in Intern(ation)al Relations" and ... umm... other forms of intercourse between states. Hamza Saif at Chapati Mystery reviews "Globalism and Vernacular in Contemporary...
Still trying to make sense of Benghazi. Some inside info on the mixed messages coming from Obama's Syrian policy. Meanwhile, Assad opens an Instagram account. More mixed messages from the Obama...
Here is your Thursday late morning linkage. Let's start with a couple of stories about getting out to the field. Kim Yi Dionne writes about the challenges of taking her toddler to Malawi during...
Discussion has picked up again on Elizabeth Saunders' guest post, "How Would Al Gore Have Fought the Iraq War." I think it worth clarifying that Elizabeth's piece does, as I read it, two things....
Is the tide turning on the idea of austerity? Philip Pilkington takes issue with this week's New York Times feature story on how well the Latvians are enduring austerity. The IMF thinks Latvia has gone too far. Last week, IMF Director Christine Legarde warned Germany to go slower in making cuts. And, yesterday, it (the IMF) acknowledged in a new paper that "“Forecasters significantly underestimated the increase in unemployment and the decline in domestic demand associated with fiscal consolidation,” -- a finding that it began to unroll last fall. Former EC Commissioner Lord Mandelson warns...
Some sex, gender, and women highlights and lowlights for the week: In the post "2012: The year in sexism" Laura Bates lists the sexist 'lowlights' of each month (from Rush Limbaugh's slut comment to Todd Akin's 'legit' rape gaff). The Huffington Post has some high and low gender moments of its own- the high point is Carey Purcell's "Fifty Shades of Feminism: a response to E.L. James Fifty Shades of Grey." Parcell summarizes many of the criticisms already waged against the series, but with a refreshing tone. Speaking of feminism, if you missed the Atlantic article about why Katie Perry's...
Saudia Arabia seeks water in Ethiopia with violent consequences. Via Laleh Khalili. "Morsi and the Deep State." The case for the US continuing a hard line against Cuba. First-image explanations for US strategic failure. Walt's "Top 5 parties in World History" should include instead the celebration of the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis rather than "The Fields of the Cloth of Gold." On SFF books that authors "didn't love." Classicists and reception studies. And also: How important is blogging for academia? Extremely important, say Patrick Dunleavy and Chris Gilson. A petition to the White Houe aims...
Happy New Year, if you're into that whole Gregorian calendar thing. (And this photo is, inshallah, our last Gangnam Style reference.) Sorry to those of you who thinks this blog inclines too much toward America-centric linkage; there's a lot of that in today's edition. Look below for more traditional IR links. On a related note, I'd appreciate hearing from commenters what blogs I should be reading. I skim a lot of them, but many seem to have gone moribund over the past several months (or been absorbed by our Borg-ish ducky blog here). And given Foreign Policy's irritating new sign-in...
Happy New Year to all. While you’re sticking the bubbly in the fridge and mapping out 2013 resolutions, consider nominating your favorite blogs for the 2013 OAIS awards sponsored by the Duck. Tomorrow is the deadline for nominations. See Dan’s last update on current nominees for more information. The heavy bias toward counterinsurgency links in today’s post is entirely unintentional. Blame the feelings of impending doom sweeping through the DC streets. For things you might actually want to read on NYE, skip to the end. The looming fiscal cliff dominates the day’s news. Luckily, the...
James Scott Linville passes along Anuradha Roy's comments on the protests engulfing India and the death of the 23-year old victim whose brutal rape galvanized them (via 3QD). Reactions to the Japanese election as covered by the Rising Powers Initiative blog. You know, GWU is much better at Georgetown at establishing a presence for its programs. Just saying. Mark Leon Goldberg on Timor Leste as a "2012 success story" for UN peacekeeping. Nara Pavão explains "attitudes toward corruption." A neat non-Duck post by PM on the Peloponnesian War. If you haven't been following CJ Chivers' blog, THE...
Last week I attended our annual neighborhood holiday party and caught up on all the news about the neighbors' kids. One recently graduated with an advanced degree in computer science and is now an "ethical hacker" working in "the U.S. intelligence community." What exactly is an "ethical hacker"? Another spent the last two years in intensive Chinese language study and has a job "following twitter and websites and stuff...for the U.S. government." Both of which seemed a bit strange, until I read this article on the 8 Craziest Job Openings in the Military-Industrial Complex. FYI, I called this...
Now that your holiday shopping is (hopefully) all done, relax, and enjoy these thoughts on our global capitalist society... Development/capitalism and its discontents... Ever the drum-major for capitalism, the World Bank's End Poverty in South Asia blog tells us the miraculous story of how Japanese consumers helped bring elephants back to an Indian forest. The Private Sector Development blog discusses the role of angel investors in the developing world. [So venture capitalists call themselves angels now?] Margaret Wente argues that consumerism is good for the soul, while buying a scarf that...