1 hour writing, 3 hours reading/researching

Wow, there is a lot of material at the NY Public Library on the state of Santander in Colombia. I'll need some time to cull through the 62 records I saved and figure out what will most help me get oriented to the region's history for the subnational comparison part of my analysis. I'm lucky that there's already an excellent regional history of La Violencia in Tolima, one of the other comparison states, to guide me in telling that part of the story. I'm unsure about the third state - whether I need it, first of all, and whether to do Atlantico or Bolivar if I do. Turns out Atlantico, where Barranquilla is, was significantly better off than most of the rest of the country in the late 1930s, for when I have census information. If I want to hold socioeconomic level constant, I should probably go with Bolivar (or Magdalena). We'll see. I'll go back to the NYPL tomorrow to dig around more in the census figures.

Continued writing about the trends in the military-government database, which I've started to expand to incorporate number and type of armed challenges. It's difficult to document and code failed challenges, especially failed armed uprisings, so part of today's writing was about planting a flag in the sand and defining terms. Now I have to go get the information, we'll see how that goes.

Read more in an anthology of police reform in the Americas, focusing on the chapters in Colombia. The more I read, the more I'm convinced that the state and local level is where the story really needs to be told; the National Police isn't as central as I may have originally thought. We'll see.

The movie last night was great. It's set in Washington DC from the late 60s to the early 80s, and there are several great moments that really capture the emotional feel of a particular time, rather than just the clothes or the hairstyles. Talk to Me opens on Friday and is definitely worth checking out.