My lovely wife Cathy Sumner is this week's abbreviated monitor. This abbreviated week's monitor. Whatever. Cathy is Director of Corporate Relations at the New York Botanical Garden, a gourmet chef, confidante to the wise and the worldly, and the #1 reason I'm glad I went to Williams instead of Amherst. Welcome, my love!
A bit of a transitional day as I decompress from one conference and finalize preparations for another. I have another good lineup of meetings for Wednesday and Thursday in Montreal. These folks will be more directly involved with research on the police, where last week's folks were more Colombianists and Latin Americanist political scientists. So I'll get a different kind of feedback.
Based on some of last week's feedback, actually, I drastically reworked my conference presentation, making the overheads much more concise. I have 25 minutes, and I timed myself this evening at 27, so I should be in good shape. When you start putting the pieces together in a verbal story, more and different threads emerge that you can weave into the whole. I'm hopeful about getting some direct feedback, and look forward to reading the other panelists' papers on the plane tomorrow.
I also sent all my thank-you notes for yesterdays meetings, for both the dissertation and career meetings. With the latter, I included a revised resume; I'm getting the word out there!
For lunch, I began phase 2 of the great NY street-food odyssey, Chinatown edition. #13 on New York magazine's list, Xinjiang Kebabs, is located under the Manhattan Bridge on the edge of Chinatown. It's located at the end of a curving, shaded block of fruit carts. Perhaps that's "shady" block, as I observed an old guy in a lawn chair, amidst empty electronics boxes, receiving a wad of cash from a kowtowing younger man. Anyway, Xinjiang's specialty is meat-on-a-stick, including the crown jewel, butterflied hotdog. "Spicy?" the vendor asked. Hell, yes. Plus an unctuous lamb stick and a grilled corn not actually drowning in butter: $3. The thing is...this is truly mobile food, as you'll want to snarf it while walking briskly away from the immediate environs, which on this first day of fall were...fragrant. Aromatic. Ripe. (Yikes.) I won't be making a return trip, but if ever in the area, I might go one block out of the way to pick up a dog. In the winter....
4 comments:
Haven't we discussed the dangers of going to Chinatown in warm weather?!? Despite the back-to-school vibe in the air this week, this is nowhere near the first day of fall!
I guess I will give you props for getting ready for the conference despite the lack of writing for the "required" amount of time. I know this week is a little wonky with the travel schedule. And good job setting up lots of meetings and maximizing your time at the conference. Good luck with your presentation tomorrow!
Do not falter, my friend. Keep the faith and keep the pace. You have set yourself goals for reading and writing. They're attainable.
You can do this.
A question... Some report came out today saying that the Iraqis should disband the national police because it's fraught with secular influences. The talking head I'm listening to on the radio says that they can't disband the national police because they need a national police.
I wonder if you're touching on this in your work? I don't understand why they need a national police force. Why can't they have local police? One might think that such a model would mitigate the religious issues...
If you can answer any of these questions in 5 sentences or less, I'd be interested in your thoughts..
Thanks guys!
Good question, B: I do talk a bit about Iraq, as a contemporary example of my topic. The idea with a national police is that it be complementary to the local police. In theory, they can be more impartial than the local police, which may be too close to the community they're patrolling, and hence subject to corruption and/or looking the other way at local faults - think school desegregation in the U.S. South and the role of local police vs. the National Guard (since the U.S. doesn't really have a national police). That type of overlooking is especially worrisome somewhere with a lot of sectarian divisions. If you have police who are mostly from X group in an area that has a population of 80% X and 20% Y, who's going to stop the X's from whaling on the Y's? Maybe the national police.... Maybe.
To me, the more relevant question is, who has the power to hold the police accountable, at whatever level: is is it politicians, soldiers...or citizens? The third is the best, and the hardest to achieve: it's not even an option for the period I study, which is why policymakers are faced with a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't scenario.
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