accountability bloke

Moving to WordPress Site

2007-07-10T01:42:00.001-04:00

I am in the process of moving the blog over to a Bluehost server and shifting to WordPress -- starting fresh, you might say, but also using a new (sub)domain name: http://accountabilitybloke.dubnick.com.

Still in design mode there -- some things are a bit different, but most will transfer over....

More later....

Spare part....

2007-06-26T22:45:00.000-04:00

Well, here is a rather extended post that was not intended as such.

Friend Domonic and I are in the process of putting together a newsletter for the Public Administration Section of APSA (which is main reason why I have not been blogging of late), and while doing so I came to the (mistaken) realization that this was going to be a rather thin issue -- and one filled with more with obituaries than anything else. I tried some of my colleagues to see if they had anything of a controversial, Op-ed nature laying about that they wanted "out there", but I had no takers (after all, it is academic summer time and many folks are hard to reach). And so I thought it might be worthwhile to start a new feature for the newsletter about new ideas that might impact on the field -- and with that incentive I spent a day drawing up the following comments on two books that I have already blogged about here. In the meantime enough material emerged for the Newsletter to be consider now a bit too long -- and something had to give. So, applying the principle of "waste not, want not" (as if that has anything to do with it...), here is the comment that will not be found in the PA Section Newsletter:

Idea-log-ical {that is what we were planning to call the new feaure]

A bit of Pop Management [catchy title, eh?]

I am always on the look out for the latest book or article that falls within the broad domain covered by public administration, but over the years I have developed an aversion to those titles that make it onto the so-called "Management" shelves at the local mass market bookstore (typically Barnes and Noble or Borders). You know the kind of books I am talking about: The First Time Manager, How to Become a Successful Manager, 101 Biggest Mistakes Managers Make and How to Avoid Them, The Art of Managing People, The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow, etc. Sure, there are some of those titles that may be worth reading for the PA academic, but I that I have been so put off by most of them that I typically wait until four or five of my colleagues mention the work in a positive way before I bother to use my Amazon One-Click to see what all the fuss is all about. Such instances are becoming rare indeed, but the titles of those that do make it onto my "read list" would be familiar to all: In Search of Excellence, Getting to Yes, The Gods of Management, almost anything by Peter Drucker, and (of course) Reinventing Government. I call the genre "Pop Management", and with those few exceptions (which often also disappoint) I am not a fan….

I bring this up because I am about to confess to having violated my own standard by picking up two recently published "Pop Management" books as they were released. In part this was because their titles and Amazon "blurbs" intrigued me. Also, at the time I was desperate to find a book or two that would not bore the hell out of my students in a "managing public organizations" course I was teaching this summer.

The books in question are The Starfish and the Spider and Everything is Miscellaneous. The first, by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, is an entertaining and quick read with little depth but one significant message: decentralized, leaderless organizations rule! The second, which turns out to be as much "Pop Metaphysics" as it is "Pop Management", is an entertaining read but with an even more significant message: disorder rules! Its author, philosopher David Weinberger, may have pulled off a rare scholarly coup by slipping a truly interesting work onto the Pop Management shelves of Barnes and Noble.

As the title of The Starfish and the Spider implies, the message is presented with a metaphoric hook that is pretty hard to ignore. The comparison they build on is striking. On the one hand you have the hierarchical, bureaucratized organization -- the spider which can be significantly incapacitated by pulling off any one of its legs, or completely done in by doing nasty things to its "head". On the other side are headless, regenerative entities -- the various forms of starfish which include some species that actually reproduce themselves when ripped apart. At the outset of the book, the contrast is used by the authors to explain historical phenomena that many have regarded as "strange but true" oddities; but as it turns out, what may have been idiosyncratic in the past may now be emerging as commonplace occurrences.

How, for example, do we explain the legendary endurance of the Apache nation in the face of European and (later) American efforts to conquer and subordinate the tribe. And in an era dominated by the transformation of social life through the corporatization and bureaucratization of everything, how do we explain the rise, success and proliferation of the non-corporate, non-bureaucratic model provided by Alcoholics Anonymous? Through these an similar examples, the book's authors demonstrate how the same starfish organizational logic found among Apaches and AA groups is at the heart of a number of "communities" that have emerged as strong challengers to those giant entities that have dominated their respective domains through traditional (spider-like) corporate forms. The examples are increasingly well known stories -- from Craigslist's challenge to newspaper advertising, to Wikipedia's challenge to Britannica, to the Napster/Kazaa/eMule challenge to the music industry giants.

As in the best (and worst) of the Pop Management genre, the Brafman and Beckstrom highlight a small number of factors (conveniently summarized as the "five legs") that characterize starfish organizations: circles, catalysts, ideology, preexisting networks and champions.

While I would argue that most of Pop Management literature might easily be dismissed as repackaged hogwash, I believe the starfish "has legs" (sorry about that) for research as well as pedagogic reasons. Their assertions about (and for) starfish organizations are clearly useful, not only for students of management and organizations, but also for analysts who are trying to make sense the problems faced by the US military in past (e.g., Vietnam) as well as current (e.g., Iraq, war on terror) conflicts (here the lessons of the Apache example of decentralized resistance is all too clear). And if you read the book with the critical eye of a scholar, there are a number of interesting research questions begging for testing.

But before you think I have fallen head over heels for this work, let me point out some major and interesting flaws. First and foremost, I believe they were careless in their decision to highlight "de"-centralization as a defining feature of starfish organizations. As Daniel Elazar brilliantly pointed out in his studies of federalism and related forms of governance four decades ago, there is a big difference between de-centralization and non-centralization, for the decentralized entity implies or assumes the pre-existence of a centralized arrangement. Returning to the metaphor, to think of the starfish as decentralized would be to assume that it "devolved" from a creature that was more spider-like rather than "evolved" from ancestors that were more mushroom-like. In that sense, Elazar's idea of non-centralization is more appropriate, for most members of the starfish genus consists of five radically symmetric protrusions, each emerging from an central disc that seems little more than a shared core and can be regenerated by any of the radials that become detached. By using the term "decentralization", Brafman and Beckstorm create an analytic ambiguity that makes their discussion of so-called "hybrids" less relevant than they might hope.

A second flaw is related to their narrow use of the term "leaderless" in characterizing starfish organizations. The authors seem to view the role of leader in strictly hierarchical terms while at the same time devoting space to the role of "catalysts" and "champions". A good deal more insight would have emerged from this work had they been more knowledgeable about the various ways and means so-called leadership manifests itself in modern organizations.

Despite these flaws, I could not help but think about how valuable the "starfish frame" will be in moving forward the conversations and research now being conducted into emergent forms of governance. Just as "reinventing" tag provided some coherence to the growing body of work on cut-back management and neo-managerialism of the 1980s, the starfish metaphor can provide a popular face for our work on networks and the changing face of leadership.

Weinberger's Everything is Miscellaneous, in contrast, does not suffer from significant or uninformed flaws. The subject is "order", and although the book is written at the level of Pop Management, its lessons rise to the level of profundity. In a sense, Weinberger's miscellany complements the starfish thesis by stressing the effective demise of authority and essentialism. The search for order is (and in fact always has been) an increasingly hopeless endeavor, and the adoption of the "digital disorderliness" that now pervades our cultural, social, political and economic lives will ultimately change "everything" by making any form of categorization and classification arbitrary at best. Rather than see this as the basis for gloom and doom scenarios, Weinberger paints a positive picture of the what is emerging (and already had emerged in some arenas) form this seeming chaos.

At the heart of his argument is the idea of the "three orders or order". The first order is comprised of the things themselves, whether they be books or students or clients or any such material objects which we seek to perceive as an identifiable population. The second order are those ordering mechanisms we use to track the first order things -- from library card catalogues to course rosters to client numbering (e.g., issuing social security numbers). The third order of order replaces the physical (atom-based) reality with a digitized (bit-based) representation which cannot be associated with any particular space or time, and in fact can be associated with any and many perspectives depending on who is doing the perceiving.

The implications are truly revolutionary, and Weinberger's examples range from a visit to Staples to the recent debate over how to reclassify planets, with stops in between at libraries, Wikipedia and Google maps. Weinberger does not offer simplified formulae of how to make millions in the coming disorderliness, and to that extent his work actually fails as an example of Pop Management. Nevertheless, Everything is Miscellaneous is a reframing of the future that all managers will face, no matter what "sector" they operate in. To some extent, the picture he paints of a world dominated by the third order of order is just a "digitized" version of the information society addressed by Harlan Cleveland and Peter Drucker, but in a very real sense the future has caught up with us -- and the question is are we prepared?

I suspect we will hear a good deal more about starfish organizations and the new order of things over the coming years. My own sense is that as a scholarly field we in PA are probably better prepared than most to engage in the discussions that are likely to develop.

Ignited memories....

2007-06-18T23:45:00.000-04:00

A lecture point I made in tonight's class and associated news story had me thinking about growing up in Brooklyn this evening.

The lecture point was about how leadership changes -- especially sudden, unexpected ones -- can alter the structure and behavior of organizations. No big deal as a bullet on one of my powerpoint slides, but it begged for an example and there were two ready made ones in today's business news.

This AM's New York Times had a story about the leadership transition at HBO when its CEO resigned after getting caught in a bit of a scandal. The second story popped up in my email just as I was starting class as a NYT news alert: Terry Semel of Yahoo! had resigned as CEO of that company under pressure from shareholders unhappy with the company's stock value performance.

It was the Terry Semel story that got me thinking about having grown up in Brooklyn, specifically in the Brownsville section, and more specifically on Saratoga Avenue between Pitkin and Sutter. (The Wikipedia entry on Brownsville notes that among the notables who came out of the neighborhood were a range of folks from Aaron Copland and Alfred Kazin to John Gotti and Mike Tyson). According to family legend (and my own vague recollections), at some point in my very, very young years I accidentally set fire to some furniture in the Semel family apartment while Terry (and/or his older sister) were babysitting me. It wasn't a big fire -- I believe it involved some newspapers on a chair and my curiosity about the silvery looking gadget called a "Zippo" (again, my memory is very vague on such matter; hell, I can hardly recall what I ate for breakfast!).

Now Terry Semel is unlikely to recall the incident, although he is three years my senior and (again, if I recall) was punished as much as I was by our parents. But the news of his position shift (I believe he will now be chair of the Yahoo! board of directors) and the fact that I am back teaching and wandering in NY (if only for the summer) did trigger thoughts about how much things have changed over the past fifty years on the mundane level -- and yet how much remains the same for kids growing up in Brooklyn and other parts of New York.

This reflection continued as I took the subway and bus to the place I am staying in Manhattan. I was an early transit rider -- again, memories are vague, but I am pretty sure I was making my way around Brooklyn via bus and subway by age ten or so. Short trips to an aunt's house or to my grandparents' used clothing shop in East New York or to Hoyt Street where my parents worked for different stores. (For details I would have to rely on my older sister who seems to have better recall of my adventures as a kid than I do...). In many respects, for me the subway rides are as grimy and sweaty and noisy an experience now as then -- and as fascinating as a people-watching experience. I have been on many other subway systems since, but with the exceptions of Chicago and Boston, none come close to experience of New York, in both a positive and negative sense.

The same can be said for the bus rides, with one major change: the cell phone. As I took the last leg of my journey to the upper west side on the M86 Crosstown, I was struck by how many folks were using their phones, chattering away often as they entered the bus and throughout the entire ride until they got off at their stop. At least half the passengers on this relatively full bus ride were either on their cells, playing with the Treos or Blackberrys (including me, I might add); if you add the folks who were otherwise "plugged in" to their iPod or Bluetooth headsets, the figure would go to three quarters of the passengers. As self-involved temporary co-residents of the vehicle, the bus riders no longer engage in the awkward interactions that subway riders still experience because the phone signals cannot penetrate the underground tubes -- the avoidance of eye contact, the attempt to ignore the banter and noise made by others, the indifference to strange odors and screaming kids, etc. (all captured so well in the famous Seinfeld "The Subway" episode, although I have to admit I have never seen a naked man on any of my subway rides...).

So, despite Metrocards, refurbished subway cars, moderately improved buses (e.g., "articulated buses"), and all the other improvements that the New York Transit folks have brought on over the past half century, the NYC experience remains as fascinating for a 60-year old people-watcher such as myself as it did for the ten year old.

Thanks to Terry Semel for triggering all that....

Bacevich on JCS...

2007-06-17T07:29:00.001-04:00

This morning's Boston Globe "Ideas" section (always a good read) leads with a piece by Andrew J. Bacevich on the need to reform -- or, better yet, get rid of -- the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). It is, he argues, a failed institution that is beyond salvation.

Bacevich -- whose credentials to discuss this topic are professionally, academically (see here and here and here) and personally well established -- is focused on this particular institution, but what we have here is part of a more significant problematic: the unitary executive theory (UET). Bacevich contends that the failure of the JCS is partly due to design flaws that have not been resolvable via reform, and in part due to the mediocrity of those who rise to the level of JCS chair. (He does note Chairman Colin Powell to be the major exception, but his "success" in the position was a major reason for the mediocrity that has followed....) I think it pretty clear that the institutional context of the unitary executive theory is a more critical factor, for it defines and drives the logic of accountability and responsibility for the JCS and other agencies that were designed to have some degree of autonomy and detachment from the White House.

Since the Bush Administration has taken UET to a level well beyond those of previous administrations, it is all too easy to fall into the trap that the situation will improve on January 20, 2009. But the UET is not a manifestation of partisan differences -- it has been as strongly supported by scholars on the liberal left (see here for JSTOR-access article by Lawrence Lessig and Cass Sunstein) as defended by neocons (e.g. John Yoo). The popular consensus the UET is a necessary aspect of the modern US administrative state has been impossible to break, and the logic of American politics does not make one hopeful for a change in the near or long term future (imagine a presidential candidate running on a platform of "I will do less and defer to Congress more!"; the last president to take that position explicitly, I believe, was Grover Cleveland). But as long as UET dominates our "governmentality", none of the changes advocated for the JCS or other parts of our national security complex (Bacevich advocates advisers drawn from retired military officers) will work.

Central to the problem is a view of accountability that relies on hierarchical governance models that have been central to popular administrative thought in the US for well over a century, and even longer if you broaden your perspective to the modern state. But let's not get into that here -- a post should not be book length....

Mintz(berg)-ing his words....

2007-06-14T10:26:00.000-04:00

If you are teaching a course on organizations (as I am), it is all but impossible to avoid using the work of Henry Mintzberg. Starting with his groundbreaking attempt in the early 1970s to study what managers really do and his comprehensive textbook treatment of organization structure in the 1980s,(e.g., here and here) through his extensive critique of strategic planning in the 1990s (e.g., here and here) (see cv here), Mintzberg is on track to become as important a "guru" in management and organization studies as the late Peter Drucker. The difference is that while Drucker has been treated as Buddha-like, a fount of wisdom whose every word was (and is still) to be taken as authoritative, Mintzberg is perceived as a brash critic who has used his intellectual pulpit to take on the management powers-that-be.

In Mintzberg's case it is a reputation well earned -- and one he continues to savor.

And thank goodness for that.

Examples are found at his personal web site where he provides links to an interview in which he questions the value of an MBA education, a published commentary in the major Canadian medical journal where he goes after the outrageous pricing practices of pharmaceutical companies (and calls for price regulation), and an unpublished essay on the coming economic "collapse of 2008" that will result from the superficial and dangerous effort to maximize productivity.

Brlliant stuff....

Sweating bullets of chili joy...

2007-06-12T13:30:00.000-04:00

I am continuing my “busman’s holiday” in New York City, and at the moment I am sitting at Señor Swanky's (no kidding) Mexican café on Columbus Avenue off 85^th Street eating some surprising good southwestern chili. It is a rare find on the east coast – you can find so-called chili, but nothing in substance or "heat" to match what those of us from the southwest have come to expect. Typically the eastern attempts are watered down or not quite as “hot” as they ought to be – but I have been sweating bullets of chili joy from the first spoonful. Very nice! With a bottle of Corona and tortilla chips, I am good for the rest of the day….
Randi was down here for the weekend but has now trekked back to work, and I am spending most of my time enjoying the open schedule during the day that allows me to do some catching up as well as prepping my course at Baruch.

On Sunday we had traveled to the New Jersey town of Sparta for a party held at another terrific restaurant – a very out-of-the—way place called Zoes By The Lake that serves French cuisine. We went there for a special occasion, but ordered off the dinner menu and found it to be as good as anything in the Boston-New York area we've eaten. Tough to get to, but if you are in the Delaware Water Gap region along I-80 really worth the stop. To make things better, and as noted in the name, it is located right on a small lake, adding to the great atmosphere.

Besides the food, hanging around Manhattan has reminded me why I like to visit here for extended periods, especially during the late spring, early summer and early fall. Sitting in cafes, watching the VERY DIVERSE mix of people, listening to sounds ranging from car horns to horse hoofs (I am staying at a home located outside the horse path in Central Park) – all extremely satisfying and actually exciting. I guess when you are born in New York you retain that sense of belonging despite having lived elsewhere (and I have lived many elsewheres).

The Corona is almost done in and I will shift my locale to a coffee shop to work on that “catching up” stuff…

Tags: Zoes By The Lake, Senor Swanky's (New York), New York City, Sparta NJ, chile, Mel Dubnick, accountabilitybloke

NYC Subway Saga....

2007-06-10T06:31:00.001-04:00

This is the second week of my summer teaching adventure -- a "gig" at Baruch College that involves five weekly commutes to and from New York. Last week (the first) went so well that I was quickly lulled into the belief that things are really quite different (improved, that is) in public transport services in Boston, New York City and in between.

That judgment was challenged yesterday by the folks of the New York City subway system.

This was going to be (and still is) a special commute not only because it began on Saturday (I would normally head in on Mondays), but also because spouse Randi joined me so we can have an anniversary day dinner in Manhattan last night (39 years!) and then attend a family gathering in New Jersey today (an aunt is celebrating her 90th birthday at a restaurant operated by one of her grandkids... should be nice).

Traveling on weekends in the Northeast Corridor is not as convenient schedule-wise as during the week, especially for folks like us who begin our treks in the suburbs along the MBTA Commuter Rail line. The Amtrak Regional we took left Back Bay Station at 150PM, and to play it safe that meant taking Commuter Rail train at 1030 into Boston. In hindsight we could have done that better, but as it was we more than a couple of hours to kill in Boston which we used to good effect by wandering around the malls in the Back Bay area (bags and all). The Amtrak ride was fine -- no real hangups and we were into Penn Station at 545PM.

And that is where it became a problem and this saga begins.

To get to the place we were staying on the upper west side we would usually have two or three choices. Randi wanted to take Broadway-7th Avenue line 1-2-3 trains, but I insisted on the 8th Avenue local C train that would put us several blocks closer to our destination.

By a little after 6PM, each of us with bags on our back as well as moderate size carry-ons in our arms, climbs the steps to where the Uptown C train is supposed to stop -- and there are signs on every post saying that for that day the C will run on the A-train (express) tracks, which means now schlepping ourselves and bags up and down some more steps. OK -- not too much of an inconvenience.

Standing on that express train platform, we kept watching as several E trains (they go to Queens) pulled in and out of the local platform. Nothing was happening on the express tracks -- nothing, not a C or an A. No announcements were made (even though you can hardly figure out what they are saying when they do make one -- the acoustics are terrible in those old stations). No one was around to give information or direct people one way or the other. By 630PM we did what others were starting doing -- moving back over to the local line where at least there was some train to catch heading in the right direction. Along the way I saw a transit employee slouching comfortably against the token booth outside the gates and asked about announcements, and she essentially shrugged but made no effort to be helpful or informative -- she hardly moved. (Ah, just like the old days of "I don't give a damn about customers" service..." -- not a good omen for Mr. Bloomberg's legacy).

As we approach the steps to the local line platform there is rumbling and dozens of folks who had been standing patiently on the express platform made a mad rush (literally) over to the local line. With bags on back we just walked, and still made it up there in time to see that it was indeed an A train that had stopped unannounced on the local track; and now it became evident that if we had any hope of catching a C train it was on this platform.

I situated us by the middle car stop location so I could at least speak with the so-called conductor (on NY subway trains it is a person who sits in a cubicle and opens and closes the doors). The first says all he knows is that there are many trains following him, so wait it out. Another A train follows, and another, and when a third comes in quick succession I ask if there are any Cs running and she says no -- but that her A train is supposedly to make all local stops (which would do the trick for us since that would put us at 86th Street and Central Park West).

We stay on through three or four stops and at 59th Street (Columbus Circle) we hear that same conductor announce that this was to be an express train that would have its next stop at 125th Street. We jump off the train and there stands (finally!) a transit employee giving directions. He tells us to either go to 125th and then take a local C back downtown to 86th (if we wanted to assume that the locals are running from 125th in that direction; but how could there be locals at that end if none are making them uptown?). Otherwise, he says, take the M10 bus uptown using the free transfer allowed on the Metrocard (NY allows for free transfers for two hours -- it was 7PM so we were still good for another 45 minutes....) Where is the M10 stop? Somewhere in the street, he tells me. (I don't think he was trying to be a smartass on purpose -- he just didn't know the answer...)

Up the steps we go and then I make the mistake of asking the person in the token booth about bus stops. "Where do you want to go?" (the standard response; they never answer a direct questions like "where is the M10 bus stop?"). "86th Street," I respond. "Take the 1-2-3 trains right over there" -- and she points to another train platform within seeing distance and lets us back in the platform area through a service gate. We go there and it is obvious that trains have not been running regularly here as well -- lots of people with that impatient "Where the hell is that train" air about them....

We decide to escape and take our chances above ground, and as soon as we emerge we are standing at the M10 bus stop. Sweaty, tired, a bit pissed, we wait as several non-M10 buses pass by -- and then finally the M10.

Now, a brief description of NYC street layouts. As you head north-south in Manhattan all streets (well, there are exceptions here and there, mainly along Broadway) are .5 miles in length -- 20 blocks to the mile. Which means that standing at 59th, we were only 1.5 miles from our destination. Should be a quick trip, right? Not really.

When M10 came, we boarded, and along the way we made stops to pick up and drop off people requiring special access (that is, the driver had to get out and operate the access equipment in the rear of the bus); in addition, we made most station stops as well as at about three-fourths of the traffic lights (which are also, I should note, located at each intersection -- each .5 miles -- along the route). In other words, it was not a quick mile and a half.

By the time we got off at 88th Street we were exhausted but at least more relaxed as we walked to our destination. A fast hello to our hosts (who were on their way out the door) and we headed off to a nice anniversary meal at a nice Turkish restaurant at 85th and Columbus -- and soon forgot about the previous three hours of transit torture in NYC.

Ah, New York!

Confessions of a gillyspitkin!

2007-06-08T00:06:00.000-04:00

Among the many things I am, I can now add the label "gillyspitkin"!

Starting on May 23 I began injecting lizard spit into my stomach twice daily -- once when I get up and then just before dinner.

"Lizard spit" is the term used by the blogosphere's "Byetta" community -- folks like me with Type 2 diabetes who have shifted from one medication to another over the years in an effort to avoid having to take insulin. It is called lizard spit because the basic "chemical" in exenatide (its generic name) is derived from the saliva of the Gila Monster. And so folks who take Byeta call themselves "gillyspitkins.

With all the news about Avandia, Actos, etc -- and with the growing numbers of folks suffering from this malady -- one ought to be a bit anxious about taking this new dru g. There are, after all, side effects to consider.

There is, for example, the possibility of nausea and other "gastrointestinal" issues, but none have proven widespread or serious.

And since it is typically taken in conjunction with other meds intended to lower glucose levels (in my case, glipizide, a sulfonylurea class drug), there is the possibility of a hypoglycemic episode. (I had one last night when I took the injection too late -- that was a bummer....)

But then there is the most notable of side effects -- weight loss!

Yes, list among the side effects is the fact that in clinical trials those who took Byetta recorded a 2.3 kg weight loss over 26 weeks -- not much, in deed, except for the fact that almost every other type of diabetes medication generates weight gain -- or at least bloating (I can confirm all that!). What's more, most folks in the blogosphere report more substantial weight loss (others note the weight loss varies). This is a side effect that in fact works to make the diabetic healthier!

Which leads to the question: in what way is Byetta like Viagra?

For those who do not know the story of sildenafil (the generic name for Viagra), it was originally developed as a medication for treatment of hypertension and forms of angina (the legend is that it was actually being developed to stimulate hair growth). In any case, the participants in the field studies reported involuntary penile erections, and eventually the drug was patented to deal with male erectile dysfunction. The rest is history. (Which raises another question: do they prescribe Viagra for hypertension?)

Exendatide's weight loss capacity may end up doing the same for Byetta, although it is sure to retain it diabetes control purposes as well. There are reports of non-diabetics seeking prescriptions for the drug (see NYT article), and given it high safety scores (at least for now) we may have a real, honest-to-goodness way to counter obesity through medication.

The injection process is not that bad -- best place to insert the needle is in the flabby part of the stomach right above the waist (the "love handles"), although upper arm and thigh are also possible injection sites. The key to Byetta's effectiveness is timing -- you must eat within one hour of the injection, and never take it after eating. There is also a temperature factor, but as long as it is kept refrigerated before its first use -- and otherwise generally at room temperature -- all is a "go".

There does not seem to be a serious downside to this medication, although some bloggers report its effectiveness degenerates over time. Thus far, however, it has earned a reputation as a "monster drug" reflecting its derivation as well as its success for many....

We will see....

Acting on Actos....

2007-06-07T20:04:00.000-04:00

At yesterday's House hearings on the ongoing "Avandia affair", the FDA commisisoner announced that stronger warning labels had been ordered for Avandia (see yesterday's post) and Actos (generically, pioglitazone). These are two of three drugs under the class of thiazolidinediones (we are really now regretting falling asleep in our high school chemistry class), the third being troglitazone which was taken off the market in 2000 for its link to increased risk of hepatitis.

Hmmmm. While I was rather gleeful that I had not really been taking Avandia all that long, I had been on Actos for quite awhile prior to the switch to Byetta (again, more on that later) and it was a bit of a surprise to hear that they are concerned enough about Actos to order the enhanced warnings as well.

As I recalled, back when it was first put on my list of medications, the studies were indicating that Actos actually reduced the risk of heart attacks -- and I believe that was the motivation for my GP prescribing it since I had already been through a cardio event. Looking it up on the web, I found that early study highlighted in a number of news stories -- back in 2005.

But in the interim, another meta-analysis of several studies was published indicating otherwise -- this time concluding that Actos may not only be riskier than the 2005 study indicated and may not be that effective in achieving the kind of blood glucose control that it was designed for. My sense is that the combination of the Avandia scandal and the relatively close "family" relationship between Actos and Avandia led them to extend the cautionary warnings to Actos.

I am typically pretty skeptical about administrative reforms promoted by members of Congress whenever something like this FDA story breaks - usually they are mere symbolic gestures that prove costly and unwise in the long term regardless of the impression they give that the problems are being solved. But watching this all play out at the FDA, I am now sympathetic to the idea (currently on the table in Congress) to create and/or empower a separate entity to deal with drug safety while leaving drug approval to the FDA. The mixture of the functional roles within the FDA clearly raises issues of accountability in the truest sense of that term, for there are distinct and contrasting interests to be served within this regulatory process.

Putting the two (approval and safety) in the same agency under one commissioner makes sense only to the extent that there is an agreement upfront as to which trumps the other. Up until this Avandia episode (and there have been others that have come to the surface), the recent "agreement" gave priority to the approval process over safety concerns. This is probably an artifact of both a move from the right to deregulate and pressure from the left to speed up the approval process in light of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The resulting state of affairs altered a more cautious "safety first" perspective fostered by the infamous Thalidomide tragedy of the late 1950s and the congressional hearings and legislation that followed.

With that in mind, and given the uncertainties of any one specific study as well as the power of the pharmaceutical industry, it may be best to spin off the safety unit into an autonomous agency where the sense of administrative responsibility is clearer and less subject to overrulings and reprimands for doing their job. It is interesting that the folks heading the agency do not regard it as a structural issues, but rather one of improving communication with the public. Either they don't get it or I don't get it.....

Glaxo's pain, my gain....

2007-06-06T09:14:00.001-04:00

The postings on this blog have typically been mostly about my obsession with two things -- accountability and life in general (that pretty much covers it, I guess).

Well, as it happens this AM's New York Times has a story that brings together both my personal and scholarly obsessions.

The story is about various issues surrounding testing for the drug Avandia, a medication prescribed for folks like me with Type 2 diabetes.

At the heart of the controversy (no pun intended) is the online publication on May 21 of a metaanalysis study indicating Avandia (generically rosiglitazone) was associated with a 43% increase in the risk of heart attacks by its users in the study groups (that is, their "risk ratio" as study participants was 1.43). This generated all sorts of reactions. The FDA issued a warning and had to respond to many questions about what it knew, when it knew it, and why it did not take action earlier. Many of the reported several million who take the drug were told to consult their physicians (that certainly must have tied up the phone lines) and there were reports that a good many of those patients involved in an ongoing study being conducted by Avandia's manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), were withdrawing. Of course a congressional hearing was called for today (not the first time for the FDA), and that has brought the controversy up a level or two....

In addition to posting all sorts of information on its Avandia web site and elsewhere, GSK took out large adverts in major papers on Tuesday expressing its confidence in Avandia and its commitment to the safety of the drug, and later in the day a preliminary analysis of the ongoing study was published online which highlighted that (thus far) fewer people in the Avandia group had died from cardiovascular problems than among the non-Avandia taking group (btw, they were on a regimen of other medications).

According to the Times article, the New England Journal of Medicine published three "editorials" (here and here and here) along with this more favorable piece, one noting that the number of cardiovascular events (not merely deaths) was actually slightly more among the Avandia group. (It is noted that none of the numbers rise to the level of statistical significance and thus nothing is proven one way or the other to this point; the study -- if they can keep folks from fleeing -- still has another year to go...).

Adding fuel to the controversy is the claim by an FDA supervisor (noted in the Times article) that she was overruled and rebuked for issuing a recommendation last year that the warning label on Avandia ought to be strengthened in light of what her office's analysis of the available research. Quoted directly in the Times, she is also going to appear before the Senate committee today.

Obviously this stuff has accountability issues written all over it, and I would be more gleeful if it wasn't for the fact that I was into my second month of Avandia on May 21 when the story first broke....

My attempt to live with Type 2 started a decade ago when I was first diagnosed, and like the millions of others who have the same "late onset" version I have been through a variety of regimens to control this malady. I was doing pretty well in terms of controlling the symptoms until a few months ago when I began to feel that things were not quite right (as documented in some of my earlier "personal" posts). Finally I asked my GP, and he set me up with an endocrinologist who, in February, started to get me back on track.

First thing she suggested was a switch in medication -- initially to Glocuphage (metformin), a medication I recall having taken years ago which (I was soon reminded) did not quite agree with my digestive system. Another switch followed -- to Avandia as it turns out, although at the time she thought it probably won't do the trick given my indications of problems. But given the next possible option -- Byetta, which would have to be injected twice a day -- she thought we would see how this worked.

Monitoring my blood sugar carefully, I noticed that the numbers with Avandia were actually up about fifty notches initially, although things started to settle down over a couple of weeks time. Still, she thought the Byetta was definitely now the best option -- so we set an appointment for May 22 when she would brief me on how to take this new medication.

Thus, while others were dialing in to their doctors to get off Avandia after the May 21 news reports hit, I was already set to do so the next day for entirely unrelated reasons. I began the Byetta regimen on May 23 (which relates to another story about weight loss that I will post at some point) and moved to the sidelines as observer of the tribulations surrounding Avandia.

But while my personal connection with the Avandia episode is over, my scholarly interest is deepened by recnet events. What a great case study for insights into our complex system of accountability -- formal and informal, official and unofficial, scientific and political. Great stuff, and a further confirmation that accountability is not merely something we aspire to in governance, but is actually a fundamental (and I would argue, defining) characteristic of modern governance in all its forms (i.e., public, private, social, etc).

So while personally I am relieved to be off Avandia, professionally I am thrilled that its widespread use is stirring such consternation. Mixed emotions, indeed!

Re-birth, New York City style...

2007-06-06T00:32:00.002-04:00

More about my Tuesday in New York.

After a bit of a rest and reading, I took off on my major errand for the day -- to get a copy of my birth certificate.

I was dreading having to do this, but the fact is I have misplaced my passport and cannot find my birth certificate among the piles of papers and boxes that I call my office. (More than likely the passport will eventually be found right next to the birth certificate....)

Looking up the relevant information on the web, I saw that I had many options (internet, fax, mail-in, etc.) for obtaining the copy -- most involving $30 plus handling stuff and two weeks or more; or $45-60 for expedited processing which would take a week. Lots of options, and a good deal of work downloading and filling out forms, scanning other documents related to proving who I am, etc.

But then I saw one option that said "walk in service", and when I read the details it all seemed so simple. As someone born in a borough of the City of New York (I was born in Brooklyn, officially Kings County) after 1910 all I had to do was go to 125 Worth Street, Room 133, pay $15, show my driver's license, and voila, I'd have a copy of my birth certificate.

And of course I imagined that the reality would be a lot worse. I would go there, stand on a long line, fill out lots of forms, wait hours to get to the right window where they would take my money and tell me to come back in a few hours or tomorrow to pick up the official copy....

Oh, me of little faith -- oh, me who teaches about this stuff, and tries to explain to students (with fingers crossed) that bureaucracy is really getting better, and that all that BS about inefficiency and incompetence is just myth (if you think I am kidding, read what I write in chapter 12 of the American Government textbook....).

Well, I guess I had it coming -- it really was a smooth and efficient process. In fact, the biggest problem I had was figuring out how to get to 125 Worth Street (despite good directions from a knowledgeable source).

The web site for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (the keeper of such records for the City) did recommend the best hours to be early morning and between 3 and 4:30 in the afternoon, so I timed my errand to reach the office at 3 (I always factor in getting lost...). I was already convinced things were not going to go well when I got to the front door of 125 Worth Street and saw a sign that said this was not a public entrance -- and I should enter from the side street. "Here we go," I thought, and proceeded to take the Centre Street entrance which, as it turns out, put me two or three steps from Room 133 once I got passed the security check point. Peering into the room I saw a line and, once again, thought things were not going to go smoothly.

First hurdle is a women sitting at a desk who asked what kind of business you had there (they deal with marriage certificates, newborn birth certificates, name change documentation, etc.). She handed me a form which was pretty simple -- name, mother's maiden name, father's name, place of birth, etc. Hmmm - all too simple.

Then I get on the line which was not quite as long as it seemed from the doorway. Three or four of six windows were handling folks, and so it did not take long to move up. Surely, I thought, this is probably just the first stop -- hand in the form and go to room 1334, I thought; pay your $15 there and and go somewhere else to wait, or come back later, or....whatever.

And so I get to the window, hand over my form, show my Massachusetts driver's license, hand over $15 when requested, watch as the women behind the window scribbles some things on the form (and on the money as well -- that was strange), and waited for the other shoe to drop.

But what she did was reach under the shelf to her side where a printer had been working its magic and -- voila, indeed! -- a really quite official looking copy of my birth certificate was slipped into my hands along with an envelop to put it in and a receipt. That's it.... Next!

The transaction at the window took no more than three minutes, tops! And when you calculate another ten minutes (tops!) waiting on line... Well, all I can say is that I was impressed, and bravo to the folks at Room 133 at 125 Worth Street near City Hall.

But before I get to carried away I remember that I now to deal with the ten weeks (that is the rumor) it takes to get my new passport....

Oy!

Into the Labyrinth...

2007-06-05T23:48:00.000-04:00

By the time I finished teaching last night and made it to my New York "pad" (courtesy of very generous cousin-in-laws) I was, to say the least, exhausted -- but pleased that this will work out so well. Despite my frazzled condition and incoherence, the class went well (obviously I am more entertaining when tired) and the nutty decision to take this "busman's holiday" may actually to be an enjoyable experience. Check this blog in four weeks to find out how it works out in the long term....

As is always the case when I get some time in NYC, my first trek this AM was to Labyrinth Books on 112th off Broadway (directions: heading north on Broadway, turn right at the "Seinfeld" Restaurant sign). I rate Labyrinth up there among the best bookstores to wander around in just to scan the shelves to see what is new, what is old and on sale -- and to just plain enjoy. It was once a regular stop for me when I taught some courses at Columbia, and I think many people regard it was the real Columbia University bookstore....

Since I am not going to have the opportunity to do my usual "workout", I walked the distance to and from Labyrinth, and at ten in the AM the weather was perfect for just such a hike (perhaps a bit over a mile and a quarter each way, with brief stops for coffee at one of the many Starbucks along the route).

As usual, I found myself wandering from shelf to shelf -- especially on their "new releases" tables where the quality of their choices for display is consistently first rate. I always walk away with several books, and this time was no exception.

The find of the day for me was Avinash Dixit's Lawlessness and Economics: Alternative Modes of Governance (sexy titles always get to me....) I was two chapters into it by the end of dinner and look forward to diving ahead despite the fact that thumbing through I can see some formulaic sections that will clearly give me problems.... But the basic premise of the book -- that governance emerges in the economic sphere, even if not in "governmental" form -- is intriguing and I want to see how Dixit handles the logic.

Why does this stuff interest me? Well, for the same reason that I am digging into the medieval history of corporate governance -- that is, to see what role accountability plays in the formation of modern governance. Along those lines I also picked up a couple of older titles related to the history of European medieval business enterprises that seem to offer even more evidence to support my work along these lines.

The rest of the day involved a bit of a rest, and then it was off to City Hall -- but that is the topic for a different post....

Back on track(s)....

2007-06-04T09:38:00.002-04:00

I am in transit at the moment -- literally.

I'm aboard an Amtrak Northeast Corridor Regional train on my way from Back Bay Station, Boston to NY Penn Station for my first day of teaching a summer course at Baruch/CUNY.

It is a return to old haunts in two ways -- I taught at Baruch from 1988 to 1992 and this is my first real commute to NY by Amtrak for at least four years. I know to expect changes at Baruch since they formed a School of Public Affairs after I left and have been literally and physically "rebuilding" the place for the past 15 years. But what I did not expect were the changes I've experience on the commute thus far...

When I commuted regularly to work at Rutgers-Newark from my home on the Northshore (from 1997 to 2003) I typically took to the air (pre-9/11 days when it was somewhat affordable and convenient) or drove, and kept the "training" to a minimum. It just took too long and was not that dependable -- or inexpensive or convenient. Hopping on the commuter rail in the station located literally in my back yard, I'd head to North Station where I'd climb the steps of the elevated rail Green Line (part of the Boston subway T) (even with bags, since the elevator was often a non-option) and then transfer at another station to the Red Line (I think) and then sit and wait in South Station. All this was in an atmosphere not conducive to a good attitude since all around was the work of the Big Dig. Boston -- at least those parts I traversed -- was one big construction site, and there were days when you wondered if they should be issuing hard hats just to get around the transport infrastructure.

Well, it has been awhile, and my trek to the Amtrak station was much different. I felt like a modern Rip Van Winkle, having awoke to a transformed Boston after a long sleep. It is not that I have not been coming into Boston or going through by car, but this particular commuting path is one I've dreaded revisiting.

The train from the North Shore was as usual, although this AM the ten minute delay seemed to be an odd occurrence for the commuters and the crew was very apologetic -- something about a signal problem. The difference is that now there is a message board at the station flashing the news of the delay and the reason. Once on board it felt familiar.

Then we pull into North Station which has been transformed into something tolerable and clean. And there was the fact (noted in some earlier post) that the elevated line had been "depressed" and the streets were actually open to real sky light (although this morning it was pouring rain, so I suspect some folks would miss the cover...). But more important, the entry to the T subway lines was just a few steps from the station door, and the access was to both the Green and the Orange lines, which meant that I could easily make it the Back Bay Amtrak station (rather than South Station -- and a less crowded option) without having to haul my bags through a subway line switch.

As for the T line itself, they have definitely improved things. Not only has the North Station T-stop been completely renovated and access moved closer (now all that construction makes sense), but they have introduced a "CharlieCard" for paying the fare -- not necessarily a new idea for subway systems, but well done in Boston and much needed improvement. (The "Charlie" in Charlie Card, by the way, is in reference to "poor old Charlie" of political/folk song fame --see here for background).

The Back Bay Amtrak Station is as it was four years ago -- which, if nothing else, is well located for a trek to Starbucks for coffee while awaiting the train.

As for the Amtrak ride, so far okay. Train is pretty crowded this AM, and it took a request to get the crew to activate the 120v outlets so I don't have to worry about running out of battery power along the way. We are now approaching New London CT, and even more significant is that I now have the capacity to post this thanks to a modification of my mobile phone service that has me online while I am on the move. Which means that I can actually make productive use (I hope) of the three to four (often more) hours I will spend on the train. And which actually means I will not regard this weekly round trip as dead time and might actually enjoy it....

I hope.

Saving Radio OpenSource....

2007-05-28T22:39:00.000-04:00

I seem to do a good deal of complaining about Christopher Lydon at WGBH's Radio OpenSource, but it is clear that I find the show interesting and the debates lively. They do a decent job on a range of topics that would not otherwise make it on the air (e.g., the shows on Arendt, Weinberger's miscellany, etc.). For that reason alone I think it would be a shame if it went off the air -- something that can happen unless folks respond to the S.O.S. issued by Lydon the other day.

There is a bit of deja vu here -- if folks who live in the Boston area recall, Lydon had a rather nasty departure from WBUR in early 2001 thanks to a dispute over money and "ownership" of the production. Among other things the controversy led to publication of Lydon's then-$175,000 salary and publication of emails exchanged during the dispute. The show (The Connection) lasted a few more years, eventually ending its run in 2005 after regaining (at least I thought) some of its quality.

I raise this because, despite my inclination to be supportive of the OpenSource plea for help, in the back of my mind I wonder how much Lydon and his top folks have made reasonable cuts in costs to help make things work in the long run. There was a hint that UMass-Lowell folks were regretting the deal they struck with Lydon (financially they pulled the plug in October), and I noticed that several weeks ago a major staff member for the show left rather quickly, but there was no explicit indication of problems then.

So while I contemplate the donation I will no doubt make to the show, I hope this plea is indeed credible and not to support some grandiose long term plan for expanding the Lydon business model. The other rumored scenario -- that Lydon will leave for the Big Apple -- is perhaps a greater worry....

Sitting at the infosnack bar....

2007-05-28T09:29:00.000-04:00

I don't know how I missed it for so long, but until I ran across the term "infosnacking" in a Frontline documentary several weeks ago I had never heard the word. But as it turns out, it was the Webster Dictionary's "Word of the Year" for 2005 -- a not uncontroversial choice in light of the emergence of "podcasting" that same year. As the story goes, infosnacking did make it into the dictionary right away, but the editor's like it. Perhaps its time is coming....

Curiously, while the word has gained some traction, it has yet to earn a Wikipedia entry (do search here; btw, podcast has one). This is surprising for two reasons -- first, it seems like the perfect word to describe what many younger Wikipedia users do at the site and, second, it is a more pervasive practice among net-geners than we might think.

On the first point, one need only visit the "main page" of Wikipedia to get an example of the ideal "info snack bar" -- I believe several times more useful than the Google News page which is often cited as an example.

My anecdotal evidence for the second point was student responses to a discussion forum I posted last semester on "infosnacking" after viewing the Frontline segment that mentioned it as a driving factor behind the redesign of mainstream news delivery at CBS (in conjunction with Yahoo). There were lots of entries among these 45 or so net-geners, and without exception they all noted that infosnacking was not merely something they did, but was part of their daily routine! Just as some of us older folks grab for the newspaper and scan the headlines over coffee each morning, these younger types situate their coffee next to the computer and do the same on the web. In that sense it is no different from the behavior of their elders. But where there is a significant difference is in their exposure to a range of story or viewing options that is based on their choice of "snack bar". Maybe it is Google News or Wikipedia's front page -- or perhaps YouTube's featured posts or some collection of feeds they created themselves.

This is just the phenomena that Weinberger's Everything is Miscellaneous gets to (see post below) -- and why I believe it is a subject to be pursued on several different levels....

Dis-order and re-orderliness: Weinberger's miscellany...

2007-05-28T01:48:00.001-04:00

One way I kept my sanity while grading all those previously mentioned student posts and essays over the last week or so was to take a break by reading David Weinberger's Everything is Miscellaneous. And as it happens, it was worth every spare moment I could devote to it.

I originally heard about the book on Radio OpenSource, and I have to say that the hour did not do justice to the book's argument -- and this time it is not all Christopher Lydon's fault. Weinberger (who writes Joho the Blog) is attempting to present a pretty sophisticated thesis (that cries out for a more scholarly explication) through a popular lens (see his book's web site here), and he does so in a way that avoids allowing knee-jerk critics to dismissively label him as just another "postmodernist" (although he does acknowledge that risky connection later in his presentation, and it was a hint of postmodernism which did seem to get to Lydon late in his conversation with Weinberger). Nevertheless, this is Foucauldian postmodernism at its subtle best -- but with the underlying presence of Borges (who inspired Foucault) and perhaps Hacking (who was inspired by Foucault).

There are so many ways that Weinberger's miscellany view touches on my work that I can't help but predict I will be citing it over and over again in future blog postings. Its postmodernist theme is not ideological or fadish, but rather comes packaged in a coherent and useful presentation of our post-modern condition which entails the movement toward a metadata-based "third order of order". Weinberger is a philosopher with McLuhanistic insight (interesting that he received his PhD from University of Toronto) into the radically altered relationship between information and knowing -- and therefore knowledge-as-understanding.

I'd definitely put this on the must read list for anyone who wants to understand what the future holds for our major educational and economic institutions as the net-nurtured generation makes its way into the power mainstream....

Sausage making at NPR

2007-05-28T01:12:00.000-04:00

An interesting segment on On the Media (actually a repeat of a previously broadcast segment) provided some insight into how the folks at NPR develop such great "segments" -- and it is sausage making all the way! My one regret is that this was not available while I was teaching my mass media course -- great stuff....

Blogging and alternative life styles...

2007-05-27T06:54:00.000-04:00

Since most of my initial duties at the University of New Hampshire related to the graduate program in public administration, I had not fully participated in undergraduate teaching until this past semester when I took on two undergraduate courses. It wasn't until I was preparing a syllabus for one that I noticed a “W” in the schedule. I vaguely recall being told about "writing intensive" courses, but I was about to deal with my first. In response I created a monster by deciding to use student blogging (see here and here) and discussion forum entries as the basis for 70% of the grade. To make matters worse, I exercised my characteristic procrastination techniques all semester and left the grading to the last two weeks. I have just completed (for the most part) the task of grading several hundred short (from one to several paragraphs in length) "essays".

The task was as "enjoyable" as it sounds. Yesterday, with the assistance of my graduate assistant (thank you, Kevin!) I finally filled in most of the gaps and now have only student complaints to deal with.... (The registrar's office is on my case since I have already missed their generous deadlines and will now have to wait until after the holiday weekend to file the grades).

And now it is back to blogging and other essential matters of life....

Gradng breaks....

2007-05-22T05:32:00.000-04:00

Having remove myself from blogging activity for the past week or so in order to concentrate on grading, I am ready to dive back in. The grading process this semester is going slowly for one particular course since I gave an assignment that involves literally hundreds of separate writing entries to assess. I've decided it's better for me (and much more fair for the student) if I did the assessments intermittently rather than in one or two marathon sittings. This allows me to blog a bit as well...

As usual, I've been doing lots of reading and bibliography building whenever I can. At the moment I'm reading a book found my friend Domonic related to our joint study of the management of the Massachusetts Big Dig Project. The book is Rescuing Prometheus by Thomas P. Hughes, and it turned out that my doorstep from the Amazon yesterday afternoon. Hughes focuses on the various management approach has developed for four post-World War II technology-based "projects". The projects themselves are varied, ranging from the system developed by MIT for ground based defense (SAGE) to the Central Artery/Tunnel (Big Dig) project. Also included are studies of the Atlas rocket project to and the development of ARPANET (the basis for the Internet). The fact that Hughes is located at MIT perhaps influenced his choices, and one could argue that they don't quite make for a coherent group of case studies -- but the focus is an interesting one nevertheless and I am finding it an easy read so far...

Also over the last few days I've been reading David Weinberger's Everything is Miscellaneous. Excellent book and filled with lots of insights into how the "order of things" and essentialism is being challenged by the emergence of digital information systems and related capacities. Really interesting stuff that I hope to use in developing my "nomads" argument this summer. Along the same lines, I picked up Wark's Gamer Theory -- a book that will demand more concentration than I'm able to devote at the moment...

All this and plans to revitalize my courses on organizational theory and behavior the summer. Obviously I'll have plenty to blog about, and with the weekly commute (by train mainly) to New York and Washington where I will teach the summer I should have the time to get some of this done...

Robo-polls and Mitt Romney's "boost"

2007-05-09T06:12:00.000-04:00

For the second time in as many weeks I have rushed down to WGBH Boston studios to do short segments on a local news interview show, Greater Boston. In both cases it was to comment on the New Hampshire Primary, and in this regard I am the surrogate for those more expert on the topic who are much busier than me -- and besides, I live in Massachusetts, so the trek is really a grand detour to heading home.

The first segment -- taped on April 30 -- focused on the campaigning now taking place in NH, while yesterday's focused on the latest SurveyUSA poll (for WBZ-TV, released on Monday, the 7th) that gave Mitt Romney a boost to the lead in the contest among likely voters.

There is much hype and spin associated with the Romney boost -- the local media quickly bought into the idea that he had won the GOP candidate debate held in California last week. The problem with that explanation is found in another state-based poll issued by SurveyUSA on the 7th -- this time for California and this time showing Romney in a very distant third position, in statistical tie with non-candidate Fred Thompson (who ranked at 11 percent in both polls).

So why the so-called boost? Perhaps it is the fact that Romney -- an already familiar face to New Hampshirites who are not likely to be subject to the religion issue -- has launched his TV ad campaign ahead of the pack and is getting some numbers from that. If so, it is a flash-in-pan lift, for the real politics of NH primary season is retail and Romney's boost will quickly fade among those whose opinions are sensitive to such unique media hyping as "I am veto man".

But it can also be a manifestation of the "robo-poll" methodology used by SurveyUSA -- the subject of considerable controversy among professional pollsters, rendering SurveyUSA as one of the "black sheep" among pollsters. In a politically sophisticated place like NH -- especially during primary time -- the use of "interactive voice technology" polls is not likely to get the same kind of reception or response (and cooperation) rates as it might in other states -- like California. The potential flaws in IVT would be magnified in NH -- thus making the poll results very suspect.

The Boston media, however, was quick to buy into this spun poll -- although the Boston Globe's coverage did raise the issues of credibility well into their article. I think it would have been wiser for the rest of the media -- including Greater Boston -- to have held back the hyping of these results until a more credible outfit (e.g., the UNH Granite State Poll which uses more traditional methods for WMUR and the Globe) has its say. I get the sense that the results would be a bit different....

Northern Ireland tries it again....

2007-05-08T06:31:00.000-04:00

News of the day: the latest version of devolved government for Northern Ireland went into effect at midnight this day. Here is hoping this time it holds!

Looking forward to visit from friend Ciarán this week to find out more about what is taking place on the ground in Belfast....

Completed trilogy....

2007-05-08T05:44:00.000-04:00

This AM I completed my reading of the so-called Richard Sennett trilogy. I label it "so-called" because my image of a trilogy carries the image of well planned sequence of books that reflects a somewhat coherent narrative and plot. That model does not apply here, of course; rather, Sennett has executed a sequence of reflections, and each work has literally grown out of the other.

The first, The Corrosion of Character is Sennett's revisiting of the world of work he and Jonathan Cobb studied in The Hidden Injuries of Class decades earlier. In that work you get a sense of someone trying to come to terms with the transformations that had taken place in the intervening years, but for all the interesting insights the book seemed incomplete.

Respect in a World of Inequality was more deeply reflective and brought in autobiographical material that allowed Sennett to more clearly communicate the nature of the transformations highlighted in Corrosion, but in the end the work seemed unfinished as an intellectual articulation of his views.

This he finally accomplished in the lectures offered The Culture of the New Capitalism which is a good and fast read, providing the clearest statement by Sennett of his current thinking. Most of the work is an indictment of current and emerging conditions of an economic and political order that we seem to have wished upon ourselves, but in the end (chapter four, to be exact) Sennett puts forward a general agenda calling for bringing back the life narrative, sense of usefulness and commitment to craftsmanship that he shows to be disappearing (or is already missing) in the work lives of those operating under the new capitalism.

This is all interesting stuff for me as I develop my syllabi for courses in the "management" of public and nonprofit organizations. It also provides me with an intellectual challenge since I have been trying to offset my preoccupation with abstract issues of accountability with the major themes that are dominant in study of contemporary work life....

Organizing for the summer....

2007-05-07T23:59:00.000-04:00

Classes are now completed for this semester and it is now a time devoted to the drudgery of grading -- and the present regret about past decisions about how to evaluate students. Who made those stupid assignments? Even after 30 plus years of doing this, each semester is a matter of live and learn....

At the same time I am also working on developing three variations of a course I will teach this summer and fall (or spring) on organizations and public/nonprofit management. The first variation is PAF 9120 -- a five week grad course at Baruch/CUNY's School of Public Affairs that I opted into on the basis that it would be great to spend some time back in Manhattan during the summer -- I once chaired the Public Administration program at Baruch and I am still a native New Yorker (in fact as well as by inclination) despite ranging far and wide over the years. A second version will be a more intensive one week version of the course scheduled for Washington DC in mid July for the University of Oklahoma MPA program offered for the DoD. The third version will be a full semester course I will prep for either the fall or spring semester during the next academic year.

Despite the common topic, the different formats of the two summer offerings led me to take entirely distinct approaches to the subject, and as it turns out they really have only one book in common: Bolman and Deal's Reframing Organizations. For pedagogic purposes, Bolman and Deal is perhaps the best center piece for an introductory org theory course in a professional MPA program -- its use of examples from public as well as private sectors helps a great deal. This will be my first use of the 3rd edition which came out in 2003 (I have not taught this course since the late 1990s). In each case I have constructed a course around its "frames" approach in different ways and it will be interesting to see how these variations work out and how each factors into the semester long course at the University of New Hampshire.

Of the four "frames" used by Bolman and Deal, the human resource frame (the "people" factor) has been the most challenging for me since I find the literature associated with it either pretty stale or superficial. But my recent reading of the Sennett trilogy (see next post) has given me some additional ideas about how to enliven the way I approach that topic. Recent works on the emergence of new forms of "disorder" (here and here) will make it more interesting to talk about the structural and cultural frames, and the political frame is going to be filled with lots of new examples.

It all looks like fun, especially since both teaching assignments leave my days free to wander about and enjoy NYC and DC for short periods. Being able to look ahead helps get me through the immediate grading tasks as well as the various events associated with the end of the academic year....

Starfishing around....

2007-05-04T00:22:00.000-04:00

I am into my multitask reading mode as I decide on books to assign for upcoming courses.

Looking for a book on transparency has reinforced my sense that this is a bogus concept that is pretty thinly treated by most. A very thin -- and short -- work is What is Transparency? by Richard Oliver; it is superficial and filled with lots of hype and meaningless anecdotes -- the students would love it, but there is no depth to it. The recently published Full Disclosure is more substantial and analytic -- or so it seems at the outset. The problem I have with it at the moment is conceptual and I am casting a critical eye on it as I dig further. I know there is a strong assumption that (targeted) transparency is beneficial in most circumstances, but I am skeptical and keep thinking about the lessons of James Scott's Seeing Like a State.

A more fun and positive read is The Starfish and the Spider -- written in a breezy style, it tends to oversimplify but is effective in making its overall points. My big issue with it at the moment is the authors' use of "decentralization" as the primary descriptor for their starfish model. As students of federalism who are familiar with the work of Daniel Elazar know, there is a distinction between decentralization and noncentralization, and I think their argument about the power and resilience of starfish organizations would have been better described as noncentralized or even "un-centralized" (decentralized organizations assume the existence of a centralized organization from which they are "de"-ed -- if you get my drift.) Nevertheless, it is tough to put the starfish down....

Tragic GUBU....

2007-05-02T00:05:00.000-04:00

Friend Ciarán posted on a story about the deaths of four members of a family in County Wexford Ireland a week ago, and tracing back to the news stories and blog post that drew his comments brought a number of things to mind.

First is how oblivious we Americans have become to stories such as this one -- perhaps because this kind of tragedy has become a such a US media staple that we regard each reported (and over covered) instance as just another episode in an ongoing reality show. We have become immune to the shock and horror these stories initially generate, and our national ability to reflect on such is pretty much worn down to minimal levels of head shaking. The Irish and their UK neighbors seem to retain the national capacity to be shocked, to reflect and perhaps to take actions when such tragedies occur. I think we in the US have lost that capacity -- if we ever had it.

A second reaction is to the theme of "blaming" that runs through the discussions whenever such events occur. Engaging in the "blame game" is in many respects a despicable outcome, but it seems to be an essential and unavoidable ingredient in our collective response to tragedies, disasters and catastrophes. Rather than approach blaming as socially dysfunctional, we should acknowledge it as a necessary aspect of modernity in which society is driven to find reasons and causes for everything that does not fit into our assumed order of all things normal. This blaming can range from attributing events to some supernatural "evil" or (alternatively) "stuff happens" to elaborate inquiries that seek to pinpoint causal factors. With that in mind, the primary task of social science ought to be enhance our understanding of blaming rather than seek to overcome it.

A third reaction is associated with the general feeling that there is no way to make sense of the bizarre behavior of folks -- individually (as in the case of the Virginia Tech shooter), collectively (e.g., Jonestown) or in this case as a parental pair. The fact that they went out together shopping for funeral arrangements indicates a great deal more premeditation than I originally assumed when reading the initial reports of the deaths. GUBU is certainly an appropriate acronym, although there is little humor to be found in this shocker....

Overcoming knee jerkiness....

2007-05-01T05:04:00.000-04:00

An anonymous reviewer of a manuscript recently submitted to a journal has me reading H. Richard Niebuhr's The Responsible Self -- or I might say re-reading since this seems very familiar. But in fact this is my first time through this work. The reason it seems so familiar is because this work is central to that of Michael Harmon's Responsibility as Paradox -- a work of considerable importance in the field of public administration that receives too little attention.

Although the overarching purpose of Niebuhr's work is to establish the foundation of a Christian morality, his analysis is more secular than theological. On the theological side, his work explicitly derives from Buber in seeking a rationale for adopting a commitment to some god-like universal, but on the secular side he is just as explicitly tied to the pragmatic interactionism of George Herbert Mead. This mix is a bit of a stretch for a skeptic like me, but Niebuhr's view of responsibility is very useful for my own work, and in that sense the reviewer who suggested it was on target.

Most important from my perspective is the relationship among the basic concepts: responsibility, responsiveness and accountability. His approach does not subordinate accountability to responsibility or render it a mere synonym (as is common), but rather regards it as a distinct social and ethical condition. Half way through the book, I can already see its value.

Which brings me to the question of why I had been so reluctant to read this work earlier when it was so obviously related to my own projects, and I suspect part of the answer lies in the subtitle's focus on "Christian morality" which I associated (in knee jerk fashion) with religious fundamentalism. But another reason is my association of this and other works with pop psychology of the sixties (and today) which I have long detested as worthless and worse. But here I am guilty of the intellectual myopia I accuse others of.

Lesson learned -- at least for now....

Moyers is back...

2007-04-29T09:39:00.000-04:00

This past week Bill Moyers Journal came back on the air at PBS -- Moyers had been doing other things for a few years and so this was a return to format that had grown a bit stale by the time he dropped it in 1981 and went on to other projects (see here). He reentered the frey out of a sense of frustration with the political scene (he is an unapologetic big "L" Liberal from the 1960s) and has been inspired by the work of Democracy Now!, which in turn has been inspired by Moyers' own approach to journalism (also see here).

The first broadcast on the 25th was a special 90 minute critique of how the media bought into the Iraq war scenario, and among journalists it has already received a good deal of attention (e.g., here and here). It is a must see for anyone who seeks some signs of sanity in an otherwise deadened media environment.

In his first regularly scheduled broadcast two nights later, Moyers conducted a terrific interview with Jon Stewart -- which was even better than the original sit-down between the two that took place in 2003 on Now with Bill Moyers. Another segment on Josh Marshall and the Talkingpointsmemo.com blog that has become an active player in internet journalism.

Here's hoping Moyers will sustain this....

Tags: Talkingpointsmemo.com, Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, Bill Moyers, NOW (PBS), PBS, Democracy Now!, Bill Moyers Journal, accountabilitybloke, Mel Dubnick

Mediated

2007-04-23T20:23:00.000-04:00

One of the more interesting analyses of the media coverage of the VT shootings was presented by On The Media. The idea that the shooter had put together his own "press kit" and that we are increasingly engaging in staged drama goes well beyond the McLuhanistic universe.

Campus life the day after Virginia Tech....

2007-04-17T13:32:00.000-04:00

If you want to get a sense of what things are like "the day after" the Virginia Tech murders, consider the following series of emails I received as an affiliate of another major state university....

-----------------------

9:53 AM
TO: Students, Faculty, and Staff

Students, faculty and staff should stay in their buildings or dorms until further notice.

----------------------
10:23 AM
TO: All Students, Faculty, and Staff

The XX Police Department has made a saturated search of the area where a person carrying a suspicious object was spotted. No person with a weapon has been found. It is now believed that the person was possibly carrying a yoga mat which was mistaken for a weapon.. We should therefore proceed with the normal schedule. The individual carrying the items was described as a caucasian male of student age partially balding or with short hair and wearing a yellow shirt. If such a person is seen carrying a suspicious object it should be reported to the XX Police Department at 1911 or xxx-1717 or blue phones should be used. If anyone feels that he may have been the person who was seen and was thought to be carrying a weapon that person should also call the XX Policy Department to reassure the community.

Thank you for your cooperation
xxx
President
------------------------------------
12:09 PM
TO: All Student, Faculty, and Staff

The person apparently seen by the student making the earlier report has self-identified himself. He was carrying an umbrella and not a weapon. We appreciate his action in identifying himself. We now consider the matter closed. I appreciate the cooperation from the university community in this matter. We always want to err on the side of caution in a situation like this.

Sincerely,
xxx
President

Mere semantics or subtle pragmatics....

2007-04-17T05:01:00.000-04:00

Commenting on a speech at NYU by aspiring UK foreign minister Hilary Benn, British MP Kahlid Mahmood said Benn (who currently holds the International Development portfolio in the Cabinet) was merely "playing with semantics" when he suggested that the US and UK abandon the phrase "war on terror" and instead pursue an approach based on "soft power" politics for dealing with extremists (see here for NYT report on NYU speech).

I think Benn is on the right track, although the proposal is nothing new and comes a bit late in the game to make a significant difference in how we talk about -- and think about -- the "war". In that regard, semantics do make a difference when it comes to politics and how states initially deal with the problems of terrorism. President Bush's impromptu decision to engage us in a war was unique in US history (see here) -- the first time such an action was undertaken in a political and intellectual vacuum; a truly "thoughtless" action in the Arendtian sense (see here).

In that sense, Benn is on target.

But we are also firmly implanted in a quagmire of our own making no less tragic than Vietnam or Korea -- two cases where the term "war" was never quite formalized until the decision to memorialize those who served and died. Mahmood is correct in noting that it is now a matter of mere semantics, especially in Iraq but increasingly worldwide.

What Benn is proposing is relevant to how we reflect back on what transpired since 9/11, but by itself the proposal does not have more than symbolic value in terms of how we move forward. Suggesting we shift to soft power tactics does little or nothing to alter the commitment to the so-called "war".

More relevant might be the approach articulated by Thomas Friedman in last Sunday's NYT Magazine. Friedman's credibility as observer and Lippmann-like advice giver is somewhat tarnished in light of his "liberal hawk" record supporting the invasion of Iraq, but his idea that the US can reestablish itself on the international scene by pursuing a "green" agenda is attractive -- and it is a path already being used by the UK PM-in-waiting, Gordon Brown, who has embraced and even led international efforts in both environmental and anti-poverty areas.

That is perhaps the key to understanding what is behind Benn's speech, for the meaningful audience for his talk in New York are the folks in 11 Downing Street who are preparing for a transition away from Blairish policies now in place at No. 10. What MP Mahmood does not appreciate is that while engaging in semantics may not seem useful in and for itself itself, it does make sense when put in the context of a broader "pragmatics"....

Tragedy and blame at Virginia Tech...

2007-04-16T19:52:00.000-04:00

Before I comment on the events at Virginia Tech today, let me tell you a little bit about my day before I became aware of those horrendous events.

For several days now, those of us in the New England area have been subject to a barrage of warnings about the nor'easter heading our way on Monday (today). The storm did in fact start as predicted on Sunday, and by all indications we would wake up to significant rainfall and winds by early this morning. Because I commute to the University of New Hampshire campus, I got up a little bit before 5 a.m. and checked the storm warnings notice on the campus site. There was no indication of any closures or (as they put it) "curtailed operations". Bundling up, I headed out the door and had a very interesting drive to Durham, but made it there without incident until entering the town itself where I ran into a couple of detours. I parked my car, walked to my office and settled in by a little after 7 a.m.. Over the next two hours I prepared for my 9 a.m. class and, quite surprisingly, had a pretty good turnout despite the blustery conditions. I suspect most of the students who attended live on or very near campus, and there were several apologetic e-mail's when I got back to my office from students who could not circumvent the weather.

While all this was happening, street flooding continued around Durham and roads in and out of campus were blocked off as conditions worsened. By 9:45 a.m. (while I chattered away in class) the decision was made to cancel all classes for the rest of the day, and by 10:15 a.m. word had spread to every classroom and not a student was to be found who did not know the status. Those of us who had to leave for home did so. Luckily my route out was unencumbered, although I did watch one bridge flood over in my rear view mirror after I had passed its low point....

I bring this up because I find the story of what took place on the Virginia Tech campus this morning unfathomable. University campuses like UNH or Princeton or the University of Kansas or any of the other self-contained grounds that I've been associated with are very much like Virginia Tech's. There are access roads in and out of campus, and these roads can easily and very quickly be monitored and blocked within moments. This is done frequently during the course of a winter storm or other exceptional weather events. Campuses can be closed down on a moment's notice, and word spreads like wildfire even among those "in transit".

From what we now know about the sequence of events that took place at Virginia Tech, the campus police and administration knew by at least 8 a.m. (if not earlier) they had a double homicide on campus with no suspect in custody. That is what they "knew", but what they "assumed" was that a suspect had left campus and that (therefore) there was no danger to the rest of the campus community. Rather then doing what they would do in a snowstorm or other weather emergency (which, it should be said, are more common than double homicides!) -- that is, close off campus access and close down or curtail campus operations -- these folks made assumptions that increased the vulnerability of the student body on campus.

A sympathetic as I usually am to the tough dilemmas facing decision-makers in administrative positions, this was clearly a wrong call.

The argument that they operated on the basis of what they knew does not hold water, for what they say they "knew" is actually what they "assumed" to know.

The argument that they could not have taken effective action in a short time to both secure campus access and cancel classes is also without merit given the experience and capacity of similar campuses.

In short, the arguments they offer to not rise to a level sufficient to relieve them of culpability in this tragedy, and it is not unreasonable to speculate a different outcome -- fewer lives put at risk and lost -- would have resulted from different assumptions.

What makes things worse is the effort made by some university officials -- especially Virginia Tech's president and police chief -- to offer explanations and excuses in response to the pointed questions from reporters that implied irresponsible decisions on their part. A basic lesson I've drawn in my work on public sector management is that all modern administrators operate in cultures of blameworthiness, and they must learn to deal with the conditions that creates. The moment you assume a position of responsibility -- whether as university president or chief of police -- you accept the role of being blameworthy whether or not you are actually worthy of blame.

Perhaps the worse thing you can do in such a situation is to attempt to offer explanations or excuses, especially when conditions are in flux and you're facing a frenzied crowd. Matters are far far worse, of course, when it is clear that your actions (or inactions) have really contributed to the errors that led to tragedy....

Savage reporting....

2007-04-15T11:42:00.000-04:00

Charlie Savage of the Boston Globe is perhaps the most informed and informative reporter on the Washington DC beat. Unlike his colleagues who get hung up on the latest media frenzy, Savage is consistently reporting on the mundane stuff that ultimately morphs into constitutional issues and significant political crises. What is more, he does it in a way that makes these otherwise back page items into front page news.

So far his ultimate triumph has been the story of Bush's abuse of presidential signing statements -- a story that has raised eyebrows even among the most loyal of White House supporters in the legal community. Only the firing of the eight US Attorneys has done more to undermine that important support.

In today's Globe, however, the story is about the problems caused by the end of earmarks, for now agencies that have let their "discretionary policymaking" muscle atrophy from non-use over the past decade are finding the going tough. With congressional instructions no longer in place, we are back to the old days when authority to make implementation choices ("who gets what, when, where, and how" -- which is Harold Lasswell's definition of politics) is in the hands of agencies.

What is not in place, however, are the mechanisms of what Theodore J. Lowi had termed "interest group liberalism" (requires JSTOR access) which was characterized by the capture of agency decisions by powerful interests. Those interests had moved their business activity and influence to Congress after 1994 and had effectively preempted bureaucratic authority through earmarking and related tools. (For contrasting but related view, see Weisberg on "Interest Group Conservatism".) But with earmarking now earmarked as taboo, the agencies find themselves awash in real power and responsibility with only the faintest guidance from a White House that is rushing to fill the gap before too many of its priorities are trumped by those civil servants who have patiently suffered from the misfortunes of the theory of the unitary executive.

One indicator of what is taking place was mentioned in the Savage article: NOAA scientists, long suffering from the Administration's effective quashing of programs related to climate change, have been taking advantage of the vacuum to promote changes that some probably felt would not take place until a new Administration was in place....

But the implications of all this are broader and deeper than touched on by Savage's write up. It may be time to dust off our old copy of Lowi's End of Liberalism....

Outsourcing waste, fraud and abuse....

2007-04-14T14:54:00.000-04:00

The political stump speech is hardly news or worth noting, especially if (like me) you hang around New Hampshire these days where the presidential primary is well underway and stump speeches are frequent enough as to be "no news'.

But yesterday candidate Hilary Clinton gave a speech in Manchester worthy of special note in the NY Times -- and worthy of special note to those of us who study and teach public administration.

It was, for sure, one of those "let's get rid of the waste, fraud and abuse" talks which usually take the form of bureaucracy bashing one-liners and in the past have been so tiresome that her spouse (who was actually excited about the topic) was once warned never to hold forth on the topic before a crowd.

But this was different, for it was not merely about waste, fraud and abuse in government programs -- it was about all the waste fraud and abuse that comes about due to the behavior of contractors!!! The way to save money, she implies, is to have public goods and service supplied by public employees -- real bureaucrats, working for real bureaucracies!!!!!

Of course she made reference to the work done by Al Gore's reinventing government project which was tossed without hesitation by the Bush Administration and replaced slowly and quietly with their own outsourcing initiatives, including faith-based initiatives. The message, however, is that the Gore National Performance Review (as it was once known) did more by streamlining agency operations than outsourcing has done under Bush -- and with less "waste, fraud and abuse"....

Now this is no simple message to get across, but it interesting that the Clinton campaign is attempting it. Let's hope the other candidates catch this issue wave....

Deja iPod

2007-04-10T22:41:00.000-04:00

Driving between the doctors office and the pharmacy this afternoon (yes, it was that kind of day), I was put in a better humor by a 26-year old NPR segment that was played in celebration of the sale of the 100 millionth iPod....

Back to Sennett....

2007-04-07T22:50:00.000-04:00

After a brief break from the Sennett trilogy (see here and here and more), I am now reading the third in the unplanned series, The Culture of the New Capitalism. This is a short work and relatively quick read, especially since it explicitly tries to pull ideas from the previous works together. I am a quarter of the way through the work, in the midst of his commentary on bureaucracy. With the exception of his return to the "disc" (now MP3 player) metaphor (which still does not quite work), thus far this is a solid presentation.

What makes Sennett's view intriguing is his willingness to acknowledge the benefits (actually, the functionality) of the classic bureaucratic organization -- in a way similar to his highlighting the value (functions/uses) of disorder in his earlier work. As he notes, the traditional bureaucratic form -- warts and all -- remains a powerful and pervasive factor in our economic lives, but it is under attack where it is perhaps most useful: that is, in the delivery of public sector services. The striving for reforms that emulate the new market ideologies is wreaking havoc in the public sector -- or at least that is the judgment implied by Sennett so far. Of course, he could surprise me as I move forward in the work.

In keeping with my tendency to read more than one work at a time, I have also been working on Janice Gross Stein's The Cult of Efficiency. Usually I read books on entirely different topics, but this time they are overlapping. Stein's volume is the published version of the 2001 Massey Lectures sponsored by the Canadian Broadcasting Company, and its focus is on the problems being caused by the emergence of market efficiency standards and a strong accountability regime in health care and education.

Probably they will meld together in my dreams. Certainly they will get simultaneous treatment in my posts....

A negligent step...

2007-04-04T05:35:00.000-04:00

Spouse and dancing partner Randi forwarded the this story to me. Normally I would think it funny, but I have a feeling it was a warning to keep me on my toes -- or at least off hers....

Immersed in Nomadics

2007-04-03T23:13:00.001-04:00

I am back to discussing the idea of a "nomadic culture" emerging as the first generation literally raised on the web matures and enters the economy and political realm. This time it was in response to William Heath's posting on "Blindside", a blog/wiki he "set up to answer the question 'What's going to go wrong in our e-enabled world'." William sent me an email asking how my idea of nomads (articulate in an earlier post on Ideal Government) related to the concept of "Generation C" which is attributed to a UK consultant, Matt Webb.

My response (posted as comment here) follows:

I am not quite sure the Generation C idea is quite the same as the nomadic, mainly due to the focus on control, which I think makes is closer to the “customer” model. The desire for control presumes the existence of certainty about preferences and priorities, and I don’t think that is quite what drives the emerging nomads. The immersion factor — being dropped into a setting of new and unfamiliar options (links) that can lead you into a completely different setting, etc. — provides the nomad with a sense of satisfaction that does not come from “consuming” but rather “experiencing”.

The folks I feel really captured this are Sherry Turkle of MIT and Janet Murray of Georgia Tech — and especially Murray’s “Hamlet on the Holodeck” and Turkle’s “Life on the Screen”, which are already more than a decade old. Turkle focuses on what happened when MIT students became immersed in the first MOOS and MUDS; Murray has taken immersion into literature and gaming. I think these folks really capture the nature of the shift to a nomadic culture, and the designers of e-government should be looking in those directions for hints of where the emerging generation might be — I guess we would call it Generation-I (for Immersed) or Generation-N (for nomadic)….

Ruminating (pondering the cud)....

2007-04-03T04:15:00.000-04:00

[Rumination, according to the on-line dictionary, involves pondering and meditation. It also means the "process of shewing cud."

I like the contrast and will attempt to live up to both meanings in what follows. The reader will no doubt have mixed feelings if deciding to read on -- the choice is between the boredom of "watching" me ponder or the disgust of watching "cud" being chewed....]

Although my scholarly focus and obsession is with accountability, my attention has shifted increasingly to governance, the idea being that the importance and relevance of accountability is found in the context provided by our current and historical efforts to establish and sustain governance. But what is governance?

Some folks treat the term as just another way of talking about government per se, while others approach it as institutionalized forms of control. It involves those things and more, however, and I am leaning toward a view that extends the ethical perspective expressed in Foucault ("taking care of the self") to the collective level in two ways by viewing governance as the (1) the adoption of technologies of the collective self (as an organic whole greater than the parts) and (2) the care we take of our individual selves in collective efforts (a more pluralistic notion).

In hindsight, I now see this coming out in some of my earlier work on accountability that stressed it as a means for managing the multiple, diverse and conflicting expectations we all face, but which are especially the burden of public administrators and (I would now argue) those engaged in governance. Governance in the form a various types of accountability emerges as those folks become subject to the pressures and pulls of moral communities -- political, legal, organizational, professional.

It is time for me to revisit that work and play with in in light of my slow re-education in critical theory....

A day of foolishness....

2007-04-02T00:01:00.000-04:00

It was interesting to track the number of hits this site got yesterday via searches related to the On the Media "Jihad to Go There" hoax. If this obscure site got a couple of dozen [and another 115+ today, April 2], I can imagine what the totals were on the various search engines. What was interesting is that the reference to Google TiSP hoax did not generate any hits at first and then got a few.

Another noteworthy April Fools "gag" was the shifting logo at Technorati -- click the banner to the left of the main page and you get Tonierchat, niceThroat, heartTonic, Tritenacho, etc. etc. (you needed to sign in for the function to start).

Nice job by all....

A day for connections....

2007-04-01T16:36:00.000-04:00

There are some days when things just seem to connect....

Yesterday's blog on Judgment at Nuremberg failed to mention one other notable cast member: Werner Klemperer. In that movie he played a despicable Nazi prosecutor on trial for war crimes, but to most Americans he is recognizable as the infamously inept Colonel Klink on TV's Hogan's Heroes.

Coincidentally, that show was mentioned in a segment of this week's On the Media in a story about a new sitcom to be broadcast on the new Terror TV cable network. It happens that the initial reaction to Hogan's Heroes was somewhat negative given its comic rendition of Nazi POW camps, and Bob Garfield made that point when interviewing Terror TV's Rex Van Ommeran. Of special interest is a Terror Channel sitcom, Jihad to Go There, that features jihadist recruits in training to be terrorists who all go by the name of Abdul.

Not willing to drop the subject at that point, and making the connections even stronger, On the Media followed with a related story that was equally interesting....

And finally, talking about "connections," today Google announced the launch of its TiSP wifi service. Now this is something I can actually use!

NI blogging....

2007-04-01T11:03:00.000-04:00

According to the little sidebar listing on the site, my first posting was on November 13, 2004. At the time I was situated in Northern Ireland and decided it was time to see what this blogging thing was about. At one point I was posting regularly enough to generate a regular readership, but I let it slip and now only get a handful (according to Statcounter) -- and many of those by random selection process. If you are reading this, you are indeed in select company.....

I bring this up because BBC Radio Ulster broadcast a half-hour documentary on blogging in Northern Ireland yesterday (it was rebroadcast today, but not as an April Fool's hoax). It was especially good to hear the voice of Mick Fealty who oversees the Slugger O'Toole blog which has proven to be one of the truly useful sites on the Web if you're interested in what is happening in Belfast and Northern Ireland politics. Mick was beginning to play a major role in the political news mix by 2005 and it was great to have him around the Institute of Governance as they part time fellow.

Other blogs are highlighted as well, including one called "Letter to America" by Jett Loe (great Flickr spot) which started in September 2005 and operates under the theme (if I caught it right) "we live here so you don't have to...".

But it is Mick's comments that makes this worth a listen.....

Timing of Judgment....

2007-03-31T21:51:00.000-04:00

This afternoon I sat down to watch a rerun of Ken Burns two-hour PBS piece about the first "automobilist" to make it across the US back in 1903, and before I knew it I was watching Judgment at Nuremberg, a 1961 movie that I recall seeing that many years ago -- but obviously did not appreciate at the time.

I have often used movies to teach my Ethics course, and cannot recall why this was never on my list. Perhaps it is because the film runs over three hours.

But in seeing it again I am amazed at how well this movie holds up. It is really well done, and I was especially impressed with the "pull no punches" writing of Abby Mann. I cannot recall another movie that makes the moral dilemmas and issues so clear.

Reading a bit of history about the movie, it was an adaptation to screen from a play originally presented in 1959 on TV's Playhouse 90. Among folks in the movie cast were Spencer Tracy, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark -- and a very young William Shatner. Among the other little tidbits is that Maximilian Schell, who played the defense attorney Hans Rolfe in the TV version, won a "Best Actor" Oscar for that role in the movie despite the fact that his was not among the leading male roles.

Another bit of information is that there was a Broadway stage version that opened in March 2001 -- and closed in May. Schell was in the cast playing the Janning character that he was defending in the movie.

One wonders whether the stage version would close as quickly today given the moral relevance of the script....

The phrase that comes to mind is: timing is everything....

Bits of Fresh Air

2007-03-30T23:21:00.000-04:00

I have been a fan of Fresh Air for many years, and it was a major disappointment that the NPR WHYY-Philadelphia) show did not have a regular podcast. There was a subscription based download from Audible.com, but I am not a fan of such pay-for-listen services; the alternative was to hope that a particular segment or interview from Fresh Air might get posted on the NPR site as a featured interview....

But recently the Fresh Air podcast became a free subscribe-able download, and it is becoming a daily listen. What is interesting about the show is that it has been on so long that its archives offer old segments that can be scheduled on any particular day to reflect some hot news or culutral event. A new movie out starring Will Farrell? Out comes an interview with Farrell taped for a previous movie. A famous author dies? Fresh Air will air at least a portion of an interview with the deceased taped twenty years ago. And then there are the random repeats -- such as today's replay of a terrific Sasha Baron Cohen inerview about Borat and other things...

But it isn't merely the number and range of guests that make this show so great. Terry Gross, the host, is truly a wonderful interviewer, not only from the perspective of the audience, but also from the perspective of many guests who often remark how much they enjoyed the experience. (Not all, however; Gross had a famous confrontation with Bill O'Reilly not too long ago....)

And every so often she does back-to-back interviews contrasting interesting folks, which is what took place this week when she had long interviews with Richard Dawkins (the scientist-atheist) on Wednesday and Francis Collins (scientist-very much the believer) on Thursday. The Dawkns interview was solid, although not quite as fun or interesting as listeing to him narrate a TV show or give one of his wonderful lectures. Collins, one of the major Genome project scientists was acutally quite level headed in his repsonse to Gross' questions and sounded (and even looks) very much like a real life Ned Flanders.

Nothing significant comes out of either interview, but if you have a couple of hours to spare you might want to listen -- and subscribe.... (actually

Bust of the Boom

2007-03-29T00:19:00.000-04:00

The Boomer Century program was a bit disappointing -- part TV GED course (mediocre social history), part tour through the self-help and New Age book shelves at Barnes and Noble, part infomercial (or at least it felt like one when the host got into financial advisory mode); in short, it was a missed opportunity to get beyond the superficiality of stereotypes and media hyped "megatrends" that have characterized the baby boom image. Its history was textbook, and its focus on the common cultural images we grew up with was just not satisfying.

Which makes me wonder if there is actually nothing much to the baby boom beyond that superficiality -- so thin, in fact, that the most insightful part part of the two hours was the rant by Lewis Black highlighting just how superficial the baby boom generation has been.

It is too bad the producers did not take the effort to the next level -- perhaps by holding one of those boring (yet insightful) post-show roundtables with real people who might exchange opinions and views about the images and ideas expressed in the show.

Then again, I did note previously that I came to the show expecting to satisfy my itch for the nostalgic -- and I certainly got my fill of that....

Boom-errrrrr...

2007-03-28T12:23:00.000-04:00

An interesting show is schedule to air this evening on PBS stations -- The Boomer Century: 1946-2046. Being part of that group (the 78 million folks born in the US from 1946 to 1964; I was born near the front end, 1946), I'll watch it for the nostalgia parts -- but also out of curiosity about what the demographers and sociologists and other such folks are predicting.

There is a tendency among folks in my field (political science and public administration) to project past behavior of the elderly into the future while ignoring what should be obvious: generations and the culture of generations makes a difference. When I talk to some of my practitioner students who are bracing for an increase in the elderly population in their towns, it is clear that they assume that "age" rather than generational culture is the main factor shaping needs and priorities. There is some obvious truth to that -- the older you get the more you will need certain kinds of public services. But there are all sorts of reasons to believe that the 60 year old of today is quite unlike the 60 year old of the past, and that as this huge cohort comes "of age", these differences will prove substantial when it comes to life style choices and demands for public services.

I realize it is a silly example, but the other night my wife and I attended a local fund raising dance that drew a more mature crowd. I would guess more than half the folks there were in their 60s or older. The bands (there were two) included one that played music from the 40s and 50s, while the other played music form the 60s and 70s. The ballroom dancing crowd was up doing their thing (we are among their number -- or at least trying to be), but when the rock and roll started to play the floor was packed with all these white haired folks dancing like they were in some high school gym or on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. It is trite to say it, but this wasn't your father's (or mother's) senior citizen dance. Just as we are starting to hear some pretty familiar tunes from the 60s and 70s accompanying commercials aimed at the boomers, so we are starting to see a transformation of life style among the "elderly".

Yes, we are getting older, but we are bringing our cultural habits with us....

Alternatives to dropsy...and other thoughts...

2007-03-27T08:33:00.000-04:00

Prolegomena: Everyone has their own standards for what should or should not be posted on blogs -- not in terms of what is right or what is wrong, but rather as a matter of "taste". Some blogs are too personal, some are too rhetorical, some are too cute, etc.

On this site I have tried to strike a balance between commentary and observations, and I suspect it has gotten too personal at times -- especially when I address my maladies. But I try to do so as a form of observation rather than complaint or play for sympathy. If anything, I go for the content and laugh more than the pity. For me this stuff is pretty interesting in general, and I share it in the sense of awe (mostly positive) about how we deal with "disease" through medication. So here is the latest set of "observations":

A couple of days ago I posted my comments on a self-diagnosis of recent lethargic behavior, and I shared my sense that this was somehow related to a particular medication (metformin). Besides writing, I also left a message for my endocrinologist about my concerns, and yesterday she responded by effectively dismissing my idea that the Glucophage was the cause of my sleepiness and erratic, low body temperature. Her question: how were my blood sugar numbers holding up? My answer was that overall -- on the average -- pretty damn good. They vary considerably, but all within a decent and acceptable range. If that is the case, she argues, then my sleepiness and related problem are not tied to my glycemic problems and therefore it ain't the medication (paraphrasing, of course). I am still not convinced, but I defer....

However, she was concerned that I (and those around me) was still "suffering" from the gastrointestinal side effects -- and she suggested that I temporarily drop the metformin (if I wished) until our scheduled visit in a couple of weeks. In its place she wanted me to double my dosage of another anti-diabetes medication I am taking (Glucotrol -- or actually its equivalent, Glipizide). I decided to go with that advice, not only because I am a bit tired of the general discomfort from the "side effect" but also doing so can be a monitored check on my suspicions about Glucophage.

Now, what is interesting about the Glipizide (classed as a sulfonylurea drug) is that it works differently. While I understood Glucophage to effectively reduce insulin production by the liver, Glipizide seems to increase its production by the pancreas while also lowering the liver production. By now I am baffled about all these tradeoffs. but if I understand it at all, the point is to get some moderate balance of blood sugar levels over a 24 hour period. One of the problems with this regimen is that I might now be more susceptible to hypoglycemia -- and I really have to watch out as well for weight gain and edema (a new word I have found for plain old bloatedness -- the alternative was 'dropsy', which is just not that inviting). But since I am already taking Glipizide (10 mg) each morning, the shock to the system of doubling up might not be as bad.

And what is my general observation from all this: between my neurotic personality and access to the web, I am quickly turning into a hypochondriac....

Water under the bridge in Northern Ireland...

2007-03-26T19:16:00.001-04:00

Very interesting to watch the next step taken in Northern Ireland today, although it was obviously more symbol than substance.

What was just as interesting to watch was the attempt by local (US) commentators attempting to explain what was happening. In Boston region, where the Irish connections are obviously strong, the story was perhaps more prominent than elsewhere in the US -- even drawing a segment on WGBH's Great Boston show which usually does only local current events. The guests were former Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn who babbled something about how all this was the result of international (and especially US) public opinion, while a more informed Padraig O'Malley of UMass Boston gave the summary of events that necessarily skirted over much of the complex details. Emily Rooney, typically a well informed host, seemed a bit annoyed that the parties pictured at the Belfast table (Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams) were not shaking hands or embracing.

Viewing it at a distance, I suspect that much of Belfast and Northern Ireland went on with its daily routine with barely a notice. Even in 2003-2005 when I lived in Belfast, life was (and I gather still is) conducted as if the Troubles were over, and all this effort to formalize it among the top echelons of the major (but extreme) parties is little more than ceremonial. This is not to say that there aren't important matters for the new home rule government to solve, but it would be wrong to think that they rise to more than the mundane issues of any local government. Consider, for example, the headlines on today's BBC Northern Ireland website: The lead story is about the historic agreement; the follow was Water bills 'on hold' after deal....

The attitude of NI locals and politicos is best understood by watching Noel Thompson's Hearts and Minds -- a BBC-NI weekly that really is quite fun to watch as well as informative. The commentary (and accompanying art work) of Malachi O'Doherty is especially interesting ("So should it all fall apart, weep for your water rates, but don't fret about the peace. The passion is spent...").

What the arrangement will bring to an end is the myth that NI has been ruled directly from London; the fact is that the NI Civil Service is homegrown and home led, with the only notable non-NI presence being the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Affairs. If this transition to the new Executive occurs without a hitch over the next couple of months (don't count on it), those Civil Servants will report to Northern Ireland Assembly chiefs Ian Paisley (first minister) and Martin McGuinness (deputy first minister) instead of Secretary Hain.

Diagnosis: Early onset rigor mortis....Or, why I might be a Crank....

2007-03-25T08:17:00.000-04:00

It is fitting that, as one of the front line group of baby boomers (born in 1946), I live with one of the baby boom's maladies -- Type 2 diabetes -- and have done so for at least ten years (it was diagnosed in 1997, but certainly I was such well before then). As I have found out over the past decade, there is nothing specific about this diagnosis, and it covers a range of conditions, all resulting in the bottom line: insulin resistance.

My own particular version of this is some weird combination of producing too much sugar at time when my capacity or ability to burn it is too low. The current prescribed solution is some combination of diet and activity and medication to get things in sync -- but this turns out to be a daily battle. All well and good most of the time, but every so often there is that odd day involving a difficult schedule or snow shoveling or catching a cold, and the result is my "system" or sugar balance is thrown off and I run into some short term problems....

Last year I really got off my regimen, so in early January this year I visited an endocronologist and she is attempting to put me back on track. The key adjustment she prescribed was to start taking Glucophage (metformin), a medication designed to reduce the production of sugar by my liver and thereby force my system to make greater use of other sources of glucose, which in turn would reduce the absorbtion of sugar into the bloodstream, thereby lowering (or at least moderating) my blood sugar readings -- or something like that.

Well, it seems to be working -- my numbers (as far as I can estimate by my blood testing each day) are really getting quite good now. But the side effects are starting to get to me.

There are two major groups of side effects, one gastrointestinal (the "bloat" is what I call it -- and I definitely have it) and one associated with the limited toxicity of the "biguanide class of anti-diabetic drugs" of which metformin is one.

On the first group of side effects, from the outset of taking the medication I have had it and despite being told they will subside as my body adjusts, I am still waiting....

But then there is the toxicity stuff, which I did not really pay attention to until this past week when I began to feel really lethargic with some respiratory difficulties making me sleepier and less energetic than usual. I first associated this with the onset of a cold, but I never really got the usual sniffles or headache or fever. In fact, my body temperature has been down in the 95-96 range for the past several days.

A bit more reading on the web and I began to understand that metformin is actually a less toxic version of phenformin, a drug used in the 1940s and 1950s now off the general pharmaceutical market in France (where it was initially launched) because of its link to cases of lactic acidosis -- essentially the acidification of the blood that can best be understood as the "underlying process of rigor mortis".

Yup, I am taking a drug that activates the process that naturally occurs when people die.... Its first signs among living folks include "anorexia, nausea, vomiting, altered level of consciousness, hyperpnoea, abdominal pain and thirst." Oh, and low body temperature....

Metformin, of course, has been released on the market because its toxicity is minimal compared to phenformin. But there are things that make me a bit uneasy with all this. It has been on the European market since the 1950s (as a safer replacement for phenformin) but was not approved for the US until 1994 despite it efficacy as an anti-diabetes drug. Why the delay?

It is also bothersome that no one seems to know why it works as it does. The biguanide class of drugs is derived from the chemicals found in the French Lilac which was a known since medieval times as a folk remedy for diabetes, but even after having extracted and packaged it as a commercial drug they have never quite figured out the connections and mechanisms that make it work. That is troubling, especially since the counter-indications (who should not take it) are pretty general and vague.

Making this all the more baffling is that my lethargy is definitely offset by vigorous activity -- after I work out or go dancing, etc. I feel pretty good for two or three hours afterwards -- and even my body temp goes up a degree or two. But sitting down to write or read or just watch TV brings on breathing issues and sleepiness.

Describing this to a colleague, he said this sounds like the plot of a recent movie (Crank) where the main character has been poisoned and that the only way to avoid death was to keep his adrenaline levels up high enough for the toxins to be held at bay.... Hmmm.

Betrayal as case of disrespect...

2007-03-24T13:11:00.000-04:00

The lessons of Sennett's Respect in the World of Inequality were applied by the author primarily to welfare and social services, but their relevance is obviously more wide ranging. A case in point is the treatment of Iraqis who have worked or are working for the US or its contractors -- the subject of an article ("Betrayed") by George Packer in the current New Yorker. He is also the guest on the March 22 Fresh Air broadcast.

Aha, iSee...

2007-03-23T11:55:00.001-04:00

NH, FITN and NPR

2007-03-22T18:20:00.000-04:00

I recently had an opportunity to read some academic research on the New Hampshire primary that provided empirical support to those who argue against the state's "first-in-the-nation" (FITN) status (along with the Iowa caucus) in the contests for the presidential nomination in each party. This is an old and still hot debate (also here) among those who pay attention to such things. There are basically two major arguments against that status: (1) that the state is demographically unrepresentative (having a non-Hispanic white population of more than 96%) and (2) that there is nothing distinctive about NH politics to warrant its special status.

On the first point, facts is facts -- and if one assumes that a more representative state will produce a "more representative result", then there is little to argue about. But the assumptions are arguable and testable -- including whether there is any small state that is representative that can deliver "retail politics" in presidential races. Which connects us to the second point, for if anything justifies the FITN status it might be that NH primary politics is special and that NH-types deserve their special role in the process (along with Iowa).

The articles in question (see here for one) challenge the FITN status by arguing that there is nothing special about NH primary politics, and that when put under scrutiny NH voters are just like any other in the nation in being subject to the influence of the media, etc. In short, retail politics is a myth, and any state will do as the FITN -- so why not put a more representative state or two upfront....

As it happens, the research design and data used in those studies are pretty weak -- or at least weak enough that one can raise significant doubts about whether the strong anti-NH primary conclusions are warranted. Focusing on the three to four week period just before the actual vote (thus ignoring the extended nature of the NH campaign) and relying on content analyses of network news (of dubious validity) as well as volatile tracking poll data, the studies are good enough for academic publication but hardly a firm basis for the assertions made by the authors. As they say in my business, the uniqueness of the NH primary remains "an open empirical question" (for example, see here).

I bring this up because I happen to have more than a passing interest in the NH primary. I have been working at the University of New Hampshire for nearly two years now and I am in the process of experiencing my first presidential primary season. Pretty interesting thus far, although my own contacts with candidates and campaigns has been limited to a couple of events. But it is early, they tell me, and things will get more interesting as time goes on. With some of my students involved in a project related to the primary season, I am certain to get my share of exposure -- which means I will get to see up close if there really is something special about the place.

In the meantime, the national media is beginning to pick up on its coverage, and some of the story lines relate to the FITN debate. Today, for example, NPR began a segment that will intermittently visit the town of Milford NH to see how the so-called special nature of NH retail politics plays out. My wn sense is that NH politics is a bit different -- and that folks in places like Milford take seriously their special role -- making the FITN argument the product of a self-fulfilling prophesy in a way.

Obviously more to come on this topic over the next several months....

Different approach for NCLB?

2007-03-22T06:53:00.000-04:00

There is a sane discussion now emerging in the UK about scrapping the current system of student assessment (which tests all students on common tests at ages 7, 11 and 14) and replacing it with a two-pronged approach that promotes both a general assessment of instructional performance (based on examining sampled population, which is now in use in Scotland) and individualized (personalized) student assessment.

I hope the folks engaged in No Child Left Behind are watching and listening...

End of respect...

2007-03-22T00:14:00.000-04:00

I've completed the fourth and final part of Sennett's Respect in a World of Inequality, and overall find the central point of the work very important but the presentation a bit uneven - especially in his efforts to use examples from anthropology that reflect the expression and performative nature of respect. Here the "disk" (in lieu of bureacuractic pyramid) metaphor turns up again, but with no greater impact or clarity than I found in its initial use. The strength of the book stylistically remains its autobiographical sections as well as his discussion of bureaucratic respect.

But style uneveness aside, Sennett's major contribution is to bring back into perspective the important role that respect -- especially in the form of autonomy -- plays in our lives. I find this very compatible with wome of the other work I've been reading about governance, especialy the work of Philip Pettit on autonomous agency

Now on to another book....

Shape Up, Sir Humphrey....

2007-03-21T21:56:00.000-04:00

As a follow up to yesterday's blog, found an interesting series on BBC Radio 4 that directly addresses the problems facing cabinet government and the civil service in the UK. "Shape up, Sir Humphrey" (again, making reference to the central character in Yes, Minister) is a three part series that, whether planned or not, is coming to an end just as the controversy over the operations of the Labour government under Blair/Brown is coming to a head.

It helps to know a bit about the British system and some of the players to make sense of the issues and debate, but well worth the listen so far -- the final part airs on Thursday night, GMT....

Unitary theory across the pond....

2007-03-20T19:37:00.001-04:00

The news this evening is about the growing confrontation between the White House and Congress over the prerogatives of presidential power. The issue takes the form of controversy over the firing of eight US Attorneys last December, and that is getting spun all sorts of ways depending on which side of the partisan grade you happen to be standing. But underlying all this is a long-overdue correction to the theory of the unitary executive.

Growing out of an obsession with the need for strong leadership that has been fostered by economic crises and wars during the 20th century, this theory is actually an interpretation of our constitutional system that has relatively weak foundations. I happen to be of the school of thought that the presidency was never intended to be as powerful as we have made it. The proffered theory itself is the product of rationalizations and reforms that date back to the end of the 19th-century. It has been articulated and pursued to the point of becoming accepted doctrine. Every so often something happens (e.g., Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-contra, and now the War on Terror) that leads to a temporary pullback, usually in the form of a congressional reassertion of its constitutional authority. The only problem is, the wisdom of limiting presidential authority by undoing the unitary executive theory rarely takes root and we find ourselves repeating some fundamental and costly errors.

Interestingly, the theory of the unitary executive has now spread across the pond. Perhaps it started with Thatcher, whose efforts to shrink government ironically required the strengthening of central authority within the cabinet structure of British government. There is no doubt, however, that the unitary executive idea drives the Blair/Brown government that has now been in place for nearly a decade. The transformation of British government along strong presidential lines is becoming increasingly obvious as attention turns to the leadership of Gordon Brown who is now a longest-serving chancellor in UK history. In an interview with the Financial Times published this morning (also see here), Lord Andrew Turnbull, a former top level civil servant (as in Sir Humphrey of Yes, Minister), spoke of Brown's "Stalinist ruthlessness" in his leadership of government. Listening to the BBC 4's Today show this morning, I was struck by the similarities between the leadership philosophies of both the Labour government and the Bush administration....

Infosnacking at Frontline...

2007-03-19T22:46:00.000-04:00

I played portions of Part III of Frontline's News Wars series in both my Media and American Politics and American Government courses (in which the topic for the week is the media in politics).

Frontline does a terrific service with its posting of broadcast shows and extended interviews -- and the fact that each show is posted in 7 to 12 minute segments makes it even more convenient for those like me who want something short enough to integrate into class sessions.

The segments I played today included one featuring Ted Koppel at his forthright best bemoaning the demise of journalistic standards at the network news divisions. A bitter Dan Rather is also in the mix, along with Katie Couric, bloggers and all sorts of folks. And that was all found in just four segments....

The most interesting concept emerging from today's lesson: "infosnacking"....

Sennett on bureaucratic respect....

2007-03-18T20:41:00.000-04:00

Sennett's treatment of "bureaucratic respect" (chapter 6 in Respect in a World of Inequality) is one of the stronger and more even handed presentations on the bureaucratic form I have seen lately. As a context for governance, bureaucracies are quite capable of functioning as a means for providing order when the emerging political economy required it, and it emerged initially as a means of enhancing a sense of belonging and respect of a type which we now view with contempt (e.g., Whyte's Organization Man). Its potential in those regards are still seen in the self-respect and regulated autonomy provided by military and those few remaining "old economy" corporations (probably more mythical than real since not one example comes to mind).

But as Sennett indicates, the model of bureaucratic respect, even in its heyday, did not apply for long to the governance of social service programs where the assumption of dependency triumphed over the assumption of autonomy when it came to treating those in need or welfare support. He highlights the "riddle" that bureaucratic governance was never quite been able to resolve -- how to provide support while fostering active autonomy for the recipients of welfare.

He follows this discussion of bureaucratic respect with a weak chapter on welfare reform ("liberated welfare") that makes it evident that the anti-bureaucratic model has not been the answer. His metaphor of the "disk" having replaced the pyramid provides little or no insight, and the observations about flat organizations and shorter time horizons prove superficial (he is much better at exploring that in The Corrosion of Character).

However, he does end the chapter with observations about public service workers interviewed in the UK who seem to have retained their sense of self-respect based on the idea of the usefulness of their work -- this despite widespread negative comments about public bureaucracies and programs. But as he points out, this is the self-respect of the craftsperson taking some pride in the work itself rather than in value to the agency or value to the public being served. This was an observation that I thought deserved more follow up -- but alas the chapter ended and I am now hoping it gets picked up in the final chapters of Respect....

More to come....

Sennett, Arendt and who cares....

2007-03-17T21:58:00.000-04:00

Back to Sennett's Respect in a World of Inequality....

Speaking today to a professional friend who (along with his spouse) has same strange interests in philosophy and its relationship to public administration, and in catching up on our various readings and work I mentioned I was reading Sennett and listening to shows on Arendt. As it turns out, my colleague and his spouse (both well known for their writings on the nature of public administration) are reading Arendt's "thinking diaries" (her daily "Denktagebuch" covering 1950-1975) which have been published in German.

And as it happens I am at that point in Sennett's work where he discusses Arendt's views of "caring without compassion" -- a position she takes in contrast to charitable forms of caring based on manipulative largesse, pity, self-redemption, etc. Those charitable forms of caring serve the ego of the provider and demean -- dis-respect -- the recipient, leading Sennett to associate advocates of "basic incomes policy" alternative to welfare (he cites Ackerman, Offe) with the Arendtian position. Sennett provides insights into Arendt's position that trace back to her dissertation on St Augustine, but as important he answers in part the question implied by Young-Breuhl's book, about why Arendt matters....

The discussion on Arendt is also tied to an interesting comparison of the contrasting social service philosophies of Mother Frances Cabrini and Jane Addams, which in turn raises issues about the gender-ification of social work (and government work in general) implied in the writing of Carol Gilligan and others who highlight the caring nature of the feminine. And having taken all that in, Sennett turns to a discussion of how modern bureaucracy fits into all this -- where is where I am at in Respect....

Stay tuned and I might actually be able to say something coherent (and even relevant) about all this. As much as I am engrossed by the book, Sennett's style and approach is an acquired taste (see here for a critique related to earlier work). But, hey, I also really like listening to Philip Glass....

Visit to Churchland...

2007-03-16T23:48:00.000-04:00

This morning's podcast "workout" involved one hour with the Churchlands -- Paul and Patricia -- on the March 12 broadcast of On Point. (Having made negative remarks about Lydon in a previous post, I have to admit that OnPoint's Tom Ashbrook is better at that "prodding" business, and he seems to "get it" more often.)

The discussion with the Churchlands was a follow-up to a New Yorker profile and proved interesting at first, but by the end of the show they seemed both (1) a bit extreme in their position on the value of neurophilosophy; and (2) a bit too indifferent to the empirically obvious impact of culture and social factors in shaping human behavior. Although he was on for just a brief time, Colin McGinn did a good job of raising some issues -- but I think it would have been more productive to have on someone like Daniel Dennett whose views on consciousness are a bit more interesting.

In any case, the discussion was in stark contrast with my reading of Sennett, where I am learning a good deal more about the nature of character and respect and the role of guilt and shame in shaping both. More on that soon....

Arendt, again...

2007-03-15T08:36:00.000-04:00

This morning I listened to a podcast of last week's Open Source discussion on Hannah Arendt. While host Christopher Lydon remains an annoying (though functionally prodding) presence (at the end you get the impression that both he and his guests are aware that he just isn't getting it), the hour is worth a listen. (There is also the bonus of a link to the audio of a 1968 lecture by Arendt at Bard College; also here for Q&A that followed.)

The guests are Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Arendt's best know biographer (see here and here) and Jerome Kohn, the executor of her papers (which are still coming out; see here and here and here; also see here for his essay on Arendt's views on evil), and despite awkward moments of dealing with Lydon they do a terrific job getting across many of her basic views and ideas (also see here). Although the "banality of evil" is central to the initial discussion, the elaboration of Arendt's distinction between power and violence -- and what her views might be on the current state of world affairs under US hegemony (they suggest a reading of the essays published in her Crises of the Republic collection) -- ends the program.

Lydon is planning a follow-up show to deal more explicitly with the issues surrounding the human capacity for so-called evil (see my own thoughts on this here).

As it happens, these shows (and others scheduled in light of Arendt's centennial) complement my current reading of Richard Sennett's Respect in a World of Inequality. Sennett, also a one time student of Arendt, provides an interesting extension of the Arendtian view of life in the public sphere and I am finding the work a faster read than the Corrosion of Character. In part this is due to his wonderful use of an autobiographical narrative in which the reflections on his experiences are tied to the ideas central to the book. I will blog more about this....

Keeping track...

2007-03-14T17:14:00.000-04:00

Friend Ciarán is a great fan of Crooked Timber and I have found the few posts I have viewed over the past two or three years to be interesting -- but I am terrible at reading feeds regularly, so I only catch the good ones that Ciarán makes reference to in his (and Isabel's) blog.

They do have a bit of a game going, however, that will make me more of a regular -- it is called the "Galbraith score" and it traces back to a post in December, 2004 which quotes JK Galbraith as follows:

“Anyone who says four times that he won’t resign, will.”

Yesterday one post began the count on Alberto Gonzales: he is at one, and counting....

Character and accountbility...

2007-03-14T09:46:00.000-04:00

OK -- some abstract stuff...

In recent work I have been tying to articulate a view of accountability that situates it in a context of freedom rather than control. Increasingly I find myself relying on Philip Pettit's view of the free agent as one who is deemed fit to be held responsible for its choices and actions -- a view that I am convinced directly links our preoccupation with accountability in systems of modern governance.

The development of modern forms of governance -- public and corporate -- was in response to the emergence of the self-aware autonomous agent as a subject of rule. The historical narrative I offer in my work features the establishment of Anglo-Norman rule in the 11th and 12th centuries, but the same logic can be seen in other narratives that root themselves in other times and places (e.g., James Scott, Seeing Like a State). Rendering that self-aware autonomous agent "governable" was central to the development of modern governance in all its various forms, and the key to long-term success in those endeavors was the creation of forms of accountability -- not in the sense of control (which is the contemporary, distorted view of accountability), but rather in the sense of developing institutions of "freedom" where those "deemed fit to be held responsible" could and would flourish.

I bring this up because I just completed Sennett's The Corrosion of Character which can be read as reinforcing this perspective -- or perhaps I have gotten to the point where I interpret everything I read in light of my own "theory" of accountable governance. Written for readability (in short, for a more general audience rather than merely academics), the book takes a bit before finally making its strong case for the important (and challenged) role of character in the New Economy. The last two chapters are the strongest statement of Sennett's views, and they will make for interesting exchanges when I assign this book for my summer course on organizational behavior....

Now I turn to the second book in Sennett's trilogy -- Respect in an World of Inequality. So more thought to come...

SOX in the bathwater....

2007-03-13T22:39:00.000-04:00

Article in today's New York Times reports on efforts being made by the corporate and investor sectors to bring about changes in the implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), the congressional Act of 2002 passed in response to the Enron collapse and other major failures (e.g., WorldCom, Tyco, etc.).

A particular target is the provision that requires public companies (i.e., those with shares traded on Wall Street) to report on the existence and effectiveness of their internal financial controls. This seemingly simple request (you would think they had such controls in place already) has proven to be too onerous, especially as the provisions designed for the big firms are being imposed on the smaller (and foreign) ones as well.

Certainly Sarbanes-Oxley is far from ideal -- in fact, many of its provisions seem pretty absurd, more symbolic gestures than effective actions. And the enforcement of its provisions seems to have been turned over the the criminal prosecution divisions of the Justice Department rather than relying on the actions of regulatory bodies such as the SEC (although they do play a role). After five years, going on six, the reactions are setting in and change -- in the form of proposals to emasculate the law -- and that push for change seems likely to win out.

But despite the poor crafting of the law and its onerous burdens, we need SOX (or something like it) for the purpose it serves -- or at least the purpose it was implicitly designed to serve. That is, SOX was an effort to remind corporations that they are a public "franchise" in the classic sense of that term -- that while it is okay for modern corporations to amass wealth and serve the interests of its shareholders and stakeholder, they must remain aware that theirs is a public trust on loan from the state (or in the US case, the People). By focusing so much attention on the obvious flaws, the policymaking community is likely to overlook the more general objective of the Act: to reinstate the overall legitimacy of the corporate enterprise.

They need to remember there is a baby sitting inside that bathwater...

Character assassination....

2007-03-13T08:16:00.000-04:00

Despite being grounded, I am attempting to complete my self-imposed reading assignment of the Sennett trilogy on the culture of the new (political/social) economy. I am two-thirds through The Corrosion of Character, Sennett's 1998 opening shot at linking the transformations of the flexible, debureaucractized economy to the crisis of social identity and "character" we are now facing. It is difficult not to apply his logic and argument to just about any one of a dozen stories one read or hears in the media.

Consider, for example, the No Child Left Behind Act and its impact on our education system and the lives -- the very character -- of students and teachers. I have been thinking and writing about the "accountability" aspects of NCLB for a little over a year and each news story brings increasing evidence that we have made (and continue to make) a major mistake with this program. My own point is that NCLB is based on a false promise and premise of accountability -- that holding folks to account will in fact improve performance of teachers or students (see here for more elaborate argument). There is nothing to support that argument other than wishful thinking and blind belief. And yet we roll on with the policy and the state and local programs it has spawned.

But this is more than a waste of money and programmatic energy and resources -- it is actually proving harmful in the ways that the new economy is proving harmful according to Sennett. This is brought home in one recent Weekend America segment focused on the testing regime at one middle school in Austin, Texas. Give a listen...

Marvel-ous accountability...

2007-03-12T09:12:00.000-04:00

I have not read a Super-Hero comic for decades, and while I confess to wasting my time at a Spider-Man or Batman or Superman movie over the past two decades or so, I have done so with low expectations and little enthusiasm. (I did sit through the latest Bond flick, but I guess that does not really count.... Pretty boring; great chase scenes, to a point, but the torture scenario got me a bit disgusted....).

But with all that said, I am a bit curious regarding what I am hearing about a general plot hatched by the folks at Marvel Comics involving a group of its super heroic characters. The fantasy world spilled over into the culture news and satirical entertainment recently as the Civil War series put out by Marvel led to the assassination of one of its characters, Captain America ("bio" here). The New York Times covered the story with an Arts section obit; The Colbert Report devoted a segment to it; even NPR got into the act with coverage on Morning Edition and on On the Media. As both NPR stories indicate, the originator of the character is in mourning -- "sitting shiva" (or "shivee" as they would say in Chicago).

OK -- so why am I bring this up in my blog?

As it happens, at the center of this Civil War is a law: "the Superhuman Registration Act, intending to register all super-powered beings as living weapons of mass destruction and requiring all costumed heroes to unmask themselves before the government and subject themselves to federally mandated standards." In short, it required all super heroes to register with authorities so they can be held "to account" for their actions. What seemed to bring this on was an incident in which one super hero, Nitro, set off a massive explosion killing many innocent by-standers in Stamford, CT. The legislation split the super hero community, resulting in the "civil war" and leading to the death of Captain America.

So, now you know....

Beyond the first incredulous roll of my eyes when I heard about this, this might in fact be the opportunity I need to actually add some pedagogy to my efforts to get people to reflect on the concept of accountability.

Or maybe it is just another example of how either our fantasy life has deteriorated or how our real life has become literally comical....

Simulated jet lag...

2007-03-11T21:15:00.000-04:00

Had all things gone well this week, I would now be getting over my jet lag in warm and summery Canberra (I know, it is obvious that I am having a hard time letting go of this missed opportunity). I am making up for it by being a lump today.

Actually, feeling a bit "under the weather" (translate as lethargic) despite it being a reasonably sunny and pleasant day here in the North Shore area. The lost hour of sleep due to daylight savings time was not hard to take, although it did seem to have an impact on our cable company -- all three services (TV, phone and internet) were down through mid-morning, even though the signal coming in to all three was strong. Whatever it was, it is gone now and the services are (obviously) back.

About mid-day Randi seem to decide that she was tired of my lounging about (snoring actually) and we headed out to a 4:10 movie (Amazing Grace -- well done!). When we got home at around 6:30, the payoff from daylight savings was evident -- it was actually quite nice to be walking in daylight at this hour. So enough of the media hyped grumbling....

My grounded condition also gave me the opportunity to explore some blog sites I have not visited recently, and among the most enjoyable was old friend (actually, he is not so old) McGrathy's posting on Buho the elf who was caught in an attempted robbery of a lingerie store -- well worth the read!

I will attempt to get into gear again tomorrow -- I should be over my simulated jet lag by then...

Newman abridge-meant...

2007-03-10T10:51:00.000-05:00

Randy Newman is one of a kind, and his music often has to be listened to in private. As one online reviewer put it, he is not quite "politically correct," and the latest offering -- a single release entitled "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country" -- has proved to be a bit more than many folks can take.

No "bad words" or lewd suggestions -- just outrageous political commentary packaged as down home, street-wise reflections on the current administration. As the opening comments by Newman on the YouTube video version indicate, the premise of the tune is to counter international criticism of the US by comparing our current leadership with the most despicable leaders of Europe's past -- the Caesars, Hitler, Stalin, King Leopold, et al. But the twist comes in the comparison, and the lyrics do the Newman twist that has its desired impacts.

This song is not quite as brilliant as some of his past efforts. To me "Political Science" (another version) captures the gut-level American attitude during the Cold War; and there is no better indictment of Northern hypocrisy in race relations than his "Rednecks"). But still, pretty effective.

What is interesting about the reaction to "Few Words" is that those sites that post song lyrics have done so in "abridged" form (most copying from The New York Times op-ed version). Now abridgment is typically reserved for those instances when a work is too long for the media format -- Reader's Digest abridges long articles and stories, books-on-tape issues abridged readings. But in this case abridgment is a euphemism for censorship -- which makes me wonder why they even bothered. A special stanza on the Supreme Court seems to be the part missing from the abridgments, which makes one wonder...

For the full lyrics, go here.

Grounded...in State Department Hell

2007-03-09T23:22:00.000-05:00

At the moment I am writing this I should be somewhere over Arizona in a Qantas 747 heading for a stopover in Los Angeles on my way to Canberra -- and to a few days of summer as well as a conference on Corporate Governance being held at the Australian National University campus.

Instead I am at home writing this and sitting among piles of papers and boxes that have been scattered about in a mad day-long search for my passport.

I thought I knew where it was, and until this morning I did not bother looking too hard. But as it turned out it wasn't where I thought it was, and the thing I thought was my passport was the empty folio/holder for it -- which did have my driver's license and the last boarding pass stubs from an earlier trip -- but alas, no passport.

Panic mode set in late morning as I realized there was no hope of finding it in time for my planned 1PM departure for Logan airport. I tried to see if I could get an emergency replacement through the Passport Office, and while it turns out that it is possible in principle, it is impossible in fact given the way the passport service has organized and automated itself in the Boston area. Not only do you get stuck in an endless cycle of extended preliminary helpful information monologues, but that often leads to being put on hold or (more likely) being told to call back at another time (followed by that so nicely phrased "Thank you for calling, good bye").

When you finally reach a live voice they are not in the least bit helpful (although they are friendly) because their job is to tell you what you already know from being online, and then they put you in automated system for your particular regional office where you get to play roulette for an appropriate appointment. That is when I learned that I can get an emergency replacement by going to their office at the next available time: March 23rd.

Try as you might to get back to the human voice and you find that you cannot get out of their automated system unless you either take the appointment (which I did not -- I could get a new passport faster by mail!) or hang up (which I did).

Trying to get back to the human took a bit shorter time since by now I had learned the phone key sequence that kept me out of the "call back later" group and got me in the queue for the human after a ten to twenty minute wait. At that point a nice person was able to tell me that all he could do -- literally -- was send me back to the automated appointment system.... What a system for dealing with customer emergencies! We are back to the "sorry, we don't give a damn" service style of old. I never thought I'd miss the initiatives of Al Gore's National Performance Review....

Knowing this was turning into a real and unsolvable problem, I began to call folks in Australia -- but then realized I was ringing them 2 in the AM. The E-Ticket sent from a travel service in Sydney had a 24 hour emergency number and so I rang them and after listening to many, many switches on the line (but no info tapes, thank goodness), I finally heard an Aussie accent voice of the on-call agent (Fiona) who seemed a bit surprised to be getting a real call at 3 AM, but was ready to help. After talking it out we decided I would continue my search for the missing passport but failing that I would give her a call back at a more decent hour....

By 1:30 PM it was a lost cause, and it became evident that getting an emergency replacement was not an option that would get me to Canberra by Wednesday when the workshop started -- or even Thursday when my presentation was scheduled.... And it was sitll only 4:30 AM Down Under....

Having resigned myself to the situation, I canceled the domestic portion of my trip which I had booked separately (BOS to JFK) and waited until it was at least 8AM in Sydney before calling Fiona back. We decided to rebook for Sunday just in case I found the little black book, and failing that to just bank the ticket for a trip later this year (which looks likely).

The saga will continue as I dive further into the various places and piles of papers where the passport might be hiding, but it looks like I might be presenting my paper via video conference hook up.

Oh well, I guess I am going to stay winterized for the whole season this year...

Flying down under with Sennett....

2007-03-07T23:32:00.000-05:00

It has been bitter cold around Massachusetts and New Hampshire these last couple of days. Yesterday (Tuesday) it felt like the coldest days we experienced when living in Chicago in the late 1970s. Brrrr.... Today was not too bad, but the winds are expected to pick up again tomorrow while the temperatures remain in the teens or single digits (Fahrenheit, that is). Wind chill is really well below zero -- and you can feel it penetrate through all those clothes....

I provide this weather report because I am due to get on a flight to Canberra on Friday, and by Sunday (their time -- I will lose Saturday, of course) I will be transposed from late winter to late summer. Temps down under are running in high 70s, so I will have at least a few days of warmth before coming back on the 17th (I will have two Saturdays -- yes, an extended St Patrick's Day!).

I will do my serious packing tomorrow, and have already set up my reading regimen -- three books by Richard Sennett -- his "trilogy" on the new economy: The Corrosion of Character, Respect in a World of Inequality, and The Culture of the New Capitalism. What brought on this renewed interest in Sennett (I have not read much by him in decades) was a two part interview in CBC's The World of Ideas (here and here) -- as usual, excellent stuff.....

Cleared decks...for now...

2007-03-05T05:40:00.000-05:00

Cleared the decks of two papers that have been weighing heavy on my time. One was the latest version in my decade old effort to get a handle on the concept of accountability. It was something I had to get out of the way if my other projects are to make any sense -- and now I await some feedback from colleagues. (anyone willing to take a shot at it is welcome to do so...)

The second (completed yesterday) was my stab at understanding what role accountability could or should play in the wonderful world of corporate governance. The focus was supposed to be on Sarbanes-Oxley (SOx), the 2002 US act that attempted to deal with the problems emerging out of Enron, WorldCom and the like. I do end up looking at SOx, but not in as great detail as might have been expected by others -- instead, most of my attention was drawn to the fascinating debate over corporate governance that took place more than a century ago in Europe and the US. As it turns out, it would have been healthy for the debate to have continued rather than having been cut off in the 1920s by no less a figure than John Dewey. Dewey wrote a piece in the Harvard Law Review in 1926 which effectively dismissed the entire discussion about the nature of the corporation (its "personality") as a waste of intellectual time and energy. Digging into that discussion helped me clarify my own position as well as the issues related to the failure of corporate governance reform. Again, any who can tolerate my writing is welcome to read and provide feedback. I will certainly get some when I travel "down under" to present it at a conference on SOx....

Arendt's thoughtlessness..

2007-02-24T04:49:00.000-05:00

A flashback this morning as I recalled a televised scene from coverage of the demonstrations (later characterized as a "police riot") outside 1968 Democratic Party Convention held in Chicago. Besides the shouting and beating of heads that is shown in the old news clips, there was a great deal of theatric performance on the street, all in tune with the "Yippie Party" agenda that set the tone for what was happening. Although I never saw it again in any documentary footage, what I remember is a group of protesters standing on the corner, arranging themselves in choir-like order facing a "conductor" who was leading them in a chant notable for its clear unison expression: Anarchy! Anarchy! Anarchy!....

What brought on this recollection was piece in the latest New York Review of Books by Jeremy Waldron on the recent flurry of published works and attention (see, for example, here) given to Hannah Arend t (sorry, it is behind subscription wall). He offers a critique of her admirers (I regard myself as one; see here) who want to play the intellectual game of "what would Hannah Arendt say?" if she were confronted with our own "dark times". To put his point briefly (at least as I see it), Waldron argues that she would take exception to the question and wonder why we aren't thinking for ourselves rather than seeking guidance from her.

One of the most striking contributions Arendt made to the debate over the modern "human condition" was her locating her famous "banality of evil" in the thoughtlessness of our actions, and by that she meant not merely the absence of contemplation, but also the adoption of simple and ready-made formulaic responses to the challenges and dilemmas of our public and private lives. Finding and following some Arendtian perspective on issues of the day, Waldron argues, would be the opposite of what she advocated and pursued in her writing....

Blogging for grades...

2007-02-14T06:43:00.000-05:00

One of the options I offer students in my American Government course (in lieu of research paper, etc.) is to create and maintain a blog on a relevant subject throughout the semester. Several folks have taken me up on the offer. The first operating one is "Present Arms!: Military News for the Average Joe", and I have high hopes for John's making a good site of this.

The topic is certainly a good one -- especially if he addresses some current issues about the military's human resource problems that are making the front page of the New York Times and other papers. There are also a couple of interesting "Open Source" shows (here and here) devoted to the topic....

Bravo Mr. Steves!

2007-02-12T05:45:00.000-05:00

I am a longtime fan of Rick Steves' travel show on PBS for a variety of reasons. Although a bit tacky at times in the past (he has gotten better with age -- and children to deal with), he is practical in his advice and easy to listen to in the half hour segments. And at the time we watched him in the past we were not really travelers at all, but had dreams of taking the kind of trips he laid out for folks. (We have done quite a bit by now, but not as much or in the style of Steves....)

My positive impression of Steves went down a couple of notches while I was residing in Northern Ireland between 2003-2005, mainly for the short shrift and negative coverage he gave Belfast and Northern Ireland in one of his Ireland shows. If I recall, in a show that was probably done in the 1990s he was essentially saying: interesting spot for a one night stop over, but you certainly would not want to visit for longer -- and it is best to head out for the west or south....

But last night I got my first viewing of Steves' revamped show on "Belfast and the Best of Northern Ireland" (filmed in July 2004, from what I can gather) and all I have to say is: bravo! Not only was it a fair and treatment of Belfast and the North Antrim coast (see especially the Wikipedia article on the Antrim Coast Road that features one of my Randi's pictures of the area....), but it is perhaps the most effective presentation of a mixture of sights and politics I have yet seen in any travel show.

What is unique about Northern Ireland is that you cannot visit or tour the place without immersing yourself in knowledge about the Troubles (and even earlier history). Between "Norman" the Black Taxi driver (who I am certain is someone my colleagues and I met and used as a guide during our stay) and Steves' official tour guide, Stephen McPhilemy, you get a really straightforward view of the place -- from bustling Belfast's downtown and Port Rush to the Giant's Causeway and Bushmills.

Bravo Mr. Steves!

Praising Schwarznegger!!??

2007-02-10T11:36:00.000-05:00

Terrific OpEd piece by Gar Alperovitz in this morning's New York Times, although it feels a bit strange to be supporting the wisdom of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But the desirability of reinstating the progressive notion of federalism -- one reflected in Brandeis' praise of the American states as the "laboratories of democracy" -- needs to become part of the debate as we attempt to overcome the knee-jerk anti-governmentalism of the past 30+ years. California and a few other states (Massachusetts, Washington, etc.) are now taken on the role that new York, Wisconsin and even Texas had during the Progressive era. Especially in the areas of health care, environmental sustainability and even economic development, certain states are driving the public agenda.

Many students of US government in my discipline (political science) have bought into the convention wisdom (which we have been teaching for decades) that such activity is the exception to a historical trend in which the national administrative state becomes increasingly dominant. In that light, the recent reemergence of federalist principles in the (Rehnquist) Supreme Court seems like a throwback to the pre-New Deal doctrines of constitutional law. But the de facto reenergizing of state activism in those public policy arenas that have been under attack in Washington is a truly hopeful sign for the future.

Onward Schwarzenegger! (I cannot believe I am writing that...)

Popper fix

2007-02-09T15:05:00.000-05:00

This morning I got to listen to this week's installment of Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time as I drove to campus, and besides making the drive more bearable it also provided me with a much needed fix of "Popper" that I require to keep my addiction going....

I find Karl Popper to be one of the more interesting philosophers of the 20th century, and perhaps one who does not get his due when put up against others of his time. Most recently his name was associated with a rather silly and trivial incident that was the focus of Wittgenstein's Poker, a book which I found unhelpful and annoyingly demeaning of Popper.

Bragg's panel, in contrast, did not even touch on the incident (thank goodness) and instead helped put Popper's ideas about science, philosophy and politics in context. What emerges is a sweeping picture of a brilliant thinker who applied a consistent perspective across that range of topics.

An interesting dimension to the discussion was the focus on Popper's longstanding commitment to socialism -- a fact often lost to those who frequently associate him with the likes of Hayek, Orwell and Koestler.

This show is another example of the high quality offerings at In Our Time. As always, the logic of topic selection remains baffling -- last week was Genghis Kahn, several weeks back it was Hell, and earlier the Speed of Light -- and next week will be Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

Temptation of lifeblogging

2007-02-07T00:01:00.000-05:00

I often wonder if anyone is reading these posts except for a few friends (and perhaps my curious students), and that was answered in part when I received an email from Scott Carlson who (in response to an earlier post of mine) provided a link to a featured article on lifeblogging he authored for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The more I read about lifeblogging, the more I become intrigued -- and I have the feeling I might give it a try in some limited form if the opportunity presented itself. But there would be barriers -- similar to those I face whenever I give some thought to getting a motorcycle. (I think I would love the experience, but anytime I mention it aloud my spouse gives me one of those "not in my lifetime" looks -- and thus provides me the minimal excuse I need to get passed that little urge for adventure. But who knows -- perhaps someday I will take the leap onto that cycle or into lifeblogging....)

The Carlson piece seems to touch all the bases -- positives and negatives -- to lifeblogging. But the most telling part of the article is his decision to keep the files he accumulated during his experiment despite the potential for embarrassment and exposure. When I told a colleague about the article, he related the story of a neighbor who had installed video camera throughout his home in order to monitor the activities of his kids while they were under the care of a nanny. Initially it was a security measure, but when it came to erasing the stored files they realized what they had -- a record of their kids growing up and doing things that as empty nesters they might want to recapture years later.

Ain't human nature interesting....

Course prepping made easy....

2007-02-06T10:17:00.000-05:00

The recent "scare" (more of a media circus than anything else) in Boston involving guerrilla marketing of a cartoon movie is a wonderful example of two major trends in the mass media business coming home to roost.

I am now teaching a course on Mass Media and American Politics at UNH, and the episode in Boston could not have been better timed since I have been focusing on "challenges to mainstream media" (MSM) and was making the case that over the past decade or so MSM has been transformed by two emergent corporate cultures which I label "New News"and "No News".

The New News label I lifted directly from Marvin Kalb's 1998 work at the Shorenstein Center which was featured on two segments of PBS' NewsHour (here and here) just as the Monica Lewinsky scandal hit the airwaves (and Bill O'Reilley, an erstwhile student of Kalb's was settling into Fox News). Bottom line is that it was evident at that time that MSM -- the traditional or "legacy" media -- had given itself up to investigative tabloid-ism that we now consider commonplace. It was Paddy Chayefsky's "Network" scenario come true on a major scale and the entertainment divisions and ratings-driven norms took possession of all except the most dedicated of news sources.

The "No News" culture is the label I provided another MSM phenomenon that was effectively documented by Frontline and Nicholas Rushkoff in their "Merchants of Cool" broadcast in early 2001. While the relative indifference of younger generations to "news" and the preoccupation of teenagers and young adults with their "popular culture" is nothing new, the corporate fostering (and exploitation) of the "cool" market (through "coolhunting") has reached a level where it has become news itself.

The Cartoon Network episode is really just a clear manifestation of the resulting clash of these two cultures. Here you have Turner Broadcasting (owner of Cartoon Network), a major corporate MSM by any measure, generating the "No News" cultural event through its hiring of Interference, Inc. to conduct the Boston version of its guerrilla marketing campaign and then hyping the story of Boston's reaction on its CNN

What a wonderful set up for my Monday morning class as I played the 1998 NewsHour segment, followed by the first segment of the Merchants of Cool, followed by a wonderful discussion of the Boston events on Weekend America.

Oh, thank you Turner Broadcasting!

Tomorrow I am talking about the emergence of alternative media -- blogs, etc. As preparation I am sitting in front of my computer waiting for some interesting blunder -- I mean case study -- to fall in my lap.... broadcasts with its well honed "New News" machinery.

Dawkins persuasion....

2007-01-11T22:35:00.000-05:00

You can say what you will about Richard Dawkins (and most people do have an opinion), he is able to make his points effectively and persuasively. The latest example is posted as a download podcast -- its a lecture in Montreal on the "Strangeness of Science" and found at CBC's Best of Ideas. Worth the one hour....

Obsessive hoarder -- or lifelogger!

2007-01-06T09:27:00.000-05:00

Two stories -- one recent and one not-so-recent -- on NPR shows should be listened to in sequence -- or at least I find them related in interesting ways.

The first, Clinging to Clutter, was originally broadcast on Weekend America in October, was rebroadcast last weekend. It is about a woman who suffers from a hoarding obsession, and for those of us with such tendencies (I have mentioned my obsessive attachment to books, etc.) it throws a tragic light on how things can get out of hand.

That said, I was equally fascinated while listening to today's long On The Media segment on a "lifelogging" project focusing on Gordon Bell, a Microsoft computer scientist, and a follow-up interview with Clive Thompson who wrote a piece on the project for FastCompany.

For obvious reasons, I came away from the lifelogging piece a bit less depressed and certainly less anxious about my own behavior. It just so happens that I very recently embarked on my own "scanning" project as a way of dealing with the fact that I am just going to have to dump the many books and papers that were damaged in last spring's flooding of my basement. Drying has worked for some of the material, but mold and mildew, etc has really taken its toll. New scanners at home and the office will be my salvation, but as I planned out that effort over the past couple of months my thoughts were drawn back to the story of the obsessive hoarder.

Now I realize I am just a pioneering lifelogger....

Inspirations and obscurums

2007-01-03T12:51:00.000-05:00

It seems that friend Ciarán has had similar ideas of recommiting to blogging for the New Year, and he has done so with an inspiring trasnformation to a new site and software (along with his new blogging partner, Isabel). Very nice!

And as is usually the case when one visits Ciarán's posts (and now Isabel's as well), one is going to find something fascinating -- in this case it is a repost from friend McGrathy's November link to Concave Obscurum. There is nothing more to be added other than it is worth the visit to any and all of these -- and if you figure Concave Obscurum out, please let us know.

New Year luck...

2007-01-02T23:25:00.000-05:00

Today and tomorrow we have to deal with one of those things one typically takes for granted -- how the house is heated.

When the time came to turn on the furnace this fall, we found the welcome warmth accompanied by an incessant banging of great frequency. Since we have steam heat our first reaction was that this was merely the usual clanging of pipes that comes with the start of each cold season. But after a bit it became evident that this was something different -- and the noise did not stop even after we took steps to 'bleed' the system of the 'trapped air' that we are told typically cause most such noises.

Finally, a call to our oil company brought out a technician who declared that the banging was actually from an old overworked water intake system that had gone bad (and noisily so) because it is constantly feeding a leak in the furnace. In short, we needed a new furnace.

And so came the bad news -- around $8000 of it, and we braced for the bill as well as the inevitable installation which we anticipated with trepidation. After all, it is midwinter in New England, and the unit itself is a hulking presence in our basement that would clearly take hours to remove. We foresaw a tearing and wrenching of our lives and Randi even made hotel reservations.

But as luck would have it, we delayed until just after the New Year, and thankfully we are having two days of unseasonably warm weather (in the 40s and 50s F).

And after a bit of heavy lifting and clanging and hauling, etc in the morning by a crew of five or so folks, it turned out that the installation has not been as disruptive as we expected. In fact, I even spent most of my day in my office dungeon which is merely a thin wall away from the room where the new oil furnace was being installed by two very quiet (relatively speaking) gentlemen who would make their presence known every so often with a rather loud pipe bang.

Even better was the fact that we have heat tonight from our new unit even though the installation continues tomorrow.

All seems to be going so well that I am expecting to find out tomorrow that I have won some lottery for $8000 that will cover the costs!

I guess I shouldn't push my luck....

Tilly inspired work

2007-01-01T19:18:00.000-05:00

Charles Tilly has authored a nice little volume titled Why? What Happens When People Give Reasons...and Why. Interesting work, based on useful framework that organizes reason-giving into conventions, stories, codes and technical accounts.

His personalization of the subject seemed a bit odd until you get to the point where he expresses much admiration for Jared Diamond and others who seem to be able to get their points across to the general reader. If his intent was to do the same, not much success there.... What makes that effort odd is that content-wise he seems to be addressing his colleagues in the social sciences rather than some general audience, but style-wise he comes up short.

Regardless, there are some interesting connections in the work to accountability and account-giving, but perhaps the real value for me was the degree to which I came away from the reading convinced that there is a useful distinction between reason-giving and account-giving that needs to be explored and sharpened. I am working on that now is a paper-in-progress....

Another result of reading Tilly's Why? is how much it made me think about the value of Karl Weick's "sensemaking" approach to social psychology and organization theory. Taking an approach that integrates Tilly and Weick, I have decided to organize my American government course this spring under the theme "making sense of US government and politics" -- and thus far I am having lots of fun putting together the syllabus with that framework in mind. Another work-in-progress....