Sorry for the radio silence today — I’m running a fever and otherwise feeling pretty oogy (don’t ask). No blogging from me until I’m better.
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Happy New Year everyone!
I plan to post little if at all over the next few days, both to spend time with Molly and Greta and because I seem to be developing a pretty severe case of carpal tunnel in my left wrist. So enjoy the extended weekend and I’ll see you on Monday.
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I’m delighted to welcome yet another contributor to Undip: Montserrat Nicolas. I first got to know Montserrat through Twitter: her tweets are both absolutely hilarious and informative. I’ve now become a fan of her great blog, Curvas Politicas, which, if you read Spanish, is an absolute must. I’m delighted that Montserrat has now agreed to make Undip her English-language home.
Born in the Southern Hemisphere but raised in Scandinavia, Montserrat Nicolas Beeley lives her consultant life with her kid and long-suffering mate. Her friends dread her cooking, but love her well-stocked bar. After a short career at the cash register of the local supermarket, she volunteered to read books and newspapers for Alzheimer patients. She briefly worked as an assistant at a vet clinic, only to give up her dream when passing out during a neuter operation.
Her studies include archeology (a choice only driven by a lust to unearth old gems), some economics (the IRS is not impressed) and ultimately history and international relations. Currently, she writes incredibly boring communications strategies and tries to spice up her briefings and analysis on hemispheric affairs, often to no avail. A fan of Fletch, Pet Shop Boys and Machiavelli, she writes a column for LA NACION, and is the author of Vicente Huidobro ¿Poeta, Político o Intelectual?, which looks at the differences among poets, politicians and intellectuals without ever mentioning Gramsci.
As is the case with all Undip contributors, Montserrat’s views are her own and do not reflect those of her employers.
I continue to be delighted and impressed with the quality and range of those contributing here. Many thanks to Pin, Midwest, Chris, Annie, Ross, and Montserrat. If you’re interested in joining them, email me at cbrown_at_undiplomatic.net
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It’s Christmas season, which means the next few days will be taken up with things like last-minute shopping, gift wrapping, oh-my-god-I-forgot-I-promised-Molly-I-would-do-that-before-her-mom-arrives-erranding, eggnog consuming, and tree decorating. I love it, but it is time consuming.
So expect fewer posts between now and the 29th. Not complete radio silence, but much less programming.
To tide you over, here’s a neat little map showing Christmas wrapping paper production worldwide.
No surprise on China, but who knew that Finland and Brazil were minor powers in the wrapping paper industry?
And a happy holidays/Christmas/Kwanzaa/Hanukkah/Buddha day/New Year to all.
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I’m delighted to welcome yet another contributor to Undip: Ross Hammersley. Regular readers will recognize Ross as one of our best and most consistent commenters, most notably his excellent reports on the impact of the auto bailout debate in Michigan. Ross will continue to write about the attempt to transform the U.S. auto industry, as well as on energy and environmental issues and their impact on U.S. foreign policy.
Ross is an associate attorney with the law firm of Frank, Haron, Weiner and Navarro. His practice involves litigation at the state, federal and international level, including specializations in whistleblower protection under the federal False Claims Act as well as environmental and health law. Before heading to law school, he was a regional organizer for Ecopledge.com, advocating corporate environmental responsibility, and a grassroots campaign manager for the State PIRGs in California, pushing for renewable energy, wilderness protection, and remediation of toxic waste.
Ross also has worked for the Audubon Society on ecological restoration, and as an environmental educator in Michigan and Vermont. Ross is a cum laude graduate of the Michigan State College of Law where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Michigan State Law Review and specialized in environmental law, and he received his Bachelor of Science degree from the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan.
As is the case with all Undip contributors, Ross’s views are his own and do not reflect those of his employer.
I continue to be delighted and impressed with the quality and range of those contributing here. Many thanks to Pin, Midwest, Chris, Annie, and Ross. We hope to have more soon. And if you’re interested in joining them, add a comment below and I’ll be in touch with you.
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As you may have noticed, I haven’t been blogging much today, in large part because I’ve been in consulting land, but also because it’s my birthday this weekend, and hey, even a diligent blogger has to stop and smell the, uh, whatever you smell during your forties.
Want to send me a present? I’d love it. But instead, I’d ask you to consider doing one of two things.
1. Please consider supporting this blog. I know that times are tough for everybody right now, and that the current uncertainty makes it hard to think about helping a mere blogger, especially given the fact that I can’t even offer you a tax deduction in return. But if you’ve liked what you’ve seen over the past five months, and would like me to continue, please consider hitting the donate button to your right.
2. Please nominate me for a “Shorty,” which is a new annual award for outstanding achievement in twittering. If you enjoyed my tweets during the election cycle — particularly during the debates — I ask you to take two minutes to nominate me (@undiplomatic) in the #politics category. You can do it via the Shorty Awards website or by tweeting @shortyawards. Either way, you’ll need a twitter account. And if you don’t know what that is, well all I can say is go back to option one.
And not to grovel too much, but right now, I’m 15 votes behind right-wing troglodyte Hugh Hewett. Please help me not endure the shame of coming in behind that guy.
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The roster of great people duped into willing to write for Undip keeps growing! I’m delighted to welcome Annie Oakley to the team. Annie will look at a whole range of things, but will focus on human rights, particularly as it affects underrepresented communities. And for those of you not familiar with American history, yes, it’s a pseudonym.
Annie has spent a good part of her career as a counselor, advocate, consultant, and board member for disability rights organizations. She has worked closely with local governmental bodies to ensure compliance with ADA-mandated accessibility laws. She has has worked for NGOs providing therapy for children with mental and physical challenges. Annie likes to say that she falls into every subgroup and contradictory sub-sub-group of society. She is a card-carrying-AARP-member-mixed-race-disabled-happily married-lesbian grandmother.
Annie’s passions include her wife, horses, geology, roses, books, photography, and chocolate. The most fun she ever had was translating technical manuals from Geek to English for a Silicon Valley engineer, and then seeing her work translated into Japanese and subsequently back into English. As a result, she knows exactly why some folks find it so hard to hook up a DVD player. She’ll try to make her posts at least somewhat more readable.
As is the case with all Undip contributors, Annie’s views are her own and do not reflect those of her employer.
I don’t know how I keep convincing such talented people to hang out here, but needless to say, I’m delighted to have her on the team. Her first post will follow later today.
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I’m delighted to welcome another contributor to Undip: Chris Larson. Chris will look at on science and technology (S&T) issues and their impact on U.S. foreign policy. He will examine areas within S&T that extend beyond borders: national security, education, health, environment, innovation, government reform, basic research, immigration, energy, and space. In particular, he will look at health, innovation, and the role of the private sector - issues often ignored or misunderstood in both the mainstream media and academic journals.
Chris is Associate Director of Biology at a biotechnology company in California. He provides molecular and cellular biology expertise for drug discovery and development efforts and serves as the project leader for several drug discovery teams. He has held positions at several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and led the team that discovered KC706, which completed multiple Phase II clinical trials for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis, and pemphigus vulgaris.
Chris has authored numerous peer-reviewed scientific publications, book chapters, and patents, and he has been an invited speaker at scientific conferences. He holds a B.A. from Carleton College, obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University, and completed postdoctoral training in molecular oncology at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He also has mentored a number of undergraduate and doctoral research dissertations, and currently serves as a mentor for the Biotechnology Institute’s Minority Fellows Program.
As is the case with all Undip contributors, Chris’s views are his own and do not reflect those of his employer.
Frankly, I don’t know why he’s slumming here, but we’re delighted to have him on the team! His first post will follow shortly.
(BTW, Chris, when Zemnata, a search engine that help bloggers find photos and links, saw the word “chemistry,” it linked here. I promise I won’t tell Heidi.)
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In fact, probably no blogging. I’m helping one of my consulting clients switch from PC to Mac and it’s going to take up most of my day.
Despite valiant efforts to fix the problem with the Feedburner feed, we’ve had no luck getting to work again. So we’re giving up. For whatever reason, Feedburner is dead. Long live the regular feed.
So if you’ve been a subscriber (or even if you haven’t), please take a moment and hit the subscribe button to the right. You also can do it by clicking here. And if you’d like to receive the comments feed, click here.
Thanks for your patience and for your support of Undip!
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Looks like Feed Burner is, for whatever reason, non-responsive. Hope to have the new feed up soon. We’ll also be adding a comments feed. Stay tuned. . . .
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So I’m back in DC, after a long, arduous drive back from Sarasota. I have lots I want to talk about (including the Hillary boomlet), but not tonight, okay? For having just taken a vacation, I’m pretty wiped out, especially given the fact that I’ve driven something like 2,500 miles over the past 10 days (don’t ask — it seemed like a good idea at the time).
I want to thank Midwest McGarry for his intrepid blogging during my brief time away and to welcome him as a periodic contributor. I also would like to remind him that I have photos of him that are far more incriminating than he has of me.
(What MMG didn’t mention is that shortly before this photo was taken, while out in the park, I was standing on top of the same van when an elephant started to charge. The driver, not realizing that I was standing on top of the van, took off. Only the quick thinking of Midwest and John Johnson (who you can see to the left in the photo MMG posted) kept me from flying off the back of the damn vehicle.)
I also would like to thank the Russian Federation for not invading any more countries while I was gone, which is what happened the last time I tried to take a few days off. (And before you write me, yes I know that there’s new evidence that Georgia started the war and that Russia merely responded blah blah blah blah — at the moment I’m too tired to care.)
One last thing: a big thanks to those of you who have alerted us to the problem with the feed. Right now Feedburner ranks somewhere between aggressive drivers with McCain bumper stickers and pond scum, but I hope to figure out what the hell is the problem. We’re working on it, but as of now, still no resolution. If we don’t get it fixed soon, we may have to ask you to resubscribe with a different feed address. I hope to have this resolved by Monday, but you’ll know when I know.
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I’m on the road, heading to Florida for a break (Molly and Greta will join me this weekend). Tonight, I passed through Florence, South Carolina, which was the first place I volunteered for the Obama campaign. So I took time out from the twelve hour driving slog to pass by the house that served as the Obama office during the January primary. It’s now empty and (not surprising given Florence’s economy) for rent.
I find it hard to believe that South Carolina was less than ten months ago, and that when it happened, nobody really knew whether Hillary or Obama would win the nomination, and that Edwards still had a marginal chance. What an amazing run it’s been.
Believe it or not, I do plan to spend a lot less time blogging over the next two weeks. So I won’t be offering much commentary on transition issues. I will say this, however: I’m surprised that none of the wingnuts has noted that Obama, who they so derisively call “The One,” chose Emmanuel Emanuel as his chief of staff.
One other note: we seem to be having a problem with the Feedburner feed — at least I am. It’s not showing up in my Google Reader. If you use Reader or another RSS aggregator, please tell us in the comments below whether you’re still getting Undip.
A big thank you (again) to Midwest McGarry for pitching in while I’m gone.
It looks like there are some problems with the Undiplomatic feed, which is usually powered by feedburner. It’s possible that there’s an internal issue, but from what I can see on the intertubes, we’re not the only blog having problems.
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Testing feed. Please ignore.
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Boy did I just show my age with that joke.
As I noted earlier today, I’m taking a much-needed post-campaign celebratory trip to Florida with Molly and Greta in order to recharge my batteries. But that doesn’t mean Undip will go off the air offline.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
Okay, okay, I’ll stop with the lame TV sign-off jokes now. But why did all those old test patterns have an Indian head on them?
Now, where was I? Oh, right — a guest host.
I’m delighted to welcome Midwest McGarry, who will serve as Undip’s guest host during my psychiatric confinement vacation. Many of you may recognize Midwest from the comments section; please don’t hold that against him. And contrary to rumors, he is not taking on this role because he won second place in Undip’s essay contest (first place was not being asked to blog. . . ba da bing! Thank you, ladies and gentlemen — please don’t forget to tip your waitress).
In fact, he is someone I’ve known for quite a while, and who, despite that, still manages to speak to me every once in a while. He has worked in foreign policy for over twenty years, and brings considerable expertise on a range of issues — including quite a few that I know almost nothing about (not that that has prevented me from talking about them). He loves baseball, John Mellencamp, the Blues Brothers, West Wing, Jon Stewart, Black Adder, Top Gear, Chicago (the city, not the band), Willie Nelson, NPR, BBC, WKRP, Cape Town, Marshall McLuhan, old scotch, cigars, and cheese.
His real life heroes are Nelson Mandela and Ron Santo. His fictional heroes are Leo McGarry [editor's note: dur] and Atticus Finch. He believes that greater global security is the surest path to lasting American security. And while he believes Midwesterners are the hardest working people in show business the nation, he is appalled by divisive talk about who among us are “real” Americans.
So please join me in offering our sympathies to Midwest, and while you’re at it, welcome him to Undip.
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As regular readers of this blog know, the past two weeks have seen fewer posts as I’ve spent more and more time working to get Barack Obama elected President of the United States. Now that that task is done (woo hoo!), you might wonder what’s next for Undip.
Over the next few months, we’ll focus on the transition, particularly as it relates to foreign policy. Over the long term, I hope to move the main focus away from domestic politics and back toward the intersection of international politics, American foreign policy, and pop culture. That said, I anticipate that when domestic politics deserves attention, commentary, and lots of snark, we’ll be there.
I also hope to bring on several contributors that will help expand the scope of our coverage and reinforce our mission and vision. I’ll have more on that soon.
In the short run, however, I need a break to rest, recharge, and get my voice back (and in the process, reacquaint myself with my lovely wife and darling daughter). So over the next two weeks, I’ll be stepping back a bit while Molly, Greta and I head to Florida. That’s not to say that I won’t post at all, only that I won’t post very much.
The good news is that a good friend and regular commenter not only will be stepping into the breach over the next two weeks, but also will become a permanent contributor over the long run. I’ll have more on that soon.
And as always, thanks for your passionate interest in and support for Undip.
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I’m going to two meetings this morning and then spending most of the rest of the day at the Arlington Obama office. So I will hardly blog at all today — sorry about that, and see you later.
In the meantime, feel free to talk amongst yourselves.
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I’m pleased to note that after only three months, Undiplomatic has been named one of the top five foreign policy blogs over at About.com.
Big thanks to all my readers for helping me to make this a success.
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Regular readers of this blog know that my usual output has slowed considerably over the past week. For those of you who wait breathlessly for my 13.2 posts per day (heh), I’m afraid you’re going to have to be satisfied with less output for the next month or so.
Right now, I have several competing priorities: my family (which always comes first), my blog, my consulting, and getting Obama elected. Over the next two-and-one-half weeks, the last of these is going to be taking more and more of my time. Once the election is over, Molly, Greta, and I will be taking a much-needed 10 day vacation that will be largely blog-free. And given the fact that this blog is not my sole source of income (at least not yet), the consulting has to continue to play an important role. Add on top of all this some health issues I’ve had to deal with over the past couple of weeks and, well, you get the picture.
I’ve made arrangements for someone to cover while I’m gone (more on that soon), and may have one or two others in the mix as well. In the meantime, you can expect fewer posts, but I hope those that do make the cut will continue to be worth your time.
For all those who subscribe, as well as those of you who comment regularly, my continued thanks. Please continue to do both, and I promise that it will be worth your while.
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Molly and I are going to enjoy the rest of the day. See you later tonight.
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