Greg Sanders

Google Buzz is making me wonder if I’m over-sharing

In this case, I mean sharing items in Google Reader. I reciprocated a few people who were following me and for a bit I felt drowned in pretty good shared content. By adapting my skim folder I seem to have dealt with that problem, but I’m now trying to figure out what the appropriate level of sharing is.

So, readers, any thoughts? I know for me, sharing can work best as a filter for blogs I enjoy but that aren’t quite good enough fits for me to follow. In addition, it can bring in unique items I wouldn’t have otherwise seen.

I figure I should aim for 5-10 shared items a day, but aim for the best stuff. It’d be nice to have some feedback stats for how many of one’s shared items get read, although obviously that should only be gathered with permission.

In any event, if you like, let me know what sharing works best for you, if you follow my buzz account that is, and I’ll try to accommodate.

Blog roll addition: Hathor Legacy

Hathor legacy is a cultural criticism site with the tagline “in search of good female characters.”  They recently revamped things by consolidating their multiple feeds into a single one (they also have a LJ feed), so this seemed like a good time to link.  The design of the core site doesn’t excite me, the text is a little big and you need to read more to get the details on any post.  However, that’s not an issue with the feeds, so I don’t really care.

My favorite discussion has been one by guest author Audra on Laura Roslin, the female President in Battlestar Gallactica.  The write-up does a good job of both addressing her strengths and acknowledging that she does make a fair number of iffy decisions.  The discussion went off topic some, but added more analysis and kept the things interesting well after the initial post.

A second post I enjoyed was one I disagreed with put up by Kris Ligman.  She thought Portal did more to advance female protagonists than Mirror’s Edge because the latter’s marketing was really driven by its main character.  Loving both games, I disagreed, as did other commenters, but while the discussion was a bit harsh on Kris I think she handled herself well and updated her views as new info came to light.  Potential for good discussion really is key in my view to a good criticism site.  Another fun series by the same author is a salutary set of pieces on the women of Metal Gear Solid.

The site was started by Jennifer Kesler who both gets a nice mix of writers and wades into comments as a moderator when appropriate, which is key to getting the commenting community that I enjoy.

Light posting

I'm headed out to Illinois for family reasons, so posting may be a bit light this weekend.  Sorry about the lightness earlier this week as well, but that should at least have interesting results soon.

Opposition Addition: The American Scene

The American Scene is a group blog, my favorite writers on it are Noah Millman and Reihan Salam (I also read a fair number of Peter Suderman's reviews).  Since it's a group blog with a changing cast it's no surprise that it can be a bit uneven at times, so caveat emperor there as with any group project.

I'd been meaning to add them for a while and a Millman piece I liked just came up, so now's as good a time as any.   He's responding commenting on the debate resulting from a Damon Linker post:

Linker’s whole project – “the liberal bargain” – rests on the proposition that absent a neutral arbiter without metaphysical commitments you inevitably get social conflict. I pretty much disagree with that proposition whole-hog – I don’t think liberalism is (or can be) a wholly neutral arbiter without metaphysical commitments (indeed, I think this partly because I agree with some of liberalism’s metaphysical commitments); I don’t think such an arbiter would enable you to avoid social conflict (what would compel the loser to abide by the verdict?); and, for that matter, I think you can have devastating social conflict without any real disagreement about metaphysical commitments (those metaphysical commitments themselves may in many cases be “superstructure” rather than “substructure”).

Myself, I would like to see a liberalism that is both more confident and more humble about its own truths. More confident: don’t defend the sexual revolution by saying, “why not?” but by saying, “here is what we have gained – here is the positive good, here are the virtues of the life we now lead.” Don’t attack creationism by saying, “that’s smuggling sectarian religion into the public square” but by saying, “science is a magnificent human achievement that you are defacing, and science matters too much to me to stand idly by while you do that.”

I tend to agree with this in no small part because Linker's argument cuts both ways.  Here he is criticising the particularly argumentative brand of new athiests (Dawkins, Hitchens, etc.):

The most thoughtful atheists--let's call them liberal atheists--have always understood that the impossibility of negative proof is a crack through which the gods, no matter how ruthlessly banished from the human world, forever threaten to return. These atheists--whose ranks include Socrates, Lucretius, Sextus Empiricus, Montaigne, Albert Camus, and Primo Levi--responded to their lack of certitude, to the invariably provisional character of the beliefs by which they oriented their lives, in a supremely philosophical way: with equanimity. Accordingly, they did not go out of their way to act as missionaries for unbelief.

I'm no fan of Dawkins or Hitchens because I disagree with some of their arguments and because they're fraking obnoxious.  However, I can't see why athiests evangelizing is any worse than any other set of beliefs seeking to spread itself.  They can obviously go to far, but so can everyone else and everyone else has a longer tradition of being obnoxious.  I think the need to exclude such evangelism comes from having a pluralistic civil religion as the neutral arbiter Millman refers to above.  I think that approach has its uses as kind of a shorthand that saves us from having to argue from first principles every time.  Nonetheless, we must be able to make those arguments; I rather strongly believe Millman's closing point:

Cultivation of skepticism and doubt will never be enough; you’ll need actual alternative certitudes to push against to be sure that you actually know anything. And, if you’re really a liberal, you have to leave open the possibility of being convinced that one of your liberal truths is actually, well, false.

That's part of my rationale for having an opposition blogroll.

Poll experiment

First off, as a house keeping note, simple html should now work in comments.  Also there may be less prove you’re a human challenges, I apparently had it on always challenge for some odd reason. 

Anyhow, I’d been meaning to add polling to this blog for ages.  I always liked livejournals polling implementation, but that doens’t work on other blogs.  I did some checking around on the typepad sight and Vizu offers a polling widget.  I’ve put one up over on the left hand side.  I can either put it in a column or just directly in a post.  So, if you please, let me know which you prefer.  If you’ve got any other suggestions, feel free to pass them on.

Online Surveys & Market Research

Update:  Note that the poll won’t show up in feeds, you’ll have to go to the site.  To be expected really.  Also, there’s now comment feeds available for each post, so if you want to subscribe and see if anyone replies to your comment, there’s a way to do it without check back.  Emailed follow-ups are better, but I don’t know how to do that with typepad.  Oh, also, technological reasons.  Poll text is tricky to change.

Gaza and Egypt, together at last?

One seemingly straightforward idea to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be for Israel to return Gaza to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan.  Bolton proposed it the other day and Marc Lynch tore the idea apart.  Short version neither Egypt nor Jordan are interested, here’s the specifics on Egypt:

The Mubarak regime has been doing everything possible to separate from Gaza, not to return to it.  As Steve Cook recently pointed out, there is no upside for the Egyptian regime in this crisis. Why would a sclerotic regime obsessed with the "threat" of the Muslim Brotherhood at home and consumed with a difficult transition from an aging President take on responsibility for an enraged and devasted Gaza population which blames Egypt for enforcing the blockade on behalf of Israel?

After reading this, I noted that the objections on the Egyptian side seemed mostly centered around Mubarak (or a likely dictatorial successor).  Gazans weren’t to happy with Egypt either, but that anger may be focused on the regime rather than the people.  So I was wondering whether a more democratic Egypt might change the situation, at least pending a resolution of the West Bank.  Via a request thread, I asked that of Matt Yglesias.  His short answer: nope.  Whole post is worth reading, but here’s an excerpt.

I can’t speak from a great wealth of personal experience, but I do think it’s a mistake to look at the Middle East as just a big ol’ sea of generic Arabs who can be shunted from one country to another…  But think of Alaska. Notwithstanding the fact that Alaska shares a border with Canada along with a language and broadly speaking a “culture,” Alaskans are still Americans. And, indeed, as we’ve seen from Sarah Palin they’re capable of manifesting an ugly brand of American nationalism that’s totally incompatible with being Canadian.

An interesting related issue that can only be speculated about is to what degree would we see much closer political integration between Arab states if he had more political democracy. There are efforts, of course, to coordinate Arab policy through fora such as the Arab League. But in practice it’s extremely difficult for authoritarian states to cooperate in a deep way.

Some commenters with first hand experience with the Egyptian people confirmed that there was no real interest in taking Gaza.  Here’s some details from ST who was kind of enough to allow me to quote:

Like Dody, I live in Cairo. I’m a non-Arabic speaking expat American. Given those limitations, my impression from talking with Egyptian professionals as well as blue collar types (my housekeeper, drivers from work etc.) is that most people here do not want Gaza to be part of Egypt. They are upset about what is happening but think Hamas picked this fight and now wants Egypt to come solve it for them–and they do not want another war with Israel. My housekeeper thinks when the border security was lifted last year the Palestinians came in and bought everything in the Sinai, driving up prices for poor Egyptians and causing a lot of problems. She and others feel that if Egypt took over Gaza or opened the border they would inherit responsibility for a lot of social problems among the Palestinians and there are enough poor people here in Egypt to care for already. There are certainly some who feel that Egypt should be doing more, but the idea that Egypt should just annex Gaza is not even considered by those I have talked with and dismissed when I brought it up.

Caveat, those likely to speak to Americans in this case are more interested in staying in the good graces of the U.S.  So, my current view is that a more democratic Egypt is unlikely to offer even an interim solution to the political limbo Gaza is in.  That said, there probably would be closer economic cooperation with Gaza and perhaps less willingness to uphold a blockade.

Finally, just wanted to say thanks to Matt Yglesias.  I’ve dealt with him a couple times by email and comments and he’s been consistently gracious.  I appreciate that on a personal level, and on a practical level it means he’s got to be devoting a reasonable amount of time to dealing with bloggers and wonks far lower on the totem pole than he.  And thanks again to ST for filling in some details on the ground.

Slow posting for a week or so

I’m doing some field study of the American health care system and so am going to be posting fewer entries for the next week or so.  Might have some guest author posts, depending on the availability of my fiancee and friends.

Blogroll addition: Ross Douthat

With Democrats on the upswing, I figure now is  good time to be magnanimous in victory.  I’m adding an “opposition” category to my blog roll for those I read on the other side.  I may add a few more or switch over a couple writers, as any furtive alliances with libertarians may well breakdown once Bush is out of office.  Anyways, if someone is their, take it to mean that I consider them worth reading don’t impute their views to me.

Anyhow, my main disagreement with Douthat is that he’s a social conservative, although to my knowledge he’s never said anything against same-sex marriage.  Primarily he focuses on being opposed to abortion rights.  He recently had an op-ed where he argued that opposition to abortion wasn’t what sank the GOP ticket in 2008.

The public is amenable to compromise: majorities support keeping abortion legal in some cases, but polling by CBS News and The Times during the presidential campaign showed that more Americans supported new restrictions on abortion than said it should be available on demand. And while some pro-lifers would reject any bargain, many more would be delighted to strike a deal that extends legal protection to more of the unborn, even if it stopped short of achieving the movement’s ultimate goals.

But no such compromise is possible so long as Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey remain on the books…

But so long as the Supreme Court remains closely divided, and a post-Roe world remains in reach, the movement’s basic political task must remain the same. Not because pro-lifers are absolutists who reject compromise, but because any real compromise will always depend on overturning Roe.

Kevin Drum agrees that seeking to ban abortion didn’t sink the ticket, but adds an important caveat.

The truth is more prosaic: pro-life activists have done exactly what you'd expect them to do. They've pushed for the most restrictive possible laws they can get away with, and in many states they've succeeded in making abortion de facto unavailable. If Roe were overturned, compromise would be the last thing on their minds.

That said, while they’ve managed to drive doctors willing to perform abortions out of South Dakota, Denise Ross over at TNR looks into why they keep failing to pass a ban, regardless of whether it would pass constitutional scrutiny.

While it's generally agreed that South Dakotans haven't dramatically changed their view of themselves as "pro-life," Rhoden isn't the only one who thinks the well is poisoned. Blanchard, the political science professor, contends that the rapid-fire repeats of the issue have hurt pro-life efforts in South Dakota. "By making the [2006] bill so extreme, they made the right-to-life movement look like a bunch of nuts," he says. "Coming back two years later without any rest from the issue and producing a more moderate bill--but only a little more moderate--they may have permanently altered people's view of them as just a bunch of busy bodies."

Practically speaking, if at some point Roe vs. Wade proves unsustainable I do think people like Douthat would be willing to make some sort of good faith compromise.  That said, I don’t trust many of his compatriots whose eagerness to also take out contraception shows that they’re basically in a zero-sum game with feminists.  That said, the abortion rights movement is best off not compromising aside from safe, legal, and rare and trying to push the medical technology as far as possible so that if Roe breaks down it will be as easy as possible to provide services to poor women in restrictive states.

Another link round up

Busy day.  The one person I’ve heard back from said definitely keep up the commentary on them, otherwise what’s the point.

• Ross Douthat and Megan McArdle suggest a way that the print media to save the mainstream media’s business model: extortion.
• Kevin Drum notes that unions are there in part to keep teachers from having to work twelve hour days and become heroes in movies about troubled students.  I find that convincing.  Teachers don’t need to be driven by social conscience to go well above and beyond normal duties, they’re already probably in a lower income field because they’re teaching.  Our video game industry is of a size that it can get ridiculous amounts of work out of its reasonably well paid people because they really want to make games.  That doesn’t scale up to a nation wide education system.
• Also Kevin Drum’s mom house seems to attract cats the way a Japanese harem comedy guy attracts girls.
• Yglesias notes that moderates don’t necessarily want a smaller government, but instead want an effective government.    Trimming bloat is of course one way to get a more effective government, but if there were easy political wins they’re isolated to recent programs or have been made long ago.
• According to Barron YoungSmith of TNR, the talk of appointing Hillary Clinton to State may be related to assuaging potential feminist backlash from appointing Larry Summers to Treasury.  Can’t say that idea excites me, I much prefer Sen. Clinton’s domestic policy to her foreign policy.
• David Shorr discusses how we could move towards nuclear disarmament.  I think he’s absolutely right.  With the fall of the Soviet Union, there’s no reason we’d ever need to worry about being conventionally overwhelmed on the defense and thus needing a nuclear first strike.  Meanwhile the non-proliferation regime basically has broken down and nukes are slowly spreading.
• Obama is standing firm against torture.    Good.  Hopefully he’ll also take the next step and be sure to gather preserve evidence that may be needed for future war crimes trials.
• CVS is now selling DC Metro Smarttrip cards.  Thank goodness, I’m tired of having to evangelize the things just so my traveling companions don’t slow me down. (Hattip: Greater Greater Washington).

Back

Sorry about the period of absence, had and am now increasingly recovering from some major health issues that I’ll be vague on since this is a full public venue.

Anyways so expect a series of dozens of entries in short order to make up for... ha, no. I’m going to try to get back in the daily posting habit sooner rather than later though and might even get a little help with that.

Blogroll additions: Brad DeLong

Brad Delong is a prominent liberal economic blogger that I’ve been reading for several months now. He covers a range of economic and political topics, including some in depth class notes and analyses that honestly I typically skim but make me think his classes would be pretty dang interesting.

I’m including him because I’m on a blogroll adding spree and to celebrate his attempt to get formal proceedings started against another Berkeley professor and prominent torture apologist, John Yoo. Spencer Ackerman (who I’m also intending to add in the near future, wrote up this story for the Washington Independent and includes a brief summary on his blog, Attackerman.

Good hunting Prof. DeLong.

9/11 Jenga!

From a cute new blog by Francesco Marciuliano

Remember the innocent joy of watching one move transform a tall, rectangular structure into a heap of bricks?

Well, no more! That’s because the new 9/11 Jenga is as strong as our nation’s freedom and as resilient as America itself. First each wooden brick is hot-glued to one another. Then the entire tower is encased in form-fitting Lucite, permanently affixed to your kitchen table with a steel spike and patrolled by a phalanx of 4,000 army figurines, model helicopters and Estes rocket launchers, all under the watchful eye of 600 cameras posted around your house without your permission or prior knowledge. The result is a childhood classic you and your family can once again safely enjoy if not approach or touch.

Estimated completion date: 2049.

This is #9 in his list of unfit toys. Other’s include the Hardy Man Mysteries and Black Market Operation. Go check it out.

Slight change in blog format

For some time now, I’ve noticed that I tag far more articles and websites for potential blogging than I ever actually discuss. So, I think I’ll make it a little easier for myself by defining a few broad categories of what I do, and thus what I don’t blog about.

• Reporting: Travelogues, event write-ups, reviews, etc. This will probably be my most original content.
• China: I may broaden this to Asia, but for now I’m trying to keep things narrow.
• Rights: Democratization, feminism, discrimination, inequality, etc.
• Data: Solid non-anecdotal data on topics that interest me.
• Pet issues: transit, public diplomacy, contracting, whatever I’m working on at the moment, that sort of thing.

I may end up assigning a day to each of the topics, we’ll see. I figure the advantage would be having a day to do link round ups and such and provide a bit more predictability for my readers. In the short term, I might just break up my shared article feeds to make each of them more focused and thus more useful.

Hello World

Greetings,

I plan to use this blog to link to interesting things I've read and provide my thoughts on them.  Professionally I tend to find long-term trends, international relations, U.S. politics/policies, technology, and East Asia quite interesting.  Personally I'm also quite fond of science fiction, comics, action movies, and a fair amount of anime.  Sports-wise I follow the Baltimore Orioles, but if you're looking for insightful sports commentary, keep looking.

I'm a think tank researcher by trade, although a low ranking one.  Everything I say here reflects my own opinion and not the venerable yet nameless institution that gives me a biweekly paycheck.

Here's a few random favorites so you can judge my taste:
Food: Indian
Comic Character: Amanda Waller (of DC's Suicide Squad)
Action Movie: Raiders of the Lost Ark
Random historical event: The defenestration of Prague (the second one listed on the page)
International Relation: Peace