Rastafarian to Economics in Six Steps

To quote that great American man of song Jack Black: "You can't manufacture Inspirado."

To put it another way, you never really know when the Owl of Minerva will swoop down and strafe your brain-banana.

Such a thing happened last night, and it all emerged from someone making fun of me. That someone was, as it happens, my girlfriend.

First, some background. This wonderful woman seems to take great joy at making fun of how nerdy I am. You know...all my maps and economic theory and historical ramblings. It seems to be one of her favorite indoor sports (though I get the sneaking suspicion that she actually likes it but would never admit it).

Anyway, I was going on about my post of a few days back, "Is Economics Dead?" She claimed that she was a loyal COTL reader and that she had read that post. I asked if there was anything in particular that she liked. She said some of the words were interesting.

When I asked which ones, she replied, "economics and Rastafarian." Now, I know that I didn't mention Rastafarianism in the post, so I know my chain was being yanked.

What did occur, though, was an interesting thought experiment: could I connect Rastafarianism and the academic study of economics in six steps? I told her this was great "blog fodder."

She asked if she was my muse. I answered that, in a way, I supposed she was.

So, without further ado, I attempt to connect...

Rastafarian to Economics in Six Steps

1. Rastafarianism is a monotheistic, new religious movement that emerged in a Christian culture (Jamaica) in the 1930's. Rastafarians believe in the Second Advent like Christians do, but they believe that it happened in the person of...

2. Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, who denied that he was divine, but who did rule Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974. His reign was a long and eventful one, fighting a bloody, anti-colonial war against Benito Mussolini's Italy in 1935 and 1936. Domestically, though, Selassie's main problem was that of economic development. He knew that, to survive in the 20th century, his country would have to undergo...

3. Modernization, which is a contentious topic among historians, political scientists and other such eggheads. It basically studies the social factors and the ties an "underdeveloped" country has to "developed" countries and how these factors interact and can change to help a country modernize (whatever that might mean). These ideas about modernization have their roots in the Enlightenment with...

4. Marie Jean Antoine Nicholas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet, who, in 1795, postulated that advances in technology and economic changes could change moral and cultural values. This notion, the Idea of Progress, became a cornerstone of Enlightenment thought and influenced liberal ideologies well into the twentieth century. These notions of progress were related, in Condorcet's mind, to democratic political institutions. Condorcet studied, in particular, voting in democratic systems and found a problem, known as Condorcet's paradox. This is basically the idea that majorities choices in any decision situation are intransitive and can conflict with each other. This paradox in decision making was further expanded upon and defined by...

5. Kenneth Arrow, who's "impossibility theorem" takes Condorcet's paradox to the next level. Arrow argued, in his Ph.D. thesis and later in his 1951 book Social Choice and Individual Values, that no voting system can translate the preferences of individuals into a group-wide preference without the system resorting to dictatorship. In other words, the rule of the majority can never really be achieved and not have a dictator. This work laid the foundation for social choice theory, which is an important theoretical framework in...

6. The Academic Study of Economics.

So, there we have it. From Jamaica in the 1930's, we went to Ethiopia, back to late eighteenth century France, forward to twentieth century America to arrive at our final destination, making several interesting discoveries along the way.

Oh, for my fellow documentary junkies, can you tell I was raised on a steady diet of James Burke?

I hope you found this thought experiment interesting, enlightening and further proof that everything is connected in one way or another.

Oh, and to my muse, a sincere thank you. I usually balk and get defensive when she pokes gentle fun at my preoccupations (I secretly like it, but I would never let on...)

The Chuckwagon: Shredded Beef Carnitas (Sort Of)

The slow cooker is really the great tease of the food world. You gather your ingredients, put them all in the stoneware vessel, turn a knob and, well, wait. Usually for hours.

Meanwhile, ever so slowly, the wonderous smells of your food start to emerge and waft around you. As you go about your daily tasks, you are tempted and seduced by the ever-stronger aroma of food that you cannot have. It is a good exercise in forebearance and discipline.

This is not a problem if you are gone all day while it is cooking, but be ready for the big barrage when you open that door and are confronted by a wall of deliciousness. Even if you are in and out of the house all day, when you return, the aroma gets stronger; while you are away, it is at the back of your mind.

This is one of my favorite slow cooker recipes for a lot of reasons. Since it is ideal as a filling for tacos and such, it goes a long way. It can be adapted and added to, depending on your tastes and heat tolerance. Lastly, it freezes well and can be a real frozen "ace-in-the-hole" when the food stores are running low.

Oh, why the "Sort Of" in the title? Well, I know how real carnitas are made and they are really easy. I also know they are not done in a slow cooker. For a great, easy and tasty recipe that is closer to traditional carnitas, try this one by Mexican cuisine Renaissance man Rick Bayless.

Shredded Beef Carnitas (Sort Of)

Ingredients

• 2.5-3 lb. boneless chuck or rump roast
• 1 10oz. can of diced tomatoes with green chiles
• 1 c. beef broth
• 4-6 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
• 2-3 chipotle peppers plus 1 tbs. of the sauce from the can*
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 tbs. ground cumin
• 1 tbs. dried oregano
• Salt and pepper to taste

* These particular chipotle peppers are sold in a can with an adobo sauce. They can be found with the Mexican foods in most grocery stores.

Method

• Put roast in slow cooker.
• Add (in this order) tomatoes/green chiles, broth, garlic, chipotles, sauce, onion, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper.
• Turn slow cooker to "LOW," cover and cook for 4-6 hours. When done, the meat should be tender and falling apart.
• Remove the beef from the liquid and reserve some of the liquid.
• Let cool briefly.
• Shred beef with two forks until, well, shredded enough for whatever you are using it for.
• Moisten beef with some of the liquid until it is damp but not sopping wet.

Serve this with any/all of your favorite trimmings. I particularly like guacamole and a little lime juice on the beef, all wrapped up in a warm tortilla. This, as I said, can be used as a taco filling, served along side rice and beans by itself or however you want to enjoy this succulent, tasty roast.

So, gird up your discipline, get it all together and let 'er rip. On second thought, maybe plan to be out of the house all day so you are not tempted. Even if you are around, the pay-off is well worth it.

What is Fascism?

(N.B. This post was going to be longer. A lot longer. It followed the upward and outward spiral a lot of my posts do. I have shortened it, plagiarized myself a lot and I think made it more acccessable. If anyone out there is interested in a more in-depth look at this, let me know.)

When groups of ideas are labelled, these labels can (and usually do) take on a life of their own. They change, mutate and often become so completely divorced from their original context that they are almost meaningless.

These labels, though seemingly meaningless, retain a great deal of rhetorical power, but rhetorical power of the "bash over the head" type, not the Oxford Debating Society type.

Such it is with fascism.

Fascism, or to call someone a fascist, has basically mutated into a term for anything or anybody that you hate or disagree with. It is a term that has such power while at the same time being so wildly understood as to be contradictory at best and laughable at worst.

I have personal experience with this. In teaching the history of Modern Europe, I lectured on the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1920's and 1930's. One of my express missions in doing so was to let the students know that this term refers to a specific group of political, economic and social policies that emerged from a specific place at a specific time.

I tried to impress upon them that fascism can be defined, but that these definitions are not, well, definite. To put it another way, it is hard to say which "fascist" regime in Europe was the archetype, the quintissential fascist polity and society.

The Rise of Fascism in Europe

Flip through the slides of this presentation, done for my History 120 class. I think it will provide definitions of fascism, examples of fascist regimes and some conclusions. This presentation on the rise of the Nazis in Germany might also be of interest.

Final Thoughts

• "Fascist" as an epithet has, as terms often do, become completely divorced from its original meaning. It simply means, "someone I don't agree with" now.
• There were several other regimes, like Franco's in Spain, that had the trappings of fascism, and were certainly authoritarian, but were not really fascist. Particularly notable here are Estado Novo in Portugal, the Fourth of August regime in Greece and the Iron Guard in Romania.
• What was the closest regime to a "purely" fascist one? I would say Mussolini's Italy. Feel free to debate me on this one.

Link Exchange

• Margaret Atwood's take on Twitter.
• Tyler Cowen explains the greatest flaw with the labor theory of value.
• Land smugglers? Indonesia has them.
• Apparently, the founders of the American Economic Association in the 1890's were progressive, scientifically minded and really into eugenics and race purity. In other words, they were absolutely typical of many intellectuals of their age.
• Baffled by the whole "militia movement?" Robert Churchill's recent book is a good start.
• Magnetic stimulation to certain parts of the brain can change moral judgements.
• Peter Boettke wonders, "why is economic common sense so hard to communicate?" I wonder if, "economic common sense" *might* just be an oxymoron.
• With talk of the 2010 Census in the air, check out this chart of the most populous US cities according to the first census in 1790. New York tops the list...with 33,131 people.
• The allure of glamour.

Moving Thoughts

(This whole post, in one way or another, is informed by George Carlin's classic routine, "A Place For My Stuff." Watch it here.)

I moved recently and, as those who have done this before know, it is never a cut-and-dried task. There are always things you forget, corners you forget to dust, boxes you didn't tape right, hitching a trailer in a blinding snow storm. That sort of thing.

I suppose as moves go, mine was relatively uneventful (apart from the fact that I did most of the work without my glasses, no mean feat). It went how most moves go, in stages:

1. Gather boxes, tape, labels, Sharpies, garbage bags and other vessels for stuff.
2. Let those things sit around for a week while you do absolutely nothing.
3. Realize the move date is coming up and frantically start to sift through your stuff.
4. Establish guidelines for what stays and what goes. The dusty, rarely-used, broken, stained, too-hard-to-clean, or about-to-collapse stuff goes.
5. Gather usable, but unwanted stuff, and donate it or give it away. Feel good about yourself and, as a reward, do absolutely nothing for another week.
6. Realize that the move is even closer now and start to jam stuff into aforementioned boxes, bags, pants with the legs tied off, whatever. This is the stuff, naturally, that made the cut and is not junk or potential home decor for some insufferable hipster.
7. Begin cleaning, realize the enormity of the task and then do absolutely nothing for a few more days.
8. Realize that you move in three days and turn into some hopped-up combination of a house-parlour maid and Bob Vila, cleaning and repairing (or masking) all your sins.
9. Realize that it is all done and then do nothing until the trailer is ready for pick-up.

That's about how it went.

The interesting thoughts, however, came about in Stage 9. There I was, clean apartment, everything packed and sitting neatly (?) in a pile in front of me.

First I thought, "sitting in front of me, in boxes saved by Yo La Tengo Shirt Guy at the corner store, is, well me. These are, as they say, all my earthly possessions. This is all I got. Everything I own in this world that is not my body is there in a pile. This thought depressed me, as you might imagine.

Can a life be reduced to this? Is this the sum-total of my estate? What does this pile of boxes and bags mean, exactly?

I then thought, "No. This is not me. I am me, and these are just material possessions. Why, I could get rid of all of this and still be me. I am not defined by my posessions anymore than I am defined by a job, nationality, religion, ethnicity or baseball team affiliation (well, maybe not so much that last one)."

Well, then, why do you keep any of it? Why not just hippie/Jesus out, dump it all and just live, man?

Like it or not, I then thought, I have grown attached to some of these things. Why?

Then, the real question hit me: why did you keep the particular things you did and get rid of the rest?

Some of it is personal, things that remind me of my past and the past of my family. These things are priceless (not in a literal sense, but you get my meaning). A lot of what I kept were books. As an academic, they are the tools of my trade and the medium through which I keep my mind active and discursive as ever. Movies and music also made it past the garbage/Goodwill stage. These things make me happy and give me perspective, so I kept those. Practical items, too, like clothes. Well, there are few who want to see a naked guy wandering around, and almost none who want to see a naked me, so I had better have those. Apart from my computer, that was about it.

What does any of this prove? I think it boils down to value. When asked to move, we take the path of least resistance. We want to move as little as possible as quick as possible. We must make some hard decisions about the material things around us. In the end, it shows what we really value most. I guess I value my memories, ideas and not being naked.

What I am perhaps getting at is that a move involves a certain value calculus, one that is different for everyone. This process of winnowing is different for everyone and I suppose the process says as much about the individual as the things processed. It is all signalling, to put it another way.

So, whether you are moving are not, take a look around your place, pick out a few things and ask yourself: "Why am I keeping this? What does this object mean to me? What does it say about me? What would I think if I never saw it again? Would I care?"

The answers might surprise you. I know they surprised me.

Link Exchange

• Annoying book review cliches. These are as plain as the nose on your face.
• Great interview with econ Nobel Laureate Gary Becker. Becker is a living legend, and he is optimistic about the economy in general. I tend to agree.
• Is curing dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities) murder? Robin Hanson seems to suggest it is.
• The connection between U.S. drug policy and the gang wars in Mexico. The "War on Drugs" causes violence rather than preventing it. Time to sue for peace.
• Is it worth it for a city or country to host a large sporting event like the Olympics? Probably not.
• Women in countries with healthier populations prefer more feminine-looking men. I think this is in line with the main thrust of understanding in evolutionary psychology.
• David Cameron "rallies the base." Four months ago, the Tories had the election wrapped up. Now it will be a fight to the finish and (I think) a hung Parliament.

Is Economics Dead?

In its current form as an academic discipline, David Brooks thinks so.

First, a caveat about me and my opinion of David Brooks. Sometimes I think he is right on the money, other times I think he is on some other planet. On this score, I tend toward the former.

Economics is considered one of the "social sciences," basically disciplines that attempt to explain human behavior (in one way or another) using empirical methodologies. These disciplines usually include political science, psychology, sociology and economics.

Brooks does not take issue with the "social" part. It is the "science" that he has a problem with. He basically argues that economics will, in the future, be more like history or philosophy. It will be a powerful voice in a chorus of voices trying to explain the human condition as it is, was or will be.

What he thinks is at an end, though, is economics as a science in the sense that it is meant to render definitive answers about certain questions, follow a method of experimentation, value the quantitative over the qualitative and (perhaps most importantly) make predictions about how people might behave in the future. He posits, in fact, that economics will become more like art than science.

I do agree with Brooks that human behavior is a slippery thing that is not easily explained by any of the social sciences. What's more, I also agree that any pretense that any of these things are close to the "hard" sciences like chemistry or physics or biology. These sciences can explain how people work. The social sciences attempt to explain why people work, and this is a much harder thing to do.

I disagree with Brooks in that I don't think it was the recent economic crisis that was the "tipping point" for this supposed change in economics. I think of it in a more positive manner. Interdisciplinarity has been a force in academia for some time now and I think economists are finally coming out from behind their figures and charts to realize that they can learn from their colleagues. I think that this is a good thing, in the main.

The question, as a bit of an aside, arises: well, can any discipline keep its integrity in such an environment? Yes, because there are certain sorts of questions that one discipline answers better than others. Want to know about the causes of schizophrenia? A historian might be able to tell you how this disease and the perception of it changed over time, but for the direct answer, best to ask a psychologist. I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Greg Mankiw offers a different take on this, disagreeing pretty much in whole with Brooks. He says that journalists fundamentally misunderstand changes in academia and does not realize that professional economists are not really in the business of predicting the future anyway.

He goes on to admit that, while certain changes do need to be made to basic econ courses, the breadth and depth of them are good for now. He admits he might be biased on this score, and he is right to do so. He is the author of damn near the most popular text for Microeconomics 101 classes today.

In the end, though, I think Brooks is on to something here. He is calling economists to remember that their roots are not in the sciences. The earliest people you could call economists came from other, older disciplines that probed the human mind and condition.

To take but one example: if you were to meet Adam Smith and call him an "economist," he would have no idea what you were talking about. He was really a moral philosopher, interested in how people can achieve happiness and live, well, the right way.

It was in this spirit that he wrote his first (under-read, in my opinion) book The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759. This book provides the moral and philosophical underpinnings for his later (more quoted, less read, even less understood) work The Wealth of Nations in 1776.

You would get the same quizzical looks from other early "economists" like David Ricardo, Francois Quesnay, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot and others. In fact, the first person you might be able to call an economist as they developed to the present day might be Alfred Marshall, leader of the "marginal revolution."

So, back to my original question: is economics dead. I think not, but the way the discipline looks at its problems and itself will, and should, change. Economics can be a powerful voice in explaining human behavior, motivation and action.

One voice, however, does not a chorus make.

Link Exchange

• Interesting article and book about an often-forgotten investment bubble of recent years: baseball cards. In the 1980's, baseball cards became seen as a viable investment, people rushed in, prices rose and the bubble burst in 1994 with the baseball strike. I was part of this bursting (in a minor way), and I suppose it was an early education in boom and bust.
• Speaking of booms and busts, this is a super summary (in chart form) of US booms and busts (and other economic data) for the period 1775-1943. This, for me, is a real conversation starter.
• Interactive diagram showing why general equilibrium analysis is no easy task.
• I have seen this making the Internet rounds, an attempt to show that we depend heavily on that which is supplied by government. Here is the libertarian response. I guess it just goes to show that our society is really neither.
• Should airlines pay you to check your bags, in interest of effeciency? Felix Salmon thinks so. His argument is a compelling one.
• Engrossing discussion of positive vs. negative liberty at Cato Unbound. I, as you might imagine, come down on the negative liberty side.

Oh, No. Not Him Again.

Yes, I am back in the blogging saddle.

It has been a tough few months, and in many ways, I have been incommunicado.

I intend to change this.

My schedule has opened up somewhat (well, I am unemployed), and might have some more time to write here.

So, read the below two posts and expect more in the future. More recipes, more links, more history, more econ.

In short, more of everything that makes you like (?) me and this site.

Greeks Begging for Gifts

Greece is one of the worst governed countries in Europe, and certainly damn near the worst in the EU.

There. I said it.

Today, it was announced that the French and German governments have agreed, with help from the IMF, to bail out the Greek economy to prevent it from completely coming apart.

This move shows a few interesting things. To wit:

1. France and Germany "wear the pants" in the EU. Always have, always will.
2. Greece, as a country, was considered "too big to fail." Well, this is not literally true, but systemic risk is certainly an issue here.
3. This, for me, calls into question Europe as an optimum currency area (OCA). Now, I know that Europe is the first place this has really been tried, but I think, after the Euro conversion in 2002, something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.
4. The recent labor unrest in Greece is a reflection of the dire (to put it mildly) state of the Greek economy rather than its cause.
5. I think a lot of the blame for a lot of the current economic problems lie in the 1970's and former Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou and his Pan-Hellenic Socialist Party (PASOK). After the military junta was brought down in 1974, the right was discredited and the left took over in all levels of government. While this is not in and of itself bad, it did mean that there was no effective opposition and the PASOK and its allies proceeded to wreck the economy and create general malaise amongst the populace.
6. This might happen again. I am looking at you, Spain and Portugal.

Addendum: Will the US become the next Ireland, which supposedly serves as a model for recovery for the Greeks? Probably not.

Link Exchange

• Repeal the Sixteenth Amendment? It was passed in 1913 and gave the federal government the right to levy taxes. I like this idea.
• Could the new health care legislation lead to more uninsured people? Arnold Kling thinks so.
• Why Italian academia sucks. I think a lot of these criticisms can be applied to European academia more broadly. European academia, to my thinking, has a very perverse incentive scheme.
• Don Boudreaux nicely summarizes the natural rights view of the crucial idea of "the rule of law."
• Freakonomics Radio is now live! Go here for the podcast, RSS feed or to listen live. Russ Roberts is especially good. I would gladly live in a country run by that guy.
• A business model for aspiring pirates.
• There has always been a gulf between academia and the general public in the US. Is this changing (for better or worse)?
• Jodi Beggs muses on game theory and splitting the check at a restaurant.
• Corporate diversity training (apparently) does little good and makes people resentful.
• Libertarians in Israel.

Addendum: I realize that the Sixteenth Amendment deals directly with the income tax and that Article I, Section 8 (Enumerated Powers of Congress) gives Congress the right to levy taxes. I apologise for the confusion.

The Chuckwagon: Baked Potatoes

I know, I know, I know.

Who needs a recipe for a baked potato, right? Don't they serve those at Wendy's?

Well, I think there is a need. The perfect baked potato can be quite elusive, simple yet just out or reach.

I think of baked potatoes like I think about fries: so much potential, but so often overlooked.

Why care so much about potatoes? Is it because I (for better or worse) am of Irish extraction? Perhaps, but people the world over enjoy potatoes because they are cheap, filling and full of all the good stuff that we need. Why do you think that they became such a staple in the diets of people the world over?

Anyway, I have tinkered with a few methods for making baked potatoes, and this is my favorite:

Ingredients

• 2-4 medium to large Russet baking potatoes
• Oil (olive, vegetable, canola, peanut, corn...anything but motor)
• Salt (Kosher if you have it, table if you don't/don't care)

Method

• Wash potatoes in cold water with a stiff bristled brush. Scrub them good, but don't strip the skins.
• Take a fork and stab each potato deeply (really give those suckers a good jab) eight to twelve times, depending on the size of the spud. This helps steam to escape while cooking.
• Dry the potatoes off
• Coat each lightly in oil. The best way (but not the least messy) is to put some oil in your hand and rub them all over.
• When each is oiled, place on an ungreased baking sheet
• Salt the potatoes lightly
• Bake at 350 degrees for 1-1.5 hours (for two potatoes, 1 hour 15 minutes seems about perfect - alter with oven and number of potatoes.
• When done, they should be crispy on the outside, yet squeeze easily and be soft inside.
• To open, take a fork and stab a dotted line across half of the potato's top. Squeeze at both ends and it should pop open.

At this point, the world is your oyster. You have a perfectly baked potato with a crispy, delicious skin and a smooth, creamy interior.

Top with, well, basically anything. Sour cream, chives, butter, salt, pepper, HP sauce, chili, tuna, baked beans, ketchup, mayonnaise...basically anything edible will taste good on top of this perfectly baked potato.

Oh, and if anyone asks you, you can tell them (not exactly a lie) it is the method of an Irish cook who tried hundreds of ways before getting it just perfect.

Will Is a Twit(ter)

More substantial posting later (think baked potatoes and the Scottish Enlightenment).

I did want to mention here (if you didn't notice the box to the right under "Breaking News") that I have joined the world of Twitter.

Boy, I have gone from Luddite to aspiring social media whore in a comparatively short amount of time.

Anyway, to follow me on Twitter, just click my username to the right in the box thingy and go from there.

If you want the URL, it is here.

So, if my long boring musings here are not enough, maybe my short boring updates can fill the gaps.

Link Exchange

• Cabinet appointments and private sector experience, 1900-2008. It seems that Democrats hire less people with private sector experience than do Republicans. Wonder what that might mean?
• Asteroid deflection as a public good.
• Paul Samuelson, one of the most notable economists of the twentieth century, dies at 94. His textbook Economics was the standard for thirty years and he mentored no less than seven Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Laureates (a prize he himself won in 1970).
• Here is Peter Boettke on Samuelson, presenting the contrary view. I agree with him.
• Robin Hanson on the dubious (in his estimation) link between smoking and death. I think he is right: the numbers, in many ways, just don't add up.
• Resources, their use and Notre Dame's new coach.
• John Perry Barlow (essayist, cyberlibertarian and lyricist for such Greatful Dead favorites as "Black-Throated Wind," "Mexicali Blues" and "Casssidy") in a 1994 classic about the internet and copyright protection. It is as relevant today as it was back then.
• Should the "shotgun wedding" that has been Belgium since 1815 head for divorce?
• Why the Bauhaus matters.

Television, History, Memory

It is always funny what can trigger memories to come rushing back.

For me, one recent incidence was looking for an old, local commercial from Chicago television.

I found it, and saw that the clip seemed to be part of a much larger project. Indeed, it was.

The Museum of Classic Chicago Television is a completely online museum dedicated to preserving television clips from the Chicago area. I think just the premise is great. It is everything that a museum should be: interactive, well-organized and completely open to anyone.

In looking through their "exhibits," I was surprised at the wide array of television clips that they had. It was not just commercials (although this is a large part of what is there). They had newscasts, sports clips and everything else that makes up what a television station does.

As I paged through the clips of ads for Schmerler Ford, Polk Brothers and Linn Burton "For Certain," newscasts with Fahey Flynn, Walter Jacobsen and Joel Daly and all of the WTTW clips for Wild Chicago, Image Union, Doctor Who promos and Marty Robinson, something happened.

A lost world started to remake itself in my mind.

Instantly, I was a kid again, sitting there on Saturday morning, waiting for cartoons to come back on as that guy in the Victory Auto Wreckers commercial pulls the door off the car again. I was also there, in the kitchen with my mom after school, her making dinner, me talking about school, Joel Daly reading the news. I was there, too, on a Saturday night, waiting impatiently for Marty Robinson to announce this week's Doctor Who adventure.

It was a real nostalgia trip. Then, when I came back from that lost world, the academic began to think about what just happened.

Is this what defines my past? Is it disjointed clips of local media and ads for products that can trigger personal memories? Isn't this a bit crass? Shouldn't it be something more profound? Am I just proof that we are an over-commercialized society that watches too much television?

Before I reached peace with this, the historian in my mind reminded that these are artifacts of a lost age of broadcasting, before cable was ubiquitous, when the local affiliate station held a lot more sway in any given media market. I thanked him for the insight, but was still troubled a bit.

Then it hit me. It is not these flashes of Chicago's media past themselves that form my past. They merely serve as triggers.

They are not the lost world. My memories are.

These glimpses into the televised past of my hometown were merely the background noise to everything else that was going on, part of the soundtrack to what really was meaningful - growing up, sharing bonds with family, becoming who I am today.

I thought, furthermore, what does it matter if it was these things going on in the background and not the music of Brahams or Mozart, not the poetry of Keats or Tennyson? Those artifacts of "high culture" are as much a part of my memories as the "low culture" of Celozzi-Ettelson Chevrolet or Carson's Ribs.

To put it another way, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" is as much a part of my mental landscape and past as, "...at York and Roosevelt Roads, where you always save more money!"

Does this make me a philistine who has flashes of "real" culture peppered in among the trash? Well, I think the high/low divide in culture is a false divide and has not really been meaningful for almost 200 years. So, no.

Does it bother me that my memories and personal past are made of such disparate elements? Not at all. It what helps make me (and everyone else) the unique and fascinating people that they are.

The whole is, as ever, more than the sum of its parts. So it is with me, I imagine.

Henry Kissinger was Right (About WWII, Anyway)

I know, I know.

Dr. K is not only one the most important diplomats in American history, he is also an incredibly divisive figure. Opinions of him range from praise for beginning the end of the Cold War to wanting him convicted as a war criminal.

As a historian, though, many of his assessments were well-considered and show a deep understanding of motivation and geopolitics in the past.

I may talk about his ideas about the Congress of Vienna at a later date, but in preparing my lecture for the end of World War II and the coming of the Cold War, I re-read part of his 1994 book Diplomacy. There is much to recommend his reading of the situation immediately after the Second World War, especially from the standpoint of the three Allied leaders (Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Josef Stalin).

First, I think he reads the diplomatic geneaology of FDR exactly right. He argues that FDR's vision of the world after WWII emerged from American exceptionalism, Wilsonian idealism and a unique understanding of the American psyche.

Great, what the hell does all that mean? Well, American exceptionalism is the idea that America is unique and has a singular role to play on the world stage. The US is special and has a special destiny because of its history and its ideas.

This is complimented by Wilsonian idealism, the vision of world politics that came from former President Woodrow Wilson at the close of the First World War. Wilson believed in the spread of democracy and national self-determination and that America had the central role to play in this.

Lastly, FDR understood the American proclivity to think in terms of universal ideas rather than the calculus of reward and punishment that seemed to govern diplomacy in years gone by.

I think this is right because it explains his actions in the waning months of the war. He believed Churchill and Britain could hold off the USSR while helping to rebuild Europe without American assistance. This belief is, knowing that Britain was economically destroyed and politically vulnerable, only explained by a deep ideological commitment to a certain vision of the world.

This was also helped by the fact that while FDR often distrusted Churchill's motives (especially where the British Empire was concerned), he believed Churchill's rhetoric that Britain was up to the task. This, incidentally, says as much about Churchill as it does about FDR.

Secondly, I think Kissinger was right in his assessment of Stalin as a blend of communist ideology and traditional Russian notions of statecraft. Stalin, according to Kissinger, distrusted fascism as much as he did capitalism. He hoped to use his alliances with Nazi Germany and then with the US and Great Britain to further territorial aims that could have come out of the old Russian imperial playbook.

Russia, for hundreds of years, has been concerned with gaining buffer territory along its vast borders. This, coupled with the centuries-old notion that Russia has to constantly allay its own feelings of inferiority, explains Stalin's policies during and after the war.

I think this is right, although I have a different take on the ideology bit and how it relates. While Stalin pursued communist policies at home, he had realized at least since the 1920's that the USSR must consolidate its position against possible rivals. This was a central factor in the disagreement between Stalin and Leon Trotsky.

So, in a way, I believe that Stalin saw communism and the Soviet system as means to an end, a way of establishing total control on a domestic level so that he could pursue fairly traditional foreign policy aims.

Expanding on Kissinger's arguments, I had to ask myself about why FDR and Churchill believed Stalin's overtures toward democracy and restraint. Also, why was it that Churchill portrayed Britain and its empire as equal to the task of rebuilding Europe and holding off the USSR when they were clearly in economic distress and the cracks in the empire were growing ever larger?

To the first question, I say that FDR believed Stalin because of his notions of international relations. If the postwar order was to look like a Wilsonian notion of perpetual peace based on harmony, FDR had to think that Stalin would be a willing participant in keeping the global peace after the war. Ideology stood in the way of reality and FDR really didn't plan for the eventuality (well, it's what happened) if Stalin didn't exactly play along.

To second, I say that Churchill knew exactly what he was doing. He was an ardent old imperialist, it's true. That's where the rhetoric comes from. He was not ignorant of the situation as it was, though. While Churchill believed that the Empire could be kept together (in one form or another), it was clear from the course of the war that Britain could no longer go it alone.

Churchill knew that Britain's only chance for survival was to cozy up to the US as much as possible so that the US would, in turn, see Britain as their main ally in Europe and also their main ally in forging the balance of power that would develop after the war. This balance of power was seen as natural by Churchill, but this is what FDR wanted to avoid.

So, it was basically Churchill's task to manuver between Stalin and FDR, usually giving into US demands while making it clear at every opportunity that Washington's strategic interests were also those of London. This was Churchill's great coup, and the birth of the so-called "special relationship," at least in any formal sense.

Why should we care about any of this? Well, it was in these notions of a postwar world that the world of the latter half of the twentieth century was born. The bipolar world of the US and its allies in NATO and elsewhere on one side and the USSR and the Warsaw Pact nations on the other were born in the minds and actions of FDR, Churchill and Stalin and their governments in the waning months of World War II.

It was these critical views and opinions that set the stage for the rest of the "short" twentieth century (1914-1992), and also presented the international situation that would persist until this bipolar world crumbled to the ground and the world we live in now was born.

So, Kissinger got it right (at least here), and I think the history of the period and the subsequent years bear him out. To what extent does his reading of history reflect his own actions as a diplomat?

That is a question for another time and another long, rambling post. Stay tuned.

Link Exchange: Making Holidays Less Fun Edition

Whether railing against Thanksgiving as ritualized commodity fetishism or condeming the imposition of the Atlantic economy on a native population or questioning the motivation of the Protestant religious fanatics who landed on our shores in the seventeenth century, academics can even take the fun out of Thanksgiving. Oh, believe me, we've already done a number on Christmas, Easter, Mother's Day and the Fourth of July.

While I believe in being critical of tradition and trying to understand it in a certain context, I am perfectly capable of leaving that hat in the library or lecture hall, pulling up my sleeves, tucking into enough food to feed ten normal people and try to care about the Detroit Lions.

Economists, unlike historians or cultural critics or anthropologists or others, at least try to have a little fun with the holidays. The preachiness is more missing, and people are considered amorally (as in without moral judgement) for their choices and preferences. That is what draws me into economics as a field of interest.

Anyway, here are some economic takes on the coming holiday:

• Ezra Klein on the behaviorial economics of thanksgiving. Here, Klein talks to NYT food columnist Mark Bittman about similar things.
• How price discrimination explains "Black Friday" sales.
• The "first" Thanksgiving as a victory for capitalism (or free choice of some sort). O.K., this one is a bit more polemical, but it fits the theme and I agree with it.

Enjoy the holiday.

The Chuckwagon: Chicken Adobo, Filipino Style

When one is terminally short of cash, one is always on the lookout for cheaper ways to do things. Thus it is with cooking.

Being stony broke forces one to become rather creative when it comes to food. One must use cheaper cuts of meat, more spices and different cooking methods. I find it to be rather an interesting challenge.

Let's see how little I can spend and still eat well?

That's why I love when I come across recipes like this one. It is cheap (you probably have most of this stuff sitting around), flavorful, aromatic and easy to make.

You might think that adobo would be a dish from the Spanish speaking world, and you'd be sort of right. The Spanish ruled the Philippines for hundreds of years, so something was bound to rub off besides the love of plaster statues of saints.

Adobo, in the Filipino context, refers not so much do a dish but to a method of preparation, which you will see below.

As with any recipe, alter the amounts or ingredients to suit your tastes. Some might like it sweeter, others tangier, others with more, less or different vegetables or meats. It's all up to you. That's another great thing about this recipe: flexibility.

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into pieces
• 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1/2 medium onion, sliced
• 1/4 c. soy sauce
• 1/3 c. vinegar
• 2 tsp. sugar
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 c. water
• Black pepper to taste

Method

• Mix all ingredients in medium-sized pot. Stir and let sit for 5-10 minutes
• Cover and cook on medium heat for 30-40 minutes or until chicken is done
• After about 20 minutes, check the level of liquid in the pot. Add more soy sauce or water as needed.
• Great over white rice.

In A (Not So) Big Country

People seem to love smaller versions of larger things. The human brain seems to be hard-wired to be drawn to the miniature. The examples are legion: babies, Matchbox cars, puppies, cocktail hot dogs, Danny DiVito.

For me, I have always been fascinated with small countries, formally known as microstates. Or, to put it in terms both crude and politically geographical, when it comes to countries, I am not a size queen.

I guess this fascination started by playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? on our good, old Apple IIE (yes, they DID make something before the iPod) back in 1987. I could not believe that a places like San Marino or Andorra were real countries.

My fascination was fed by many early watchings of the great 1959 Peter Sellers movie The Mouse That Roared, that details the trials and tribulations of the microstate of Grand Fenwick.

I suppose it culminated with a visit to the 1994 American Numismatic Association convention where I actually shook the hand of an actual government official from a microstate (the director of the San Marino Monetary Authority).

Yes, if you were wondering, this whole being nerdy is far from being a new thing...

So, what is the draw of these places? Why are they at all interesting?

First off, the sheer lack of size in comparison is a good jumping off point. The entire country of San Marino has about as many residents as the Chicago suburb where I grew up. You could comfortably fit the entire country of Liechtenstein within the bounds of the City of Madison, WI.

Great, so what? These facts lead one to wonder: how did these tiny countries slip through the cracks? How did they remain independent even when their large, powerful neighbors fought bloody wars, shifted borders and coalesced into nation-states?

I think in a lot of cases, these places were just too small, remote and unimportant in the grand scheme for the great powers (such as they were) to expend the effort to crush and subdue them. They are not a threat, so why bother?

The flip-side of this is also interesting. The people of these microstates could have easily appealed to become parts of their larger neighbors, to grab the coat-tails of a European up-and-comer, to be a part of a unified, powerful nation. But they didn't. The spirit of independence, pride and sheer bloody-mindedness appeals to my political sensibilities.

These places are also pleasingly anachronistic in all the best ways. Because of their remotness and relative unimportance to wider political, economic and social forces, the past lives on in these places more than most.

Take San Marino, for example. They are probably the oldest constitutional democracy on Earth, having been so since 1243. Their military consists mainly of a corps of crossbowmen.

Or Andorra. Their government is a relic of a fight between Spanish and French nobles over a chunk of the Pyrenees in the thirteenth century. Andorra has two heads of state, descended from the successors to those noble claims: the Bishop of Urguell in Spain and the President of France.

In a larger sense, though, I must consider that I look at these places as a native of a "big country," one of the great powers. Some in this position might look at places like Monaco or Malta and think, "well, who dives a good goddamn about little, piss-ant countries that time forgot? What did they ever do for history. They are the places that don't matter."

Not me, however. I see these places as interesting experiments, tested by history. In isolation and ignorance of the powerful, these countries made it work. They kept their independence, ran their lives and moved at exactly the pace at which they felt comfortable, not driven forward by the inexorable forces of geopolitics through the ages.

They also provide interesting examples of how sovereignty can operate on a small scale and how democracy can function best when it functions smallest. What I mean is that when the government and politics of a place can be tailored closest to the needs and wants of the people who live there, things tend to work out better than national-level decision making.

As a libertarian with strong anarchist leanings, this notion appeals to me greatly. Think a small piece of territory cannot be sovereign and survive? Think again.

More than mere geographical or historical curiosities, the microstates of the world offer a window into a different way of life.

Maybe I believe, at least where governments are involved, that small is indeed beautiful.

Wait a Minute...Herman Who?

Today, the news broke that the leaders of the twenty-seven EU member states selected the first full-time President of the European Council and the first permanent High Representative for foreign affairs.

If you are unclear about what these positions are, what they do and how the EU functions in general, well, join the club. But for a good introduction, click here.

Who are the lucky winners? Who are the latest unelected people to be chosen to influence policy and procedure in the EU, a regional alliance that has been growing in power and influence, most recently with the Lisbon Treaty?

Why, it was Belgian Prime Minister Herman van Rampuy and EU Trade Commissioner Baroness Catherine Ashton, of course.

Don't panic. I had never heard of either of them before today myself.

The big talk in the run-up to this decision, and the position taken by the British government, was that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was all but a shoo-in for the job. Tony Blair...at least a guy that more people have heard of.

So, what happened? What led the leaders of the EU member states to choose two politicians who are virtual unknowns, who are thought to be "consensus builders," and neither of whom have much foreign policy experience?

Well, let's think about this.

It is no secret who are the "big dogs" when it comes to the member states of the EU. This position belongs to France and Germany, and most specifically, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy. These states and their leaders stand at the center of the "European project."

Why? Well, it is simple (at least to me). They both realize that to consolidate their relative positions economically and politically on the Continent, they need each other to survive. Furthermore, they need the smaller states of the EU to consolidate this position through offering attractive incentives (development money, union-wide institutions that could save individual states money) in exchange for tacit leadership by the larger states in the union.

What about Britain, then? To put it simply, the French and Germans don't trust them. The reasons are historical and, well, sort of cultural. Historical because there had been an aversion among British politicians to join the union and the corresponding rejections of British membership led by Charles de Gaulle in the 1960's. Cultural because, more than any other people who are members of the EU, the British really don't (and never have) considered themselves Europeans. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Britain is in Europe, but not of Europe.

So, back to today's decision (which was a unanimous one among the 27 member states). Merkel and Sarkozy knew that a big-name British politician like Tony Blair could prove to be much more of a problem than some Belgian guy and an EU commissioner who is a Brussels insider.

They also knew that in no way, shape or form do they have to give any part of a shit about what Gordon Brown, the current British PM, wants. It is pretty clear that Brown and his Labour Party will not be in power (or at least not in a majority in the House of Commons) for much longer. Brown pushed for his old boss Blair to get the job, but he really has no bargaining position.

What are the larger implications of this? For one, anyone who tries to tell you that the EU marks the end of old, nation-state based politics in Europe is just plain wrong. The EU is just another forum for the various states of Europe to seek their own interests. It doesn't get rid of the game; it just provides a different playing field.

Another larger point that this reinforces plays to the nature of the EU itself. I believe it is a fundamentally undemocratic institution and this decision just further proves that. This decision does nothing to make the EU's institutions more representative. All it does is preserve the status quo, mainly in favor of France and Germany.

Everything I say here is debatable, and I might well be wrong. What I do think I have right, though, is the notion that the states of Europe and their leaders will use international institutions to pursue the interests of their own states.

International relations theorists can say all they want about mid-level explanations of interstate relations, or cosmopolitanism, or cooperation. Perhaps I look at this with the jaundiced eye of the historian, but I just don't see that at work here. Feel free to prove me wrong.

Oh, and this destabilizes domestic politics in Belgium, but really, who gives a shit?