“The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living. – Karl Marx” Yeah, well, not anymore. As of this afternoon, the orals process is complete (although I do plan to fix up the subsite quite a bit), and I’m now ABD (All But Dissertation for you folks out there with real jobs.) I’m not going to go blow-by-blow into it here, but the exam went well for the most part…I definitely think I could’ve answered a few of the questions more lucidly, but so be it. At any rate, plan for updates here to resume their usual schedule, once I complete the rest of the week’s goal of doing absolutely nothing. Speaking of which, I think it’s nap-time…
Tag: KcM
7 Days.
Hey y’all…one week left until my orals, so expect it to be preternaturally quiet in these parts for that much longer. I’ve finished 98% of my reading at this point…I just need to spend the next few days getting psychically prepared for the test and fighting back the starting-to-become-omnipresent nervousness in my gut. Of the mocks I’ve taken, two went well and one went…not so well, but I’m chalking up that last one to sheer dogged tiredness and jetlag (from the recent break-even Vegas trip, which was decently fun, albeit being hampered by dark thoughts of the pending exam most of the time.) At any rate, I think I have the knowledge at this point…I just need to make I sure I can access it through the fog of encroaching anxiety.
Irish Eyes are Reading.
A very happy St. Patrick’s Day to you and yours. (Don’t miss this chance to rent Miller’s Crossing and/or have a Guinness or three.) My own St. Paddy’s should be relatively downbeat, for, as I suspected, it’s been much busier than usual over in these parts. Freelance work aside, I’ve been swimming neck-deep in political theory for a solid week now in prep for the big day. And I’ll be lugging a sack of books with me this weekend on what passes for my Spring Break vacation…Vegas Redux. (I know, I was down on the place last year, but it’s always good to catch up with old friends, and perhaps the glitz of the Strip will seem less jarring this time without the 24-hr CNN greenscreens of war on the other channel.) At any rate, if you want to approximate the GitM experience this weekend, peruse The Road to Serfdom or Democracy in America, while occasionally plying your hand at Deuces Wild. Between Hayek and games of chance, I’m feeling like Bill Bennett’s dream American at the moment.
21 Days.
Orals at three weeks and counting. And, what with various freelance projects coming to closure right around now, postings might get sparser than usual around here. If so, apologies in advance.
But what about the politics of cynicism and misanthropy?
As it turns out, I was able to make it to the John Edwards event on campus this morning, and, all in all, I’d give him a B+. He both read and rushed through the first half of his remarks, which involved some new formulation of his trade policy (more on that in a second), and I found his opening lines particularly ham-handed and speechwriterly. “I know y’all have been waiting for a Son of the South to come to NYC…A-Rod,” he said (and I’m paraphrasing.) “Well, I’m not A-Rod, but Wisconsin proved one thing: I can close!” Um, ok, but A-Rod is a shortstop and all, not a closer.
Anyway, nitpicking aside, Edwards improved measurably once he put the paper down and got into the rhythm of his “Two Americas” stump speech, which he’d clearly delivered many times. There were moments, however, when he definitely could have embellished his standard schtick, given the crowd. Edwards talked about how he was a lonely, legal David often going up and winning cases against a Goliath-sized team of corporate lawyers, a biographical stat which probably plays great in the Heartland. It went flat here, though, perhaps because the many law students in the auditorium seemed confused by his remarks: But we want to be those well-paid corporate shills!
Still, Edwards came off extremely polished and personable, and he definitely got the crowd on his side, even when he was blindsided by a sneak “Campaign on AIDS!” protest on the dais behind him. Several members of the VIP crowd unveiled red-ribbon shirts and began chanting right in the middle of his biographical portion (In fact, I could’ve sworn it was right after he gave the “son of a millworker” line, which was a clever signal to choose, if nothing else.) Edwards gave them a moment, asked the crowd to applaud the “activism of these young people,” calmly told a heckler he’d address their point after finishing his bio, and then said a few positive words about fighting AIDS at home and abroad (A critical world issue to be sure, but not a particularly controversial one in this day and age…c’mon, y’all, this isn’t 1988. And why try to derail a candidate who is politically sympathetic to your cause, particularly when Karl Rove is across town?) At any rate, no harm no foul for Team Edwards: He navigated this potentially rocky shoal extremely successfully, although I presume some advance guy or gal was given the serious what-for soon thereafter.
As for the trade stuff, I liked where he was going at first, but he eventually seem to fall back on the fair trade side of the usual dichotomy. As I see it, the problem isn’t free trade itself per se as much as the loss of American jobs, as well as the ugly spectacle of corporations firing tons of US workers only to turn right around and offer up a fat dividend. Edwards obliquely mentioned this formulation, then fell back on tax breaks for “good” corporations and the trouble with NAFTA. My feeling is, if you want to stop this kind of behavior, there needs to be more stick and less carrot. Hit business where it hurts: Tax the heck out of (or even, God forbid, disallow) corporate dividends that occur in the same fiscal year as the downsizing of X number of American jobs. Simply put, if you can’t afford to pay your workers anymore, you damn well shouldn’t be paying dividends to stockholders. Edwards came close to saying thus, but then fell back into the old free trade/fair trade rut, which to my mind is a bit like shouting into the wind. If you want to change corporate behavior, focus on corporate behavior…don’t blame the increasingly irreversible trend of globalization.
At any rate, all in all Edwards came off quite well, although not as inspiring or Clintonesque as I would’ve originally liked. He’s definitely got a great future in the party and in American politics, and he’d no doubt make a solid contender in this election season against the likes of Dubya (or Dick Cheney.)
V-Day 2004.
A very happy Valentine’s Day to you and yours.
The April Fool.
Well, it was starting to look like I’d have to wait until May, but after some negotiating with the various professors on my panel, I’ve obtained a revised orals date: High noon, April 1. Should be more fun than you can shake a stick at.
An Historic Lull.
Ok, so it’s been quiet around here again. The freelance textbook project that I thought was almost over turned out to be far from it. But now, after another week of hellaciously long days, I can almost see the Shire, the Brandywine River, Gandalf’s fireworks, etc. etc. again. Meanwhile, on the orals scene, my original date – March 4 – got torpedoed by conflicting schedules on my panel, and it now looks like I won’t be able to amass the entire posse again until early April. So, at any rate, both of these recent developments should lend themselves to more posting here, provided there’s something more interesting to talk about than the ridiculous national outrage over Janet’s stunt nipple. Stay tuned.
The Dubya Decimal System.
Still quite busy over here -- The megalithic history freelance project I mentioned here is finally drawing to a close, and orals reading is now consuming the bulk of my time. I know that portion of the site hasn't been updated lately, but I do plan to finish it, even if I have to post much of the content after my orals date, which should be sometime in the first two weeks of March.
In the meantime, I've also recently begun helping Bill Press finish up another book project, Bush Must Go. (We previously collaborated on Spin This! together in early 2001.) And, in keeping with the book's subtitle, Press has asked for "Top Ten" submissions, your Top Ten reasons why George W. Bush has to go down as a one-termer like Papa, over at the DNC Blog today. So, if you're feeling creative or have to get a particular Bush vent off your chest, leave your list over there. As he says, your ideas may very well be incorporated into the book.
Smothered in History.
Hey y’all. Sorry it’s gotten so quiet in these parts of late…I haven’t fallen into an XBox Live hole, although I’d very much like to. In fact, I’ve actually been putting in 14/15-hour days all week on a freelance project and orals work, and I expect this monster schedule will continue right up until the new semester begins after MLK day. This freelance work is a beast, but fortunately it’s American-history intensive…basically involving composing short essays and links for an online textbook website. So, I may be light on interpretation, but at least I can tell the differences among the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, the Adams-Onis Treaty, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, I know who lost the Battle of New Orleans, who won the Battle of Oriskany, and who died at the Battle of Shiloh, and I’ve even learned a thing or two about random foolios like I.L. Elwood, Ignaz Semmelweis, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges. That’s gotta be good for something, right?