Ciao!

Constituent assembly options

There are now two different proposals before Bolivia's parliament on how to structure a constituent assembly:

Posted by Miguel at 08:30 PM | Permalink

Good news all day long

I've not yet been officially congratulated or notified, but my dissertation advisor found out before me. So, here goes: I got the dissertation completion grant I applied for. The string attached? I'm not allowed to work more than 10 hours a week, anywhere. Why this isn't a problem? It's (a bit) more money than I brought in last year. Not rich, of course, but enough to spend all year doing nothing but writing (and otherwise working on) my dissertation.

Posted by Miguel at 06:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Summer reading list (pre)

Someone recently asked me about some "non-fiction" readings for the summer, specifically related to political science. So I'm thinking about a "top 12" list to suggest. Any of you polisci types out there wanna chime in w/ a suggestion or two, let me know. I'll post the list later this week, along w/ a short blurb on each book.

Posted by Miguel at 04:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Kuwaiti blue

Ten years from now we'll reminisce about the 2005 "Arab spring". Let's hope. I'm just happily fascinated by the whole development. There's a Washington Post story on the democracy movement in Kuwait, primarily demanding women's right to vote (BBC). What makes the whole thing more intriguing is the role technology plays, especially blogs, text messaging, and satellite television. Who said globalization was bad?

Posted by Miguel at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Belated Easter

Next weekend's our belated family "Easter" celebration in Chicago. Also, three generations of Centellas birthdays between 7 & 10 April. Should be fun times all around. I still need to get my train ticket.

Posted by Miguel at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Human Rights & Democracy report

The State Department released its annual: Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The US Record 2004-2005. Here are previous reports. A bill establishing an annual report on the human rights & democracy passed in 2002; proactive support for international democracy has become a publicly stated goal of the current administration (the last time was under JFK).

Posted by Miguel at 10:55 AM | Permalink

Ramble, ramble

My 105 class is watching Fahrenheit 9/11. And, since it's a class in critical thinking, the reasoning's that I want them to ask themselves this one simple question:

Posted by Miguel at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Democracy as meme

Democracy's still spreading like a virus in the Mid East. Now it's pro-democracy protests in Bahrain. You can even read an Bahraini blogger, Babbling Bahrania. This is good news.

Also, started The Kite Runner (about a boy growing up in Afghanistan), recommended by Mom, after I recommended Reading Lolita in Tehran to her. My favorite line so far:

"Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft."

Posted by Miguel at 01:42 AM | Permalink

Women of Indie Music Quiz

W/o using the internet, or CD liner notes, or other responses, match the singer to the band:

Posted by Miguel at 12:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

What was that about "big government" again?

Posted by Miguel at 04:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Octopussy's revenge

Several friends posted before, worried about giant squids threatening to destroy us. I used to mock them. Too much 19th century scifi, not enough of the 20th century variety. But. Maybe they were onto something? Because it seems octopi can walk (watch the video!). Thank God they can't breathe on land. Yet.

Posted by Miguel at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Into the weekend I go

Attended another lunchtime Latin American studies group talk. This time the political science department's Latin Americanist. A really interesting talk about a cross-national comparative study of expatriate policies. My favorite part's always the anthro reaction to "social scientific" approaches; the little inter-disciplinary clique divisions are hilarious (it's just like high school).

Posted by Miguel at 09:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Finally free (sort of)

W/ the MPSA paper finished, and the semester coming to an end, I'm finally starting to have more "free time" again. Apologies to all the friends I've slighted the past month or two.

Posted by Miguel at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Bolivian municipal electoral map (pt.2)

There probably won't be much Bolivian political news for a few days. Because of the Easter holiday. Although, of course, newspapers note that today is the infamous Día del Mar. Whatever.

But I thought I'd at least post some links to some more electoral maps showing strength of political parties & "civic groups" in the country's different municipalities following the December election. Maps of the three most populous departments below (click to see larger). These maps are more detailed, and also include population information.

Posted by Miguel at 01:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Spring has sprung

The old joke's that Michigan only has two seasons: Winter & Construction. The sudden appearance of orange construction cones & signs announced that winter officially ended, yesterday. And today was the first bright, sunny day. I didn't even wear a coat.

Posted by Miguel at 04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It was only a matter of time

Before someone outlined a Babe Theory of Political Movements. Be sure to look at the Babely-Come-Lately Sub-Theorem & the Babe Prerequisite Corollary. Yes, it's silly (as the authors admit), but it's still an empirically testable political behavior theory. The theory was principally developed using Lebanon & Ukraine as case studies.

Posted by Miguel at 05:53 PM | Permalink

News as storytelling

After not looking at it for a few days, I read through a hard copy of my MPSA paper; corrected a few typos, added some footnotes, and some other minor changes.

Posted by Miguel at 04:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Meow?

In view of the cat-themed conversation at Rocket Star, I'm happy to note today's the one year anniversary of Carnival of the Cats, a weekly roundup of catblogging posts.

Posted by Miguel at 09:32 PM | Permalink

Pretty chill Sunday

Made my way out of bed a bit past noon, fed my increasingly patient girls, before heading out into the mist & sleet. Headed downtown to Michigan News Agency to pick up the new print issue of Reason. The new New Republic was tempting, but I shrugged it off.

Posted by Miguel at 06:32 PM | Permalink

Bolivian municipal electoral map

I haven't had a chance yet to look at Bolivia's recent municipal elections (5 December) w/ great detail. But La Razón & El Nuevo Día today ran a series of stories discussing whether political parties are ready for early elections (rather than 2007). They come, of course, to similar conclusions as I have: there are no longer any national parties.

Posted by Miguel at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Weekend, here I come

Just woken up from 14 hours sleep, so glad my cats were kind enough to let me sleep in peace, willing to wait for "breakfast" until 3pm. Now I just wanna shower, put away clean laundry (from two days), sweep & clean my apartment, put away clean dishes, lunch, then head out to "fun it up" this evening/night. I believe dancing may be involved.

Oh, and listening to Newsweek On Air's podcast. Why? Just 'cause it's podcast.

Posted by Miguel at 03:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Done & done

I am, for all practical purposes, done w/ my MPSA paper; you can download it here. I'm also giving it a trial run on Tuesday at 12:30pm, 3301 Friedmann Hall.

Posted by Miguel at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Regionalized party system(s)

Here's some more Bolivian data to look at. It shows concentration of votes across single seat districts (SSDs). A pretty compelling argument for regionally polarized/regionalized party system(s). SSDs are called "uninominal" districts in Bolivia. This data uses the "plurinominal" half of Bolivia's MMP ballot, but disaggregated into the uninominal districts (the folks at CNE were kind enough to do this for me).

Also, yet another blogger weighs in on Bolivia here.

Posted by Miguel at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Paper news

Moleskine has introduced a new model. Ladies & gentlemen, start your drooling.

I'm also attending Uisoon's dissertation defense in 30 mins. He's the last of the cohort right before me, meaning there are now two of us expected to defend soon after. The numbers of the old guard still "around" keep diminishing.

Posted by Miguel at 12:51 PM | Permalink

Writing, (less) grudgingly

I'm putting the finishing touches on my conference paper on Bolivia's democratic breakdown (not the actual topic, but pretty much). But there's a roundup of thoughts & developments by a new Bolivian blogger (who's an economics prof) at The Economist En Su Laberinto.

Posted by Miguel at 04:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Eire go brach

Happy Saint Paddy's, everyone. Perhaps my favorite holiday, but I most likely won't be able to go out to hear Whiskey Before Breakfast at Kraftbrau, or any of the other shows around town. So instead I'm making a point to wear green, drink Irish Breakfast Tea (w/ milk & a touch of honey, of course), Irish Cream lattes all day, and lots of Black 47 on my iPod.

I should wrap up my conference paper tonight. I know, poor planning on my part doesn't constitute grounds for a pity party on your part.

But I'll be free & clear (for the first time in a long time) this weekend. And that's exciting. Plans include a $5 cover 1977 Mopeds benefit show at Rocket Star, Friday night.

Posted by Miguel at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Like pulling teeth

Spent most of the evening putting together a solid chunk of my conference paper, taking a brief break to watch the 4th season premier of The Shield. Wow. Just when you wondered how they'd take it up another notch, they go far & beyond. Now I want to get a few hours sleep, so's to be bright & chipper tomorrow to review logical fallacies w/ 105.

Posted by Miguel at 03:57 AM | Permalink

At the Rocket

Last night's show at The Rocket Star was just the kind of break I needed. Pas/Cal was a lot of fun, w/ their over-the-top SoCal popstyle. And the openers were an eclectic mix: the ever-improving (they were fantastic to begin w/) Bridge Over River Qua; the groovy, soulful fun of Kelly Caldwell (ex Saturday Looks Good To Me) w/ her special guest Betty (current Saturday Looks Good To Me singer); and the child-like playfulness of The Claire Wood & Annette Merva All State High School Sitting Band.

Also, I've come up w/ a great idea for an incredibly fun concept band: A multi-person iPod dancing band. Imagine a half-dozen people w/ iPods plugged into a PA system, each iPod loaded w/ mixes & loops, each person syncronized to start a specific mix/loop at a set time. All while up on stage just dancing like nobody's business. No fancy MOOGs or other equipment. Just the play/pause & back/forward wheel on the iPod, switching from track to track as necessary. It's only a matter of time. Who's in?

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ADDENDUM: This is probably more embarrassing than anything else, but I've uploaded three Morgan tracks. Morgan was the band Corine & I formed our junior year of undergrad (and it lasted almost exactly a year). This is a single-take, live recording in a basement. So it's crap, especially since it's a ten-years-later digitized copy of a copy of a copy. You may have to turn up the volume quite a bit, and you can't really make out the bass at all. The songs are: G.A., Ghost Train, and Charlie Brown. Still, that's me on a vintage Ibanez solid body.

Posted by Miguel at 07:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Paulovich online

Ok. This means little to you if you're not Bolivian, and nothing if you don't speak/read Spanish. But Paulovich has a blog (since December, it seems, but I just now found out, hat tip MABB). Paulovich is the pen name of Bolivia's premier political satirist. The wordplay's especially funny if you know the intricacies of Bolivian (especially, paceño) life. His column runs regularly in La Razón La Prensa; now he's also got a bitácora (blog).

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UPDATE: MABB suggests this might not be the same Paulovich.

Posted by Miguel at 05:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Mesa says no to dialogue

At least to a conference on hydrocarbons sponsored by Bolivia's Permanent Assembly on Human Rights (APDH), a local NGO. This is, to my knowledge, the first time Mesa's turned town an offer to dialogue. Is it indicative of a new policy after his populist victory in the streets & parliament? Perhaps.

Posted by Miguel at 06:25 PM | Permalink

It's about time, eh?

This makes me very, very happy, indeed. There's discussion of it here & here. A short analysis/synopsis of the bill, here.

Also, Muslim clerics issue a fatwa against bin Laden. And EU lawmakers finally declared Hezbollah a terrorist organization. Will wonders never cease?

Posted by Miguel at 01:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Reading Lolita in Tehran

I recently read Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi, and promised some people a brief review.

Posted by Miguel at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

And now for something completely different

Posted by Miguel at 09:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MPSA preview

I've run a few test models on my Bolivian election data, and this is a preview of some of my findings. The following table shows cross-panel, time-series regressions of province-level election data. Also, Chuquisaca provinces get dropped from the models since their "media luna" cells are empty (frankly, I can't decide whether to code Chuquisaca as "media luna" or not, ideas?).

Only the numbers followed by (*) or (**) are statistically significant. The constant isn't a variable, it's just a residual generated from most statistical analysis, and is almost always statistically significant (if it's not, it usually indicates a problem).

Posted by Miguel at 06:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Black fingernail polish

Sometimes, when you work a 6-noon shift at a 24-hour café, and vagrant club kids are sleeping in the smoking section's sofa, you have to call an ambulance for one of them. And sometimes, it's the fire department that answers the call. And still sometimes, the other club kids go back to sleeping on the sofas.

Posted by Miguel at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Combing through data

Spent today combing through my dataset, cleaning it up, testing it w/ some trial regressions. So far, it's working well. I still need to build electoral volatility measures, before doing the same again for uninominal/plurinominal data. Let me just say that porting data between STATA & Excel, back & forth, making sure to not lose/mess anything up is stressful. 90% of my time spent on this conference paper will've been mere monkey-at-the-typewriter data entry.

Other than that, winter's back. W/ a vengeance. Lake effect snow's accumulated several inches. And it's supposed to keep snowing through Sunday.

Posted by Miguel at 08:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Bolivia wrap up

No time on my end, but there's lots of discussion about what's going on in Bolivia at MABB, Barrio Flores, the Democracy Center. Some links, personal opinion, commentary, etc.

If you wanna keep up w/ Bolivian news sources, here's my del.icio.us bolivia+news page.

Posted by Miguel at 08:19 PM | Permalink

Parties party

So there's a national government coalition again in Bolivia. Mesa's gambit paid off, and now he has the support of the "institutional" or "systemic" parties (MNR, ADN, MIR), along w/ some others (NFR, UCS, PS1). So, he has a broad multi-party, super-majority coalition that gives him almost 75% of the House of Deputies, and 70% of the Senate.

Posted by Miguel at 09:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

In other good news

Seems two of my favorite bands have upcoming new CDs. Spain's La Monja Enana's finishing an LP after a three years hiatus. Now, if only they ship to the US as imports (my biggest letdown over the holidays was scouring Barcelona record stores unable to find a single out-of-stock LME album).

Posted by Miguel at 03:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Stats geeks only

Light blogging lately. Because I'm rushing to meet a deadline for my MPSA conference paper. It's due in 10 days. Fret not, it's mostly written. But based on department-level ordinary least squares (OLS) regression data, not province-level panel estimator regressions data. It took me a while to find enough man-hours to input five years of election data (much of it in non-digital form) into a STATA format. I was able to import 1997 & 2002 (thank you, again, National Electoral Court) from Excel spreadsheets (after some manipulation).

Posted by Miguel at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The gambit worked (for now)

Mesa, I'll admit, played a masterful hand. He bluffed his way into a strong vote of confidence (parliament rejected his resignation w/o a single "yes" vote), the multi-party coalition that goes w/ it, rallied around his agenda.

Posted by Miguel at 11:28 PM | Permalink

What posturing?

A picture of Mesa (from today's La Razón), standing on the balcony of the presidential palace (looking rather pleased w/ himself), having photogs take snapshots of the adoring crowds gathered at Plaza Murillo. Today's banner headline announces Mesa's cabinet's meeting w/ legislative leaders to hammer out a way for him to remain in power. So. I get the feeling Mesa's won't actually step down — though parliament still hasn't voted on his resignation letter.

Posted by Miguel at 02:34 AM | Permalink

Notice the little things

A brief update on Bolivia: The armed forces have, of course, come out in favor of democracy, and their support for institutions during their press conference. But notice the pictures. The generals were dressed in combat fatigues, not dress uniforms. It's rare; it speaks volumes.

Posted by Miguel at 03:41 PM | Permalink

What is Mesa up to?

MABB has picked up the meme (it emerged shortly after Mesa's speech among Bolivian analysts, too) that Mesa's playing a game of brinksmanship. That is, that Mesa's going to "resign" in hopes that popular support props him up, pushing for the legislature to reject his resignation, propel public opinion against Evo & others, and, thus, keep his presidency. I'm doubtful, but I'm willing to think of the possibilities.

Posted by Miguel at 01:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The insanity just went up a notch

It's not yet official (and it could be a populist stunt, though I doubt it), but Mesa resigned the Bolivian presidency. He's sending his resignation letter to parliament tomorrow morning. Apparently, he too's fed up w/ trying to govern the country; his TV announcement had some vitriol against Evo & others.

Posted by Miguel at 11:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's criminal

Walked up to campus, to pick up some late papers to grade from my office. As I passed underneath the clock tower by Waldo Library, headed towards Friedmann Hall, I was shocked. A single thought entered my mind, and I couldn't shake it. What have they done? The trees in the rolling open space between Waldo, Knauss, and Wood were gone. Chopped at the base, the ground around them plowed haphazardly, scarring the light hills. What have they done! All I could do was stare, bewildered & bitter.

Posted by Miguel at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Back in Kalamazoo

Molto grazie to Kim for meeting me at the train station, and dropping me off at home. Said hello to my girls, who're now sitting at the foot of the bed, sighing. Then jumped in the shower; now ready for bed. It's been a long trip, w/ a much longer weekend coming up.

Posted by Miguel at 06:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Riding the rails

There's no electrical outlets on this train, though the cars are nicer. Spent most of the day sleeping, catching up on much-needed rest. I enjoyed my brief visit to my little brother; dreading the crushing pace of work that needs doing by Monday.

In a bit, I'll go back to reading student papers. Also reading Reading Lolita in Tehran. Wow. More thoughts on it later. But it's the perfect book to be reading, now, in context.

I arrive in Kalamazoo in 18 hours or so, looking forward to a hot shower & unbridled sleep.

Posted by Miguel at 11:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Lifehacking

I've recently gotten interested in the concept of "lifehacking". Here's a great site dedicated to that: 43 folders. I especially like the combination of analog & digital organization tools/skills. If you've no idea what I'm talking about, instead of "lifehacking" think "self-improvement" or "personal organization" (on the principle that life's an operating system that can be "hacked"). Basically, a way to feed your anal-retentive side.

Posted by Miguel at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Lebanon

I'm still trying to catch my breath on events in Lebanon. Wow. But I'm mostly struck by the contrast between the peaceful protests against Syria in Beirut, to the violent Syrian-backed insurgency in Iraq. And. In the final analysis. Images like these from Lebanon are more hopeful & inspiring (on different levels).

If political interventionism looks like this, it ain't bad, eh?

Posted by Miguel at 11:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My opinion of Wilmington, DE

Downtown Wilmington reminds me of downtown Saginaw (not Kalamazoo), if downtown Saginaw were bigger. Very "low end" retail storefronts, run down restaurants, and boarded up or abandoned fronts. In a word? Ghetto. And why does everything close at 4:30? I can't wait to leave quaint East Coast smallville & head back to the comparatively cosmopolitan, midwest.

Posted by Miguel at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)