My Favorite Books of 2018

Book reviews often get a lot more hits than regular posts, so I thought I would list what I thought was the best of 2018.

Fiction: 

Seth Dickinson, The Traitor Baru Cormorant. Here was my review. Very cool political novel in the Fantasy/Sci Fi genre. I just ordered the sequel.

--Honorable mention: I was introduced to the Vorkosigan sci fi novels written by Lois McMaster Bujold. I am thoroughly addicted and read six of them this year. Witty and smart books. Miles Vorkosigan is such a great character.

Academic Non-Fiction:

Lars Schoultz, In Their Own Best Interest: A History of the U.S. Effort to Improve Latin Americans. Here is my review. I am a sucker for a well-told and deeply researched analysis of U.S.-Latin American relations, a topic that has fascinated me now for 25+ years.

Popular Non-Fiction:

Eli Saslow, Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist. Here is my review. Great memoir. It is a reminder that higher education serves a real purpose beyond just getting people jobs. Even outside the classroom, universities and colleges bring young people together in ways they often have never experienced before. That is also a reminder of one disadvantage of online learning.

Movie:

I don't review movies on the blog (in large part because I see so few) but I want to plug They Shall Not Grow Old, a documentary of World War I by Peter Jackson. Over years he restored, slowed down, and colorized old BBC film reels, then used original oral histories of veterans taken in the 1960s and 1970s. It humanizes that war, which we know through speedy, jerky black and white film. These were young boys and you can see the fear on their faces, the horrors of everyday living, and the terror of war. Two hours go by in a blink. Make sure to stay after for the post-credits part about how they made the film.

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Let's End the JFK Hagiography

Fifty years ago today, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. It would be a good time for sober historical reflection, but unfortunately we don't see too much of that. Instead, for several weeks I've been subjected to non-stop hagiography and distortion based, it seems to me, on decades of fascination with a president who gave people hope and then died too quickly. That sense of loss--along with how it imprinted in so many people's memory--makes perfect sense to me, but it has tended to lead to an overly rosy vision of the past.

The bottom line is that JFK was not a president who accomplished much and was--let's face it--not a particularly nice guy to boot. He meant well on civil rights, but had no idea how to get a bill through Congress and he marginalized LBJ, who was the only one in the administration who actually knew how to do so. He was not gifted at foreign policy, and is more responsible than any other president for solidifying Fidel Castro's hold on power in Cuba because of how badly he screwed up the Bay of Pigs, which then led to the missile crisis (I give him the Alliance for Progress, which was a good idea that did not outlive him by much, and was accompanied by a lot of covert action, and the Peace Corps, also a good legacy). His support for coups helped launch a disaster in Vietnam, and he red-baited with the best of them. All of his "missile gap" claims were lies, and I can sympathize with Richard Nixon's frustration that he couldn't refute them publicly (and it's hard to sympathize with Nixon on much of anything).

When you boil it down, as president JFK's main accomplishments were soaring rhetoric and youth, which when combined inspired people. However, he even used those qualities selfishly, as he was famously cheated on his wife on a regular basis. For his inner circle he chose people like himself, elites whose advice on major issues was often an unfortunate combination of arrogant certainty and low quality.

Yet even now, with a half century of knowledge about JFK's life and record, there are countless stories of the wonders of Camelot and "what ifs" that conjure up a utopia had he lived. You can't point to very many achievements so instead you assert how much better life would've been under more years of JFK. He is revered for superficial nostalgic reasons. Interestingly, by November 1963 his approval rating was still pretty high but had been on the decline.

Political assassinations are tragic and traumatic, but we should not allow them to confuse image with substance. Let's remember the president as he was, and not how we thought he would end up being.

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JKF and Innocence

Part of the JFK mythology is that the country lost his innocence with his assassination. That caught my attention on the front page of yesterday's Charlotte Observer, which said that Kennedy's 1960 visit to Charlotte was a "more innocent time." I disagreed and got cranky:

We were innocent babes and he was going to lead us to the promised land. The mythology is really, really strong.

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Is Obama copying Castro and Chávez?

With regard to writing columns, that is. First it was Fidel Castro, then recently Hugo Chávez also started writing. Now Obama has a column in the Washington Post arguing for passage of the stimulus package. His style is a lot different, though. In particular, I think he should use more exclamation marks.

h/t King Politics

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From the inaugural speech

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with the sturdy alliances and enduring convictions.
They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use. Our security emanates from the justness of our cause; the force of our example; the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

I like that, but history shows that it is easier to say than to do. Remember that in his 2001 inaugural speech, George W. Bush said that "We will show purpose without arrogance."

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Normal blogging to resume shortly

I've been sick and am now trying to catch up on a million tasks and emails that I've been neglecting. Back soon.

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The CIA uses black highlighters

From The Onion. Hilarious.

h/t Alterdestiny

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Primera Revista Latinoamericana de Libros

I received a copy of the Primera Revista Latinoamericana de Libros and thought I would pass along the link for anyone interested. It is published in NYC but is entirely in Spanish. It has some impressively detailed book reviews, though it did serve to remind me how many books I'd like to read and how little time I have to do so.

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Fire

This morning Matthew Shugart wrote that if he didn't post for an extended period of time, he probably had to evacuate, and he hasn't posted since this morning.

Fire has been moving roughly in the direction of my parents, who were visited by their local fire fighters. They pointed out a ridge about 4 miles away and said my parents would need to evacuate if they saw fire there. They felt there was a good amount of clear defensible space around the home, but we can only hope.

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Fires

No Latin America connection, but fellow political science blogger Matthew Shugart notes the terrible fires raging in San Diego. Fortunately he was still home (and hopefully still is). Like many others who haven't yet been told to evacuate, my parents (who live in the east county, several miles from one of the fires) can only watch the wind and wait with their essential belongings ready to be packed into the car. The wind is intense, even uprooting trees in the yard. Very scary, and very hard for me to concentrate on anything else.

Update: San Diego State University literally went from holding classes in the morning to becoming a shelter by the afternoon. The fire is just moving so fast.

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At the NC State Fair...

...one of the longest lines was at the place with all the weird deep fried food. This, my friends, is a deep fried Snickers. Well worth the wait. Beware: you might gain weight just looking at it.

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Update on NC and electoral votes

A quick non-Latin America update. Steven Taylor’s post on California’s debate about the Electoral College prompted me to figure out what had happened here in North Carolina, where a similar debate was occurring in the General Assembly, albeit with almost no media attention.

Last month I wrote:

The Senate has passed, and the House soon (maybe even today) will vote on a reform that would grant one electoral vote to the candidate who wins each congressional district (a total of 13) and then the final two votes would be given to the candidate who wins statewide.

Yet no such vote ever occurred. The reason? Howard Dean. From the Winston-Salem Journal:

The proposed changes would have serious implications for the 2008 presidential election - so much so that Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, intervened behind the scenes in North Carolina’s debate last month.

A controversial bill to change the way that the state allots its Electoral College votes had already passed in the N.C. Senate and appeared to be on the verge of passing in the House. That’s when Dean made a phone call to the state chairman of the Democratic Party requesting that North Carolina Democrats postpone the bill until next year.

The rationale seems to be that although the reform would help Democrats in NC, it would help Republicans in CA, and Dean did not want NC to start a trend that would end up hurting the 2008 Democratic candidate. So the reform is shelved until it will no longer affect the 2008 election.

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Electoral College and NC

This has nothing to do with Latin America, but I can’t resist since I’ve been talking so much about electoral systems in my summer school Intro to Comparative Politics. North Carolina is getting closer and closer to changing the way the state doles out electoral votes. The Senate has passed, and the House soon (maybe even today) will vote on a reform that would grant one electoral vote to the candidate who wins each congressional district (a total of 13) and then the final two votes would be given to the candidate who wins statewide.

In presidential elections, NC goes Republican (the last election was 56%-44%) but there are strong Democratic pockets (with all sorts of gerrymandering disputes) including Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is. Therefore, the reform could grant the Democratic candidate three votes (Kerry won three districts in 2004) and perhaps more, though I haven’t had a chance to look at the outcomes of each district. Since it would go into effect in 2008, the reform would have an immediate impact. As I've mentioned before, NC might even gain an electoral vote after the 2010 Census because of immigration.

Obviously, then, Republicans don’t like it, as it guarantees their candidate will lose a few electoral votes. Democrats say it would bring more presidential candidates to the state because the outcome would no longer be a foregone conclusion. However, I would hope that this generates more discussion about a) the Electoral College; and b) the desirability of winner-take-all within the context of the Electoral College.

So far, though, the debate is entirely partisan, and the larger question—what is the best way to elect a president in this country?—is barely being addressed. In general, the debate is receiving remarkably little media attention.

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Spam in Spanish

I wonder exactly how I ended up on a spam list in Spanish, wanting me to buy a hand dryer for bathrooms. It does, after all, pay for itself with the savings on towels.

"AIR-O-SEC"
SECADOR DE MANOS AUTOMATICO
SE PAGA SOLO
CON EL AHORRO EN TOALLAS

-HIGIENICO
-EVITA TRANSMISION DE ENFERMEDADES
CONJUNTIVITIS - HEPATITIS - TIFUS

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La profesora

I had a nice lunch downtown today with Michelle, even though because of timing we were accompanied by my daughter, Julia. At least as two year olds go, she’s not too crazy. Aside from taking a packet of Splenda and asking me to pour it in her milk (which I refused) and eating primarily from my plate, she did OK.

We chatted about Latin American fiction to use in class. In a class on politics, we want something that is accessible, not massive, and which addresses political issues in some interesting way, while also available in English translation. It’s tougher to find than you might think.

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Back

For the past several days, I've been out of town with no internet access, but I'll be resuming blogging today.

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Burrito vs. sandwich

The rise of Americanized Mexican fast food is remarkable. In the early 1970s, when my parents lived briefly in Michigan as transplanted Californians, no one had even heard of Mexican food, much less eaten it. Nowadays it is ubiquitous, and of course transformed, because in the U.S. we don’t particularly like the true, healthy style of Mexican food. Americans tend to want nacho cheese, extra sour cream (why, I will never understand), and we want massive burritos that resemble white bricks.

Anyhow, via Crescat Sententia comes a court case in Worcester, MA, which shows just how popular the burrito has become.

The burrito brouhaha began when Panera, one of the country's biggest bakery cafes, argued that owners of the White City Shopping Center in Shrewsbury violated a 2001 lease agreement that restricted the mall from renting to another sandwich shop. When the center signed a lease this year with Qdoba, Panera balked, saying the Mexican chain's burritos violate its sandwich exclusivity clause.

A judge denied the claim, saying a burrito was not a sandwich. That is a no-brainer, as I have never ordered a bean sandwich with guacamole, just as I have never ordered a burrito with pickles and mayo. They even had someone from the government weigh in.

Judith A. Quick, who previously worked as a deputy director of the Standards and Labeling Division at the US Department of Agriculture, said in her affidavit: "The USDA views a sandwich as a separate and distinct food product from a burrito or taco."

And she got paid for that testimony. I’m glad we’ve straightened that out. But it demonstrates that Mexican food is so widespread and popular that it’s seen as threatening to sandwiches. For those of us addicted to it, that’s just fine.

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Voting machines

I wonder how many voting machines had problems today. There are already scattered reports. There is even one story of a guy going nuts and destroying one with a paper weight (which carries a charge of felony criminal mischief and tampering with voting machines).

I used an ES&S iVotronic touch screen machine to vote today, which also produces a printed copy as you go. I asked whether they'd had any problems, and the answer was no. At that point (11:30 a.m. or so) all had been working fine.

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Annoyed on election day morning

This is the first election since we moved houses, and in the past I would usually vote in the morning, at a church not far from our house. I have a morning meeting, so I figured I would vote on the way, just leaving a little early. But something hadn't registered (no pun intended). Now I vote at an overcrowded elementary school on a school day. Who thought this up? The school is on a major street, but both lanes were backed up so far that the school was not even in sight, and the traffic wasn't moving much. I didn't have time to wait, so made a u-turn and came to campus. I'll have to go back later in the morning, and wonder where I will even park.

In addition, the school system has Friday off as a teacher workday. Why couldn't they schedule it today instead?

I am definitely going to make sure I vote early in the future.

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The Search for Neofascism

I received a catalog from Cambridge University Press, and one book caught my attention because it echoes something I always discuss in class and blogged about in July, namely the abuse of the word “fascism.” In July I wrote:

The word “fascist” has been thrown around so often that it has come only to mean “politician I don’t like.” The word “terrorist” is heading in the same direction.

The new book I spotted is The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science by A. James Gregor at Berkeley. Here is part of the synopsis:

Its central thesis of the work [sic] is that terms like 'fascism', 'generic fascism', and 'neofascism' are often used with considerable indifference, applied uniquely to political movements and regimes considered on the 'right' rather than the 'left', intended more often to denigrate rather than inform. The result has been confusion.

I will have to take a look at this book.

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