Daily updates – Page 176 – a sibilant intake of breath

Academic reflections

The rigidity of the once-a-day entry system is not ideal. At the same time, people seem to like the consistency. My solution for the moment will be to release daily flagship entities, complete with the photo of the day, and supplementary entries on other topics. As always, it is up to those reading to decide what they want to do with this information.

Today was fairly productive, in terms of schoolwork. I embedded myself first in the Cornmarket Starbucks, reading, then the High Street Starbucks and finally in the upper reading room of the Radcliffe Camera. While it’s not a style of architecture for which I generally have a great love, the Palladian styling of that rotunda is really quite lovely. It doesn’t have the dolled-up, overdecorated feel that many domed, semi-Romanesque buildings have. Instead, there is something of the simple elegance that I so appreciate in gothic buildings. I particularly like some of the stone sculpture right below the lip of the dome. Right across from the Codrington Library, it’s a part of Oxford where I should spend more time. I am shamefully ineffective at reading in my room and the fluorescence of the DPIR at night is reminiscent of Staples.

I am anxiously awaiting the time when we will have more freedom to study what we are actually fascinated with. While all this history is important, I am anxious to arrive in the contemporary world. History, like gardening, is something that the young take up by necessity, the old with passion cultivated through patience.

The time when we get to direct our own studies will be the point at which I decide whether this whole graduate school this has ‘caught:’ whether it’s something I can commit myself to for another six to eight years, in order to complete a PhD. While I don’t feel like it would be either wise or possible to complete all of that at a stretch, it would be good to have some real certainty about it as a course of action. That’s one of the big motivations for doing the M.Phil: it will let me test the waters of academia before spending a few years working in government, for an NGO, or in some other non-academic role.

Familial introductions, crime, and bias in blogging

This morning, I had a walk and a cup of coffee with Margaret. After so much telephonic interaction, it was good to see her in person. I also received a very kind birthday card and gift from my family back in Canada. I’ve been affixing the various cards I receive to the non-painted surfaces in my room and they do much to give the place a bit of character.

For those who don’t know, my parents and youngest brother live in North Vancouver, in the house near Edgemont Village where I lived between second and twelfth grade. My mother’s name is Alena and, in addition to teaching English as a second language, she does a lot of volunteer work. Because of the demographics in North Vancouver, she teaches a lot of Iranians. With luck (and a visa that is still being awaited) she will be visiting Teheran in the spring of next year to see friends and former students. Aside from teaching, my mother is a very active reader and the source of the great body of excellent novels that fill the shelves of the house. My father, Oleh, is a lawyer at the firm Miller Thomson – where I have also worked, upon occasion. By far the most physically active member of my family, he plays squash, cycles a great deal, hikes, runs, and is a source of enthusiasm behind familial wilderness adventures: including the Powell Forest Canoe Circuit trip and the first and second Bowron Lakes adventures. One of his more notable adventures recently was working as an electoral monitor in Ukraine during the Orange Revolution.

My brother Sasha, still in high school, lives with my parents. He is on both the junior and senior improv teams at my old high school. Improv is actually an activity he inherited from my middle brother Mica, who is now at UBC. Several times, Mica went to the national championships in improvisational comedy: once on the same team as my friends Hilary and Alison. In his last year of high school, Mica’s team won the national tournament. Last year, the team that Sasha captained won the provincial championship. A player of baseball and soccer, Sasha is also a fanatical devotee of World of Warcraft: within which he runs a business exchanging characters and gold for real money. Of the three brothers, he seems to be the one with the most entrepreneurial aptitude.

Mica is definitely the foremost dramatist of the trio: with starring roles in several of the major shows put on by my high school, as well as the production of Damn Yankees at UBC last year. He is also probably the most athletic of the three of us. While I did not persist long in sunny baseball afternoons and rainy soccer mornings, Mica had quite a bit of dedication – especially as a pitcher. He now seems to pour a lot of his energy into making videos, many of which are quite excellent. Studying history, he was in the Arts One program last year, and intends to do his teaching certificate once he finishes his undergraduate degree.

One of the most difficult aspects of spending two years in England will be either not seeing or barely seeing my brothers over that course of time. While I do keep in touch with them over MSN and through things like the blog, it’s certain that the next two years will bring some huge changes for both of them. While I am sure they will both do very well – they have talents which I lack and envy, as well as the sense of humour which is so critical to maintaining sanity – it will be unfortunate to see it from such a distance. I hope very much that they will visit me here. The last photo in this collection shows my brothers and I at my departure party.

One thing that people find confusing is that only Sasha, my father, and I have the same last name. When my parents wed, my mother kept her last name. Furthermore, they agreed to alternate the family names of children, beginning with my mother’s in the case of a female child and my father’s in the case of a male child. It strikes me as a fair and sensible way to go about it.

I got one piece of distressing news over Skype from my mother today. Apparently, Sasha and his friend Jonah got mugged by four 2″x4″ wielding thugs on their way home from improv practice a couple of days ago. Sasha knew one of the assailants from school. They were after money and iPods and, despite Sasha’s efforts to talk them out of it, they persisted in making threats of violence. Luckily, Sasha and his friend were able to run away and gain sanctuary in a stranger’s house. Apparently, the police are unwilling to press any charges, despite the fact that they caught all four of the would-be thieves, because nobody was hurt. To me, that seems extremely irresponsible and an encouragement to such thuggishness. They did, however, commend Sasha for his handling of the situation.

I was unsuccessfully mugged twice in North Vancouver while in high school: once with Jonathan on Highland road by a couple of snowboarders and once in Edgemont Village with Chevar by one of my classmates. The second time was at knifepoint, right in the middle of a sunny afternoon. In neither case did I have any money on me, as I am in the habit of almost never doing so. The fact that the police have never managed to do much of anything when any member of my family has been robbed or burgled does not create great confidence. I am extremely glad, in any case, that nothing too bad befell Sasha or his friend. Hopefully, the four thieves will find cause to devote their energies to something more productive and socially acceptable, even if the authorities are unwilling to compel it.

One last item. You hear bandied about a lot of talk about liberal bloggers, conservative bloggers, and bias overall on the internet. To me, such labeling risks being counterproductive. Just because you can categorize someone in one way or another doesn’t let you anticipate or automatically ignore their ideas. It’s absurd to think the complex political and ethical questions of the day can be answered along a single axis of difference. It’s equally absurd to think that a polarized community willing to completely ignore the arguments and positions of others will lead to the advancement in knowledge, thinking, or ethics. Open, civil debate must be the approach taken.

Not particularly notable day (and dietary justifications)

Just a short post today: not very much happened and there is a great deal of work to be done on the two essays if I am to have them finished before Nick gets here.

We all got woken up brutally early this morning by a Wadham College fire drill and mandatory evacuation. Every room in library court has a dedicated alarm for wailing you out of bed, with the promise of college enforcers coming up afterwards to ensure that you have vacated. Down in the back quad, we huddled in circles in the cold and the yellow morning light, breath visible, grumbling about the timing of the test.

So here’s the (ambitious) plan for the next few days:

Finish a draft of the paper on the Chinese Civil War (tomorrow).
Finish a draft of the (unstarted) paper on American isolationism in the interwar period, based on the reading for my presentation and journal articles (Saturday).
Edit both papers myself (Sunday morning).
Meet with Bryony to swap and look over respective papers (Sunday evening).
Conduct final, final revisions on both (Monday)
Submit China paper to Andrew Hurell via inter-college mail (Tuesday).
Submit American foreign policy paper in class (Tuesday).

In the evening, I took part in a brief foray to the King’s Arms with Ben, Andy, Abra, and some of the other members of library court. The place was quite thoroughly packed – standing room only – but also pleasantly devoid of smoke. It was good to have a bit of social contact with my neighbours: a thing that has largely been absent since 0th week. (Pronounced ‘noughth.’)

After the expedition, I wrote a few emails (to Astrid, Sarah, and Margaret), uploaded a few photos to my Facebook account, and got back to reading about China. I think the way to tackle this essay is to discuss two periods. First, the one between the start of fighting in China between the Japanese and the Chinese communists and nationalists and the outbreak of the broader war in Asia. Second, the period that began after the dropping of the atomic bombs and the Japanese surrender. In each period, there was clearly a lot of foreign influence. I plan to argue that, while the communist takeover would have been impossible without certain things that outside powers did (particularly the Japanese weakening the Kuomintang), the ideology and policy of the communists was not defined by outside actors. It certainly wasn’t the offshoot of Russian communism that Americans sometimes saw it as being, though the Soviet withdrawal from parts of northern China was definitely conducted in a way that aided the CCP, at the expense of the KMT.

Tomorrow morning, I am meeting Margaret for a brief walk before the statistics lab. After so many instances of talking with her at length on the phone, despite the five minute walk between our respective domiciles, it will be nice to communicate face to face.

In response to Sarah’s blog post tonight, I realized that the justification for my slightly unusual diet it buried in the offline pages of the old blog. The first part of my policy is to not eat meat that has been factory farmed. Basically, there are three reasons for it. The first is because factory farming is environmentally unsustainable. The second is the way in which it is conducted is hygienically repulsive: feeding animals ground up bits of members of their own species is seriously dodgy. The same goes for lacing them with hormones and antibiotics. The third reason is that I think even chickens, cows, and pigs are morally considerable enough that the animals should not be made to live in such horrific conditions. They are far more badly treated than animals that are having medical research conducted upon them, as detailed in this leader from The Economist. As it explains: “The couple of million (mainly rats and mice) that die in Britain’s laboratories are far better looked-after and far more humanely killed than the billion or so (mainly chickens) on Britain’s farms.”

I also try to avoid eating fish that are farmed (for most of the same reasons) and those caught in an unsustainable fashion. People seem to believe that fish farming is a sustainable option. Really, they are just catching less tasty fish, grinding them up and feeding them – along with plenty of antibiotics and hormones – to salmon or something else that is tasty. Given that the less savoury fish – like blue whiting or orange roughy- are being fished in a grossly unsustainable way, fish farming is really no better than gill-netting. Worse, in many senses, since it pollutes the sea with hormones and other chemicals.

PS. Due to the wrecking efforts of a particular individual in Lancaster, I’ve had to turn on comment moderation. Anything inoffensive will be approved. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Feeling like part of an Oxford community

This morning, I went for coffee and a walk with Bryony Lau: one of my fellow Canadians in the M.Phil program. She is a well-travelled and interesting person, who seems to be handling the program extremely well. I am glad that she will be coming to the dinner and film at St. Antony’s tonight, to which Alex has invited several of us. Like Claire, Bryony is taking a course at the Oxford University Language Centre: an idea that I should probably emulate. I can almost feel my command of French seeping away.

In the early afternoon, I met with my college advisor – Dr. Paul Martin – for the first time. We spoke about scholarships to apply for, the structure of the university, and the M.Phil program. As he explained it, college advisors don’t really do anything, aside from answer general questions by email and take you to dinner at high table twice a year. Dr. Martin also said that I should be reading eleven or twelve books a week, which I think is mad. Either I would have no comprehension of them whatsoever, or I would have time to do absolutely nothing else. That kind of personal abuse really doesn’t seem like education to me. That said, I definitely don’t feel as though I have been reading enough. It’s quite a difficult thing for me to buckle down and do, unless there is no more interesting alternative or the situation has become absolutely urgent. Perhaps I am not well suited to academic life.

Today brought two excellent pieces of mail. The first was the NatWest credit card which I applied for in September. My days of pondering the Mastercard Pound-Dollar exchange rate when buying groceries have ended. Better still, I got a birthday card and gift from my maternal grandmother, aunt, uncle, and cousins in North Carolina. I shall write them a letter of thanks. My Uncle George and Aunt Eva are the parents of my cousin Jiri in Prague, as well as his sister Kristyna. It seems that Sasha and my mother will be going to visit them around Christmas time.

In the evening, I took a stab at Vancouver emulation. I sat in Starbucks, listening to Melissa Ferrick, and read The Economist and the Spence China book. Never mind that when you order a Venti dark roast here you get a blank stare followed by a query to the manager about what a dark roast is. Differing voltages, differing nomenclature. Despite minor cultural friction, it was an excellent way to escape the cold, induce wakefulness, read, and avoid libraries all at the same time. For those who haven’t heard her, Melissa Ferrick is an energetic and engaging Canadian singer. For me, her musical talent is somehow well demonstrated in the precise timing of the pause between the words “You are” and “walking grace” in the live version of the song “Will You Be the One.” I think it’s the constant theme of seeking love in her music that so endears it to me. Another fine musical introduction from Astrid.

The later part of tonight was extremely nice. Having dinner at St. Antony’s with Alex, Bryony, Shohei, and Iason, I felt like I was finally part of a community, not just friends with a few people in Oxford. It’s a powerful thing, to finally feel connected in a place.

After dinner, Bryony, Shohei, and Iason had to go off to work on various projects. Alex and I, however, went to see Buongiorno Notte with the St. Antony’s European Film Society. It’s a difficult film to write about, really. Most anything you would care to say about it is said better by the film itself: a complex and beautiful story about the power of human choice.

I should get back to the eternal task of reading – one that I don’t feel that I do enough of or sufficiently well at. My thanks again to Alex for the invitation.

Night of 1000 Dinners: Sunday, December 4th

I encourage those in Vancouver, whether at UBC or not, to participate in this excellent event at the Westin Bayshore Hotel in Coal Harbour, which raises money to combat the global problem of land mines. All proceeds from the evening go to Adopt-a-Minefield, which funds mine clearance and victim assistance programs. I attended all the ones that were held while I was at UBC and enjoyed each thoroughly. Tickets are $20 for students and $40 for non-students: on sale by my friend Fernando and others. If this year is the same as previous ones, the United States Consulate General in Vancouver will provide free wine.

Determinedly academic day

With Nick S. visiting the U.K. between the 21st and 25th, and with the clear memory of the insanity involved in writing two essays simultaneously and on short notice, I am making an effort to forge ahead with the papers due on the 22nd. At the SSL today, I read the relevant bits from Arif Dirlik’s The Origins of Chinese Communism: deciding that the period about which it is written it too early for my argument. I also read about half of Odd Westad’s Cold War and Revolution and carried on with the Spence book. Along with the stats assignment, I should finish both books tomorrow evening or Wednesday morning. Then, I can begin reading in earnest for the ‘Big Three’s war aims as influenced by the interwar period’ essay, for Dr. Wright and Dr. Fawcett.

Aside: The Roche Lecture:
This evening, I attended the New College Alec Roche Lecture in Public International Law, delivered by Ian Brownlie, CBE, QC. Judging by how many emails we all received about it, he must be quite an important guy. While I don’t mean to comment on it at length, there are a few points that it seems worthwhile to make. To me, the lecture involved a very large amount of what might be termed legal tut-tutting: pointing out inadequacies in the way international law had been portrayed and ignored in the last decade or so, though not demonstrating any kind of pragmatism with regards to the relationship between law and other factors in international affairs. Obviously, important legal questions arise as the result of actions such as those carried out by the coalitions in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. In particular, the legal grounds for the Iraq invasion are very shaky. Even so, a bit more subtlety and flexibility would have been welcome.

To me, it seems that there is an importance in recognizing that international law can shift and that, in the post-Rwanda era, interventions of the type launched in Kosovo may sometimes be necessary. International law relating to the scope of self defence, as well as the acceptability of interventions on humanitarian grounds, is definitely an area that is alive and evolving. Whether the action to expel the Serbian Army from Kosovo was indeed motivated by humanitarian factors or not, a more nuanced consideration of it must be made – rather than a total affirmation of unacceptability. Likewise, the connections between the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda raise the serious possibility that the United States and its allies were justified in employing military force against them.

To me, it also seems important to recognize that, while principles are doubtless very important, it is to a large extent the practice of states that establishes international law. The practice of states tells a different story from that delivered, quite bitterly at times, by Mr. Brownlie. There has been a greater recognition, in the Security Council and elsewhere, that some kinds of actions not envisioned or clearly described in the original Charter are now to be part of the structure of world politics. A lecture that had done more to play out the ramifications of that, legal and otherwise, would have been rather more compelling.

Contrasting arguments are always welcome.

On an exciting but completely separate note: at 12:45 today, I became a fully paid member of Wadham College. One sixth of my total Oxford academic fees have made their way from various places in Canada, through the alleyways of the international financial system, across Oxford (as a tightly clutched bank draft), and into the deep coffers of this 395 year-old building. After five weeks of working at it – and $150 in banking fees – the deed is done. I can look forward now to when I get credited back for all those uneaten Wadham dinners.

In other news, Sarah Pemberton, with whom I shall be going to Tallinn in a month’s time, has joined the blogosphere with a cooking related weblog. Cooking is one of those skills that I know I really ought to develop and keep thinking that I will be forced to. Somehow, though, it never quite comes about. My favourite cooking experiences are definitely preparing huge vats of curry with Tristan, Christina, and Meghan – although it was also good fun to make macaroni and cheese on my little MSR SimmerLite stove in the middle of Fairview Crescent during a blackout one winter.

For those who appreciate all things culinary, the Chocolate & Zucchini weblog is well worth a look.

Rambling, eclectic reflections

Today, I did quite a lot of reading, sorted new music, and – in listening to older music – had my love for Tori Amos re-emphasized. If there is a greater musician alive, I haven’t heard them. The raw, impossibly emotive content of Tori Amos songs is enough to induce an adoration that quite transcends the rational. It’s little surprise that her live shows are a kind of super-sensory dream; something I described three years ago as watching a “semi-divine creature pound… her piano keys into us.” I really must acquire her Beekeeper album.

I remember first listening to Tori on the CD that Jenny made for me, back in high school: when Napster was young and my musical experience was confined to the boundaries of Edgefest concerts. One night, about seven years ago, I remember riding the bus to Victoria and missing one sailing of the ferry. During that two hour wait, I recall reading the issue of The Economist about Ariel Sharon’s election and listening to the overpowering live version of “Precious Things.” I remember the particular amber hue of the reading lamps on those Pacific Coach Lines buses, the lingering smell of cigarette smoke, presumably from when such activities were permitted onboard. I remember listening to “Silent all these Years” and “Crucify” while walking through rainy London streets, five years ago. I remember the way the brick wall across from the room where I was staying began to streak, as the afternoon rain ran down it, and how my collection of miscellaneous pamphlets on London attractions grew and reproduced in all the corners of the small room.

Oxford is getting cold. Sweaters, those awkward scratchy things I would never wear in Vancouver, are emerging from bottom drawers and into the normal rotation of worn clothing. I suppose having one wall composed entirely of windows (looking into the panopticon), and only an odd, gurgling radiator for heating contributes to these matters. Walking to the SSL at five-thirty tonight, clad in jacket, down vest, and gloves, there was a chilling sharpness reminiscent of cross country skiing, though without the warmth that comes with that activity’s exertion. Darkness before 6:00pm is normal enough, but real cold at such a time is novel. I shall consider it training for Tallinn. In the end, I far prefer cold to excessive heat – it is much more easily remedied. Exothermic bodies can be insulated and energized much more easily than their thermal capacity can be dissipated. Something similar explains my over-riding preference for shade over sunlight.

As I have meant to explain before, one of the things I like most about the M.Phil in International Relations program is how cooperative it is. There is a real sense that it is the 28 of us against the program, working together in a way that is both unfamiliar and quite valuable. Part of that may derive from how, aside from the sometimes quite arbitrary-seeming marking of the statistics assignments, we are not being numerically assessed on anything. That helps create a culture where notes and ideas are shared, essays are mutually read, and discussions serve to advance everybody’s understanding. It’s obvious that all of us will end up in circumstances where collaboration is essential, so it only makes sense to begin now.

At various times in the past few days, I’ve wandered through the random blogs provided by the ‘Next Blog‘ function on the Blogger toolbar. This was prompted partly by the fact that so many people seem to find my blog by this route. Also, I wanted to get a better sense of the overall content of this ‘blogosphere’ that some media outlets seem to champion, while others deride. Having now wandered through a lot of random sites, I am falling in more closely with those who are critical. Not to hold myself up as a paragon of fairness, but there are a lot of blatantly partisan or incorrect blogs out there. When one sticks to the clusters of one’s friends (of the skillful bunch that are the Oxford bloggers) one doesn’t realize how much vitriol and misinformation can be found out there. These blogs may not reach the level of crazy achieved by the masterful Time Cube¹ but, well, caveat lector.

PS. I’ve been listening to a lot of The Smiths today, since I gained access to it over shared iTunes folders on the Wadham network. While it ranges between reasonably good and quite good, it is all very similar. It goes better when interspersed with something a bit more energetic.

[1] Quite possibly the high water mark of internet-crazy, which is saying rather a lot. This site is definitely worth a look if you haven’t yet seen it. Feel free, also, to nominate challengers for the title of most insane, strange, or paranoid website via comments.

An uneventful day

On November 12th of last year, I was in the snow-swept complex of the West Point Military Academy, along with Samantha Hinds and Vicki Lyus, for the 56th Annual Student Conference on United States Affairs. It was our last night there and I remember walking back through the frigid air from the Firstie Club to the barracks were we were all staying. By comparison, very little happened in Oxford today, aside from reading and a few enjoyable periods of drinking tea and lounging about, both with Margaret and on my own. I have been making an effort to complete the two upcoming essays a good while before they are actually due, so as to have some time to think them over and have them edited.

In the evening, I read from the new Economist, responded to a mass of emails, and carried on reading about China. One of the emails, unexpectedly, came from my friend Ebony. She graduated from UBC in the same year as I did, also from the IR program. During that year, we were in the same native politics and Canadian foreign policy classes. She is presently in Japan: working and gathering volunteer experience, prior to applying to graduate schools. I haven’t had any contact with her since graduation, so it was good to get back in touch.

Next Saturday (November 19th) is the infamous Wadham College Queer Bop. [20 Nov: described here and here, with photos.] This is the notorious Wadham event to which “men come as women, and women come in next to nothing.” I plan to attend fairly briefly, and in an observational capacity. It is an event with such a reputation that I would be in clear violation of my mandate to report on Wadham life if I did not at least make a brief and guarded foray into the chaos. Since Wadham became obliged to adopt a closed-door policy for bops, tickets to the bop have apparently become desirable commodities. I am allowed to bring two guests so, if there are people out there who burn with desire to attend, I may be willing to provide those tickets, which are six Pounds apiece. The doors open at 7:30pm.

Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband is playing at the OFS Studio Theatre between the 15th and 19th. (My apologies for the terrible web page.) Since the tickets are only £6.50 and I have been keen to see a play in Oxford since I arrived, this seems like a good opportunity. Is anyone interested?

For tomorrow, the Social Sciences Library beckons.

An amusing story about huge pumpkin cannons.
In light of Margaret’s determination to participate in a tuberculosis vaccine trial for 300, here are some other experiments: one in Oxford and an interesting one on language.

Stats update and adventures in New College

Today’s statistics lab was a big improvement over the previous ones. Mark Pickup was absent, due to illness, but Robert Trager began the class by responding directly to our letter. He was understanding and sympathetic and both this week’s lab and this week’s assignment reflect a welcome change in methods and focus. We spent only half the lab working on STATA, with the rest devoted to discussing the statistical methodology behind an actual paper published in a major political science journal. For next week, we have been given another, as well as some responses to it, to look over and analyze. This feels far more relevant, and it is also an affirmation of the willingness of those running the program to change tack in response to our concerns. Professor Sir Adam Roberts, Director of Graduate Studies in International Relations , also issued an official statement today. Aside from all else, it is nice to be listened to.

After the lab, I went to G and D’s with Claire Leigh. She is taking a photography course, so we talked shop for a while before walking through the Christ Church meadows and then back up into Oxford. Like Roham and Emily, Claire formerly worked in banking. To be honest, words like ‘banking’ and ‘consulting’ have almost no substantive content for me. I understand what it means to clean an apartment building, or feed sloughs, or sell computers, but I don’t really understand what these positions involve, or if I could ever do them. That said, a few more pounds in the new NatWest account would do much to reduce my anxiety about paying for next year.

The dinner at New College tonight was very nice. I sat with Madjdy, Roham, and two more of Madjdy’s friends. The conversation, at times, was quite impassioned, but it was wonderful to pass a few hours of the evening engaged in heated debate with interesting people. After dinner, I had a bit of a wander around the New College cloisters with an employee of the Oxford career services, who also claims that she can get me a good summer job. Happily, she provided the two pounds by which unlimited drinks would be furnished to me in the New College MCR. I haven’t really the energy to get into details of tonight here and now. Indeed, there is a lot of night remaining.

Triple lecture day

Today’s lectures comprised an interesting academic triptych. The first, on whaling and international maritime law, contained the most that I did not know beforehand. The second, on international organizations, in a general sense, had the most novel form of delivery. The third, on Marxism as ‘the greatest fantasy of the twentieth century’ was the best attended and least fulfilling.

Patricia Birnie’s lecture on whaling covered the treaties and institutions involved throughout the twentieth century, though it clearly could not do so comprehensively in only an hour. Dr. Birnie has apparently written quite an important textbook on international maritime law – another book to add to my aspirational reading list. One big focus of this lecture was the ambiguities in sections 64, 65, and 120 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. I didn’t know that, despite the present moratorium on whaling, there are exemptions for ‘scientific research.’ Apparently, Japan authorizes ‘scientific killings’ on a level akin to that which a commercial whaling industry would involve. Like the great apes, it seems intuitively obvious to me that marine mammals deserve a level of moral consideration that prohibits their hunting for commercial purposes. While I can understand and appreciate the cultural imperatives behind whale hunting in certain communities, it seems to me that no cultural tradition can be maintained rigidly, forever, in the face of new knowledge and circumstances. Hopefully, this is one of many phenomenon that we will see the end of in our lifetimes.

During the event, I met Abigail Powell, who is doing an M.Sc in something closely related to ecology at Green College. She is solidly on the science side of the environmental continuum: the kind of person I am meant to encourage policy makers to understand, and be understood by, according to my research proposal for this degree. As we were enjoying the free sandwiches, I learned that she actually worked for the Secretariat of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants: the treaty which I researched last year, in the context of the role arctic native groups played in formulating it. With luck, we shall have the chance to discuss it at greater length at a later date.

The second lecture took place as part of our advanced study of IR series and was delivered by Neil MacFarlane: the head of the IR program and a man who speaks in a manner that I would consider absolutely unique, if it wasn’t precisely the same as that of Dennis Danielson, the man who taught the honours Milton class I took with Tristan and Meghan. Given that Dr. Danielson and Dr. MacFarlane are both Canadians who studied at Cambridge, perhaps the similarity is understandable.

Dr. MacFarlane’s lecture was about international organizations and represented an attempt to ‘prove the hard case.’ What he meant by that was that he intended to show how, even in matters of security, where international organizations might be expected to have the least impact and where traditional realist assumptions would be most likely to hold, institutions have had an extensive importance. He outlined six roles that he feels IOs play, then examined them through two cases. He brought up the whole debate about humanitarian intervention and the responsibility to protect as one example, the international ban on anti-personnel mines as the other.

The third lecture also had a Danielson connection, in the form of repeated uses of the word ‘eschatological.’ It took place between Professor Leszek Kolakowski of All Souls, upon whom great praise was heaped, and Professor John Gray, visiting from the LSE. Professor Kolakowski delivered what struck me as a simplistic and overly general criticism of Marxism. Basically, a less refined version of the argument printed in The Economist and previously linked and debated on this page. Perhaps due to the age and eminence of his opponent, the response given by Professor Gray was tepid. The only real objection he raised to Professor Kolakowski’s argument seemed obligatory, rather than genuinely argumentative. At the very least, they should have acknowledged the extent to which the valid elements of the Marxist critique altered the form of contemporary capitalism, thereby making it less likely that some of Marx’s predictions would come to manifest themselves.

In order to attend that lecture, I opted out of the professional training in the social sciences lecture that our notes of guidance indicate that we should attend. Last week’s wasn’t terribly helpful, and it seems to be directed towards much more experimentally minded social scientists, anyhow.

Whenever I am presented with political theory now, I have a tendency to evaluate it as a kind of internal panel. Sitting on it is Milan the provocateur, who tends to defend liberal humanist assumptions and steal arguments from The Economist. Also present are simulated versions of Tristan, Sarah Pemberton, and sometimes others – as the subject warrants. My final judgment has much to do with where the simulated debate ends up.

Between the second and third lecture, I took a bit of a walk with Emily. We returned some books, bought some dinner, and visited the home and workshop of a jeweler who repaired her ring. It was quite an interesting place to see – down in his basement. In particular, I found the stones, sorted and filed throughout the room, fascinating. Heavily represented among them were fossils and plants and animals embedded in quartz or amber. One drawer looked like the cover of the copy of Stephen Jay Gould’s Wonderful Life, which I glanced at so many times back in the days when Kate was still sifting through tiny, prehistoric teeth under the microscope. Emily is definitely a good person to follow about, if you are looking to see interesting and unexpected things.

In the evening, I read from The Search for Modern China. It’s a hefty book, to which I wish I could devote the deserved level of time and attention. As it stands, I shall read it as thoroughly as external pressures allow. The fact that I need to produce a paper on a topic closely related to the book in about ten days time also grants me a certain authority to devote time to it.

Short additions

The army is trying to make artificial gills. That would be quite an incredible technology, if it could be made to work.
It seems that Sony CDs can infect Macs also. Looks like I’m never buying a CD from Sony Music again. Lots of people in California are suing Sony. The post where I first discussed this is here.

Happy Birthday Shannon Smart

Today was the kind of day where things click together. I spent a few hours dealing with the banks in Canada and the U.K. and we are now set to make another attempt at a transfer. In the process, I even managed to unfreeze my application for a NatWest credit card. In the morning, I finished a stats assignment that I am more confident about than either of its predecessors. I also managed to secure some books for the two upcoming papers. In the afternoon, I began reading Jonathan Spence’s The Search for Modern China.

Good things are also happening on various non-academic fronts. Tomorrow night, I have an engagement to spend some time with Emily: something that has definitely been missed of late. Friday, I am having dinner at New College. Saturday, if I am lucky, I might snap up a spot for the Walking Club’s trip to the south coast. Getting out of Oxford, particularly for a bit of a hike, would be excellent. Next Wednesday, I am going to dinner and a movie at St. Antony’s.

Looking out into a fast-darkening world at five in the evening is definitely one of the stranger and more difficult things about the fall. It requires you to rewire the bits of your brain that tell you what kind of lighting conditions you really ought to be doing work in the presence of: widening that set to include some rather more sombre ones. That said, the work these days is interesting. As we get into the timeframe of the second world war, we get into the period when all the major elements of the present international system emerged. It cannot help feeling relevant and important, especially when expressed with such obvious passion as Donald Watt has injected into his book. I was struck by the incredibly wounded tone of his introduction, in which he lists the destruction wrought by the war that he is about to describe the emergence of.

My favourite thing about the fall are the blustery days. Those at UBC should take a walk to the top of the sandstone escarpment near Place Vanier during one of them, when the wind has contributed white-capping energy to the sea, when the sun is glinting off of it, and when there are enough low-lying clouds about to get the full sense of a planet in motion.

In the midst of tonight’s reading, I had the chance to talk with Astrid for about three hours. I won’t say much about it. Just that it’s a relationship that has always had an astonishing ability to avoid becoming mundane. I also got to speak to Alison, for the first time in what has become too long. She will definitely be among those who I write to when the inter-term break allows it.