I’m a long time fan of the website Cracked.com (think the Onion with lists and curse words), but they rarely have anything political despite the obvious comedic opportunities inherent in politics. However, one of today’s articles was on political scandal (see here).  It gets comparative too, offering up the many antics of Italian self-parody Silvio Berlesconi in addition to folks familiar to Americans like President McCrazy-Pants Andrew Jackson. For the record, I love Andrew Jackson as the historical founder of the modern Democratic Party, a believer in a more open and non-property-based electorate, etc. But he was crazy, and really hated Native-Americans, so not a lot to like there.  Anyway, just a bit of light-hearted (well, some of it’s actually pretty mean, but funny), politically themed reading for the day.

Slate had an interesting article today on the DIY movement. Don’t be put off by the title; it’s not all about beer. It’s more of a brief love letter to the DIY movement, including homebrewers, but it makes several mentions of state, local, and national regulations as they relate to Do-It-Yourselfers.  I must admit, even as a subnational policy scholar, I hadn’t thought of how cities, states, and even the feds can affect the policy climate for folks like this.  The web of city, state, and national regulations governing these activities must be fascinating.  To a political scholar, anyway, probably less to “normal” people.

I must admit a certain affinity for these folks.  As a former musician, my musical heros – punk bands of the eighties like Black Flag &  the Minutemen – embraced the DIY aesthetic in creating their own record labels, venues, recording studios, etc. Not sure how much overlap there is between issues such as welcoming homebrew regulations, backyard agriculture (the chickens the guy mentions in the article), home recording studios, and the like, but the overarching interest in creating something, be it music, beer, or breakfast, is shared across the areas.

It is interesting to think about though.  With the proper data, which might be difficult to get, you could create an index of how welcoming jurisdictions are to DIY activities.  You’d have to define which activities qualify, likely focusing on the “home industry” stuff like homebrewing, backyard agriculture, biodiesel production, etc.  I’m curious as to whether openness to these activities would fall along a single dimension or whether jurisdictional openness to activities like homebrewing might end up being somewhat orthogonal to most DIY activities, particularly in areas with blue laws.  In any case, you could produce some interesting maps and charts, showing the ease of engaging in these hobbies across different states and cities.

What I like most about issues like this is how they illuminate the public policy process. All these activities have to intereact with the state, in some capacity, and that’s the essence of public policy.  I imagine that the elimination of restrictions (or the establishment of them) would offer some excellent examples of both collective action problems and interest group politics. In short, these are good examples of how “politics” is not just Congress and the President. It permeates everyday life and has a huge impact on how we live, work and play.

Now I just have to figure out how to get some publications out of creating an index of “openness to DIY” activities.  Maybe after tenure…

Not usually in the business of advertising for my friends on this blog, but “Battleground” is both a pretty good show (the bit with the volunteer speaking in the King’s English in the pilot is priceless) and politically themed, so I figure I can get away with it.  Full disclosure: a former college roommate of mine (Jordan T. Maxwell, the “senior adviser”) is a member of the main cast.  He’s considerably less obnoxious in real life.

Anyway, the show follows the (fictitious) Senate Democratic primary campaign in Wisconsin of a distant 3rd place candidate attempting to upset a dottering incumbent. As a former campaigner, it’s pretty spot on about the feel of a campaign: characters, locations, relationships. And the look of campaign offices.  All campaign offices have a similar feel: borrowed, third-hand desks, a couple dozen phones, cheap cubicle barriers if you’re lucky, industrial “eggshell” walls, mismatched carpet, strip-mall location, etc.  They got the sets down.  Sorry, not to harp on the sets, they just made me a little nostalgic.

The story and the characters are good too.  I’ve only seen the pilot and 2nd episode (there have only been two so far), but the jokes are pretty good (seriously, the King’s English bit is funny, although the “pseduo-documentary” style is a little overdone, but that’s just nitpicking), and the characters are all the right age (i.e. extremely young).  I’m eager to see where they go with this, past the primary and the campaign I mean. It’s nice to have shows set in the world of politics, particularly when they come at least somewhere close to the mark.  Now, we just need a show focused around political science professors (or grad students, but that’s probably stretching it).

Been a busy month.  Several conferences, more traveling than I really like (especially when the department isn’t paying for it) and lots of progress on the dissertation.  Also, one of these days, I’m actually going to live tweet/blog one of these conferences like I keep saying I’m going to do.  This is relevant because I just got back from DC and the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference, which happened the day after I presented my poster at the Southern Politics and Policy Conference.

Bit of a whirlwind last couple of days, but the TLC was much better than I had expected. Got to meet a lot of really dedicated and energetic folks that were very interested in the state of political science instruction. My presentation on supplemental instruction went pretty well too. I was part of the Community College tract, which happened to be dominated by a load of Texas political science professors.  First year for the tract and the attendees were inspiringly committed.  Most of them even stayed all the way through the conference to the final meeting on Sunday morning at 8am.  Making me rethink my interest in a community college career.  I do enjoy teaching and the mobility wouldn’t hurt.  Something to think about, and, as I said, the passion of the TLC folks was inspiring. I could probably squeeze a little research in there even with a heavy teaching load.

As for the SPPC, I wish I could have stayed longer.  Just got to hang around for the poster presentation and the dinner reception.  Even so, lots of good conversations and meeting people.  I’ve gone over the program, and there are several folks I need to contact about their research, particularly the immigration stuff.  Good to see the issue getting some attention from the subnational folks.  Means I gotta move fast if I don’t wanna get scooped though.

That’s about it for the moment.  I’m really going to focus on more consistent updating from now on…seriously, this time…I mean it. Anyway, more detail and insight to come, now back to research.