Home

When one sits in the library during the small hours of the night, reviewing four decades of theorizing about the impact of global interconnectedness on political institutions, one may be forgiven some philosophical digressions. And when this happens the day before one moves house an ocean away, one may be forgiven if the profundities of these digressions house a hint of sentimentalism.

Home is almost always a singular noun. Even if someone has multiple houses we usually speak of a "second home" or "third/fourth/etc. home." Almost never homes. People may flit hither and thither, but they seem to belong either here or there.

One of the great things about the Chinese language is that it dispenses with the singular/plural distinction and renders every noun a collective thing like "water" or "air." So just as we say "a cup of water" they say "a tail of dog" or "a handle of spoon," using so-called measure words to make the general specific.

This seems, to me, a more attractive way to think about home, a collective composite that can be measured out into different units. Places are obviously one important unit in which home comes, people another. I would add tastes, activities, and feelings as well. Home can be many things jumbled together.

Thought about in this way, home loses some connection to geography. Or rather, it gains other connections alongside. It becomes possible, at least theoretically, to put all of your things in suitcases, board a jet-propelled metal flying tube, travel thousands of miles from where you began, and end up home again.

For all of us, there is a bit of home here, a bit there, and a bit more somewhere else. I have a big dollop of home in New York that spills out over the surrounding provinces. I imagine I always will. I also have some home in London, measured mostly in people, and in one particular unit of people.

So I find myself in the rather paradoxical position of having to leave home to get home. This is quite a different thing than just leaving home, something I do a fair amount of. It's more ambivalent.

But I think I can live with that.

As usual, a rag-tag troupe of hippy/gypsy musicians says it best:

Three Haikus on Spiring Break in the Library

Spring Break! Students do

Cancun, beer, and each other,

Library for me.

Reading room is calm,

Productivity soaring,

Far off, freshmen puke.

I hold no envy,

Been there, done that, over it.

Bring me back a hat?

Londoning

Just back from London Town, to which I escaped after a rather bruising meeting with the dissertation committee. I did a very poor job of documenting this trip, but here are a few photo vignettes:

1) Stopped by a residence devastated by the recent Haitian/Chilean earthquake. Send money and canned goods.

A child was found laboring here without food or water....

Oh wait, no, it's actually River St. Coming along swimmingly.

2) La Pam gets one year closer to perfection, and even better, does it over Chinese food.

Not sure who that guy is trying to inhale her face...

3. Attended London's hottest club to see the sick stylings of DJ S. The set was bumping, but it was something of an off-night, unfortunately, and the crowd seemed to be composed mostly of my former students. Not a drop of Patron in sight.

Some fist-pumping club kidzzz:

But we managed to push on through anyway, natch!

When in doubt make your own fun...

4. Beef

Not pictured:

1) Wedding dresses

2) A visitor from Cambridge

3) A baby that resembles Confucius

4) Napping

5) Polish-Mexican fusion cuisine

6) Jamie Oliver('s people)

7) Senior professors drooling banana and personal details all at the same time

8) Lounge singing

Packed with action to the max, but just a small drop of what is to come.

¡Viva la Revolución!

"When patience has begotten false estimates of its motives, when wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality." --Thomas Jefferson to M. deStael, 1807.

And now:

You can do it.

Maine-iacs

I ventured into the far north this festive weekend (Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year, Presidents Day) to visit the wayward D, accompanied by the Kweilats. For some reason D decided that his career goals were best served by isolating himself in Portland, Maine, a bustling metropolis of 60,000 souls. Here he is posing with a statue dedicated to the local lobster fishery:

Despite being a small town in the middle of Maine (yet also the state's largest 'city'), Portland punches above its weight in three categories: food, coffee shops, and book stores. So there are some pleasant things to do during a weekend, and one can indeed eat extremely well.

Among the other attractions:

Jumping into the freezing Casco Bay (NOT done by us).

Then there's the art:

The shopping:

Old time-y railroads (this one's for you, Le Duc)

The renowned International Museum of Cryptozoology:

And you can even 'cross the Styxx,' a nightclub of exceptional style.

Yes, a good time was had by all.

Now for something completely different

Because I can't write my dissertation ALL the time.

What a difference a year makes

Just back from the nation's capital, where I was attending an academic conference. It was almost exactly a year ago that I was last there, to attend Obama's inauguration (see here and here). At that time I wrote

Today I watched the country inaugurate Barack Hussein Obama as our 44th president. After the extended campaign, the election hoopla, and the vigorous transition period, in some ways the event felt more like an end than a beginning. People who support Obama have made him the favored vessel of our hopes and promises for almost two years. But now we are going to have to leave the gratifying, at times self-righteous world of ideas and rhetoric and get down to the messy business of policymaking. It won't be fun over the next 4-8 years to put our ideals through the sausage-grinder of politics.

I thought it would be ugly, but at least I thought the sausage would get made. Now I'm increasingly of the view that this last year has witnessed what will be remembered in history as a breakdown in American politics. As you've no doubt read elsewhere, this is not only my view. But in DC I found it striking how this conventional wisdom has solidified so quickly.

The election of Obama has provoked the reactionary elements of the political spectrum into fervent opposition. At the same time, a sharp economic recession has undermined faith in government and the market alike. The result is an example of what has been called the paranoid style in American politics, a populist, reactionary movement that hates the government, but also hates the problems government is needed to solve. Catch 22. A few months ago I thought we would have real progress on health care, financial reform, and climate change this year. Now I'd be overjoyed to have moderate progress on just one of these.

The Republicans have tried to ride this sentiment by obstructing every initiative the Administration takes, regardless of its merits. The collegiality that made the Senate a functional deliberating body has been lost to partisanship, which means, with a 60-40 split, that every Senator has come to have a de facto veto over legislation. The situation might be better if the Democrats had a more competent leader than Harry Reid, but I doubt any individual could make a huge difference in what I see now as a broken legislative house. You know things are bad when a senior government official tells you she thinks a constitutional amendment is needed.

The United States is verging on the un-governable. If the economy recovers and the Administration learns how to stand up to the obstructionist minority party, I think we can still walk back from the brink. But if the November elections lead to a divided government--a strong possibility without a sharp drop in unemployment--then all the optimism and hope we were swimming in just a year ago is going to look like a sad, sad delusion.