Year: 2005

LaTeX update

Thanks to all who offered LaTeX suggestions and alternatives. After downloading trial or demo versions of ScientificWord, MikTex with WinEdt, and MathType, I think I’m going to go with MathType and MSOffice.

Though I desperately want to be accepted by the cool methods crowd, I just can’t envision dedicating all that time to learn LaTeX. Yes, you send a powerful signal when all your papers are in LaTeX–“I am super stats person,” but it’s at the expense of hours of learning new code. And, I figure as a comparativist who does both quantitative (numbers) and qualitative (interviews, digging through archives) research, being completely fluent in Spanish, a beginner at Portuguese, and applying (frequentist) statistical methods to answer my research questions (no, I’ll never be a Bayesian, but at least I can admit that) should be enough.

[ASIDE in stage whisper: This last point is something I’ve thought about for a while. That is, it sure is much easier for Americanists in political science to become methodologists because they don’t have to become fluent in a foreign language and spend all that time moving back and forth between countries. (When I say methodologist, I mean those that develop or refine new or existing methods, rather than just using the existing toolbox.) They can stay in their offices and work. And sure, their foreign language is math. But, then is it really fair for them to look down their noses at comparativists who only do “applied” work?

Now, of course, not all methodologists only study American politics, nor do they all look down upon “applied” comparativists, and some probably do speak foreign languages or travel. Some also applaud our efforts to learn and apply statistical methods. But, there is always this undercurrent of disdain for the applied quantitative researchers, who try as they might, just can’t seem to estimate their models properly. My question for them, could they chat up a Mexican politician or bureaucrat in Spanish fluent enough to elicit and understand the subtext of the interview?]

Of course, I could “pose” as a methodologist if I want my department to shell out $550 in Tech Fee funds for ScientificWord. While it may seem like academic acceptance is cheap at that price, the time costs were still too high to search for and find and adapt good templates for what I want to do. It also seems that the TeX documents created by ScientificWord have a lot of unnecessary or non-functioning code, which can run amuck later if you start compiling with another shell. It would be a little like using FrontPage to design your website; you end up with lots of unnecessary code that eventually can muck up the whole effort.

I tried out the MathType demo, and it works really well with Word and PowerPoint. It also has lots of built in equations that I will need for my class slides. The key will be creating a keyboard short-cut in all my Office applications to open the add-in quickly. Then, I need to sort out some short-cuts for inserting certain symbols within MathType. I’m pretty good at customizing Office and using the keyboard short-cuts (using a mouse is so 1990s), so I think it will be a nice fit.

So, thanks, anonymous, for your suggestion, though I think I know who you are.

Small miracles

I have officially finished the syllabi for both of my classes! Yay! I’m teaching graduate research-design-baby-stats (for the 3rd time and will do so indefinitely) and graduate IPE. IPE is my 7th new prep at Tech in 3 years. (I did one new prep as a Fulbrighter, too, but I’m not counting that. I’m actually starting my fourth year at Tech, if you can believe that.)

For IPE, I have uploaded the syllabus and all e-readings to our WebCT equivalent. For stats, I have uploaded the syllabus, all the homework assignments, all the data files for the homeworks, and all the instruction sheets for each of the four parts of their research projects. (I find uploading the homeworks ahead of time forces me to stay on schedule.) Whew.

I’ve also submitted all the book reserve requests to the library, not that students ever step foot in the library these days. Why…back when I was a student…we had to trudge over to the library…and then to the photocopy place….(you get the idea)

What a relief to be done with that chore. Now, I just need to finish unpacking and organizing my research materials.

Why am I so ahead of schedule? Because the week before classes, I will spend moving furniture from storage pods to our new (rental) home.

The Mexican folk art market

Like most markets in Mexico, the government has had a hand in the folk art market for many years, providing subsidies to poor artisans who produce for national stores run by the government. The Social Development Ministry is revising the subsidy scheme, but how the changes will affect the income of artisans is not very clear.

You can view a catalogue online, but there are no online ordering or pricing information. I’ve been in these stores, and the art is nice, but more expensive than the pieces found in the private market. I wonder, now, how the salaries of government subsidized artisans compare to non-subsidized artisans.

The article also mentions that Chinese-made imitation artesania is being found in the private Mexican folk art market. Apparently, the Chinese have found a way to imitate Mexican designs and export their products to Mexico. Interesting, no?

Brian and I have several items of Mexican folk art, some of which we bought in Mexico City markets and others in regional markets. Only this last year, when we had a car in Mexico, were we able to go to the source. In Oaxaca, for instance, we visited one (San Martín Tilcajete) of the two towns that produces all of the painted wood animal art in Mexico.

These aren’t the pieces we bought, but here’s an example from the FONART site:

The amazing, but unsurprising, thing about this small town was that every family seemed to produce the little wooden figures. All the houses have signs on the outside inviting visitors to knock, and then you tour their little studios. We stopped at one of the first houses, and asked where we should visit next. The man of the house suggested we go to the back of town, along the dirt streets, and that there were more houses there. We visited one man who said that he made more money selling to the wholesalers, but that he liked to have visitors so he could see people’s reactions to his creations. Unfortunately, he said, most visitors didn’t make it to the back of town.

[Essentially, to visit without a car requires taking a bus from Oaxaca City and getting off at the entrance to the town. Then, you walk a kilometer to get to the town proper, and by then, most tourists don’t want to wander around another square kilometer of town to visit all the houses. They stop at one or two stores along the main street and then hike back to the highway to catch a bus. When we visited, we made our way back out to the main street and stopped at one of the more “finished” shops. There we met a mother and daughter visiting from L.A. who asked for a ride back to the highway. We ended up offering them a ride all the way back to the City.]

Brian and I decided to buy one small piece from each family we visited in an effort to spread the wealth. Each family had a different style, too, which is not really apparent when you look at a store filled with all the figures in the D.F. One thing we noticed, however, was that the prices were higher and the quality poorer in the town. We attributed the prices to my unwillingness to bargain with someone over their art (it seemed unseemly) and the quality to the likelihood that the wholesalers buy all the “good” pieces.

In any event, so you get an idea of the types of towns that produce folk art in Oaxaca, take a look at these pictures.

That’s our car, complete with Texas plates.

That’s the town’s Church.

The town had less than five paved streets, and the rest were dirt. The houses were made of cement block, usually unpainted.

Global solidarity

Sections of the national mining union in Mexico will stop work on August 12 in support of their companeros who work at a mine in Tuscon, AZ. The mines appear to be owned by the same corporation, which has posted decent profits since the beginning of this year.

Globalization scholars, make what you will of the announcement.

Mexico now leader in kidnappings

Mexico is now apparently in first place for kidnappings worldwide. This year, it has already outpaced Brazil and Colombia.

I wonder, though, how these countries compare in terms of reporting of crimes. Many, many crimes, including kidnappings, do not get reported in Mexico. On the other hand, the government has had a public campaign aimed at increasing crime reporting, specifically for kidnapping. So, could the “increase” really be due to better data? I’m not sure anyone will ever know. Even if you compared police reported numbers to survey numbers, there would be so much noise in both sets of data, that I’m not sure you could ever really figure out an really accurate kidnapping rate.

In any event, Mexico now has the dubious distinction of being #1.

And to think, I never even thought about buying kidnapping insurance while in Mexico!

Politics or football?

Politics. Football. At least the leaders of the PAN know their constituency. They have elected to have the national debate among the candidates for their party’s nomination for president on either the 6th or the 8th of September. The 7th was ruled out because the Mexican national team will be playing Panama for the World Cup series.

This brought back memories

Those were the days. Now imagine you are driving and not just sitting in a taxi.

More drug violence in Mexico

This time not just along the border. Another police official was gunned down with an AK-47 (a.k.a. cuerno de chivo) outside a restaurant in Acapulco in the company of 5 friends. In border states, another four were killed.

Meanwhile, back in the Capital, opposition legislators criticized the government’s characterization as “exagerated” the closing of the U.S. consulate in N.L. They admit the country is sufferng from “narcoviolencia”.

The leftist press points out that new security measures have not been as effective as the government would claim.

Avoid mugging, the remix

Alex at Marginal Revolution has a short list of tips to avoid being mugged while in Lima. I like the coke bottle idea, but I always preferred to carry a styrofoam cup of extra hot coffee while in Mexico City.

I also second the idea of choosing who you ask for directions (for safety reasons), and in my experience you must ask at least 3 people and triangulate among the responses. Mexicans, at least, hate to appear unhelpful and will often give you directions when they have no idea where you want to go. After 2 or 3 experiences of this, you learn to double and triple check directions before you walk 10 blocks out of the way.

His tips are much easier to remember than the long list I offered for those traveling to the D.F.

All consuming

For a while, I have been looking for an easy way to keep track of the books and movies that I read and see, and maybe even have a feed to the blog. Tonight, Brian found it for me.

Note the short list (with pictures!) in the sidebar. All very easy to do.

LaTeX woes

I’m no computer dummy. Maybe I know just enough to be dangerous. In either case, the online documentation for LaTex (and related editors, interfaces, etc.) is maddeningly obfuscatory.

Since I have realized that I will be teaching the intro stats course for our master’s students indefinitely, I have become convinced that it would help both them and me if my notes were electronic and online. A very nice colleague at the Methods meeting convinced me that LaTex was the way to go in the long-term (and shared some useful .tex files), but in the short-term, it’s very frustrating. I suspect that I only want to use about 10% (or less) of LaTeX’s functionality.

Why can’t smart people write clear user’s guides? Can anyone suggest an easy to use tutorial site?

Update: Lovely, just lovely.

Update2: It’s becoming less murky.

Women in political science appear to be hitting a glass ceiling

Or, at least that’s one of the conclusions that could be made from the NSF-sponsored, APSA research report on women in the discipline. Women are more likely to be hired as part-time or adjunct faculty, and less likely to be steadily promoted. The full report is online.

The report suggests that four forces shape the role of women in political science:

(quoting and paraphrasing from pg. 12)
1. A leaking pipeline (women leave)
2. A dual burden of tenure track and family (not enough support for family)
3. The institutional climate (women don’t understand the unspoken rules of male political science/academic culture)
4. The culture of research (too much lone wolf research and an undervaluing of feminist political science research)

And contrary to what one Inside Higher Ed reader suggests, the report offers no evidence that “Maybe women are simply happier in non Tenure Track jobs?”. I hope he’s not a political scientist. BTW, men are part of families, too, and maybe they should get leave to participate in their families’ lives?

Consular offices in N.L. still closed

According to this report, the U.S. will only re-open its consulate in Nuevo Laredo when it is clear that violence in the city is under control. According to the article

En Nuevo Laredo, hasta el pasado 21 de julio habían ocurrido 101 homicidios violentos, superando los registros de 2004, cuando hubo 64 personas asesinadas. En todo el estado de Tamaulipas el número de ejecuciones en 2005 llega ya a 211 víctimas.

This means that murders in N.L. as of July 2005 were nearly double the total for all of 2004.

Officials of the Mexican government called the closing of the consulate an exaggeration.

The PRI and TUCOM

This is an overdue post. Although TUCOM brings to mind images of talking birds hawking breakfast cereal, it really stands for Todos Unidos Contra Madrazo and its a political craze sweeping the nation. Well, maybe not exactly, but close.

Madrazo is the President of the PRI and will be one of the leading contenders for the PRI nomination for President in 2006. TUCOM (All United against Madrazo) is an alliance of other would-be PRI candidates who have banded together to stop Madrazo from becoming the PRI’s next candidate. They either believe that Madrazo would be bad for the PRI in general, or that one of them is more likely to be a successful candidate in 2006. The five members of Tucom are: Enrique Jackson, Arturo Montiel, Tomás Yarrington, Enrique Martínez y Manuel Angel Núñez Soto.

This alliance has been around for a month now, but actual activities or agreements have been few because of such great uncertainty within the party. Initially, the members of the alliance agreed not to attack one another and instead focus their energies on defeating Madrazo. So here’s the news round-up of Tucom activities over the last month or so:

July 14: Tucom announces that it will confer with Gordillo before announcing who will run against Madrazo for the PRI nomination. Gordillo is the 2nd in command at the PRI and will become President of the PRI when Madrazo steps down to run for the presidential nomination. She’s a polarizing figure in her own right, as leader of the teacher’s union.

One of the key movers behind the Tucom alliance is Genero Borego, who was director of the Social Security Institute when pensions were privatized in 1995 and was once a presidential candidate hopeful himself. He says that a PRI win is not guaranteed even with Gordillo’s support (read: Gordillo can’t bring the teacher vote like she once could). [Note: Gordillo and Madrazo are fairly bitter political enemies. Come to think of it, Gordillo is enemies with many other powerful men as well.]

Two articles about the divisions within the PRI in mid-July.

July 16: A new political party, Nueva Alianza, celebrates its formal registration. Though the party is associated with the teachers’ union led by Gordillo, she stands up everybody at the formal announcement of the party.

July 27: Stress begins to appear within the Tucom alliance. According to the article, surveys don’t indicate a clear winner among the Tucom candidates, and the alliance is considering putting forward two of the five to face off with Madrazo.

“Existe preocupación entre las empresas encuestadoras -seleccionadas por Unidad Democrática para elegir al candidato que contenderá en contra de Madrazo- para ubicar a los mil 400 notables que conforman una cuarta parte del ejercicio de auscultación planteado, porque buena parte de ellos están de vacaciones, y en el mejor de los casos podrán ubicar a 35 o 40 por ciento de ellos, lo que impide dar plena legitimidad a este proceso dentro de Unidad Democrática”, revelaron fuentes de dicha agrupación de priístas que integran los gobernadores Arturo Montiel, del estado de México, y Enrique Martínez, de Coahuila; los ex mandatarios estatales Tomás Yarrington, de Tamaulipas, y Manuel Angel Núñez Soto, de Hidalgo, así como el senador Enrique Jackson.

A esta problemática operativa se suma la lucha que por esta candidatura protagonizan Montiel y Jackson, lo que hace pensar a los propios integrantes de Unidad Democrática que pudiera llegar a registrarse más de uno de ellos para enfrentar a Madrazo en la selección interna del tricolor, lo que implicaría, además, romper el acuerdo original de consensuar una sola propuesta en este grupo antagónico al dirigente nacional del PRI.

July 31: Unconfirmed reports suggest that Gordillo met with members of Tucom to discuss strategies.

The story was accompanied by this unflattering depiction of La Maestra (the Teacher), as she is commonly called.

Original context

August 1: Tucom has agreed to suspend television ads until they agree on their candidate to face Madrazo.

In any event, it will be interesting to watch the Tucom movement unfold. It’s like having a mini-election before the election of the PRI nominee. The actual nomination process is only open to PRI members, since as one interviewee told me, they would otherwise risk sabotage by individuals voting for the worst candidate. [Paranoid much?] We’ll see if it actually gives any more legitimacy to the Tucom candidate and whether it will convince Madrazo supporters within the PRI to back down and not impose Madrazo as the party’s nominee.

To be continued….

My HP alter ego is…

Is anyone really surprised?

“You scored as Hermione Granger. You’re one intelligent witch, but you have a hard time believing it and require constant reassurance. You are a very supportive friend who would do anything and everything to help her friends out.”

“Hermione Granger 100%”

Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is…? created with QuizFarm.com

If you have an auction, they will come and bid

The First Lady donated about US$30K in clothing to a charity for auction. Unfortunately, the auction was suspended because of too litle interest. The charity is the real loser here.

Before it ended, one nurse got a bargain: three dresses and a Hugo Boss jacket for under US$300.

A picture of the turnout:

Mexicans prefer bribes to obeying the law

According to a study mentioned in a short news article, Mexicans prefer to “arreglar” or fix things rather than follow the law. Thirty-nine percent prefer extra-legal resolutions to problems.

This attitude is rational. When you can pay a US$5 bribe in 5 minutes with no chance of penalties for the bribe to avoid paying a $25 fine that will take 4 hours, you choose the bribe. Indeed, the best advice to get out of paying a bribe for a traffic violation is often to demand to go pay the fine. The argument is that the officer will not want to lose valuable bribe-time by waiting around the station for you to pay. It’s a perfect example of poor institutional design leading individuals to find work-arounds. Explaining how such poor institutions lead to economic inefficiency and underdevelopment is, in part, how Douglass North earned a Nobel prize. And it makes sense.

Troubling, but not surprising, is the attitude Mexicans have about politicians.

38% agreed with the statement, “Un político pobre es un pobre político” [A politician’s that’s poor is a poor politician].

24% believed that honesty was the key to success in politics, compared to 43% who believed politicians had to be corrupt or very corrupt to succeed.

Such little trust in politicians and government is bound to have all sorts of negative effects on long-term democracy.

It costs a lot to look this good, or does it?

In many ways, Mexican politics can be just as mundane as politics in the U.S. Remember the controvery over Clinton’s furniture? And then I seem to recall people getting riled up about how much the First Lady spent on a haircut.

In the last few weeks, the amount spent by Fox’s First Lady on gowns has been a topic of debate in the press. The President gets an annual budget for galas, clothing, and related expenses (budget line item 3825). Over the last several years, it has increased, reaching $955,000 pesos (US$87,000) in 2003.

I’m thinking that $87K isn’t really that much for a First Lady, especially when a pair of Nine West shoes that cost $65 in the U.S. cost $125 in Mexico.

Since the First Lady is such a well-dressed woman, critics have claimed that the First Lady has spent much more than her allowance on clothing, and they want to know where the money is coming from. The Congress has decided to elminate or reduce her allowance, and one legislator said “Versace will miss her.”

Martha’s response to all of this attention? “I buy my clothes with money my husband gives me.” This, of course, is the only appropriate explanation a Mexican woman could give for her spending habits, even if she was a successful woman before her marriage.

This isn’t the first time the Foxes have been criticized for their spending. Shortly after taking office, legislators criticized how much they spent on bath towels for the Mexican equivalent of the White House. Maybe this is the greatest accomplishment of Mexican democracy. The opposition can demand transparency in Los Pinos expenditures on things like towels, gowns, and dress shoes.

Of course, in a country with wide disparities in wealth and crushing poverty in the countryside, it does seem in bad taste to spend so lavishly.

Recently, the Martha Sahagun donated about US$30K of her cast-offs to a charity for children with cancer.

Absentee voting for Mexicans

For those that follow Mexican politics closely, this will be stale news. Last month, President Fox signed into law a bill that will legalize absentee voting for Mexicans abroad via the postal service. The bill was hotly debated by all of the political parties and the postal service claimed it would not be able to handle the millions of ballots arriving from the U.S. About 98% of Mexicans living abroad live in the United States. It is estimated that half of the 4 million Mexicans living illegally AND legally in the United States will cast ballots in the Presidential election last year. In 2000, Mexicans had to travel back to their home district to cast ballots, and I have at least one friend who travelled from Austin to the D.F. to do so.

While some are concerned about keeping the vote free and fair while using the post, the PAN has been busy opening party offices in U.S. cities.

The implications are interesting. In markets with large populations of Mexican nationals, will parties run campaign ads? Eventually (e.g., 2012), will Mexican candidates make campaign stops in Chicago? How could Mexican officials possibly monitor such campaign spending?

U.S. closes consulate in Nuevo Laredo

According to this story, the U.S. Dept of State has closed its Nuevo Laredo offices for the coming week in response to increased violence in the border town. The most recent shoot-out invloved bazookas and other big guns.

I’ve posted links to and summaries of news about border violence before.

Recent violence only reiterates a sentiment expressed by a police officer in Laredo, north of the border. In August, about 100 feet north of the bridge, either the local or state police had a roadblock checking drivers’ licenses, etc. We asked the officer if he knew where we went on the other side to process our immigration paperwork.

His response: “Oh, I don’t go over there. They kill for free over there.”

He was right.