Opening day for baseball….
The Yanks are hosting the Red Sox, and Jeter had base hits the first two times up at bat (a single and then a double). I think it’s going to be a good season.
On the other hand, I don’t need more distractions.
Author: michelle
Researchers strike back against the dark Empress of the Latinobarometer…
At my CIDE email, I received a letter being circulated by Mitch Seligson. He is spearheading a much-needed effort to break Marta Lagos’ monopoly on public opinion surveys in Latin America. Ms. Lagos has been director of the Latinobarometer for nearly a decade.
The Latinobarometer gets funding from various international agencies to carry out public opinion research throughout Latin America, but as the letter drafted by Mitch mentions, there are several problems with the management of the Latinobarometer. For instance, all data is embargoed for four years and then reseachers must pay by country, by year, and by variable for the data. It is very expensive. Then, the documentation for the data is poor, and it is also likely that the sampling methods and survey designs are not of good scientific quality.
Despite the problems with the data, the results of Ms. Lagos’ annual reports continue to be quoted at length in highly respected news outlets. Essentially, due to the embargoes and Ms. Lagos’ control of the surveys, she is often the only one able to present results from the data. These results are usually just descriptive statistics. It is really a shame that so many resources are squandered on poorly executed public opinion polls.
Luckily, Mitch Seligson and others are going to strike back. Send letters to the head of USAID, the World Bank, and others that fund the Latinobarometro. Hopefully get a change in management or the creation of a better, more democratic, more academic organization to coordinate and disseminate the data from public opinion polls in Latin America.
NPR’s This I Believe
Starting this week, Morning Edition and ATC will be running a series of essays by a variety of listeners regarding faith and their beliefs.
The series is based on a radio series by Edward Morrow in the 1950s. The NPR site has several of the essays and original broadcasts posted online.
They have some nice tidbits. Like this excerpt from an essay by a 16 year-old girl in 1954:
Since revenge and retaliation seem to have been accepted by nations today, I sometimes have difficulty reconciling my moral convictions with the tangled world being handed down to us by the adults. Apparently what I must do to make life more endurable is to follow my principles, with the hope that enough of this feeling will rub off on my associates to being a chain reaction.
Another gem comes from baseball legend Jackie Robinson:
I do not believe that every person, in every walk of life, can succeed in spite of any handicap. That would be perfection. But I do believe-and with every fiber in me-that what I was able to attain came to be because we put behind us (no matter how slowly) the dogmas of the past: to discover the truth of today; and perhaps find the greatness of tomorrow.
I believe in the human race. I believe in the warm heart. I believe in man’s integrity. I believe in the goodness of a free society. And I believe that the society can remain good only as long as we are willing to fight for it-and to fight against whatever imperfections may exist.
I can’t imagine many baseball players today expressing such thoughtful sentiments.
There’s also an essay by President Truman:
I believe a public man must know the history and background of his state and his nation to enable him to come more nearly to a proper decision in the public interest. In my opinion, a man in public life must think always of the public welfare. He must be careful not to mix his private and personal interests with his public actions.
The ethics of a public man must be unimpeachable. He must learn to reject unwise or imprudent requests from friends and associates without losing their friendship or loyalty.
I especially like these suggestions, though I’m not optimistic that many of our current leaders live by them.
The next political battle after the desafuero
The voted Friday 3-1 in the congressional committee to proceed with a full vote in the Chamber of Deputies on whether to remove Lopez Obrador’s immunity from prosecution for an alleged minor violation of a court order by someone under him. (It’s never been demonstrated that he knew that construction continued at the site, and some claim that the original court order was ambiguous regarding the construction restrictions.) A full vote will happen this week, and it is expected that they will support the desafuero.
But…another battle will begin shortly. As with so many laws in Mexico (e.g., the one regarding window tint on cars….which does not indicate whether it applies only to cars registered in the city or all cars in the city, but I digress), the rules regarding appointing a new mayor of Mexico City are vague and/or contradictory.
I can’t link to the original Reforma story here, because everything is subscriber only. But, according to something I read there on Friday, the rules indicate that if the mayor resigns or is unable to complete his term, the general assembly of the city will appoint the replacement. This would leave the decision in the hands of the Mayor’s party, the PRD.
But, another article says that if the mayor is “removed” from office, then the Senate of the national government will select the replacement. The Senate is dominated by the PRI.
Distribution of seats in the Senate
Image hijacked from www.senado.gob.mx
PRD leaders have already declared the the General Assembly of the DF plans to appoint AMLO’s replacement and will fight any interference from the federal government.
It will be interesting to see if the PRI lets the PRD appoint AMLO’s replacement.
Dark Chocolate found…
Today I found a reliable source for my Dark Chocolate needs. My friend and I had lunch in the food court of the Centro Comercial Santa Fe, complete with its own golf range. Yes, it is as mamón, fresa, and annoying as it sounds. But, I wanted a nice salad for lunch, and it’s the closest option. I had a Starbucks while we were there, too. There, I admit it.
Anyway, my friend, who knows where to find all the good stuff, took me to the Palacio de Hierro for chocolate. This is the place whose ad campaign is “I’m so Palacio” with billboards of women saying things like:
The problem isn’t that it fits well or not, but that they’ve already seen it.
or
No man knows the correct answer to: Do you love me? How do I look?
Other choice slogans chronicled on this site:
1997: Because a psychoanalyst will never understand the curative power of a new dress.
1998: There are two things a woman cannot avoid, crying and buying shoes.
1999: Luckily we are the Weak Sex, the good thing is that he carries our purchases.
2000: I know how I look. If I ask, it’s to know how much you like me.
2001: Women love more than men, and so we shop more.
2002: If I tell you that nothing’s wrong, or there’s no problem, don’t believe me.
Here’s a more recent image:
I am not so Palacio, but at least I know where to get my chocolate.
Lopez Obrador desafuero-ed
Well, the congressional committee has voted to remove AMLO’s immunity from prosecution, and the issue will pass to a full vote in the Chamber of Deputies (supposedly within 24 hours).
Thousands are expected to gather in protest at the Zocalo (main plaza) and protests are occuring in states throughout the country.
My nice middle-class neighborhood is quiet (except for the hound that howls day and night).
In other news….the new minutemen
The NYTimes reports on a group of volunteers who will begin patrolling the Arizona border to catch illegals coming in from Mexico. This isn’t a humanitarian effort to make sure they don’t die in the heat of the desert, but a mission to stop the follow of illegal immigrants into southern Arizona. That’s real likely.
Some are carrying guns. Great. That helps.
NPR also ran a story on this group, and you can listen to it here.
No April Fool’s joke…a sad day for Mexican democracy
According to this story in La Jornada, they will soon be voting in favor of the desafuero, stripping Mexico City Mayor AMLO of his immunity from prosecution. The decision is up to 4 legislators, 1 PAN, 2 PRI and 1 PRD. The PRD vote will be no. The PRI deputies have indicated that they will vote in favor of the desafuero. All they need is a simple majority.
When the measure passes to the full Chamber of Deputies, all 149 PAN deputies will vote in a block in favor of the desafuero (that’s what party discipline and a closed PR list will buy you), and 153 (of 224) of the PRI deputies will vote in favor. That’s more than half of the 500 seats.
I think a representative of the Peasant’s Confederation (CNC) and president of the Movimiento Territorial, Carlos Flores Rico, said it best when he said: “Vamos a cometer una pendejada.”
In the face of all this, AMLO is calm. Money is being raised for his defense (a la Whitewater). And barricades and extra security are being installed around Los Pinos (the White House) and the offices of the Secretary of State.
Public Brewery
Was browsing the Public Brewery, hosted by Paul Brewer, professor, former classmate, funny guy, and now blogger. He has lots of nice posts about polls on all sorts of things, like social security, the use of DDT, and issues in the 2004 elections.
Of course, I’m partial to the more irrelevant references, like this one about William Shattner and the 2005 Presidential March Madness. I’m quite surprised that Condi beat out Powell and Elizabeth to get to the Elite Eight, but then I’m not a Republican and I don’t study American politics, so what do I know?
Ahhh….Dark Chocolate
Drezner has this post about Dark Chocolate (and yes, it should always be capitalized).
If only this trend would make it down to Mexico, the birthplace of chocolate. Domestic chocolate has even more milk and sugar than regular Hershey’s. Dark Chocolate cannot be found anywhere, not even imported versions. They import Swiss milk chocolate, but not one bar of Dark Chocolate. I even tried the local candy store in my neighborhood (pictured below, picture compliments of Brian).
It’s a sad day when the birthplace of chocolate, Mexico, can’t produce a decent bar of chocolate. [Note: several other places claim to be the birthplace of chocolate.]
Master of the slow burn…the Mexican Bureaucracy
I could spit bullets.
It all began last summer, when the Fulbright program began processing my immigration paperwork. First, Migration sent my visa authorization to consulate in El Paso, instead of Austin. And of course, consulates cannot transfer paperwork, it has to go back to Mexico City.
So we wait, in Austin. A week. Ten days. Finally, the Fulbright office says come across the border and just get a tourist permit (good for 6 mos.) and we’ll change it once you’re here. By then, I had missed the first week of class.
First week in September: I submit my visa paperwork again.
Eight months later: I still do not have my visa.
Since Migration has already taken away my tourist visa in order to process my new visa, I have no migration paper work. To leave the country next week, I have to file a request with immigration and pay $20.
The Fulbright officer tells me this is no problem. You do it at the airport, the day of your flight. Or, you go to the main Migration offices where it takes 48 hours. The same day sounds better, but just to be certain, I decide to call the Migration office at the airport.
As soon as I receive this information today at 1pm, I look the number up on the internet to call airport Migration. The helpful page has 9 numbers listed, all of which are disconnected.
So I look up the number for airport information. They give me the number for Migration.
I call.
A young woman (and damnit, I didn’t get her name) insists that they no longer process permits to leave and return at the airport. Only permits to leave for good, wherre you turn in all your visa paperwork. She is quite clear about this. She says I must process the request with the Migration office in Polanco (the other side of town).
I ask: Is this a new policy? Yes. Since when? A long time. When? January.
Fine.
I look up the number for the Polanco Office. I call. A woman there tells me that I have two options. I can go to Polanco where the process takes 48 hours. Or….. I can go to the airport. Hmmmm…. I explain that someone at the airport just told me that they no longer process the permits to leave and return. Just to leave for good. This is a new policy since January. This woman asks me to wait. She leaves. She comes back. She says the other person must have been mistaken.
Fine.
I call the same number that I called earlier for the airport Migration office. A man answers. I explain my situation and what I need. How do I get a permit to leave and return?
He says, you come here with a copy of your visa application, your passport, and flight coupon and $20 and we process the permit. Do I need to bring copies of the passport and flight coupon or just the originals? Just the originals. How long does this take? A couple of hours, but it’s always best to come sooner rather than later. During what hours does the office process the requests? Between 9am and 6pm.
Then, I ask him: Why did a young woman tell me just 30 mintues ago that your office no longer processes permits to leave and return? She was quite clear that you only process permits to leave for good. Really? Hold on, maybe our policy has changed.
He transfers me to another young woman. I ask her: Do you process permits to leave and return? Yes. What do I need to bring? a copy of your visa application, your passport, and flight coupon and $20. Do I need to bring copies of my passport and airline ticket? No. How long does it take? Not long. When can I come? Between 9am and 6pm.
Fine. I decide that I should do this today, just to be sure there are no snafoos.
I go print my copy of my visa application with all the government stamps, etc. and drive across town to the airport.
I find the tiny office hidden in the bowels of the airport where 3 sunburned Argentines are getting their tourist permits extended. Three young women are in the next room doing apparently nothing except chatting and twirling their hair around their fingers. It’s everything you imagine a backwater immigration office to be. I wait.
The nice guy looks at my paperwork, has me fill out two forms with carbon paper between to make extra copies, and then starts to tell me that I need to make copies of my passport and plane ticket, go pay the money and come back. I say, no. I was told I did not need to make photocopies. Raquel specifically told me that I did not need to make copies. Ok, he says, I’ll make the copies.
Then he sends me off to the bank. He says we’re almost done and by the time I get back, my permission will be ready. It is now 3:20. He says I can go to any bank in the airport to pay the $20 to the government’s checking account. Every bank but one has a line of 50 people with only 2 tellers working. I go to the bank with no line, which also happens to be the bank that once charged me $2 to pay my water bill even though the bill clearly says that I can pay at that bank without paying a commission. They don’t accept these deposits.
I go back to one of the other banks and wait in line for 30 minutes. I deposit the $20 and go back to the Migration office.
Of course, the nice guy is gone and has been replaced by someone with a really ugly eyebrow piercing (those are my pet peeve). I smile, and hand him all my paperwork and my receipt for the deposit. He says, ok, I’ll see you tomorrow.
What?? Yes, he says, the paperwork takes 24 hours. In Polanco it takes 48. I ask, then why have several people told me that it would only take a few hours? He doesn’t know. He claims he’s the only one that processes these types of requests and it always takes 24 hours. He has to call Polanco to make sure I’m not trying to escape the country. [more about this in a minute]
Ok. Well, can I wait until before my flight on Wednesday to pick it up? Yes. You only process this paperwork 9am-6pm, even though the office opens at 7am. Can I come at 7am to get my permit? Yes, but really the office opens sometime between 7 and 7:30am. But I can pick up my permit then? Yes, assuming it is approved when I call Polanco. Well, can I call first to find out if it has been approved? Why certainly, after 6pm tomorrow. Ask for me.
The irony is that if I got in the car and drove for Texas, I would have none of these problems. They would not check for my tourist permit at the border. They would not stamp my passport. In August, when we came to Mexico, they did not stamp our passports. At Christmas, we drove back to Texas, they did not stamp our passports or ask for our tourist cards back. When we drove back in January, they did not stamp our passports again. According to our passports, we were never in Mexico last fall. And now, they want to micromanage my departure for a five day trip and make sure that I don’t owe any immigration fines? How ridulous.
Ok. So this is really too long for a blog post, but I just had to put it out there.
I still don’t know if I should waste 2 hours and another $5 parking (not to mention the stress of driving in the City) to go back and get my permit before Wednesday.
Intersting U.S. social security projections
As one who studies pensions in Latin America, I feel a special need to express my opposition to Bush’s privatization plan, as I’ve said before.
Here’s a nice post from People Get Ready that puts the social security ‘crisis’ in perspective. I don’t need to add much. The graph says it all.
Geez…would they just get on with the desafuero already
Today, the Chamber of Deputies was supposed to vote on the desafuero of Mexico City Mayor AMLO. You see, he (or someone under him) ignored a court order to stop building a road (quite near my host university, as a matter of fact) on an expropriated piece of land. The road was a short cut to a private hospital.
(I recognized the road on the way to VIPS for lunch, a Wal-Mart owned Denny’s-like chain; you can’t avoid Wal-Mart in Mexico. I only recognized the road because last fall, I saw a news program where they were interviewing a gardener about how fast the grass would grow on that slope, as a means of estimating when construction on the road stopped. I have a picture. I’ll post it sometime.)
So now, the powers that be in the national government (the PAN and PRI parties) want to desafuero AMLO, or remove his immunity from prosecution as a public official.
Why would they want to do this? Because AMLO leads the polls as the most popular candidate from any political party for the Presidency in 2006. Oh, and he’s a lefty. So the PAN and PRI have banded together (no wait, they denied any collusion) to desafuero AMLO and effectively make him ineligible to run for President.
So today was supposed to be one of the first votes. And it has been delayed until Friday. [read: they need more time to negotiate some back-door deals]
All this, while the markets are getting nervous. I’m not really sure just why the markets are nervous. Sure, 80% of Mexico City residents are against the desafuero, and in a country where bumper stickers are rare, people have attached homemade signs to their cars against the desafuero. (And since they have enough money to have a car, they are at least middle class.)
The markets shouldn’t be nervous because AMLO is doing nothing to mobilize the millions of people who support him. It’s quite astonishing really. He could be making speeches and urging his supporters to storm Congress, but instead he is calm and resigned.
Even more ridiculous is the claim that the attorney general’s office is keeping an eye on AMLO to make sure that he doesn’t flee prosecution. AMLO has said he’ll run for President from jail; why do they need to watch him? It’s all hype.
And AMLO’s the only one coming out looking good in all this. He’ll let himself be martyred to prove his point: the PAN and PRI are intent on keeping power, through legal schenanigans if necessary. I don’t understand how the PAN and the PRI can miss it. It seems so obvious, and I’m not even Mexican.
Rosie’s blog
Very strange. With links to Rosie’s site.
Even funnier. Plaigarism blog a hoax.
Still funny, maybe even funnier. Laura K. Krisher drama a hoax, according to this post.
Hee hee hee. All that righteous indignation on both sides of the issue. Still an important lesson for undergrads, though. How do *you* know if that site selling term papers isn’t run by a bunch of profs? I regularly google text from shady papers, and with google scholar, that’s easier than ever.
Students regularly underestimate their profs. I’ve been able to spot plagiarized work in a stack of 150+ papers, even just skimming them. Even more interesting was the case where I announced in class that the students that had turned in identical work would be submitted to the honor board, and a pair of *different* students came forward. They received clemency and a zero on the assignment. (Usually, honor board penalties are a zero on the assignment and a one-letter grade reduction in the final course grade.) Then there’s the kid that emailed me his ‘paper’ which was all goobledlygook. Of course, a young female professor would never be smart enough to figure out that it was really homemade goobledlygook. I would never know that documents can be opened in a text editor. It was even more obvious when there was no complaint that I hadn’t graded the paper. That one still stings because there was no reduction in final grade handed out by the honor board, just the zero. I wanted the kid to have to retake the course.
Lesson: don’t underestimate your profs, they may be quicker than you think, and don’t believe everything you read on the internet.
This is totally hilarious…
Check out this post, that I found via Bitch Ph.D.
Laura, a university student, contacted a blogger online to write her a paper on Hinduism. His profile said he was a Hindu, after all. He posted their IM conversations, a copy of the paper, and then proceeded to email a link to his blog entry to the president of her university. Some Karma.
More desafuero news…
AMLO claims after desafuero, the Senate will try to dissolve independence of DF government
A million signatures against the desafuero were delivered to the Chamber of Deputies. Among them: Paco Ignacio Taibo II, mystery novelist
PAN fears that the PRI Deputies are delaying a vote.
President of Mexican stock exchange says that markets are nervous about the desafuero vote.
All desafuero, all the time
PAN ready to vote in favor of AMLO desafuero
AMLO ready and serene before desafuero vote
Secretary of State denies PAN has negotiated with PRI for desafuero
Supreme Court questions desafuero
Fox meets with PAN leadership before desafuero vote
Various scenarios possible in desafuero vote
…and in other news, academic conference on The Smiths planned. Will Morrissey make a special guest appearance?
AJPS review policies…continued
In a recent post to the on-going PolMeth debate regarding AJPS review policies (see my earlier post), John Aldrich (current president of the MWPSA) adds these points>:
It is indefensible to say that formal models ought not to be reviewed because they cannot produce useful results for political science. The editors (assuming Kim writes for Jan as well), don’t make that claim. They make the claim that the recent history of peer reviewers “effectively make it a policy for the journal.” I interpret that to mean that peer reviewers have concluded, case by case, that the manuscript they were reviewing was a formal model that did not have results in it worth publishing in a major general journal (a comment I have made on more than one occasion as reviewer). (Apparently, from the e-mail traffic to PolMeth, this is a “policy” with repeated and on going exceptions.)
Clearly the numerous exceptions to this rule that have been published suggest that its not much of an iron-clad rule anyway.
His more important point is this:
At the departmental/collegiate level, we need to stop what is a common strategy of saying to our deans and tenure committees that there are three major general journals and, especially in American and formal, a very, very few specialized journals worth publishing in in the discipline. To be able to say that there are other quality journals, of course, there need to be other quality journals, and that exercise may be underway as I write this.
Here, here. I second this. But I suspect that such institutional changes will be slower than re-weaving the social fabric of Ciudad Juarez. Political scientists are an elitist bunch.
Discussion of murders of women in Ciudad Juarez
Today, there’s an article about the problem of impunity in the murder of women in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas in La Jornada. The problem is that hundreds of (primarily) young women have been murdered in Ciudad Juarez over the last decade, and no one has been able to solve the mystery. Bodies are left in the desert.
In all likelihood, the murders are a combination of a serial killer, domestic violence victims, and other copycats. I’ve heard that it’s common for men to threaten their wives by saying they’ll take them to the desert and no one will ever figure out what happened. No doubt many killers use the m.o. of all the other murders to hide their crimes of passion or for profit. (Someone I spoke with recently said that some people think that some of the killings are the result of a ‘sport’ played by young men from prominent Mexican families. It’s clear how so many murders has created suspicion and distrust.)
According to the article cited above, one of the first steps to solving these crimes and bringing he perpetrators to justices will be to reweave the social fabric. While this may be true, I’m not optimistic about the prospects.
In other news, labor law reforms are being derailed.
Coming soon….Fuji Kola!
I heard about this first on Wait Wait, but have found other references online. Apparently, a relative of former Peruvian President/Dictator Fujimori has applied for a trademark for “Fuji Kola”. They don’t have investors yet, but believe that all the publicity surrounding the registration of the trademark bodes well for the future. According to the announcement on the Fujimori website,
…que podria lanzarse muy pronto al mercado con algún slogan como “Fuji Kola, la gaseosa del retorno”, para que con parte de los ingresos por las regalías de la marca se pudiera contribuir con nuestro fondo para la campaña electoral.
Ojalá que Fuji Kola pudiera apagar la sed del descontento popular. Sabemos que la única forma de calmar los ánimos de la gente, es mediante medidas efectivas para solucionar los graves problemas sociales embalsado durante cuatro años.
Pero Kenji y quien habla también, no pueden dejar de dar las gracias a los amigos de la prensa por la amplia publicidad a esta nueva marca.
Oops. I certaninly wouldn’t want to give them good press. According to the site, they hope that they will be able to use proceeds from the soda to fund Fujimori’s future electoral campaigns. They “hope that Fuji Kola can quench the thirst of popular dissent.” Unlikely.