After crashing both my phone and computer, I've not had the time to get this thing (re)started. As it's New Year's Eve, I'll just link to a few end-of-year lists that likely won't make it to popular media sources. NSA, ISIS, Ebola, Crimea, Sony....is it any wonder the national past time became volunteering to be doused in ice water?
What will the new year bring? How many unknown unknowns are lurking? First, a look back --
IntelNews shares its top 10 intelligence-related stories of 2014. The link here is to the top five, with the #6-10 linked within the article. I was a bit surprised by their choice of #1, which isn't to say I challenge it, as it's a worthy choice and one that will continue to present many challenges.
Homeland Security Today highlights issues related to cyber-security threats and capabilities expected to manifest in 2015. See here.
Brookings shared, in no particular order and in apparent need for an intern to do something before leaving for holidays, their "top infographics" of 2014. See here
George Friedman of Stratfor offered his top five stories of 2014. Spoiler alert -- his #1 story allows Friedman to share a personal moment of great significance, with a nice point tying the birth of his child to the continuance of time and human existence, which is indeed nice but a little too "as the world turns" for me. Still, he's usually a worthy read. See here
And now for something completely different, the top Bitcoin-related stories of 2014. The emergence of this murky, alternate currency is fascinating to me, though I can't claim to know a great deal about it beyond NPR and similar reporting over the last year. These folks, on the other hand, obviously pay much closer attention. Whatever the future of Bitcoin specifically, the genie is out of the bottle and it seems reasonable to expect similar technologies to develop and proliferate. See here.
Looking ahead....
The editor-in-chief of the Economist offers a London-foggy-gloom essay on the fate of democracies in 2015. As the greatly over-long and money-wasting two year experience we call a U.S. presidential election is underway, it's a worthwhile read. See here.
The Atlantic offers two pieces, one with expert opinions on what to expect in the global economy in 2015. See here. The other is a report on how this report, produced in early 2000 by the intelligence community and presents the IC's vision for what to expect in 2015. The Atlantic summary is here. I think I'll open my Foreign Policy class with this document in January.
Here is a list of lists, summarizing fifteen sets of predictions as issued by tech producers and experts. I find this well worth the time to explore (it's written in layperson's vernacular) as the future of the digital realm is, like all futures, to be in part determined by the darker and/or revolutionary elements of global society. The trends indicated in these summaries and the links provided within include threats to all levels of our security as individuals, nationals, and participants in globally-connected institutions. Information security, privacy concerns, and social stability are all at stake.
More immediately, I simply wish for all to have a fun and safe evening and a new year that brings joy, comfort and security to us all. I welcome all civil comments and discussions, and look forward to continuing the blog as the new semester gets underway in January.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Friday, December 26, 2014
Twentysomething, isn't it?
My last post was in November of 2012. I once went two and a half years without updating my car's inspection sticker, and I would prefer to not beat that record with a delinquency in my attempts to figure out a few things about the world or worlds we inhabit. In the 24 months since the 2013 return of spring somewhere north of 1000 students have cycled through ~25 sections of my Poli Sci classes, with a small History class here and there. There were many continuing frustrations with these conditions and even realizations of new irritants as well, and my focus in the classroom was too often subpar by my standards. On the other hand, I can't ask for better colleagues in our little concrete corner. I feel a close bond among the faculty there and more generally, bound both by the sort of shared together-in-the-trenches thousand-mile-stares we exchange at times and by the laughter and sincere respect we hold for one another. We are also encouraged by a small but noteworthy number of students who have come to us as new History majors, most of them deciding they liked learning about history and how to study it more so than whatever previous major they had declared. I find that many who switch to Liberal Arts from Education and Nursing initially declared due to family expectations. Well, onward to Spring 2015, my 38th semester at NSU.
In spring I'm teaching two of my favorite classes. PSCI 4080 U.S. Foreign Policy is always fun, and the last six months alone have provided ample references for our discussions. The readings will combine the theoretical with the historical, and of course end on the only remaining answer to the question, "To what future is all this is headed?"-- "More research is required." I expect to have perhaps 15 students in the class. I'd be happy with a few more, even, but given my large loads in Intro (American Gov't) classes, it's nice to keep it small. Most students, I expect, will be from the PPL (Philosophy, Political Science, and Law) Concentration under the honors Liberal Arts major.
The second upper division class is History of Nuclear Weapons in World Affairs (HIST 4980), which I'm teaching online for the fourth time, I think. Maybe third. Anyway, it's been maybe 2 years so I'm looking forward to it. Again, usually a small class (I'm at the moment avoiding empirical checks on my enrollment or much else) of 15 or less, it attracts a variety of students especially in regard to the age range. Thus, some remember or are quite familiar with, e.g., the Cuban missile crisis, while others have heard of it but know little about it beyond what an uncle or grandmother might talk about at Thanksgiving. In this class, I assign a text with which I'm also becoming familiar and feeling confident it offers the right mix of the histories of science, individuals, epistemic communities, and policy processes that make up the global story of nukes and humankind. Mostly, however, the class uses a great deal of primary materials, mostly documents from sources like the National Archives as well as non-government sources such as the Internet Archive and the National Security Archives. Videos as posted to Youtube and other online platforms are also used, such as of nuclear tests and news reels from the early atomic era.
I'll share and offer for discussion many of these materials as we progress, but this blog will ... or is intended to ... offer a platform for sharing information and questions for analysis involving mostly current global affairs. The political context, particularly with the U.S. presidential election entering its first quarter of play (Jeb Bush at bat as of this writing, still warming up), will unavoidably color the topics under discussion. That we are facing an open election during a time of strong ideological polarization and global systemic change will no doubt be fodder for the political junkies among us, myself included.
I hope everyone is navigating the winter and our emergence into 2015 with warmth and many smiles. I will return with a post on Monday, to include a calendar of sorts of how I see this blog as unfolding. Please feel free to scroll through and comment upon the extant blog posts, many of which were tied to the 2012 election. All the best, Dr. G
In spring I'm teaching two of my favorite classes. PSCI 4080 U.S. Foreign Policy is always fun, and the last six months alone have provided ample references for our discussions. The readings will combine the theoretical with the historical, and of course end on the only remaining answer to the question, "To what future is all this is headed?"-- "More research is required." I expect to have perhaps 15 students in the class. I'd be happy with a few more, even, but given my large loads in Intro (American Gov't) classes, it's nice to keep it small. Most students, I expect, will be from the PPL (Philosophy, Political Science, and Law) Concentration under the honors Liberal Arts major.
The second upper division class is History of Nuclear Weapons in World Affairs (HIST 4980), which I'm teaching online for the fourth time, I think. Maybe third. Anyway, it's been maybe 2 years so I'm looking forward to it. Again, usually a small class (I'm at the moment avoiding empirical checks on my enrollment or much else) of 15 or less, it attracts a variety of students especially in regard to the age range. Thus, some remember or are quite familiar with, e.g., the Cuban missile crisis, while others have heard of it but know little about it beyond what an uncle or grandmother might talk about at Thanksgiving. In this class, I assign a text with which I'm also becoming familiar and feeling confident it offers the right mix of the histories of science, individuals, epistemic communities, and policy processes that make up the global story of nukes and humankind. Mostly, however, the class uses a great deal of primary materials, mostly documents from sources like the National Archives as well as non-government sources such as the Internet Archive and the National Security Archives. Videos as posted to Youtube and other online platforms are also used, such as of nuclear tests and news reels from the early atomic era.
I'll share and offer for discussion many of these materials as we progress, but this blog will ... or is intended to ... offer a platform for sharing information and questions for analysis involving mostly current global affairs. The political context, particularly with the U.S. presidential election entering its first quarter of play (Jeb Bush at bat as of this writing, still warming up), will unavoidably color the topics under discussion. That we are facing an open election during a time of strong ideological polarization and global systemic change will no doubt be fodder for the political junkies among us, myself included.
I hope everyone is navigating the winter and our emergence into 2015 with warmth and many smiles. I will return with a post on Monday, to include a calendar of sorts of how I see this blog as unfolding. Please feel free to scroll through and comment upon the extant blog posts, many of which were tied to the 2012 election. All the best, Dr. G
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