ReStart.

Towards the end of the year, I had a hard time juggling things. The salon series we were running on feminism and integrity had to take second place to my thesis after march break. I spent all free time writing and finishing up some research -- honestly, class time started to feel like me study breaks. I was social -- other year long thesis writers and I crowded together in coffee shops and libraries for near all-nighters, reminding each other that we loved the topics. Just this piece was getting rough.

I am excited to say that my turned in thesis (by no means a finished product) was something that I am still proud of. It has introduced me to some really interesting thinkers, historians and now a future research proposal or two that I hope to continue while I start my regular person job. (Which, let's be honest, isn't too regular either).

But now, back on track. I'm reading all of the interesting pieces that I wish I had read earlier this semester (that said, there is no time like the present!) and gearing up to launch the New York start of the salon series.

We already have something lined up a practice with another group that we met along the way with a similar but perhaps less feminist directed curriculum. It will be great to be back in the swing of the salons now that Tiffany and I are in the same city again. We met for lunch yesterday outside her office building and talked about the next few months and how we want to push this forward.

It will be interesting for me to figure out how to balance working with the salons and my continued drug wars research... though actually it is the best of many worlds as it is right now. I do some freelance research on the side, which makes me learn about different kinds of models and thinking going on around organized crime. It's interesting work. And naturally, a nice thing to keep my head in the game while I work on other projects that are more immediately useful.

All of that is a long way of saying, we're back on track with the salons and gearing up to launch the New York pilot, inter-generational awesome feminist salon series that we started at Yale in a sort of Beta level this past spring. Go team!

Monopoly on Violence

It's funny to me how what I'm reading all day every day now has given me a sort of cookie cutter approach to state building in vacuums of power. It's only funny because I have a bitter sense of humor, just to warn you.

The pattern:

1. Locate area without much government control

2. Exhibit power through excessively violent and public activities

3. Establish difference between your regime and the previous or supposedly present one, insist yours is the better, more liberating one

4. raise money to fund yourself: extort the population because you are protecting them from outside forces and need to fund your troops, and develop a sort of "nationalized" industry. For the Paramilitaries and the guerillas, this means export and sell drugs.

5. Keep up the monopoly of power until you cant. You may be able to reinvent yourself along the way if you are smart.

Now... am I talking about subversive groups, or the government? Depends on the country. The time period. And the situation. But it's not clear now, is it?