Fun coincidence, as I was asked to speak at a conference on the Strategic Implications of the 2024 US election the same day that Trump got convicted of ... 34 felonies.  Oh my. Anyhow, the folks at RAS-NSA, a Canadian defence research network asked me to speak about what the future of US relations with Canada and the world might be next year. Here is what I said: I have good news and bad news: The good news is that if Biden wins, US foreign policy will mostly stay the same, the US will remain committed to NATO and NORAD and will only badger Canada a bit about 2% and such  The bad ne ..read more

This special dinner was one of the first gatherings after my father died, and I remember that we all toasted my mother for what she gave us and did for us.  We were pretty determined to let her kno  My father died just before Father's Day six years ago.  He knew he was dying, and every time he thought he had a few days left, he called to, well, repeat the same lecture as his hearing (and personality) limited conversations.  My mother died yesterday, just a few days after one of the only mother's days we didn't connect.  She had been in a rehab facility after a ..read more

 This winter/spring was the first time I lived abroad for three months--Japan was six weeks broken up into two parts in 2016 and 2017 and London was seven weeks back in 1987.  I have had a great time and have learned a lot, and while I am eager to go home to my much bigger kitchen (Mrs. Spew is with her mother right now), I am also looking forward to coming back next winter.  The Humboldt Award brings foreign academics to Germany for six or more months.  So, I have completed half of that time, and as I have to return home for a variety of family stuff (a wedding most import ..read more

As a political scientist, I could not help but notice there is an election going on.  The European Union's parliament has an election soon, so candidates and parties are putting up signs to advertise for their candidates and to oppose other parties.  The latter, of course, has been more fun. So, I took some pictures as I walked around and google lensed my way through when I couldn't figure out what the message was. For example, one poster was not for the campaign but for a protest: The Rent is Too High!  Must be Trudeau's fault.         The more centrist p ..read more

The building is very carefully designed to evoke various feelings.  And note the two security folks in front.  I don't think they had guards stationed outside the building when I was here in 2009.  My sister and her boyfriend visited me in Berlin at the same time as Mrs. Spew.  So, I played tour guide, and we hit many of the major spots in town and also wandered through some neighborhoods.  One must-see is the Jewish Museum, which documents the lives of German Jews before and after the Holocaust.  I had visited during my first trip to Germany (if I rememb ..read more

 Watching students getting arrested and expelled was bad.  Watching them get pummeled by right wing assholes (Zionists or far right provocateurs) with the cops' permission and watching cops use "rubber" bullets that are super dangerous has been even worse.  I have many thoughts about all of this so let me spew a bit to figure some of this stuff out. Some really basic stuff about identity and anti-semitism: No individuals or groups are actually acting on behalf of entire ethnic groups despite, oh my, all of the assumptions and data I used when I was an ethnic conflict scholar.&n ..read more

To be clear, my time in Europe is not over, and Mrs. Spew has a few more days, but Berlin is, well, home enough for me that tomorrow I will be returning to my apartment and my normal.  I will still be doing a heap of tourism but now as tour guide for my wife and my sister and her boyfriend.   So, I will just highlight some stuff we saw the past few days here in Lombardy (which reminds me that Italy is the country that gave us irredenta as a word!) and then some thoughts about intra-Italy contrasts before moving onto some thoughts about the trip as a whole. I made a fun mistake ..read more

I can be a harsh critic of myself...  I have marked the anniversary of this blog a few times before, but, jeez, 15 years is a big number.  Much longer than I have resided anywhere although Ottawa will match that in a few years.  I started blogging in a different world--in the middle of an economic crisis, with a rising far right (remember the Tea Party?), and multiple wars.  Now, we have a housing crisis, my kid is unemployed, and the far right is rising in Canada but is already in solid control of the US courts.  So, yeah, it has been a ride. It is very appro ..read more

 Ah, Venice!  It was amazing.  I had never been, and Mrs. Spew hadn't been there since her college year abroad.  I had an epiphany: water = scenic and old = scenic.  So, yes, Venice is scenic squared.  Just beautiful in pretty much every direction.  Even or especially the worn down buildings look great.  Our timing was pretty great, as the weather was comfy (a bit too comfortable for the one mosquito in our pensione room).  Because we are already onto Venice, I am going to listicle may way through my realizations/observations we had along t ..read more

Mrs. Spew is spending a couple of weeks with me in Europe, so I thought we would wander through the middle of Germany before going to northern Italy.  We wanted to see some castles and some history, and we have gotten a heap of both. Our first stop was Dresden, which, of course, resonated with me since I read Slaughterhouse Five in high school, which was in the context of the firebombing that utterly destroyed the city and is now seen as something far worse than gratuitous.  We saw occasional memorials and unrepaired walls here and there, but it was mostly out of sight.  Defin ..read more