Wednesday 5 August 2009

My life

So, making up for my absence from this space for the last year or so, I'm going to bombard you with some posts. Sorry.

First, I discovered that its possible to see the house I'm moving into next week via google maps. So, if you have the bandwidth (and are even vaguely interested), you can click on the link below to get a 360 view of my house, neighbourhood, etc.:


View Larger Map

Also. Following up on my last post, it appears that there was even an article in the SA Business Day about the record label based in Chapel Hill. I've decided I'm probably now in the greatest dating pool, as apparently a whole stack of bands keep moving to Chapel Hill in the hopes of being signed. See: BusinessDay

And, lastly. Just some shameless self-promotion. Have co-authored two publications in the last few months, the links of which are available here:



and here:



If you do have the time, I'd greatly appreciate comments on the articles. I know everyone's busy. But my mother basically called me a fascist for what I wrote, so I'd love to know what y'all think, and whether you'll still be my friend.

xxx

7 comments:

Dr Phil said...

Awesome fran. Getting published is always cool, even if your mom is your only fan.

To create links highlight the word you want to turn into a hyperlink, click on the little chain-link icon, past the address into the box that pops up, et voila!

Dr Phil said...

you can do the above process with pictures too.

you drafted a bill on the detention of terrorists? wow. that's hardcore.

I don't think you're a fascist. That term is is poorly understood and badly abused anyway. At worst you're a neo-con bush-ite. JOKES! I don't really understand the details of the debate so won't comment, but seems like a balanced and well-supported set of arguments, which is all we expect and want from academics.

fran said...

A neo-con bushite is not only more insulting, but also inaccurate in this instance (I will assume, for the sake of our friendship, that you were indeed joking). Under their view of the world, our proposal would NEVER be acceptable. The whole point of it is that it moves the decision making in this area out of their "unitary executive" model, and into the realm of extreme judicial branch scrutiny. A situation they not only stymied at any chance during the rule of the last administration, but actually hold as some kind of a philosophy as to governance.

The point of our proposal is to move those cases where criminal prosecution is not possible out of the shadows of the inscrutable and opaque current practices of extraordinary renditions, black sites, military detention and immigration detention (where 1000's are currently held), and into the light of normal court scrutiny. So my view, although the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, etc strongly disagree, is that our proposal is far more human rights friendly than any other proposal out there.

But. I don't want to bore you with the intricacies of my line of work any further...

Greg said...

I find this stuff facinating, but my eyes start to twitch when i stare at a screen for too long. I'll try to print these out and read them on the weekend, though i must admit that words with more than about 7 letters confuse me. There seem to be many of those.

Dr Phil said...

i was joking fran! although i would prefer to be associated with the cheney worldview before being associated with anything close to the lable people give to hitler. seems like the lesser of two evils.

maybe i should take my own work more seriously. i joke about that a lot too.

fran said...

Ja. I might have been a little reactionary, there. As you can imagine, get a lot of the neo-con labeling here, and am perhaps a little over-sensitive!

Thanks, you guys, for the interest, though. And I know its dense, so I promise I won't quiz you on it when I do eventually see y'all again.

Greg said...

What is with the y'all? Next you'll be quoting the temperature in Farenheit! Oh, wait...