too tame!

howabout:

1. how long is mike munger's hair?

2. can you bribe a journal editior with booze?

3. is there a more pathetic scene than the apsa interview room?

4. who are the editors of the anonymous rumor blogs?

too tame!

howabout:

1. how long is mike munger's hair?

2. can you bribe a journal editior with booze?

3. is there a more pathetic scene than the apsa interview room?

4. who are the editors of the anonymous rumor blogs?

Considering that the conference is in Chicago, and you are obviously interested in the Israel question, why not include Finkelstein's situation as well:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070828/ap_on_re_us/controversial_professor

now, for no reason (it seems) he has been blocked from teaching, even though it is in his contract (or something).

At many conferences in CS, the 8:00am slot is considered a peach of a slot...

Conference organizers tend to put one of the best papers/presentations in that slot, just to try to drag people out of bed early.

This is small stuff. I know a retired professor who every day, at least for the ten years or so that I knew him before retirement, wore the exact same green corduroy suit. Good scholar, though.

Re: Comment #5

(1)There's one in every crowd.
(2)DD has done this long enough to know there's one in every crowd.
(3)We can therefore expect that he kept the bandana-ed one anonymous, knowing fully well that another would out him.
(4)Ergo, DD is probably just hiding the fact that he must have some bone to pick with JC.

So . . . what's DD's beef with JC??????

This is how interweb rumors get started, right? :)

(This comment itself is done in full anticipation of the upcoming conference. Hooray, APSA!)

I dunno. At both extreme ends of APSA I've seen so much esprit de corps among the panelists and with the smallish audience that the panels have been great. Saturday at 8 am and Saturday at 4 pm are my votes-- everyone's dragging, and they're panelled-out.
on the other hand, the Sunday 10.15 slot means you niss the half-off sale in the book room.

mystery: will the one half-empty suitcase I brought accommodate my book purchases?

I've presented in the very last time slot and I vote for it. Yup, it's pretty bleak to be talking (a) just to your co-panelists and one other person, and (b) while the staff are folding up the tables in the hall.

mystery: will the one half-empty suitcase I brought accommodate my book purchases?
*********

I vote yes on this one based on my experience at this past winter's ISA in Chicago. It seems that a number of the presses have stopped actually selling their books on the spot at the conferences for tax reasons. As the editor of one of the major presses told me, their legal department asked them not to sell actual books at the conference because they weren't registered as a business in Illinois (I have no idea if this is sound legal reasoning. I'm a political scientist, not a tax lawyer. Don't shoot the messenger). So, anything you order gets mailed to you.

The great mystery of the APSA meeting is why it still happens at all. That, and why it's never in San Diego. And yes, the interview room (meat market) is the saddest place on earth. The stench of despair is overwhelming there.

The great mystery of the APSA meeting is why it still happens at all.

************

Oh, I disagree. My department pays for me to go to a great city like Chicago and go out drinking with friends from grad school and elsewhere that I see only once or twice a year. Pretty good deal.

Vegas would be fantastic for the ISA, but going to Vegas around Labor day--ugh! I am tired of Chicago, but moving the conference a bit north (to the Hyatt) is a huge improvement--the food options are many!

I agree the APSA is a great excuse to get someone else to pay for a booze up in a big city far removed from cow town state U. (No dig, I'm in the middle of nowhere myself). But, in academic terms the APSA mainly provides vida fodder for grad students and early career types, the occasionally useful panel and a chance to question some of the 'giants' of poli sci. (I was once punched in the chest and pushed off an elevator in the Palmer House by one such luminary.) Last but not least it gives brown nosers the chance to hone their technique.

time slots: I've had 8am of day 1 for my last two conferences in a row. I'd vote for Sunday being clearly worse. It really has been nice to get my obligation out of the way up front and just focus on schmoozing, boozing, and discount book purchases for the rest of the conference.

If the only variable you're optimizing is attendance, I'd still say 10:15 Sunday is worse than 8am Thursday. I've vote 10:15 Friday as the best slot for sheer numbers.

On sartorial matters, what I always wonder is do the guys who wear a lime green shirt, plaid tie, and brown blazer _know_ what they're doing but want to make that statement for some reason, or have no clue that it creates any different impression than say, navy blue blazer with a white shirt and generic safe tie. Either is scary but with somewhat different implications.

Sunday at 10:15, hands down. Less attendance and later flight out make the difference for me.

And if we're going to complain about overlooked potential host cities, when is New York going to get some love from the folks making the selections? It's been over a decade since NYC hosted APSA, and while a conference here would mean losing an opportunity to travel on my employer's dime, that loss would be more than offset by having an opportunity to show visiting friends around.

Have to remember that we are cheap. NYC is a very expensive conference for organizers and for participants.

Yes, my attendance at panels has declined, but the experience continues to be very beneficial for career development, keeping track of developments in the field (people talk about the research outside of panels as well as at the panels), networking to develop research (organizing edited volumes, workshops, mini-conferences).

The web has made some of this stuff less necessary perhaps, but I would say the opposite. We do so much work via the net that we need this kind of opportunity to meet real people in a non-virtual kind of way.