When I got out of the plane in Greensboro in the US state of North Carolina, I would never have expected my host family to welcome me at the airport, wielding a Bible, and saying, 'Child, our Lord sent you half-way around the world to bring you to us.' At that moment I just wanted to turn round and run back to the plane.

Things began to go wrong as soon as I arrived in my new home in Winston-Salem, where I was to spend my year abroad. For example, every Monday my host family would gather around the kitchen table to talk about sex. My host parents hadn't had sex for the last 17 years because -- so they told me -- they were devoting their lives to God. They also wanted to know whether I drank alcohol. I admitted that I liked beer and wine. They told me I had the devil in my heart.

Abducted by the American Taliban, Michael Gromek tells of being woken at 6:15 for mandatory church attendance, receiving lollipops as reward, and being drafted into liaising with his home country to help his host family build a mega church in Krakow. Oh, and his mom is the devil for being separated from his father.

Aren’t these people screened before we allow them to house foreign students?

Join us for the chronicles of one Peter Leppik, a hungry crusader in a harrowing tale of trying to use a $2 bill to pay for food at Taco Bell. 

Group of zombies sue Minneapolis for being completely myopic bungholes. 

Update on the evil suburban peacemongers –fines have now been rescinded and the Jensens have received an apology. 

Webb suppresses urge to slug the commander-in-chief’s smug little face. 

Dreyfuss: “we confuse the melodrama of incivility [on TV] with how public issues are discussed.”  Video here.

Enjoy this montage of U.S. intervention in foreign affairs over the last half-century or so.  Now top be fair, I could put together a montage of at least equal length of all the truly wonderful things that have emerged out of America during this time.  But if nothing, we are certainly a bitter pill and, given the events highlighted in this video, it is little wonder that conspiracy theory among the Arab region has been elevated to the level of mainstream journalism.

Course, it doesn’t exactly help when our unfortunate “ambassadors with guns” behave like this:

It’s the time of year here in Dublin where the sun drops below the horizon at, oh … about 3:30.  Pitch black by 4:00.  Falling asleep in your Guiness by 4:15.  Too lazy to post anything real, but this gave me a good giggle:

ATR has a clipped a nice little op-ed for us outlining just how very little some military academics actually know or care about history.  It’s worth a read.  But Schwarz also notes an important facet of institutions that grant credentials to this kind of sloppy work: 

But just the problem I identify should be enough to disqualify this guy from teaching anyone anything anywhere. Moreover, even if the crazy-filter failed to catch him before he got tenure, in a non-insane country the country's most prestigious newspaper wouldn't be printing something like this. 

Fortunately for academia, doctorates are granted to those displaying academic rigor of enough significance to advance their fields and not just to those opinions that are held to be popular. 

Unfortunately, the standards beyond the PhD level drop significantly and are based primarily on two things - publishing and fundraising.  In International Relations, the latter often goes to those willing to tow the mainstream Realist line in support of policies favorable to political / economic institutions.  This seems to have the double-effect of legitimizing the crazies while simultaneously further entrenching the hawkish policies as the academic mainstream.  Of course, this then makes it easier for such people to publish and the cycle continues. 

Particularly with regard to military academies, there is a tension between fostering an environment of academic integrity - which tends to gravitate towards what Americans erroneously consider more of a "liberal" agenda - and appeasing the symbols of both the political winds and the pressures of military hegemony. 

To be fair, I have to imagine that the higher administration of such institutions fancy themselves social scientists and have, like the rest of us, been instilled with a need for diversity of opinion, sound methodological practices, and exterior collaboration/conferencing.  But it is doubtful that such institutions will change their stripes in the near future for two  reasons.  The first is that they have become homogenized to such an extent that they believe inherently minor differences constitutes broad diversity (and the rest of the "liberl" IR community are a bunch of quacks) and so little effort is made in recruiting outsiders.  The second is that they don't convey much sense of invitation to other institutions through conference presence, publications, enagagement outside the Ivory tower, etc. 

I'm (hopefully) finishing my PhD in April and have been job hunting myself for the past few months.  My work is specifically in counter-terrorism and I have a lot of ideas on contemporary conflicts that are not only pragmatic, but deliberately address Realist concerns.  I think I would make a fabby addition to any military academy - except for the fact that I would never, NEVER apply for the post.  I have no intention of approaching a university that (seemingly) hates what I stand for and in which I would be unlikely to make tenure.  I can see that this is unfair to myself, the institutions, their students, the profession, and the country as a whole.  But I doubt I am alone in my hypocrisy.

So inspection of the UCLA Security policy regarding the use of force reveals that the officers acted within the prescribed policy for using torture techniques against nonviolent / nonthreatening offenders. 

So it looks like the problem at UCLA runs a great deal higher up the food chain than a few rogue officers.  If UCLA is smart, somebody pretty important will lose their job over this and fast! 

Power fears nonviolence for good reason – because acts of oppression against it quickly spiral into these kinds of sticky messes.  Also, because nonviolence works a helluva lot more than armed insurrection against a stronger opponent.  These janitors would have gotten nowhere with physical weapons, but their nonviolent tactics worked in a big way – even after the police tried to trample them with horses.  But if UCLA insists on having violent policies against nonviolent offenders, if they eliminate nonviolence as an option, then they leave few other options than for the aggrieved to resort to violence themselves.  Does UCLA really want a policy on the books to support this kind of spiral?

Somewhere in Middle America : 

This is where we've arrived in this country: You have the constitutional right to burn an American flag, but you can get into trouble for simply flying a foreign one. 

At least you can in the 30,000-person town of Pahrump, Nevada, which is close to Las Vegas and even closer to stepping over the line with an idiotic, intolerant and insulting ban on foreign (read: Mexican) flags. The town council voted last week, 3-2, to approve an ordinance that makes it illegal to display a foreign flag -- unless an American flag is flown above it. Scofflaws face a $50 fine and 30 hours of community service. 

Pahrump resident Michael Miraglia proposed the ban because, he said, he got upset when he saw immigrant activists marching through U.S. cities last spring, waving Mexican flags. Mr. Miraglia told USA Today that he was especially miffed that "we had Mexican restaurants closed that day." 

So some rich jerk couldn’t stuff his face with tacos for a few hours and he’s going to make uppity Mexican pride a crime?  I don’t think so.  We still have a little thing in this country known as the First Amendment despite appearances to the contrary.  I think someone needs to get themselves arrested for this and pronto!

Why do we bother having a CIA if the White House is not going to listen to them?