I just heard the news that Mike Wesch, an untenured assistant professor at Kansas State University, was chosen as National Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation (CASE). It soon will be announced in an official ceremony in Washington DC.

Congratulations to Mike as well as Marty and Harald. :)

Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2008 07:19:51 -0600
From: Mike Wesch
Subject: Mike Wesch is 2008 National Prof of the Year

Winning this has been a bit surreal and has inspired quite a bit of reflection on what led up to it. When I walked into Marty Ottenheimer’s class in Fall 1995 I had no idea what anthropology was. As you know, Marty speaks smoothly and almost serenely, even while lobbing out intellectual fire bombs that blow minds. My mind was blown. He had me asking questions I had never asked before. Soon after that I was TAing for Harald. I remember him describing teaching the Intro class as akin to an act of shamanism. It is not just about teaching a bunch of facts, but guiding students through a transformative initiation. That imagery has guided my approach to teaching ever since. I have no doubt that it was the extraordinary attention our program places on undergraduate excellence that propelled me to this point in my career. I feel blessed to have stumbled into KSU Anthropology in 1995, and even more blessed to be a part of it today.

~ Mike

If you deal with the safety (security) of social networks, you definitely should watch Mike’s presentation at the Library of Congress, June 23rd 2008:

As many may still remember, Veteran’s Day was once dedicated to the memory of lives lost in The Great War. President Wilson’s proclamation in 1919 established the foundation for an American holiday:

To us in America, the reflections of armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…

After WWII and the Korean War a Kansas man suggested to his US Representative, who then presented to President Eisenhower, that the holiday be renamed to honor the millions of Americans who had served in combat since WWI.

America’s Veteran’s Day was thus created by legislation in 1954.

The formal date of celebration was in contention for most of the 1970s but it has since reverted back nationally to the eleventh day of the eleventh month, when the Treaty of Versailles was signed (at the eleventh hour).

Craig has posted a guide and links to American Veterans’ Day events.

War Dogs Memorial: Past, Present and Future

American leaders thus celebrate Veteran’s Day today while English and French leaders attend traditional Armistice ceremonies. The exception seems to be the German leader who is celebrating the 90th anniversary of Poland’s independence:

…German Chancellor Angela Merkel was in Warsaw to mark the anniversary of Poland’s independence – which also came on 11 November 1918, as the country broke free from the Austro-Hungarian empire and Germany.

Merkel is definitely a progressive-thinking and independent leader. While Germany and Poland seem to be working hard to settle their differences across borders, it is odd to read about bitter divisions from within — Solidarity founder Lech Walesa was left out of the celebration.

Executive Protection News is a great source for details on protecting the President Elect of America:

When Obama gave his victory speech in Chicago’s Grant Park, the level of security was described as “unprecedented” although I think “Presidential level” is probably more appropriate. Among the measures in place was a ballastic glass shield surrounding the podium, the entire Chicago Police force of 13,500 (although clearly not just to protect Obama) was on duty, a no-fly zone was established over the city, and all off-duty firemen went home with their gear in the event they had to return to duty. The total cost for security that evening was reported as $2 million USD although much to their credit, the Obama campaign will reimburse Chicago for the costs (I’ve been advocating that the political parties pay for convention security since this election started). These measures were appropriate in light of the arrest the week before the election of two white supremacists who alledgedly were planning to assassinate Obama.

I look forward to the day when the US is not compared to a military dictatorship like Pakistan:

Despite it all, we only need look at Pakistan to understand what happens when a nation fails to protect its’ key political and government leaders to understand why it is important to take the necessary measures to protect Obama as well as every President. The alternative is unacceptable.

Instead of Pakistan I probably would have tried to draw lessons from assassinations of (dare I add Malcolm X) Lincoln, Kennedy, McKinley and Garfield into the story, let alone attempts on Reagan, Ford, King, Truman, and Roosevelt, but maybe they’re just history. Another good modern example is Sri Lanka:

Social Services and Welfare Minister and EPDP Leader Douglas Devananda was lucky for the twelfth time after a female suicide bomber yesterday failed in an attempt to assassinate the Minister but killed his Public Relations (PR) Officer while injuring two more.

[…]

The Defence Ministry said that according to initial investigations the LTTE had set the explosives around the woman’s breast, deviating from its usual tactic of placing explosives in the lower abdominal areas of suicide bombers.The Ministry recalled that Minister Devananda has been in the LTTE assassination list ever since he came into mainstream politics.

Twelve attempts thwarted. Whoa.

NYTimes.com highlights a secret mission authorized by Bush to attack Al Qaeda anywhere in the world:

These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

This immediately begs a question of why full-scale conventional war is still being pursued as the primary option if covert operations are more effective at eliminating the enemy. Even more to the point, this is exactly what many people (even Tom Clancy, if you follow Rogue Spear) advocated as the next natural order of international security.

Perhaps most interesting, however, is the obvious connection to the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. I speculated at the time that the US was destabilizing the Somali government specifically to ensure America would able to continue military operations there without requiring approval or facing political resistance (e.g. pesky laws and notions of sovereignty). This seemed eerily similar to French and South African military strategy in Africa. The NY Times has confirmed this:

For example, shortly after Ethiopian troops crossed into Somalia in late 2006 to dislodge an Islamist regime in Mogadishu, the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command quietly sent operatives and AC-130 gunships to an airstrip near the Ethiopian town of Dire Dawa. From there, members of a classified unit called Task Force 88 crossed repeatedly into Somalia to hunt senior members of a Qaeda cell believed to be responsible for the 1998 American Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

At the time, American officials said Special Operations troops were operating under a classified directive authorizing the military to kill or capture Qaeda operatives if failure to act quickly would mean the United States had lost a “fleeting opportunity” to neutralize the enemy.

Occasionally, the officials said, Special Operations troops would land in Somalia to assess the strikes’ results. On Jan. 7, 2007, an AC-130 struck an isolated fishing village near the Kenyan border, and within hours, American commandos and Ethiopian troops were examining the rubble to determine whether any Qaeda operatives had been killed.

Although a stable Somalia would be good for the people living there, good for the stability of the Horn of Africa, and even good for the safety and security of the shipping trades along the coast including petroleum from the Gulf, the current US administration clearly preferred the option of extra-legal and covert control of the region to eliminate a few operatives.