Summing up the Southern

Just got back from my first regional Poli Sci conference in a few years, a more enjoyable event than I remembered from the past. My old memories derive primarily from grad student years, when status jockeying and job insecurity made it hard to really enjoy the experience. Only the liquid comaraderie of #3, Frances, and others (several of whom read FFB) made the whole thing bearable. This was my first time as a tenured prof, a truly liberating change. The difference was night and day.

It may have helped that I wasn't delivering a paper, but merely chairing/discussing on two panels. The audiences were thin, and the stakes were low. But the opportunity to give the kind of snarky and hackneyed commentary I've made my trademark on FFB, this time in live setting, was a real kick. As a general rule, I try to follow the guideline of "kick up and kiss down" (to invert John Bolton's favorite rule): give constructive and supportive criticism to the grad students, while finding a good fight to pick with someone more important than myself. In this case, it was easy, since I got some really interesting grad student papers to review, plus a moderately well-known Straussian prof making a well-executed but highly bullshitty argument that fell into the category we like to call "right-wing wish-fulfillment." I also had the somewhat strange experience of a grad student panelist quoting me to me by memory. I know this has happened to #3, Frances, and Sam before, but it was a new one for me. Probably because I avoid conferences and nobody reads the crap I write. Ah, the wonders of tenure (and Google?).

A couple of final thoughts: New Orleans seemed quite normal in the small pocket of high-ground near the French Quarter where I stayed. But the local news was all about murders, murders, murders. Almost two per day during the new year. Also, has anyone here had to travel through the Houston airport? Ack. The place was obviously designed in the New South spirit prior to the era of security crackdown: ugly, sprawling, disconnected, poorly organized, bad signage, etc. I had to go through security all over again while changing terminals during my small window between flights. A minor gripe. But I could see this as a big hassle in other circumstances.