PEDRO DE ABREU G. DOS SANTOS, PH.D.
  • Home
  • Courses Taught
  • Research
  • Personal
  • Blogs and Random Stuff
    • Brazil Course
    • Student Work
    • Occasional Blog

Podcast and Blog

Podcast, Random Stuff About Teaching, and Random Stuff About Stuff

COVID Article Roundup: April 13 ish

4/16/2020

0 Comments

 
​There are a lot of interesting things out there, and here, talking about COVID 19. I  have been listening to podcasts a lot lately, and  Make Me Smart is one that has discussed some interesting aspects of the economic consequences of all this stuff. There are others, but this one has gotten my attention lately.

First, a very good piece about Sweden's approach to this whole thing, which has been unorthodox. This article provides a good overview of why Sweden has taken a different path and the reasons why people are listening to the government. The long section below (in italics) provides an interesting argument:
One key factor according to the Swedish minister for foreign affairs, Ann Linde, is Sweden’s politically independent public agencies—and the high level of public trust in them. For the last 400 years, Sweden has had a system with small ministries but big agencies, like the Public Health Agency, which explains why there is an epidemiologist and not a prime minister at the helm of this effort.
“In this case the Public Health authorities gives advice and recommendation that people follow,” she says on the phone adding that the authorities also have a lot of trust in people.
“We have a very low level of corruption, so there is no reason for authorities to give expert advice that wouldn’t be the best for people and society. And this is the main reason why people trust authorities.”
So when the authorities “recommend” people not leave Stockholm during Easter it’s not regarded as a tip, but as something “You Should Not Do" (Schibbye 2020).

Next, there are two Guardian pieces that are long (I mean it) but worth reading. The first (link here) is about how the financial markets reacted to the COVID 19 and how close we were of a complete collapse of the world economy in March (as if we didn't have something else to worry about!). Here is one of the most impactful quotes from the article (in italics):
After five terrifying days of market turmoil, the weekend of 14-15 March was a moment for central banks around the world to coordinate their response. What everyone wanted was dollars, so it was above all the Federal Reserve that needed to take the lead. And as its chair, Powell did. He called an unscheduled press conference for the afternoon of 15 March. What he announced was remarkable.
With immediate effect, the Fed was cutting interest rates to zero – something it had done just once before, at the height of the crisis in 2008. To stabilize the US Treasury bonds market, it would be buying $700bn in a new round of so-called quantitative easing. And it would start big, buying $80bn by 17 March. In the space of just 48 hours, it would spend more on treasuries than the Fed spent in most months in the aftermath of 2008 (Tooze 2020)
The article above is long, but it is worth a read! The second article I am likely going to assign next year in my Intro to International Relations Class unless I find something else that tells the same story better somehow. This article talks about the World Health Organization (WHO) and why it cannot "solve" the COVID 19 crisis. Spoiler alert: states are self-interested, but not necessarily acting in the best collective interest.
There is a simple reason for this. For all the responsibility vested in the WHO, it has little power. Unlike international bodies such as the World Trade Organization, the WHO, which is a specialised body of the UN, has no ability to bind or sanction its members. Its annual operating budget, about $2bn in 2019, is smaller than that of many university hospitals, and split among a dizzying array of public health and research projects. The WHO is less like a military general or elected leader with a strong mandate, and more like an underpaid sports coach wary of “losing the dressing room”, who can only get their way by charming, grovelling, cajoling and occasionally pleading with the players to do as they say (Buranyi 2020)
​I have also seen a few articles about the role of gender and leadership in dealing with COVID 19. Opinion pieces on Forbes (link here) and CNN (link here) both make the same argument and raise the question: women leaders have been the ones dealing with the pandemic most skillfully, so why is it that we don't have more women leaders? (My students from POLS 223 know the answer, but I feel what I said in class should not be recorded in writing...)

The last article from this roundup connects to the discussion on climate change that we were having in my POLS 121 class this past week. The collective action problem that arises from COVID 19 has similarities to the collective action problems that arise from climate change politicization. This Vox article written by sociologist Patrick Sharkey has a lot of interesting information, but this quote is the one that connects the most to our class discussions: "In fact, attitudes toward climate change are one of the strongest and most robust predictors of social distancing behavior. In the full model I find that an increase of 10 percentage points in the share of residents who do not agree that global warming is happening is associated with a 1 point drop in the county’s social distancing grade — which essentially means shifting from, say, a C to a B- in social distancing behavior."

This is it for the roundup of the week (or for now, I am not sure I am following days as a measure of time anymore). Let me know if you have any questions or comments!
0 Comments

Shallow Thoughts: Global Gender Issues and Pop Culture

5/15/2019

0 Comments

 
For my Global Gender Issues course this semester I created a page in our course management site with random thoughts of things that were on the news or things that reminded me of class, either directly or tangentially. I think it is important to make these connections to course work, even if some of these connections are really only happening in my mind. I don't think students really looked at this page much (it was somewhat hidden and the stuff here was not going to influence their grade). But I think for my next classes I want to do this more intentionally (even though it will likely still be occasional). I will dub these occasional posts "Shallow Thoughts," because it is a smorgasbord of things related to class in my mind, most with little thought beyond my first brain sparks that connect a thing to what we learned in class. This one is focused on pop culture, or culture that I end up consuming, not sure how popular it is...

  • This break I read The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. It is a historical fiction account of two sisters in Vichy France during World War II. 
  • This break I also started reading The Lunar Chronicles, a re-imagining of fairy tale women characters. This is a YA Fiction series, and I am sure it will be a movie soon. It is fun reading with strong female characters. 
  • Hannah Gadsby: Nanette. Netflix Comedy Special that was a major success in 2018.
  • I just watched DeAnne Smith's Comedians of the World set on Netflix. Pretty funny, especially the parts related to gender identity.
  • I talked about this briefly in class. Dave Chappelle and Intersectionality. In this article, the author mentions that Dave talks about  "the possibility that the only reason America cares about the life and feelings of trans people is because it’s an experience that can be had by white men, and if only women and people of color were transgender, no one would care." Here is a link to the article. You should check Chappelle's stand up on Netflix too.
  • This article on Ted Bundy was popping on my feed this today (January 28, 2019). I don't agree with all the arguments the author is making, but if you connect her arguments with the comments, I think we can see some of the systemic ideas Manne (from the book Down Girl) is talking about regarding misogyny. Reading more abut Ted Bundy, I realize that some of the plot of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I just got done watching the series finale of this show (some of the perks of having a two month old at home, not much to do when rocking baby but watch TV!) and I recommend to all of you. There is a lot of subtle and not so subtle discussions that relate to Manne's book. 
  • I just started listening to another podcast (that's what I do Tuesdays and Thursdays when I am taking care of "the baby") that connects to the podcast below. This one is about multi level marketing (MLM). The Dream is truly fascinating and has such a strong gendered component. While very critical of MLM, it acknowledges the non-monetary ways in which women find community and purpose in a gendered (i.e.: patriarchal) labor environment.
  • I just listened to this podcast on NXIVM  that was fascinating. I am not sure if you heard about this. I saw a few things on newspapers because some actress (Allison Mack) was arrested. This podcast does a good job at talking about the case. As always, I try to find the gendered connection, and in this one, the more you hear about the group, the more you realize there is a lot of misogyny in its assumptions. The podcast is worth a listen. 



​
0 Comments

    Archives

    September 2021
    July 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    May 2019
    July 2017
    July 2016
    April 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    August 2015

    Categories

    All
    Alumni
    #BlackLivesMatter
    Brazil
    College Life
    Commentary
    COVID
    Gender Issues
    Gender Quotas
    International Relations
    Interview
    KWLC
    Paideia
    Physics
    Podcast
    Police Violence
    Pop Culture
    Post-Grad Life
    Racism
    Religion
    Science
    Shallow Thoughts
    Social Justice
    Teaching
    Women In Politics

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Courses Taught
  • Research
  • Personal
  • Blogs and Random Stuff
    • Brazil Course
    • Student Work
    • Occasional Blog