well, hey there, you, with the published thing.

yeah, sure, it's only in electronic format, but i'm still pleased about a case study i submitted for my NGO, ‘Countries, Communities and Conservation: Building Cooperation in Kanchenjunga’, getting selected for publication in ICIMOD's forthcoming collection on mountain biodiversity initiatives.

huzzah.

(i also, like, as a friend pointed out, that the call is "especially for success stories")

if they don't have "walkin' in memphis" i'll do this one

sometimes even i can't believe this stuff is real.

click to embiggen

#cantmakethisshitup friday

do you want to see the world? well, if you're an "ice cream processing specialist", acdi/voca wants to send you to lebanon for three weeks. please note, successful candidates will have "knowledge on making sorbet". new favorite RSS feed, or new favorite RSS feed?

~

if you didn't think you could hate the Bieb any more, check this shit out:

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Justin Bieber said, "I really don't believe in abortion. It's like killing a baby?" Asked about cases of rape, he added, "Well, I think that's really sad, but everything happens for a reason."

"i really don't believe you know what you're talking about, justin. it's like, let's talk when you hit puberty?"

~

on the formation of the new nepali cabinet:

Sources close to Khanal and Dahal said that though differences between the two coalition partners on some lucrative ministries remain unresolved, there has been an agreement to allot the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction, Ministry of Law and Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation to the Maoist party.

 "LUCRATIVE"?? man, if there's one thing i like about the nepali government, at least they're open about their rent-seeking. real talk, right there. (update: oh, the maoist's are backing out, anyway. SHOCKING.)

 ~

i was wondering what had happened with this story. looks like pakistan's getting a little frisky with the definition of the term "diplomatic immunity".

links and apologies

massive grant writing shenanigans, planning my parents' mid-march visit, and the fact that the brief but heavy late winter/early spring rains are making their presence felt though my bedroom ceiling means that i've been a little busy, but here are some quick/fun links. awoohoo!

today, in "your new imaginary internet boyfriends", ta-nehisi coates is dreamy:

Every day women choose to do the hard labor of a difficult pregnancy. Its courageous work, which inspires in me a degree of admiration exceeded only by my horror at the notion of the state turning that courage, that hard labor, into a mandate. Women die performing that labor in smaller numbers as we advance, but they die all the same. Men do not. That is a privilege.

working at peace dividend trust would be so so cool, mostly because i would want scott gilmore as my boss. read these two rants about the down sides of volunteering overseas (notwithstanding his snarky crack about teachers in the second post). then read this post about hug-an-orphan tourism at good intentions are not enough.

the excitement over the upcoming bryan adams concert in ktm mounts. crowd control makes me a little nervous, despite reassurances from the authorities (or maybe, given that it's nepal, given the reassurances). also a friend and local musician, smriti bajacharya, is quoted here. yes, she is just as adorable as she sounds.

also in local news...wtf? either this guy is the nepali chuck norris (without, presumably, the unfortunate politics), or someone accidentally re-printed the synopsis of a bollywood movie.

and now a video that involves two of the things that give me the greatest joy: jay-z and cats doing weird shit. (and speaking of videos, if you voted for me for world traveler intern, thanks so much! if you haven't had the chance, i hope you can take a sec and "become a fan" of my video application)

nostalgia

damn if i don't miss piebald. spent the afternoon/evening re-discovering their timeless (well for me) album "we are the only friends that we have". one of the best things about this album is that it is an ALBUM, meant to be listened to as a whole, and not as byte-sized mp3 download singles. at the same time there's nothing wasted on this album, nothing that doesn't deserve a listen on its own terms. ahh the days of cds.

the first track, just to get you started...

feb 9th quicklinks

another linkdump! because they're fun... and i sense a theme coming on...
from oktrends, the okcupid stats analysis blog, and just in time for valentine's day, the best questions for a first date. using the user-generated match questions, they tell you how to find out things like your date's religious, political, and sexual attitudes by asking seemingly innocuous questions that correlate strongly to certain answers on the big, but potentially inappropriate questions. for instance, if you want to know if you're getting laid that night, ask your date if they like the taste of beer. if the answer is yes, you have a 60% better shot. also, points awarded for being probably the only stats website that gets away with this line: "in the post-apocalypse, THERE ARE NO SECOND DATES."

however, not all of us are so bound by social constraint (or, y'know, um, sensitive to social convention). things that i, for one, would be THRILLED to discuss on a first date (hey, hey, see what i did there?), include...

our all-time favorite criminally insane heads of state
dear charles taylor's lawyer: if i had made a habit of handing in term papers 20 days late, i would have failed out of college. if i submitted grants 20 days late, my NGO wouldn't be funded. i'd have to check, but i'm almost positive law schools aren't so hot on that shit either. so, what, exactly, did you think was going to happen here? love, molly

granted, when it comes to sheer bat-shittery, he's no muammar gaddafi or kim jong-il, but i think turkmenistan's kurbanguly berdymukhamedov is starting to show some real promise.

talk nerdy to me
seriously, let's order another round and bag on the quant hegemony in americanist political science. if you manage to pull out your own zombie-based parodies of major academic disciplines, you're probably getting lucky, but i'll settle for world-weary discussions of failures of knowledge in the afganistan war, or the perverse incentive system that structures the development industry.

why we love the obamas
 reason #48547259

terrible tv
don't get me wrong, i am a BIG fan of mediocre television programming, but i actually meant the absurdly offensive advertising campaigns that have cropped up recently, from the girl store to groupon to pepsi. because, i, for one, spent $160k on an education, the most striking effect of which is that i can't watch things like the superbowl or disney movies without getting frothy with indignation.


...but then again, there are reasons i'm still single.

...and speaking of self-promotion!
emily put up a nice post responding to my question about generationally different perceptions of agricultural labor in nepal and india.

also, if you voted for me in STA's world traveler internship, thanks so so much. if you haven't, it would be just swell if you took a second to check out my video. become a fan (the button's shoudl be to the right of my photo and bio, but some people have had problems) and/or leave a comment to help impress the fine folks at STA, and, if you like it, feel free to re-post, tweet, email it, or whatever social media the kids are dancing to these days. thanks bunches!

why the nepal gvt's secret deal is bad news.

it was revealed today that the maoist party's apparent 11th hour support for the new UML PM khanal was, in fact, the result of a nearly year-long  series of secret negotiations between one faction of the maoist party and the UML. it was the result of a seven-point agreement, with several very contentious arrangements. this is all, to employ a technical term, bad news bears.

one thing that probably won't be covered in the international press, but is really important, is the way this whole incident embodies the factionalism that pervades the three major parties: UCPN-maoist, CPN-UML (united marxist-leninist), and NC (nepali congress). infighting among factions is a major reason for the chronic ineffectiveness of nepal's democratic government(s) since the early 1990's, and one of the original rallying cries of the maoist insurgency. at the moment, there are probably three major factions of the maoists, and 2-3 in the UML, depending on who's counting.  the negotiation of the secret agreement by certain factions of each party can be seen as internal power plays by those factions, as well as a bid for control of government as a whole. this ktm post article gives a pretty good run down of the situation, although it's a little hard to follow if you're not familiar with the players.

the factionalism in play also makes this deal even more precarious than it already otherwise clearly is. as this other ktm post article describes, dahal and khanal have agreed to "clarify" the meaning of the seven points, under pressure from the opposition parties. they are ALSO under pressure from their respective parties to stand firm by the points as articulated (dahal's maoists) and to hedge their asses off (khanal's UML). the points needing clarification are the most contentious ones:

"The opposition to the accord mainly revolves around the fourth point, which commits to the formation of a separate force for Maoist combatants and the sixth point, which states that the UML and the Maoists will lead the government on a rotational basis."

the NC reaction to the whole thing, but particularly those two points, has been, predictably, something along the lines, of "bitch, please...".

it's only a matter of time until the whole thing falls apart. either

1) the UML-maoist coalition won't be able to reconcile their differences over implementation, and so won't form a government, and we end up back where we were, if not worse off, three weeks ago.

or, 2) they work out something that allows them to form a government, but wherein both parties save face...which will of course be so vague and full of loopholes that one party will eventually inevitably claim that the other party has failed to abide by the agreement. for instance: "on a rotational basis"? what does that even MEAN? the UML is saying it be only on the "basis of broad based consensus — contrary to the sixth provision that commits for “long-term cooperation between the two parties.”" they may work out something suitably agreeable, but when it comes time to hand over the reins, an excuse will be found not to do so. furthermore, even is the parties weren't so heavily factionalized, this seems logistically infeasible to me: a rotation over what length of time? do you form a new cabinet every time you switch over? (because that SURELY won't obstruct the duties of government or anything.)

or, 3) the agreement is somehow hammered out, clearly and unambiguously, through actual compromise, to the satisfaction of both the UML and the maoists. except now that they've gotten an even tentative and unstable agreement to the effect, i doubt the maoists would agree to anything other than the wholesale integration of the PLA as a separate force, and so point four will have to go in as is. this is totally antithetical to the absolute good of the professionalization of the security sector in peacebuilding, not to mention a COMPLETE spoiler when it comes to getting to constitution written. the NC and opposition parties will never ratify a statute under those circumstances.

and that's what's ultimately at stake here.