Blogging to keep my head in the game

Dear reader,

I have started this blog, in part, to force myself to pay attention to what is happening today. As a journalist now doing a PhD on issues of international justice and the politics of humanitarianism, my topics of concern are regularly on the front pages of newspapers. But I am studying the roots of problems. My research is in international relations theory, diplomatic history, democratic philosophy, and institutional design. But sometimes one must lift ones nose from the parchment (meaning the screen) to the contemporary (meaning the same screen, but scrolling more quickly). And so a blog that will, tentatively, include:

1. Updates on ongoing issues and cases of the International Criminal Court, and other tribunals.

2. Occasional reviews and ripostes to articles and books.

3. Rare (hopefully) observations on Canadian politics and its most frustrating commentators (I’m looking at you, Margaret Wente)

4. Shameless use of quotations by favoured political philosophers (I’m looking at you, Foucault)

5. Ephemera

My hope is that this blog will be a writing practice that will keep my head in the game. But who knows what its effect might be.

“People know what they do; they frequently know why they do what they do; but what they don’t know is what what they do does.” (Michel Foucault)