Extra credit? Want to make up for lost time?

You may have noticed that for this week (the tenth week) I have listed readings under "bringing it home" .... and you were probably asking yourself whether the instructor has gone nuts to include stuff that won't be discussed.

Nuts I am, ahem, but there is a method to my madness.
I have this for a few reasons:

• The discussions on international trade and transport are not something far removed from our own public policy issues right here in Oregon/Pacific Northwest. The two readings demonstrate how the issues are absolutely local--including containerization of cargo.
• For those of you who for any reason could not participate in any of the past DQs, well, here is a chance to make up for at least one of them.
• For those of you who could not care whether you get credit or not, but want to discuss anyway, go for it.
• For those of you who will work only for credit, yes, this is an extra credit opportunity.

Your responses to the readings ought to be well-focused and well-thought out.  Particularly when you consider that the two readings are "old"--they were from towards the tail end of the economic expansion, before the global economy crashed like a collapse of a huge ponzi scheme :(

Final Discussion Question

Hey, in case you sent me the abstract for the final paper and I have not replied to you, it might be that somehow I missed your email.  In case you are yet to email me about the final paper, ahem, don't waste time ...

Even as you are doing that (and even as I get to grading your Essay 2) it is my job to bug you with one more task--the final Discussion Question.

For this week, I have three pieces for you that look at some of the important, but not that much discussed, aspects of international trade.  I would like you to read through them--each one is fascinating in its own way--and provide us with your take on those reports.

In this final round of discussions, I would like you to tell us, with respect to each of the pieces:

• What was absolutely new to you in them?
• Have you even vaguely heard about these before?
• What is the significance--from a consumer perspective?
• What is the significance--from a government perspective?

You do not need to respond to each and every one of those four questions--go after as many as you want to, even if only one.  The key though is to bring in fresh insights so that you do not echo your fellow-student's comments, and to continue the conversations. 

For the final paper

Hey everybody, I will soon start reading and evaluating your essays.

As diligent students, you have been keeping up with the schedule in the syllabus, and completed the readings for this week, and watched the video embedded in one of those readings.  I bet you are feeling uneasy that I have not given you work, and I shall address that right here and right now!

The readings for this week are all related to understanding some of the environmental aspects of trade and transport, with food as case study.  These materials will set the stage for the final paper you have to work on.

However, though the final paper is due only by 9:00 am on the Wednesday of Finals Week, I want you start thinking about that right now.  (In fact, you should be in a similar stage in other classes too where a final paper is required.)  We will work with the following schedule (a ten-step program!) with respect to how you will work on the paper:

• Step 1: Complete all the readings listed in the syllabus--the readings and the video related to "food miles"
• Step 2: Think about what you have read and watched.  Not just for a minute or two, but for a couple of days.  (Ideally by now you would have completed the readings, and so you are already in the thinking stage)
• Step 3: Given what you read, now think about a potential thesis that you can defend in a final term paper
• Step 4: Draft, and re-draft, and fine-tune, a 50- to 100-word paragraph where you present the "abstract" for the paper--the "thesis"
• Step 5: Email me (not the class) the abstract before Tuesday noon of next week.
• Step 6: Even as you wait for my feedback on your idea for the paper, you start collecting additional reference materials that will help you put together convincing arguments.  In the final paper, while you will definitely refer to the materials I have listed in the syllabus, you will need at least three additional credible and authoritative analytical references.  Do not merely pick three--you may have to scan through a few before you can zoom into at least three that best fit your thesis topic.
• Step 7: Pay attention to my feedback on your thesis statement
• Step 8: By Tuesday noon of "Dead Week" email me the revised abstract and the list of references.
• Step 9: Email me the final paper by Wednesday morning of Finals Week
• Step 10: Celebrate St. Patrick's Day :)

A note on the "abstract"
The focus will be only on the ideas and arguments.  In other words, do not provide a laundry-list of sorts of what you are going to do.  The following is an example--well, actually the abstract of a paper that I am on schedule to present at the upcoming annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers.

Abstract:
"Volunteer tourism" is exactly what it means: tourists heading to far away places not to kick back in the sun and the sands but to volunteer their services.  Volunteer tourism, or sometimes referred to simply as "voluntourism", has even been described as "a kind of mini version of the Peace Corps." While a very small aspect of global tourism, it is a fast growing segment in the travel industry, so much so that Travelocity even launched a "Travel for Good" program in 2006 in order to lure customers who were likely to take volunteer vacations.  Volunteer tourism becomes significant for at least one reason that they are geographically localized.  Africa attracts a significant percentage of voluntourists primarily because of the nature of the problems that appear to impede growth and development in many countries.  As one can imagine, the efforts of celebrity volunteers focusing their attention on Africa has also catalyzed voluntourism there.  However, the question of how much volunteer tourism benefits the local community has not been systematically examined—neither in the popular media nor within the academic contexts.  In this project, I will discuss the local, community-level, benefits generated through volunteer tourism by using Pommern, in Tanzania, as a case study.

Essay 2

So, hey, we are right on schedule for Essay #2. 

Make sure you read the materials listed for this week first.  Then,
Read them a second time, because now you will be able to make connections with the other essays you read the first time.

Then, do not start writing anything, even though you have lots of ideas floating around in your head.  Not yet.


Your task for Essay 2 is to respond to the following prompt:

Marc Levinson's argument appears to be that containerization has benefited all the countries.  The readings for this week pay particular attention to the developing countries.  Have they also benefited from containerization and the phenomenal growth in global trade?

All the resources that are listed for this week will help you articulate your thesis.  The entire Levinson text is also a valuable resource here.
In addition, you need to get at least one other authoritative reference to support your arguments.  This reference can be an article in a "scholarly journal", or a publication from a think-tank, or an analytical report (not a mere news item) in a newspaper, .... the bottom-line is that the source should be credible and considered authoritative enough.

As you write the essay, and definitely after you finish it, compare it with guidelines I gave you earlier.  This way, you can then amend your essay if appropriate. And keep in my mind my feedback on your first essay.
And, always ask yourself whether you are clear about the thesis that best answers the question.  You know, the bottom line.

Let me know if I might clarify further.  I shall gladly jump in.

Discussion Question #5

We are wrapping up Week 6, folks.  Time flies when we have fun, right?  Hey, don't snigger :)

The photo here is from the photos I have taken in my wanderings.  This was on a mid-summer day in Anchorage, Alaska, now almost three years ago.  I think it was not long after I had read Levinson's book, and when I walked out of the motel and saw stacks of containers at a distance, well, I had to take a photo!  No zoom nothing in my simple camera  ... 

With this week, we wrap up the Levinson text as well.  I bet from now on you won't ever see the "box" the same way again.  When you see that long freight train with containers after containers, you will recall the text, this class, and then you will swing by the post office and mail me a check for $5,000!

Levinson winds up the discussions with some wonderful summaries of the previous chapters.  Even now, when I read how much everybody underestimated the impacts that containerization was going to have, I am reminded of Yogi Berra's succinct summation that "it is tough to make predictions, especially about the future." 

To add an epilogue of sorts, I have included the news item about the Panama Canal's expansion. 

I will leave it relatively unstructured for your comments and observations.  I do expect your posts to be substantive, with facts and evidence, and with as minimal repetition and as much continuation of threads as possible.

Enjoy the Valentine's Day weekend, everybody. 

Discussion Question #4

Maybe you are getting ready for a big Super Bowl party.  The Super Bowl also comes pretty much at the same time that we begin to schedule mid-term exams in the academic quarter system.  What fun, eh!  Not in this class, though--your essays came in a few days before, and the next essay is not due for a while.

So, there you are sitting in front of the television and wondering whether the electrifying Reggie Bush of the Saints is the reason that USC will have its national championship yanked.  Of course, Bush might have his Heisman Trophy taken away too.

And then it strikes you that the television set you are watching all these was manufactured in China :)  Which is when you begin to forget about the Super Bowl and, to the annoyance of the rest of those at the party, you start talking to them, very loudly, about international trade and transportation, the box, and China.  And then yo wonder why all of a sudden you are all alone!

But you don't care, because you have done the readings for this week.  You know that this week is a continuation of some of the ideas from last week.  As Levinson notes in Chapter 12, "government investment in ports had been crucial to the development of container shipping in the 1960s and 1970s."  in 1977, "container shipping reached a landmark" writes Levinson.  What was that landmark?  You tell me, because you, too, have done all the readings.

But, governments were equally worried about a reverse of the "build it and they will come" approach: what if nobody came, and the ports with all the expensive equipment lay idle?  So, what did they do? Many of them decided to turn over the day-to-day operations to the private sector.  You can then see how the Dubai-based corporation I referred to earlier becomes a part of the story.

So, a wonderful confluence of events.  In 1977 that major shipping landmark.  In 1979, China's Deng Xiaoping famously declared that "to get rich is glorious" and unleashes economic reforms.  Fast forward thirty years and the reading I have included for you that China dethrones Germany as the top exporter.   

Which is where you begin to yell, "stop, Dr. Khe, I have a few things to say."  Sounds good to me.
Your task, for this Discussion Question, is to demonstrate your understanding of the readings for this week, with the following caveats:

• All the comments cannot be based only on the China/Germany news item
• All your comments cannot be standalone comments--after the first few, we need rejoinders and critiques and discussions.

Get set. Ready. Go
Nope, that is not it.  In football language, "hut! hut! hike!" :)

ps: if you read until here, well, you might be interested in this Super Bowl prediction!
pps: the reality is that I have no plans to watch the game. ha ha ha.  I am just an information junkie.

On DQ #3, and more

Hey, first about your essays.  I have barely finished reading a third of the essays that came in.  You can imagine the reasons why; the primary one being that this is the time of the term when the first of the major assignments from other classes also come in.  I will try to get you the feedback at the earliest.

In the meanwhile, I have updated the grades page, where you can check your progress--if you had provided me with a four-digit code. If you have not, and want to keep track as well, make sure to email me (not the class) a preferred four digit code for you, and that number ought not to be the last four of your SSN or V#.
This is also a neat way for you to make sure I have not made any data entry error.
My hope is that deciphering the evaluation that I have provided is simple; email me if I need to clarify.

I am delighted with your responses to Discussion Question 3.  As much as international trade and transportation are market activities--largely governed by supply and demand--the reality is that there is extensive government involvement as well.  Some of those are well discussed in other courses too--such as the subsidies and tariffs that governments might use in order to influence how competitive their own "domestic" production can be in the global market.  But, I have opted to stay out of those aspects of trade and economic issues so that we can focus on the geographic aspects, particularly with the neat case of the "box."  In other words, I want to remind you that there is a lot more extensive government involvement than we could discuss in DQ 3. (My favorite complaint is discussed here.)

We can even take a step back in time and look at the interstate system that was built.  The trigger for that was Eisenhower's experience as a young army captain--In 1919 that Eisenhower participated in the army’s exercise to study the logistical issues in moving military vehicles and equipment from coast to coast, along the Lincoln Highway.  It was this, together with his war-time experiences in Europe, which led Eisenhower to call for a national system of highways when he was elected to the presidency.
So, yes, there is that government/military/transport connection in the interstate system, too.

The container revolution was similarly catalyzed by the logistical demands of the Vietnam War, as you found out from Levinson's presentation.  It is interesting, eh!  So, yes, this too is an example of market-state partnership of sorts, even though they did not start working as partners with a fixed goal of sorts.

By the same token, even though governments might own the ports, the day-to-day operation could be contracted out to the market.  This became a huge controversy recently here in the US. 

The efficiency gains from standardization of the "box" have been tremendous, as Levinson points out.  This standardization might have eventually happened; but the government getting into it perhaps catalyzed an acceleration of the standardization.  I mean, if you think about, pretty much most of the goods we use are standardized somehow, right?

We also notice that the takeoff stage of the diffusion process is highly related to the standardization time frame as well.  Which sounds logical even to an intuitive understanding.

Finally, it appears that this term I am completely lost on the popular media references you folks are making ...  First it was about a Bruce Willis movie, and then about "The Wire"... and now the Discovery Channel's program.  Hmmm.... I have a lot to catch up on, eh .... maybe I can if I didn't have to grade essays :)

As always, feel free to post your rejoinders, questions, ....

I will get the next DQ out in the next couple of days

ps: if you read until here, you deserve another "groaner" ....

A woman had twins, and gave them up for adoption at birth.
One of the twins went to a family in Egypt, and was named "Amal." The other twin went to a family in Spain, and they named him "Juan."
Years later, Juan sent a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she told her husband that she wished she also had a picture of Amal.
Her husband responded, "But they are twins. If you've seen Juan, you've seen Amal." 

(read the italics aloud if you don't get the pun at first!!!)