Word of the day:
hidrocarburos- hydrocarbons
países en vía de desarrollo- developing countries
pudor- modesty, but a very loaded word that describes a certain type of sexuality for women. Used a lot in older international treaties from the 1940s.

You never learn the most from the things you think you will. Take my Globalization and Copper class. While it may not count for much academically, it has made me think about a variety of issues and I might even go so far as to credit it greatly in my recent decision to change my academic focus within my International Relations major. Anyway, today’s discussion was a meta-look at the idea of the university and its relationship with knowledge, government and development. We talked about how the best knowledge is attained: is it possible to do the best critical or investigative research done when the educational institution is controlled by the state or follows a for profit model? How can universities be innovative and leverage this dynamism into political policy? This was all very interesting because at the same time, there’s much talk in the student community (and class itself ) about the need to make higher education free. Suspending concern over practicality of this, however, would this give the state too much control over the university, disenabling its critical role? Would the state ever finance something that was not directly working for its benefit? Would the greater economic productivity created by better educated workforce outweigh the downsides? Where does the model of the “university” go in an age where there arguably isn’t a unified current of thought anymore (but rather a string of separate realities, typified by the idea of post modernism)?

Another train of thought for today:
There are so many times when ideas aren’t communicated because of the different “languages” used. In my econ class today, we talked about the need to frame poverty and inequality as an economic issue, in the sense that over the long term, the productivity lost by having underperforming sectors can put a brakes on even the most superficially healthy economy. (ie. the US????) It’s a sad reality, but using moral and “human rights” based arguments has failed to create a strong enough impetus for intervention. Similarly, today in my law class we talked about women and political/economic discrimination. I think that again this is one reason feminism has had marginal success internationally is exactly this: it has only recently started to show economically the negative effects of discrimination against women.
As much as its easy to disagree with economics being the focal point of our value system, when arguments are shaped in the same language as an opponent, it’s much easier to show how everyone loses from not promoting “just” policies. Cynical to believe this is the most likely way to achieve change? You bet. But maybe a type of diplomacy that will become a career path?