A list of panels I’m considering attending at this year’s APSA conference.

Thursday at 2pm: 5-1, Partisan Cues: Persuasive Power, Limitations, and Effects on Individual Reasoning

Thursday at 4:15pm: 5-2, How Emotions Influence Ideology, Trust, and Policy Opinions

Friday at 2pm: 5-18, Public Opinion over Redistributive and Related Economic Policies

Friday at 2pm: 38-2, Information and Misinformation

Saturday at 7:30am: 37-19, What Moves Public Opinion?

Saturday at 7:30am: 5-5, Socialization, Disagreement, and Deliberation

Had a good talk last about DC dive bars. Made me think about RECESSIONS! Remember when we used to go to Recession? Or rather, when we went to Recessions like three times? It appears to still be open and I think we should go back again soon to drink beers the size of our faces. But not on karaoke night.

Other dive bars I used to go to a lot and haven’t been to in forever: the Raven (which according to Annie now has flat-screen TVs? That’s terrible), Stetson’s (this counts, right? Catherine says rats (MULTIPLE RATS!) ran over her foot there, which I think qualifies it), The Big Hunt (gross).

In my extensive research for this article (read: 7:45am Googling) I came across several totally bullshit list of DC dive bars. Like this one that includes the Red Derby, decidedly NOT a dive bar (they serve BRUNCH, for God’s sake), or this one that includes Galaxy Hut (???). I also don’t think it’s...

I’m back from Montreal! I was there for a conference, where I saw Sommer win an Urban Journalism award, I won a Top Faculty Paper Award, and best of all, I spent most of my time hanging out with family (mom, sister, brother-in-law, niece, nephew, sister’s mom).

First thing: Montreal is NOT JOKING AROUND about being French. Even the elevators speak in French. Second thing: THOSE BAGELS ARE AWFUL. What conspiracy maintains their popularity? Under-salted, dry, and somehow both chewy and crumbly at the same time (??). Gross.

Bagels aside, Montreal was awesome. I had melty delicious beef tartare at the adorably named Beaver Hall, drank lots of beer, and spent a lovely morning pedaling a four-person bike around the (recently redeveloped) riverfront.

IN SUMMARY, I present Cowgirl Maddie, fastest draw in Canada:

I just returned from two days in Albany getting S settled in his studio apartment (he will be there part-time; a few days a week).

It’s an odd experience setting up a new apartment in your thirties. As we all settle into our lives/homes/futures, most of us are at the point where we make an effort to find and pay for objects that we love and that will last. We read the Wirecutter, we re-season our cast iron, we eschew particleboard. But since S will (we hope) be Albany for only a short time, that approach didn’t make much sense.

Instead, his apartment is a mix of donated furniture (thanks to Catherine, Kate, and Matt), Ikea, and our pre-moving-in-together duplicates (my old duvet cover! His old couch! The pot I couldn’t bear to throw away even though we had a much better one!). It all came together surprisingly well: our friends are so stylish that even their hand-me-downs are...

I found the UnfollowAMan piece completely charming, actually. But I’m not about to unfollow all (or even any) of the men in my twitter feed–they are there because they contribute something useful OR because they are horrifyingly entertaining (see: @FrankLuntz). But the piece raises a good point–even a cursory look at my professional twitter account (where I follow mostly academics) shows way more men than women. I also retweet men more often than I retweet women.

So, I created a Twitter list of awesome women (who tweet on topics relevant to my work) and moved it to a prime location on my TweetDeck. Now I see it right away when I check Twitter, and (I hope!) am more likely to retweet and generally pay attention to the smart things my non-male colleagues say.

Did another batch of interviews yesterday. I’m improving–or at least, I’m better at asking questions that elicit policy beliefs. One tactic I’ve found useful is to say “explain X to me the way that you’d explain it to a ten-year-old,” with X being the deficit, the ACA, etc. This framework encourages people to reveal the factual assumptions underlying their preferences rather than just stating their opinion.

But aside from the factual statements (which are, of course, the point of the interviews), it’s been fascinating hearing people articulate their (often conflicted) opinions.

One of my interviewees was a 24-year-old from Georgia, a high school graduate hoping to go to college once he saved enough money. He and his fiancée are both unemployed. He neither knew nor cared much about politics (“I don’t really have time for any of that”). Then I got to one of the big questions–“what’s...

• Low bar back squat: 200
• High bar back squat: 190
• Deadlift: 210
• Strict press: 70
• Bench: 95
• Clean: 115
• Snatch: 80
• Strict pullups: 6

Just re-tested after a three-month training program. I have the most room for improvement on my deadlift and strict press. These are both movements that require lower back strength, and according to my trainer my lower back is “wobbly.” I guess I’ll work on that?

My workouts are focused on powerlifting rather than olympic lifts, hence my crappy oly numbers. While I enjoy cleans and snatches (ok, fine, I enjoy cleans. Snatches are horrible), they require way more mental strength than straight lifting. I know that’s what many people like about them, but for me it’s a negative. No thinking at the gym!

I really can’t recommend it enough.

Full photos are online at our photographer’s website. They’re all free to download and we have a flash drive with the hi-res versions if anyone wants one to print out–just let me know.

Making myself accountable to my non-existent blog readers:

• Public Myths: Through surveys and interviews, finding widely held misperceptions that are not a result of elite misinformation. This is the big project. Eventually, I’ll be running field experiments on correcting these myths in news outlets.
• News Format Choices: When and why do people turn to text versus video? Specifically, what roles do (1) the difficulty of the story and (2) the emotional resonance of the story play?
• Anxiety and News: We know a lot about why people read the news, but little about why they don’t. What leads people to opt out, either of entire news sources or of particular formats?
• How Factual Information is Integrated into Policy Preferences: This is the most poorly defined of my projects. This stems from my paper looking at the role of empathy in support for redistributive policies. We know that when people...

Some of the recent criticism of biking has noted bikers’ tendency to creep up next to cars so that they are at the front of the line when the light turns green. As a new biker, I also used to find this irritating–“why can’t bikers just wait in line like everyone else?” Eventually I realized that it’s actually a safety issue. A car is more likely to see a biker who is already in front of them than a biker squeezed between their right door and the curb. The times I’ve been knocked off my bike (not counting getting doored) have all been incidents of cars sideswiping me. It might be because the drivers were vindictive jerks, but I think it’s more likely they just didn’t see me. If I was in front of them, they would have.

At many intersections in DC, the pedestrian stoplight changes to green a few seconds before the car stoplight. I suspect that this is to give pedestrians a head start...