Posts Tagged policymaking

The Challenges of Complexity

Last night, I attended a dinner in Lafayette. A delightful man at my table turned out to be a retired environmental engineer, and during the conversation, the subject of fracking came up. I’ve had a good deal of trepidation about the practice, so I was surprised when he said that–done with a reasonable level of [...]

Continue reading...

, , ,

5 Comments

Tea and Superficiality

I have this mantra that I am sure annoys the hell out of the students in my policy class: “It’s more complicated than that.” It is part of my effort to explain that policy decisions frequently have consequences beyond those that we can easily identify–beyond the superficial issues that pundits exploit for ratings and politicians [...]

Continue reading...

, , ,

1 Comment

Pesky Evidence

I’ll admit to being one of the multitude of fans who have made shows like NCIS and CSI such hits. It isn’t that I don’t recognize how unrealistic they are—no publicly financed lab could afford such cutting-edge equipment even if someone invented it—but I love watching the search for hard evidence, and the characters’ willingness [...]

Continue reading...

, ,

2 Comments