But If The While...

I Return

2009-04-27T16:12:00.003-04:00

To My Loyal Reader:

I've been slacking in updates for no particular reason. Maybe the transition from winter to summer has made me feel less creative/productive.

On that front, I'm really looking forward to this summer in the City. Last summer I was dealing with a bed bug infestation and the accompanying move. I spent May/June/July sleeping on Ashley's parents' couch and on a crappy sofabed in my sweltering, windowless apartment. I spent most of the month of July searching for apartments, and a good bit of July/August moving into the substantially larger apartment where I currently reside.

This summer I'll be free from the bedbugs and I won't be moving, so I'll have a lot more time to devote to pleasurable activities: hanging out, going to the beach, lounging, seeing concerts, and doing all the other free stuff that NYC is supposedly famous for. I'm sure there will be plenty of updates to be made. In addition, I have several vacations planned: North Carolina with my grandparents in July, Ocean City with Ashley's parents in early August, and a late-August trip to Mt. Tremblant with Ashley.

Anyway, here's to summer. And screw the swine flu.

Colbert being funny

2009-04-09T10:55:00.001-04:00

The Colbert Report

Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Better Know a District - New York's 25th - Dan Maffei

colbertnation.com

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Political Humor

NASA Name Contest

Cats are Hilarious

2009-03-25T11:59:00.001-04:00

Banquet at Delmonico's - Barry Werth

2009-03-17T16:42:00.002-04:00

I recently read a book by Barry Werth entitled Banquet at Delmonico's. It purports to explain the big debate in this country about evolution at the end of the 19th century. That debate, after all, was extremely important. Edmund Spencer's phrase "survival of the fittest" was used to justify imperial expansion all over the world. Both Spencer and Darwin himself were extremely famous and influential men on both sides of the Atlantic.

Werth attempts to describe the debate as it moved to this side of the Atlantic and increasingly became accepted not as a fantastic theory, but as solid fact. To do that, he follows the lives of several men over a span of more than a decade.

He does a good job explaining their daily movements and personal correspondences, but the book mystifyingly lacks any detailed discussion of the particularities of either Spencer or Darwin's ideas. He sets up an ideological competition between Darwin and Spencer, but the reader is never treated to its nuances. We assume it exists, but we never learn its particularities.

Instead, Werth primarily concerns himself with where the main characters were, who they were debating with, and what books they were writing. He spends chapter after chapter describing in exhaustive detail about the alleged affair between Henry Ward Beecher and one of his female parishioners without explaining why the affair was important to the debate concerning evolution. Was it because the affair had a transformative effect on Beecher himself? Did it discredit him? Did it change his viewpoints concerning evolution? Werth never explains.

It's a well researched, pretty well written book. But Werth's apparent insecurity with discussing the ideological debate - the very subject of his book, no less - is a big flaw. It's interesting to read about the comings and goings of famous men, but in the end that's all the book has to offer.

Broadway in Front of my Office

2009-03-17T16:06:00.002-04:00

This is a glary, but pretty accurate, photo of Broadway in front of my office.

Bruce Springsteen Covers

2009-03-17T15:52:00.002-04:00

If you're into Bruce, which I'm not really, you might be into this. Lots of covers of his songs by more contemporary bands. Even if you're not a fan, some of the interpretations are interesting.

http://www.brucespringsteen.net/news/hanginout.html

Old Color Photos

2009-03-16T11:47:00.002-04:00

A collection of old color photos, circa 1910, from Russia. So, so sweet:

http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2009/03/some-of-worlds-first-color-photographs.html

Europe in 1914

2009-03-11T16:31:00.002-04:00

Europe, circa 1914:

Over the past few weeks I've been writing an essay about a subject that has links to World War One. I did a lot of research about that war in college, and I'm endlessly interested by the incredible effects it had, and still has, on the entire world. Nothing drives the point home more, I think, than to look at a map of Europe pre-WWI. So much has changed. So many problems that we're currently dealing with have their roots in the WWI area. It's mind-boggling to think about.

SoHo when it Snows

2009-03-10T16:21:00.003-04:00

Took this with my Blackberry a few weeks ago when it snowed. I have a pretty cool, though very short, walk from the subway to my office. I thought it looked neat with the snow on the cobbled streets.

Beautiful Weather Weekends

2009-03-09T14:38:00.002-04:00

Friday at work I was sick as a dog. I might be exaggerating, but that's sort of the way it felt. I went to bed early and woke up at a decent hour on Saturday and prepared myself, and the apartment, for the arrival of some college friends, Tom and Abby (aka TomAbby). Tom was unlucky enough to live with me and Tyler senior year and as a result was subjected to all the filth that we senior college dudes could generate. Which was a lot, if you were wondering.

But I cleaned the apartment sufficiently that when Tom and Abby arrived promptly at noon, they weren't thoroughly disgusted. I took that as a compliment. Tyler, Ashley and I led them on a pretty decent walking tour of the Park Slope neighborhood. Abby got us free pizza at a place on 7th Ave. called Roma Pizza which is TERRIFIC because she knew the owner's daughter. After that, we got Gorilla coffee and also some chocolate and beer from a really cool local beer botique.

We watched a bit of baseball on TV and drank the beer at our apartment, then walked over to Prospect Park to play frisbee. We discovered a squirrel who had met his unfortunate end in the middle of a field. Lacking the proper equipment for a formal funeral, I wanted to put him in the garbage but the girls thought that was mean and gross, so we left him there to await his fate.

We got bored with frisbee after a while so Alex climbed a tree. After that we walked home and watched a bit of Die Hard with a Vengeance. In the right situation, i.e. with friends and over beer, that movie can be pretty entertaining.

Eventually we got ourselves out the door and met Tyler's girlfriend and a girl that Alex is dating at a bbq joint in Chelsea called Rub BBQ. After a 40 minute wait we got a table for all 8 of us and feasted on bbq'd pork, beef, and chicken with a healthy dose of cornbread and baked beans. It was terrific, and even with drinks and tip the total was under $25 per person. I'd wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who likes the bbq genre. Even if you're on the fence about it, this place is great.

After dinner we all split up. Ashley and I walked with Tom and Abby all the way up to Grand Central. It took us nearly an hour but it was a pleasant evening and we weren't in a hurry. We talked about a possible group trip to Las Vegas over the July 4th weekend. It might just happen. We dropped the pair off in time for an 11:17 train and retired ourselves for the night.

It was absolutely great to see those two. I've been remiss about visiting them. Tom's got a job in Westchester that puts him within an easy train ride, so I really hope to see him/her/both more often. I'll tell you what, though. Good weather does wonders for my disposition.

"Requiem for a Day Off"

2009-03-06T10:11:00.000-05:00

Via SpliceToday:

Mechanical Bulls and Happy Hours

2009-03-04T11:02:00.004-05:00

There's a bar in midtown Manhattan called Johnny Utah's that's known for having a mechanical bull. Some friends of mine chose this particular bar to host a happy hour fundraising event to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. $10 cover to go to the LLS, a few drink specials, and a big group of friends. And a mechanical bull.

I got to the bar around 6:30, had a $4 can of PBR but quickly decided that PBR should never be worth $4. Other than that, though, the whole thing was a lot of fun. Between 40 and 50 people showed up, which means between $400 or $500 went to the LLS.

I saw a lot of familiar faces, mostly people from college who I don't keep in touch with anymore. It was strange to see them all at a "fundraising event" and not in a dingy frat house basement. Whatever friendship we had back then didn't make the transition from beer-soaked kitchen floors to the real world.

And to be honest, I'm not too sad about it. You're friends with people whom you get along with in particular circumstances. When circumstances and/or locations change, you lose some of those friends and you make new ones. The people you keep in touch with despite changing circumstances are your "true" friends. And we all need as many of those as we can get.

Speaking of true friends, my roommate from college, Tom, and his girlfriend Abby (known affectionately in college as Tomabby) are coming down to New York this weekend for a visit. I'm wicked psyched because I haven't seen them in nearly a year.

I'll leave you with this, the aforementioned mechanical bull. Yee hah!

More On Jindal

2009-03-02T16:49:00.001-05:00

There’s a new twist to all the fuss surrounding Bobby Jindal’s rebuttal to Obama’s speech on Tuesday night. There were all kinds of negative responses to Jindal’s speech itself. But this article talks about something much weirder: an exorcism that Jindal claims he participated in during college. Alternet.org reports:

During his years at Brown University, Jindal pursued his Catholic faith with unbridled zeal. Jindal became emotionally involved with a classmate named Susan who had overcome skin cancer and struggled to cope with the suicide of a close friend. Jindal reflected in an article for a Catholic magazine (called "Beating a Demon: Physical Dimensions of Spiritual Warfare") that "sulfuric" scents hovered over Susan everywhere she went. In the middle of a prayer meeting, Jindal claimed that Susan collapsed and began convulsing on the floor. His prayer partners gathered together on the floor, holding hands and shouting, "Satan, I command you to leave this woman!"

So Jindal thought The Exorcist was actually a documentary?

The Insanity of Greg Anderson

2009-03-02T13:55:00.001-05:00

For most of us, choosing between testifying at a trial about things most people already know you did, and spending an indefinite amount of time behind bars, would be pretty simple. We'd tesfiy. But Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds' disgraced former trainer and alleged provider of steroids, apparently would rather go to jail than testify against Bonds. According to ESPN, Anderson has once again refused to testify about Bonds' alleged steroid use, this time in Bonds' perjury trial that's scheduled to start in March. Mind you, Anderson has already spent a year in jail when he refused to testify in front of a grand jury investigating Bonds for steroid use a couple of years ago.

No one understands why Anderson won't testify: loyalty to Bonds? fear? insanity? Maybe he's afraid that once he testifies, the Feds will charge him with distribution of steroids. But it also seems crazy that the Feds wouldn't have offered Anderson a deal to avoid jailtime in exchange for testifying against the guy that the government really wants: Bonds.

For my money, I'd bet that all the steroids that Anderson dealt, and presumably did himself, have somehow warped his brain, shrinking it along with his cojones to the size of a pea. Or maybe he's just not afraid of prison because the steroids have made him so strong that he'd dominate any prison they threw him into.

It can't be that he's just saving the details for a future book deal, can it? That would be too cynical, too unbelievable...but then again, it'd sell millions.

Doggie Dreams

2009-03-02T12:34:00.001-05:00

Because this will never get old...

2009-02-27T15:26:00.000-05:00

O.K. Go's "Here it Goes Again."

Caffeine

2009-02-26T16:01:00.002-05:00

A transcript of my recent interaction with the woman behind the counter at the place where I get coffee:

Me: You're not getting decaf anytime soon, are you?
Her: Well we have decaf espresso that we can make into an Americano for you.
Me: Maybe next time. I just don't like to get so wired.
Her: What, you don't like the shakes?
Me: No, not really.
Her: You're the only one.

By the way, a woman gave birth in the lobby of my office building today. And I finished 100% of my crossword puzzle.

Cool Ad

2009-02-26T11:14:00.001-05:00

Man, I'm in a groove today. This comes from Andrew Sullivan:

If you Love Coffee...

2009-02-26T11:10:00.001-05:00

You HAAAAAAAVE to watch this video. Via SpliceToday.Com:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6jluj_oldelaf-le-cafe-english-subtitles_music

Shutting Down Broadway (Avenue)

2009-02-26T10:54:00.003-05:00

According to the New York Times, Mayor Bloomberg will announce today (Thursday) that Broadway Avenue around Times Square will be closed to traffic beginning in May and lasting at least until the end of the year. The cross streets and 7th Avenue will be open to traffic, but the closed portions will be filled with benches and cafe tables with umbrellas. I guess they're going for the European look.

This sounds cool, but it's a shame that the only people who'll get to enjoy the new plazas will be the throngs of tourists that make Times Square totally unappealing to the rest of us. That place is mobbed enough as it is.

UPDATE: Apparently they're doing the same thing to Herald Square, which is around 33rd and Broadway. Cool.

Chinese Food

2009-02-25T11:53:00.004-05:00

Who among us doesn't like Chinese food? I, for one, have always been a fan. My favorite kind of Chinese food, however, is not the kind that you can get at a semi-nice sit down restaurant. No, the best kind of Chinese food to be had, especially here in New York City, is of the take-out-only variety.

I'm talking about the kind of Chinese food where 9 bucks (in NYC no less!) will buy you an entree, an eggroll, a soda and a fortune cookie. The kind of food where you recognize the ridiculously high MSG and sodium content, but love it anyway. From the kind of place where you can barely understand the person taking your order, and they can barely understand you.

When our favorite Chinese take-out place, conveniently located across the street from our apartment, closed down unexpectedly about a month ago, we roomates panicked. Where would we get our belovedly awful Chinese food?! We tried a few other local places, but the quality was too high; the order-takers too fluent in English.

Finally, about a week ago, my roomate Alex discovered, via MenuPages.com, a sufficiently hole-in-the-wall Chinese takeout place where the MSG content is high, the English skills are low, and the prices are just right. If you ever visit, we'll have to get some.

Ah, Chinese food in its rightful habitat: plastic bags and cheap takeout boxes.

But Don't Take My Word For it...

2009-02-25T10:14:00.001-05:00

This is David Brooks' reaction to Jindal's speech, via TNR:

"We Believe Americans Can Do Anything"

2009-02-25T09:28:00.003-05:00

That was the recurring catchphrase from Bobby Jindal's GOP response to Obama's speech. And it didn't get much smarter from there. Jindal's speech felt like it could have been directed towards middle schoolers - the type of audience that Karl Rove believes America is. If anything, it demonstrated the GOP's inability to engage and help solve the current problems plaguing the country.

Dance Mix

2009-02-24T16:44:00.001-05:00

Ely Kim's BOOMBOX. This will probably be all over the net within the next couple of days.

BOOMBOX from Ely Kim on Vimeo.

Good Mark Twain Quote

2009-02-23T16:53:00.000-05:00

I empathize with him:

"What is the chief end of man?--to get rich. In what way?--dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must."

Holocaust Oscars

2009-02-23T12:46:00.000-05:00

Kate Winslet explains why she decided to do The Reader. So true, so true.

What's Government Good For?

2009-02-20T11:13:00.000-05:00

Leon Weiseltier, literary editor at The New Republic, ventures into the political arena with this article encouraging Obama to, in a word, be more liberal. If you’re someone who appreciates government’s role in society, you’ll love this sentence:

"I want the president to tell the American people that, contrary to what they have been taught for many years, government is a jewel of human association and an heirloom of human reason; that government, though it may do ill, does good; that a lot of the good that government does only it can do; that the size of government must be fitted to the size of its tasks, and so, for a polity such as ours, big government is the only government; that strong government comports well with strong freedom, unless Madison was wrong; that a government based on rights cannot exclude from its concern the adversities of the people who confer upon it its legitimacy, or consign their remediation to the charitable moods of a preferred and decadent few; that Ronald Reagan, when he proclaimed categorically, without exception or complication, that "government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem," was a fool; and that nobody was ever rescued, or enlarged, by being left alone."

Liberalism, at its heart, is about guaranteeing the greatest amount of freedom for the greatest number of people. For liberals, government isn’t about suppressing liberty; it’s about ensuring opportunity.

Government will never be perfect, but as Weiseltier writes, “For all its grotesqueness, American government is a beautiful thing.”

Journalism

2009-02-18T11:52:00.002-05:00

Everyone knows that the field of journalism is rapidly changing these days. Everyone also seems to agree that "old" media, like newspapers and print magazines, are going to die and that some as-yet-unknown "new media" platform will emerge triumphant. No one really knows what journalism will look like in the 21st century; just that it will look different than it has in the past.

That being the case, why would a timid 24 year old stuck in an entry-level job consider entering the field when everything is in flux? I don't know. I don't have a vision of what the journalism field should look like; conversely, I don't have a clear sense of how old media might yet be saved.

I'm envious of my peers who truly love their jobs, though if forced I could only name two or three who really do. What about the rest of us?

As a history and english major I've always been fascinated by two things: writing and facts. A straight-up history degree provides plenty of both but I imagine it could easily become too stifling. An english degree...well, there aren't enough facts.

In my fantasy world, journalism provides both writing and facts. In addition, it provides constantly evolving challenges. As a history person, you're dealing with events that have already finished. As a journalist, you're dealing with events that are constantly evolving. In my mind, the latter seems more exciting than the former. Plus, I think switching from journalism to history would be easier than the opposite route. Robert Caro, author of the Lyndon Johnson biographies I like so much, started out as a journalist.

But are all these tiny reasons reason enough for me to really pursue journalism as a career? I have basically no experience. I have few friends in the field. And the more well-established people I've spoken to usually say something like "well...things are different now than they were when I was coming up." Would I be a good journalist?

What next?

Bathroom Poster

2009-02-17T12:39:00.000-05:00

Should I buy this?

Who's More Snooty?

2009-02-17T12:13:00.002-05:00

Someone who reads The New Yorker or someone who reads The Economist?

The results of my informal poll:

New Yorker - 4 votes
The Economist -4 votes

A tie. That's disappointing and surprising. I would've thought it would be The New Yorker in a landslide.

Best President Ever

2009-02-17T11:34:00.002-05:00

C-Span published a poll of 65 historians ranking our Presidents in order. My first response was: Truman and Kennedy above Jefferson?! WTF?!?!?!

I'll give my own personal Top 5 here:

1. Washington
2. Lincoln
3. FDR
4. Jefferson
5. Teddy Roosevelt
Hon. Mention: George W. Bush. Just kidding.

It's also sad for me that the only US President Dickinson College ever produced is pretty much the consensus "Worst President Ever." I guess that's why you never hear him mentioned in Dickinson's recruiting literature.

Japanese Finance Minister Drunk at G-7

2009-02-17T09:50:00.002-05:00

Apparently Hoichi Nakagawa had about 10 too many drinks before taking the stage at the recent G-7 summit. According to the NYTimes, he ended up resigning. But really, can you blame the guy?

The Myth of the Centrist

2009-02-10T10:42:00.000-05:00

Ross Douthat doesn't buy the myth of the magical centrist Senator. At best, Douthat thinks that centrist Senators make extremists a tiny bit less extreme:

“In this world, centrist Senators exist to take politics as usual - whether it's tax cuts in Republican eras, or spending splurges in Democratic ones - and make it ever so slightly more fiscally responsible. So if the GOP wants, say, $500 billion in tax cuts, the country clearly needs $400 billion in tax cuts - but not a penny more! And if the Democrats want $900 billion in stimulus, then the best possible policy outcome must be ... $800 billion in stimulus! To read this Arlen Specter op-ed, justifying both the stimulus package and the cuts the "gang of moderates" have attempted to impose, is to encounter a mind incapable of thinking about policy in any terms save these: Take what the party in power wants, subtract as much money as you can without infuriating them, vote yes, and declare victory.”

Centrists: make up your mind!

Pavarotti - Nessun Dorma

2009-02-09T21:00:00.000-05:00

For the younger crowd out there...

2009-02-09T19:34:00.000-05:00

Cat Leaps to Freedom

2009-02-09T10:16:00.000-05:00

Steve-O's out!

2009-02-05T14:30:00.000-05:00

There are few who can appreciate the amazingness of this line from an MSNBC article:

"Former "Jackass" star Steve-O is celebrating his release from a California mental institution, where he spent four months recovering from drug abuse last year, by appearing on the eighth season of "Dancing With the Stars."

From: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29017688/

National Geographic has some sweet pics

2009-02-04T14:18:00.000-05:00

Turned onto this link by my friend J.

http://books.nationalgeographic.com/visions-of-paradise/voting-machine

Drugs are Bad, mmkay?

2009-02-03T16:24:00.001-05:00

"Why is this happening to me?" says the drugged out kid.

So you're supposed to PAY your taxes?

2009-02-03T15:20:00.004-05:00

Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority leader from South Dakota and Obama's nominee for director of Health and Human Services, pulled out of the running today a week or so after it was revealed that he failed to pay more than $100,000 of taxes over the past several years. So, apparently, ends the nascent second-chance political career.

This in addition to the withdrawl from consideration by Nancy Killefer, White House performance officer, earlier in the day, also for tax reasons. I guess Tim Geithner, the Treasury Secretary nominee whose tax problems have been well documented over the past several weeks, got lucky because he was the first one we learned about. Things might've been different if Daschle's and Killefer's problems had preceded him.

So Obama's honeymoon officially lasted about a week. Since then, problems with his nominees and the looming fight over the stimulus plan have given him loads of problems. How will he handle it? There's nothing we can do but wait and see.

More Winter? Dang...

2009-02-02T14:48:00.002-05:00

Punxatawney Phil saw his shadow, I'm afraid. Six more weeks of winter. And on such a nice day, too.

High Fructorse Corn Syrup: "The Facts"

2009-02-02T14:34:00.004-05:00

My girlfriend sent me a link to this website - http://www.hfcsfacts.com/ - which purports to "correct the record" regarding high fructorse corn syrup's bad reputation. The website looked a bit too slick, so I looked into who owns the site, and it turns out that it's run by the Corn Refiners Association, which is a corn industry trade association that represents, among other companies, Archer Daniels Midland.

A Wikipedia search says this about ADM:

"Archer Daniels Midland has been the subject of several major federal lawsuits related to air pollution. In 2001 the company agreed to pay a $1.46 million fine for violating federal and Illinois clean-air regulations at its Decatur feed plant and to spend $1.6 million to reduce air pollution there. [6] Based on year 2000 data,[7] ADM was listed as the tenth largest air polluter in the USA by the Political Economy Research Institute.[8] In 2003, ADM settled federal air pollution complaints related to the company's efforts to avoid New Source Review provisions of the Clean Air Act that require pollution control upgrades when a plant is modernized."

The Corn Refiners Association also represents Cargill, which is the largest privately held company in the world and, also according to Wiki, is responsible for 25% of all US grain exports. Michael Pollan mentions the company frequently, and not in a good way, in Omnivore's Dilemma because it refuses to divulge information about its foodmaking processes.

An interesting website, nonetheless. But I hesitate to trust "facts" that are coming from a source with such a clear bias.

The Morality of Abortion

2009-02-02T10:10:00.003-05:00

Damon Linker, following up on his earlier post about the end of the culture wars, offers a useful insight:

"A final point. As a (moderate) liberal, I feel the force of the classic rallying cry with which Ed ends his post: "Oppose abortion? Don't have one!" We liberals love this argument because it makes us feel like we're being morally neutral on the issue: whereas abortion opponents want to force all women into one box, the pro-choice position can be affirmed by those who for moral reasons would never choose to have an abortion as well as by those who wish to undertake the procedure. Who but a misogynistic tyrant could argue with such an open-minded position?

But here's the problem: the position isn't morally neutral at all. Consider: Can you think of any other matter in which the state grants individuals the right to determine for themselves what does and what does not constitute murder? Of course not. It only does so on the issue of abortion because (since Roe) the Constitution implicitly denies the humanity of the fetus. Don't think so? How would you feel about a slogan like this: "Oppose slavery? Don't own one!" You'd probably find it morally offensive. Why? Because you think that owning slaves is just plain wrong and that failing to publicly affirm this principle is tantamount to saying that owning slaves is a matter of moral indifference."

Linker has a point, but certainly there are more than two sides to the moral debate. Comparing the issue to slavery is a bit inaccurate because the crushing moral inequality is borne only by the slave, not by his/her master. When it comes to abortion the moral, and physical, burden is shared by both mother and fetus.

Choosing not to have an abortion is different than choosing not to own a slave because if you choose not to own a slave, then your responsiblity ends -- you simply don't own one and you go about your business. If a woman chooses not to have an abortion, then she bears the emotional and physical responsibilities of bearing and rearing a child.

I'm not saying that I'm disagreeing with Linker's point that the abortion issue is a moral one. I'm just saying that I think the issue is a bit more dynamic than he makes it out to be.

Leningrad Then and Now

2009-01-30T11:16:00.001-05:00

Really cool website where the photographer has superimposed images of Leningrad circa WWII with pictures from today:

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/leningrads-past-haunt/6938

Oil Companies are Screwing Us

2009-01-30T11:05:00.000-05:00

This really pisses me off:

"But in a year where oil rose to a record before having its steepest-ever collapse, Exxon still managed to set a record as the most-profitable American corporation. The company earned $45.2 billion in 2008, up from $40.6 billion in 2007."

Cool Stop Motion Video

2009-01-29T18:12:00.001-05:00

Via SpliceToday.com

Does Obama Sound 'Elitist' Now?

2009-01-29T10:24:00.000-05:00

Now this is a guy that we can relate to.

'“Even as he is sober about these challenges, I have never seen him happier,” Mr. Axelrod said. “The chance to be under the same roof with his kids, essentially to live over the store, to be able to see them whenever he wants, to wake up with them, have breakfast and dinner with them — that has made him a very happy man.”'

You Shouldn't Be Against Immigration in NY

2009-01-28T09:52:00.003-05:00

Not if you're the recently appointed Senator, that is. According to the Times, Kirsten Gillibrand's anti-immigrant stance is drawing fire from immigration groups. She opposes any type of amnesty for illegal immigrants; sought to make English the official language of the US; opposed giving drivers' lisences to illegal immigrants; and was, according to the Times, given a "B" grade from Americans for Better Immigration, which supports tougher immigration laws.

These views are fine to have, but not if you live in a state where more than 16% of the residents are Hispanic, according to the US Census Bureau. On top of that, New York is a very liberal state: only 3 of its 29 congressional delegates are Republican. What means is that some New York Democrats are more conservative than, say, their California counterparts.

But it also means there's not much room to maneuver to the right. Representing a conservative Congressional district in eastern New York, with approximately 600,000 constituents, is a lot different than representing a whole state, especially when you've got a city of 8,000,000 very liberal people to consider.

I'm not saying that Gillibrand will fail. But I am saying that, in light of her pretty conservative views towards gun control and immigration, she's got a lot of political reconsideration to do. Her constituency just changed dramatically and if she wants to represent New York State as a whole, she'll have to change her viewpoints. She's a politician, she can do it. The only question is whether she will.

THIS is What's Wrong With New York:

2009-01-28T09:41:00.003-05:00

The poor trophy wives who married Wall Street bankers are having troubles of their own, according to the New York Times. About 30 of the poor gals have started meeting regularly, and they even have their own blog:

'In addition to meeting once or twice weekly for brunch or drinks at a bar or restaurant, the group has a blog, billed as “free from the scrutiny of feminists,” that invites women to join “if your monthly Bergdorf’s allowance has been halved and bottle service has all but disappeared from your life.”'

Their lives sound so tragic. It always amazes me that people like this exist. But there are lots of them, and their population density is high in these parts. Lucky me.

So This is what "Increased Government Spending" looks like...

2009-01-28T09:21:00.002-05:00

The proposed economic stimulus that’s currently sitting in Congress waiting for votes is, by any measure, huge. The New York Times reports that the bailout promises to reshape government roles in both education and healthcare.

Education:

"The proposed emergency expenditures on nearly every realm of education, including school renovation, special education, Head Start and grants to needy college students, would amount to the largest increase in federal aid since Washington began to spend significantly on education after World War II."

And healthcare:

"As Congress rushes to inject cash into a listless economy, it is setting aside many of the restraints that have checked new domestic spending for more than a decade. The White House said the changes contemplated by Congress would provide coverage for nearly 8.5 million newly uninsured people who had lost their jobs and would protect Medicaid for many more whose eligibility would otherwise be at risk.

Of the $127 billion cost, the Congressional Budget Office said, $87 billion would be used to increase the federal share of Medicaid, $29 billion would subsidize private insurance and $11 billion would finance Medicaid for unemployed workers who could not otherwise qualify."

This is the first in-depth look many non-experts have had at the bill, and even for someone who wholeheartedly supports Obama and the bailouts, these numbers are just enormous and give one pause. Doubling the federal budget on education? Providing 8.5 million uninsured people with insurance? Incredible.

I’ve been so used to government refusing to spend more money on education and healthcare for the past 8 years that these statistics are a bit shocking. I hope the Democrats know that they’re talking about. If not, we’re all in trouble.

Andrew Cuomo on the Attack

2009-01-27T15:19:00.001-05:00

Andrew Cuomo, NY State's Attorney General and until recently one of the frontrunners for the just-filled New York Senate seat, has subpoenaed John Thain. Thain is the ex-Merrill Lynch CEO who allegedly authorized bonus payments worth some $3 billion mere days before Merrill was acquired by Bank of America.

Problems at Merrill Lynch have been a primary cause of Bank of America's current problems, which have led to BoA requesting billions of dollars in bailout money. Indeed, Merrill Lynch's losses, according to the New York Times, were more than $15 billion. Those losses are now on BoA's books. Aware of the losses, Thain nonetheless doled out the company-wide bonuses before BoA could do anything to stop them.

Cuomo wants to find out why the bonuses were paid out nearly a month earlier than they had been in previous years. I don't know the specific legal issues involved, but I'm guessing that it's probably not OK to knowingly give out billions of dollars in bonuses when your company is losing money by the fistful, knowing full well that taxpayers are going to be on the hook.

This makes me really despise Thain.

It also makes me like Cuomo. I wasn’t a big fan of Caroline Kennedy and I don’t know much about Kirsten Gillibrand, but Cuomo seems to be more than competent at his job. He was the one who took the lead in investigating the Long Island Railroad retirement scandal, which has actually led to charges against ex-L.I.R.R. officials.

After the recent Senate appointment debacle, Gov. Paterson is the one who comes out looking like a doofus. Cuomo is untainted by Paterson’s screw-up and he’s now out with his guns blazing. Not a bad day’s work for the current AG and potentially soon-to-be-governor-of-New York.

SpliceToday blog

2009-01-27T14:26:00.003-05:00

To My Loyal Reader,

Starting this week, I'm going to start doing a bit of blogging for SpliceToday.com. Both in content and form, the postings will be substantially similar to this blog. There are several bloggers that will be contributing, and eventually we'll all coalesce into something that we're tentatively calling Gray Matter. I'm more than excited for the opportunity. The upshot is that, for the time being, I'll be posting less frequently on here. That could change as I get my legs under me at SpliceToday and figure out the types of things they want to cover, but for now it might be a little quieter around here.

Cheers,
Ian

The Floodgates Have Opened....for now

2009-01-27T10:17:00.003-05:00

In this joyful article, the Washington Post recaps Obama's first week in office:

"In his first seven days in office, Obama has banned the use of controversial CIA interrogation tactics, ordered the closure of the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and begun planning for the drawdown of troops in Iraq. He also imposed stringent limits on lobbyists, unveiled an $825 billion stimulus plan, and ordered a halt to any last-minute rules and regulations put in place by his predecessor."

Music to my ears/eyes/senses. Eventually his ambitions will run up against reality, but for now let's enjoy the sensation of an elected official following through on his promises.

Weekends in New York

2009-01-26T10:43:00.002-05:00

Friday was a teaser: 50 degrees and sunny. Then it got progressively colder as the weekend dragged on. Contrary to popular opinion, I think that warm days in the middle of January are depressing. You're given one really nice day but the niceness only makes you think how crappy it's going to be the next day, when you're freezing again. It's like being given slice of pizza but only being allowed to eat one bite.

Friday night I saw that Leo/Kate reunion movie, Revolutionary Road. It was pretty good. Kate Winslet is a terrific actress, and Leo's pretty good too. I've always liked both of them, but I felt that the transition from book to movie was a bit awkward this time. I went with a friend who's read the book and she said quite a bit was missing. The night as a whole was fun though, as I spent time with some friends I haven't seen in a while.

Saturday night I was supposed to hang out with Ashley and some of her girlfriends but instead hung out with two of her male roomates. I hadn't met them before but we had a good "dude" time.

Yesterday I was ridiculously productive: cleaned the apartment; went grocery shopping; got some stuff with Ashley for her new apartment; helped make dinner; packed lunch for today...the list goes on. Anyway, a good weekend that happily wasn't ruined by teasingly warm weather.

Coffee Prevents Dementia??

2009-01-26T10:34:00.002-05:00

So says at least one study:

"After controlling for numerous socioeconomic and health factors, including high cholesterol and high blood pressure, the scientists found that the subjects who had reported drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed dementia, compared with those who drank two cups or less. People who drank more than five cups a day also were at reduced risk of dementia, the researchers said, but there were not enough people in this group to draw statistically significant conclusions."

The study makes no mention of the social repurcussions: legions of red-eyed coffee maniacs swamping local Starbucks' and roaming the streets late at night in search of their next caffeine fix.

Fox News is Scared of Obama

2009-01-23T15:56:00.002-05:00

Stewart: "If you don't stick to your values when you're being tested...they're not values! They're hobbies."

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Fox News Fear Imbalance

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Oh Boy...Did I Speak Too Soon?

2009-01-23T10:50:00.004-05:00

A list from Eve Fairbanks of 10 Things We All Didn't Know About Kirsten Gillibrand. As you'll see, it's not too comforting for we NYC libs:

"2. She bucked House leadership by voting against both versions of the TARP bailout bill in the fall.

3. A big gun supporter, she's been given a 100% approval rating by the NRA -- she's one of the extremely few Democrats on a federal level to win official NRA endorsement -- and, this fall, she voted in favor of a controversial bill to repeal District of Columbia laws prohibiting the possession of semiautomatics."

From the sound of this my grandfather would love her. As for me...well, at least she's a Democrat, right? Still, it looks like she tacks farther to the right than Hillary did, and it's a shame to have a moderate Democrat come from such a liberal state as New York. She'd fit better in, I don't know, Virginia or New Mexico or something.

I guess it came down to political calculation for Paterson. He wanted votes from upstate NY, where she's from, in his coming re-election battle in 2010, and he wanted support from women. Hopefully for him and for the rest of us Gillibrand doesn't turn into Sarah Palin of the Left. What a scary thought.

And the Next Senator from New York IS:

2009-01-23T09:28:00.004-05:00

Kirsten Gillibrand. According to the Times, she was chosen by Gov. Paterson to replace Hillary's seat in the Senate. She'll have to run for reelection in 2010 and 2012. I know nothing about her except the fact that 1) she's a Democrat; and 2) she's a woman.

I'm glad that Paterson chose a woman to replace Hillary. The Senate is one of the last vestiges of Old White Dude political power. There's only one black man in the Senate, and now only 17 women. Now that the presidency can no longer be considered a WASP position, and the House has got its share of minority and female members, it's time to fully integrate the Senate. Good job Paterson!

Well, This Complicates Things...

2009-01-23T09:21:00.003-05:00

The New York Times reports that Said Ali al-Shihri, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee that was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007, has become al-Qaeda's head honcho on Yemen. Yikes. Maybe the closing of Gitmo really isn't going to be as simple as most of us want it to be. There are some undeniably bad people down there, people that are our enemies and that should be either put in prison or otherwise neutralized.

So Bush/Cheney was right about one thing - we are being threatened by nasty, potentially unreformable people. But by torturing the detainees and leaving them in legal limbo, Bush/Cheney jeopardized the very thing that they were trying to protect: our safety. As more Guantanamo and other secret prison torture cases come to light and more of them are thrown out of court, like this one, you have the potential that really dangerous guys get put out on the street and end up as al-Qaeda commanders.

Now that Obama wants to close Guantanamo, the thorny question of what to do with these prisoners becomes a real problem. The Bush administration refused to deal with the question, as it refused to deal with all other questions, and was happy to hold the men indefinitely. It's not going to be that easy for Obama. Do you let these guys out on the street and cross your fingers that they don't become terrorists? Do you try them in civilian court and risk losing? What if you "know" that someone is a terrorist but, due to torture or other evidence problems, you can't "prove" it. Then what?

These are tough questions and they make me glad that I'm not in Obama's shoes right now.

Rich People Always Forget to Pay Taxes

2009-01-22T15:28:00.004-05:00

I was wrong about Caroline Kennedy. She didn't drop out, according to the New York Times, because she couldn't take the heat. She dropped out due to "problems involving taxes and a household employee." I guess she, like Timothy Geithner, failed to pay enough taxes on her considerable (though still-secret) income. Also like Geithner, it's possible she employed an illegal immigrant as a housekeeper. In national politics, that's a no-no.

For me, this only confirms that Kennedy was a bad choice for NY Senator. At least Geithner has the job of Chairman of the New York Fed on his resume. His errors probably weren't due to incompetance. Hers...well you can't be sure one way or the other.

Her candidacy has been a joke from the beginning, from her liberal use of the phrase "you know" in an interview to her disastrous response to reporters' queries about her motivations - she angrily asked why the reporters didn't write for a women's magazine. Doesn't sound very feminist to me. Doesn't sound very senatorial, either.

The Oscars

2009-01-22T11:03:00.003-05:00

The Oscar nominations were released today. Looks like Benjamin Button is the big winner thus far with 13 nominations. The other nominations for Best Pic are Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire.

I saw one pretty good movie (Gran Torino) and one really good movie (The Wrestler) over the weekend. Clint Eastwood (directed and starred in Torino) is simply The Man. A real-life BAMF. Half of his lines in his newest movie are, literally, growls, but he's the one guy that could pull that off. Mickey Rourke, who is the wrestler in The Wrestler, is amazing, and he was rewarded with a nomination for Best Actor. His was the best movie I've seen this year.

I've been wanting to see Slumdog for quite a while but the girlfriend has been less than enthusiastic about joining me. Now that the nominations are out I think I can convince her to go with me. I guess I'll have to see Ben Button, too, now that it's so nomination-heavy. And The Reader too. Ah, the cultural conscience of an uppity white kid.

Can't Stand to Lose, Can We?

2009-01-22T09:45:00.002-05:00

Caroline Kennedy officially withdrew from the pseudo-race for Hillary Clinton's vacated NY Senate seat due to "personal reasons." This shouldn't come as a surprise. All her life, Kennedy's been riding the coattails of her famous name and relatives. She thought that all she had to do to become a Senator was declare that she wanted to be one.

When she realized it would actually take hard work and a bit of skill that she seemed to lack, she did what you'd expect any self-entitled child to do: she quit. New Yorkers should breathe a sigh of relief. After all, if a Senatorial candidate can't take the stress of a campaign, how is she going to take the stress of the job itself? What if one of her bills didn't pass; would she just 'quit' the Senate?

Of course there might be other reasons why Kennedy withdrew her name from consideration. Maybe her kids really didn't want her to run. Maybe she's concerned about her uncle, Ted Kennedy, and wants to spend more time with him and the rest of her family. But even if that were the case, shouldn't she have made that decision back in December rather than half-assing it until the end of January?

The Bailout needs Bailing Out

2009-01-21T14:48:00.004-05:00

Timothy Geithner, PRESIDENT Obama's Treasury Secretary nominee, said today during testimony before a Senate panel that the bailout measures passed late last year needed serious overhauling:

"'Many people believe the program has allowed too much upside for financial institutions, while doing too little for small business owners, families who are struggling to keep their jobs and make ends meet, and innocent homeowners,' Geithner said."

I don't think bailing out big financial institutions was a mistake. After all, look what the collapse of Bear Sterns and Lehman Bro's did to the economy as a whole. But I find it refreshing that a powerful government official is actually concerned about helping individuals. Not out of charity, but out of necessity.

That's something that the Bush administration and the rest of the neocons refuse/d to acknowledge. Helping individuals helps everyone, including the Fat Cats. Only helping the Fat Cats doesn't necessarily help anyone else out. Trickle down doesn't work. It didn't work in the 1930s and it didn't work in the 2000s.

The Inauguration

2009-01-20T12:38:00.001-05:00

What else can I say other than it was awesome?

I Joined Twitter

2009-01-16T10:58:00.003-05:00

...and I'm not sure how I feel about it. My friend Dave encouraged me to sign up. I haven't updated my status and don't feel the need to. Everyone says it's easy to get addicted, but I don't see it yet.

A Ridiculous Ant Colony

2009-01-14T15:03:00.001-05:00

Via SpliceToday

The Supreme Court Sucks

2009-01-14T12:53:00.004-05:00

The Supreme Court ruled today, in a 5-4 decision along the usual idiot/liberal lines (Kennedy going with the idiots), that evidence collected by police due to police mistakes can be used against defendants.

The decision came in a case where police mistakenly arrested a man named Bennie Herring of Alabama. During the arrest, they found meth and an empty gun in his car. It turned out, however, that the arrest warrant that the officers used to arrest Herring had been revoked months before. The police's database had not been updated to reflect the change.

I'm no legal scholar, and I'm not saying that Herring is a good guy. I mean, anyone who's driving around with meth and a gun in their car is probably up to no good. But the greater point is that now anyone, including you and me, can be arrested "by mistake" and whatever evidence is collected can be used against us.

The police are powerful enough as it is. We shouldn't be giving them even more power by rewarding their ineptitude. You might hear people argue that "you shouldn't be carrying any illegal stuff on you at all, or keep anything bad in your house." But that's missing the bigger point. This case was about more than drugs and guns. It was about taking away rights from the people and giving it to the government.

In a democracy you can't keep giving government more power at the expense of citizens. That isn't the way democracy should work, and it's contrary to the American idea of individual freedom. Of course you shouldn't be carrying unregistered guns or drugs, but I think it's just as obvious that the police shouldn't be able to hold that against you if they discovered it by mistake.

There are certainly limitations to my argument. If you're kidnapping someone or if you're carrying a bomb, that's an entirely different story. But are we really ready to give up a right as important as the right to a competent police force? Over a small amount of meth and an unloaded gun?

It's About Time

2009-01-14T09:23:00.002-05:00

According to the Washington Post, Susan B. Crawford, who's in charge of prosecuting the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, determined that the supposed "20th hijacker," Mohammed al-Qahtani, had been tortured while in US custody:

"His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

Toad the Wet Sprocket - Walk on the Ocean

2009-01-13T13:53:00.003-05:00

A song from my favorite music era - the early to mid 90s. Enjoy.

Bush's Ignorance

2009-01-13T12:45:00.000-05:00

A recently released study found that ideology affected hiring practices at the Justice Department from 2001 -2007. In particular, the study found that a man named Bradley Schlozman, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General, altered the hiring process to weed out candidates with perceived ties to liberal organizations.

I’d be shocked if this came as a big surprise to anyone. The Justice Department’s hiring process caused a scandal a few years ago and led to the resignation of then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. It was only a matter of time before investigations “proved” what everyone already knew.

If we take away any lessons from the past eight years, it should be that insulating oneself from dissenting opinions is an easy way to screw everything up. Bush, Cheney, and their cronies systematically eliminated dissenting opinions at all levels of government. Their willful ignorance led directly to the disaster in Iraq; to torture; to the failures during Hurricane Katrina, and maybe even to our current economic problems.

The Bush administration is so insulated from dissenting opinion that, even in his last press conference, Bush himself refused to admit that America’s standing in the world had suffered. He’s either lying or completely, blissfully ignorant. I’m not sure which is worse. But I am sure that the way the Bush administration went about governance was disastrous for America and harmful to the world. I hope Obama, and all of our future presidents, can learn from the terrible mistakes.

How City Life Isn't Good for Us

2009-01-13T11:23:00.002-05:00

A couple of months ago I speculated about humans’ relationship with nature and the craziness of city life. Here, Jonah Lehrer does a better job:

"When a park is properly designed, it can improve the function of the brain within minutes. As the Berman study demonstrates, just looking at a natural scene can lead to higher scores on tests of attention and memory. While people have searched high and low for ways to improve cognitive performance, from doping themselves with Red Bull to redesigning the layout of offices, it appears that few of these treatments are as effective as simply taking a walk in a natural place."

Hitchens Hates Hillary

2009-01-13T10:34:00.001-05:00

Christopher Hitchens at Slate wants the Senate to reject Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State. He says:

"Why is Sen. Clinton, the spouse of the great influence-peddler, being nominated in the first place? In exchange for giving the painful impression that our State Department will be an attractive destination for lobbyists and donors, what exactly are we getting? George Marshall? Dean Acheson? Even Madeleine Albright? No, we are getting a notoriously ambitious woman who made a fool of herself over Bosnia, at the time and during the recent campaign, and who otherwise has no command of foreign affairs except what she's picked up second-hand from an impeached ex-president, a disbarred lawyer, and a renter of the Lincoln Bedroom."

The guy has a point. I’ve never been a big fan of H.C., and her ridiculous performance in this election cycle didn’t win me over. That being said, I think Hitchens underestimates Hillary’s abilities and overestimates Bill Clinton’s potential influence on Obama’s administration.

Since when does the Secretary of State dictate foreign policy? Condoleeza Rice is an extreme example of how impotent a Secretary can be. I doubt Hillary will be as toothless, but I can’t imagine her openly defying Obama on questions of importance. He’s the boss, and if she’s openly insubordinate to a successful and popular president, she’s not going to win herself any votes in 2012 or 2016. She’s smart enough to realize that, and so is Obama, and so is Bill.

I don’t think Obama’s team is, as Hitchens puts it, “wide eyed.” They dealt with the bad Bill Clinton during the primary, after all (I’m thinking of the “race card” incident). They know he has uncomfortably close ties with all kinds of shady foreign characters. Obama was adept at handling both Clinton’s during the primaries when he was their rival. What makes Hitchens so sure that he’ll be unable to manage them when he’s the Boss Man?

Goodbye to (hopefully) the last Bush

2009-01-13T09:29:00.002-05:00

President Bush held his last press conference yesterday. When asked what he'd be doing in the future, he only said: “When I get out of here, I’m getting off the stage, I’ve had my time in the klieg lights.”

All I can say is thank goodness.

Oh yeah...Happy New Year

2009-01-12T15:59:00.005-05:00

Wishing everyone a healthy and happy 2009. And what a season/year it's shaping up to be for Philadelphia sports fans. The Phillies send the Mets home and win the World Series...and the Eagles are in the NFC championship game after defeating the hated NY Giants. Man, you couldn't write this!

Go Eagles!

Back from Whistler

2009-01-12T15:30:00.003-05:00

Well we all survived the week-long trip to Whistler, B.C. relatively unscathed. I learned how out of shape I've become over the past year. Apparently sitting in a cubicle 7 hours per day isn't very good for your leg strength. I learned a few more things, too:

--Delta sucks. They charge 50 bucks for extra bags, aren't very friendly, the seats are cramped, and it took our bags 1 hour to come to baggage claim when we arrived in Philadelphia.

--Southwest is as good as advertised. Tickets are cheap, no charge for extra bags, staff is friendly. The seats are pretty cramped, but they do give you cool little Ritz snacks for free.

--Seattle's pretty cool. At least I think it is, having driven past it twice.

--Washington State is beautiful. The whole Pacific Northwest has a very different feel than South Jersey. Very wet (it rained on the trip back), dark green, and lots of water. Plus the mountains. It made the 5 hour trip to and from Whistler easier to handle.

--Skiing rules. It just does. Tiring, but so relaxing. I feel much more refreshed after this week-long trip to Whistler than I did after my sojourn to England. Maybe it's the fact that it's my second week off in the past 6 weeks. But I do think that the skiing itself has something to do with it. That's a valuable lesson going forward, I think.

--Work isn't so bad. I mean...I have a job. I have an apartment. Life's good.

--New York is funny. I'm slowly getting into things over here. The heat in my apartment's out, I'm having a mini-dispute with my landlord over broken doors, and a coworker of mine complains constantly about the overly loud copulating couple in the apartment next to hers. Seems appropriate somehow.

--Anyway, back to work. Back to blogging (sort of). Back to reality.

Nina Simone - Ain't Got No...I've got Life

2008-12-30T15:10:00.003-05:00

Once again courtesy of Splicetoday.com via YouTube. Those guys rule.

The Walls are Closing in on Israel

2008-12-30T14:56:00.004-05:00

A terrific op-ed from today's New York Times about the current situation in the Gaza Strip that I wrote about here earlier today. The author is a bit more lenient towards Israel than I was. Israelis think that Israel is in trouble:

"Between 1948 and 1982 Israel coped relatively well with the threat from conventional Arab armies. Indeed, it repeatedly trounced them. But Iran’s nuclear threat, the rise of organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah that operate from across international borders and from the midst of dense civilian populations, and Israeli Arabs’ growing disaffection with the state and their identification with its enemies, offer a completely different set of challenges. And they are challenges that Israel’s leaders and public, bound by Western democratic and liberal norms of behavior, appear to find particularly difficult to counter."

Well if the Europeans throw eggs...

2008-12-30T11:46:00.003-05:00

...then surely it's ok to throw shoes. At least that's according to Muntazer al-Zaidi's (the shoe thrower) lawyer:

"Have you ever heard of anyone being killed by a shoe?" al-Saadi said. "In Europe, they throw eggs and rotten tomatoes to insult. In Iraq, throwing a shoe is a symbol of disrespect."

al-Zaidi's lawyers are trying to have the charge of assault against a foreign head of state, which carries a prison term of up to 15 years, dropped down to insulting a foreign head of state, which carries a sentence of 2 years. Maybe al-Zaidi should've stuck to tomatoes.

Avalanches

2008-12-30T10:57:00.004-05:00

The fam and I are headed out to Whistler, B.C. for a week of skiing starting January 1st. I'm psyched, of course. But apparently over the last couple of weeks a lot of people have been killed in avalanches out west. The most disturbing item, from the LA Times:

"...the death toll in the backcountry was not unusual. It is the casualties at ski resorts, generally considered safe winter destinations, that illustrate how lethal the mountains have been this month."

Great. Luckily no one's been killed at Whistler so far this year. But my dad, brother and I will definitely be avoiding the backcountry and sticking to well-marked trails on the mountain.

The Israel article made it onto SpliceToday

2008-12-30T10:48:00.002-05:00

Once again my friend John at SpliceToday was kind enough to post a reworked Israel article, which I posted on here yesterday, on his website. I'll post the link:

http://splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/end-israeli-hostility

I urge any/all of you who might be reading this to check out SpliceToday. It's a fun website with lots of news, music, and other cultural items that are sure to please.

The Sun Rises

2008-12-29T15:45:00.002-05:00

After getting locked out of my apartment building last night and needing to call a locksmith, I woke up this morning to blazing sunshine.

I had forgotten during the long trip towards the winter Solstice, how nice it was to wake up and have the sun in your face. In recognition, I've decided to post a favorite classic of mine. Have a sunny day!

Mac Vs. PC

2008-12-29T12:00:00.001-05:00

No More Bombs

2008-12-29T10:24:00.011-05:00

Over the holiday (for Christians, anyway) weekend, Israel planes attacked several sites in the Gaza Strip (image below courtesy of the BBC).

For fun, I'll juxtapose that photo with one of Tel Aviv, Israel:

The two places look similar, no?

Anyway, the airstrikes have killed around 300 Palestinians (so far), and at last word the attacks are continuing.

For those of you who don't know much about the the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I'll give a brief, probably biased, version of events:

Around 60 years ago, in the aftermath of the Holocaust, the United Nations decided that Jews should have their own homeland. Rather than giving up any of their own land in Europe or Eastern Europe, the UN made the wonderful decision to settle the Jews in what the Torah claims is the Jews' homeland: the area in and around Jerusalem.

The problem was that there were already people living on that land: the Palestianians. And there were, literally, millions of them. That problem was solved by simply forcing the Palestinians to move, allowing the Jews to move in and create the quasi-democratic state of Israel. I say quasi because, although the Palestinians are governed by Israel and there are many more of them than there are Israelis, the Palestinians don't vote in Israeli elections and have no official voice in the main Israeli government. They have their own pseudo-government, run by the political party Hamas, which the Israeli government has conveniently labeled "terrorist" and which was the target of the weekend's airstrikes.

But anyway. The vast majority of Palestinians now live in either the West Bank or the tiny Gaza Strip. To add to that, Jewish Zionist settlers are continually building settlements that encroach on the small amounts of land the Palestinians still control. The Palestinians are literally fenced in, not allowed to travel freely, and are denied basic necessities including food, medicine, and education. Every once in a while, Israeli bulldozers will raze a few houses in response to a salvo of rockets aimed at Israeli towns.

An Israeli might tell you something like "Well have you ever been suicide bombed? Have you ever been attacked with rockets? These Palestinians are dangerous!" But that is ignoring the fact that the Palestinians view the Israeli state as having stolen the Palestinians' homeland. 60 years ago. The struggle against Israel is not, for many Palestinians, a struggle against Judaism or the West: it's a struggle for political freedom and sovereignty. They resent the West only because it is complicit in Israel's aggression.

Yes, the Palestinians do sometimes resort to terrorism to further their political goals. But, looking at the situation from their perspective, what other options do they have? They have no leverage politically or militarily. They are second class citizens being governed against their will by a much smaller minority.

Israel claims that its Palestinian foe is an existential threat and must be dealt with harshly by, amongst other tactics, bombing its governing party's headquarters with warplanes. But really, how dangerous can a people be when all that they can do to resist Israeli aggression is to throw stones at tanks:

Israel claims that its struggle against the Palestinians is a life or death conflict. But surely there must be a better solution than to allow an entire generation of young people to grow up in what amounts to a lawless refugee camp. What better terrorist recruiting environment could there be?

Stop with the warplanes and start allowing the Palestinians to assert their humanity. Give them food; give them medicine; give them education; give them democracy.

"Virginity Pledges" Don't Work...

2008-12-29T09:48:00.004-05:00

So says the Washington Post, via MSNBC:

Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.

The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a "virginity pledge," but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.

Abstinence-only sex education was a hallmark of the Bush Years, and yet another demonstration of the Christian Right's refusal to connect with reality.

Happy Holidays

2008-12-24T11:41:00.001-05:00

This is probably the coolest thing that I've ever seen.

Obama on Food

2008-12-24T10:55:00.003-05:00

I've written before about my thoughts on the food industry in this country. Lots of others have also expressed hope that Obama might begin to do something about our over-reliance on King Corn. Alas, according to the New York Times:

Although Mr. Obama has proposed changes in the nation’s farm and rural policies and emphasizes the connection between diet and health, there is nothing to indicate he has a special interest in a radical makeover of the way food is grown and sold.

You can't really blame the guy. The economy's in the crapper and we're fighting two wars, after all. I suppose food policy can wait. For now.

Working on Christmas Eve

2008-12-24T10:09:00.002-05:00

Out of a legal department of around 20 people, there might be 2 or 3 working today, including myself. You'd think that coming in on Christmas Eve would be a terrible thing, but to be honest it's not so bad.

I'm getting paid for a full day even though I'll probably only stay here until noon. On slow days like this I can almost hear my bank account growing before the inevitable weekend depletion.

I can basically phone it in on quiet days like this. I had NO new emails in my inbox. NONE. Plus both of my bosses are on vacation.

I don't have to travel very far to my parents' place, and coming to work gets me out of bed and I probably won't get on the road (train) any later than I would if I allowed myself to sleep in.

Anyway, just some quick thoughts for those people stuck in their cubicles on December 24th.

Torture Post Expanded

2008-12-23T10:39:00.002-05:00

Hey all,

I decided to expand a bit upon my last torture blog entry and sent it to my friend at SpliceToday.com (which is a cool site that you should check out regularly). The link is:

http://splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/the-u-s-s-torturous-legacy-in-iraq

Thanks for the support!

Mexico's Drug War and Our Complicity

2008-12-22T13:22:00.001-05:00

The Washington Post reports that 9 headless bodies were found near a busy road in southern Mexico, including several Mexican army troops. All of the bodies are believed to be casualties in Mexico’s increasingly violent drug war, which according to the Post has claimed around 5,800 lives so far this year. That’s more than two 9/11’s.

Condoleeza Rice, our oh-so-brilliant and effective Secretary of State (I nearly puked writing that) was in Mexico last week discussing the drug war. When asked whether she thought the Bush Administration’s decision in 2004 to let the US assault weapon ban expire (such guns are not sold anywhere in Mexico) had had any effect on the amount of weapons in Mexico, Rice said she didn’t think so.

Of course not. Because why would Mexican drug cartels cross the border, buy or steal readily-available assault weapons, and then use them to help kill other drug dealers and Mexican soldiers? That wouldn’t make any sense, would it?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Torturing the Shoe-Thrower

2008-12-22T13:09:00.001-05:00

The Egyptian shoe-throwing journalist being held in an Iraqi prison has, according to his brother, who recently visited him in prison, been tortured. As a result:

Uday al-Zaidi said his brother had said: “After the torture and the cold-water shower, I told them to bring me a blank sheet of paper and I would sign it, and they could write whatever they wanted. I am ready to say I am a terrorist or whatever you want.”

This is the point that people often miss about the reasons why governments (including ours) torture people. It’s not that we actually believe we’re getting sound information. Those who are tortured are often willing to say anything at all, even confessing to crimes that they did not commit, in the hopes that the torture will cease. Governments then take those sham confessions and hold them up to ‘prove’ that the torture was effective and that a criminal has been outted. That’s what Hitler did; it’s what Stalin did; it’s what North Korea still does. And now, apparently, it’s what the US-backed Iraqi government does.

Torturing has never been about acquiring reliable information. It’s about cowing your opponents, real and/or imagined, into submission; and it’s about governments trying to legitimize oppressive tactics by conjuring fake confessions from battered inmates.

I hope Obama follows through on his promises. This isn’t what America should stand for.

Japan Labor and US Torture

2008-12-19T11:15:00.001-05:00

The Japanese government admitted today that during WWII it used POW’s as forced laborers at a coal mine owned by the current Prime Minister’s family, Taro Aso. According to the report:

“300 British, Dutch and Australian prisoners of war worked at a mine owned by Aso Mining during the last four months of World War II in western Japan.”

During WWII the Japanese frequently abused military prisoners and civilians alike. And there are still controversies relating to Japan’s refusal to acknowledge its abuses in parts of China during the 1930s. It’s taken more than 60 years for Japan’s government to admit the abuse of “only” 300 prisoners for a term of four months.

We Americans of the 21st century were taught that Japan’s atrocities at the beginning of the century were reprehensible and unjustifiable. We are perplexed by Japan’s government’s reluctance to admit their own culpability.

So how and what do we think when we are increasingly certain that the uppermost officials in our own government condoned the use of torture against suspected foreign terrorists (and even against American citizens)? I hope for the sake of our country and the world that our government admits its mistakes soon and takes steps to make amends. I hope that in 60 years we as a country are not still struggling to come to terms with our past mistakes and making half-hearted admissions and apologies.

To do that, let’s take a hard look at indicting those responsible for the implementation of torture in US-run interrogation rooms. I’m thinking of you, Cheney, and you, Rumsfeld.

Clinton Was Part of the Problem!

2008-12-19T09:39:00.004-05:00

In 1997 Bill Clinton passed a law that nearly eliminated capital gains taxes on real estate. The result:

"…many economists say that the law had a noticeable impact, allowing home sales to become tax-free windfalls. A recent study of the provision by an economist at the Federal Reserve suggests that the number of homes sold was almost 17 percent higher over the last decade than it would have been without the law."

Are we all still sure that we want to hold Clintonism up as the ideal economic model?

Corruption in Iraq? Seriously?!

2008-12-18T16:13:00.001-05:00

The New York Times reported today that several dozen Iraqi government officials had been arrested for allegedly plotting a coup that would return Saddam’s Baathist party to power. While such an event is no doubt disturbing, I also can’t help but wonder if Iraq’s Prime Minister, Mr. Maliki, isn’t using the arrests to consolidate his own power.

The truth is probably somewhere in between those two poles. The arrested officials were probably plotting to seize more power, whether lawfully or unlawfully. But according to this NYTimes article, Mr. Maliki has recently been firing government anti-corruption officials.

Were the arrested officials actually disloyal? Or is Maliki using the corruption – corruption that his own policies have helped flourish – to clean the government of officials he views as less-than-loyal to him? We might never know the answer.

Well That Answers That...

2008-12-18T11:37:00.002-05:00

How does Santa deliver his presents?

Easy:

"He understands that space stretches, he understands that you can stretch time, compress space and therefore he can, in a sense, actually have six Santa months to deliver the presents,' Professor Larry Silverberg from North Carolina State University said."

Professional Sports and Race

2008-12-18T11:17:00.001-05:00

Over the years I’ve had several conversations with different people about the prevalence of black athletes in professional sports. When Jeremy Wariner won the gold medal in Athens in the 400m, we were amazed that "a skinny white guy" could outrun everyone else. After all, a white man hadn't won the 400m sprints in something like 40 years.

I came across this interesting article in Slate magazine relating to this topic and thought I’d share. The guy acknowledges that, as far as entire populations go, black people are slightly more likely than whites and even more likely than Asians to have genes that indicate an abundance of the “fast twitch” muscles that are necessary in most sports. But that slight genetic predisposition does not explain the overwhelming presence of black athletes in, for example, the NBA, where around 80% of the athletes are black. There are other factors at work.

What those other factors might be is a bit beyond the scope of that article, but the question intrigues me. Certainly there’s the idea in poor, mostly minority cultures that the only way out is through sports. Not only will sports give you riches, but it will also give you fame. How could that not be appealing to a kid who goes to a school where there aren’t enough books in the classroom?

People will often look at the prevalence of minority players in professional sports as a sign that America is becoming increasingly colorblind. But the owners are white and the coaches are white. In fact, I’d bet that minorities are underrepresented in every service market related to the sports industry: agents; hospitality; marketing; vendors. We trip over ourselves to say how wonderful it is that we, a mostly white society, give young black players a chance at money and fame on the sports field, but at the same time the whole show is run almost exclusively by whites.

If a poor young black child has moderate football skills and moderate intelligence, what are his parents, coaches, and teachers going to tell him? “Work your ass off to be a better football player, son! It’s the only way that you’ll ever make it to college and then to the big time.”

What about a young white kid in the suburbs with moderate football skills and moderate intelligence? I guarantee you his parents, coaches, and teachers will say “You can keep playing football but you’d better hit the books hard, son! It’s the only way you’ll ever make it to college and onto a good career.”

Which position would you rather be in? If the black kid gets hurt or just isn’t good enough, what options does he have left? He’s neglected his education and probably can’t afford to go to college without a football scholarship. But if the white kid turns out to be terrible at football, he still might get into an Ivy League school and at the very least he’s got a solid educational background and can probably afford a decent local college.

In the end, who’s going to work harder to be a professional sports player? The young black kid, who has no other options; or the young white kid, who if he’s not quite good enough at football, can always just go to college anyway.

We’ve got to find a way to make the system work better.

Well I Guess This is Growing Up

2008-12-17T16:17:00.000-05:00

I went to a Christmas party hosted by a New York friend of mine last weekend. My girlfriend joined me, as did both of my roommates and several other people that constitute my “group” here in the Big Apple. I’ve met all of them through my roommate, Tyler, who met them through his affiliation with Teach for America.

It didn’t strike me as odd at the time, but thinking back it does seem a little strange that peers of mine threw, and I attended, an “adult” Christmas party (i.e. there weren’t any kegs and we didn’t play beer pong). The host made a really good ham and grilled potatoes, and someone else had brought salad and crackers with cheese. My girlfriend and I provided chips and salsa. We made sure to buy a really good brand without telling anyone that we hadn’t made it from scratch. It was a hit.

Gone are the days when I was forced to attend my parents’ friends’ Christmas parties wearing ridiculous holiday sweaters. I have awkward memories of being forced to socialize with unlikable children, and I remember always being relieved when we would leave.

But now my age group, like our parents before us, is slowly starting to throw and attend our own Christmas parties. It’s ridiculously strange to think that some day soon, my friends and I will be hauling our own unenthusiastic children to awkwardly socialize with one another. I’m getting older, I can feel it.

Crazy dad scaring his son

2008-12-03T14:57:00.001-05:00

This kid is definitely going to need therapy.

Airbone Toxic Event - Sometime Around Midnight

2008-12-03T14:39:00.002-05:00

Obama's Economic Appointments

2008-11-26T11:13:00.003-05:00

A close friend of mine told me this morning that he “wished he had voted for Hillary.” Why Hillary? “At least we would have known what to expect,” was his answer. He was upset at Obama’s recent appointments to high level economic positions within his administration. "Where is Krugman?" my friend wondered. He believes that Bill Clinton bears a portion of the blame for the current economic disaster. After all, his main economic advisor was Alan Greenspan and if we’re going to blame “the last 30 years” of economic policy for our current predicament, we can’t arbitrarily ignore eight of them.

Because Clinton and his faintly neo-liberal economic team bear at least some blame for our current mess, my friend argued, then the last thing we should be doing is putting the same guys back in power to fix the problem that they had a hand in creating.

That’s a fair point, but only if you believe that economic policymakers are the ones who are going to fix the economy by themselves. As my Dad pointed out, one of the primary responsibilities of political leadership in a crisis is to instill confidence, and to banish fear. It was FDR who said in 1933, after all, that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. Even if you have a sound economic framework, it’s not going to be ok unless people are willing to spend and invest their money. And they’re not going to do that unless they’re confident that they’ll be protected.

So Obama has two priorities for the next several months: first, to ease people’s fear; second, to appoint people who are capable of fixing the structural problems.

The calm and deliberate manner in which he’s made his economic appointments will go far in easing people’s fears. When Joe Shmoe turns on the TV and sees that several Clinton advisors are back in power, he’ll think “well I didn’t do so badly during the 90s. Maybe things aren’t as bleak as I had feared.” The hope is that at some point in the not-so-distant future, Joe Shmoe and the rest of us will start investing and spending again.

That being said, my friend’s concerns about the structural changes that will be made to the economy in the next six months are well-founded. As my friend put it, if your drunk friend just drove your car into a wall, you wouldn’t let him drive it again just because he promised he was sober. You’d get the DD.

So is it a good idea to bring in the people who helped screw things up to help fix everything? Obama seems to think so, and from what I’ve read in interviews and short biographies, these guys seem to recognize that times have changed and that their economic ideologies need tweaking. Will it be enough? Or will we shortly revert to free-market ideologies that help the rich and screw everyone else? Who knows, but I’m 100% certain that we have a better chance with Obama than we ever would have had with McCain. Or Hillary for that matter.

At the very least, I hope I persuaded my friend to give Obama a chance to be inaugurated and make policy before he jumps ship. Was I successful? And are there other already-disillusioned Obamacons out there? We’ll see on both counts.

Out With the Old...

2008-11-20T14:45:00.003-05:00

How sad and frightening is it that the leader of the free world, the most powerful man on the face of the earth, is totally ignored by the other Most Powerful People in the World. Bush was so incompetant, so bullish, so wrong about everything, that the elected leaders of the world can't even bring themselves to shake his hand.

It makes me doubly glad that we elected Obama. I'm sure that, at the very least, he'll be shaking everyone's hand.