Taser This: Fuck Bush.

So, if you have been horrendously bored in class, you have probably ignored a little headline regarding a Colorado student newspaper that printed a column with the title above. As could be expected the Young Republicans are trying to get him to resign, businesses have withdrawn their advertising, and even CNN is reporting on this fast breaking calamity. Just a few points.

1) That doesn't make any sense. "Taser this: Fuck Bush?" What? That's idiotic. (Unless of course he was trying to get tasered, at which point he could proclaim that he shouldn't have been tasered because that is in violation of his First Amendment rights. That or he was just trying to say something provocative that he is entitled to say under the First Amendment...just cuz.)

2) I wish people would stop invoking the Freedom of Speech. Seriously. This is probably something very obvious to everybody, but I just want to make sure: The freedom of speech applies to the government. The government cannot pass laws or take action abridging your right to speech. If you say something that's really fucking stupid, I can choose not to go to your business. I can put up billboards against you. I can tell every person in the world about the douchey thing you said. The media can shun you. The populace can shun you. And they absolutely should.

When the Managing Director of the company that produces Cristal says he wishes black people wouldn't drink it...then of COURSE Jay-Z is supposed to say fuck you and bring the house down. When Don Imus talks about the "nappy headed hos", there's no problem dragging him through the streets (figuratively) and utterly destroying his career. In fact, the aftermath of both events was quite amusing.

Free speech does not make you unaccountable for making douche-bag comments. It's just (supposed) to keep you from being Tasered by your government for saying it.
(Note: I've never taken First Amendment...so if anyone wants to weigh in on how what I'm saying is incorrect, feel free. I'm just sick of hearing the oft-repeated refrain implying that people are not accountable for what they say because of the First Amendment.)

(I appear to be posting a lot more now...I'll only say that there hasn't been a single post this semester where my textbook wasn't open in front of me next to an uncapped and ready-to-roll highlighter.)

Ahmadinejad.

I have to admit...the stupid bastard is very charismatic. I do find a lot of the things he says, and the actions his government takes to be disgusting, but I don't actually hate him. Of course, I don't really care about him all that much either. I think a lot of my indifference to him is that most reliable sources indicate that he actually doesn't have all that much power. He runs the civil government of Iran, but Ayatollah Ali Khamenei still holds absolute power...and can basically slap ol' Mahmoo-cow out of office and out of power whenever he feels like it. For fuck's sake, his title is Supreme Leader. (Incidentally, even Khamenei allows stem cell research and cloning, according to Wikipedia, and believes in economic privatization...Go figure.)

The real point of this post is to point out that President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad....has a blog. No. Seriously.

Here's an eloquent response to his posts...


Edit:

Admittedly the other dude is really tall, but the effect is fantastic.

Just Cuz, bitch.

This is what I've been watching everyday....so I thought I'd share moments of my life with you. Take a moment. Kick back. Relax. Have a beer.








These aren't even the best....just what I could scrape up. Except the slap in the face.

Awful. Simply Disgusting.

For those of you who went to the beach, I know that you share my aversion to catfish. Especially that big one that made that wet glomping sound as it ate someone's spit/fish food. I shudder at the memory.

Just for you, I decided to not do my secured transactions homework, and instead, bring you Disgusting (and terrifying) pictures of Catfish!



And of course, the Catfish who choked on a four square ball. Blech.




Here's a video for good measure. It takes a while...but...JESUS.

Ignore if you don't give a shit about Feist.

So I came across this video of her performance of 1234 on Letterman. I have to say I'm surprisingly shocked at how good her voice actually is, and how crisp, clean, and fantastic this performance was:



Dayum.

(If you still don't know who she is, you probably know this song...although oddly, the music doesn't fully rise to the surface front and center until about 30 or 40 seconds in.)

The Monster's Outta the Cage!

For the three or four of you in the know, it turns out that Matt Christensen lives down the street from me. I've seen him several times walking home the same route I take, and today I'm absolutely certain it's him.

Part of it, of course, is the brief look of apprehension when he saw me walking toward him wearing a "FOCUS" shirt. (Duke has a program called FOCUS.)

Triumph!

In our second Flag Football game of the season, we emerged Triumphant!
Aside from my spectacular touchdown grab (which, of course, was the product of a spectacular endzone pass), and my spectacular 30 yard long-bomb caught on the run resulting in a near touchdown...I only had one disappointment. We didn't do any endzone sumo dance when I scored a touchdown. (Crouch. Left foot stomp. Right foot stomp. Massive chest bump amid yells.)

The picture itself is explanatory. Peace bitches.

If you're smoking, you're still breathing, right?

I’ve noticed that most smokers over a certain age are fat.

They aren’t morbidly obese. They aren’t generally the super-fat, embarrassingly large, I-can’t-believe-they-don’t-love-butter types. They’re the soft ones. A little pudgy with rounded doughy shoulders, a conspicuous absence of muscular architecture, and a hint of jowliness. More than the exhortations of the Truth folks who apparently stage die-ins in front of the building of a major tobacco corporation (as I have learned from several movie previews)…the specter of becoming (more of) a bag of wet cement with cankles is much more effective in cutting down my smoking.

Maybe it’s because when we were younger, smokers still hadn’t stopped growing and reaching their sedentary low adult metabolism…or that people who can’t resist the sublime allure of tobacco also can’t resist the irresistible tractor beams of butter, beer, and watching TV on the couch. (Personal note: Eating a stick of butter with a cigarette in one hand, a hearty brew in the right, and watching The Office on television….awesomeness.) I honestly don't know what it is, but the more fat smokers I see, the more uneasy I get about this lovely habit of mine.

Ahh....the Good ol' Days.

For good measure, just in case this post was boring, here's a picture of a Starfish eating a mussel. Hardcore! (and terrifying and blegch!)

Don't Tase Me Bro!

Ok...by now you've all seen the kid getting Tased.



My first reaction, of course, was anger. I thought it was unnecessary brutality. I thought it was shitty (and stupid) of the cops to Tase the kid. (I 'm not sure what the whole thing says about Free Speech, but let's just say I find the use of "Free Speech Zones" to cordon off protesters to be a bit more troubling.)...In any case, suffice it to say that I find the whole thing infuriating. So let's get that baseline out of the way...

Now let's move onto what my other reaction is: At almost every slightly controversial or political speech I have attended (at least since I've been in Cambridge), there is always someone like this kid. There is always someone passionately idealistic, dogmatically convinced of their rightness (and righteousness), and an absolute conviction that the data points and dots they've connected in their minds is sacred gospel - that they are truth incarnate. (For some reason they're always...semi-hippies too.)

I discussed my first encounter with this last year when I attended a speech by Pascal Lamy, the Director General of the WTO (who has absolutely no authority by the way. His speech focused primarily on poverty alleviation and changing the international trade paradigm to pay less attention to the free-market approach (the Washington Consensus) and instead turn to a more humanitarian, more practical, and softer Geneva Consensus. As expected, about 8 or 9 young hippie types wearing "NO WTO" bandannas would stand up every 7 minutes or so and start railing against the WTO, until they were bodily dragged from the premises. (Incidentally, from the perspective of someone who has studied international trade, development economics, and issues of development and policy...these people clearly knew very little about the subject apart from the slogans and fearmongering they attempted.)

Another student made an attempt to argue the Global Warming case in front of Justice Scalia during his friendly visit to the university. Besides the fact that impassioned statements such as "How can you look at yourself in the mirror at a face that will be responsible for killing millions of our grandchildren?" don't go over particularly well with Scalia-types, the zealous self-righteousness which infected his diatribe made it completely certain that his words would have no effect whatsoever.

I have nothing against challenging these speakers with honest questions. I don't begrudge them their belief in their causes. I think they may serve a greater purpose in many respects. I also respect their courage.

...That doesn't mean I don't think they're irritating. That they're dogmatic ideologies aren't so completely wrong that I might have to declare myself conservative just to not be associated with them. That they often have nothing useful to say. That there's a remarkable consistency in their unwillingness to listen. Just because I believe in freedom of speech, the power of dissent, and in the accountability of our governments does not mean that I actually give a shit what you say. So sure. Speak. I still think you're a douchebag.

Here's a meaningful contribution in the aftermath.
The bandanna around his neck is for later.

Anyhow, I'm not sure how I got off on that. I just get very irritated whenever someone has to be dragged bodily from one of these speeches. The indignation about their right to speak, which is accompanied by semi-violent resistance just leads me to think that they aren't actually collecting the dots on what it means to have the freedom of speech...much like the moments when you're 5 years old and poke another kid in the back with a stick, to which the kid objects, and your response is "what're you gonna do? It's a free country" thus rendering him speechless.

....Because there are people who stand up during these forums and ask hard questions. Very hard questions. And they do it without the hostility and self-aggrandizement we so often see. And even when they get upset and get into sometimes heated and important discussions with the speaker, never do we see these people dragged out forcibly.

And finally, I'd like to just note that Taser boy is actually an asshole. He stood at a busy intersection with a big sign that said "Harry Dies" while waving the last Harry Potter book around. Who cares if it's true, not true, or whatever. It's fucking annoying. He's a dick.

So I say, let's take back the Tasing from the Kerry speech, rewind the tape...and drive-by Tase the kid as he holds up the sign. Then, truly can it be said that justice is served.

Ding Dong...

...the stupid, ridiculous, revenue-killing, readership-ending, loyalty-crushing BITCH called TimesSelect is DEAD!!!!!!!!

I remember the days when I read the NYTimes columnists on a daily basis. This was back in the day when William Safire was the resident conservative and Nicholas Kristof hadn't yet descended into making me want to smack him all of the time. And Krugman still wrote about economics. (Incidentally, the fact that Kristof i's married to an Asian women, albeit a very impressive Asian woman, doesn't surprise me.)

I actually wonder if I'm going to go back and read the NYTimes columns anymore...I remember feeling uneasy when the service first came on and trying to find the columns any other way...but as time has gone on, I stopped reading them completely, and because I stopped reading them, I even started to slowly turn away from the NYTimes Online. Boy, that sure was the stupidest thing attempted by a group of seemingly smart people.

I FUCKING HATE SECURED TRANSACTIONS.

My fucking asshole of a professor assigns problem sets everyday. Plus, he's one of the guys who still decides to cold call random students every single day, believing that all students should be prepared everyday. It's just so unnecessary.

Aside from the 20 pages of reading every day, which I can live with, the problems he assigns often include 15-20 sub parts. Furthermore, the problems all refer to statutes we have not seen yet in the materials.

Today's problems? References to 23 different statutes in the supplement, many of which are a page long.

Fuck this guy. With a big rubber dick.

Hooray for Squirrels.

So I found some videos about Squirrels. Ask not where, why, how, or anything of the sort. Merely enjoy.

First, the amazing abilities of squirrels. Crazy. Especially the windmill part.



Then, the labors of a drunken squirrel.


That's all the time wasting for today....on to Secured Transactions and Bankruptcy!

Life can be really tough.

Example:

Just a few minutes ago I took a really big mouthful of coffee which was interrupted pre-swallow by an intense impulse to sneeze.

...Like I said, life can be tough.


More importantly though, I'd like to go right ahead and state my support for the album "The Reminder" by Feist. For those of you at the beach, I continually popped it in while we were sitting in the pool (or getting volleyballs thrown at us in the pool). For those of you who watch TV, it includes the song featured in the new iPod nano video commercial (video below). In either case, I'm a fan...and it's much better than the last album.

No, YOU'RE a Chump!

Stop using stupid facebook applications. Or at the very least stop using them AT me so I can stop clearing out the multiple notifications I'm getting:

Do not bite ME, Chump!
I will not play zombie.
I am not a virtual vampire.
I will not tell you about your uggo-hood in your honesty box.
I will not play with your virtua bunny. That means no petting, no feeding, no dueling. (I trust you've seen this one? Dueling seems promising....)
I do not want to be compared to your other friends.
Please don't send me your movie quiz.
Don't compare me to your other friends.
I'm fairly sure I don't care where you've been. Because if I do, I already know.
...and no, I certainly don't care about your blog. (Ha!)

If you do find a good application. And it's not designed for 3rd graders. By all means give it a shot.

...and....just for good measure

My Life (non Clinton version)

So at this very moment I am sitting in my Global Financial Regulation Seminar. The entire class is full of LLMs (for the non law students, that means foreign students getting a masters in law. For the law students, there’s only one Chinese guy. Shock!)

I thought I’d keep it simple: Here’s what I do these days….(I guess this is what a blog is actually supposed to chronicle right?)

1) Executive Editor of the Int’l Law Journal (I just spent 7 hours last night from 7-2am writing emails and selecting staffers). As EE, me and my co-EE are basically in charge of the whole editorial side of the journal. (The journal has a submissions side, a editorial side, online journals, an online blog of current events, yearly symposiums, and various outreach programs. I imagine my position is roughly approximate to EiC for journals that just do publication.) We select the Article leaders, the intermediary editors, and direct the editorial process from selection to book. In short, my time is completely consumed by this. I applied with the hale and hearty belief that I was underqualified, under experienced, and totally not going to get selected. The interview was awful on my part, the worst I’ve ever done. But here I am…slightly overwhelmed but still standing.

2) Taking Federal Courts and the Federal System, a 5 credit class generally understood to be the “hardest class at HLS” (avg. time reading for each class = 6 hours). This class is unreal. Incredibly dense, incredibly arcane, and full of each and every gunner that walks the halls of HLS…(basically everyone in this class intends to clerk for a federal judge…which means they have the grades, the determination, and the ambition to actually acquire one.)

3) Taking Secured Transactions with one of the driest, old, slow-talking professor who assigns problem sets (last night was 20 problems with 15 cross references to statutes in the statute book.) Every day. And continues to cold call like we’re 1Ls. God I hate that.

4) Taking a Global Financial Regulation Seminar which basically involves doing several independent research projects, writing several papers, and producing original research. The course is a year long advanced international finance seminar. (How the fuck did I end up in there?!)

5) Agreeing, ambitiously and stupidly, to work as a research assistant for a bigwig Finance professor at HLS. I will be writing a chapter for his textbook on China’s Financial System. The first piece about the Chinese Banking system will be due in November. The second piece, laying out the Chinese securities system, will be due in March. Exciting? Absolutely. Time? No. (I walked out of his office with his “China Files” as a starting point. The stack of papers is 2 feet tall.

6) Reading Julie/Julia, a lipstick memoir about a secretary in Queens who decides to cook Julia hild’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. I try to squeeze a few pages of this in everyday just to maintain my sanity. That being said, it’s not that great. Incidentally, she also blogged about her cooking project…which I now will do with my cooking as well, as soon as I get my life back. Or every once in awhile. What shall I cook? One of my friends (my college roommate sophomore year “K”) has decided it is one of her favorite hobbies to bake pies. She just bakes lots and lots of pies. And that’s awesome. I think I’ll just make lots and lots of meat.

7) Phone calls to StL. when the time permits, even if I have to lose a little sleep. (sorry!)

8) Flag football! I’m the tall (and wide) receiver. We got our asses handed to us last year. It’s going to happen again.

9) Working out 3 times a week if I can find the time.

10) Trying to spend some time with people at school so I have some semblance of a life

11) Apparently I find the time to blog?

In spite of all of this, I’m fairly happy. I’m exhausted, sleep-deprived, and can’t believe I’ve only been at it for 5 days….but I’m not unhappy. Maybe I’m just too occupied. Go figure.

Anyhow, that’s all for now. I figured I’d give an actual update about my daily life instead of more garbage about fat people who eat popcorn and play with golf ball retrievers.

By the way, you DID watch the second video right? With Star Wars Kid and the laser shot deflections? So good!!!!!

Awww...

Random news story from today's Times...

A fondness for microwave buttered popcorn may have led a 53-year-old Colorado man to develop a serious lung condition that until now has been found only in people working in popcorn plants....

[N]othing in the Colorado man’s history suggested that he was breathing in excessive amounts of mold or bird droppings, Dr. Rose said. She has consulted to flavorings manufacturers for years about “popcorn workers’ lung,” and said that something about the man’s tests appeared similar to those of the workers.

“I said to him, ‘This is a very weird question, but bear with me. But are you around a lot of popcorn?’ ” Dr. Rose asked. “His jaw dropped and he said, ‘How could you possibly know that about me? I am Mr. Popcorn. I love popcorn.’ ”

The man told Dr. Rose that he had eaten microwave popcorn at least twice a day for more than 10 years.

“When he broke open the bags, after the steam came out, he would often inhale the fragrance because he liked it so much,” Dr. Rose said.

For some reason that I can't explain, this guy gives me this warm, fuzzy vibe as a human being. That he'd be someone I'd like. I find the fact that would bury his face in a fresh bag of popcorn and inhale because "he liked it so much" to be strangely moving and poignant. Maybe it's because of how much he seems to love something in his life, or the intensity of his pleasure for such a simple thing. In either case, I wanna hug him.

And just in case you weren't aware, here is my old hero, who is yet to be replaced, Popcorn Sniffer or not. I present, Ghyslain Raza (pre-editing, post-awesome).

Help!

I have to buy a new laptop (again.)

My Toshiba was a disaster.
My IBM turned into a fiasco (although it began with coffee).
Both are functional, but neither is reliable.

The question is this:
Should I get a Mac? Am I going to have any problems using my external hard drives? Or any sort of incompatibility problems with networks? Can I still easily watch all my windows media player stuff? If I want to download a program from a website like download.com or some warez or something, do I need to find specific mac versions, or are they all basically the same now?

Anybody? Everybody? Please?

AH!!!!!!! (Giant animals are scary.)

I post these pictures for two reasons. The snails I post because in the course of getting my family history from my mother on the 5 day road trip, it turns out her master's thesis involved chopping up Giant African Snails (pictured below) into tiny pieces so they could be centrifuged to reveal a parasitic worm larvae, which were then fed to rats. My mother proceeded to hold ether rags to the faces of the rats, knocked them out, and vivisected them. (This is why, apparently, she prefers working with bridal dresses. No live rat slaughter. Thus, the snails.

This picture, of "Ton Pig", a Chinese freak of nature, simply terrifies me. The reason, I suppose is the eyes.

Luckily, however, the terrifyingly human and pain-laden eyes are probably not expressive of reality, as this is the stuffed and mounted body, with, I hope, artificial eyes.

(This post was brought to you by avoidance of Secured Transactions)

The Past Few Weeks.

The last few weeks have been pretty good, I must say. Of course there have been some pretty bad downsides, like having to end the fun that is summer, returning to Cambridge, returning to Harvard, returning to classes, moving far away once again from AJ and returning to long distance, and getting my asses handed to me in class everyday.

On the other hand, things could be worse.

So we begin with my roadtrip back to Cambridge. My mother decided it would be fun for her to tag along with me and make a 5 day road trip with me back to school (note: the driving would only take 2 days). All in all, it went fairly well. I could tell she was really treasuring the time, mostly because she kept saying "I treasure this time", but I think that small things like that are all she would ever really ask from me, so I am glad to give them. We drove up through to Baltimore to see Hass (my brother), I slept 3 hours on his couch, then we drove up to New York to visit my East Village abode and spent 3 hours cleaning the apartment to be sure to get our security deposit back, then drove up to Boston (I slept 4 hours on the bed), then we spent an entire day touring the city in all its touristy glory (ie. Chinatown and old Boston), and then came home to my apartment to clean (I slept 3 hours on the couch), then spent a whole nother day cleaning the apartment and visiting Harvard Campus, where my mom took it upon herself to buy one Harvard jacket, one harvard Hoodie, three Harvard pens, and one Harvard T-Shirt. This is on top of her pre-existing Harvard Vest and a Harvard collared T-shirt. (She is much happier about Harvard thing than me. But then again, she also bought me an iPod, so all is forgiven.)

And that brings me back to school. Which did not start well. The whole first few days back, I felt like I had been immediately transported back into the shell and personality that I had all of last year. Solitary, purposely ignoring people, basically drifting like a shadow through campus and having as little contact as humanly possible with my surroundings all the while wishing that I had some friends of some sort. I hated seeing common areas filled with talking people, I hated the gatherings by the stairs, I hated watching the people play beach volleyball, those going to happy hours at the student center, those talking about what they did last weekend etc. It truly was miserable last year. The new year didn't seem to start out all that well either. I would be sitting with a group of transfers, and all sorts of other students would stop by and chat with the people at my table, and they would all seem to know each other except for...of course...me. And of course you run through the "Hi, I'm J." "Hi, I'm [Nathaniel/Edith/Rupert/Ivanka]" and then we would return to our mutual state of not knowing each other and never speaking or acknowledging each other again. Ever. Then there was the constant fear of running into people I kinda sorta talked to at the firm, but not really...and wondering if I had to do a stop-and-chat with them (which I wanted to avoid), or if I could just say hi, or if I should just ignore them, at which point we would pass into a state of awkward and artificial mutual nonexistence until we were forced to be together at the firm. And of course, there is the moment where someone else is sitting at your table, you try to introduce yourself, and as it comes out of your mouth, someone manages to inadvertently distract the person so that they don't hear the "Hi, I'm J. by the way" (while everyone else did), and you really can't do it again. So you sit there.

On some days, I suspect i suffer from some sort of mild social anxiety disorder. On other days, I suspect I'm the coolest mother fucker in the world. On most previous days at Harvard, I suffer from a moderate to severe form of social anxiety disorder (verbalized as disdain for Harvard students....which, ok, sure, I do have some of.

The truth is I always felt like Harvard took something away from me. It wasn't the fault of the school or the people necessarily, but I felt like I lost a big piece of my soul here. I lost my will to do good work. I lost my ability to talk to people. I lost my ability to make friends. I lost my willingness to reach out and speak up. I just felt very alone, very isolated, and trapped. The circumstances I was in were so miserable and so new to me that I realized it was quite possible that I had possibly locked myself into some mode that could be the beginning of the rest of my life. That I would be this way forever. That there was no guarantee, and certainly no reason to think that life would get better again, because we dictate a lot of how we feel about our own lives, and my fear, anxiety and all around insecurity kept me from ever breaking the mold...and made me wonder if I would ever summon the courage to fix it.

This summer made me realize that such a state was not permanent. Spending time with AJ in New York, freeing myself from (what I perceive as) the judgmental eyes of Americans in Hong Kong, living in a place where the variety and craziness of people is so diverse and in such a broad range that I could do and be whatever I wanted (NY), and going to the beach with a lot of the people I feel most comfortable with and care about most....all really brought me back to me. At which point I came back to Cambridge and promptly felt myself shutting down, feeling anxious, and feeling awful as I sat silently staring off into the distance while everyone else around me happily socialized. (Of course, I pretend that I'm just feeling tired, or feeling quiet...but it's always the same. I just don't know what to say.)

Now that all sounds really dire, but three days preceding the first have been a drastic improvement. An improvement so drastic and so welcoming, that I think it's fairly safe to say the whole storm has passed, and that "summer Jay" has returned and may have some space to grow in Winter Harvard. (I say Winter Harvard both because it sucks and it's cold, but also because it's REALLY FUCKING COLD.) I actually seem to be quite the social busy bee these days with flag football, drinking on weeknights with friends (every night this week), and generally being in close and frequent contact with a lot of people. It's nice to feel like I actually have friends again, even if for a moment. I never realized how easy it is to end up alone and to feel isolated, but I don't think I will ever again take for granted what it's like to have friends.

Anyhow, next time I will post something about my classes and my journal. (Both of which are going to KILL me.)

Hope that wasn't too boring.

No Time...but.

I just want to point out that the low in Boston today is exactly 3 degrees higher than it is in....

...Anchorage, Alaska.

Boy do I fucking love this town.

(incidentally, my classes are crazy hard, my penchant for inappropriate social drinking during the week is increasing, I'm way out of my league for my journal position, I'm taking on a research assistant job, I have to write a 3L paper, and I'm totally exhausted after one day of class. Love it.)