Reshuffling.

Nothing I'm writing here is really all that interesting, I'm sure. Basically I think that I've been sort of a mess, and I'm in a very fruitful process of fixing it. I really was just going to write a couple of sentences about how I'm reconstructing and remolding my life, but it just sorta kept going, so now there's just a sewer of consciousness that follows...I figure you'll only read if you cared anyway...

So the stark reality is that my life has been all confused and disorderly for awhile now. I am not going to go into any details, but things have been very difficult for the past few months, and I have not been happy. More than not being happy, I refused to recognize much of my own unhappiness and simply never took a moment to be even the slightest bit introspective about what was happening in my life. On the surface, I drank a lot, smoked a lot of cigarettes, ate a lot of crappy food, didn't sleep, and did not do my work. I no longer sought understanding of my courses, but merely did my readings without a second though. My life felt entirely undisciplined, and it was very unrewarding.

I am not quite the person that I want to be, and the person that I was when I was most myself, and most happy just to be me. I have lost track of myself at times and have once again gone adrift. I float by on a patchwork of fleeting desires and instinctive impulses without foundation or principle. I want to be clear though, that this is nothing dreary or existential. Despite the fact that I was living entirely on the surface, the presence of good friends and a vibrant social life for the first time at Harvard has actually made me quite happy. For the first time, Harvard introduced me to a life where I did not feel like I knew any good people. And I'm glad that now I do.

One thing I am very happy about is that I am rediscovering the essential acts of living. More than anything else, understanding the value of simple acts of living was the most important lesson I learned in India. These are the moments in my life when I feel like I am in total control. When I am entirely on my own time and in my own space. And I feel entirely satisfied.

I love taking time to slowly and deliberately clean my home. I love sweeping the corners, wiping the counters, and arranging the pots and pans. I love to go grocery shopping in the local market down the street and coming home loaded down with apples, asparagus, shallots, shiitakes, fresh baby greens, clementines, garlic, and string beans (that's what I got this wednesday). I like to wash and clean fresh vegetables and whip them into a never fully-satisfying but always-healthy meals. I love chopping garlic into little pieces and throwing them into a sizzling pan of olive oil. I love washing my clothes, with the exception of my terrifying basement, and folding them and hanging them up. I love buying potted plants and flowers and placing them around the apartment. (incidentally, I have the blackest thumb ever. my apartment is where plants come to die.)

When I get into these moments and these moods, it's so bizarre, but my movements slow down. I walk through the grocery store without any urgency. I pick up an apple and examine it slowly, and calmly place it into my basket. I don't throw anything, and I don't drop anything into a bag. I walk back from the grocery with deliberation and careful slow steps. I wait at stop lights and don't charge into the street to beat the oncoming traffic. I watch other people on the streets, peer into the cars of people driving by, and catch glimpses of people in their homes. I become very quiet. I take out my headphones and just listen to what's around me. I act like an old man. But in these moments, I am always content. I am always thankful. I become entirely grossed in the deliberate acts of living, and it's wonderful.

This must have been the boringest thing I've ever posted here...when all I really needed to say is I like being a traditional housewife to myself. I don't even know where I was going with all of this anymore...oh well.

I do think that giving up meat for about a month, and then giving up cigarettes for the past 3 weeks have definitely had an impact on me. I feel different now. I no longer feel weak. I no longer feel like a wretch who is entirely consumed by vice. In fact, I feel proud of myself and I have faith in myself. And I think it has been awhile since I've honestly been able to feel like I'm on the right track. So....yeah.

Now it's time to go to the gym. I would continue to ramble, but I'm not even sure what I was writing about in the first place. Basically, I think I'm doing well and finding some peace. And I'm thankful for it. And I thought I'd share that with you.

Redistribution.

A thought that gave me pause today, concerning the redistribution of wealth, is that inter-familial transfers of wealth is exceedingly rare except in emergencies or times of special need. That is, generally rich siblings do not redistribute their wealth to their poorer siblings.

Now, it's possible to take this thought and run wild and be annoying with it and use it as some justification for an extreme interpretation of political policy...but I'm just going to ignore that aspect of it and note that it is something really worth considering if you're generally against income redistribution.

(Note: Progressive taxation is not the same thing as redistribution, unless you want to be annoying about it...at which case you're annoying and I'm not listening.)

God.

If you didn't follow the link that....someone posted...I forgot who, then I highly, highly, highly suggest you go now.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

Yes. It is as good as it sounds. Here are some random sentence excerpts from much longer and funnier posts...hopefully to prod you into taking a look.

#75: Threatening to move to Canada.

"Note: Canadian white people threaten to move to Europe.
Note: Europeans are unable to threaten to move anywhere."

#71: Being the only white person around

In most situations, white people are very comforted by seeing their own kind. However, when they are eating at a new ethnic restaurant or traveling to a foreign nation, nothing spoils their fun more than seeing another white person....

The arrival of the “other white people” to either restaurants or vacation spots instantly means that lines will grow, authenticity will be lost, and the euphoria of being a cultural pioneer will be over.

#67: Standing still at concerts

If you find yourself invited to a concert with a white person, do NOT expect to dance. Prepare yourself for three hours of standing reasonably still. It is also advised to get a beer or (if legal) a cigarette so you have something to do with your hands. Although it is acceptable to occasionally raise one hand and point just above the stage.

#62: Knowing what's good for poor people

#58: Japan

#11: Asian Girls

".... Should white guy / asian girl marry, they produce hybirds that are aestically pleasing, but are very annoying...."

Working from Home.

I am working from home all day today. I am not leaving my house.

Can anyone remember why?

Falling Slowly.

They won the Oscar! That's great!

For those of you who have seen it, I have included the clip below for you to revisit the feeling you had when you first saw it. For those of you who have NOT seen it, you suck...and don't talk to me until you have. And for those of you who HAVE seen it and do NOT like it, well you have your own category there...



And stop posting anonymously. You wouldn't be on this blog unless you were some sort of friend of mine...so I simply don't get why any of you would do that...what's wrong with yoU?

Sneezes.

I watched a movie last night, which was not bad, but it was also not utterly fantastic: Two Days in Paris. I was struck by the movie though, in many ways...and I do really like Julie Delpy...So I included the closing lines of the movie, which really moved me.

“It always fascinated me how people go from loving you madly to nothing at all, nothing. It hurts so much. When I feel someone is going to leave me, I have a tendency to break up first before I get to hear the whole thing. Here it is. One more, one less. Another wasted love story. I really love this one...we'll slowly think of each other less and less until we forget each other completely. Almost. Always the same for me. Break up, break down. Drunk up, fool around. Meet one guy, then another, fuck around. Forget the one and only. Then after a few months of total emptiness start again to look for true love, desperately look everywhere and after two years of loneliness meet a new love and swear it is the one, until that one is gone as well.

There's a moment in life where you can't recover any more from another break-up. And even if this person bugs you sixty percent of the time, well you still can’t live without him. And even if he wakes you up every day by sneezing right in your face, well you love his sneezes more than anyone else's kisses.”

Cigarettes.

I have been cigarette free since 8:00 pm February 10, making this exactly 10 days without smoking. If my math is correct, that is:

• 100 cigarettes unsmoked.
• 40 dollars saved.
• Assuming the rules of thumb are correct, I have regained somewhere between 15 to 18 hours of my life back.
  

On the other hand, quitting smoking has left me:

• Incredibly fatigued everyday...
  
• Entirely unable to concentrate on ANYTHING except distracting myself.
• Eating a lot more.
• Most certainly gaining weight.
• Chewing tons and tons of gum.
• Craving sweets.
  

But then again, I just got my tooth whitening trays today and I am excited about finally having white teeth! And I smell better.

McCain and the Lovely Lobbyist.

Damn. Let's see how the conservatives deal with this one...

Personally, I don't care at all...but it definitely is going to be interesting to watch. And unless I'm entirely tone deaf, this is gonna be quite a slap in the face.

Good Reads: Krugman's Column.

I haven't really posted any columns lately, mostly because I don't find most of them to be particularly noteworthy. Even Paul Krugman's stuff sometimes leans a bit too hysterically left for me to really connect with it in any meaningful way. In any case, nothing Krugman says in this piece is particularly new, but I think it fairly encapsulates a worldview that I share, and I just thought I'd pass it on.

“Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain.” That was the opening of an article in Saturday’s Financial Times, summarizing research presented last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

As the article explained, neuroscientists have found that “many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development.” The effect is to impair language development and memory — and hence the ability to escape poverty — for the rest of the child’s life.

So now we have another, even more compelling reason to be ashamed about America’s record of failing to fight poverty.

L. B. J. declared his “War on Poverty” 44 years ago. Contrary to cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969.

But progress stalled thereafter: American politics shifted to the right, attention shifted from the suffering of the poor to the alleged abuses of welfare queens driving Cadillacs, and the fight against poverty was largely abandoned.

In 2006, 17.4 percent of children in America lived below the poverty line, substantially more than in 1969. And even this measure probably understates the true depth of many children’s misery.

Living in or near poverty has always been a form of exile, of being cut off from the larger society. But the distance between the poor and the rest of us is much greater than it was 40 years ago, because most American incomes have risen in real terms while the official poverty line has not. To be poor in America today, even more than in the past, is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child’s brain.

America’s failure to make progress in reducing poverty, especially among children, should provoke a lot of soul-searching. Unfortunately, what it often seems to provoke instead is great creativity in making excuses.

Some of these excuses take the form of assertions that America’s poor really aren’t all that poor — a claim that always has me wondering whether those making it watched any TV during Hurricane Katrina, or for that matter have ever looked around them while visiting a major American city.

Mainly, however, excuses for poverty involve the assertion that the United States is a land of opportunity, a place where people can start out poor, work hard and become rich.

But the fact of the matter is that Horatio Alger stories are rare, and stories of people trapped by their parents’ poverty are all too common. According to one recent estimate, American children born to parents in the bottom fourth of the income distribution have almost a 50 percent chance of staying there — and almost a two-thirds chance of remaining stuck if they’re black.

That’s not surprising. Growing up in poverty puts you at a disadvantage at every step.

I’d bracket those new studies on brain development in early childhood with a study from the National Center for Education Statistics, which tracked a group of students who were in eighth grade in 1988. The study found, roughly speaking, that in modern America parental status trumps ability: students who did very well on a standardized test but came from low-status families were slightly less likely to get through college than students who tested poorly but had well-off parents.

None of this is inevitable.

Poverty rates are much lower in most European countries than in the United States, mainly because of government programs that help the poor and unlucky.

And governments that set their minds to it can reduce poverty. In Britain, the Labor government that came into office in 1997 made reducing poverty a priority — and despite some setbacks, its program of income subsidies and other aid has achieved a great deal. Child poverty, in particular, has been cut in half by the measure that corresponds most closely to the U.S. definition.

At the moment it’s hard to imagine anything comparable happening in this country. To their credit — and to the credit of John Edwards, who goaded them into it — both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are proposing new initiatives against poverty. But their proposals are modest in scope and far from central to their campaigns.

I’m not blaming them for that; if a progressive wins this election, it will be by promising to ease the anxiety of the middle class rather than aiding the poor. And for a variety of reasons, health care, not poverty, should be the first priority of a Democratic administration.

But ultimately, let’s hope that the nation turns back to the task it abandoned — that of ending the poverty that still poisons so many American lives.

Obamania Spans the Globe.

I thought this was cute. Not in the way that short curly haired girls think pugs are cute, but in a "Enthusiastic Japanese People are cute" sort of way...

The article, in short, is about a little Japanese town named...

....you guessed it...Obama.

And so Obama sprang into action, its desire to escape the countryside’s anonymity interwoven with Senator Barack Obama's run for the White House. A support group was formed. Primary day events were held. And “Go Obama!” posters were put up.

On Monday, as expectations ran high here that Mr. Obama would sweep Tuesday’s primaries in Wisconsin and Hawaii, Obama, population 32,000, was making plans to buttress its support. Businessmen were getting ready with “I love Obama” T-shirts, a theme song called “Obama Is a Wonderful World” and sweet bean cakes with Mr. Obama’s face on them. City Hall was going to send a daruma doll with “victory” written across its chest, a traditional good-luck charm in Japanese elections.

Classy.

IM Conversation for Today with my Friend whose name starts with a B:

B: Hi.
Jay: What's up B's-Nutz?
B: Uh, hey...Monsieur Lee. Lets do Chinatown tonight.
Jay: Well if we're doing that, then I'm definitely only eating a leafy green salad for lunch.
Jay: And, if I am going to make puns about you, you should do better than "Monsieur Lee." Like, get a "Lee-fy "green salad.

B: ha good asian insertion there

Jay: thats what she said

(Jay is subsequently elected King.)

One Simple Call...

And my Omaha Steaks Fantastic Feast will be delivering on Tuesday the 26th.

Say it.

Say it bitch.

Yes. Form those words.

"Your life is better than mine..."

Yes. Those words are almost as delicious as the steaks I will be eating in one week from now.

Does Obama Have an Asian Problem?

...is the headline Time is using for an article suggesting, not very subtly, that Asians hate black people, and thus Barack Obama.

Awesome.

....notably, Hillary Clinton's campaign once refused a Chinese Language newspaper from San Francisco saying that they would not allow foreign press. hehe.

Uno Wins it!

Beagles prevail!

(Long time supporter of beagles here. Just ask AJ.)
I love how intensely this story is covered, both because it's awesome and because it's awesome. (Joey, you really might want to consider posting about this because well...it's awesome.)


Now THAT's a cute picture.

Suhweet!

In addition to the whole smoking thing, I've decided to add some incentive and continue this path of getting better (which includes having not had anything to drink for the longest period in 2 years)...Thus, luckily the Gods smiled upon me and Harvard is offering dental whitening for a very low subsidized rate through Valentines Day...and I happened to snag an appointment tomorrow morning at 11:30 am.

In case you're slow, she's dancing a jig.

P.S. - No judgment when all of these things start to fall apart.

29 hours in...

It has been 29 hours since my last cigarette.

Methinks the Nicotine gum actually works...which is very surprising. I was very very dubious about it. Turns out I WAS addicted to nicotine. Can you believe that?

And ladies....watch out. This Asian is (supposed to be) experiencing better skin, fingers, hair, teeth, smells, sense of smell, and endurance. Though I suppose the accompanying weight gain isn't gonna be all that helpful, considering I just ate homemade tuna melt....

In any case, Nicorette is sorta weird. You can't just sit around and chew the gum. You actually chew the gum until it starts to tingle in your mouth, at which point you are supposed to just park the gum somewhere between your cheek and your gums, where it gets absorbed into your bloodstream. Then, when the gum stops tingling, you chew it some more until it starts to tingle, and repeat. It's mildly heartburny, and it's sorta weird just having nicotine all up in my mouth and my throat. But I am definitely surprised at how I'm sorta ok not smoking a cigarette right now. I also like that I get to chew it while I'm sitting in my law and public health class discussing paternalism and the legitimacy of regulation of second hand smoke.
I also find it helps to puff on an unlit cigarette while I'm just chillin in my apartment. All of this makes me sound sorta pathetic...and I'm sure that updates on my not smoking is not all that interesting to you, but it's not like I have anything else to blog about.

...except my epic awesome weekend, although I'm not all that sure you're interested in hearing about THAT either...except, suffice it to say, at least for now, that
1) I blacked out for the first time ever. And somehow managed to RECORD IT on my computer.
2) I paid 25 bucks cover to get into a club. And danced danced danced.
3) I was piss drunk from Friday 10 pm through Sunday 4 am.
4) I played full court basketball in jeans and a T-shirt, entirely drunk, and scored a quarter of the team's baskets.
5) I somehow paid 150-200 dollars for alcohol in a single night.
6) Over the course of these epic 30 hours before i passed out, I ate one large large bowl of Ramen (10 minutes before the basketball game), 35 pork dumplings (20 minutes after the basketball game), and 6 oranges (only god knows).

Nicorette.

I just dropped 50 bucks for a box of Nicotine gum. I'm not even really sure there was any particular reason I decided to quit smoking today...but here goes nothin! Now is as good a time as any...

My chronology as a smoker....

• My first taste of sweet sweet tobacco was after 7th grade. My neighbor Adam Beger in Detroit Michigan had a Swisher Sweet, and we smoked it in a construction lot together. It was cheap, super sweet, and was almost like candy.

• Soon after, I somehow stumbled upon a Jewel Sweet. And I went back to smoke for a second time. These are slightly classier Swisher Sweets, but they have wooden tips. I smoked it in the garage that summer after 7th grade. It was delicious.
• On the way home from Northwood Middle School when I was 13, my buddy Whitford and I walked home from school on the last day of classes. We were little skater punks. I had a mohawk, an Alien Workshop skateboard, Bullhead jeans, Etnies shoes, and a wallet chain. Near the corner of Enoree and Old Spartanburg road, Whitford and I noticed an almost full pack of Basic cigarettes sitting at the mouth of a sewer. I stashed those babies under my dresser in a Ziploc bag, and we smoked that pack of cigarettes over the course of the entire summer. Every couple of weeks or so one of us would ask the other whether we should start a "Basic Fire"...and then we'd go run off into the woods and smoke. Looking back on those days, neither of us ever inhaled. We simply puffed.
  
• When I was 15 and my brother had just turned 18, I looked in my brother's Ford Probe in the center console and found a pack of Marlboro Lights, which I guess he was experimenting with since he just turned 18. It was with those cigarettes that I inhaled tobacco smoke into my lungs for the first time ever. One by one I would steal them out of his car and smoke them out my bedroom window. It burned something fierce. It was painful, it was horrible, it wreaked havoc on my lungs those first few cigarettes. And I stuck it out. I fought HARD to smoke.
  

• Since we're involving a Ford Probe story, I crashed that awesome little thing into an 82 year old couple. As I slammed into the Buick Park Avenue with the Probe, and bounced violently off the airbag listening to Smashing Pumpkins "Love" on the stereo, I was smoking a Camel Menthol Light. I quickly dropped the cigarette, and also hid the pack of Marlboro Ultra Lights I had hidden in the trunk.
  
• I smoked all the way from the time I was 15 until I got to college. I made myself fake IDs, I used people's sisters and brothers, and just managed to get cigarettes all through high school. I requested a non-smoking roommate. So did my roommate. We both filled the halls with so much tobacco smoke you would not believe it.
• A week after arriving at Duke, a knock came at my door. I, with a cigarette in my mouth, went to the door. With smoke filling the falls and ash dropping onto my shirt, I took a flyer asking people to come out for the Rowing team. I smiled, tapped my ash into my ashtray, and said I'd be there.
• I smoked a lot that year, until October 10, 2000 when I decided to quit smoking for my mother's birthday. I lasted 6 months, when one cigarette became two, and two became ten a day. And I began to train, 25 hours of intense rowing, cardio, 13 mile runs, and sprints....with a cigarette before and after every practice.
  
• I reached my peak sometime over the next 3 years. I smoked about a pack of day. My brands changed from month to month. Winston Select Lights, Camel Lights, Turkish Gold, Camel Red Lights, and finally, the big Kahuna, my lovely Parliament lights. I smoked in my apartment in Central, I smoked in my dorm room, I smoked in the house at Burch, I smoked at band practice (with my band mates), I smoked at concerts...everywhere I went, all my buddies smoked, and it was fantastic. I love smoking. I really really do.
  

But, I think it's time. I was smoking up until Yesterday right before I went to the gym, and maybe......just maybe, this is the beginning of the end. Wish me luck.

By the end of tonight...

....I will have been drunk for 30 hours straight.

Details to come.......urrrrrgh.

Obama and the Law.

I just read this piece on Slate and Obama's view of constitutional law. It's quite short, so those of you with an interest in Constitutional law may just want to glance over it.

Here's one paragraph, which struck me as incredible because Tribe, Minow, Katyal, and Sunstein are friggin' GIANTS of Constitutional law, practice, and the Supreme Court.

As Harvard law professor Martha Minow puts it, "He has at his fingertips the whole historical context of the moments in which our Constitution has been stretched, or has been in jeopardy, and when presidents have tried to bring it back. This isn't an afterthought for him: 'Oh, I'll go consult my lawyers.' "

For Minow, this was driven home by an exercise in speechwriting. She and fellow Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, Georgetown law professor Neal Katyal, and University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein were supposed to work up a draft of a big speech for Obama about law and democracy. The four of them—titans, all—labored over multiple drafts, which they sent back and forth among themselves. Then they and other law professors arrived at Obama's office. After apologizing because he hadn't reviewed their version, he reeled off four points he thought the speech should make. And Minow says they were better than what her quartet had come up with—not just more politically resonant but better conceived.

That's awesome.

Oh, and I got a haircut. (sigh....)

America the Beautiful

I am trying very hard to remember what news story compelled me to suddenly look up a video of Hitler speaking on YouTube....but here I am. Let's not bother reading into this...(wait, just remembered. It was an NYTimes Op-Ed I just read....)

But it IS interesting to have all this distance and just watch Hitler speak. It's surreal. I think by the 15th Sieg Heil, I was almost convinced.





Here's a Disney Classic you should just watch if you've never seen it...Nothing like good ol' propaganda for children by Disney...This is a classic.



That cartoon led me to THESE...which are so startling racist that I'm honestly surprised. Which I shouldn't be. But at every turn......jesus.


This one is called "Bugs bunny nips the nips" (No, RS, Japanese people, not nipples, sorry)

..........

My Omaha Steaks arrived January 24 and were delivered, according to UPS.

That was the Day I left for Paris.

I am PISSED. I WANT AN EXPLANATION NOW.

Awesome. And Cute.

(Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

Super Duper Tuesday.

I voted!



Then promptly stopped at the bake sale table and bought a doughnut and cupcake for a dollar to reward my belief in democracy.

Note: I almost wrote in "Fat Alf Kid" instead, but I think his views on the
Alternative Minimum Tax and heavy-handed regulation of
private pools of capital make him a hard sell in the general election.

Among the more pointless posts ever: The NY Times

Note: Having randomly typed this post for the last 15 minutes, I see no reason for you to actually read it. You can read the pointless and stupid query at the very bottom though.

I distinctly remember a time in my life when I read every single NYTimes Op-Ed that came into print. It was during college, I was starting to slowly emerge from my cocoon of being totally insulated by an entirely idyllic suburban adolescence, and I was just eager to start learning more about the world.

(Actually, at several points in my life I made entire lists of things that I swore to myself that I would learn about. At the very top of the list, at the end of high school, one of the big lessons of life that seemed unfathomably complicated, opaque, and entirely foreign....was "find[ing] out the difference between Democrats and Republicans, or figuring out what that means." At that point in my life, I was already a pragmatist and figured most people were pragmatists and just sort've had a smattering of ideas based on particular issues. Later, I recall having an experience in the middle of college when my awareness about politics and policy began to sharpen, I remember sending a flabbergasted email to an old high school mentor of mine with a desperately terrified question about how so many people believed so many things that seemed so inherently wrong, and that they were all allied powerfully and representing half of the country. Of course since then, I have grown considerably more sympathetic to conservatives on many of their principles, though I still quite emphatically think they are wrong on the degree to which they embrace their respective ideologies.)

Anyhow, none of this post was really about that stuff. I really just wanted to comment on the effect of TimesSelect. I used to love and wait for the new columns every single day. At the time I guess it was William Safire (the conservative), Thomas Friedman (the simplifier), Paul Krugman (the economist), Dowd (?), David Brooks (another conservative), Bob Herbert (eh), and Nicholas Kristof (bleeding heart white guy who likes asian women), and I guess there were others. In any case, the columns really had an effect on me because they allowed me to see how other people, presumably smart people, had been synthesizing all of the same information and news that I had been seeing at the same time. So when the US invaded Iraq, it was interesting to see how Friedman, who I consider quite credible on the Middle East after reading From Beirut to Jerusalem, was a hawk in favor of the war. And when the Bush tax cuts increased, it was interesting to see how Krugman's polished economic expertise pointed out the effects of the cuts, and also firmly believed it was part of the right-wing's attempt to "starve the beast" and destroy the post-New Deal government without a single veto or political push.
Almost for that reason alone, the NYTimes was my homepage. Internet browser goes up, the Times pops up as my home. There was the beginning of my news day, each and every day. Even in India, when I plugged my crappy little LG phone into my laptop and drowsily surfed the internet for news, the NYTimes and the Columnists kept me plugged into the US political and social climate.

And suddenly upon returning to the US, the NYTimes instituted TimesSelect. The horrible fuckbeast of an idea so that you had to pay for membership to read the columns online. At first I was pretty upset. I mean, apart from scanning headlines and looking at an article here or there, the columns were definitely major players in helping me form models of thought and helping me find my own opinions. So I considered paying for it.

But that pissed me off. Bullshit.

So then I started getting to the columns through Lexis (this was during 1L)...and that just was so irritating that I stopped after 3 days. And then....

Two years passed. The quick and cheap headlines of MSNBC became my homepage. I read more and more Slate for analysis. I surfed over to CNN to make sure no major cities had been leveled during the day. Andrew Sullivan became an increasing influence over my time. ESPN (recently) found a spot in my toolbar. I began to look at more stupid gossip sites. And for two years, I really didn't have anything to do with the NYTimes. I would glance at the site every week or so, get bored, and move on.

And then, in September of 2007, the NYTimes came to its senses and killed the beast. TimesSelect was over, and now all content was totally free. Free! The Columnists were back! Friedman was still there. Krugman was still here! Dowd, Herbert, Brooks, Kristof, and now even Bill Kristol.

...but I think it was too late. I don't care anymore. Two years of being told that their opinions were too good to be freely available made me seek out bloggers and other editorial opinions. Two years of not caring about their opinions made them irrelevant. Now Krugman seems sorta like a partisan hack who talks too much about things he doesn't really have any business pontificating about, like politics, and ignores the very things he knows better than anyone: economics. Bob Herbert's opinions seem entirely predictable. I'm not sure I give a shit what Friedman thinks anymore...

But really, this entire post was supposed to be one sentence...a very meaningless question, but sort of a curiosity for anyone who reads the Times...so I guess I'll just go ahead and ask it:

Does anyone else think that Maureen Dowd's columns just suck? Is there something deeper than the veneer of cartoonish slurs and stylized worlds she portrays? Or is it as empty and unfulfilling to everyone else too? Is she as smug as I think?

At least Bridget Moynihan had a good night...

...as History was robbed by a douchebag.

As you can probably surmise, I am NOT happy that the Pats lost the Super Bowl. Besides the profound sense of disappointment about the loss of a perfect season for the Pats, I am probably equally upset that of ALL the people who could have caused this outcome, it was fucking ELI MANNING that did it. (There is only one other person in the world I would have wanted to win the Super Bowl less, and that is supremo-Douchebag number 1, Philip Rivers.)

In any case, I dread the onslaught of stupid pointless commercials starring Eli Manning that will certainly fill the year. The constant chatter of analysis of how Eli managed this one. More talk about Eli, Eli, Eli......ugh.

I do not like him. Suck.

..............2...girls....1 cup.

Ok.....so this is one of the more interesting things I've seen on Slate in a long time...

It's a collection and analysis of videos of people who were asked to watch "2 girls 1 cup"...and taping their reactions to the video. The reactions are actually pretty hilarious, and fascinating...but they also make you wonder "what the FUCK is this video? What could it possibly be?" I'm gonna suggest you not try to locate the video.

(Why?...after watching the horror unfold in these people's faces, I decided to watch it myself. My reaction: my face was entirely still, my body completely statuesque, my eyes widening, widening, widening until the damn video ended and I could exhale again. Gross.)

I'm not even gonna post the link to that video, because boy...totally not going to be responsible for you seeing it. I do suggest though, that you do follow the link I put up above, because it's a nice way to pass 10 minutes.

Boston Sucks.

Why did it snow, ice, bluster, and then end in a miserable rainy downpour in the beginning of February? Hate this place.

Incidentally, I saw a lot of small birds flying around today looking for a place to stay dry....wtf?! February?

Sign your name, dadgummit!

I have no real explanation for why I feel this way, but I get irritated when people comment without indicating who they are...it's not like anyone else beyond a very small handful of people see this...So, please just do it.

And if not, suck it long and suck it hard.

[insert offensively pornographic picture of someone sucking it long and sucking it hard]

My Tax Professor is AWESOME.

I believe that he will be the most entertaining, hilarious, and exciting law professor I will have in my entire law school career. He is also not a Harvard Prof, but from UCLA. It's fantastic.

Today we learned that the primary beneficiaries of the payroll tax system are Asian women.

And when he said it, he was being funny. and serious.