I admit...

...It actually took me about a minute to figure this out. Plus, I was on the phone, so Josh can attest to the fact that I sat there....silent....not quite sure why he thought it was funny.

But...it is funny....




And now for something else that I found interesting...

(This will take you through a guide of how I use modern media too.)

After watching Marie Antoinette (Yes. My quality of life has taken a dive. But it was Sophia Coppola. That has to mean something.), I naturally went onto Wikipedia to read about the real Marie Antoinette. You know, the same shit. To see what she looked like. To see what actually happened. Whether I should replace my understanding of history with Kirsten Dunst...etc.
...and...after being horrified by the unbelievable inhumanity and bloodlust of the French Revolution, I noticed that one of her loyal ladies in waiting was decapitated for refusing to betray her loyalty to the queen...and had her head placed on a pike, and the severed head was paraded in front of Marie Antoinette's window. (Actually, if the ol' Wiki is to be believed, she was gang raped, had her breasts cut off, she was mutilated, possibly had her genitals cut out, and THEN her head was placed on the pike. More reason to hate the French eh?)

As was also natural, I went to look up who played this lady in waiting in the movie on IMDB...remembered who her character was...and then went back to Wikipedia. As if that would enrich my experience, right?

So then I kept reading, and I found out that some lady named Madame Tussaud, made a death mask of this lady, named Princess de Lamballe. And I thought to myself, "what the fuck is a death mask?"

So in the ever handy upper-right corner Google searchbar of Firefox, I typed in Death Mask....and the rest of the night was pretty much lost.

Up until and past the time of photography, apparently, for purposes of identification, or for making statues, or for various other reasons...it was common practice to take a waxen or plaster cast of a dead person's face. This sparked my interest. Because I have always really wondered what old dead people actually looked like. For example, these are all pictures of James Madison.






I find this Profoundly unhelpful. I want to know what he actually looked like! Apparently he was 5'1" and 110 pounds. That is not what I see. So for people like Madison (unfortunately, he doesn't have one), I could actually see what they looked like! So I searched and searched...and had a jolly ol' time...until, well, hours later I did my evidence homework.

Anyhow, here's a few:

This one is obvious, but serves as testament to its accuracy.

This one is not obvious. It's Napoleon.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure will never be the same.....

Quick Question.

I'm totally not trying to be political here...but I have a question:

As someone, who like me, may have grown into political consciousness sometime over the past 6-8 years, are you just shocked at how bad this Administration has been?

i don't mean this in a democratic, or liberal way....but just...as an American citizen. I mean, just on every single level, in every news cycle, in every sense of governing...isn't it just incredible how awful this is? Is this just what it feels like to grow up and see that the world truly is messy, and that there are no easy solutions? or is it as bad intentioned and incompetent as it seems? I could make a 300 page list of awful things that have been done.

I'm actually looking for an answer. shocked? no? Supportive? Is this just what growing up is like?

I've been driven back to music as my most favoritest refuge....

This began as a very short post. And it has evolved into an omnibus of various thoughts...

Music has reclaimed me recently.

I went a few random local shows, and I realized how much I missed it. Then I popped in Ozma's Crossing over the Borderline into my car CD player on full blast on the way to the clinic, and spent 30 minutes remembering how I used to feel about music...the way it sends shocks down my legs so they can't stop bouncing, the way the energy pours back into me, and how it felt to not think about the law, or a career, or fucking Harvard Law School and just make a total fool of myself rocking out to Joanna Newsom at full blast in a predominantly black, low-income neighborhood. (My subwoofer kicks their shitty hip hop's subwoofer's ass. Even if it is only projecting the sound of a harp and harpy.) (That's for you AJ. The harpy bit.)

I go through periodic cycles where I return to certain artists in massive storms of immersion, for example Bjork, Smashing Pumpkins, Tool, the Beatles, and the like...but I don't think I've ever actually phased out of music completely until I got into law school. So I've decided to take that back too.

(Incidentally, I've also begun re-reading Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet", which always somehow manages to slap me in the face, one way or the other. Good stuff.)

try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms...Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you ecause you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within yourself the possibility of shaping and forming as a particularly happy and pure way of living; train yourself to it - but take whatever comes with great trust, and if only it comes out of your own will, out of some need of your inmost being, take it upon your self and hate nothing.

Anyway....

For the one or two of you who may actually care, I've decided to post Bjork's two performances on SNL from some recent episode, in tribute to my return to this wonderful little world. At this point, slightly more accessible than Medulla, but still probably less accessible than Homogenic or Post. Of course, this doesn't say much...since the first time I bought a Bjork CD on a whim, I hated it so much and got so fed up that I threw it across the room. (It was 6 months later when I found it under the couch...It must have burned a groove into my mind because I felt the melodies and emotions settle into comfortable and ecstatic corners, and the rest is history.)

I did, however, forget how incredibly weird Bjork is on stage. And how she simply simply cannot dance. In fact being so bad that you could almost say she dances well.






And for those of you who find this too inaccessible, or too boring to even consider clicking...or who would like a little more of a classic Bjork experience, here's her video for Bachelorette: a Fractal illustrated into life, a mirror's reflection of a mirror.



Or we could just go with a solid, universally loved song...accompanied by two Bjork robots making out. It's really quite incredible. Albeit incredibly bizarre.




And finally, this is the song that has hypnotized me for the past few weeks. I can't figure out why, though I don't think the song really hits til after 2:30. Though I certainly recommend that if you want to listen to it, you do NOT watch the video. Completely kills it. In fact, just don't look at it. It's just plain silly. In fact it's humiliating to associate myself with this video.



Cheers!

My music rotation since Monday:
--Imogen Heap
--Damien Rice
--Joanna Newsom
--Coheed and Cambria
--Jack's Mannequin
--The bird and the bee
--Inara George
--Muse
--The Everyday Visuals
--Rodrigo Y Gabriela
--Regina Spektor

Please make suggestions! I'm on my way to tracking down Pere Ubu and Silversun Pickups. I love the fact that all of these artists, with a few exceptions, are easily accessible in small concert venues at almost a non-stop rate. That's the good stuff.

And as you can guess from the length of this unnecessary post....exams are around the corner....Good luck to you law students!

I'm verbose, but not eloquent.

I have several reasons for supporting Obama. Primary reasons include intellectual honesty, the embrace of community and individual ideals, the non-dogmatic willingness for dialogue and working towards a solution instead of believing that solutions are readily available and anointed by God...but also because I feel like we are witnessing a moment in history that signals the decline of the United States. The moment was not September 11, but September 12: The day the Bush Presidency was given the carte blanche. The beginning of the decline of pluralism, of a democratic morality, of national decency and integrity, and of the legitimacy of US leadership and influence.

Instead of trying to explain it myself, Andrew Sullivan (a very prominent conservative / libertarian) has put it much better.

But this much we can already say: Obama brings something no one else does to this moment. By replacing one of the most globally despised and domestically divisive presidents in American history with a young leader half-Kansan and half-Kenyan, America would be saying something to the world: Bush-Cheney is not who we are. America is not what it has come to appear to be. This country is among the most culturally and racially and religiously diverse on the planet. America has long been a powerful and vital beacon for human rights - not, as recently, the avatar of torture, rendition and executive tyranny. The simple existence of Obama as a new president in a new century would in itself enhance America's soft power immeasurably, just as a clear decision to leave Iraq would provide much greater leverage for diplomacy and military force in a whole variety of new ways. Obama would mean the rebranding of America, after a disastrous eight years....

This is the reason for his ascendancy. This is what the American people sense and the world awaits. This is what the Islamists fear. That last alone is reason to feel hope. Money quote [from Obama]:

We must [lead] not in the spirit of a patron, but the spirit of a partner – a partner that is mindful of its own imperfections. Extending an outstretched hand to these states must ultimately be more than just a matter of expedience or even charity. It must be about recognizing the inherent equality and worth of all people. And it’s about showing the world that America stands for something – that we can still lead...

[I]f the next President can restore the American people's trust – if they know that he or she is acting with their best interests at heart, with prudence and wisdom and some measure of humility – then I believe the American people will be ready to see America lead again.

They will be ready to show the world that we are not a country that ships prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far off countries. That we are not a country that runs prisons which lock people away without ever telling them why they are there or what they are charged with. That we are not a country which preaches compassion and justice to others while we allow bodies to float down the streets of a major American city.

That is not who we are.

OH. MY. GOD.

Yes. An impression of Janice.

And if you understood that reference, you're as big of a loser as me. Or at least a woman.

Anyhow, This is the crazies.

Let me just say that I am very uncomfortable with this. And if you don't feel like clicking on the link and going to the article, let me just post this quotation:

"We think the clinics will be a great opportunity for our business. But most importantly, they are going to provide something our customers and communities desperately need -- affordable access at the local level to quality health care," said Wal-Mart Chief Executive Officer Lee Scott in a statement.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fantastic!!!!!!

This is one of the Daily Show's best moments I've seen in a very long time: HAHAHAHAHA

Holy shit! Crazy!

Maybe I shouldn't so amused, but I thought this was ridiculous, and thus, hilarious. I mean, clearly it's an absurdity, but that doesn't detract from the Chineseness of it all.

TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- Doris Moore was shocked when her new couch was delivered to her Toronto home with a label that used a racial slur to describe the dark brown shade of the upholstery.

The situation was even more alarming for Moore because it was her 7-year-old daughter who pointed out "nigger brown" on the tag.

"My daughter saw the label and she knew the color brown, but didn't know what the other word meant. She asked, 'Mommy, what color is that?' I was stunned. I didn't know what to say. I never thought that's how she'd learn of that word," Moore said.

The mother complained to the furniture store, which blamed the supplier, who pointed to a computer problem as the source of the derogatory label

Kingsoft Corp., a Chinese software company, acknowledged its translation program was at fault and said it was a regrettable error.

"I know this is a very bad word," Huang Luoyi, a product manager for the Beijing-based company's translation software, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

He explained that when the Chinese characters for "dark brown" are typed into an older version of its Chinese-English translation software, the offensive description comes up.

"We got the definition from a Chinese-English dictionary. We've been using the dictionary for 10 years. Maybe the dictionary was updated, but we probably didn't follow suit," he said

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha. That's so chinese. I mean. Come on!!!!!

Will this be enough?

This time: 32 people killed.

I am stunned.

Edit:

Virginia Citizens Defense League President James Van Cleave -

Excerpts from Van Cleave's e-mail with the subject title: "VA-ALERT: Gun-control claims lives at Virginia Tech"

"As most of you know VCDL has been pushing hard to change Virginia law to allow college and university students with concealed handgun permits to be able to carry a gun on campus for self-defense. ... We could not get the bills out of subcommittee."

"The General Assembly turned a deaf ear to allowing college and university students to be able to protect themselves and here we are today :-( "

"ENOUGH OF ELITIST BALONEY FROM COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES!
If just ONE of those victims had been armed, this most probably would have turned out very differently".

This will never end.

Just some more...

Just for those who may conceivably care...Here is a video I made of them before I left, that I actually think is decent.

God I miss them.

For just one moment, when I walk through Harvard Science Center, I feel cool again.

But that's not what this post is about.

I write today with a sense of bittersweetness and great joy. And probably a heavy dose of melodrama. But it's 4:30 am.

On Monday, I received an email at 2 am from Freedom Foundation with a simple note that Girish's adoption had become final, and that he will be leaving for Sweden the next day.


(That's him on his birthday.)

Girish was the first child to open up to me at Freedom, an effervescent 15 year old who spoke English. One morning I found him sick and home from school with a (very common) viral fever, and with him my love for the children began and my sense of home at Freedom began to take root. That day I learned that he was from Mumbai. That his father used to repair televisions in a small rundown booth on the side of the road. That his mother was beautiful and loving. And that he had a younger brother, named Ganesh, who had been adopted by a Swedish family 4 years earlier. He told me that after his parents both died of AIDS when he was 9 or 10, he tried to make ends meet by cleaning tables in shoddy roadside dhabas, and lived on the streets with Ganesh.

But he was not hardened. He was not cynical, he was not suspicious, dishonest or conniving. He was a fantastic 15 year old. (Well, to be honest, we found out that he was actually 14 the month before I left.) I would plug in my little Indian cellphone into my laptop and we would get on the internet, and I would do the best that I could to show him where Sweden was on the world map. To find pictures of Stockholm. To explain that Sweden was cold as balls. To calculate the time it would take to fly there. To explain that it was so cold that ice on the river would be so thick that you could walk on it.

And then, of course, he would start begging me to play Half-Life. (And eventually Half-Life 2, when my mother shipped it to me for Christmas. Incidentally, I beat Half-Life, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, and Half-Life 2 in India. A group of 22 children stood behind me and watched the whole thing. Actually, the kids beat Half-Life 2.

Except for the hard parts. That's him wearing the orange checkered shirt. Behind the clump of children is a laptop displaying an unholy war unfolding in Half-Life 2. )

To get back to the story, Girish's little bro Ganesh lived in Sweden with a Swedish family. When Girish was 10 and Ganesh was about 6, the Indian government allowed the family to adopt only Ganesh even though the Swedish family desperately wanted to keep the brothers together: But Girish had HIV, Ganesh did not, and Indian government policy did not allow HIV+ children to be adopted. So Freedom fought for 5 years to let the family adopt Girish. Last week they won.

Girish was the second oldest child. Murugesh was the oldest (17), Girish was second (15), and Suresh was third (14). The rest of the children basically clumped around the ages of 8-11, so these three formed the ruling triumvirate: a group of the first generation of adolescent HIV+ teenagers struggling to forge a path that had never, ever been attempted or possible. HIV+ children just didn't live past 6 in a country like India. And HIV did not appear in India until 1986. But more importantly, Murugesh relied on Girish. As the oldest, most responsible, and most talented of the children, Murugesh had a sidekick in Girish. Girish was the only other HIV+ boy who was facing the same uncontrollable sex drive; the only other person who could compete with him in cricket; the only other person who could help him control the rest of the children and carry the burden of maturity and responsibility. And now he Girsh is leaving to Sweden. And I know Murugesh is heartbroken.

The other miracle about Girish is that he is in perfect health in spite of his HIV-status. Most of the children had begun anti-retroviral therapy by the ages of 6-10, as their CD4 (immune system) cell count dropped into AIDS range (<200) and viral suppression therapy was necessary to bring them back to functional immunity. Yet Girish, at the age of 15, still inexplicably managed to maintain a normal CD4 count without treatment. A miraculous anomaly in the world of HIV.

And now he will be leaving Freedom Foundation to start a new life with a new family in Sweden. He will have his brother back, and a new (blonde) sister, a new mother, and a new father. With Swedish medicine and his miraculous health, Girish may live to see 30, 40, or even 50. Or, in my dream of dreams, Girish may live to see a cure for HIV. And Girish may write me an email when I am 65, and he is 55, still calling me Jay Uncle. I could even meet him for coffee one day, as an adult. This is a source of joy. Girish finally has all the love, care, and medicine he needs.

But the mere existence of this miracle leads inexorably to the conclusion that the other children may not be so fortunate. They have lost part of their unique family. The big brother that most of them have know for the past 5 years. And Girish will certainly have to watch his adopted brothers and sisters succumb to a virus, with his experience in Sweden leading him to the awareness that they didn't have to: Prasanna Kumar, Harshini, Shafi, Shaziya, Murugesh, Varsha, Suresh, Deepthi, Saritha, Saraswathi, Harshita, Raju, Anitha, Gautam, Karthik, Punitha, Annappa, Rajesh, Vishal, and Abdul Gaffar...

There is so much more to say that I'm tempted to write another 10,000 words...but I think I've said enough. All I wanted to do was share the significance of a triumph.

My heart races right now just thinking about what has happened in Girish's life in the past 48 hours. Born into a loving family, he lost his family to HIV at 10, lost his brother to Indian emigration policy, and moved into a rundown HIV hospital on the outskirts of a third-world city...and just a day ago, he boarded a plane to one of the most advanced industrial countries in the world. The kid who was so stunned and enthralled by the Spiderman movies and computer games is now entering a new world. A world full of Swedish speakers. Blondes. Neo-nazis. Socialism. A new school. A new culture. Jews. A new life. Eating meat 3 times a day. Clean streets. Supermarkets. Cable television. High-speed internet. A brother who speaks Swedish. But most importantly, he has a new family who has fought for 5 long years to win the chance to take him...and now he has a chance to start over. So I'm happy. A wonderful human being has been given a chance for a wonderful life. There isn't much more we can ask for.

Bjork!

Bjork's new album is out in less than a month...and her first song is now available! For the one of you who might be interested...here it is!



It sounds like a return to her more energetic Debut era stuff with more maturity. I'm excited again! (unlike the feeling I had after the first week of listening to Medulla.)


On a more personal note, last night I decided to convince my friends to an album release concert and art show that was happening in a big rock club in Boston. The band was a local hipster-ish band named "The Everyday Visuals" and I actually had a fantastic time. I had several oversized PBRs, watched 3 or 4 bands (Hippie folk singing white chick, an awesome Jett Rink-ish high energy rock band, a hipster band who sounded indistinguishable from any of the Killers/Franz Ferdinand/Interpol/Stellastarr genre, and finally the Everyday Visuals)...and just had a blast.

I totally missed being in clubs and seeing shows.

Anyhow, it's work time! Back to lawlaw land....sigh.

Funny!!

I find it intensely intriguing how much trouble is being stirred up by this Sanjaya thing. I've actually never seen American Idol before (although I did see 5 minutes of it playing in Bangalore while I was sitting in Karen's Living room/bedroom/dining room/prayer room)...but everywhere I turn, there seems to be all sorts of hullaballoo over Sanjaya, an American Idol contestant with controversial hair. Here's an example...(actually, a google search for Sanjaya brings up three news stories, including the Washington Post.)
So, I went to Wikipedia to read up on it: I think the jackass British judge said he would not come back if Sanjaya won, Howard Stern was starting a campaign to get Sanjaya to win, and there's a group called "Vote for the Worst" who are out to try and destroy American Idol who have tried to rally the troops to make him win, and there are "commentators" (whatever the fuck THAT means) who think that a Sanjaya victory would mean the demise of American Idol. (YAY!!!) Apparently the judges are trying pretty hard to do anything they can to get him to lose, and even the host is apparently mocking him. So basically, the institution of American Idol wants him gone.

Truth be told: Sanjaya actually sucks really bad. I Youtubed it for your pleasure. He really does suck. I don't quite understand how this even got to American Idol...are they all this mediocre?



A few things:
1) If for some reason you think that American Idol is good...just explain it to me in a comment...because what the fucking hell?!

2) American Idol sucks for a lot of reasons, even if I have never seen it. Primarily because it is the most powerful television show on television today, and I believe it's also the most powerful television show in history. By powerful, I mean that it is one of the highest rated shows of all time, and has consistently been used as a weapon to obliterate any and all competition. Whenever Fox perceives that a new show is a threat, they simply move American Idol to that night. Then everyone watches American Idol by overwhelming numbers, and the new show dies. Because of business conditions, television shows generally only get 1 to 2 weeks to perform. If they fail in that first or second shot, they get pulled forever. (Example: Remember that show "Emily's Reasons Why Not?" Probably not, but you may have seen tons and tons of advertisements for it. It is the Heather Graham sitcom that I recall seeing all over television, billboards, and the internet...I knew about the show for MONTHS before it came out. Millions of dollars were spent. It was the next Matthew McConaughey...with longer arms of course. And what happened? One episode aired. It didn't do so well. It was cancelled on the basis of that first episode.)

So...if Fox has a deathray, super disintegrator gun like American Idol (which costs basically pennies next to a real show)that they can direct towards any show they want...then Fox can do whatever the fuck it wants. (Wasn't there a time, maybe now, where American Idol aired three times a week, and basically ran year round?) And no one wants that. And more importantly, what happens to shows like Arrested Development and Scrubs?

3) Clearly the media hype is feeding more attention to AI, and I am certainly feeding into this hyperactive attention towards this show...and I'm aware of this.

4) ..but Idol can't get much bigger. So wouldn't it be awesome to watch American Idol crash and burn? I think it would be. And then America would have a moment like that one sunny day when Truman Burbank burst out of the enormous dome containing Seahaven, and America turns off the Truman Channel.
Help Truman take that first step.


So here's the real bitch of it....

I still don't want to watch that show. So does anyone know how voting works? How? When? All that stuff? Someone out there just tell me because this post has made me tired and I don't want to look it up or have to figure it out.

Life is good, if stressful as fuck...

Just as a quick update on my life, particularly with respect to my depressing earlier post about getting
my life back on track...things are pretty good I think. Since that time:

--I have lost 12 pounds (I actually didn't lose more because I let myself go wild for spring break, and
for Ashley's spring break.)
--I have increased my bench press from 145 to 205.
--I have increased my squat from 160 to 275.
--I smoke only two cigarettes day.
--I eat very little processed food, having replaced most of it with whole and raw ingredients.
(By the way, you seriously should read Omnivore's Dilemma (which I'm sure M and Sarah already
have)...as it is one of the most revealing, interesting, and well-written pieces of investigative
journalism/scholarship I have read in a very long time. Seriously. I think about Corn all the time
now...which you will understand as soon as you read it.)
--I drink only two drinks a night, instead of three...and I find that I don't actually feel a need to drink
unless I'm alone and need to sleep. Otherwise, especially when I'm with Ashley, I don't really
feel the urge to drink.
--My time back at WashU has reminded me that there are still lots of good people in this world
who I really appreciate.
--I love my girlfriend and will get to live with her this summer! Exciting!
--I will be going to Hong Kong for a month this summer with the firm.

Of course, as of this afternoon I have been anxious, tense, stressed out, and freaking my shit
over the amount of work and time I have to devote to every single day of this month in order to
make this semester successful. It actually seems quite impossible, so I'm really worried.

But I wanted to post something positive.

Post-Script: I was thinking about health care policy in my car today, and the health care system
mandates that the less money you make, the less right you have to live. Can't imagine what it
feels like to lose your life in this country to curable diseases because you don't make enough
money. Fuck. (I guess that's the negative part of my post? Nothing very insightful.)

It actually hurts...

I'm not a big reader of the massive mainstream newsweeklies, with the exception of the Economist. I don't have any particular contempt for them, and don't really harbor any specific feelings of snobbery about them, but just don't find them all that helpful. I actually read every single issue of Southeast Asian editions of Newsweek, Time, and the Economist between July 2004 and June 2005 while I was in Bangalore.

I have, however, recently stumbled across an interesting, and terribly disheartening trend that has appeared on various blogs like Wonkette, the Conjecturer etc. Take a look...

A blogger went into the US and international editions pictured above and this is what they found:

The international editions are filled with sobering stories about species depletion due to global warming, and a disturbing story suggesting the U.S. provoked North Korea into breaking the decnuclearization pact in 2005. The U.S. edition has stories like “Parties: How To Have Fun,” “Rock Music: Secrets of Shredding,” and praying to dead relatives.

Does this make anyone else feel desperately unhappy?

Sometimes I just forget...

...About all of the interesting and beautiful things in the world...

Prompted by an article about this building by Frank Gehry in the NY Times...
...I decided to take a little internet tour of other buildings by Frank Gehry.

Dancing House - Prague
Same building...
The Guggenheim
Gehry Tower - Hanover (Germany? Delaware? Micronesia? Dunno. Hanover.)
That's just awesome.
Weisman Art Something or Other.

And then there's one of my favorites: The Stata Center

Clearly the fact that it is less than 5 minutes away from me tips the scales on why this is my favorite. The craziest thing is that I have driven by this building several times...and each time I have always been stunned, surprised, and skating on the razor's edge of being the architect for a 10 car pileup...as I crane my neck to see the building outside of the passenger window of my car. Stupid. But always fulfilling. I think it's time to get out of my car and really take a look sometime.

I can't wait to have a few free moments to roam around Boston exploring the architecture. I've totally forgotten that living in a city allows such little pleasures.

Incidentally, this will be the building I will be working in this summer. (Not cool.)
A hearty dose of acid should make it just right.

Where do we find hope?

I am conflicted, as I believe lots of people are, about the situation in Iraq and what our position should be. I only wanted to post this news snippet I ran across while looking through the tabloids known as CNN.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi insurgents used two children as a cover to get through a checkpoint in Baghdad and then blew up the car while the kids were still inside, a U.S. general said Tuesday.

Two adults jumped from the car, leaving the children in the back. Moments later, the car exploded, witnesses said.

The car went through a checkpoint Sunday and parked by a market across the street from a school, said Maj. Gen. Michael Barbero, deputy director for regional operations in the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The two children and three bystanders died in the blast, and seven others were hurt, Pentagon officials said.

The attack raises concerns that insurgents are trying a new tactic: using children to throw off troops, Barbero said.

"Children in the back seat lower suspicion. We let it move through," he said.

Unimaginable. I can't imagine how to even begin coping with these mentalities.

I called it first!

Just to let you know, I have decided that the name of my first dog is going to be........

Butterstick.
No. Clearly not that kind. This kind.

For those of you who have no idea why I have a picture of a baby panda that I have referred to as Butterstick, you should look here. (I'd also like to add that you totally missed out.) For those of you who recognize this lovely name, it may seem somewhat random, somewhat lame...and not really that great.

...And you would be right. Because as a name, Butterstick really just doesn't cut it. I admit it. It tries too hard to be kooky. It is not funny. It is not cute. It is too self-aware and considers itself witty...yadda yadda yadda.

Except, although the name of the puppy would officially be Butterstick, I would not call him Butterstick. All problems of the lame name would be obviated when I decide to call a pup, much like the one below...


Butters.


Say it with me. Butters.

Need I explain the brilliance and perfection I have achieved?

I dare you to tell me that the doubly awesome benefits of naming a dog Butterstick, and then getting to call him Butters is not the best thing ever. I fucking DARE YOU.

And yes. I like beagles. Except that I'm allergic.

Facts to Support What We've Always Known.

I haven't posted in a long time...mainly because I've been absolutely exhausted...and because it didn't seem like anyone was reading anything, so I just decided to take a quick break. In any case, I just thought I should post this article...because I just think it is the perfect embodiment of what has been abundantly clear. It is Andrew Sullivan, but is published in the Sunday Times from the UK, and not from his blog.

You know the drill by now. America is a schizoid country, split between red and blue, divided into traditional families and countercultural radicals. The Republicans represent the old school, the Democrats the postSixties libertines.

It’s a helpful stereotype — “I’m in Kansas, they must all hate gays” — but like all stereotypes, it doesn’t quite fit reality. In Kansas many people don’t hate gays; many Kansans are gay; and even the antigay ones can be really nice, especially when you’re lost and need directions. And there are some flaming lefties I know whose mouths go dry and whose knees wobble at the thought of going into a gay bar.

But you see the inadequacy of the rubric most clearly in the presidential race. Look at the Democrats. Of the three frontrunners all have intact, lifelong marriages, with children. If they were Republicans the religious right would love them.

Barack Obama has been married for 15 years and has two daughters; Hillary Clinton . . . well, whatever you say about her she has stuck with her cheating husband for years while he has continued to humiliate her. John Edwards is perhaps the most admirable of them all. He has been married for 30 years to Elizabeth, a remarkable and accomplished woman. They have had five children, but their 16-year-old son was killed in a car accident in 1996.

Most couples never survive the death of a child. The Edwards family did — and went on to have two more, Emma Claire and Jack. The latter is now seven years old.

All three Democrats speak candidly about religious faith. They hail from Hawaii, Illinois and South Carolina respectively. So much for the clichés.

Now take a look at the party of “traditional values” and the religious right. Republican warhorse John McCain’s first wife Carol stayed loyal to her husband during the Vietnam war when he was abroad, imprisoned and tortured. She also, however, had a car accident, put on weight and needed crutches to get around.

On his return McCain did not stay faithful, met another woman, Cindy, and divorced his first wife. His children are a diverse group: he adopted two kids from his first wife’s first marriage, has a daughter with his first wife, has three children with his second wife, and adopted a seventh from an orphanage in Bangladesh. His first wife still loves him, his second wife adores him and his Brady Bunch-style family has apparently worked out fine. But it’s a little complicated, contemporary and has a pale shade of blue.

Rudy Giuliani is a New Yorker and his family life reads like an episode of Sex and the City. He has three wives under his belt, several rather public affairs, a nasty break-up with his second wife Donna Hanover and is somewhat estranged from his son.

He informed his second wife that he was divorcing her and marrying Judith Nathan at a press conference. It wasn’t the first time he had embarrassed her. “I had hoped that we could keep this marriage together,” his second wife once said. “For several years it was difficult to participate in Rudy’s public life because of his relationship with one staff member.” She was referring to Giuliani’s relationship with yet another woman.

Giuliani’s website doesn’t mention his children or his former wives. Not much of this has yet sunk in with Republican primary voters now ranking him as their favourite. We’ll see what happens when it does.

Newt Gingrich married his first wife Jackie when he was 19. She was loyal, faithful and helped put him through graduate school. He still dumped her later on and had the class to file for divorce while she was in hospital recovering from cancer surgery. LH Carter, his former campaign treasurer, recalls Gingrich saying of Jackie: “She’s not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the president. And besides, she has cancer.” He refused to pay alimony or child support.

His second marriage lasted almost two decades, but it broke up while he was having an affair with a staffer 23 years younger than him, to whom he is now married. He was having the affair while coordinating impeachment proceedings against President Clinton. He recently confessed to James Dobson, a leader of the religious right, that: “There were times when I was praying and when I felt I was doing things that were wrong. But I was still doing them . . . I look back on those as periods of weakness and periods that I’m . . . not proud of.” I’m not judging any of these men. We are all human and we all fall short of our own standards. But the sharp discrepancy between the party of “family values” and the actual messy, complicated lives that many leading Republicans have led makes for some unmissable ironies. Political liberals are often quite conservative in their private and family lives; and many political conservatives have chequered or lively pasts. The contrast between moral Bushites and immoral Clintonites is a distorting one.

The Republicans do have one clear squeaky-clean candidate. He’s Mitt Romney, who married his high-school sweetheart and has five sons with the fantastically wholesome names of Tagg, Matt, Josh, Ben and Craig. The boys have so far produced 10 grandchildren. If Romney gets the nomination, the convention family scene will look like an outtake from the Osmonds.

But that, of course, is the problem. Romney is a Mormon, and his family values are not rooted in evangelical Christianity or even Roman Catholicism. For the faithful Republican base, their hero stands athwart a slightly troubling pedestal.

My own view is that none of this matters much. Unless you have someone with a pathological sex addiction like the last president, most American leaders’ private lives don’t affect their political judgment. Sadly the crude way in which Republicans targeted Bill Clinton for sexual misbehaviour and in which Karl Rove appealed to evangelical voters through the biography of George W Bush made the personal more political.

What we’re seeing now is an adjustment back to a better balance. The Republican base has been forced to recall that a leader matters not because of his private foibles and indiscretions, but because of the policies he supports and the character of his public conduct.

Republicans once understood this before the polarised age of Bush and Clinton. Their icon Ronald Reagan was, after all, a divorced man who almost never went to church. And in the messy details of McCain’s, Giuliani’s and Gingrich’s lives, Republicans are mercifully relearning that the morality card can backfire if played too crudely.

Maybe they’ll be a little less reluctant to rush to judgment in future. That’s progress, it seems to me, and a little more grown up and humane. Heaven knows, of course, if it will last.

Hey. You're Fucking Annoying.

This is just a brief little note to a certain group of annoying people in Law School:

Loud Typers.

All you fuckers who type really loud for no reason whatsoever...stop it. You're fucking annoying.
I will destroy you.

This is not the America we need.