During the second week of March, a display of photographs from Palestine was on display in the Campus Center; however, possibly because I initially didn’t know what to make of it, I didn’t pay much attention. But on the final day the exhibit was up, I noticed something. I noticed a pine-cone, and other naturalistic imagery. I was considerably surprised when I found out that the country on display was Palestine. I thought the exhibit to be an interesting experience, causing me to realize how ignorant my, and likely other people’s, preconceived notions of what countries outside of the elitist tier of the “First World” U.S. is comprised of. When I think of the Middle East, I tend to lump the countries together into one desolate colossus of desert. It is tempting to do this because this is likely the sole image that I (and other Americans) am bombarded with and hence what we call upon in our recollections when creating associations with the Middle East. It may serve as a potential reason to pride ourselves as a developed nation.
Similarly, the tendency is great to simply associate Africa with AIDS and malnourished children, and not the lush images of palaces and flourishing cities that populate the country. The Facebook group “The Africa They Never Show You” has compiled over a thousand photographs of various locales in Africa, presenting an image of the country most Americans never associate the country with.
So why is the popular conception of these countries one that is much worse off than reality reflects? Is it solely our elitism and need to have this subservient relationship with these countries so, in comparison, our culture appears better in spite of its flaws? An important note to realize is that as America is not simply overrun by obese, ignorant people, as other countries may perceive us to be. Conversely, these one-dimensional views of countries that are not in the “First World” are incorrect as well--they are not a point that we can conveniently stop at and cease all analysis.
--Cassandra Leveille
4.02.2008
3.03.2008
George W. Bush Is One of My Favorite Presidents
I'm not a Republican. I think the war in Iraq, and the Terror War in general, is a monumental, epic, hands-down, mentally-deficient clusterfuck. I don't like globalization. I hate being lied to by my government. Practically everything the sadists and trolls in the White House have done for the past eight years has made me nauseous. Sometimes I think fondly about the good-old-days when unpopular leaders were drawn and quartered, or at the very least decapitated.
Still... I think I'll miss Big Dubya when he's gone.
For one thing, he did more for political satire than any other U.S. president I know of -- not intentionally, of course, but he doesn’t have to try. Whenever words fall out from behind that beady-eyed idiot grin, he put food on the table of every pissed-off comedian and editorialist in the country. Lewis Black and Jon Stewart will be able to retire to haciendas in Belize by the time November rolls around -- and they'll probably have to: once their Texan cash cow gets tossed out of office, the salad days are over. They'll have to go back to digging for jokes instead of just reading the news. We might never have the benefit of another wholesale satirical slaughter like we did when Stephen Colbert tore apart the '06 White House Correspondents' Dinner. The loss of the War Chief will be felt far and wide among the people who make us laugh to keep us from crying.
On a more personal note: I owe a lot to George. I was just starting high school when he came into office, so the foundation of my political awareness was developed in the context of Bush's administration. If I'd grown up under eight years of a different president, I might not have the healthy political cynicism I feel blessed with today.
All governments do shady things for selfish interests. Governments lie; governments murder; governments steal. Sometimes these things can be justified, to whatever small extent possible, by keeping people safe -- but acts of cruelty and stupidity are all too often committed for nothing more than profit. It's a sad and uncomfortable truth-- one that most people would rather not think about -- but it's a truth nonetheless. Fortunately, most administrations have the decency to cover their dirty secrets up, allowing us to maintain a comfortable front of naivety. People want to believe their government is a wise, benevolent guardian who watches over them while they struggle through a dangerous world. As long as the government allows us to feed that idealism and doesn't ask us to suspend our disbelief too much, a few high-level scandals and illegal wars won't be much bother. It's like making a good movie: as long as the acting is convincing and the special effects are distracting, the audience will allow themselves to overlook the holes in the plot and the zipper on the monster costume.
Bush and his henchmen asked way, way too much of their audience. Maybe they were unlucky; maybe it was sheer stupidity; maybe they just had too many skeletons and not enough closets to hide them in. Whatever the case, we've been hit repeatedly with the full scope of how diabolically callous our government can be at its worst. I don't think I need to list all the ways the Bush administration has screwed us during the past eight years--I'm not even sure I could if I wanted to-- but the moral of the story, at least for me, is that I'll never completely trust a government again.
I think it's a good thing. While the government -- ours or any other -- has a lot of potential to do good things for people, it has just as much potential, if not more, to exploit them. It'd be nice to believe that the people in control are looking out for our best interests but, as Our Fearless Leader has so aptly demonstrated, they've got no problem taking complete advantage of the power we've trusted them with.
Thanks George.
-Ryan Miga
2.27.2008
The Wrath of the Raptor
In 1993, Jurassic Park was released. The velociraptor was introduced into pop culture and, as a result, those evil, door opening, conniving, dinosaurs that lived over 65 million years ago forever changed its landscape. More than any other dinosaur, raptors are viewed by the public as the “it” dinosaur.
Last year on ICTV’s DP Show, they had a sketch featuring Jake Alinikoff as a human/raptor hybrid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7rH2f4Jgss. The sketch raises the question: Why not a human T-rex? Why not a human stegosaurus? Despite their differences, the T-rex and stegosaurus were rather dumb creatures. In Jurassic Park, raptors were described as being “smart as chimpanzees.” Perhaps it’s the intelligence factor that the public craves in their dinosaurs.
A cursory search on ytmnd.com yields nearly 450 animated GIFs about raptors. Most of them revolve around Raptor Jesus. Encyclopedia Dramatica defines RJ http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Raptorjesus as, “A minor, mildly retarded 4chan meme consisting of a raptor's head crudely photoshopped onto any picture of Jesus.” Raptor Jesus must be the missing link between deities and dinosaurs.
There’s another side to this raptor revival: dinosaurs are long gone, and yet, because of Jurassic Park, a fear still exists. Granted, T-rexes and dilophosaurs are scary too, but a raptor can open doors and slit open a man’s stomach. Raptors can problem solve. Their intelligence is both admired and feared.
Randall Munroe, author and creator of the web-comic XKCD http://www.blogger.com/www.xkcd.com, has a running joke about a fear of raptors http://xkcd.com/155/. Another comic shows a substitute teacher handing out a test revolving around raptors. The students question the test, and the teacher tells them that survival against raptors is more important than math.
A cursory search on ytmnd.com yields nearly 450 animated GIFs about raptors. Most of them revolve around Raptor Jesus. Encyclopedia Dramatica defines RJ http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Raptorjesus as, “A minor, mildly retarded 4chan meme consisting of a raptor's head crudely photoshopped onto any picture of Jesus.” Raptor Jesus must be the missing link between deities and dinosaurs.
There’s another side to this raptor revival: dinosaurs are long gone, and yet, because of Jurassic Park, a fear still exists. Granted, T-rexes and dilophosaurs are scary too, but a raptor can open doors and slit open a man’s stomach. Raptors can problem solve. Their intelligence is both admired and feared.
Randall Munroe, author and creator of the web-comic XKCD http://www.blogger.com/www.xkcd.com, has a running joke about a fear of raptors http://xkcd.com/155/. Another comic shows a substitute teacher handing out a test revolving around raptors. The students question the test, and the teacher tells them that survival against raptors is more important than math.
A couplet of Sci-Fi channel movies plays out this fear in Raptor Island and Planet Raptor. These movies are like Jurassic Park but without the fat of other dinosaurs. The movies are pure unadulterated fear generators powered solely by raptors. The former stars of the series, Lorenzo Lamas (Renegade) and Stephen Bauer (Scarface – no relation to Jack), play a Navy Seal and Criminal, respectively, held up on an island populated by raptors.
There’s a sad (maybe fitting) truth about Raptors, though. According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor), velociraptors were only about two feet high. And they were covered in feathers. I doubt that if Michael Crichton and Stephen Spielberg made their raptors in Jurassic Park reflect the actual dimensions of a velociraptor, this permeation into pop culture would have existed. And yet, here we are, in a society that both cherishes and fears a dead animal.
-Harrison
2.04.2008
Advertising: Charlie Brown floats, other ads sink
Well, the Super Bowl is over; dreams of eternal undefeated glory crushed, unlikely dumped-on has-beens celebrated (Petty or Manning, you decide!), and of course shiny newfangled things pressed on the public. For those who are like me (gay? non-athletic?) the Super Bowl is good for one thing and one thing only. . . commercials!
This year, the abundance of energy drink ads must have had some adverse effect on the non-football parts of the evening. Most ads seemed like they were hopped up on speed-- or maybe the über sexist, violent, tastelessly offensive offspring of a George Saunders short story.
Many people have already posted their best-of, worst-of lists, including Slate's Seth Stevenson. It's very funny, especially told from his perspective (a Patriots fan begrudgingly fast forwarding through the painful game). In it, he notes this Coke ad (posted above) as the clear winner of the night and I couldn't agree more. After much wincing and swearing off brand loyalty, one of my friends remarked incredulously, "That wasn't so bad. . ."
It was actually enjoyable. Let me elaborate: While other ads, obsessed with establishing a new customer base, went all out, Coke was the only company that came across confident in their consumers. They delivered an aesthetically pleasing spectacular, without horrible dialogue to boot! The nostalgic elements, a blimpy Stewie from Family Guy, Underdog (the Giants!) and Charlie Brown, were not nauseating like other ads that involved Richard Simmons or Night At the Roxbury references. And the back-and-forth battle for the flying bottle of Coke was clever in adding relevance to the viewing occasion. You stay classy, Coke!
This year, the abundance of energy drink ads must have had some adverse effect on the non-football parts of the evening. Most ads seemed like they were hopped up on speed-- or maybe the über sexist, violent, tastelessly offensive offspring of a George Saunders short story.
Many people have already posted their best-of, worst-of lists, including Slate's Seth Stevenson. It's very funny, especially told from his perspective (a Patriots fan begrudgingly fast forwarding through the painful game). In it, he notes this Coke ad (posted above) as the clear winner of the night and I couldn't agree more. After much wincing and swearing off brand loyalty, one of my friends remarked incredulously, "That wasn't so bad. . ."
It was actually enjoyable. Let me elaborate: While other ads, obsessed with establishing a new customer base, went all out, Coke was the only company that came across confident in their consumers. They delivered an aesthetically pleasing spectacular, without horrible dialogue to boot! The nostalgic elements, a blimpy Stewie from Family Guy, Underdog (the Giants!) and Charlie Brown, were not nauseating like other ads that involved Richard Simmons or Night At the Roxbury references. And the back-and-forth battle for the flying bottle of Coke was clever in adding relevance to the viewing occasion. You stay classy, Coke!
1.30.2008
Generation Me?
Narcissistic:
1. Inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity.
2. Psychoanalysis: erotic gratification derived from admiration of one's own physical or mental attributes, being a normal condition at the infantile level of personality development. -Dictionary.com
Apparently our whole generation is narcissistic. Reading articles about my generation, written by those not a part of it, I wonder about their conclusions. The articles (Don't Go Blaming Me. I Voted on 'Hot or Not.') in the New York Times say that we're narcissistic– but are we? To me, saying that a whole generation is narcissistic seems immature. Is writing off an entire generation just a self-obsessed cop-out due to the bad role models our parent’s generation provided? In my opinion, these articles ignore the role that society plays. Maybe we are narcissistic. On the other hand, we could just be products of the world around us– of the reality TV world we live in. We are told (or at least I was) to sell ourselves. To sell a product you have to believe in it, or at least pretend you do.
In the Ithacan yesterday, there was an article that revealed to the campus that not enough students are politically active. Is this another example of our self-involvement? Maybe we're caught up in other things ( like guitar hero, second life, the hills, etc...) maybe, just maybe, we're too busy with school. Our generation could just be suffering from anxiety about real life. There is so much pressure on us to succeed. We have been force-fed the American Dream so much that if we do break the law by protesting, or if we don't fill up our times with activities that will look good on a resume, we feel we won't get a good job. Maybe we're narcissistic because our parent's generation spent a little too much time talking about being successful and pressuring us to pick colleges while we’re still in middle school and a little less time letting us figure out things at our own pace.
I quote from an episode of Quarterlife, "A sad truth about our generation is that we were all geniuses in elementary school, but apparently the people who deal with us never got our transcripts because they don’t seem to be aware of it."
I’m not excusing us. We need to be politically active. I feel like I am, and most of my friends are. I have trouble keeping my head above water taking 15 credits. Does anyone else? If college was less about success and more about ideas, we would be more politically active.
-Josh
1. Inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity.
2. Psychoanalysis: erotic gratification derived from admiration of one's own physical or mental attributes, being a normal condition at the infantile level of personality development. -Dictionary.com
Apparently our whole generation is narcissistic. Reading articles about my generation, written by those not a part of it, I wonder about their conclusions. The articles (Don't Go Blaming Me. I Voted on 'Hot or Not.') in the New York Times say that we're narcissistic– but are we? To me, saying that a whole generation is narcissistic seems immature. Is writing off an entire generation just a self-obsessed cop-out due to the bad role models our parent’s generation provided? In my opinion, these articles ignore the role that society plays. Maybe we are narcissistic. On the other hand, we could just be products of the world around us– of the reality TV world we live in. We are told (or at least I was) to sell ourselves. To sell a product you have to believe in it, or at least pretend you do.
In the Ithacan yesterday, there was an article that revealed to the campus that not enough students are politically active. Is this another example of our self-involvement? Maybe we're caught up in other things ( like guitar hero, second life, the hills, etc...) maybe, just maybe, we're too busy with school. Our generation could just be suffering from anxiety about real life. There is so much pressure on us to succeed. We have been force-fed the American Dream so much that if we do break the law by protesting, or if we don't fill up our times with activities that will look good on a resume, we feel we won't get a good job. Maybe we're narcissistic because our parent's generation spent a little too much time talking about being successful and pressuring us to pick colleges while we’re still in middle school and a little less time letting us figure out things at our own pace.
I quote from an episode of Quarterlife, "A sad truth about our generation is that we were all geniuses in elementary school, but apparently the people who deal with us never got our transcripts because they don’t seem to be aware of it."
I’m not excusing us. We need to be politically active. I feel like I am, and most of my friends are. I have trouble keeping my head above water taking 15 credits. Does anyone else? If college was less about success and more about ideas, we would be more politically active.
-Josh
1.25.2008
Community Forum on Racism in Ithaca School District Leaves Some Skeptical
Yesterday evening, on January 24, a community forum was held at the Calvary Baptist Church on North Albany st. to discuss Ithaca’s ongoing problem with racism within the city’s school district. This was a follow-up meeting to a forum held last October, which took place after IHS students voiced concern that minorities were receiving unequal treatment in the areas of disciplinary decisions, expectations, and opportunities for interaction with ICSD officials as well as a feeling of being judged based on skin color and socioeconomic status.Although the forum gave community members a much needed (and long awaited) opportunity to express their opinions and concerns to Superintendent Judith Pastel and Assistant Superintendent for Student Services Lesli Meyers, there was reportedly an overall sense of frustration among the audience that their concerns would not immediately be met with effective actions.
Two proposals were discussed at the forum. One proposal is to form a Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council, in which, "approximately 20 students (will) meet monthly with the Superintendent of Schools, Assistant Superintendent for Student Services, and Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction." This would allow students to give direct feedback to ICSD officials– the lack of communication between students and ICSD officials has been identified as one of the main problems.
The other proposal is to create a Student Discipline Review Panel, consisting of 8-10 students. This would give students another opportunity to voice their opinions to ICSD officials, this time on the concern regarding disciplinary expectations and actions.
The other proposal is to create a Student Discipline Review Panel, consisting of 8-10 students. This would give students another opportunity to voice their opinions to ICSD officials, this time on the concern regarding disciplinary expectations and actions.
For the long-standing race and class issues within the school district and the Ithaca community, this is a step in the right direction. However, some still remain impatient, skeptical, and concerned that Judith Pastel's words are worthless without further action. One audience member reminds us, "These (proposals) are words, not action. This is only the potential for action."
-Jenna
1.21.2008
Desperation in Gaza
The top story on the BBC right now is about an impending food shortage in the Gaza Strip, which has been coping with an Israeli-imposed border closure since Friday. Al Jazeera, in its headline story, reports that hospitals have been hard-hit by the blockade and that sewer systems and water systems will have to shut down soon. The BBC quotes EU officials calling Israel's actions "collective punishment," and organizations like Oxfam, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency are warning of serious consequences to public health.
So what does the New York Times have to say about the situation? Their article on the Gaza fuel shortages is the sixth international story listed, not even making the front page of their Web site. (Interestingly, the top story from the Middle East today is about Israel deciding to promote electric cars.) The story appears not to have been updated today, reporting that the "temporary" closure has caused a fuel shortage, which will "affect" hospitals, water and sewage treatment facilities. Israeli officials are quoted saying there is no crisis and that the power plant was shut down basically to get attention. The Times has not mentioned that the UN may have to halt food distribution, nor has it reported on the international criticism of the blockade. The voices of international humanitarian organizations, who seem to be unanimously concerned for the fate of Gaza's 1.5 million residents, are conspicuously absent from their coverage.
-Emily
1.15.2008
Community Forum on Race
This just in from the Village at Ithaca:
There will be a community forum at the Clarion Hotel this Thursday at 7 p.m. to discuss the recent racial tensions in the Ithaca City School District and to develop a community plan to "produce a more inclusive district and community." The event is being organized by the U.S. Department of Justice, Community Relations Service.
Free transportation via Gadabout buses will be provided from Caroline Elementary School (6:15 p.m.) , Ithaca High School (6:40 p.m.), Enfield Elementary School (6:15 p.m.), and Tompkins County Public Library (6:40 p.m.); return buses will leave the Clarion approximately 9:00 p.m.
The public, including the Ithaca College community, is welcome and encouraged to attend.
There will be a community forum at the Clarion Hotel this Thursday at 7 p.m. to discuss the recent racial tensions in the Ithaca City School District and to develop a community plan to "produce a more inclusive district and community." The event is being organized by the U.S. Department of Justice, Community Relations Service.
Free transportation via Gadabout buses will be provided from Caroline Elementary School (6:15 p.m.) , Ithaca High School (6:40 p.m.), Enfield Elementary School (6:15 p.m.), and Tompkins County Public Library (6:40 p.m.); return buses will leave the Clarion approximately 9:00 p.m.
The public, including the Ithaca College community, is welcome and encouraged to attend.
Slate's Hillary Hatefest
Today, Hillary Clinton finds herself in the crosshairs of Slate's scathing trio of articles titled, "Clinton-itis."
John Dickerson starts off with a look at the PR snafus of Clinton's campaign. Following on the heels of Bill Shaheen's--Clinton's ex-campaign adviser--resignation after publicly commenting on Barack Obama's drug use, the article discusses the Clinton team's continuous mishandling of similar situations, which land her extremely negative press.
The next two articles--Christopher Hitchens's "The Case Against Hillary Clinton" (or "I just remembered what I can't stand about her") and Timothy Noah's "Hillary's 'Experience' Lie"--thoroughly cut her down to size, criticizing Clinton's character and exaggerated claims of "experience."
I'm not the biggest Hill-fan to say the least, but I wonder whether other democratic candidates will be receiving such special treatment from the web-zine. After reading each article, which make some poignant observations, the Hillary hating was just a bit too much, especially with Hitchens's bilious tone. Take into account crucial primaries in the next week and a half, and it all just seems a bit unprofessional from a consistently judicious magazine.
I will give credit to Hitchens for opening his article with this Hillarious example:
John Dickerson starts off with a look at the PR snafus of Clinton's campaign. Following on the heels of Bill Shaheen's--Clinton's ex-campaign adviser--resignation after publicly commenting on Barack Obama's drug use, the article discusses the Clinton team's continuous mishandling of similar situations, which land her extremely negative press.
The next two articles--Christopher Hitchens's "The Case Against Hillary Clinton" (or "I just remembered what I can't stand about her") and Timothy Noah's "Hillary's 'Experience' Lie"--thoroughly cut her down to size, criticizing Clinton's character and exaggerated claims of "experience."
I'm not the biggest Hill-fan to say the least, but I wonder whether other democratic candidates will be receiving such special treatment from the web-zine. After reading each article, which make some poignant observations, the Hillary hating was just a bit too much, especially with Hitchens's bilious tone. Take into account crucial primaries in the next week and a half, and it all just seems a bit unprofessional from a consistently judicious magazine.
I will give credit to Hitchens for opening his article with this Hillarious example:
On a first-lady goodwill tour of Asia in April 1995—the kind of banal trip that she now claims as part of her foreign-policy "experience"—Mrs. Clinton had been in Nepal and been briefly introduced to the late Sir Edmund Hillary, conqueror of Mount Everest. Ever ready to milk the moment, she announced that her mother had actually named her for this famous and intrepid explorer... Sen. Clinton was born in 1947, and Sir Edmund Hillary and his partner Tenzing Norgay did not ascend Mount Everest until 1953, so the story was self-evidently untrue and eventually yielded to fact-checking.
Don't block the shot!
While bored on a Tuesday, I took some time and searched YouTube for funny videos. It was most successful. One silly Arnold Schwarzenegger clip in which he attacks and defeats a poorly disguised man in bear suit, check. One cleverly edited cluster of clips from 2006's The Wickerman with Nicholas Cage, check. Then I searched for Bill O'Reilly, typically good material for a chuckle. And I stumbled across this video:
Apparently I'm way behind on this news story. Slate.com has a piece about the incident dated January 5, which covers the story from a insider angle. One reporter was standing next to him at the time. And Bill O'Reilly is selling the "DON'T BLOCK THE SHOT!" T-shirt at his site billoreilly.com.
I guess this is Bill O’Reilly version of hard-hitting journalism.
Apparently I'm way behind on this news story. Slate.com has a piece about the incident dated January 5, which covers the story from a insider angle. One reporter was standing next to him at the time. And Bill O'Reilly is selling the "DON'T BLOCK THE SHOT!" T-shirt at his site billoreilly.com.
I guess this is Bill O’Reilly version of hard-hitting journalism.
12.13.2007
The Spaces Issue... and a video we like
The December issue is out and scattered around campus and downtown. Check it out and let us know what you think. In the meantime, we came across a video by Annie Leonard, which sums up some of the points raised in the Spaces issue. The Story of Stuff is a collaborative visual effort of two decades worth of research put together by Leonard and funded through Sustainability Funders (The Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption) and Tides Foundation. A 20-minute, digitalized film that highlights the cause-and-effect of our crazy, consumer-based global market, The Story of Stuff will not only have you rethinking the means in which you dispose of your garbage, but also rationalizing whether it's necessity or habit that leads you to yearn to purchase the newest gadget on the market.
12.05.2007
War, TV and Hip-Hop: A Buzzsaw Spectacular at the Lost Dog
UPDATE: Canceled due to snow. Will be reschedule for spring semester.
Thursday, Dec. 13, Buzzsaw presents perhaps our greatest event ever. Screenings, live music, free food, and give-a-ways - all in one glorious, pre-finals evening at the Lost Dog Café.
War, TV, and Hip-Hop is a mixed media party taking a second look at three pillars of contemporary American life.
First, “The War Tapes” brings us a perspective on the war in Iraq that is free from embedded anchors, commercial sponsors, and motion graphics. A long-form documentary shot by three soldiers working in collaboration with award-winning documentarians.
Second, a screening aimed spreading awareness about two new media initiatives that want to expand their pool of active producers, not boost ratings by recruiting passive viewers. On the national level, Current TV integrates viewer created content into roughly one-third of its cable broadcasts and is looking for more. At the local level, Buzzsaw Haircut is launching a new digital video component called Buzzsaw TV. Buzzsaw TV will function both as a production unit and as an outlet for locally produced video work to be featured in a video blog, screening events, and an annual DVD release.
Finally, Kidz in the Hall bring us their acclaimed brand of politically conscious hip-hop with an aim to make us rethink the formula for the catchy rap music we’ve grown used to. Co-signed by Just Blaze, 3H (50 cent, Kanye West), and Matty C (Originator of Unsigned Hype) the Kidz debut album, “School Was My Hustle” was rated 3.5 by Scratch Magazine.
Here's the schedule:
5:30 PM: The War Tapes (Sponsored by Campus Progress)
7:00 PM Megg Farrell (Folk Rock / Hawaiian / Blues)
7:30 PM The Tundra Toes (Indie / Country / Tropical)
8:00 PM Current TV Screening
9:00 PM Buzzsaw TV Launch Party
10:00 PM Kidz in the Hall (Sponsored by Buzzsaw Haircut and Imprint Magazine. Free give-a-ways from Homegrown Skateshop.)
Lost Dog Café, downtown Ithaca. Doors open at 5:30 PM. 18 to enter, 21 to drink. No cover until 10pm.
The Iowa Derby for Donkeys
The presidential candidate field tends to start off overly saturated. Luckily, America has the Iowa caucuses to narrow down the field for the rest of the country. In many cases, a poor outcome in Iowa can mean the end of a campaign for a candidate. In the 2004 caucuses, Democratic front-runner Howard Dean finished in a dismal third place and then went on to give his infamous "I Have A Scream" speech. Nearly a month later, he dropped out of the race and endorsed John Kerry.
The 2008 Iowa Caucuses are almost a month away, and there is still a great amount of uncertainty regarding the results. If Obama doesn't win Iowa, he really won't have much of a shot winning the nomination. But despite Clinton doing very well in the polls, I think Obama may have a very good shot at winning Iowa.
Here is a brief rundown of how the Democratic Iowa Caucuses work:
Voters have to select their candidate in the first round of voting. If their candidate gets less than 15 percent of the vote then they are not considered a viable candidate and those voters must select someone who is viable.
Several weeks ago, The New York Times released poll results. In Iowa, Clinton was ahead of Obama 25 percent to 22 percent. However, when voters were asked who their second choice was, Obama beat Clinton 24 percent to 16 percent. This could put Obama ahead of Clinton in the second and final round of voting and make him the winner in Iowa.
However, both Obama and Clinton should be looking out for John Edwards. He has a lot of support in Iowa and is pretty much neck and neck with the other two front-runners in Iowa. Edwards is also popular as a second-choice candidate. But if he wins Iowa, he still has a long battle ahead of him. He has spent a lot of time and money in that state and there have been questions regarding his ability to campaign in the following primaries. Yet a win there could also bring in the money that he needs.
Generally speaking, the winner of Iowa wins the nomination. Of course, this isn't always the case. For instance, Bill Clinton lost the Iowa caucus in 1992 to Tom Harkin and he went on to win the presidency. This upcoming caucus could also fall under that category. An Obama or Edwards victory in Iowa with a Clinton nomination at the Democratic National Convention in August. It could be 1992 all over again.
The 2008 Iowa Caucuses are almost a month away, and there is still a great amount of uncertainty regarding the results. If Obama doesn't win Iowa, he really won't have much of a shot winning the nomination. But despite Clinton doing very well in the polls, I think Obama may have a very good shot at winning Iowa.
Here is a brief rundown of how the Democratic Iowa Caucuses work:
Voters have to select their candidate in the first round of voting. If their candidate gets less than 15 percent of the vote then they are not considered a viable candidate and those voters must select someone who is viable.
Several weeks ago, The New York Times released poll results. In Iowa, Clinton was ahead of Obama 25 percent to 22 percent. However, when voters were asked who their second choice was, Obama beat Clinton 24 percent to 16 percent. This could put Obama ahead of Clinton in the second and final round of voting and make him the winner in Iowa.
However, both Obama and Clinton should be looking out for John Edwards. He has a lot of support in Iowa and is pretty much neck and neck with the other two front-runners in Iowa. Edwards is also popular as a second-choice candidate. But if he wins Iowa, he still has a long battle ahead of him. He has spent a lot of time and money in that state and there have been questions regarding his ability to campaign in the following primaries. Yet a win there could also bring in the money that he needs.
Generally speaking, the winner of Iowa wins the nomination. Of course, this isn't always the case. For instance, Bill Clinton lost the Iowa caucus in 1992 to Tom Harkin and he went on to win the presidency. This upcoming caucus could also fall under that category. An Obama or Edwards victory in Iowa with a Clinton nomination at the Democratic National Convention in August. It could be 1992 all over again.
10.21.2007
Truthiness in '08
Can't even describe how stoked I am to be able to write about Presidential Candidate Stephen Colbert. Colbert announced his candidacy on October 16th's episode of The Colbert Report; he already has corporate campaign sponsorship from Doritos -- very, very savvy, Doritos -- and the Donorschoose.org Straw Poll has Colbert as the top choice for President, with Obama second and Mike Gravel third. In other words, the man is not screwing around.
Colbert's bid for War Chief was covered intrepidly here by the Chicago Tribune. Obviously, the good people at the Tribune are not taking this seriously, and I think they damn well should be. The video clip compares Colbert to other joke candidates in the past -- at least I hope to every God conceived by humanity that the "Supreme Vermin" campaign was a joke -- and was apparently trying to demonstrate with their beat-on-the-street interviews that nobody really cares about Colbert.
Not so, says I.
For starters, maybe the clip would have been a little less biased if the reporter had not, presumably, staked herself out in front of the local AARP offices, and perhaps tried to interview a few people who weren't old enough to remember Lincoln's campaign; I have the utmost respect for the elderly, but I think it might have been a bit difficult to get an accurate read on society's pulse from the people featured in the clip -- considering they barely seemed to have pulses themselves.
Next: I'm not sure if it's willful denial or simple ignorance, but the Tribune seems to know as much about Colbert as did the poor schmuck who infamously set him loose at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner--which is not much.
There are two lessons that everybody -- everybody -- in the media business should have learned from that massacre. First, Stephen Colbert is not some brainless jester with nothing to do but crack jokes: the man has an agenda. Second, he has the logistical means to carry out that agenda: unless the Correspondents' Dinner was a massive, epic, once-in-a-century fluke, Colbert obviously knows people who know people, and in politics, that's most of what you need. Third -- and I hate to sound sexist, but I know of no better metaphor -- the man has bulletproof cajones. My God, what must he have been thinking at that dinner: he stands up from his seat, walks past the President of the United States of America, moves to the podium not ten feet away, looks out at a sea of dignitaries and politicians, takes a deep breath -- and commences to unload a righteous hellfire barrage of thinly-veiled criticism, aimed at practically every breathing creature in the room, including -- especially -- the Most Powerful Man in the World, who is no doubt wishing he could give the word for the Secret Service to empty every weapon they have into Colbert's bespectacled frame and dump his body in the Potomac River. It was epic. It was Biblical. It damn near brings tears to my eyes every time I think about it. And if that is what Colbert is capable of -- if nothing else -- then nobody, not even the Tribune, had better be taking him lightly.
It goes beyond that. Not only does Colbert have an impressive pair of...
...values, he has an army backing him up. The "Colbert Nation" commands a substantial chunk of that delicious 18-to-24 age demographic, and many of them are rabidly loyal to Colbert: they almost got a bridge named after him, for God's sake. They'll carry him as close to the White House as he wants to go.
Everybody's always lamenting how college kids never participate in politics: what are they going to do if Colbert allows himself to win in the primaries? I know it's practically impossible, but it's worth wondering: what would happen if the 18-24s turned out in record numbers in 2008 and handed Colbert the popular vote? What would that say about our political system? Is it really that impossible?
I have the utmost respect for Colbert, but I hope to God this madness stops soon: if the rest of the world realizes it's possible for a comedian to be voted President of the United States, every nation of people who can hold so much as a tree branch will be scrambling to invade us. Canadians armed with chainsaws and broken maple syrup bottles will swarm over the northern border. Migrant workers turned sleeper-cell invaders will raise the Mexican flag over the entire Southwest. Greenlanders riding polar bears will conquer New England. Ithaca itself will surely be subjugated by gravity-defying Buddhist monks from Namgyal Monastery a la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Mark my words: if Colbert succeeds, the nation will burn.
Colbert's bid for War Chief was covered intrepidly here by the Chicago Tribune. Obviously, the good people at the Tribune are not taking this seriously, and I think they damn well should be. The video clip compares Colbert to other joke candidates in the past -- at least I hope to every God conceived by humanity that the "Supreme Vermin" campaign was a joke -- and was apparently trying to demonstrate with their beat-on-the-street interviews that nobody really cares about Colbert.
Not so, says I.
For starters, maybe the clip would have been a little less biased if the reporter had not, presumably, staked herself out in front of the local AARP offices, and perhaps tried to interview a few people who weren't old enough to remember Lincoln's campaign; I have the utmost respect for the elderly, but I think it might have been a bit difficult to get an accurate read on society's pulse from the people featured in the clip -- considering they barely seemed to have pulses themselves.
Next: I'm not sure if it's willful denial or simple ignorance, but the Tribune seems to know as much about Colbert as did the poor schmuck who infamously set him loose at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Dinner--which is not much.
There are two lessons that everybody -- everybody -- in the media business should have learned from that massacre. First, Stephen Colbert is not some brainless jester with nothing to do but crack jokes: the man has an agenda. Second, he has the logistical means to carry out that agenda: unless the Correspondents' Dinner was a massive, epic, once-in-a-century fluke, Colbert obviously knows people who know people, and in politics, that's most of what you need. Third -- and I hate to sound sexist, but I know of no better metaphor -- the man has bulletproof cajones. My God, what must he have been thinking at that dinner: he stands up from his seat, walks past the President of the United States of America, moves to the podium not ten feet away, looks out at a sea of dignitaries and politicians, takes a deep breath -- and commences to unload a righteous hellfire barrage of thinly-veiled criticism, aimed at practically every breathing creature in the room, including -- especially -- the Most Powerful Man in the World, who is no doubt wishing he could give the word for the Secret Service to empty every weapon they have into Colbert's bespectacled frame and dump his body in the Potomac River. It was epic. It was Biblical. It damn near brings tears to my eyes every time I think about it. And if that is what Colbert is capable of -- if nothing else -- then nobody, not even the Tribune, had better be taking him lightly.
It goes beyond that. Not only does Colbert have an impressive pair of...
...values, he has an army backing him up. The "Colbert Nation" commands a substantial chunk of that delicious 18-to-24 age demographic, and many of them are rabidly loyal to Colbert: they almost got a bridge named after him, for God's sake. They'll carry him as close to the White House as he wants to go.
Everybody's always lamenting how college kids never participate in politics: what are they going to do if Colbert allows himself to win in the primaries? I know it's practically impossible, but it's worth wondering: what would happen if the 18-24s turned out in record numbers in 2008 and handed Colbert the popular vote? What would that say about our political system? Is it really that impossible?
I have the utmost respect for Colbert, but I hope to God this madness stops soon: if the rest of the world realizes it's possible for a comedian to be voted President of the United States, every nation of people who can hold so much as a tree branch will be scrambling to invade us. Canadians armed with chainsaws and broken maple syrup bottles will swarm over the northern border. Migrant workers turned sleeper-cell invaders will raise the Mexican flag over the entire Southwest. Greenlanders riding polar bears will conquer New England. Ithaca itself will surely be subjugated by gravity-defying Buddhist monks from Namgyal Monastery a la Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Mark my words: if Colbert succeeds, the nation will burn.
10.08.2007
Bitches and Hoes, or Women & Prostitutes?
In the gym I see your ass up on the Stairmaster
But you got it on level two bitch go a little faster
Look girl, I ain’t gonna lie, I'll tell you how I feel
They should handcuff your big ass to the treadmill – 50 Cent – Fat Bitches
Since I was little, my parents have given me many of my beliefs. Two of the ones that are most important to me are my love of music and a positive self-image / self-respect. Today, however, those two parts of my life are clashing. It seems that everywhere I look (or listen), “bitches” and “hoes” are dancing around men who seem to only care about sex. For example, "I’m sick of using technology, why don't you come sit on top of me" [50 cent ft Justin Timberlake - ayo technology]. Isn’t there a slightly nicer way to ask a girl to have sex with you? And God FORBID a woman has a normal body shape. For example, Britney Spears in the VMA’s this year. I’m not condoning her horrendous performance, but in no way shape or form was she overweight. If anything, she looked healthy. So girls see healthy women being called fat bitches and lose their self-esteem and stop eating. But that’s not okay either. Because then they’re anorexic whores who are talked about by everyone from Perez Hilton to CNN. How are girls that are exposed to pop culture supposed to feel good about themselves? Granted, there are songs that promote positive self-image like Mika’s “Big Girls.” But there aren’t nearly enough. I’m all for freedom of speech, but personally, I don't see the need for "bitches" and “hoes” to be in songs. I understand some artists want to be "shocking" and "outrageous" to gain more fans. But does Ludacris really need to yell out "move, bitch; get out the way"? Can’t he just say “excuse me miss, I need to pass by you”? All I’m saying is there should be some sort of happy medium that artists can reach without being misogynistic and sounding like sexual pigs. I don't know, maybe I just need some "sexual healing."
But you got it on level two bitch go a little faster
Look girl, I ain’t gonna lie, I'll tell you how I feel
They should handcuff your big ass to the treadmill – 50 Cent – Fat Bitches
Since I was little, my parents have given me many of my beliefs. Two of the ones that are most important to me are my love of music and a positive self-image / self-respect. Today, however, those two parts of my life are clashing. It seems that everywhere I look (or listen), “bitches” and “hoes” are dancing around men who seem to only care about sex. For example, "I’m sick of using technology, why don't you come sit on top of me" [50 cent ft Justin Timberlake - ayo technology]. Isn’t there a slightly nicer way to ask a girl to have sex with you? And God FORBID a woman has a normal body shape. For example, Britney Spears in the VMA’s this year. I’m not condoning her horrendous performance, but in no way shape or form was she overweight. If anything, she looked healthy. So girls see healthy women being called fat bitches and lose their self-esteem and stop eating. But that’s not okay either. Because then they’re anorexic whores who are talked about by everyone from Perez Hilton to CNN. How are girls that are exposed to pop culture supposed to feel good about themselves? Granted, there are songs that promote positive self-image like Mika’s “Big Girls.” But there aren’t nearly enough. I’m all for freedom of speech, but personally, I don't see the need for "bitches" and “hoes” to be in songs. I understand some artists want to be "shocking" and "outrageous" to gain more fans. But does Ludacris really need to yell out "move, bitch; get out the way"? Can’t he just say “excuse me miss, I need to pass by you”? All I’m saying is there should be some sort of happy medium that artists can reach without being misogynistic and sounding like sexual pigs. I don't know, maybe I just need some "sexual healing."
10.04.2007
Poem to Present New Perspective on Patriotism?
Okay, enough with the personal attempts at trying to be witty. In all seriousness, when a friend sent me the poem, "First Writing Since (Poem on Crisis of Terror)" written by Palestinian-American Suheir Hammad, I was blown away. And it wasn't necessarily because she presents new perspectives that I haven't thought about, it's the level of depth and emotion congealed into her poetry that only comes from real, personal experience. Hammad's poetic memoir of 9/11 and it's post-affects on her personal life and our society are perspectives that (I believe) every American needs to read.
In one of my classes, we've been discussing what it is about the word "patriotism" that has created so many black and white barriers in our country. Since 9/11, the abstract notion of patriotism is so close to being defined on paper by our government that it leaves almost no room for personal evaluation. Who is to say what encompasses true patriotism? Hammad takes you inside her mind for anecdotal and psychological hindsight on her feelings of true terrorism and patriotism, and the mess that lies in between. I've included Hammad's poem in this blog; it was first published in the November 7, 2001 issue of In Motion Magazine. Also check out Hammad's personal website to see more of her work. Enjoy.
In one of my classes, we've been discussing what it is about the word "patriotism" that has created so many black and white barriers in our country. Since 9/11, the abstract notion of patriotism is so close to being defined on paper by our government that it leaves almost no room for personal evaluation. Who is to say what encompasses true patriotism? Hammad takes you inside her mind for anecdotal and psychological hindsight on her feelings of true terrorism and patriotism, and the mess that lies in between. I've included Hammad's poem in this blog; it was first published in the November 7, 2001 issue of In Motion Magazine. Also check out Hammad's personal website to see more of her work. Enjoy.
First Writing Since
(Poem on Crisis of Terror)
by Suheir Hammad
New York, New York
New York, New York
Published in In Motion Magazine November 7, 2001.1. there have been no words.
i have not written one word.
no poetry in the ashes south of canal street.
no prose in the refrigerated trucks driving debris and dna.
not one word.
today is a week, and seven is of heavens, gods, science.
evident out my kitchen window is an abstract reality.
sky where once was steel.
smoke where once was flesh.
fire in the city air and i feared for my sister's life in a way never
before. and then, and now, i fear for the rest of us.
first, please god, let it be a mistake, the pilot's heart failed, the
plane's engine died.
then please god, let it be a nightmare, wake me now.
please god, after the second plane, please, don't let it be anyone
who looks like my brothers.
i do not know how bad a life has to break in order to kill.
i have never been so hungry that i willed hunger
i have never been so angry as to want to control a gun over a pen.
not really.
even as a woman, as a palestinian, as a broken human being.
never this broken.
more than ever, i believe there is no difference.
the most privileged nation, most americans do not know the difference
between indians, afghanis, syrians, muslims, sikhs, hindus.
more than ever, there is no difference.
2. thank you korea for kimchi and bibim bob, and corn tea and the
genteel smiles of the wait staff at wonjo the smiles never revealing
the heat of the food or how tired they must be working long midtown
shifts. thank you korea, for the belly craving that brought me into
the city late the night before and diverted my daily train ride into
the world trade center.
there are plenty of thank yous in ny right now. thank you for my
lazy procrastinating late ass. thank you to the germs that had me
call in sick. thank you, my attitude, you had me fired the week
before. thank you for the train that never came, the rude nyer who
stole my cab going downtown. thank you for the sense my mama gave me
to run. thank you for my legs, my eyes, my life.
3. the dead are called lost and their families hold up shaky
printouts in front of us through screens smoked up.
we are looking for iris, mother of three. please call with any
information. we are searching for priti, last seen on the 103rd
floor. she was talking to her husband on the phone and the line
went. please help us find george, also known as a! ! del. his family is
waiting for him with his favorite meal. i am looking for my son, who
was delivering coffee. i am looking for my sister girl, she started
her job on monday.
i am looking for peace. i am looking for mercy. i am looking for
evidence of compassion. any evidence of life. i am looking for
life.
4. ricardo on the radio said in his accent thick as yuca, "i will
feel so much better when the first bombs drop over there. and my
friends feel the same way."
on my block, a woman was crying in a car parked and stranded in hurt.
i offered comfort, extended a hand she did not see before she said,
"we"re gonna burn them so bad, i swear, so bad." my hand went to my
head and my head went to the numbers within it of the dead iraqi
children, the dead in nicaragua. the dead in rwanda who had to vie
with fake sport wrestling for america's attention.
yet when people sent emails saying, this was bound to happen, lets
! ! not forget u.s. transgressions, for half a second i felt resentful.
hold up with that, cause i live here, these are my friends and fam,
and it could have been me in those buildings, and we"re not bad
people, do not support america's bullying. can i just have a half
second to feel bad?
if i can find through this exhaust people who were left behind to
mourn and to resist mass murder, i might be alright.
thank you to the woman who saw me brinking my cool and blinking back
tears. she opened her arms before she asked "do you want a hug?" a
big white woman, and her embrace was the kind only people with the
warmth of flesh can offer. i wasn't about to say no to any comfort.
"my brother's in the navy," i said. "and we"re arabs". "wow, you
got double trouble." word.
5. one more person ask me if i knew the hijackers.
one more motherfucker ask me what navy my brother is in.
one more person assume no arabs or muslims were killed.one more person
assume they know me, or that i represent a people.
or that a people represent an evil. or that evil is as simple as a
flag and words on a page.
we did not vilify all white men when mcveigh bombed oklahoma.
america did not give out his family's addresses or where he went to
church. or blame the bible or pat robertson.
and when the networks air footage of palestinians dancing in the
street, there is no apology that hungry children are bribed with
sweets that turn their teeth brown. that correspondents edit images.
that archives are there to facilitate lazy and inaccurate
journalism.
and when we talk about holy books and hooded men and death, why do we
never mention the kkk?
if there are any people on earth who understand how new york is
feeling right now, they are in the west bank and the gaza strip.
6. today it is ten days. last night bush waged war on a man once
openly funded by the
cia. i do not know who is responsible. read too many books, know
too many people to believe what i am told. i don't give a fuck about
bin laden. his vision of the world does not include me or those i
love. and petittions have been going around for years trying to get
the u.s. sponsored taliban out of power. shit is complicated, and i
don't know what to think.
but i know for sure who will pay.
in the world, it will be women, mostly colored and poor. women will
have to bury children, and support themselves through grief. "either
you are with us, or with the terrorists" - meaning keep your people
under control and your resistance censored. meaning we got the loot
and the nukes.
in america, it will be those amongst us who refuse blanket attacks on
the shivering. those of us who work toward social justice, in
support of civil liberties, in opposition to hateful foreign
policies.
i have never felt less american and more new yorker, particularly
brooklyn, than these past days. the stars and stripes on all these
cars and apartment windows represent the dead as citizens first, not
family members, not lovers.
i feel like my skin is real thin, and that my eyes are only going to
get darker. the future holds little light.
my baby brother is a man now, and on alert, and praying five times a
day that the orders he will take in a few days time are righteous and
will not weigh his soul down from the afterlife he deserves.
both my brothers - my heart stops when i try to pray - not a beat to
disturb my fear. one a rock god, the other a sergeant, and both
palestinian, practicing muslim, gentle men. both born in brooklyn
and their faces are of the archetypal arab man, all eyelashes and
nose and beautiful color and stubborn hair.
what will their lives be like now?
over there is over here.
7. all day, across the river, the smell of burning rubber and limbs
floats through. the sirens have stopped now. the advertisers are
back on the air. the rescue workers are traumatized. the skyline is
brought back to human size. no longer taunting the gods with its
height.
i have not cried at all while writing this. i cried when i saw those
buildings collapse on themselves like a broken heart. i have never
owned pain that needs to spread like that. and i cry daily that my
brothers return to our mother safe and whole.
there is no poetry in this. there are causes and effects. there are
symbols and ideologies. mad conspiracy here, and information we will
never know. there is death here, and there are promises of more.
there is life here. anyone reading this is breathing, maybe hurting,
but breathing for sure. and if there is any light to come, it will
shine from the eyes of those who look for peace and justice after the
rubble and rhetoric are cleared and the phoenix has risen.
affirm life.
affirm life.
we got to carry each other now.
you are either with life, or against it.
affirm life.
10.02.2007
Second Life Anyone?
Second life is an online internet world which allows you to create a fun avatar, whether a fuzzy bunny or ripped weight lifter, and participate in all sorts of activities. Appearing very much like Sims these people participate in discussions, take classes, go to work conferences, sell and buy virtual items with real money, and build whatever their creativity allows them to. The creeping reality is the interest of companies to create a second life presence, and the profit which may evolve from such an intricate playoff of the real world. Hotel businesses are popping up along with entertainment and even fashion industries. The main draw to me though, was your limitless ability to create. You are given tools and basic geometrics to build whatever you please, to understand and use these tools allows you to build works of art that are impossible to create in the real world. Many limitations of the real world fall away in Second Life, some very interesting discussion can be viewed on, http://www.ugotrade.com/category/second-life/. The architecture, the ability people are given in this world that they lack in the real world (e.g. ability to walk), the learning opportunity, the global connectivity, the idea of artificial general intelligence and artificial life are just a few. Also the Park school offers classes, check it out, kimgregson.com.
9.24.2007
News Flash: College "More hanky than panky," says Post
This article on the Washington Post's website was pretty funny. Saying that tons of sex doesn't happen in college is a bold stance -- radical, even. Somehow, either through wishful thinking, urban legend, or actual experience, the popular perception of college -- as American as apple pie and breast implants -- is that it's a hedonistic cesspool of drugs, liquor, and indiscriminate lovin'; convincing people otherwise is about the same as saying the moon is made of ham.
I will, if I may, offer a rebuttal:
First of all, it seems like the Post's argument against collegiate no-pants dancing isn't especially well-researched: "By e-mail and instant message, we canvassed some friends for our blog," write our heroes. Far be it for me to judge complete strangers, but I don't think it's entirely outside the realm of possibility that the lack of sex noted by these "friends" has more to do with their -- let's say "personal shortcomings" -- than with the actual amount of bumping taking place on the average college campus.
Some highlights:
I will, if I may, offer a rebuttal:
First of all, it seems like the Post's argument against collegiate no-pants dancing isn't especially well-researched: "By e-mail and instant message, we canvassed some friends for our blog," write our heroes. Far be it for me to judge complete strangers, but I don't think it's entirely outside the realm of possibility that the lack of sex noted by these "friends" has more to do with their -- let's say "personal shortcomings" -- than with the actual amount of bumping taking place on the average college campus.
Some highlights:
- "The average for the engineering school is probably like once a semester" [my emphasis].
(I don't think I need to point out the cruel irony here. Based on most of the engineers I know, the engineering school is a hell of a poor choice for a case study of sexual aptitude; might as well get statistics on steroid use by canvassing the Special Olympics.)
And the finale:
The article goes on to cite some figures from Zogby, the gist being that only (only?) 60% of students in the U.S. are sexually active, and that about half the student populations of Harvard, Princeton, and M.I.T. still haven't gotten down and dirty. I'd venture that this is partly due to the fact that the average student at those three schools is already so close to a stress-induced coronary meltdown that anything more strenuous than holding hands and talking about Linux might be fatal.
The article notes that the statistics haven't been "adjusted for homosexuality," which brings the numbers down a bit; it's also worth keeping in mind that these numbers reflect people who aren't having sex, but doesn't account for why. I'm sure at least a third of that 40% aren't abstaining because of morals or chastity: these people would love to be banging like screen doors in a hurricane, but just can't seem to make an opportunity for themselves. For example, I'd be willing to bet that the guy at the party who introduces himself to girls by asking them where they live while breathing heavily -- you know, That Guy; everybody knows of at least one -- is squarely in that national 40% demographic, but not because he chooses to be.
I particularly enjoyed the "landmark study" which reported that the average student has 1.35 hook-ups per semester. I'm not sure what .35 of a hook-up would be, but I'm sure it makes for a fascinating and thoroughly awkward story.
For me, this was the clincher for how lopsided this article is:
This just in: maybe it's worse than I thought. According to Durex, the whole country is in a coital recession. Granted, this article is just a glorified condom ad, but if this data is even close to accurate, then we're getting beat out by -- Mother of babbling God! -- the Canadians. With their guys averaging 23 sexual partners in a lifetime -- Good Lord, can that be accurate?! -- to our measly 13, and Canadian females' average of 10 also one ahead of American woman's 9, the Great White North is making us look like... well, like a bunch of engineering majors.
So are the English.
Oh, and the Mexicans.
...and here we've been thinking we were responsible for global warming.
The moral of this story is that we've got a lot of work to do. As college students, the future leaders of the world, it's our obligation -- nay, our duty -- to lead by example and get our Great Society back on top. If you know what I mean.
- "Either I missed out or everyone else in college isn't having sex at all."
And the finale:
- "At night people just go back to their rooms and finish their homework, or maybe heat up a Hot Pocket" [my emphasis].
The article goes on to cite some figures from Zogby, the gist being that only (only?) 60% of students in the U.S. are sexually active, and that about half the student populations of Harvard, Princeton, and M.I.T. still haven't gotten down and dirty. I'd venture that this is partly due to the fact that the average student at those three schools is already so close to a stress-induced coronary meltdown that anything more strenuous than holding hands and talking about Linux might be fatal.
The article notes that the statistics haven't been "adjusted for homosexuality," which brings the numbers down a bit; it's also worth keeping in mind that these numbers reflect people who aren't having sex, but doesn't account for why. I'm sure at least a third of that 40% aren't abstaining because of morals or chastity: these people would love to be banging like screen doors in a hurricane, but just can't seem to make an opportunity for themselves. For example, I'd be willing to bet that the guy at the party who introduces himself to girls by asking them where they live while breathing heavily -- you know, That Guy; everybody knows of at least one -- is squarely in that national 40% demographic, but not because he chooses to be.
I particularly enjoyed the "landmark study" which reported that the average student has 1.35 hook-ups per semester. I'm not sure what .35 of a hook-up would be, but I'm sure it makes for a fascinating and thoroughly awkward story.
For me, this was the clincher for how lopsided this article is:
- "I've kind of got a girl right now, but we're both too busy to actually have sex" [my emphasis].
This just in: maybe it's worse than I thought. According to Durex, the whole country is in a coital recession. Granted, this article is just a glorified condom ad, but if this data is even close to accurate, then we're getting beat out by -- Mother of babbling God! -- the Canadians. With their guys averaging 23 sexual partners in a lifetime -- Good Lord, can that be accurate?! -- to our measly 13, and Canadian females' average of 10 also one ahead of American woman's 9, the Great White North is making us look like... well, like a bunch of engineering majors.
So are the English.
Oh, and the Mexicans.
...and here we've been thinking we were responsible for global warming.
The moral of this story is that we've got a lot of work to do. As college students, the future leaders of the world, it's our obligation -- nay, our duty -- to lead by example and get our Great Society back on top. If you know what I mean.
9.23.2007
Nebraska Senator Sues God (Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit listed as Possible Witnesses)
Okay, so while Jesus and the Holy Spirt have nothing to do with the trial, it's very true that a Nebraska Senator, Ernie Chambers, is filing a lawsuit against God, claiming that God has acted as a terrorist agent, causing fear and the death of millions of inhabitants on earth. Furthermore, he's charging God with intentionally causing "fearsome floods...horrendous hurricanes, and terrifying tornadoes."
While this is, to a certain extent, very amusing, the senator tries to make a very interesting point, which, from the sites I've read, most people have missed. Many people immediately were hung up on the fact that Ernie Chambers is a known athiest who often bashes Christians, or actually took Chambers lawsuit seriously, believing he was actually suing God. However, Chambers comes forth to address the frivolity of many lawsuits today. He says that he's responding to another lawsuit, where a woman named Tory Bowen is using a Nebraska Judge for barring the words "rape" and "victim" from use at trial.
While personally, I don't think this is the best lawsuit to retaliate to (the subject of rape being a very sensitive one in the legal system) Chambers is attempting to make a good point: lawsuits are, and have been for years, hitting a zenith in absurdity. We're all familiar (if not, have at least heard of) the Lieback v. McDonald's case, where a woman sued McDonalds because she spilled hot coffee on herself and claimed she wasn't warned the coffee would be hot.
It may be ridiculous to say that this is an absolute new development (I don't know enough about law to know if ridiculous cases date back to the dawn of time), however it's good that someone of the legal system is taking the platform to point out the hilarity of many lawsuits today. Often it seems as if they are abusing the law, taking advantage of the system to benefit themselves. However, the danger with saying this is that lawsuits in some way have always been just that. When does a lawsuit leave the realms of reality and enter the territory of ridicule and ludicrousness? It's a hard line to draw, but, if nothing else, this latest development in the legal world will force people to take another look at the system and the humorous - yet dangerous - place it sometimes finds itself in.
Further Reading:
Nebraska State Senator Sues God
For another angle on the subject, listen at:
NPR: Senator Sues God
While this is, to a certain extent, very amusing, the senator tries to make a very interesting point, which, from the sites I've read, most people have missed. Many people immediately were hung up on the fact that Ernie Chambers is a known athiest who often bashes Christians, or actually took Chambers lawsuit seriously, believing he was actually suing God. However, Chambers comes forth to address the frivolity of many lawsuits today. He says that he's responding to another lawsuit, where a woman named Tory Bowen is using a Nebraska Judge for barring the words "rape" and "victim" from use at trial.
While personally, I don't think this is the best lawsuit to retaliate to (the subject of rape being a very sensitive one in the legal system) Chambers is attempting to make a good point: lawsuits are, and have been for years, hitting a zenith in absurdity. We're all familiar (if not, have at least heard of) the Lieback v. McDonald's case, where a woman sued McDonalds because she spilled hot coffee on herself and claimed she wasn't warned the coffee would be hot.
It may be ridiculous to say that this is an absolute new development (I don't know enough about law to know if ridiculous cases date back to the dawn of time), however it's good that someone of the legal system is taking the platform to point out the hilarity of many lawsuits today. Often it seems as if they are abusing the law, taking advantage of the system to benefit themselves. However, the danger with saying this is that lawsuits in some way have always been just that. When does a lawsuit leave the realms of reality and enter the territory of ridicule and ludicrousness? It's a hard line to draw, but, if nothing else, this latest development in the legal world will force people to take another look at the system and the humorous - yet dangerous - place it sometimes finds itself in.
Further Reading:
Nebraska State Senator Sues God
For another angle on the subject, listen at:
NPR: Senator Sues God
7.25.2007
From Nablus: Supermen are angry, too
You must be Superman to be a real man in Palestine...
You must use all your senses 24-hours a day in order to stay...
You must hear the gunfire, then the screams that fade away...
You must see the blood, again and again, and still see red...
You must hold the barbwires in your hand and smile for the elderly woman trying to bypass the Israeli checkpoint...
You must smell the teargas and cry as if there aren't enough tears in this "Holy Land'...
You must taste the humiliation and eat Nabulsi sweets all in the same day... And...
And still think of the olives and thyme...
And think of ways to end this endless crime...
Oh my beloved... do we still have time...
To hold hands and kiss... and raise our children in a cosmic bliss...
- Saed Jamal
I met Saed Jamal, a professor at An-Najah University, while I was in Nablus this weekend with a group of other students doing research for the Right to Education campaign at Birzeit. He recited his poem “Palestinian Superman” to us Saturday evening, while we ate and smoked nargeelah on the roof of a restaurant and tried to ignore the gunfire coming from the streets below.
Saed is charismatic and charming and obviously brilliant. He was an excellent host. He started by finding something interesting about each of our names or our backgrounds or interests, and from then on, he directed the flow of the conversation, telling stories, answering questions and putting everyone at ease. When he arrived at our hostel the next morning with breakfast, he charmed us again, rattling off all our names without hesitation.
Still Saed is one of those Palestinian supermen, and, as he explained to us, the point of his poem, of course, is that they don’t really exist. You can’t always hold barbed wire with a smile on your face, and even in the course of a couple hours, we discovered that Saed is generous and magnetic and also angry.
In the context of Nablus and Saed’s life, these are not contradictory. The impulse to downplay negativity to put people at ease can only go so far in some places without becoming ridiculous. And so it is in Nablus - the home of more than a quarter of the second intifada's dead - that even the jolly, reassuring host displays hopelessness and outrage. Without them, maybe, he could never have seemed sincere.
Our conversation that evening was punctuated by gunfire. A few of us attributed it, probably correctly, to a wedding celebration. But that wasn’t much comfort to Saed, who is sick and tired of the normalcy of that sound in Nablus. At night, people there must try to sleep through almost daily Israeli incursions and also fighters and revelers firing in the air. It’s too much gunfire, Saed says. It’s sick.
Like so many in Nablus, Saed knows too well the consequence of a bullet. He was shot in the chest at a demonstration in the first intifada, and once he recovered, his wounds were the evidence that landed him in an Israeli jail.
Then in October 2002 soldiers drove up to his home, where Saed’s mother, a well-known peace activist sat on her porch. Fourteen bullets later his mother was dead and he and his father were both injured. (The Christian Science Monitor wrote about his mother's death in 2003.)
Saed and his family tried to fight for an investigation and some sort of justice. But when he first called the army, they refused to come investigate, citing security concerns. They told him to come to the Hiwara checkpoint near Nablus and file a complaint there. Sa’ed wouldn’t have any of it. When does the victim ever go to the investigator, he asked the soldier. You came into my house and killed my mother. Come put a tank on each end of my street and investigate the crime scene.
To this day no investigation has been completed.
Now Saed is trying to come to the United States, where he’s been invited by a university. But his visa application has gone unanswered, perhaps because his mother’s death has marked him as somehow connected to terrorism.
“I want them to tell me that it’s because my mother was assassinated so that I can take off my shoe and swim across to the United States and shove it in the mouth of George Bush,” he said. “But they just don’t say anything.”
And so for now Saed is still in Nablus, where, like everyone, he hears gunfire and sees blood and eats sweets and fights for the kind of life worthy of a man like him.
You must use all your senses 24-hours a day in order to stay...
You must hear the gunfire, then the screams that fade away...
You must see the blood, again and again, and still see red...
You must hold the barbwires in your hand and smile for the elderly woman trying to bypass the Israeli checkpoint...
You must smell the teargas and cry as if there aren't enough tears in this "Holy Land'...
You must taste the humiliation and eat Nabulsi sweets all in the same day... And...
And still think of the olives and thyme...
And think of ways to end this endless crime...
Oh my beloved... do we still have time...
To hold hands and kiss... and raise our children in a cosmic bliss...
- Saed Jamal
I met Saed Jamal, a professor at An-Najah University, while I was in Nablus this weekend with a group of other students doing research for the Right to Education campaign at Birzeit. He recited his poem “Palestinian Superman” to us Saturday evening, while we ate and smoked nargeelah on the roof of a restaurant and tried to ignore the gunfire coming from the streets below.
Saed is charismatic and charming and obviously brilliant. He was an excellent host. He started by finding something interesting about each of our names or our backgrounds or interests, and from then on, he directed the flow of the conversation, telling stories, answering questions and putting everyone at ease. When he arrived at our hostel the next morning with breakfast, he charmed us again, rattling off all our names without hesitation.
Still Saed is one of those Palestinian supermen, and, as he explained to us, the point of his poem, of course, is that they don’t really exist. You can’t always hold barbed wire with a smile on your face, and even in the course of a couple hours, we discovered that Saed is generous and magnetic and also angry.
In the context of Nablus and Saed’s life, these are not contradictory. The impulse to downplay negativity to put people at ease can only go so far in some places without becoming ridiculous. And so it is in Nablus - the home of more than a quarter of the second intifada's dead - that even the jolly, reassuring host displays hopelessness and outrage. Without them, maybe, he could never have seemed sincere.
Our conversation that evening was punctuated by gunfire. A few of us attributed it, probably correctly, to a wedding celebration. But that wasn’t much comfort to Saed, who is sick and tired of the normalcy of that sound in Nablus. At night, people there must try to sleep through almost daily Israeli incursions and also fighters and revelers firing in the air. It’s too much gunfire, Saed says. It’s sick.
Like so many in Nablus, Saed knows too well the consequence of a bullet. He was shot in the chest at a demonstration in the first intifada, and once he recovered, his wounds were the evidence that landed him in an Israeli jail.
Then in October 2002 soldiers drove up to his home, where Saed’s mother, a well-known peace activist sat on her porch. Fourteen bullets later his mother was dead and he and his father were both injured. (The Christian Science Monitor wrote about his mother's death in 2003.)
Saed and his family tried to fight for an investigation and some sort of justice. But when he first called the army, they refused to come investigate, citing security concerns. They told him to come to the Hiwara checkpoint near Nablus and file a complaint there. Sa’ed wouldn’t have any of it. When does the victim ever go to the investigator, he asked the soldier. You came into my house and killed my mother. Come put a tank on each end of my street and investigate the crime scene.
To this day no investigation has been completed.
Now Saed is trying to come to the United States, where he’s been invited by a university. But his visa application has gone unanswered, perhaps because his mother’s death has marked him as somehow connected to terrorism.
“I want them to tell me that it’s because my mother was assassinated so that I can take off my shoe and swim across to the United States and shove it in the mouth of George Bush,” he said. “But they just don’t say anything.”
And so for now Saed is still in Nablus, where, like everyone, he hears gunfire and sees blood and eats sweets and fights for the kind of life worthy of a man like him.
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