Harpo Jaeger

exquisitecorpse.io version 1.1.0

2017-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

I am very excited to share exquisitecorpse.io v. 1.1.0 with the world! This is a minor interface upgrade, but a lot has changed on the backend.

Most importantly, the entire app now uses Redux! Redux is a framwork for managing application state using predictable, modular and easily-loggable actions. This is the first project I”ve used it on, and I learned a lot from it. The process of refactoring React components that managed their own state to use Redux instead was very interesting and educational.

The only visible change you’ll notice is that when you load an individual completed poem, it now appears in a fancy modal dialog. Underlying this small adjustment is a deep rethinking of how the app treats completed poems. Previously, it loaded them all into state when it was launched, displaying only the first 50, and providing the user with a button to show more. I also wanted each poem to have a pseudo-permalink, so if you wanted to send one to a friend, for example, you could just copy the URL. So I gave each poem on the screen an <a> tag with an id, and let the browser handle jumping to them. The problem was: what if you had clicked the “load more poems” button before finding one you liked? When your friend pasted the URL into their browser, nothing would happen – the <a> they were requesting wasn’t on the screen yet!

To get around this, I had to do all sorts of jury-rigging with Element.scrollIntoView() and the like. Ugly stuff, and not very reliable. I was never satisfied with the way this worked, so when I gutted the application a few days ago to integrate Redux, I decided to just delete all of that code and start over. The solution: react-router! Individually requested poems are now routed by react-router and displayed in a modal dialog. Since all the poems are loaded at initialization, react-router can display any requested poem, whether or not it already appears on the screen.

Finally, I use history.push to remove the fragment (the part of the URL after the #) when the modal dialog is closed. This ensures that if the user clicks on the same completed poem from the list again after closing the modal, it will reopen – prior to this fix, its props remained the same, so React didn’t see any reason to rerender it.

The only functionality that I removed and didn’t re-add was the feature that displayed the full poem to you after you finished it. This will probably be the next update!

Consistent with Semver (specificaly, spec #7), we’re now on version 1.1.0 of Exquisite Corpse. I hope you enjoy it!

Engimail, gnupg & pinentry on Mac OS X using Homebrew

2017-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

NB: this post assumes a basic familiarity with PGP. I had almost none before starting, so if you follow the links I provide and spend a little while reading, you’ll be just as qualified to start hacking on this as I was.

I’ve recently become interested in using PGP for secure email communications. I run macOS 10.11 El Capitan, and I decided to install Enigmail, a simple PGP plugin for Thunderbird, to try it out.

Enigmail requires an existing installation of GnuPG. You can get it from the GPG Suite official installer, but I use Homebrew to install new packages whenever possible, to keep things centralized and streamline updates. Homebrew is smart about where it puts packages, and Enigmail is smart about where it looks for them, so this would be a seamless install (cue foreboding music). Step 1: brew install gnupg. Step 2: download and install Enigmail. Step 3: security!

Or so it seemed.

The Enigmail setup wizard successfully generated keys, but failed at the next step with: “The revocation certificate could not be created.” Revocation certificates are important, so this was a serious obstacle.

While I was able to find documentation of this error elsewhere, nobody expressly answered the question of “how do you fix this on a Mac without stepping outside the Homebrew ecosystem?” After some digging, I found the problem. Here are the dependencies Homebrew installs with gnupg:

$ brew deps gnupg
adns
gettext
gmp
gnutls
libassuan
libffi
libgcrypt
libgpg-error
libksba
libtasn1
libunistring
libusb
nettle
npth
p11-kit
pinentry

Here’s the problem: pinentry is a program for authenticating to gpg-agent (the program to which GnuPG farms out passphrase entry), but it only runs at the command prompt. Enigmail is looking for a GUI authentication program. Fortunately, the Homebrew package pinentry-mac seems to be exactly that – a GUIfied verison of pinentry.

So, brew install pinentry-mac. Then, in ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf, add the line pinentry-program /usr/local/bin/pinentry-mac. This points gpg-agent to the right authentication program, so that when Enigmail asks for authentication, the user is prompted to enter the password used to encrypt their private key.

Enigmail recommends testing your setup with

pinentry <<EOT
SETDESC Hello World
CONFIRM
EOT

However, if you’ve pointed gpg-agent at pinentry-mac, you should instead run

pinentry-mac <<EOT
SETDESC Hello World
CONFIRM
EOT

If you see a graphic dialog box pop up, you’ve done it right – pinentry-mac is now capable of asking for your password. Restart gpg-agent (or logout and back in), and you should be able to step through the Enigmail setup wizard without any problems!

I hope this post helps you save some time, and happy encrypting! Oh, and you can find my PGP public key here.

Meine ersten zwei SOTA-Aktivierungen

2017-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

I activated W7A/AW-013 Spruce Mountain on July 22 and DM/BW-008 Schauinsland on August 22, during my current trip to Germany. Here’s a brief description of each activation.

W7A/AW-013 Spruce Mountain

We spent a weekend in Prescott camping in the Prescott National Forest. It was Chloé’s birthday, and our friend was calling the Prescott contra dance, so four of us drove up and spent the weekend hiking, dancing and exploring a dead railroad bridge in Prescott.

We found time for an afternoon hike before the contra dance on Saturday. We chose a nice-looking trail not too far from our campsite. Lo and behold, it led up Spruce Mountain, which my map helpfully informed me was W7A/AW-013! I had brought my new (to me) FT-817, LNR end-fed antenna and Shakespeare mast (a future post will examine my SOTA gear in more detail), but by the time we got to the top, we didn’t have long before the dance started. I opted to try an activation with my HT, and I was successful! After getting to go into the fire lookout’s tower on the summit, I got started. I put out a “CQ SOTA” call on 146.54 and got my four contacts in less than 20 minutes! In the picture below, I’m logging contacts from my operating position on the steps up the fire lookout. You can see the Shakespeare pole strapped to my bag, awaiting its moment to shine.

The next day, we drove up to Sedona and hiked in Red Rock State Park. At a small peak on one of the trails (not a SOTA summit), I set up my HF rig, but didn’t have time to finish tuning the antenna before a monsoon rolled in. Standing on a mountain top with a twenty-foot fiberglass pole wired to you is not a great look in an electrical storm, so I broke down the gear and we booked it out of the park, getting caught in heavy rain along the way. My dry bag performed beautifully during this trek – I was soaked to the skin by the time I made it out, but my gear was bone-dry.

DM/BW-008 Schauinsland

After three weeks in Berlin at JASS, I took off for Southwestern Germany. I stayed in Freiburg for two nights. On my first full day there, I hiked DM/BW-105 Schönberg, but I couldn’t make any contacts from the top. Nevertheless, a beautiful walk up and a beautiful view!

On the second day I hiked Schauinsland, and, over the course of a little more than an hour and a half, activated it! I again used my trusty HT. I even worked FDC1SK in France, and DC1SK summit-to-summit (S2S) from DM/RP-444! On this activation, patience was the name of the game. I got my first contact right after reaching the summit, called CQ unsuccessfully for a while and then sat down to eat some lunch. While eating I found a spot with some cell service and managed to spot myself, leading to one more contact. After eating, I climbed the observation tower and made one contact in about thirty minutes from the top. I was almost resigned to leaving the summit one contact short of a full activation, but I managed to make one more after I came back down from the tower!

Schauinsland is a busy summit, with many tourists, through-hikers and mountain bikers. I explained ham radio and SOTA to a number of interested people. I suspect that once I start carrying my HF gear, I’ll need to bring along one of the SOTA leaflets [PDF] to hand out, as I’ll be attracting a lot more attention.

Schönberg:

Schauinsland:

Conclusions

First of all, SOTA rocks! I get to be outside, go on gorgeous hikes and play with radios – all at the same time. It’s also a good way to continue honing my portable operating skills, which I put to use in public service events in and around Tucson. Once my HF setup is, well, set up, I expect to have even more fun and work some DX.

This was also my first time hiking outside the US. German trails seem to have much more signage on them than American ones, and there is also just more trail infrastructure overall. A trail that, in the US, might be a simple dirt footpath may well be paved in Germany. I had paper maps with me, but almost never needed them because of how well-signed the trails were.

Both of the summits I hiked were also accessible by car, and in the case of Schauinsland, by gondola. This means that a far broader range of people can access them. I saw other day hikers like me who’d been out for only a few hours, backpackers, families with small kids, elderly people, mountain bikers and more. It was nice to see the mountains being enjoyed by so many people – these are public resources, and they should be publicly accessible.

SOTA is a wonderful way for people who like radios to enjoy the outdoors, and for people who like the outdoors to learn about radio. It’s also very easy to get started – even with my portable HF rig not ready for actual field use, I completed two of three attempted activations with patience, persistence, and less power than it takes to run a CFL lightbulb. That’s pretty cool.

See you on the trail/air!

Facing the Nazis in Tucson

2017-07-21T00:00:00+00:00

CW: Nazis, Nazi imagery, physical aggression and general awfulness

A small crowd turned out for the Tucson Refuse Fascism march on the evening of Saturday, July 15. We were accompanied by about 20 uniformed TPD officers, and two Nazis. Here they are in Catalina Park, shortly before we started moving.

A timeline of the evening’s events

We left the park around 6:30 PM, heading straight down 4th Ave. After less than a block we took the street. TPD blocked traffic in front and behind us as we moved. We were surrounded by officers, but they kept a respectful distance and managed traffic flow to allow us to move at our own pace.

The Nazis were not keeping a respectful distance. They started off right behind us, but as we moved, Gas Mask Nazi edged closer and closer to our rear. The younger protesters were leading the march, with the older marchers in the back of our column, so I dropped to the rear with my bike, and put myself between them and Gas Mask. Meanwhile, Sunglasses Nazi took up a position on the sidewalk, filming the entire protest. They were there to provoke a scene or interfere however they could.

Our group was small, but spirited. Especially with our police escort, we attracted quite a lot of attention, garnering both cheers and boos from people along 4th. We talked to bystanders as we went to try to get them to join in, but the sight of a Nazi in a gas mask and flak jacket probably dissuaded a lot of them.

Things started to heat up as we proceeded through the underpass and down Congress. Gas Mask pushed further into our group, throwing Nazi salutes as he walked, and shouting “Heil Trump!” Around Congress and 6th, he came right up behind one of our protestors and I made a quick turn to the left, cutting in front of him with my bike. He responded by violently shoving me forward. TPD were on us immediately, and they forced me up and away from him. I hadn’t laid hands on him the entire time.

At Veinte de Agosto Park I asked the group if we could step off the road briefly. I was shaken from my first-ever physical altercation with a Nazi, and his presence was actually confusing bystanders about what our message was (no doubt this was the idea). I asked the group to take a few minutes to discuss how we could clarify our message. Gas Mask started pushing his way into our small standing circle. Again, I put myself and my bike in front of him, although somewhat more cautiously this time. In this video, you can see that Sunglasses crossed the street to film us up close, and as Gas Mask got more aggressive, TPD finally made the call to separate him from our group. They ordered him to march at least 50 feet behind us, and that was the last we saw of him. Nazis know that because their message is so unpopular, their only option is to mess up other people’s rallies. Denied a platform by TPD, he and his buddy went home (or wherever it is Nazis go).

We headed back to Catalina Park via the Valdez library, Pennington, Toole and 4th Ave. Once everyone was gathered, we did a quick debrief, at which it was universally agreed that we’d handled the Nazis very well, considering none of us had dealt with them before – and that next time we need bigger numbers!

Conclusions

Police

TPD were quite respectful – they brought us water, reminded the people leading the march when people at the end were falling behind, and took cues from us as to where to go. At several points we could have been quickly kettled had they wanted to clear us out, but they let us keep moving. We were a small group, we were there to demonstrate peacefully, and we were obviously the more sympathetic party when compared with Nazis.

The public square

The police theoretically guarantee everyone’s right to access public spaces (we’ll leave a discussion of the many people who are not afforded this right to another day – the irony of the Nazi being separated from our group in Veinte de Agosto park, former nexus of Occupy Tucson, was not lost on me). “The public square” sounds nice on the surface, but in practice it means that I got to spend an hour watching TPD protect Nazis’ right to walk down a busy street, heiling and intimidating people. Let me put this very clearly: Nazis should not be afforded a public platform, anywhere, ever. But since we live in a society that thinks they should, law enforcement officers will protect them when they do. This brings me to my final two points.

Dealing with a resurgent Nazi movement

We can’t put this back in the box. On the back of his flak jacket, Gas Mask Nazi had Sharpied “I AM HATE.” Hatred is an organizing principle for these groups. It’s not a consequence of their worldview, it’s the basis of their worldview.

We need to find ways to effectively keep Nazis from showing their faces in public. In a way, our inability to rely on the police to do this for us is a good thing. I don’t want the cops deciding who does and doesn’t get access to the streets (any more than they already do). But as the institutions (political parties, the press, unions and other civil society orgs) which should be acting as gatekeepers, moderating political discourse to forestall the emergence of radical hate groups like Nazis or the KKK, crumble one after the other, it will increasingly fall to forward-thinking people of all backgrounds to resist the legitimization of Naziism.

Safety

I considered not writing this part, but I don’t think keeping it inside is healthy or politically productive. The Nazis will be delighted to read that I was scared for my physical safety after the march. After our post-action debrief, we left the park in pairs – TPD had left, and we couldn’t be sure the Nazis didn’t follow us back.

I came home shaking, turned on all the lights and carried a flashlight for the rest of the evening, looking into dark corners and streets. I went downtown for dinner in order to be surrounded by people. I spent the entire evening watching the door of whatever building I was in. I jumped at loud noises and yelling, and nearly started a fight with a some people at a bar who gave me what I thought was an unusual look. On any other night, I’m sure I would have read it as nothing significant. We slept at a friend’s house. I haven’t put my kippah back on since the march.

Gas Mask Nazi, if you’re reading this, congratulations: you made this leftist Jew scared of the streets of his town. Mazal tov! But you did something else too: you strengthened my resolve, and, I suspect, that of everyone else at the rally. You and your pathetic cameraman lackey, you who know your disgusting hatred and fear of change won’t sell and so have to resort to “infiltrating” other groups in the tough-guy outfit you bought from the Army surplus store, you who are probably afraid to tell your friends and coworkers what you actually believe, we’re putting you on notice. These are our streets. You can’t have them.

The Exquisite Corpse shall drink the new wine

2017-05-10T00:00:00+00:00

“Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau.”

TL;DR: there’s a newer, prettier version of my Exquisite Corpse online poetry project – check it out here.

Exquisite Corpse began as a Surrealist parlor game in the early 20th century. Players would create collective poems or drawings by each contributing one component at a time – sometimes a word or phrase, sometimes a whole sentence.

I like to think that if the original Surrealists had access to the Internet, they would have loved it for its ability to connect people in weird and subversive ways. What makes Exquisite Corpse such a great game is the way that strangely coherent wholes are assembled from disconnected parts – you might call it emergent poetry. In a way, this is not unlike the Internet – or at least the early days of it, before the now-assumed dominance of social media, before the Web had become so corporatized. It was just a weird, slightly overwhelming and kind of beautiful place.¹

So in 2008, I built an online version of Exquisite Corpse.² The idea of opening up the process of collaboratively, pseudo-randomly creating poetry to such a huge audience was really exciting. As far as I know, this was the first web adaptation of the game (if anybody knows of an earlier one, I’d love to hear about it).

In the nine years since, there have been over 600 poems written! The site got a facelift shortly after launch when I rewrote the frontend with jQuery and AJAX.³ This made it way more useable, but jQuery has since fallen out of fashion. So over the last couple weeks I rebuilt the entire app from scratch, using a Node.js Express server for the poem API, and React for the frontend (here’s the source, including the old PHP/jQuery). In celebration, I decided the app should have its own domain name. I give you: exquisitecorpse.io.

I’m excited for this project to enter its next phase – it’s now running on some of the most up-to-date web frameworks, and is more functional and bug-free than ever before. Happy writing, netizens!

1: Anil Dash has written beautifully about what the web used to look like.

2: Warning: serious vintage Harpo Jaeger blog posts ahead. Though to be honest, I still get pretty excited about Dingley Dell.

3: And I definitely still get excited about snazzy UI elements.

APRS muting on Kenwood TH-D72A

2017-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

I recently purchased a Kenwood TH-D72A, which has a built-in GPS & TNC for APRS use. After getting APRS configured and taking a few walks around town to test the SmartBeaconing™ settings, I started thinking more deeply about the actual use cases for this fine HT. I’ll be carrying it at 24HOP this weekend as I follow the bike trails on foot; in addition to beaconing my position frequently enough to be useful for Net Control, I also obviously need to be available on the FM voice frequency. The TH-D72A, like any halfway-decent HT, can monitor two frequencies simultaneously, but I was concerned that the raw APRS audio¹ might make it hard to hear voice transmissions. I tested this out by walking around the neighborhood during a 24HOP planning net while sending regular APRS packets. Sure enough, it was nigh-impossible to follow conversations on the repeater. Clearly, this wouldn’t work for the event itself.

The TH-D72A lacks any sort of “APRS mute” option – you can’t turn off the audio output while the TNC is on. Other hams have gotten around this by modifying the audio balance settings, so that only the desired channel actually outputs to the speaker. This is time-consuming and has to be reset by hand when changing to a different frequency, leaving a lot of room for user error. There had to be a better way.

The solution: tone squelch! I programmed a separate APRS channel with a 67.0 Hz² receive tone. Packets are received, decoded and stored exactly as before, but because the squelch circuit never opens (standard practice is to transmit APRS without any tone), I don’t hear them.

There was one more question: would the TH-D72A’s packet send/receive/receive-mine audio alerts³ still work? The answer: yes! I took the radio out for another spin around the neighborhood; the beeps were just insistent enought that I was constantly aware of how I was doing, but I could still clearly hear voice transmissions on the other channel. Success!

I highly recommend this workaround for anybody using APRS in any kind of public service situation where there’s a need for both consistent beacons and reliable voice communications.

1: For reference, here’s what raw APRS audio sounds like.

2: Any tone will work for this.

3: This radio can be configured to emit one tone when it beacons, another when it receives one of its own packets back from a digipeater and another when it receives a packet from another station. I’ve disabled the last one; way too many beeps. But the first two are quite useful. Beep-on-send gives me realtime feedback about whether my SmartBeaconing™ settings are working how they should, or if something else has gone wrong that’s preventing regular updates. And beep-on-receive-mine is a good indication that my packets are being picked up – not perfect, but good enough for most cases. (Since this is an HT running 5W, it’s a lot easier for me to hear the digi than for the digi to hear me, so the scenario where my packet is received but I don’t hear it being repeated is an unlikely edge case. In other words, if I don’t hear my packet come back, it’s probably because it never made it to the digi.)

gcal vacate

2016-08-20T00:00:00+00:00

I wrote a web application called gcal vacate to help me with a tricky calendar issue. While traveling in Europe this summer, 9 hours ahead of Mountain Time (AZ), all of my repeating events showed up at horribly inconvenient times. Evening things would be at 5 in the morning. Morning things late in the evening. I have daily, weekly and monthly events, so my calendar was kind of clogged. I add things to my calendar that I actually go to on a regular basis, so simply deleting all future recurrences of the events was out – they wouldn’t be here when I got back home. Obviously, deleting every instance of every repeating event individually would have taken a long time and been boring. I can’t imagine I’m the only person who’s ever had this problem, so I decided I’d write a web app to bulk delete all instances of a repeating event between specified boundary dates. I think this app is really useful, and I learned a ton about object-oriented Javascript, jQuery, and RESTful APIs while writing it.

You can use it here. A little more info is on the readme/credits page. Enjoy, and (if you like) let me know what you think on Twitter.

The 2016 Grand West Coast Trainventure

2016-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

Today I begin the 2016 Grand West Coast Trainventure, in which I take Amtrak from Seattle, WA back home to Tucson, AZ. Why, you may ask? Because trains are awesome, and the Coast Starlight is supposed to be one of the most beautiful routes in the country. I’ve wanted to take it for some time, especially after moving to Tucson via Amtrak from Boston.

Did I mention trains are awesome?

I depart Seattle this evening (on the Cascades, actually), arriving in Portland tonight. I’ll stay there for a few days to visit friends, then proceed to the SF Bay, where I’ll stay for another few days. Finally, I take the Coast Starlight the rest of the way down to LA, change to the Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle and end up back in Tucson.

Here’s a nice picture I took today of Seattle’s Union Station. Unfortunately, Amtrak trains depart from a different station (King Street), but that one looks nice too. I’ll try to get a good picture on the way out. And you can certainly expect lots of pictures, or at least some posts, from the train (if the Internet is passable) or my various stops along the way.

Lastly, I’m going to try out some of the frequencies listed here to see if I can pick up any dispatch/crew traffic along the way. It’ll be interesting to start learning how that all works.

Flux capacitor overload!

2016-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

I returned from the RST Hamfest yesterday with an excellent pile of scrap electronics, including a switched six-outlet unit comprised of two standard junction boxes bolted together, with about 25’ of cord. I’ve seen similar units in a lot of shacks; when you have a bunch of different radio units and accessories, it’s nice to be able to power the whole thing off with one switch. I also picked up a nice little red indicator light which is straight out of the Adam West Batman series or Dr. No. (img src)

After unloading my haul and looking it all over, I realized that a set of a switched outlets and an over-dramatic red indicator light are a natural combination. So I combined them. Outlets are made to be wired in parallel banks, so it wasn’t hard to figure out where to wire in the light. My ham training stood in me good stead! After a couple runs to the local hardware store (why is it that whenever you decide not to bring your piece with you, you can’t find what you need, and whenever you preemptively bring it, it ends up being extraneous?), I had what I needed.

I bought a new junction box and and mounted the light in it. The portion of the indicator light that lives inside the box is a little bulky, so it was necessary to use some creative hardware to accomodate. Once I integrate this power supply unit into my radio setup (a subject for a future post), I may decide to reconfigure it slightly to optimize placement and visibility of the indicator light, and based on space constraints. But the leads I wired in are long enough to accomodate a lot of possible permutations, so it shouldn’t be hard. And it works!

The important insight was that the light needed to be wired across the outlets; that is, in parallel, not series. It would be neat to build an indicator bank that shows whether power is flowing through each of the 6 outlets (for troubleshooting equipment, e.g.), but the idea here was to know when the switch was on, not when power was being drawn. As it stands, this light indicates the presence of 120v across the outlets. Cool!

Recent house projects

2016-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

Over the last couple weeks I’ve been working on a number of house projects. The biggest is a coop and run for our new chickens! The run is about 8’ x 8’, and the (numerous) corner brackets ensure that it’ll remain quite sturdy even with untreated wood (which you can use out here in the desert). The uprights are sunk about 1’ into the ground. It took a lot of digging and pickaxing to get through the caliche layer, but that gives our run something akin to concrete footings, so I think it was worth it for the extra stability. This thing will probably outlast our actual house at this point.

A desert-adapted chicken coop

The coop is an approximately 4’ x 4’ cube, with 1/4” plywood bottom and back. The right side and front (from these photos’ perspective) are simple poultry mesh with a corrugated synthetic sun guard material. The top and left side have 2x4 frames hinged to the coop. The top has poultry mesh under the corrugated tin, so it can be left open during the day for additional airflow. The left side opens into the run.

The fit between the run and the fence is quite tight, and we didn’t sink the cinder blocks the coop sits on quite low enough, so in another week or two we’re going to have to muscle the whole thing out of there and relevel the ground below it. This will also give the side and top hinges some more room, as they’re running up into the top beam of the run right now. But it works, and the chickens are doing great. Here’s a YouTube channel with videos of them when they were still inside.

Sauerkraut & bread

I’ve started making sauerkraut! I’m using this recipe, and it really is as easy and delicious as it sounds. We are also developing a dutch oven bread recipe, based on the NYT’s outrageously popular no-knead bread. The modification that’s given us the best results so far is to double the yeast and add 1 tsp of sugar. Increasing the cook time in the dutch oven (that is, before taking the lid off to finish browning) gives a thicker crust, too.

Olives

There are olive trees all over Tucson, including a lot on the U of A campus. We picked about half a grocery bag full of them back in November and have been brine curing [PDF] them ever since. Here’s what they look like now (one of four jars). They’ll likely be ready within the next few weeks.

Professor Steven Salaita and the right of public dissent

2015-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

(If you want to skip my summary and just read the paper, it’s here.)

Almost a year ago, Professor Steven Salaita lost a job. Or did he? The debate about whether the University of Illinois abridged his academic freedom rights has raged since last August, when the news became public. The most recent update: the American Association of University Professors has censured the University. Censure is the highest penalty the AAUP can impose on an institution. It will do serious damage to UIUC’s status in the academic world.

Last fall, I researched the case of Professor Salaita in some depth for an undergraduate course on academic freedom, taught by Luther Spoehr at Brown University. A number of people have requested that I post that paper publicly; today I’m doing so. There have been several important updates since I wrote it – Prof. Salaita filed a lawsuit to go after UIUC donors who were likely behind his firing, he won a FOIA case, and now the censure – but my main conclusions still hold up: that UI Chancellor Phyllis Wise acted in contradiction of the principles of academic freedom when she fired Professor Salaita after public outcry caused by his tweets during last summer’s Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

Some excerpts from the paper:

Both the legal and procedural arguments fail to adequately settle the issue. The legal argument can get us only as far as determining whether Professor Salaita had academic freedom rights with respect to the University of Illinois. The procedural argument can get us only as far as determining whether the University acted in accordance with its own policy. The true question is whether the merits of Salaita’s dismissal stand up to the rather high bar that the standard conception of academic freedom imposes.

…in the absence of specific charges as to how Professor Salaita’s angry and rude tweets affected his abilities as a scholar or a teacher (beyond vague and unsubstantiated claims of potential student discomfort), it is inappropriate to consider the content or style of his remarks in a hiring decision.

Finally:

Pending the University of Illinois Academic Senate investigation, I would not be surprised to see an AAUP Committee A investigation of this case, with censure of the University a distinct possibility, if not a likelihood. The Illinois AAUP has already weighed in, and the local Campus Faculty Association also believes an AAUP investigation is likely.

My predictions were accurate. The AAUP has vindicated Professor Steven Salaita about as thoroughly as is possible. Perhaps UIUC will reinstate him. Probably not. Perhaps the AAUP’s censure will increase the chances he’ll be hired elsewhere.

This case is a powerful reminder of exactly what happens when the limits of acceptable political discourse are set by wealthy people and institutions with their own interests. If academic inquiry is to remain a tool of progress, it is vital we learn from the case of Professor Steven Salaita and vigorously resist any attempts to impose political tests on university faculty, whether or not we agree with their particular opinions. This is a lesson that politically-minded people of all different beliefs must internalize.

“First they came for the loudmouthed professors, and I did not speak out because I was not a loudmouthed professor…”

Read the full paper: “You Can’t Fire Me; I Quit!” Academic freedom and the case of Steven Salaita”

“The whole world is watching”

2011-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Criticisms of #Occupy have often focused on its lack of a centralized agenda. My reporting from Occupy Providence, especially during the week that I lived there, has focused on contextualizing individuals’ goals in the broader movement. Learning more about the many issues and viewpoints that are represented at any #Occupy event has been fascinating and informative. At times divergent, they were united by their shared space; we Occupied Together. Occupying Together implies not just sleeping in the same park, but being part of the same movement with people with whom you actively disagree. As a community-building model and decision-making process, this is powerful.

But without the shared space, what does #Occupy do?

Last night, occupiers in Zucotti Park were evicted with tear gas and pepper spray.Journalists were removed and prevented from documenting (see Josh Stearns’ excellent ongoing tracking of journalist arrests at #Occupy events everywhere). It bears repeating: when the police prevent journalists from filming an event, it’s almost always because they or the decision-makers don’t think that what they’re doing is defensible (or legal see below). Furthermore, it goes without saying that denying the public information about current events is a very good tactic in preventing them from mobilizing, which is pretty clearly the motive here.

All this said, there’s been some interesting commentary on how this fiasco could end up benefiting #Occupy. Here’s Ezra Klein:

The occupation of Zuccotti Park was always going to have a tough time enduring for much longer. As the initial excitement wore off and the cold crept in, only the diehards — and those with no place else to go — were likely to remain. The numbers in Zuccotti Park would thin, and so too would the media coverage. And in the event someone died of hypothermia, or there was some other disaster, that coverage could turn. What once looked like a powerful protest could come to be seen as a dangerous frivolity.

Now more than ever, the future of #Occupy depends on mobilizing around concrete goals. Lots of people within the movement are going to resist that, but there’s only so long they can fight over the physical space of Zucotti Park (or any other location) without becoming irrelevant. The occupations were an excellent way of bringing people together and getting attention. Mayor Bloomberg has done us a favor by throwing #Occupy back into the spotlight, but it seems likely that this sort of eviction is going to occur elsewhere as well in Oakland, it already has. It’s time to use the renewed media attention, as well as the ongoing legal battle over #OWS’ right to occupy Zucotti Park, to organize Occupiers everywhere around a core set of political principles and achievable goals.

I’m debating on exactly this topic on Friday at 4. If you’re in the Providence area, please come by, share your opinions, and join the conversation!

Oakland, Keystone XL, and the future of #Occupy

2011-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

The situation at Occupy Oakland continues to deterioriate:

A man was shot to death on Thursday near a downtown Oakland plaza where hundreds of anti-Wall Street activists have camped out for a month, stoking renewed calls by some city officials to evict the protesters.

It’s not clear yet whether the victim and/or shooter were involved in Occupy Oakland, or just near it. Either way, this is bad press something that Occupy really needs to avoid. That said, this is dumb (same article):

“Tonight’s incident underscores the reason why the encampment must end. The risks are too great,” [Oakland Mayor Jean] Quan said. “We need to return (police) resources to addressing violence throughout the city. It’s time for the encampment to end. Camping is a tactic, not a solution.”

Quan certainly didn’t seem too concerned about wasting police resources on October 25th. But there’s a larger lesson to be learned here: #Occupy is running out of capital. If the movement doesn’t translate to substantive political action very soon, it will lose steam.

“Political action?” you say? “Politics is messy and full of special interests. Politics will dilute the message and subvert Occupy’s grassroots, democratic nature.”

Well, yes. But “politics” doesn’t just mean lobbyists and committee hearings (although those are pretty important too). Politics is the process of organizing constituent groups around issues with specific goals in mind. Occupy brought together a lot of people with a lot of ideas, and that’s been incredibly valuable in and of itself. Now it’s time to make the jump to issue-based organizing. That doesn’t mean we have to give up the incredible democratic and people-powered nature of Occupy, it just means that there needs to be some serious top-down leadership to put together real, workable campaigns.

For example:

…a few minutes ago the president sent the pipeline back to the State Department for a thorough re-review, which most analysts are saying will effectively kill the project.The president explicitly noted climate change, along with the pipeline route, as one of the factors that a new review would need to assess. Theres no way, with an honest review, that a pipeline that helps speed the tapping of the worlds second-largest pool of carbon can pass environmental muster.

And he has made clear that the environmental assessment wont be carried out by cronies of the pipeline companythat it will be an expert and independent assessment.

That was veteran environmental activist Bill McKibben on the Keystone XL pipeline, which, thanks to an ongoing campaign including over one thousand arrests and culminating in a giant protest at the White House last weekend, looks decreasingly likely to be approved. This is one of the environmental movement’s biggest victories in an uncomfortably long time. It came about because a) there are a lot of people who care enough about the issues to go to DC and protest in person, and b) because a few people took charge and coordinated a highly visible event, paying serious attention to strategy and media outreach.

What can #Occupy learn from this? That it’s not enough to have passionate people on your side. If it were, we’d never have gone to war in Iraq. We’d never have passed the PATRIOT act. We’d never have assassinated an American citizen on foreign soil without anything even resembling due process. And we wouldn’t continue using unmanned drones to carry out indiscriminate attacks on uncertain targets.

So far, #Occupy’s energy has been focused on physically sustaining the occupations. That takes a lot of work, and the amount that’s been accomplished is nothing short of incredible. But if Occupy wants to move forward and make a real political difference (like, dare I say, the Tea Party?), we need substantive goals and action strategies. It’s clearly possible to turn people out for actions; Occupy Providence had a really strong presence a few weekends ago in a demonstration to support their continued occupation of Burnside Park, and have also been sending folks to Bank of America in groups to close their accounts and move their money to local banks. But actions like this have largely been invisible to the media and not coordinated at a national level. That can’t continue.

Living at Occupy Providence for a week was a really incredible experience. I have real faces and experiences to consider when I think about the movement faces and experiences other than my own. I try to see things from the perspective of the homeless, the unemployed, and those who’ve been far less privileged than I in any number of ways. The commitment and kindness I’ve encountered at Occupy Providence has been nothing short of inspiring.

I hope that others feel the same way and I hope that inspiration moves us to question our assumptions about what it means to be a movement. Grassroots support and centralized leadership aren’t mutually exclusive; rather, they’re vital co-components of any successful activism strategy.

I want desperately for #Occupy to succeed. We need to define success and articulate a clear plan of action to get ourselves there. Complicated problems require complicated solutions, so let’s not sell ourselves short.

Soldiers and terrorists

2011-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

It’s commendable that Israel cares about its soldiers so much that it’s willing to trade over 1000 prisoners for one of them. I wish that were true of our country we’ve stopped noticing the bodies coming home from Afghanistan, much less the injured or captured. But a friend of mine made a good point yesterday: the simple math here implies that soldiers, perhaps by virtue of being uniformed, rather than non-uniformed, combatants, are inherently more valuable. Armies are certainly not the same as terrorists, but at the end of the day, they’re both trying to kill people. I’m troubled by the implication that soldiers inherently deserve freedom while combatants do not especially given most armies’ historical lack of internal accountability.

I’m not trying to claim that Gilad Shalit is complicit in some unspecified war crime. But if I had a reason to believe he might be, he’d still be elevated to hero status because of his uniform. Palestinian prisoners aren’t afforded that privilege. Domestically, yes, but internationally, no. So in a way, this exchange further entrenches the narrative of the peace-loving Israeli and the revenge-driven Palestinian.

I’m overjoyed that a young man who’s been held in cruel conditions for an unspeakable amount of time is returned to his family. I hope that we’ll come to recognize Palestinians as deserving the same dignity we instinctively afford to Israeli soldiers.

My first night at Occupy Providence

2011-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

I don’t want to be blindly supportive of the Occupy movement. I don’t want to blindly condemn it. I don’t want to be blind at all. In a movement as experiential as this one, joining in is the best way to learn. I’m describing myself as an embedded journalist-activist, and, while I largely support the movement’s (ethereal) goals, I’m retaining some measure of aloofness. From a journalistic perspective, this lets me critique the movement while being involved enough to feel like I’m part of a real and constructive conversation, rather than acting like a distant analyst with little connection the emotions and ideas this movement is bursting with.

My friend Noa and I arrived at Burnside Park at about 3:00 AM last (Monday) night, and after several interviews, fell asleep to the sounds of laughter and walkie-talkies, in a seven-person community tent (open to all; first come, first served). As early as 5:00 AM, cars drove by honking in support of the signs all along the fence around the park.

I’ll be staying here for the rest of the week. I’m posting now from the tent I’ve set up for myself and other Brown students. Noa took all of the pictures here, as well as more which can be found on my Flickr.

Artemis: The Red Tape Army

Artemis (known to all here as “Ma”) is coordinating the Red Tape Army, which began as a small corps of medical volunteers, and has expanded its duties to include general hospitality tasks such as distributing blankets and food. Anotherone of Artemis’ stated goals is to hug every single person who comes through the park.

From 1999 to 2001, Artemis was homeless, living on Thayer Street on College Hill. The Finlandia co-op often provided her with food, and she also recalls sleeping on their couches regularly. From our conversation, it was readily apparent that she remains highly aware of the unique challenges the homeless face; much of her work here is in a sort of unofficial homeless-outreach capacity. She buys the homeless “kids” $1 pizza at the nearby 7-11, and has brought a lot of them into Occupy Providence by helping them out in this way. Her compassion for the many homeless who were already living in Burnside Park when Occupy came in, as well as for those who’ve joined after, is readily apparent. She told me of a homeless man whom she helped out one night; he returned the next day to tell her “Because of you, I didn’t commit suicide.” She says “That’s what it’s about – I don’t care about the political end.”

It would be easy to decry the members of the Providence homeless community as free-riders; they’re benefiting from the donated tents, blankets, and food and drink that Occupy is collecting and distributing. However, the Occupiers consistently show an impressive amount of camaraderie with the homeless, who otherwise remain invisible to society in many ways. This kind of solidarity through cohabitation anddirect action is a testament to Occupy’s willingness to live out its principles of inclusion.

In yet another display of the pragmatism I’m discovering in all corners of Occupy, Artemis fully understands that we’re in a tenuous situation here. Of the future of Occupy Providence’s physical presence, she remarked “The cops have been great, but we’re pushing it now.”

Felicia: “We need to be heard.”

Felicia is a member of the Red Tape Army. She was working the 2-8 shift when I talked with her outside the main medical tent. She’s in business school, and got involved in Occupy on Saturday night. She came back after church on Sunday, and has been here ever since. I started to ask her about some of her reasons for being here, but was interrupted by a squawk from her walkie-talkie; all the medical volunteers carry one. Once she confirmed that she wasn’t needed, we continued. “I can’t really pick one thing,” she responded when I named a few of the reasons others had given for their involvement. “We need to be heard.”

Felicia, too, underscored the message of respect for the police. “If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be here.” She also spoke about respecting the park and keeping it clean. I asked her about next steps – she wants Occupy to start talking to politicians, joining and organizing rallies at the statehouse and City Hall – to be heard everywhere possible.

Going forward, a focus on visibility of the kind Felicia expressed will be vital. If Occupy doesn’t continue to expand into new areas, to bring in new attention, energy, and ideas, it will stagnate. To really be heard, we need to constantly look for new ways to express ourselves.

Dave Taveres: “I am a capitalist, but at the same time, that doesn’t give you the right to take advantage of people.”

I stopped Dave as he walked along the edge of Burnside Park, observing the signs and the tents clustered inside. He works in Pawtucket (he described his job as “blue-collar”), and has seen Occupy’s presence here when he takes the bus at Kennedy Plaza next to the park. He’s worked a lot with the homeless in the past, and agrees with Occupy’s messages of opposition to corporate greed – he feels that the government doesn’t care about this problem.

His quote above is reflective of a lot of the sentiment I’m picking up here. Many Occupiers communicate a genuine sense of betrayal – they really feel that they’ve worked hard and that society has failed to recognize and reward them for it. Occupy is far from the only movement to hold this sentiment, but it’s a powerful one.

Annie: “These things take time.”

Annie has been homeless for the past 3 months, and declined to have her picture taken. She became closer to Occupy last night, through Artemis. She doesn’t know many of the Occupiers or the other homeless, and rightly observed that Occupy Providence is “a fledgling group. It takes time. These things take time.”

The homeless community seems to be a much bigger part of Occupy here than they do elsewhere. I was particularly interested in hearing more about what they need from the movement. Annie said that she could use help finding housing, but she acknowledged that Occupy has a lot of other priorities as well; “the peace movement, and social justice.”

“Winds of change. Winds of change going on,” she told me. “I think a good socialist movement is necessary here in RI and throughout the country – it’s time for change. It’s a movement whose time has come.”

Occupy Providence: “This is what an activist dreams about.”

2011-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

I spent about an hour on Sunday afternoon at Occupy Providencein Burnside Park, interviewing occupiers, taking pictures, and trying to get a general sense of the tenor of the movement. I was motived by dissatisfaction with most of the reporting I’ve seen on the Occupy movement. The tendency seems to be to do some obligatory man-on-the-street interviews, and then turn the footage back over to in-studio talking heads to make points they were going to make anyway. In other words, Occupy is being used to reinforce existing narratives about politics, social issues, and class.

However, most social movements have compelling narratives of their own. Occupy is no exception. I encountered a multitude of viewpoints on a variety of issues. Perhaps most informative were the responses that Occupiers gave when I asked for their opinion on potential problemswith the movement. I decided to do this because I wanted to break the paradigm whereby protestors state goals and pundits critique them. I wanted to hear the movement’s critiques of itself: what might go wrong, what needs to happen to “succeed,” what “succeeding” will actually look like, and so on. I didn’t get answers to all of these questions, but I’m planning to go back, and hopefully to camp outfor at least a couple nights in the next few days as an embedded Occupier-journalist.

Here are some of the stories of the people I met today. All photos are mine, except where otherwise noted, and are available under a Creative Commons license (details).

Gretchen and Arrash Jaber: “More than just politics”

Gretchen didn’t specify her education level she’s currently employed full-time as a mother (the couple’s son was at the tent with them). When I asked why they were there, Gretchen told me she wanted to “be a part of making a change.” Arrash has a bachelor’s degree and is currently employed. He feels that the Occupy movement isn’t a purely political one he listed “cleaning up the city [Providence]” as one of the things he thought local Occupiers could organize around, in addition to some more hypothetical concepts like uniting globally with the working- and middle-classes.

In my experience, when a nonviolent demonstration begins to treat the police as its enemies, it immediately begins to lose both moral and practical high ground. During the hour or so I spent at Occupy Providence today, I saw Providence police officers engaged in friendly conversation with various organizers. Arrash put words on this phenomenon: he wanted the demonstrators to respect the police and to talk to them. I pointed out that the police are often part of the very same working class that liberal social movements commonly try to represent he agreed emphatically.

The Providence Fire Department has also lent material support to Occupy Providence they donated three tents, which were at the time of my visit being used for media. The fire department had even gone so far as to label one of the tents (click for larger images):

Jonathan Lewis: “This is what an activist dreams about.”

Jonathan is self-employed in nonviolence training. He’s the founder of the Positive Peace Warrior Network. After driving by Occupy Providence yesterday, he decided to return to camp out. I asked him about the way forward could Occupy’s success in physically bringing people together be translated into legislative action? Would the movement’s grassroots energy need to be sacrificed? He replied that it’s “not an either-or” that it’s about “displaying unity” between these two fronts. His enthusiasm for in-person organizing was balanced by this pragmatic approach to the messy process of electoral politics another good sign for Occupy as it progresses.

Kyla Coburn and Andy Trench: “Targeted change”

Kyla and Andy work together as interior designers. They’d just arrived at the park with their two children when I met them. Andy was largely on kid duty, so Kyla did most of the talking Andy said they shared the same brain anyway.

One of Kyla’s primary concerns was message clarity she believes it will be absolutely vital in order to move Democrats. She expressed a personal desire to see Occupy coalesce around a message of “targeted change” toward corruption, rather than descending into a fiasco of “shaking a stick at the haves from the have-nots.” As we talked, she repeatedly underscored that she wasn’t there in support of a platform of anti-capitalism, but one of anti-corruption. This stands in strong contradiction to claims made by conservative media figures implying (orexplicitly stating) that Occupy is a cover for socialists (gasp!) or something else equally scary and “un-American.”

I pressed Kyla on the details of message centralization. By what process should this be accomplished? At what level? She wants to see Occupy’s message unified nationally and articulated into ten points to be disseminated, and is concerned that Occupy’s potential, namely its grassroots nature and wide appeal, could also undermine it as the “Republican media” (she named Fox News in particular) use soundbites to discredit the movement as a whole.

In too many cases, movements become bifurcated as organizers attempt to control the message while members seek to retain individuality. The fact that the individual members of Occupy are concerned with this issue is a very good sign. If Occupy does begin to articulate a national platform, I hope that individual members of the movement will be as receptive as Kyla was hopeful.

I’ll wrap up with a quote from Andy Trench, which was echoed by Michael McCarthy, one of the main organizers of Occupy Providence:

People can’t take for granted that other people are going to do that work for them. They have to come down here and actually put that time in.

Occupy Providence is on Facebook and Twitter. Connect with them there for ongoing updates, and stay tuned here for more interviews, photos, and thoughts on the movement as a whole. I’ll also be tweeting during my camp-out in the park follow me on Twitter @renaissanceboy.

Tell me what a feminist looks like

2011-09-20T00:00:00+00:00

I took this video at SlutWalk Providence on Saturday. We gathered in Burnside Park and marched over I-95, ending on Broadway. I was also fortunate enough to be quoted in the Brown Daily Herald:

HarpoJaeger’14 attended “in support of other people’s right to call themselves what they want and do what they want,” he said. He added that he thought it was important for men to attend the event because “there’s a perception that feminism is only for angry women who don’t like men, but it should be possible for everyone to support women’srights.”

I’d worried about going to SlutWalk as a man that it might seem to the non-men there that I was cashing in on the excitement/activism/sexiness or trying to prove my feminist cred. I won’t even attempt to pretend I didn’t enjoy getting interviewed, but I was a bit worried that that too might be seen as stealing the stage. After all, most of the people there were female, queer, or otherwise less privileged than me, the upper-middle class straight cisgendered white Jewish guy who showed up wearing a t-shirt for a privately-funded elite political institutionafter taking school-subsidized public transportation down the hill from my Ivy League university.

So I felt a bit extraneous. Here I am, in just about as great a position in society as anyone can be, listening to queer speakers, speakers who make seventy-seven cents to my dollarand speakerswho are victims of rape and domestic abuse. What on earth can I contribute as an activist? Isn’t my presence insulting to people who actually deal with gender discrimination and sexual violence on a daily basis? I’m no doubt guilty of some of the things that we were protesting!

Feminism, like any movement for social change, is constantly derided and marginalized through the use of distortions of fact and motive. Conservative media, anti-feminist figures and institutions, and the day-to-day sexism in our society conspire to denigrate feminism as the last refuge of a man-hater (does that make me a self-hating man?). SlutWalk is part of a rising tide of new feminism, completely outside of that false zero-sum paradigm. The theoretical and academic infrastructure has existed for a while, but it’s only recently that I’ve started to see the philosophy playing out in real life, especially outside of the realm of “materially, financially privileged white women.” But it’s happening.

So:

I SlutWalked in place of those who could not be there. Victims of domestic or sexual violence. Victims of pay discrimination who have to work extra time to make the same money as their male colleagues. Victims of informal and formal structures that devalue women for being women.

I SlutWalked in support of slut self-determination. The only person who can decide whether to call someone a slut is that someone themself.

And I SlutWalked because this is everyone’s feminism. This is your feminism, his feminism, her feminism, hir feminism, and my feminism. This is what a feminist looks like.

Bienvenido a Oaxaca?

2011-07-05T00:00:00+00:00

About 30 minutes after writing my last post, I got mugged. On the side of a busy road, in broad daylight. Ciertamente, soy un gringo! I was using my phone outside the Instituto Cultural for a few minutes, and a dude ran up to me, flicking a switchblade out of his pocket. Dame , dame el telfono! — Give me the phone! Obviously, I did. I’m mostly glad that he didn’t take my wallet or stab me – plenty to be grateful for.

A good friend of mine got me the book Whatever It Takes for my recent birthday. It’s about Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children’s Zone, an organization he created that takes a fundamentally different approach to fighting poverty than any other I’ve ever heard of. The book is a) incredibly well-written, b) dealing with subjects that are both fascinating and vital, and c) the only book I brought on this trip, so I’ve now read it cover-to-cover 3 times.

HCZ was created out of a frustration with the way that existing social service organizations intrinsically single out subgroups within poor populations to receive aid. This is especially true (and especially problematic) in education.

For example, I grew up attending two wonderful charter schools. I wouldn’t trade the education I received at them for anything, but it’s a huge privilege to have attended. Despite the fact that charter schools are open to anyone, it takes a certain kind of parent to investigate alternatives to a district school, to enter the charter school lottery, and to commit to the extra work that attending a charter school often entails (transportation, etc.). At their best, charter schools are laboratories for new ideas in education, prioritizing community outreach and underserved populations, but at their worst, they reinforce existing class and race divisions. Dedicated administrators, like those at the schools I attended, have their work cut out for them in trying to avoid the latter.

This dynamic is present in lots of organizations, and Geoffrey Canada wanted to change it. HCZ is comprised of a series of programs (parenting help, preschool, elementary, middle, and high school, and more), designed to provide a seamless “conveyor belt” of social improvement programs for children from before they’re even born to the time they graduate high school, and beyond. It’s based on the substantial research showing that the earlier you intervene in an underserved and underskilled child’s life, the easier it is to get them back on track. Canada wanted to change the lives not just of a few kids who he happened to reach, but of the entire population of Harlem, in a rigorous and scalable fashion. HCZ gets far closer to that goal than any other organization I’ve ever heard of, and is likely to be the only way to make any kind of serious headway on urban poverty.

So once the initial shock of being on the wrong end of a knife died down (and after realizing that my mugger probably needs the phone more than I do), I got to thinking about the sort of society that creates people like him. Obviously, being poor doesn’t excuse turning to crime — but lecturing about the moral failings of the poor doesn’t do much for society either. In Mexico, as in Harlem, there are probably specific interventions, especially in the lives of children, that could drastically transform the way society treats its poor, and drastically increase their upward mobility. Effectively, HCZ is a systems thinking approach to poverty, and it marks a much more realistic way of looking at the problem, one that we upper-middle class white Americans should try to internalize. Given the amount of resources we have available to deal with poverty, we should be doing a much better job of thinking about how to allocate them effectively.

Oaxaca

2011-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

I arrived in Oaxaca later yesterday afternoon after a 7-hour bus ride from Mexico City. I managed to get to my host family’s house pretty easily, although it was a bit nerve-wracking to knock on the door of the place I’ll be living for the next month, without knowing anything about them. They’ve turned out to be wonderful, though – a big family with plenty of little kids, who I’m told are the best Spanish teachers one could ask for.

The student who was staying with this family before I arrived (we overlapped by a day) remarkedthat it seemsOaxacans never sleep – it seems like there’s always some sort of celebration going on. Based on last night, I’m inclined to agree. I had an outrageously comical “first-night-in-a-new-country” experience. Since it was a Friday night, folks were out on the street pretty late, but I was exhausted, so I went to bed around 10. Pretty much as soon as I closed my door, an entire parade went by my window, complete with mariachi band and police cars. They were even shooting off fireworks in the street! And of course each time they did, every car alarm in the city would go off, and then all the dogs would start barking at the car alarms, and then parrots would start shrieking at the dogs. It was about the noisiest welcome to Oaxaca I could have asked for!

We had orientation at the ICO this morning, and I had a delicious lunch in the Zocalo, a big open pedestrian square, with a lot of shops – somewhat touristy, but really fun (and made infinitely better by the two men playing ‘”Dance the Night Away” and Coldplay’s “Clocks” on a marimba the size of my bed). I also got a chance to go inside the church of Santo Domingo, which is covered almost completely with gold leaf, and is just about the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen. <div id='gallery-7' class='gallery galleryid-2124 gallery-columns-5 gallery-size-thumbnail'>

: El Instituto Cultural de Oaxaca

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Tomorrow, to an archeological dig. Classes start on Monday. Vamos!

Estoy en Mxico!

2011-06-30T00:00:00+00:00

For the next month, this blog is going to focus primarily, if not exclusively, on my travels in Mexico. I flew into Mexico City today, and will remain here until Friday morning, when I’ll be taking a bus down to Oaxaca. I’ll be studying Spanish there at the Instituto Cultural for the month of July.
It’s been a whirlwind afternoon – Mexico City is huge and confusing, especially since my Spanish is pretty abysmal at this point. I’ve seen some pretty desperate poverty so far, but I don’t think I’ve seen enough of the city to have a good grasp of it as a whole. The neighborhood I’m in also seems to have some fairly affluent folks as well.
This should be a very interesting month. Stay tuned…

Putting words into practice

2011-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

On the road with limited Internet connectivity right now, but this is a big deal:

The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy shadow Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.

This is concrete evidence that the current administration really gets how important the Internet can be, and is willing to put time and money into helping people use it even when their governments won’t. Says Hillary Clinton:

“We see more and more people around the globe using the Internet, mobile phones and other technologies to make their voices heard as they protest against injustice and seek to realize their aspirations,”

More of this, please.

False equivalencies

2011-05-05T00:00:00+00:00

Pew Research Center’s most recent Political Typology report (h/t Jonathan Chait) classifies Americans by general political positions, and divides responses to issue-based polling along those classifications. There’s a ton of incredibly interesting information in this report, but here’s one of the best survey questions:

The typical media portrayal of the debate on the deficit (or really, on government expenditures in general) is this: one one side, we have Republicans, who overwhelmingly favor both tax and spending cuts, and on the other we have Democrats, who only want to tax-and-spend, tax-and-spend. First of all, Pew’s data shows that Republicans are not uniformly in favor of arbitrarily “reducing the size of government” there’s a good deal of internal division. More importantly, however, liberals are largely united around a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. There’s no indication here that liberals are instinctively “pro-spending,” as some in the GOP would like you to believe.

Of course, these particular data don’t go into the specifics of how tax revenue should be raised and how spending should be cut – that information is further on in the report. But it’s also significant that the Democratic position of reducing the deficit through a combination of tax increase and spending cuts is far more representative of overall public opinion than the hard-right Republican position of cutting taxes and spending. This is not to say that the Democratic position is necessarily right because it polls well there are many cases where a significant section of the public holds opinions that are demonstrably false (see Birthers) but it would be nice if we stopped looking at this debate as one over whether to spend less or spend more. Everyone agrees we should spend less. The disagreements arise around two things:onwhat should we spend less, and should spending cuts should be the only mechanism for reducing the deficit. The first of those two areas of disagreement requires a real, vibrant public debate on national priorities, a debate which we’re seeing very little of. On that second issue, we have a discourse where one side takes a hardline position which is largely at odds with what the public thinks, and the other side takes a more moderate, diplomatic, and workable position that is basically in line with what the country wants.

Guess which side gets more attention?

Mayor Higgins’ Handouts from Noho budget forum

2011-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

As promised, here are the two handouts that Mayor Higgins provided at the Northampton city budget forum last Thursday. Both are PDFs.

City of Northampton State Aid and benefit Costs

City of Northampton FY12 Budget Issues

Tonight’s forum on the Northampton budget

2011-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

I attended a forum tonight on the Northampton municipal budget, and its relation to state budgetary processes. The mayor of Northampton, Mary Clare Higgins, our State Representative Peter Kocot, State Senator Stanley Rosenberg, and City Councillor Pamela Schwartz (also the director of YES! Northampton, a group that advocates for the preservation and enhancement of local revenue to fund basic services such as education) all presented.

It was a really terrific overview of the challenges our community faces in balancing the budget without cutting local services such as education (which is the single largest expenditure in our town). It was also immensely refreshing to listen to dedicated politicians who weren’t afraid to talk about the facts and back it up with data. It’s a stark contrast to the anti-intellectualism so often proudly displayed at the federal level. In other words, I like knowing that the folks I elect to my government have an actual interest in, well, governing.

Here are the notes I took, which are as exhaustive as I could make them. I’m getting in touch with the offices of the Mayor and Rep. Kocot, who were both more than happy to provide me with a copy of the materials they brought with them, which are really instructive. As soon as I get those (hopefully tomorrow) I’ll post them here as well.

NYT executive editor Bill Keller gets it exactly right

2011-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

On the differences between the NYT and partisan news outlets:

The first is that we believe in verification rather than assertion. We put a higher premium on accuracy than on speed or sensation. When we report information, we look hard to see if it stands up to scrutiny

…

Being right is necessary but not sufficient. We also strive to be impartial. We are agnostic as to where a story may lead; we do not go into a story with a preconceived notion. We do not manipulate or hide facts to advance an agenda. We strive to preserve our independence from political and economic interests, including our own advertisers and including our own government. (NPR, whose news coverage I admire, must surely be wondering whether a federal subsidy is worth its vulnerability to the riptides of Congressional politics.)

…

But just as doctors and lawyers, teachers and military officers, judges and the police are expected to set aside their own politics in the performance of their duties, so are our employees. This does not mean as one writer recently scoffed that we poll people at both extremes of any issue, then paint a line down the middle and point to it as reality. It does not mean according equal weight to every point of view, no matter how far-fetched. (Sorry, birthers, but President Obama is an American citizen.) Impartiality is, for us, not just a matter of pretending to be neutral; it is a healthful, intellectual discipline. Once you proclaim an opinion, you may feel an urge to defend it, and that creates a temptation to overlook inconvenient facts when you should be searching them out.

I think this last part is exactly right. And I also like that Keller doesn’t fall into the traditional “this is all the fault of the bloggers” line of reasoning. In fact, he even takes a shot at that precept: “…worrying that the accelerated competition of Web news has undermined our premium on accuracy.”

There’s still, and will continue to be, a place for real, verifiable, reporting. Some if it is done in newspapers, some of it is done in blogs. There’s also a good deal of shoddy journalism in both. It’s heartening to see an executive at one of the finest news organizations in the country talking frankly about the structural incentives that shape the way news is produced and consumed. That’s the first step to better aligning those incentives with the public interest.

The FTC is asleep at the master switch

2011-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

Thanks to Tim Wu for the title inspiration.

AT&T announced on Sunday that it agreed to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom, in a $39 billion deal that will reshape the cellular telephone industry.

So says the NYT, confining their interest in the effects this deal will have on consumers to the following paragraph:

Already, some critics say the deal will result in higher prices for consumers. T-Mobile had offered some of the lowest rates in the county. While AT&T is expected to honor current T-Mobile contracts, it is likely that once those contracts expire, T-Mobile customers would be expected to pay AT&Ts higher rates.

…followed by:

Even so, AT&Ts bid will solve the problem facing T-Mobile USA, the smallest of the countrys four major cellphone service providers. Both companies operate on the same wireless standard, GSM. Through the deal, T-Mobile will finally gain a path for the next generation of cellphone data, known as 4G, by using AT&Ts forthcoming LTE standard.

Arguably, the reason that smaller providers like T-Mobile are having a hard time getting access to 4G infrastructure is because there’s so little meaningful competition in the wireless market to begin with (from my perspective, most of the competition is in marketing, not actual services provided). This deal promises to make all that worse, not better.

The deal will also drive enormous cost savings. The combined company is expected to shutter retail outlets in areas where they overlap as well eliminate overlapping back office, technical and call center staff. Marketing costs could also be cut. Cellular carriers have been one of the biggest advertising spenders in the nation.

I wouldn’t hang around on the edge of my seat for AT&T to pass those savings on to customers. Also, it would be nice if the NYT considered these “cost savings” from a perspective other than AT&T’s bottom line. Consolidating retail, office, technical, and support staff = job losses.

Yet one more piece of evidence that what’s good for industry isn’t always good for the country.

A conversation with CiF Watch

2011-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

When the J Street smear video broke (see my last post), CiF Watch tweeted a link to it, saying I was pro-BDS (I’m not). I replied, and over the next hour or so, we had a conversation about anti-semitism and anti-Zionism. I committed to writing a post exploring what I believe to be substantive differences between the two. I think an understanding of those differences is key for Zionists (or anyone who’s not an anti-Zionist) crying wolf at false cases of anti-semitism is not only incredibly damaging to those accused, which in and of itself should be enough of a reason not to do it, but ultimately counterproductive in actually identifying real cases of anti-semitism.

I’m planning to write that post tomorrow or early next week, but here’s the conversation that @CiFWatch and I had on Twitter. CiF Watch deleted their initial tweet claiming I was pro-BDS after I corrected them, so you won’t see that one here. Also note that the conversation goes on beyond the excerpt here hit the “view more” button at the bottom to see the whole thing.

Fisking yet another smear against J Street

2011-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

I was interviewed for the deceptively-title video “2011 J Street Conference.” I’m the guy in the beginning and then later on, with the orange striped shirt.

I left a comment on the video explaining that I was one of the subjects, and objected to the way in which my interview was used. Comments were subsequently disabled, so mine doesn’t show up anymore. I feel that the video is deceptively edited, not true to my opinions, and is being used as a smear against J Street, not as part of a “research project,” which is how the interviewer described it to me. I’ve learned my lesson, and will not agree to such interviews in the future without getting the contact info of the interviewer.

It’s worth dissecting the many messages contained in the video to understand the complexity of what’s going on here. I’ll therefore present a line-by-line transcript of the video (taken from the subtitles) and offer my opinion on each component. Obviously, I can’t speculate on the intentions of the other interviewees, but I’ll explain my positions in the two clips of my interview.

To begin with, the video is set to “Puff the Magic Dragon.” WTF? Is the implication that J Street’s leftist constituents are all stoners or pie-in-the-sky idealists? Either way, I’m pretty offended.

Me: “There is an oppressor and there is an oppressed. Israel is the oppressor and Gazans are being oppressed.”

This requires no justification. I’ve yet to hear a sensible argument against the proposition that Gazans are suffering at the hands of Israelis. Clearly Hamas is part of the picture, a largely corrupt organization with violent tactics that do not serve the Gazan civilian population. Nevertheless, Israel has choices in how to respond, and turning Gaza into a 1.5 million person open-air ghetto through a land and sea blockade and control of resources, airspace, and communications amounts to oppression, plain and simple.

“I support the Palestinians creating their Palestinian state and if need be declaring it unilaterally if there’s no negotiations on it and creating a *fait accompli *that Israel will have to live with.”

J Street’s official position remains that Palestine should be created through direct negotiations. However, it’s far from radical to propose alternate methods of statehood. In fact, a panel at the conference reflected this reality, discussing the implications of Palestinian statehood mechanisms. Confining discussion of Palestinian statehood to the negotiation-based peace process ignores the growing likelihood that this process will fail. Believe me, I have no desire to see that occur (I’m an optimist), but ignoring its likelihood would change me from an optimist to a denialist.

Q: “*Do you think Hamas is a terrorist organization?” *A: “Not any more than the IDF is.”

This one I disagree with. It’s a drastic oversimplification to say that the IDF is a terrorist organization, or at least that it’s more so than any other army. I believe this interviewee is wrong. That said, it’s also an oversimplification to label Hamas either terrorists or not terrorists. Do they use abominable tactics of killing, injuring, and frightening Israeli civilians? Yes. That, as the Goldstone report noted, makes them guilty of war crimes. But they came to power in a context where Palestinians were deeply unsatisfied with the slow progress of Fatah. Hamas provides legitimate social services and has, internally, done many important things for Gazans. Arguably, those are outweighed by the damage they do in helping provide a justification for the blockade. Furthermore, nothing excuses war crimes. But the fact remains: Hamas is a lot more complicated than just a bunch of guys with rockets. The question lends itself to oversimplification. When it was asked of me, I felt that that was the idea.

“Something is going to need to be done to force Israel’s hand one way or the other.”

This is pretty vague, and also fairly non-controversial. Hardcore Israel apologists will take issue with the characterization of “forcing Israel’s hand,” but that’s what diplomacy and international relations is aligning a nation’s self-interest with a desired outcome. As a peacenik, I have no illusions that Israel will suddenly decide the peace process is morally “right” until they are forced to realize it’s in their interest to do so. The same is true, for example, of the American occupation of Afghanistan.

“I think if you look around and you talk to people and you listen to who’s applauding and how loud and… you’ll find that people’s… people’s priorities are more with the activists for peace and justice and less interested in coddling the sort of centrist Zionists.”

Aside from the problems with judging an organization’s political alignment by applause, it’s ironic that this is used here, because I wish it was more true than it actually is. That said, I do understand J Street’s reasons for wooing centrists in the way it does. It’s just frustrating sometimes (welcome to politics). Whatever the case, this really isn’t very good smear material.

“Hamas is… there’s no one Hamas.”

Obviously there is in fact a political organization called Hamas, so this comment is a bit off, but the notion that Hamas is not some unified organization acting with well-defined strategy to destroy Israel is at least as off-base, if not more. I don’t entirely agree with this guy, but what he’s saying isn’t that outrageous.

*Q: “Do you think the Israel lobby in the United states has prevented the United States from –” *A: “Yes!” *Q (cont.): “…from succeeding in the peace process?” *A: “Yes, I do. And I am so glad for J Street actually.”

This is actually a good question, and I fully disagree with the answer. The Israel lobby is one of many factors in US inaction, but to blame it for the failure of negotiations is a drastic oversimplification.

“I do support the boycott of Israeli settlements and settlement products.”

There’s a legitimate argument to be made against such boycotts (I strongly support them), but it should be totally obvious that people specifically targeting settlements in a boycott are, even more clearly than those who don’t boycott at all, asserting the “legitimacy” of Israel as a state. If they didn’t, they’d be boycotting the whole thing. This is not to say that anyone engaged in a larger boycott of Israel is opposed to it conceptually, but someone who intentionally singles out settlements likely does so because they believe settlements specifically to be illegitimate.

Me: “Personally, I think I would like to see J Street embrace some of the language that is typically associated with the ‘Radical Left.’”

This is where the editing really gets to me. The point I’d been making here was that J Street’s opposition to what’s generally considered the political left (mainly the BDS movement,) while logically and politically sound, has led to some of J Street’s supporters and allies instinctually dismissing the language that BDS proponents often use to describe the conflict. Language like “oppression” (this is where the first clip of me came from). That language is, in many cases, accurate (as I noted before), and may be tactically useful in helping reclaim the feeling of a moral imperative for the work J Street does, an imperative usually confined to BDS supporters or the Israel-right-or-wrong crowd. I’d like to see J Street assert the validity of our work in a moral sense. The video makes it seem like I want J Street to start getting angry and vitriolic, which I don’t (and for the record, I think leftists do this far less frequently than they’re accused of).

*Q: “Do you support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction movement?” *A: “More now than I did!”

Providing thought-provoking information yet another example of the dangerous tactics J Street employs. G&d forbid an organization permit its activists to change their opinions!

That’s about all. If the interviewer or others involved in the creation of the video want to respond, I welcome discussion. Please pass this along to them if you know who they are.

Are bloggers journalists? Does it matter?

2011-02-06T00:00:00+00:00

This comment on Jewschool and the one directly following it got me thinking about the ethics of blogging. I’m certainly not the first to ask this question, and I tend to think that although there are certainly formalized differences between bloggers and journalists (the type of information they tend to cover, etc.,) we’re both responsible for our information. Perhaps because bloggers tend to have less editorial oversight, we feel *less responsible (and are less apt to be fired or penalized if we get a fact wrong,) but in reality, there’s a certain authority that comes with just *claiming to know facts. Anyone with a website that’s at least somewhat respectable i.e. not a conspiracy theorist is likely to be taken at least somewhat seriouslyfrom the get-go.

So bloggers, regardless of how impartial we are,should strive for the same level of integrity as journalists do. Similarly, we should recognize that blogging, like journalism, can serve an important public function, and we should try to live up to that. Which is why this is particularly disgusting:

There has been widespread condemnation of the violence directed against journalists covering events in Egyptand there should be. But honestly, I dont have a great deal of sympathy for those who have been attacked.

Journalists have a job to do, but when they take huge risks for the sake of ratings and then find themselves in trouble, its hard to take seriously any shock that media executives express about their journalists being targeted.

Despite news organizations’ general preference for ad revenue over real journalism, the fact remains that correspondents in the field are putting themselves in harm’s way for the sake of spreading important information.

Journalists should use judgment and not race into the middle of what amounts to a massive bar room brawl without expecting something bad to happen.

First of all, the situation in Egypt only “amounts to a massive bar room brawl” if half the people in said brawl were paid to be there and to instigate violence. Second of all, I imagine those journalists did expect something to happen. They knew very well what they were getting into, and they did it anyway. That’s laudable.

Bottom line: bloggers and journalists have been providing us with incredibly important information on the ground in Egypt. Show some respect, people.

The new abolitionists?

2011-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

Dave Weigel:

Many pro-life activists consider their work a continuation of other movements that protected human life and elevated the status of people whom the law doesn’t consider “human.” In the 19th century, it was African-Americans; in the 21st century, it’s children in the womb. This is a common point at the annual March for Life. In 2009, Rep. Jeff Fortenberrytold activists at the pro-life event: “You are the new abolitionists. You are the new civil-rights movement.”

I think this is a deceptive metaphor. Giving blacks full civil rights was a recognition of the fact that the government had no business permitting their status as second-class citizens. Individual citizens are obviously free to think what they want about racial equality (being racist isn’t illegal), but in conducting business or public affairs, they have to treat all people equally.

Laws permitting abortion don’t *require *anyone to 1) believe that abortions are okay, or 2) have one. In this way, the right of citizens to make private choices about a private matter (analogousto one’s right to believe black people are inferior to white people) is left intact. But the fundamental difference between the two cases is that no one’s life is threatened by their being forced to treat blacks and whites equally in public. They may not like it, but they can (and have) learned to live with it (one of the many sacrifices people have to make to live in an at least somewhat cohesive society).

Forcing all people to recognize an unborn child as deserving of the same Constitutional status as the woman who’s carrying that child ignores the fact that having a baby has a huge impact on people other than the baby, primarily the mother. While I wouldn’t claim that anyone who’s anti-choice is automatically anti-feminist, this is the reason I can’t totally shake the feeling that refusing to allow a woman a choice that is at its core about her own body and what she wants to do with it is tantamount to declaring that her only function is to have babies (and that someone else gets to decide when she does it).

Check out J Street’s newest campaign

2011-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

I wrote a post at Jewschool on J Street’s campaign to get Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (House Foreign Affairs chairwoman) to return campaign contributions from a top funder of East Jerusalem settlements.

Still refusing to see the pattern

2011-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

Will Wilkinson at DiA:

But try as we might to cushion the whole world, there will remain an infinite storehouse of freakishly singular hazards that elude imagination and defy the generalisation that feeds caution.

He’s referring, of course, to the Tuscon shooting, and he makes the case that those of us who are calling for stronger gun regulations in the wake of the tragedy are just overreacting and should wait until we calm down.

The things we already fear and already desire more thoroughly to control are most vividly salient to us. We seize on those: guns, crazy people. Did Jared Lee Loughner shoot government officials with a gun?Ban guns within 1,000 feet of government officials! Was Jared Lee Loughner detectably crazy?Make involuntary commitment easier! Did Jared Lee Loughner buy a gun while detectably crazy?Tighten background-screening requirements!Did Jared Lee Loughner’s gun sport an extended magazine?Ban extended magazines!

I think he’s over-psychologizing people like me. Obviously we’re a bit worked up about the whole thing federal officials were gunned down in broad daylight! Forgive me if that’s something I get a bit upset about.

Some of these proposals may have merit, but no more now than on Friday. The issues they address have become no more urgent.Sadly, people are shot to death every day. The odd and the infirm roam our streets. Some of them buy guns and use them.

This is a complete strawman argument. No one’s claiming that gun crimes are more of a danger now than they were a few days ago. But the issue is in the public eye right now, and I think Wilkinson understates the extent to which the very remedies he makes fun of would actually help the problem. The reason people are shot to death every day is because we make it incredibly easy for people (including crazy ones) to buy guns and ammunition.

Ezra Klein agrees with Wilkinson:

There are certain tragedies or disasters that relate to a very specific policy failure.

…

But the conditions in which action makes sense — when a policy failure is clear, and when fixing that policy will prevent recurrences of the tragedy in the future — don’t seem to me to be present here.

I just don’t see how either Wilkinson or Klein can come to this conclusion. There’s a clear policy failure the expiry of the assault weapons ban, which would have prevented Loughner from buying a 9mm semi-automatic Glock with a high-capacity magazine (under the [sound] logic that this particular gun really has no discernible use except as an assault weapon that is, exactly how Loughner used it), and fixing it will absolutely prevent this sort of thing in the future.

The bottom line is this: no matter how hard we try (and in this country, we don’t try very hard), we can’t get every violent crazy person off the street. We can stop selling them guns. Until we do, we have to stop looking at events like this as isolated. The shooter might have a different story each time, but what they all have in common is a gun.

The long haul: sustainable self-determination

2010-12-19T00:00:00+00:00

Last Wednesday, J Street Western MA held a panel discussion following a screening of Budrus (which you should see) at a local movie theater. Almost 130 people stayed after the film for the discussion overall, quite a successful night. The discussion was moderated by Stephanie Levin, a member of the J Street Western MA steering committee, and the panelists were Melanie Harris and Ira Stup. A wide range of opinions were represented in the audience, including a sizeable number of HSJP and WMCP activists. I stuck around after the discussion and had an excellent conversation with some of them, which prompted me to do some serious thinking, both on the spot and afterwards.

One of the primary justifications for the BDS movement is the call by numerous Palestinian civil institutions for its use as a tactic to force the end of the occupation, the disassembly of the separation barrier, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. The unanimity of this appeal is impressive and grants a great deal of legitimacy to the tactic and its supporters. It also has the effect of forcing opponents, or at least those who don’t fully embrace it (such as myself), to seriously consider the justification for their position. In other words, how can one engage in non-BDS-centered activism while still truly supporting Palestinian self-determination?

This is an important question, one that people like me need to pose to ourselves quite seriously. I thank the HSJP and WMCP folks who opened my eyes to a new standard by which I have to measure my own activism, and I hope that our continued efforts and dialogue push others to do the same. After a good deal of thought, I feel a renewed belief in J Street’s work, and although that probably wasn’t what the WMCPers had in mind, they should still be proud for pushing me to grapple with the topic. Here are my (now newly updated) thoughts on how J Street’s actions are consistent with the cause of Palestinian self-determination.

First, a working definition. Wikipedia defines self-determination as “…the principle in international law, that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference.” I’m going to assume we all agree that there’s no way Palestinians can be said to possess the right of self-determination currently. Therefore, the question remaining is: how do we deliver it to them as speedily and sustainably as possible? Here’s where the BDS movement and J Street differ (I generalize a wide range of opinion exists within both of these camps, often overlapping, but we’ll work with BDS’ core principals and J Street’s official position on BDS).

The BDS movement is based around the concept that standing in solidarity with Palestinians directly affirms their inherent right to self-determination. On this, I agree. The nonviolent resistance movement has gained legitimacy and power through the involvement of non-Palestinians, and we who believe in it should continue to raise our voices.

But ultimately, our mission is to create a political framework that will become a real and lasting State of Palestine, a state which by definition will be the exemplification of real and lasting Palestinian self-determination. By choosingnot to take a position on borders, security, one state vs. two states, or a host of other issues that are the building blocks of Middle East peace, the BDS movement sacrifices the ability to aid in accomplishing that mission. I’m not claiming that a movement must support a two-state solution in orderto support Palestinian self-determination, just that it must articulate some political mechanism by which that self-determination is to be preserved.

I too stand in solidarity with the Palestinians, but I struggle for a future where they don’t need my solidarity, a future where they can exercise their democratic rights without the help of international witnesses and activists, in a state of their own, in peace.

It’s just what armies do

2010-10-23T00:00:00+00:00

The major thing I’m taking away from the latest Wikileaks release is that it’s pretty inaccurate to evaluate an army as anything other than a group of individuals. People all over the ideological map make this mistake all the time, whether it’s the US army being referred to as a “liberator”, the IDF being called “the most moral army in the world”, or, from the other direction, ours being painted as ruthless colonizers or the IDF as an entity hell-bent on abusing Palestinian detainees. Both of these descriptions might be accurate in terms of what the army does, but they don’t hold water in terms of explaining why. And this is where Wikileaks fills in the blanks.

You can train an army all you want, but it’s still made of individual people. You can adopt as complex a strategy as you want, but you’re still relying on those individual people to carry it out. At the end of the day, an army is just a collection of people with guns, and all evidence shows that when you give people the kind of power associated with carrying a gun and serving in an army, things go wrong. It’s inherent to the concept of an army in general. Clearly, individual soldiers can be held responsible for their actions, but to claim that those actions prove that the army is “immoral” is missing the point. Of course it’s immoral! It’s an army! Its job is to fight and kill people.

The sooner we stop conceptualizing our own army as the harbingers of democracy, the sooner we can really grapple with the implications of our military involvement. The sooner we stop excusing war crimes by the IDF, the sooner we can really understand the effects of military occupation. We don’t have to look at soldiers from either as evil they’re just normal people. But when normal people become soldiers, they necessarily help carry out the function of the army. And we shouldn’t ever forget what that is.

POSTING OVERLOAD

2010-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

I’m on FIRE today! Check out my Jewschool post on the Forward/BJPA survey on Jewish attitudes towards Israel and Park51 (two great tastes that taste great together!), as well as my more substantive New Voices post criticizing the traditional form of Jewish campus opposition to BDS.

More on this blog coming soon I’m on a roll with the local zoning stuff…

Historical commissions and societal progress

2010-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

In the Northampton area, community preservation boards and other such groups hold a lot of sway, or at least have a lot of effect on public opinion. In my particular neck of the woods, the North Street Neighborhood Association (NSNA) commands quite a bit of lawn sign real estate and visibility. At most public forums, they can be found handing out information or gathering opinions on various projects that would affect zoning ordinances and town property management in our area. While I think it’s vital to have citizen watchdog groups like this, especially single-issue ones that are quick to note the side effects of various policies on their particular area (in this case, land preservation and local ecological systems), we have to keep things in perspective. Invariably, material progress in land allocation, and more theoretical societal progress in how we perceive our relationship to the land will both leave some people out of the fold. The question is who, and at what cost?

A good example of this sort of calculation can be found in this Gazette article: Amherst Historical Commission troubled by possible razing of old farmhouse, barns. The key issue we’re dealing with here is the balance between historical preservation and current, more mundane, community needs (in this case, a ballfield).

The case for preserving the farmhouse comes from a belief that the town shouldn’t necessarily purchase and utilize more property that it should work with the space it already has, particularly when not doing so endangers historical sites. The case for replacing the farmhouse with something else is that it doesn’t really serve any practical purpose, especially since it’s “not salvageable.” In this case, I think the latter opinion is a bit more realistic. I certainly appreciate the desire not to steamroll over everything that’s existed before simply for the sake of a new field historical artifacts shouldn’t be subject to the whims of city planners or housing officials. On the other hand, the farmhouse as it is isn’t contributing to any historical objectives. It’s not being used in a Historic Amherst exhibit, nor is it habitable or usable for anything. It’s just taking up space.

But are ballfields really the most important thing to be built? What if this land was used to create subsidized public housing? Certainly we could use more of that. This whole issue shows a lack of long-term thinking on the part of pretty much everyone involved. Reflexive urban and suburban development is clearly not the way to go. But neither is reflexive resistance to the same. Rather than calling for the same thing in every situation, single-issue groups like Historical Commissions, or the NSNA should be there to raise red flags and then work with government officials and citizens to determine what’s in the community’s best interests.

New Jewschool post

2010-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

Of guilt and repentance.

Why I’m voting for Dave Sullivan tomorrow (and why you should too)

2010-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

Law enforcement keeps the streets safe. Everybody knows that. We grow up learning that the police’s job is to put bad guys in jail, and that the streets are safer because of it. And in popular media, the public defense system (in my opinion, one of the most important services the government provides) is treated solely as an obstacle to putting the bad guys in jail. Police have to “get to” criminals before they “lawyer up,” as if getting a lawyer was somehow a shady move on a criminal’s part, just one more step in their deceitful lifestyle. No, actually getting a lawyer is a right. And getting a fair trial is in the constitution. But to see the way public defenders are portrayed underhanded characters who wear bow ties and will do anything to help a rapist walk free you’d never know it.

There’s a certain type of law enforcement or prosecutorial worldview that I see as the root of that disparagement of the public defense system. It’s the tough-guy attitude to law enforcement someone did something wrong and we’re gonna lock ‘em up for it. There’s no room for analysis or understanding of why they did something wrong, or what the best solution might be. Nope, we’ve got firepower and sentencing requirements (which, aside from taking away an important tactical tool from prosecutors the ability to bargain with defendants using sentences leave no room for nuance), and we’re going to use them.

While I have infinite respect for the work that police do, and I believe that the law is the law, no matter how much we’d like to change it in some ways, we have to notice that there are other things going on. The crime-and-punishment loop has done *nothing *for this society. Whileour incarceration rate is higher than anywhere else in the world,our society is a far cry from crime-free. We breed criminals by inducing poverty (particularly along racialized lines), making guns easily available, and refusing to address the negative social impacts of gambling, drinking, and the ramifications of heavy-handed drug policy. And as we privatize more and more prisons, offloading the work of handling rising numbers of inmates to private corporations, we waste more and more resources on a penal system that hasn’t delivered the results we need.

Lots of smart people have called for a better way of doing things. So how does this relate to the hotly-contested race for District Attorney in Massachusett’s Northwestern district? Well, electing one particular Democrat over another here won’t single-handedly bring about the necessary penal reform. But that’s precisely the point. The way to change these things is from the bottom up. Gun control laws won’t be coming out of Congress any time soon because the NRA is way too powerful. Neither will penal reform,for the same reason. It’s up to us to elect lawmakers and law-enforcement officers whose view of law-enforcement’s role in combating crime is more grounded in reality that is to say, who recognize that there’s more to safety than arresting criminals and putting them in jail.

Dave Sullivan is that candidate. He has the necessary legal and managerial experience to run the office, and he has lots of ideas on how to make it better. While it’s easy to just stand around and criticize people for not doing their jobs, Dave has concrete ideas on how to improve things. He’ll assign community prosecutors to work locally with various agencies and institutions, create civil and human rights advisory boards in the DA’s office, and issue an annual report and citizen’s guide to the office, so that the public knows where resources are being allocated.

Dave understands that crime prevention is also an important part of the DA’s job. He has fresh ideas on how to engage with the community to help prevent crime and report signs of it before it begins, breaking out of the crime-and-punishment paradigm. This sort of approach is necessary in order for the DA’s office to have a positive impact on people’s lives, and I just don’t see the samecommitmentto it from his opponent. Obviously, others may disagree on how best to respond to and deal with crime, but I believe the data supports my viewpoint that putting more people in jail doesn’t address society’s problems.

We need a DA who understands not only the power of our legal system, but its drawbacks. This well-rounded view is emblematic of someone who is ready to use all the tools at his disposal to improve public safety, not just the conventional ones associated with prosecution. It’s clear to me that Dave Sullivan is best equipped to take on the responsibilities of the DA and to carry them out in a sensible, nuanced manner, and, in doing so, to effect the sort of change that’s necessary to move beyond our broken view of law enforcement.

Make no mistake, there genuinely are people who need to be prosecuted for crimes. But there is also danger from an unequal or unfair application of that prosecutorial power. Dave’s ideas on reforming and improving the office will result in better allocation of resources and better partnership with the community, two things we can’t do without right now.

For all of these reasons, and more, Dave Sullivan is clearly the best candidate for Northwestern DA. I’ll be voting for him tomorrow, and I hope you will too.

New post at Jewschool

2010-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

My latest Jewschool post was inspired by my rabbi’s sermon from services on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Check it out!

In which Marty Peretz tries really hard, but still misses the point

2010-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

Well, he apologized for saying that Muslims shouldn’t have First Amendment rights:

The embarrassing sentence is: “I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.” I wrote that, but I do not believe that.

…

So I apologize for my sentence, not least because it misrepresents me.

But then he turns right around and says this!

There is no hatredin my heart; there is deep anxiety about the dangers of Islamism,and anger at the refusal of certain politicians and commentators toadequately grasp those dangers,

I’ll take him at his word that he doesn’t hate Muslims, but here you have it; he has “deep anxiety about the dangers of Islamism.” What dangers, exactly, might you be referring to, Mr. Peretz? And “Islamism”? This term in and of itself is highly Islamophobic. No one uses “Christianism” to describe Scott Roeder‘s philosophy. We don’t say “Jewishism” to describe Israeli settler violence. No, we call it what it is: violent extremism. “Islamism” implies some sort of creeping danger from Muslims, or from Islam in general.

I give Peretz credit for believing that Muslims are worth of constitutional protections, but that’s a pretty low bar. He’s got a long way to go.

On remaining relevant

2010-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

Although I can’t blame my now-ending posting lapse on it, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how bloggers, or indeed any information synthesizers / analyzers remain relevant. Especially now that there are so many smart people writing about pretty much everything, it becomes difficult to actually say anything original. I don’t think this is a reason that one shouldn’t write (or speak, or whatever) if you aren’t willing to try to contribute, you can’t develop your opinion, and even if you are repetitive at times, it’s worth it in the long run. But it is a consideration.

It doesn’t seem that there’s a single ingredient that makes for always-relevant material. Focusing solely on national or global issues certainly puts you in a pretty big pond, but getting too local makes you irrelevant to anyone outside where you live, or worse, anyone who lives differently than you do, even in the same location. So while I intend to start focusing on local issues more frequently, I’m not planning to give up analysis of larger affairs, particularly because I think there’s a dearth of attention being paid to some of them (climate change comes to mind).

Some upcoming blog-projects: a series on drug policy, maybe a review of the upcoming Northampton Coke plant expansion (“Lane wrote that without a local property tax break, freedom from having to pay for infrastructure upgrades, state tax credits and job training funds, Cokes investment here was no sure thing.”), and some stuff on the Northwestern DA election and the pros/cons of statutory rape prosecutions. Also working on a new title for the site (yes, “working on.” It’s a big decision!)

Follow my notes on Milton Friedmans Capitalism and Freedom!

2010-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve just started reading Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman’s seminal work which is in many ways the basis of modern free-market economics (Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money is next). I’ll be writing full reviews of both works when I finish them, and eventually (after some more reading and research) comparing them using a variety of methods. For the moment, however, I’ve decided to take notes on my reading as I go in order to make the review process easier. The notes are in a Google Doc, and I’ve made it publicly accessible, so you can follow along with my thoughts as I go. The document can be foundhere. I expect to learn a ton from this reading, so I think the notes will be really interesting.

I’d love to get feedback, so please feel free to get in touch with me however you like: in the comments, on Twitter (@renaissanceboy), or whatever.

Religious and democratic values

2010-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

Just a teaser for my most recent Jewschool post. One of these days I promise I’ll write something here.

Important updates

2010-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve issed a correction and a reflection on my last Jewschool post.

New Jewschool post: Rationalizing the unrationalizable

2010-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

Here’s my newest post for Jewschool.

I again forget to post links

2010-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

I wrote this post for Jewschool about a week ago.

Why I left the “Protest Gaza Flotilla Massacre, Demand UN Investigation, End to Gaza Siege” Facebook group

2010-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve differed with Richard Silverstein before, and I find myself doing so again today. I joined an FB group he created, but upon further thought, I’ve decided to leave it. This is due to a very specific grievance; the second item on the group’s manifesto reads “2. that the U.S. government condemn unequivocally the attack on a Turkish ship in international waters; and join other EU countries in withdrawing our ambassador.”

I’ve got no problem with the U.S. unequivocally condemning the attack. While I blame the activists for not remaining nonviolent (which they clearly didn’t) from both a moral and tactical perspective (if they had stayed peaceful, this could have been an incredible way to draw attention to the cruelty of the blockade), that doesn’t excuse Israel’s actions in the first place. All parties involved in yesterday’s events made clear that they have no interest in a peaceful resolution to the conflict. It’s going to take a lot of work to get them there.

And this is something we already know. Which is why I can’t support any kind of intentional deterioration in diplomatic relations right now. Crises like this one make the moral and practical imperative for productive dialogue even more pressing. I object to the group’s belief that we should withdraw our ambassador.

I urge Richard to remove the second part of second item of the group’s beliefs. Only then will I feel comfortable rejoining, because only then will the group truly be advocating for peace.

Some changes

2010-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

It’s been a little while since I posted here, due to the end of school and associated craziness. I’m going to be taking next year off from school to work and travel, and another one of my goals is to write much more regularly, and to start making money, or at least breaking even, on this site. I’ve been accepted as a Project Wonderful advertiser, so you should start seeing some interesting ads on this site soon.

I’ve also finally gotten around to ditching GoDaddy.com as the host of my website and the harpojaeger.com domain name. I’ve never particularly liked their backend and other user tools, and they have some rather sexist and objectifying advertisements that I objected to. A while back, my dad came across a blog post regarding similar issues, which he passed on to me. I read it at the time (3/9/09 [and it’s been in my Gmail Starred items since then]) and decided to switch, and it’s now done. I also moved renaissanceboy.org over from directNIC, for simplicity’s sake (it redirects here). I’ve opted to use BlueHost, which is completely awesome so far. The backend is way better than GoDaddy’s (none of that ASP-and-glitzy-web-2.0 junk) and as an added benefit they don’t rely on sex to sell their products (there’s much more where that one came from). It’s also a completely reasonable price slightly more than what I was paying before, but totally worth it so far.

Another project I’m hoping to take on this summer is a total redesign of this site. I’m thinking of writing my own WordPress theme from the ground up, which should be a pretty interesting project.

Zionism is not the only acceptable Jewish opinion

2010-05-13T00:00:00+00:00

I wrote an article for New Voices a few days back (and forgot to post the link again). This is the one that prompted me to invent the term ambi-Zionism (read my Jewschool post introducing it here).

Now on Jewschool: Jewish ambi-Zionism

2010-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

Haven’t heard of ambi-Zionism? You’re not alone. I just came up with it (I think). Here’s my Jewschool post explaining.

New (sort of) Jewschool post

2010-05-05T00:00:00+00:00

I wrote a new post for Jewschool yesterday and forgot to put up a link then. Enjoy!

Inevitable externalities

2010-05-05T00:00:00+00:00

You can’t plan for everything. We know that BP avoided paying $500,000 for a piece of safety equipment that’s mandatory in other countries, a remote shutoff valve that might have been able to prevent the worst of what we’re seeing now. Clearly this is a pretty loud cry for better regulations. And while I certainly don’t think this is Obama’s fault, I’m also reluctant to blame the Bush administration:

BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

I’m not saying this to advance some sort of crazy conspiracy that Obama conspired to blow up the rig to improve the chances of banning offshore drilling and getting a comprehensive energy-climate bill through (because somehow in this country’s political discourse, 11 dead workers andmassive environmental and economic damage is a reason to drill more, not less, and it looks like this is going to make Kerry-Graham-Lieberman harder, not easier), or that the response was deliberately slow (it wasn’t [and if you only read one of the links from this piece, it should be that one]), just that a culture of deregulation has been normal for a long time. Notwithstanding smaller regulatory moves like this (which in my opinion are what differentiate this administration from the last), I don’t think that it’s fair to blame the laxity of American corporate (especially energy) regulations entirely on Bush.

What we have a chance to do now is to reclaim the externalities. It’s time to impose a windfall profits tax on all non-renewable energy companies, and mark all revenues collected for clean energy R&D and investment. That’s going to be hard with people like Mary Landrieu and John Boehner holding as much sway as they do because of bizarre and misused parliamentary procedures, but it needs to be done. A price on carbon would be nice too. We need strong leadership from Obama right now. His history with offshore drilling is complicated, but I really do believe he wants it ended. It’s a question of political feasibility. And this is his chance.

If we let the GOP (read: the ones calling for expanded offshore drilling) get away with painting themselves as the true bearers of a “comprehensive” (and their plan is anything but), it won’t just be a political defeat. Cap-and-trade (which I continue to defend as the best system out there) will be dead, and if the GOP gains a majority in the House this year (which is looking increasingly likely), we may not get a comprehensive energy-climate bill until it’s too late.

Conservative inconsistency

2010-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

A while back, I wrote about why I thought conservatism as a set of ideological principles was functionally obsolete. Several recent events have highlighted to me some pretty glaring contradictions on the part of prominent conservatives which I think deserve highlighting. My purpose here is not to argue that all people who argue for limited government are always wrong (there are cases where I do the same), merely that blind adherence to this principle is just as dangerous as blind adherence to any other. Conservatives have managed to paint themselves as the exception to this rule, and I think that’s a big problem.

Okay, here we go. Case number one is Bobby Jindal. I swear that I noticed this contradiction all on my own, but Salon.com has a good piece about it, which I’ll excerpt here:

Remember when Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal briefly became a right-wing hero for threatening to refuse stimulus money that would boost unemployment payments?

Ah, yes. Good old ideology-over-results. Well, that’s not a purely conservative flaw. Everyone’s been guilty of that. Give the guy a break. NYTimes, any commments?

Governor Jindal of Louisiana had declared a state of emergency on Thursday and mobilized the Louisiana National Guard to participate in response efforts.

On Friday, Mr. Jindal also requested federal assistance for state fishermen, asking the Secretary of Commerce to declare a commercial fisheries failure.

I’m not suggesting that Jindal should have just let his citizens (and wildlife) get all oily because of his principles. No, I think he did exactly the right thing by calling the Guard and asking for federal assistance. Furthermore, I’m not assailing him for changing his mind, because I don’t think he did. I think he was lying through his teeth to begin with. He turned down the stimulus money as a political move, but as soon as he saw a tangible benefit to accepting federal help, he jumped at it (like any sane person responsible for other people’s lives would). Yes, it’s petty politics. But there’s a good case to be made the stimulus had some pretty damn tangible benefits too, they just weren’t as obvious as ducks covered with oil, which make for a pretty sad cover story. Whether Jindal’s putting his reputation or his ideology before his citizens, he’s doing the wrong thing.

Let’s move on to someone a little closer to my heart, or at least my hometown. My old governor, Mitt Romney, passed a health care bill that’s remarkably similar to the one that ultimately was signed into law in March. In fact, here’s Romney quoted by NPR shortly after passing the thing in ’06:

After studying the problem, Romney says, he came away with a key insight: “People who don’t have insurance nonetheless receive health care. And it’s expensive.”

Some good sense from a businessman, who, for all of his failings, wasn’t actually that terrible of a governor. Yes, our health care wait times have gone up, but, as BZ so aptly pointed out on a Jewschool comment thread, “Without insurance, the wait for a doctors appointment is infinite!” If the cost of covering everyone is that I have to wait a little while longer, I’m really okay with that.

Further evidence of Romney’s practical approach to HCR in MA:

“We’re spending a billion dollars giving health care to people who don’t have insurance,” Romney says. “And my question was: Could we take that billion dollars and help the poor purchase insurance? Let them pay what they can afford. We’ll subsidize what they can’t.”

Perhaps this pleases me because it’s such a vindication of liberal policy ideas: that the government can actually help poor people in some way other than deregulating large financial firms and waiting for their executive bonuses to trickle down (I suppose in the form of the minimum wage paid to Lloyd Blankfein’s personal head-shiner [seriously, if he doesn’t have one of those, he really should]), but it could also be that Romney was embracing a concept that a lot of people thought was a really good idea (and has worked pretty well).

In promoting the plan, Romney brushes off those in his party who attacked the plan as just another big-government scheme. He emphasized that those who can afford insurance should get it.

“Otherwise you’re just passing your expenses on to someone else,” Romney said. “That’s not Republican, that’s not Democratic, that’s not Libertarian. That’s just wrong.”

Damn, Romney. I couldn’t have said that better myself. I’m sure glad that someone with as much interest in the substance of policy and making a difference in people’s lives is probably going to run for national office. We could use more pragmatic Republicans like you, especially on matters of importance like health care.

“An unconscionable abuse of power,”Romney declared while asserting that the president “has betrayed his oath to the nation.”

Well, that’s current-day Romney, with an about-face covered in another great Salon.com article. Fortunately, the GOP base doesn’t care that much about facts, so he probably won’t have a very hard time convincing them that his health care plan is nothing like the national one, thus conveniently distancing himself from the tyrannical socialists he’ll be running against.

Jon Kingsdale was appointed by Romney in 2006 to run the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, which operates the state exchange that serves as a health insurance marketplace for Massachusetts citizens. Kingsdale announced Thursday that he is stepping down from that position to pursue opportunities in implementing the national reforms, according to reports.

Ouch. And it gets worse.

“We should all feel very proud of having created the model for national health reform,” Kingsdale wrote in his resignation letter, the Washington Postreports. “The power of the Bay State’s example is enormously consequential. I believe that national reform would not have happened without it.”

So now one of the people with the best understanding of the day-to-day operation of MA’s health insurance exchanges, which were the model for the ones that the Patient Protection Act institutes in all other states, has drawn a direct parallel between them. And of course Romney hasn’t stopped distancing himself from something that he actually did a good job on. Yet another case of conservatives realizing that reality is catching up, in the form of sensible policies that just aren’t quite libertarian enough for the increasingly rabid right-wingers the GOP is courting.

Trouble is, as Stephen Colbert said (and in front of W, no less), reality has a known liberal bias. I might modify that slightly to say that reality has a known reasonable bias, and that reasonable lawmakers are always vindicated if they just stick with being reasonable. But given today’s increasingly uneven party dichotomy, where a core group of liberal pragmatists looking to get things done squares off against a group of disciplined conservative ideologues ready to ignore any facts that stand in their way, asking said ideologues to remain reasonable is just a little too much. Whether it’s Arizona empowering its police to ask anyone for identification at any time for pretty much any reason, Oklahoma allowing doctors to lie to a pregnant woman about possible fetal birth defects if they think the truth would incline her to consider abortion (not to mention requiring that she see be shown an ultrasound of the fetus and hear a verbal description of some of its body parts [and that ultrasound? If a normal one isn’t good enough, the doctor has to perform a vaginal ultrasound, which, if you haven’t heard of it (I hadn’t), sounds pretty damn scary]), or the government deciding which of the various types of people who fall in love should be allowed to get married and visit each other in the hospital, it’s just another example of conservative inconsistency. Legislate women’s bodies all you want, restrict consenting adults from getting married, and feel free to detain brown people on street corners, but don’t you dare close the gun show loophole, or think about putting a price on carbon.

And keep your government hands off my Medicare.

Explaining, but not excusing, the Arizona immigration law

2010-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

Eugene Robinson has what I think is so far the best analysis of the new immigration law in Arizona:

Arizona’s draconian new immigration law is an abomination — racist, arbitrary, oppressive, mean-spirited, unjust.

I’d recommend reading the whole thing; he goes into some pretty specific detail, and also mentions something that’s otherwise absent from the debate.

Let me interrupt this tirade to point out that while Arizona has unquestionably done the wrong thing, it is understandable that exasperated officials believed they had to dosomething. Immigration policy and border security are federal responsibilities, and Washington has failed miserably to address what Arizonans legitimately see as a crisis.

It’s a good point. Looking at this as a deliberate attack on illegal immigrants (and a deliberate attempt at racial profiling) would be misleading. I don’t think the people who passed this law actually favor legalized discrimination against Latinos, at least not consciously. But the law’s passage reveals something about ethnocentricity and Americanism that we still see whiteness as the “default” in this country. Somehow, the existence of other races and cultures is a threat to “American-ness”. Clearly this is a load of junk; this country was built on immigrants and continues to thrive off of their cheap labor. In the present day, easier paths to legalization would lead to significant economic benefits.

Opposition to flexible and fair immigration policies is in my experience associated with an extreme form of nativist patriotism; the idea that America is intrinsically better than other countries. I’m the first person to defend the Constitution as one of the finest documents on which to establish a government, and I think there are in fact intrinsic advantages to the American judicial and legal systems. But that’s not the same as saying that this country is better by virtue of its existence, or is fated to be that way. We got a lot of stuff right that a lot of other countries didn’t. We also got a lot of stuff wrong. And like every country, we should be trying to fix the things that are wrong, and we should be helping others do the same. In a way, this means that I see America’s “greatness” not as a gift, but as a privilege that implies many important responsibilities.

So here’s where I get confused: if the type of uber-patriots I’m talking about really think America’s so great, they should have no problem with allowing others access to it. If this is really the greatest country in the world, how can a bunch of poor people who want a better life be that much of a threat? The answer is that American nativists believe that they’re special by virtue of having been born here, and immigrants are somehow “less American”. Obviously illegal immigrants aren’t citizens, but don’t forget that what makes this country fundamentally different from the world of nation-states from which it arose is that the only thing required to be part of it was to want to. In practice, there were and are a fair amount of obstacles to this rather lofty dream, but it’s undeniable that we have gotten and continue to get closer and closer to it.

For modern-day nativists to claim that American-ness should be restricted to those of us who are already here is totally contrary to the principle of equal access and to the historical trend towards this principle. It’s a disguised form of racism, a historical tendency to view whiteness, and only whiteness, as “true American-ness”. While the definition of who is and is not white has changed over time (historically excluding, to name a few, Catholics, Irish, and Jews, all of whom are considered “white” today), it’s sure that Latino immigrants aren’t included in it now. Comprehensive federal immigration reform would be a good opportunity to affirm that whiteness is no longer required to receive the full benefits of citizenship. Obviously it won’t fix racial inequalities in and of itself, but a progressive immigration policy would do a lot to put us on the right track.

For some more interesting reading on the economic implications of immigration policy (an angle I haven’t really explored in much depth here), check out this terrific Free exchange piece in response to Krugman and Yglesias.

Journalistic macroethics

2010-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve been toying for a while with the idea of macroethics in journalism. What I mean by this is not the sort of day-to-day ethics we associate with individual journalists, but the larger ethics of the journalistic industry. In an era where information is freely dispensed over the Internet, public understanding of important realities continues to be dominated by large news organizations. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Although I have a high opinion of many Internet-only sites, and I consider them at least as authoritative as major news outlets, there is definitely still a place for organizations like the New York Times, if for no reason other than accountability. Large editorial structures can be beneficial in holding individual journalists to high ethical standards.

Arguably, the fact that a productive political discourse existed before the Internet is pretty good evidence that however useful the internet is, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with the large-organization model. But there is an aspect of that model that I think is a problem in the age of the internet: its profitability. News organizations have been for-profit entities for a long time, but they’re now competing with a host of other sources for airtime. I’d argue that this is why they’ve turned to increasingly showy (and increasingly less substantive) programming (I’m focusing mainly on TV news here).

Certainly the internet is not “the problem.” In its ideal form, it is a forum for sharing ideas democratically (Twitter probably represents this better than any other technology). But it would be naive to assume that the whole picture is so rosy. Media organizations who used to have a stranglehold on (and whose editorial processes at least attempted to assure the quality of) information are forced to find different ways to make money. Showier advertisements, more appealing programming. In short, selling out. They have to cover what people will pay to watch, giving journalistic discretion a lower priority.

One idea I’ve tossed around as a potential solution would be requiring news agencies to be nonprofit. Obviously nonprofits are still responsible for revenue, because they have to pay the people who work in them, but they’re not beholden to any shareholders, and no one enters them to get rich. In an ideal world, a nonprofit functions as a way for people to do something they enjoy and be paid enough to live on while doing it. This would appear to fit quite well with the goals of an idealized journalistic institution. The question is how to apply it. I’ve thought about a law mandating that news organizations be nonprofit, but this creates all sorts of new problems. How would you define what is and is not a news organization (Fox comes to mind)? What about bloggers?

It would be nice to just leave it up to citizens to create their own nonprofit news organization (such things exist). Clearly, however, companies like CNN and Fox are way too big to be taken down by such an upstart. Furthermore, it’s unlikely that citizens would have any interest in switching to a new media organization. The idealized free-market model that predicts that the consumer will go where the best value is requires that they actually know how to judge value.

Short of such a large-scale government intervention, however, I’ve been unable to come up with any idea on how the national discourse in this country can improve as long as the media keeps on doing what it’s doing.

How should news sources decide who to give coverage to?

2010-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

If you’re not reading Climate Progress already, you should be. Period. CP is pretty much the best source out their for the politics and policy of energy, climate, and their economic impacts.

Joe Romm’s post on the DC climate rally got me thinking about media coverage. More specifically, how should media organizations make decisions on what to spend their airtime/journalistic space covering? Clearly, decisions on this subject are complicated and the responsibility for making them doesn’t rest on a single person. It’s thus rather irresponsible to denounce a news organization as partisan or having an agenda based on a single editorial decision. Smart people can and do disagree on what deserves reporting.

But faced with the overwhelming lack of reporting on the threat from and policies intended to combat climate change, it’s hard to excuse any news outlet from ignoring or downplaying the the issue. As Romm puts it:

Yes, the biggest single climate rally in U.S. history is dismissed by comparison with the hypothetical cumulative turnout of dozens of future rallies on immigration. Who says the media isnt fair?

Now, the obvious response to this is that the size of a protest shouldn’t really determine how much coverage it gets. For example, I don’t dismiss Tea Party protest because they’re not big enough (in fact, I think they’re alarmingly large), I dismiss them because they have no idea what they’re talking about. I find it difficult to believe that any journalist takes the grievances of the Tea Party as seriously as the threat from climate change, but that sure is what it seems like based on the quantity (the New York Times doesn’t appear to have much coverage at all) of coverage.

Bottom line: if you think that socialism is a greater threat to this country than climate change, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you.

Don't hate the haters

2010-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

While fisking Evan Krasner’s New Voices post yesterday, I came across this gem of an article by Sam Green. I quickly posted it to Twitter, along with some suitably snarky comments, and a lively conversation ensued. KFJ posted his own fisking, and I’m going to do the same. I definitely recommend that you read his; it’s very good, and I’ll be hitting some different points, so if you see something I appear to have missed, it may just be because he already covered it.

Right off the bat, Sam’s got a pretty questionable statement:

…when we speak of Jewish anti-Zionism today, we refer to a growing number of secular, disaffected Jews…

In what world does Sam live in where the only anti-Zionists are secular and disaffected? There are all sorts of reasons for opposing Israel as a religious state. Many are valid. Many are not. Lumping them all together under the categories of “secular” (implying “not Jewish enough”) and “disaffected” (implying “lacking in proper Jewish education”) does a great disservice to the diversity of opinions on the nature of Israel.

But these students, like one who saidat a Shabbat dinner, no lessthat she believes that Israel shouldnt exist as a Jewish state, maintain a confused ideology.

First of all, note the derision towards a student expressing anti-Zionist sentiments at a Shabbat dinner, as if the notion of Shabbat (in its capacity as a ritual of Jewish observance) is antithetical to a certainpolitical opinion on Israel. Second of all, the fact that Sam falls back on “confused” is a good demonstration of the fact that there isn’t a substantive flaw in the anti-Zionist argument. That doesn’t mean by any stretch that you can’t disagree with it, only that it’s not an inherently invalid argument. Sam fails to give it the consideration it merits.

Advocacy for Palestinian human rights and self-determination must come alongside equal support of the same rights for Israelis. Eliminating Israel as a Jewish state will not achieve these goals for either people. The death of Israel will hurt the lives of the former Israelis and will not improve the lives of the oppressed Palestinians, whose leadership is proving unable to run a democratic government.

I tend to agree with Sam on this one on a purely practical level; dissolving Israel would lead to more violence in the region given the current political and economic situation. But it’s wrong of Sam to lump together those who question or oppose the existence of Israel as a religious state with those that actually want to wake up the next morning and have it no longer exist. To be clear: I harbor serious moral problems with the idea of a Jewish state, but I don’t advocate for dissolution. Given a peaceful two-state resolution to the conflict, we’ll have space to deal with more fundamental questions of Israel’s cultural and religious identity. For now, those have to wait until people aren’t dying anymore. Sam’s argument doesn’t account for a position like mine, which, while questioning Israel’s nature (as many Jews do), recognizes the functional problems associated with its dissolution.

I also seriously question the assertion that the Palestinian leadership “is proving unable to run a democratic government”. Have you ever tried governing in an occupied territory? It’s a bit difficult. We should recognize that the circumstances under which the Palestinians are attempting to govern are far less than ideal, to put it quite rosily. It’s unfair to hold them to the same standards that we hold, for example, Israel or the US.

Whether or not these anti-Zionist Jews choose to recognize it, the state of Israel exists for their benefit and has made significant efforts toward peace with the Palestinians.

Good to know that Big Brother is watching out for me. This is honestly some of the most condescending nonsense I’ve read in a long time. There are absolutely Diaspora Jews who feel that the existence of Israel is vital to their identity as religious and cultural Jews. I’m not one of them, but I’ve learned to deeply respect that feeling. I resent Sam’s implication that all Diaspora Jews should take on the same feeling about Israel that he clearly possesses. Sam, kudos to you for understanding and being proud of your strong connection to Israel. Don’t imply that I or anyone else is obligated to feel the same way.

I agree with Sam that Israel has made significant efforts toward peace with the Palestinians, but it’s not a terribly convincing argument when you’re actually trying to determine why there still isn’t peace. Rather than saying “look how much they’ve already done”, Sam should be arguing why the existence of Israel is crucial to the peace process. As it is, his argument is that since Israel is trying to make peace, it should exist. Not very convincing.

Many liberal Israelis, such as the members of the leftist Zionist group Peace Now, support human rights and self-determination for Palestinians under a two-state solution. But such a voice is weak in the leadership of the Palestinian side and some leading Palestinian groups are dedicated to Israels destruction.Screaming to high heaven in the name of human rights, therefore, every time the Israeli government is required to conduct a military operation against these groups is about as confused an action as a liberal political activist can take.

Since when does Palestinian leadership not endorse a two-state solution? When last I checked, Abbas was busy actually building one. As to the inflammatory claim that some Palestinian groups are dedicated to Israel’s destruction, this depends on how you define “leading.” If you’re going with “whoever gets the most media attention”, then sure. The guys in masks with rocket launchers always get more airtime than the ones in suits building the economic infrastructure for Palestinian self-sovereignty. It’s also notable that there are plenty of hard-right Israeli groups that would be just as happy to see Palestine disappear. Sam applies a double standard in judging Palestinians by their most extreme elements but giving Israel the benefit of the doubt. In reality, we should be listening to the reasonable people on *both *sides, not the ones with guns and bombs.

Furthermore, decrying an Israeli military operation that you believe is doing something wrong is not a “confused” point of view, nor is it inherently incongruous with being “a liberal political activist”. Sam, you can either discuss the nuanced merits and faults of Israeli military policy and the actions of the IDF, or you can just say that people are confused when they disagree with you. Your choice.

Supporting Israel may not be attractive to young, disaffected Jews because they think of the pro-Israel community in terms of guys wearing large Israeli-flag kippot in synagogue to cover their bald spots. The reality, however, has changed: J Street and its campus subsidiary J Street U are new pro-Israel, pro-peace organizations that support, according to their website, Israel as a democratic home for the Jewish people, the full and equal rights of Arab and other non-Jewish citizens of Israel and the right of the Palestinian people to a state of their own.

Sam’sdescription of the pro-Israel community is pretty accurate as far as I’m concerned, but his description of the perceptions of anti-Zionists is decidedly not. Has he even considered that perhaps anti-Zionists hold their beliefs not because they’re confused, disaffected, or tired of Israeli-flag kippot, but because of legitimate political and moral disagreements with the pro-Israel community? Nope. Sam again refuses to take on the structure and substance of anti-Zionism, preferring instead to ignore it with an offensive mixture of disdain and pity.

…at my college, where radical-chic is most definitely in.I suspect that the motivation of the Jew who claims that Israel should not exist as a Jewish state is really a strong desire to break with the past, advocate for radical change and be different from the previous generation.

Wow, “radical-chic”? Congratulations, Sam, on one of the most condescending phrases I’ve ever heard to describe an entire class of ideas. And your suspicions about the motivations of Jewish anti-Zionists? They’re just that: suspicions.

…anti-Zionist Jews may be raising valid protests, but they are taking it too far.

According to you.

No matter how disconnected a Jew may feel from the Jewish people or Jewish culture and religion, she should strive to retain some semblance of group identity and belonging.

Hey Sam, ever wonder why Jewish anti-Zionists feel disconnected? It’s because of people like you. People who hold standards for what counts as an “acceptable” Jewish opinion. People willing to marginalize, condescend, and ignore those who they disagree with (incidentally, the exact same tactics I decry when used by some anti-Zionists). Maybe if the Jewish community were willing to perceive a vigorous, respectful, and honest debate about the nature of Israel as something other than a threat to the community’s existence and identity, Jewish anti-Zionists would feel a bit more connected.

Israel needs the Diaspora, and the Diaspora needs Israel.

Again Sam, maybe you** need Israel, and I’m not trying to minimize that. I have **absolutely no problem with Diaspora Jews who feel a strong connection to Israel, but you have no right to apply that connection to others and claim that if they don’t have it, they should.

Maybe the whole Im a Jew and I oppose Israel thing is just a phase.

It isn’t. But next time, could you be a little more condescending?

Hopefully such folks are a small enough minority to pose little threat to solid American Jewish support of Israels right to exist as a Jewish state.

Read: hopefully the mainstream Jewish community will be effective enough in shutting down debate so that the other side never gets heard.

All the same, the Jews who advocate Israels end are on a slippery slope toward a break with their Jewish identity and Jewish civilization.

Wrong again. The real break with Jewish identity is in the stifling of discourse, the marginalizing of those with whom you disagree. Sam is almost threatening Jewish anti-Zionists with intellectual exile, saying “if you don’t watch out, you’ll be so far gone that we won’t consider you Jews any more.” This shows Jewish anti-Zionists how disinterested in their opinions the Jewish community is, driving them further away. If Sam really wants to prevent Jewish anti-Zionists from being totally separated from the rest of the Jewish community, he should welcome their opinions, and look for ways to engage them, instead of deriding their motivations, ignoring their arguments, and marginalizing their existence.

I’m disappointed in the lack of depth Sam’s article shows, especially for someone who is clearly so committed to peace. The challenge ahead for the Jewish community is to recognize that divergent and oppositional opinions on Israel are vital to furthering the debate and advancing understanding. If we can learn to accept them, we can move forward. If not, we’re dead in the water. Let’s get this one right.

Scary

2010-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

Look, a new post at Jewschool! I’m also about to put one up at New Voices…

As promised

2010-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

A new post on New Voices too, for your enjoyment. Maybe someday I’ll even write one here. Who knows?

Don't look now, but…

2010-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

Since there’s not really anything to talk about, I’ll just link you to this post I wrote for Jewschool. Wouldn’t you know it, Alan Dershowitz is back again!

I promise, really I do…

2010-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

….that I’ll write something here soon. For the moment, here’s my latest post for New Voices on the connection between organizational funding and policy.

New post for New Voices on IAW

2010-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

I just can’t seem to stop writing about Israeli Apartheid Week. Here’s another one.

Another post on a place that isn't here!

2010-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

Man, I am just a posting-on-other-sites-but-not-my-own MACHINE today! Here’s my Jewschool post on Glenn Beck’s equation of social justice with Nazism.

New post at Jewschool: Alan Dershowitz misrepresents IAW

2010-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve got a new post at Jewschool, in which I examine an article Alan Dershowitz wrote about Israel Apartheid Week.

An unsung benefit of reconciliation

2010-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

Jessica Arons has written a fabulous piece for The Nation, explaining just how moronic the thinking behind the Stupak amendment is (and thus reminding me of how glad I am it won’t be part of the final reform bill):

No transaction in our modern society is completely free of government involvement. The food we eat costs less because of farm subsidies. Students attend private universities with the help of Pell Grants and Stafford loans. Our churches and temples can afford to operate in part because they are tax-exempt. And employers who offer health insurance do so because of tax incentives. Stupak’s reasoning, taken to its logical extreme, would mean that virtually every activity in which we engage is government funded, regardless of whether it is condoned or condemned.

As I see it, the extension of her argument is that in supporting, for example, transportation subsidies, a person makes a judgment that the good derived from the availability of public transportation outweighs the harm done by freeing up citizens’ personal money to be used for an abortion. Thus, opposing insurance premium subsidies is a judgment that the benefits of providing people with health insurance are less important than preventing those people from having abortions.

Simultaneously opposing insurance premium subsidies on abortion grounds while also supporting other federal subsidies shows that you prioritize your own religious or social beliefs over someone else’s health. While this isn’t a logical inconsistency, I’d say it demonstrates a severe lack of empathy and a healthy dose of self-righteousness.

But then, those are all in a day’s work for congressional opponents of health care reform.

Just someone whose story you haven't heard

2010-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

Too often in conflicts we don’t hear stories. We don’t know what other people have experienced. This, I believe, is the root of many social problems.

Political realities are ultimately inseparable from the individual experiences that give rise to them. We can make generalizations about societal states of understanding, political theories, and large social constructs, but these must ultimately be grounded in a deep understanding of the individual, human nature of the issue.

At its heart, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a failure of understanding. Yes, we can and do identify policies, tactics, and manners of thought that continue it, but we cannot forget their inalienably human attributes. Applying the analytical tools of anthropology and other social sciences can tell us much about why the conflict has evolved the way it has. Why, for instance, does the Israeli government continue to lend tacit, if not explicit, support in most cases, to settlers who are actively violating international law and soiling Israel’s credibility? Why have Palestinian civilians been so easily represented by the few who decide to blow themselves up?

These are questions of understanding. I have strong disagreements with many people involved in the conflict, but there comes a time when I have to admit that I just don’t understand their point of view. I haven’t been to Israel or Palestine, I haven’t sat down across the table with these people and tried to understand what makes them tick.

I don’t think this makes me less capable of making strong and accurate judgments on the issue, but it does impart on me a responsibility to seek out such stories and incorporate them into my thought. In fact, I would argue that no one is exempt from this responsibility. Divorced as I am from the on-the-ground realities of the conflict, it’s easy for me to say that my priority is understanding. For an Israeli in Sderot who’s lived through rocket attacks and seen their children traumatized and suffering from PTSD, or for a Palestinian in Gaza who’s lived through massive Israeli air raids, destruction of vital infrastructure, and a continuing blockade, it must be incredibly hard to understand the other.

But there are those who do. There are those who put aside their own experiences, and, given the opportunity to do so without sacrificing basic needs, seek out the other’s perspective. And the fact that those people exist means that we should not just expect others to do the same, but we should strive for circumstances where they can.

Both in his attempts to understand and his attempts to empower others to do the same, Avi Schaefer was one of those people dedicated to understanding. After graduating high school in Santa Barbara, he joined the IDF and spent several years as a counterterrorism instructor. To a naive American Jewish boy like me who’s never held a gun, it’s hard to comprehend his motivations. But it was crystal clear to me from the moment I met him up until the last conversation I had with him that he wanted me to, and he wanted to comprehend mine. Avi was in many ways extremely oxymoronic; but then, he existed almost for the purpose of defying those same oxymorons. Before I met him, I would never have guessed that an American Jew who became an Israeli citizen in order to join the IDF would be more dedicated to peace than arguably any other person I have ever met. But what Avi has taught me was that that doesn’t have to be a contradiction. That the only thing standing between us and a deeper personal understanding of the other is our assumptions. If we come to a discussion with an open mind and no assumptions, we inevitably walk away stronger and smarter.

Avi Schaefer was killed in the early morning of February 12th by a drunk driver on the streets of Providence. Who Avi was doesn’t make his death more tragic than if it had been someone else, but the people he touched, the good he did in his short time with us, and the taste that is left on our tongues, will linger. In Avi, a man of incredible virtue and dignity walked among us.

“An enemy is someone whose story we have not yet heard.” Avi attributed this quote to his father, Rabbi Arthur Gross-Schaefer.

Avi Schaefer, 1988-2010. Z”L. May his memory be for a blessing.

The smear campaign against the New Israel Fund

2010-02-02T00:00:00+00:00

Here’s my Jewschool post about it. Links to informational and opinion sources are included.

The political obligation: constructive or not?

2010-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

Are we obligated to be politically involved? Does being a citizen of a republic impart on me an ethical obligation to vote, to be politically informed, and to communicate with others about such topics? Certainly public awareness and discourse is improved by that kind of activity, but the question is whether it’s ethical to impose it on other people.

This is a particularly relevant question right now because of the mass political ignorance we see around issues like health care. The BBC has a great article on this, explaining some of the psychological reasons that the Democratic strategy hasn’t worked:

If people vote against their own interests, it is not because they do not understand what is in their interest or have not yet had it properly explained to them.

They do it because they resent having their interests decided for them by politicians who think they know best.

Of course, the current reform proposals do not presume to know what’s best for every individual person. That’s why they leave open the option of choosing where you buy your insurance plan from, something that I believe to be ultimately wrong. I see the purpose of health care reform to be laying the stage for an eventual progression towards single-payer.

But that’s neither here nor there. Where I disagree with the article is in what the ultimate problem is. It’s an uninformed electorate. In a healthy, functioning democracy, people have every right to disagree with the government, and to vote it out of office. In fact, that’s what we did in 2006 and 2008. Overwhelmingly, voters in this country voted out the Republican ideas that had run the country straight downhill. And if in 2010 they want to do the same thing for Democrats, they will. That’s how democracy functions.

Of course, it becomes more complicated, when you have a GOP propaganda machine busy undeducating everyone as fast as possible. The equation’s different when the minority party is deliberately lying to the public about what it is they’re opposing (and why they’re doing so). Frankly, given the Democrat’s historical and current inability to accurately and clearly explain their stances to voters, it’s even more amazing that we won so decisively in the last two elections. People must have been *really *fed up.

But go back a second. What’s the real issue here? I argue that it’s the nature of Democrats’ stances that they can’t be easily explained. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Yes, we’re losing the message war. That’s because economic stimulus is complicated and “five-year across-the-board spending freeze” is easy. “Free market” is easy and the subtleties that make it inapplicable to health care are complicated. “Soft on terror” is easy and criminal law is complicated.

So what do we do? Do we dumb down to face the increasingly ignorant electorate? No. We pass something that has tangible, immediate benefits, and we campaign on it. Because what does the country see right now? They see Democrats with a giant majority still not getting anything done. If we can break that view, we’re golden. In the political free market, political capital is allocated to whoever shows than use it to get results.

And that’s as it should be. We can decry public ignorance all we want, but ultimately, a voter shouldn’t have to have intimate knowledge of congressional politics in order to hold an opinion. I’m not condoning total ignorance of the way the government functions, but if we apply some kind of moral standard for what constitutes “enough” knowledge to be involved in politics, we’re setting a risky precedent. Remember poll taxes and literacy tests? That’s what happens when the government makes a decision on who deserves to be involved in the democratic process.

Political ignorance is a constitutionally protected right. But that doesn’t mean we have to assume it is a necessity of the political system. We need to be fighting two battles at once. One, to get our legislation passed, so we have something to campaign on. Two, an agressive information campaign in the form of TV ads and public speaking engagements. The fact that Democrats have been completely disconnected from voters has harmed us. We’ve seemed like aloof liberals who know nothing about the plight of ordinary people. We need to show the public that we are the party with their interests in mind. In other words, show people why our proposals will help them. “Oh, you’re having trouble getting insurance because you have a pre-existing condition? The legislation we’re passing will prohibit that. And you know what? The GOP used to agree with us, but they’re voting against it now to score political points. You can’t afford your premiums? Let me tell you about how our legislation will help you. And you guessed it, Republicans are against that too.”

We’re losing the information war right now, but that doesn’t mean we should dumb down. Yes, the bill is ridiculously long. For crying out loud, it’s federal policy. This is not simple stuff. Let’s not capitulate to the GOP’s dumbed-down message. We should be speaking to voters as equals, not pretending that we’re dumb and confused like congressional Republicans are doing. It’s stupid, degrading, and ultimately unproductive.

If the GOP wants to win elections, they’re on the right track. If Democrats want to, we need to change course. And we can’t pass health care without winning elections.

Fun with the JIDF

2010-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

I wrote a new post for Jewschool! Predictably, it is about political debate, or lack thereof. Check it out.

Cloudy

2010-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve used Wordle before, but hadn’t thought of it in a while. After seeing David A. M. Wilensky‘s last post, I decided to make my own word cloud, so here it is:

The road forward

2010-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

Frankly, I can’t claim to be shocked about the outcome of the special election here in MA. I’m appalled, but not terribly surprised. From all evidence, Coakley ran a bad campaign and Brown ran a good one. Even a solidly-Democratic state like this one can’t withstand that sort of treatment, and Brown was enough of a catch-all for people’s non-specific anger towards vague concepts like big government that he harnessed anger from both sides of the aisle. Democrats should have seen this coming.

More importantly, however, I don’t really care about Scott Brown. Yes, he has a truck. Yes, he doesn’t really seem to have any sort of useful policy ideas. In other words, he’s not really that different than any other sitting GOP Senator.

I guess what makes it different (theoretically) is the fact that we no longer have our magical awesome super-great-majority. But let’s face it, we couldn’t even get anything close to meaningful reform even with one. This won’t be that different

If we want to avoid a filibuster, we can try to get the House to vote on the existing Senate health care bill. The House Progressive Caucus is strong enough, however, that I doubt that would go through without a fuss, and right now, we need to just get it done so we can move on and have something to campaign on in 2010.

But after much thought, I’m not sure we want to avoid a filibuster. Just the threat of one so far has been enough to swing the Senate negotiations dramatically in favor of the GOP. What if we, as Obama promised during his campaign, televised every bit of what was going on on the Senate floor, and in factforced the GOP to filibuster? They could no longer claim that we were shoving it down America’s throat. We’d stand up and say “Look, you’re the one who’s denying a straight vote and a real debate. You want to have ‘em, let’s go, and then we’ll vote. If not, we’ll show every single person in America exactly where your interest lies.”

We’ve been playing games to try to avoid a filibuster up until now. We can’t avoid it any more unless we want to woo a Republican over, which is completely implausible. For crying out loud, they’re already promising to repeal the thing when they take power.

Now that we can’t avoid it any more, it’s time to look a GOP filibuster square in the eye. Give us your best shot.

I’m waiting and ready. America’s watching.

Arson and the futility of the penal system: a reflection after 60 hours

2009-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

It’s been a day and a half since we learned about the arson attacks here that killed two people here. All but one of the attacks were in Ward 3, my neighborhood.

This case has prompted me to take a long look at some of the ways we as society, and as individuals, handle events that push us to the extreme. Arguably, crime is inevitable in any society, and given this, the issue becomes how we minimize it and respond to it. In a case like this one, with an individual who clearly is in need of psychological attention (the fires don’t appear to be targeted in any way, it really seems like it’s the work of a serious psychopath), there’s probably not much we can do except find the person and get them in an institution where they can’t cause any more harm, and can be rehabilitated, ideally. Could better social services and publicly available health care, for example, have prevented this? Maybe. But we should remember that someone will always slip through the cracks. It sounds defeatist, but it’s true: we can’t identify every single criminal before they commit their special crime (h/t Arlo Guthrie).

So in a way, it’s useless to obsess over the systems that may or may not have failed, the people that should or should not have known, and things that should or shouldn’t have happened as a result of those. The Northampton Fire and Police Departments responded well, with the help of many others from the surrounding area. Yes, we had the first fire deaths in over a decade. Yes, there is huge property damage. Yes, the arsonist was in fact still setting fires while emergency personnel were being dispatched, just one step ahead, but we have also, as a community, made some amazing progress. There’s been an outpouring of donations of all kinds for victims, the Facebook group continues to be extremely active, and the Ward 3 Association is holding a meeting tomorrow night to discuss what we can do as a community.

I firmly believe that the person or persons responsible for this terrible crime will be caught. My hope is that, as our mayor Mary Clare Higgins said at yesterday’s press conference, we come together as a community, and help those in need. I also hope that that spirit continues, that we don’t just give our donations and feel good about ourselves, or do our volunteering and stroke our own egos, that we continue to work together in the future, even past the resolution of this crime.

It can be hard to separate our own personal aggrandizement from work on legitimate causes and actually giving selflessly. I find myself treading that line all the time, and over the past day-and-a-half, I’ve had to stop many times and reevaluate, think to myself about if what I’m doing is really helpful. The feelings of insecurity and fear that all of us are experiencing are no excuse for not putting the victims first.

I’m proud to be a part of the effort to respond to this crisis. I know others are too. But it’s important not to let that pride detract from the cause.

I’ve written before about how futile I see components of our “justice” system to be. If what Northampton gets from these attacks is just another crazy person in jail, we will have missed the point. If we act the way the property owner I talked to early yesterday morning, standing in front of the smoking house on Fair St. where a father and son had burned to death hours before, saying “I hope they light the prick who did this on fire”, we will have regressed, not progressed. You know what truly could have stopped this? If for every angry, reserved, and crazy citizen, there were five other concerned ones, getting them psychological help, donating food or money, and so on. American hyper-self-sufficiency is largely to blame for the fact that someone capable of causing this much damage could go unnoticed for so long.

If it turns out I’m wrong, and this is someone who had been treated before, or was under scrutiny and somehow wasn’t detected, then I willingly stand corrected. If it turns out I’m drawing conclusions far too broad given the scope of our existing knowledge, then I welcome further information. But an event like this one really does cause me to profoundly question the way we perceive each other as individuals within a societal framework largely created by the government, at least in terms of social infrastructure. And when your government is consistently lacking in funds and political capital to sufficiently finance such social infrastructure, things fall by the wayside. Sorry to so blatantly politicize such a tragic event, but I can’t help but think “this wouldn’t have happened if we’d been spending the money we’ve spent on Iraq and Afghanistan on health care and subsidized housing”. There it is.

What do we do now? We rebuild, we restore, and we comfort. We work together, and we make sure that this never, ever, happens again.

Paul Yeskie, Sr., and Paul Yeskie, Jr., rest in peace.

Arson

2009-12-27T00:00:00+00:00

If you follow me on Twitter, you might know about the arson attacks that happened in Northampton early this morning. I’ve been posting pictures and information, and there’s already a Twitter account created for them, a community-maintained Google Map of incidents, and a Facebook group. Here are links to some articles about the fires for more information.

If you’re in the are, please get involved. This is a senseless tragedy, and we need to help the victims. I’m working on organizing a community patrol of some sort, perhaps involved with the Northampton Police department. Keep an eye on my Twitter for more info, and I’ll try to post here if I can.

The liberal's cardinal sin

2009-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

As a self-styled liberal and far-left progressive, I know I’ve often caught myself assuming that people to the right of me are less in support of human rights than I am. This is equivalent to the conservative tactic of accusing liberals of attacking liberty and restricting freedom.

Liberty, freedom, and human rights are not political views, they are moral views. Politics is where we differ on how to achieve those moral high points. This isn’t to sugarcoat the entirety of the political spectrum as uniformly supporting the same ideals. I believe that there are enemies of freedom and human rights, but accusing everyone with a different political opinion than me of being those enemies prevents me from accurately identifying and calling them out when I do come across them.

This applies to a lot of political discussions I’m involved in: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, health care reform, Guantanamo detainee housing, and more. All are curtailed by these accusations. We need to stop making them.

But that can be difficult; bipartisanship is an old tune when you’re working with people who don’t want to compromise. Hence, the value in Obama’s approach comes from the realization that as many of the people opposing health care reform do so on the basis of their own beliefs as do on the basis of corporate interests. Estranging those people by making them feel as though their opinion is not valid just makes for more political trouble down the line.

Now, that becomes a moot point when you have a GOP that’s adopted fringe tactics to delegitimize the President in any way, but we elected Obama to be better than that. He’s delivering. We don’t have what I’d call substantial health care reform, but it ain’t meaningless either. Us progressives need to stop arguing that Obama has betrayed our ideals and wake up to the fact that he did what we thought was impossible. We’ve broken a unified Republican opposition, and we’re on the way to lowering costs, bringing down the deficit, and providing substantial subsidies to people significantly above the federal poverty line.

When we equate political aims with moral beliefs, we estrange more people than we endear ourselves to, and we blind ourselves to what little good we can wrestle out of a deeply broken political system. It’s time to stop that equation, and to work for real change, both in the current bills, and in ending the necessity of a supermajority to pass anything. That is change we can believe in.

Yet another post on Jewschool

2009-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

I promise I’ll write a blog post here soon. In the meantime, check out my newest post at Jewschool. It was just too good a topic to miss.

Exquisite Corpse: Now with Ajax (courtesy of jQuery)

2009-12-14T00:00:00+00:00

If you check out the Exquisite Corpse page, you will notice some pretty friggin’ awesome updates. It is now ENTIRELY Ajax-based. This means that you don’t EVER have to reload the page to get a new poem or submit lines, and there will be no more of the obnoxious thing where after someone submits a line of a poem, they click refresh a bunch of times to get a new prompt line, and then the line they entered gets added on over and over again because they’re resubmitting the POST data over and over. No, no more! jQuery to the rescue!

If this doesn’t make any sense to you, that’s okay. The upshot of it for an end user is that the page is way more user-friendly, has some sizzling-hot visual effects (yes, Mr. Spinning-Gear-Progress-Indicator, and Ms. Snazzy-Awesome-Slide-Up-and-Slide-Down-to-Respectively-Hide-and-Show-Content, I’m talking about you), tracks when a poem was begun, not just when it was ended,and is just generally slicker. Enjoy!

I’ve tested the page pretty thoroughly, and I don’t anticipate any problems. However, if you do run across something, please let me know using the contact form.

Keep up the good work! This project has been pretty incredible, and I hope that people will continue to contribute to it.

New post at Jewschool

2009-12-11T00:00:00+00:00

Interrupting my unofficial final-induced blogging hiatus is this newest post over at Jewschool!

New Jewschool post!

2009-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

I wrote a new post for Jewschool! This is very exciting as I haven’t written a blog post in a little while. It’s also the first NSFW post I’ve ever written (or at least it links to NSFW content). And still, I hope, maintains intellectualism. A major milestone. Enjoy!

BDS: a threat to peace

2009-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

On Thursday night, I attended Brown Student’s for Palestine BDS event. The BDS movement is a global call to remove financial backing from Israeli companies that profit from the occupation. This was my first encounter with the movement, and I went without really knowing what to expect. Certainly, I was looking forward to the opportunity to engage in dialogue about how to promote peace, and I looked forward to meeting people outside of the Jewish community involved in that process, as most of my involvement thus far has been through J Street, J Street U, and Brown Hillel.

I didn’t experience a dialogue about peace. I didn’t experience a discussion of what was in the best interests of Palestinians. And I didn’t feel welcome.

There are some important distinctions that I think need to be drawn when analyzing a political group or event like this one. First of all, I wholeheartedly support this group’s right to purse whatever political strategy they’ve chosen for whatever ends they’ve chosen, and, if doing so requires it, to act independently of other organizations and disregard their input. This is how one runs a political campaign you decide on what you want to do, you form a strategy, and then you do it. That’s how you elect people, it’s how you push for change, and it’s how you (hopefully) gain public support.

I missed the first half of the event, which was an info session, and got there right as they were opening it up for questions. One of the first things I heard them declare during that process was “We know that we want to run a divestment campaign, and we’re here to talk about how.” This didn’t initially mean much to me I thought “Okay, good, they know what they’re doing.” That’s better than endless indecisiveness in the service of some high moral ideal, at least. But a minute later, it was followed by an entirely different statement: “We want to figure out what’s in the best interest of Palestinians.”

What? Take a step back for a moment. If you’ve decided to a pursue a campaign without knowing if it’s in the best interests of the Palestinians, you’re in a sticky situation. What if, hypothetically, what you were doing would actually cause more harm, immediately and in the long-term, to Palestinians and their ability to self-govern? What if your resolve on a single reflexive course of action by its very nature, prevented you from effectively analyzing the situation?

As you can probably guess, those aren’t really hypothetical questions. I believe that the BDS movement is inherently shortsighted. At Thursday night’s event, the former president of Brown Students for Israel asked the panelists what they saw as the ultimate end of the peace process. Their answer was extremely revealing “That’s not our job. We don’t have a political opinion on the end of the process. We’re trying to give them the right to self-determination.”

I have no doubt about the purity of these people’s motives. I don’t claim, as would some others, that they’re selfishly just trying to wash their hands of the responsibility for Israel’s actions that they currently bear by virtue of paying taxes. I honestly believe that they have every intention of doing what they say they want to, and that they have great value for the lives of Palestinians. And that they honestly believe that what they’re doing is in Palestinians’ best interests. And they have every right to believe that, and every right to act upon it.

But by refusing to look at their actions in the context of an end to the conflict, they’re missing something big, namely understanding whether or not their actions will lead to peace. Do I support the occupation? Absolutely not, contrary to what I and others were accused of over and over. Do I support the systems of institutionalized discrimination that are a part of Israel’s domestic policy? No, although I was also accused of supporting of that too. Do I believe that Israel has the moral or political right to pursue foreign policy that prevents Palestinian self-governance? In no way, shape, or form.

But I also believe that economically weakening Israel will not expedite the peace process. In focusing only on the purported issue of “equal weight in negotiations” (BDS’ intention is to weaken Israel enough that it can’t continue the occupation, thus allowing for a level playing field in negotiations), the BDS movement ignores some glaring realities. First of all, a boycott will not be immediate. Israel will not wake up one morning and not have enough money to fuel its airplanes and pay its soldiers. It won’t wake up to unified international outrage over its actions (if that was going to happen overnight, it would have, or it would have at least materialized in the last 60 years). And it certainly won’t wake up to find that its guns don’t shoot or its bombs don’t explode or its settlers don’t resist evacuation.

A boycott will take years to have any kind of effect. And beyond that, it will take even longer for it actually to put any kind of restrictions on Israel’s military power. And do you know what will happen before the boycott kicks in? More bombs. More rockets into Israel. More death all around.

Even worse, once Israel starts to lose economic backing, it’ll really kick into high gear. The Israeli defense industry is huge, and there’s an immediate economic benefit to be gained from military campaigns. Not only that, but history shows that when Israel feels its security is threatened in any way, it responds. As would any country. Especially one in such a volatile geopolitical context.

So let’s also consider the consequences of our actions beyond grand ideals of “ending oppression” and “justice for all”. Yes, these are great things. But they can’t be bought or induced. They have to be won. When you don’t have them, you demand them. You negotiate for them. You don’t shut up.

What can we do to hasten the peace process and ensure safety for everyone in the region (Israelis too remember, BDS, they’re also people go figure)? We can lobby Congress. We can write letters. We can talk, rather than accuse. We can listen, rather than spread divisive disinformation. We can unify, rather than divide, strengthen the players in that region, rather than weaken them and force them to act out of fear and instability, whichwill not serve the cause of peace.

But because BDS doesn’t propose an end to the solution, they don’t have to deal with any of these things. Conveniently, their responsibility ends when we have no more money in Israel (which, by the way, will never happen). What then? What before then? However genuinely they support the Palestinian people, their core mission prevents them from acting in those same people’s best interests, or at the very least, having the discussion about what’s in their best interests.

So this first encounter with the radical left has been eye-opening. It’s forced me to rethink many of the views I hold, and to reexamine my opinions on what the best way forward is. I’ve certainly been awoken to the fact that there’s a need for direct dialogue and education on how to achieve peace.

I’m ready to meet that need, and I know others are as well. I will publicly debate anyone on what the best way forward in this process is. But I will not be called a racist. I will not be told I’m a militant Zionist. I will not be told I don’t support human rights, or that I support the occupation. These are regressive tactics whether they come from the left or the right.

We’ve been bogged down in them too long. BDS’ continued use of them is a direct obstacle to a useful dialogue on peace.

The Text Reassembler

2009-11-18T00:00:00+00:00

Tonight marks the launch of the newest entry to the projects section of this site, currently called the text reassembler (if you have a better idea for a name, please let me know). It’s something I started over a year ago that’s languished undeveloped for much of that time. I decided to put in a bit of time to get it viewable, and put it up as a work in progress.

The project is based off of something I saw demonstrated atbyProf. Allen Downey atOlin College in the fall of 2008 while I was visiting. Although I didn’t end up applying there, I really liked the presentation he gave, on various computing methods and some of the ways of using computers to produce humanistic output. Particularly, he demonstrated a program thataccepted inputted text, andbroke down that text into anassociative array with the following properties:

the array keys were each word in the array (so the text “hello how are you” would generate an array with keys “hello”, “how”, “are”, and “you”)
the value of each key was a non-associative array consisting of a list of every word thatfollowed the key somewhere in the text (so the text “I saw you and he saw her” would be (in PHP format): array(“I”=>array(“saw”),”saw”=>array(“you”,”her”),”you”=>array(“and”),”and”=>array(“he”),”her”=>array())

This sounds complicated, but bear with me; the next step will make it make more sense. Once the program has generated this array, it begins to iterate through it in the following manner:

it takes key from the array and outputs it
it selects a random item from the list of words following that key (the array stored in that key’s associate value) and outputs it
then it jumps to thekey entry for that word, and moves back to step 2

It repeats this until it encounters a word that has nothing following it (the last word in the source text if it appears nowhere else) or until it’s output a specified amount of words (much more common). Thus, if you take any two adjacent words in the resulting text (which sounds uncannily similar in tone to the original and sounds like it should make sense, but is complete nonsense), you’ll be able to locate them, still adjacent, in the source text. It’s legitimately one of the most fascinating and beautiful things I’ve ever seen a computer do.

I came home determined to write a copy, and made a bit of progress. It lay around for a while, I did some more work on it some point, but I never completed it. I rediscovered it this evening and just manned up and made it work well enough to be publicly viewable. When finished, it will accept input in a text field, or will be able to read input from a specified URL. At the moment, though, it’s just dealing with block of text I hard-coded in (thus it’s not accepting any user input right now), and a word output limit imposed the same way. Both the source of the text and the length are displayed on the page.

Now at New Voices: For daveners only

2009-11-18T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve written a second post for New Voices. This one is about the difficulties of providing for all students in a campus Hillel, and what I see as an important step in that direction. Enjoy!

Apple fandom

2009-11-18T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve been using Apple products all my life. I’ve always found them to be of terrific quality, and I’ve always been better treated by the company in sale and support terms. I’ve also spent years as an Apple Certified Macintosh Technician. I camped out for an iPhone 3G and spent a long time arguing AT&T into giving me a subsidized 3G S after the 3G was stolen. I have just about as much loyalty to the Apple brand as anyone.

But I know which way the wind is blowing. If Apple keeps going down the road of intense user control, doesn’t give up the exclusivity contract with AT&T, and continues to break with Google, I’m not going to stick with them. Google Android, Chrome, and Chrome OS once it exists (not to mention more well-established software like Ubuntu, which I already consider second only OS X), are all completely viable alternatives. I already have all of my email addresses (including MobileMe, which I get for free as a certified Apple Sales Professional) redirecting to Gmail, and it provides all the services MobileMe does, except for Find My iPhone, and for free. See my general rule for computing. It still applies.

So, while I think that Apple is still a generally moral company, one that is providing terrific services to its users, I hope they realize that down the road they are only going to be able to restrict us so far. Google has done an incredible job of making it really easy to switch to their services, and as we offload more and more of our data storage and processing power to the cloud, that ease of transition and context-switching is a big advantage. Either it will keep Apple honest, or I’ll switch. I’m definitely not enough of a fanboy to stick with Apple when there’s a better alternative. Until that point, I’ll continue to defend them as the best hardware and software provider, but I’m not blind to reality.

Thus, I publicly declare Apple not to be the infallible god that its fanpersons so often claim it is. And I call on its directors and customers to take it in a direction that continues to provide good products and services, rather than one that treats its customers, as so many other tech companies have, as endlessly ignorant moneybags. I, for one, will not put up with that. We’re used to getting good value from Apple, and if we stop getting it, we’ll move on.

Terrorists' day in court

2009-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

With the news that some of the most undoubtedly-guilty-of-one-of-the-most-heinous-crimes-ever people will be tried in NYC, and that Greg Craig (I really like saying that name out loud) is departing the White House, it seems to me there’s a missing piece in the argument over what’s to be done with Gitmo detainees. The GOP whines about trying terrorists, and Bill Kristol has the balls to say that Maj. Hasan shouldn’t be tried.

So what’s the pattern? Conservatives are subverting the due process of law. They’re appealing to the gut reaction of “Oh, you want to try this guy? You must think he’s innocent.” I think that people like Kristol honestly think that it’s okay not to give him a fair trial. That’s because they don’t understand the Constitution. Or they don’t understand its importance. Either way, they’re trying to paint Democrats as terrorists sympathizers.

Enough of this. President Obama’s strategy of avoiding making enemies of Republicans at all costs has gone too far. It’s time for him to make a statement about Guantanamo. Here’s how it should start:

Fellow Americans, I’m here today to talk about something very important. Housed in our prison in Guantanamo Bay are approximately 200 detainees. Some were wanted in connection to various crimes. We have gathered and inherited definite evidence against some of them. Others have been held for years without even the most basic right that we accord to all suspects, the right of habeas corpus, to know the reason for imprisonment.

My administration has made it a priority literally from day one to end this operation. I’d like to tell you about where we see that mission heading in the future.

First of all, let me make something abundantly clear. We do our country a great disservice by continuing to violate the rights of these detainees. Now, I now many of you have qualms about affording people whose names are associated with such terrible acts the same rights we afford each other. I understand this. And I too have deep moral conflicts about the appropriateness of our judicial system as it can be applied to these detainees.

But I am here today to make an unequivocal statement that those people will be afforded just and speedy trials. Tantamount to our country’s desire to preserve its image as a beacon of freedom and democracy is our ability to apply our moral codes equally to all. The continued infringement of the rights of those detainees detracts from our country’s ability to hold others to the same standards. We must be the example we wish others to follow.

So, you get the idea for the flowery rhetoric. He’s good at that, so I think that if he just decided to do it, he could *easily *win the support of most of the country. Obviously, there will be people who don’t want to hear it. And you know what? It doesn’t matter. The lesson that the LGBTQ equality movement is learning from endless failed ballot initiatives, which confirmed by the women’s suffrage movement and the Civil Rights Act is that you can’t put people’s inalienable rights on a referendum. The Constitution does not say that “all free, unaccused, unimprisoned men” are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, it says that “all men” are. The Constitution is important precisely because of how universal it is. It’s about people, not just free citizens. We can’t treat these detainees like subhumans anymore.

My proposal is this: Create an independent federal comission of military, terrorism, legal, etc., experts, to review the cases of every single detainee there. That commission will have no decision-making authority, but it will give a recommendation to the Executive branch on which of those detainees should be brought to court. Because they were detained and imprisoned in illegal and unprecedented manners, we need to think outside the box. I’m not a Constitutional scholar, but I do think it would be constitutional to just release all of them. So that’s an option, but I’d consider it a pretty bad one, because a fair amount of them probably do have terrorist connections, and just letting them back out into the wild would legitimately be dangerous (whereas housing them in high-security federal prisons is not, unlike what John Boehner would have you believe). Realistically, we can’t try all of them. There are too many, and the evidence against them has been too poorly handled. For a lot of them, a trial would just be a huge waste of time and money, as they’d just end up walking.

So the panel will make recommendations not only on if they should be tried, but where and how. KSM? Killed people in NYC, so they’re trying him there. Someone was detained for plotting against soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan? Try them in a military tribunal. We’ve spent too long making blanket statements about these people, calling them all terrorists, all evil people. It’s time to treat them with the same respect and investigation that we do all other criminals.

I’m really tired of being told that my opinions on this make America less safe. For god’s sake, we have the highest incarceration rates in the entire world, and the GOP would like us to think that somehow an extra 200 guys are going to be a problem? Again, Steve Benen says it: “…are we back to Republican fears that terrorist suspects are comic-book villains with super powers?”

Seriously, guys. They’re just people. They’re not terrorists yet. They’re not criminals yet. That is the entire point of the constitution.

Republicans either don’t get it, or don’t care. Worse, they don’t care that they don’t get it. In their insular little political “us-and-them” philosophy, there’s no room for liberal elitist “human rights” issues. No room for international credibility. Just America the brave, and the craven enemy. It’s so easy being a right-winger (KFJ’s excellent post on what this means for the Israel debate is totally applicable here too).

I have zero interest in adopting the us-and-them tactic. It’s stupid and regressive. But that shouldn’t prevent us from calling out those who do.

My first post at New Voices!

2009-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

At the J Street conference, I was approached by Ben Sales, the editor of New Voices, who asked me to blog for them, andI’ve just written my first post for them! I’m really excited about this, and I’ll continue to post here when I write something new over there. As with Jewschool, I’m not going to crosspost the content of blog posts, just a link to them.

I encourage everyone to take a look at New Voices. There’s some really great stuff over there, and I’m really happy to be a part of it.

Exquisite Corpse: Now with timestamps!

2009-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve made a small update to the Exquisite Corpse page, one that I had been considering for a while. All poems completed from this point onwards will display a timestamp showing when they were completed.

Activity on the page has been pretty steady recently, which is great. I’m really pleased with how that project is going. Please share it with your friends – it’s really becoming something pretty awesome. Keep up the good work!

The signs are inescapable

2009-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

I’d say that the fact that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a Muslim is a lot less important than the fact that he was an Army psychiatrist. His entire job is preventing people from feeling that they have to do exactly what he did.

Coincedence? No. When people with the training to assess and treat psychological syndromes like PTSD succumb to them, something is seriously wrong. Military suicides are already going way up. Afghanistan isn’t the good fight anymore. Service members are speaking out following their experiences there. There was a time when we could have done good there. That time is over.

Bush didn’t care about the troops enough to bring them home. Instead, he deployed more. And that doesn’t just mean that a bunch of them suddenly just materialized. Tours got longer. Time between them got shorter.

Obama, don’t make the same mistake. The deceptively low (considering the length of the engagement [and especially when compared to Iraq]) casualty figures are only or side of the story. This war is driving the country deeper into depression. It’s driving a wedge between us and our allies (cite BBC), not to mention the Muslim world. And it’s putting an unsustainable strain on our military.

You have the power to end it now. Do it before it’s too late.

When is vindictiveness productive?

2009-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

A while back, I wrote about what I thought the ramifications of Chris Brown’s well-publicized abuse of Rihanna would be. And I compared it to a somewhat more extreme case, that of Scott Roeder. I’m going to go out on a limb, and do something pretty similar. Rihanna has just spoken out about the incident for the first time since the beating occured. Also notably, the DC Sniper is going to be executed on November 10th.

It’s hard to maintain serious opposition to the death penalty when confronted with a case like this. This is someone who clearly had no intention but to murder innocent civilians, a defense that is morally and practically completely indefensible, period. And if I were required to to prescribe the death penalty as the punishment for a single type of crime, reserving it for the worst of the worst, this might be it.

So what’s so complicated about it? An evil person is going to die, and I’m going to keep on fighting to outlaw the death penalty. Conflicting morals, but nothing we haven’t encountered before when talking about the state executing people.

Except people are going to watch.

Let me repeat that: people are going to watch.

The state offered the family of every victim two seats. Call them front-row; they will stand in a ten-foot square room and watch as John Allen Muhammad is strapped to a gurney and injected with poison. They will watch him die.

I know, I know, this is a bit dramatic. But it just seems so wrong to me.

I’m in no position to criticize the hate and misery those people must feel. I cannot even imagine how incredibly hard it must be to have a loved one taken in that manner by the randomly targeted cruelty of another. And there’s pretty much nothing in the world I’d deny those people as recourse.

Except this. I have a sense of complete moral revulsion at the thought of taking pleasure or feeling justice as you watch someone die, stripped of any dignity they might ever have had. I won’t speculate on their motives, because, again, I cannot even try to put myself in their position, but one of the victims (who survived and chose not to attend the execution) said “There was enough killing already with us.” How could anyone want to experience more death, more pain, more loss, after having gone through that?

I never though I’d call domestic abuse “trivial”, but comparing this to what happened to Rihanna is just that. But she had the courage to speak out about it. She’s not vindictive, she’s productive.

What if, instead of watching this freak-show of a justice system, each of those families declined the invitation, and told the state to use their funds to improve subsidized housing, or welfare programs, or other social infrastructure? How much more bitterness and death and tax dollars do we need to inject into the veins of society before we realize what a waste it is?

How many more innocent people will be sniped? How many more innocent people will be executed (h/t thewanderingjew)?

And how many more will watch?

This is just disgusting

2009-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

The sponsor of H.R. 867, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, also sponsored a bill in March commemorating… “the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide and calling on all responsible nations to uphold the principles of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”. Take a look at the list of resolution’s she’s sponsored in the past. She’s a champion of the recognition of genocide, human rights violations, hate crimes, terrorism and security threats posed by poverty, and so on. She’s the only member of the GOP in the House LGBTQ Equality Caucus.

What gives?

The dangers of euphemisms

2009-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.
Collateral damage.
The Internet Freedom Act.

What do these things actually mean? Answers:

Illegal wiretapping (courtesy of the Bush administration).
Dead civilians (courtesy of just about everyone ever).
For-profit bandwidth throttling (courtesy of Sen. John McCain, #1 beneficiary of telecom lobby money)

Honestly, I’m pretty pissed of at Sen. McCain. Every time I think he’s reestablished himself as a paragon of GOP morality in an ever-more-decadent political climate, he slips up again. Given the state of rural broadband, there are a lot of people who can get service from only one ISP, and the idea that that ISP should have the right to control what that person does and doesn’t see is just ridiculous.

Dear GOP: The only thing your insistence on absolute (there it is again) government non-interventionism does is let someone else do the intervening. If you don’t make it illegal for someone to take away someone else’s civil liberties, rest assured that someone will find a way to do it, and to make money off it. Healthcare. Social Security. Internet.

America, wake up and smell the coffee. The people defending corporations and saying that they need protection from the big bad government are getting paid to do so. The reality is that a culture of profit in this country is deeply entrenched. Government regulations aren’t changing that. We are not poised on the brink of communism, despite what John Boehner, Sarah Palin, and Rush Limbaugh would like you to think. This country is more firmly capitalist than perhaps any other.

So now, can we make it a little more moral? Or is that too much to ask of you right-wing GOP extremists who care about nothing but where your campaign money’s coming from? Now, I know I’m sounding like just another left-wing nutjob, but Matt Yglesias was right when he said that Alan Grayson had broken an unspoken rule. And Barney Frank’s comment about Grayson was just as accurate. If the left would just stop bowing to the GOP’s attention to minute details and stick to the moral message, we’d win. I happen to think we’re right on both fronts, so I fully support and engage in debate on financial details of Democrat’s plans, but I think that the reason we’re bogged down in that is that we’ve lost sight of the moral message. If we worked to reframe the debate in terms of “whose political morals are in support of the people?”, we’d practically have won. If we can talk to Americans in terms they understand about moral differences, instead of leaving that entirely to the GOP, they’d listen. Democrats have never been good at this – Grayson is refreshing.

Let’s follow his example. No more dodging points and hiding behind euphemisms. The right does out of dishonesty. The left does it out of inaptitude. If we both stopped, we’d have one person saying “I want to ensure that corporations continue to profit” and another saying “I want to ensure that you have money to stay healthy”.

The choice is clear.

I need a name!

2009-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

As you might have noticed, I’m making some large-ish changes to this site. As I find that blogging is becoming a bigger and bigger part of how I think about issues, I’ve made this site much more about the blog. Looking at some of my favorite blogs, I’ve tried to present more relevant content to people, and made the site less formally separated. I felt that those separations weren’t doing much good, and it would be better to have more information about me, still cleanly organized (I hope) and easy-to-access.

So I think the site needs a name. Rather than just being “harpojaeger.com”, I want to come up with something to call the blog that makes sense, that communicates the sort of things it might be about. College, politics, religion, culture, and so on.

If you notice the site has weird names in the near future, it may just be because I’m trying things out to see how I like them. I could imagine myself changing the name (and probably adding a subtitle) and letting it sit for a few days to see what it looks like. I’d appreciate feedback if you have ideas or thoughts.

Stay tuned for more…

New post at Jewschool: The relationship between a Jewish identity and a political identity

2009-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve decided to stop cross-posting the content of my Jewschool work, so here’s a link to my newest piece over there.

The obsolete conservative mentality

2009-10-29T00:00:00+00:00

Several conversations and thinking-sessions recently have brought me to a new conclusion: conservativism is obsolete. Mind you, I’ve thought the GOP was obsolete for a while (with no real leader, and Michael Steele proving his inaptitude at every possible opportunity), but this is starting to translate to conservative values as a whole.

If anything, the election of Barack Obama symbolizes an end to the era of extremes. Arguably, that’s an era that America’s been stuck in since its inception. And for an understandable reason. When you have a country born of a violent revolution (whether or not it was just isn’t even at issue here”, that mentality of** **“we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more” is bound to stick around. It’s a core part of what’s up to this point been an inflexible American mentality.

But I’m not afraid now to prophesy the end of that. There are definite signs that this era is coming to an end. Call it relief from Bushism, call it being starstruck, but those things are worth something.

We’re talking to Iran. We’re working for meaningful diplomacy in the Middle East. We’re closing Guantanamo. We’re passing inclusive hate-crimes legislation. We’re going to pass health care reform (so help me G-d).

This isn’t meant to be a laundry list of things that Obama has done right – there are plenty of things he’s done wrong. So far, Afghanistan is a big one, and I’m not yet sure where it’s going from here. But there’s a significance to this progress that is underestimated.

To argue this point, I want to address what I see as the core concept of conservatism – absolutes. Personal responsibility, personal liberty, moral integrity. Now, I don’t mean to trash those things – they’re all very good. I’m all for responsibility, liberty, and integrity. But I don’t look at them in a vacuum. I don’t pretend that you can separate them from all other worldly concepts and still treat them in the same way.

Take, for example, the Republican war on climate change science in the 90′s. Regardless of the industrial, economic, or personal motivations behind the actions of many prominent conservatives, one of their most devastating weapons weapons was the magnification and misrepresentation of scientific uncertainty. Now, I’m not saying there aren’t conservative scientists (there are many smart people who are conservative), but the aggressive right-wing politics that the Gingrich house espoused appealed deliberately to the fear that uneducated conservatives have about uncertainty.

I can’t really call myself a scientist – I’m a college student studying various sciences, but I can say that I have a very good knowledge of and deep respect for the scientific process. It’s a process that’s different from almost any other. The “scientific community” (a phrase which implies more unity of opinion than does in fact exist) has deliberately created a process designed to be self-sustaining (in that those whose ideas are determined to be sound are then given the ability to make that judgment about others), and accurate (in that people are directly responsible for the content, execution, and ramifications of their ideas). There is no other intellectual system this rigorous.

To destroy the public’s perception of that well-founded structure, conservatives (with the aid of industry lobbyists) turned to people’s fear of the unknown. That fear is, at its heart, very unscientific. While a conservative in that fight might say that science cannot explain everything (factually correct), a scientist would argue that that’s mising the point. Science is about quantifying uncertainty. Science accepts that there are certain things we’re not currently capable of understanding, for a variety of reasons, and sets as its primary goals defining the limits of what those concepts are, working to increase our knowledge of the unknown, and allowing us to find concrete ways of expressing exactly what it is we don’t know.

This process is fundamentally subverted by that of politics. Take, for example, the 2001 Data Quality Act. In essence it gives the OMB the power to decide what does and does not constitute valid scientific information. This is a fundamentally unscientific concept. The government has not historically and should not have the capability to make scientific judgments. Within the peer-review process, a scientists rigorously check their colleagues’ work and verify their conclusions. There is no entity doing this for the federal government. So when the government can reject scientific evidence based on anything other than the direct advice or opinion of the scientific community (perhaps indirectly, as in a scientific claim that has been debunked in a peer-reviewed journal), it gains a huge advantage. Suddenly, the government is able to misrepresent scientific data. The only people who can call them out on it are scientists, and when you combine this with a toxic conservative ideological distrust for formally structured, impersonal systems (like the peer-review process), it’s easy to paint scientists as conspiracy theorists who must be stopped by the dedicated pro-small-government advocates. It fits right into those same constituents’ fears of big government. In their mind, the conservatives are coming into office to shrink the government and prevent the scientists from using their massive deceptive structure to fool the common folks.

I’d argue that the 1990′s Gingrich-controlled House attitude towards climate science is largely responsible for some current political phenomena as well. Specifically, the added role that the government played in scientific processes is in my opinion the reason that prominent climate deniers, long disgraced and disproved by near-unanimous consensuses (unanimous to an unusual magnitude), still gain public attention. Had the government acted on the scientific community’s best advice at the time it was given, those people would have quickly faded into the background. And yet we still see this misinformation published by major news organizations. That’s because in the early years of the debate they gained a legitimacy they could have found nowhere in the scientific community due to the government’s willingness to feature their views. That’s a direct result of industry lobbying and concerted GOP efforts to publish false data and conclusions to the public as truth and undermine the legitimacy of well-founded scientific claims based on ad hominem, irrelevant attacks.

For a movement that prides itself on individualism and government non-intervention, conservatives are remarkably willing to support the government in applying their own morals to others. Two good examples of this are abortion rights and marriage equality. In both situations, you have extremely personal issues with far-reaching consequences for all those involved. Decisions on abortion or marriage are among the most important anyone could make in their life. And yet, conservatives are willing to paint with a broad brush the challenges people face in deciding whether or not to have an abortion or the feelings people have for one another, and declare one thing right and one thing wrong in every situation. Absolutism, again. There are endless examples. Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, health care, and so on. In each of them, conservatives are willing to stick to principles of absolutes that are at their core restrictive. To be sure, I, as a liberal Democrat, have very strong values, but my values are based around freedom of choice. I believe that everyone should have the right to choose whether or not they have an abortion. Everyone should have the right to choose who they marry. Everyone should have the right to choose where they get their healthcare from. We should pursue foreign policy that opens us up to the rest of the world, not secures our status as a superpower at the expense of diplomatic relationships. And I believe that the government should take a strong stance to prevent anyone from taking away someone else’s choices. By creating a public option to prevent corporate monopolies on insurance, by passing inclusive hate-crimes legislation (yay!) to prevent crimes and intimidation against people who make different choices, by preventing conservatives from intimidating those who’ve chosen to get an abortion. That’s the government’s job. To give people the freedom to make their own choices.

That’s why I’m declaring the impending doom of a movement based around restrictions of liberty. One that believes, and I am sure quite honestly in most cases, that the way to do this is by taking away the fundamental structures designed to preserve individual freedoms. By seeking to undermine policies designed to strengthen those structures and add new ones as they are found necessary. That hasn’t worked in the past, it isn’t working now, and it will never work.

And I think America is waking up. I’m not claiming that this is a shift I expect to happen in the extremely near future. But this country has been fundamentally changed by the election of President Barack Obama.

It’s change we can believe in. And we’re never going back.

Cross-posted from Jewschool: Opening session, introductions, and surprises

2009-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

The J Street U opening program has just finished. Technically, this program beings and ends a day earlier than the regular J Street conference, so our individual programming takes place throughout the day tomorrow. In the evening, we join the conference, and go through their programming on Monday. We then have the option of our own advocacy session on Capitol Hill, or staying in the regular conference for Tuesday and going to their advocacy session on Wednesday. I’ve elected to take this option, and so, it turns out, has one of our guest bloggers, Moriel Rothman, whom I bumped into at the beginning of the opening program.

We turn out to have a lot in common (such as as both beatboxing), and we’re spending some time talking about how to cover the events here meaningfully as we go through the program. Tonight has been very constructive. I’m looking forward to crashing at the hostel a few blocks away where a lot of us are staying. Tomorrow’s an even busier day.

There’s a palpable sense of excitement in the air. But people are surprisingly level-headed. No one’s flying off the handle with radicalism or unfounded idealistic dreams of changing the world right away. But there’s real hope here. We heard some speakers talk about the role college campuses play in the shaping and realization of U.S. Middle Eastern policy; it’s empowering to have people address you like that. So tomorrow, when we actually make good on these ideas, and have real discussions with real facts, it’s going to come home – we have a job to do, and we’re here to learn how to do it.

I’ll continue to tweet the student and regular conferences.

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

My citizens or yours: reflections on "collateral damage"

2009-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

The Goldstone report has generated quite a splash, to say the least, in a lot of different arenas. Between Israel condemning it, and the most recent developments within the UN, it’s an ongoing issue. And it’s made me think about another important issue – the idea of collateral damage.

So when you’re facing an enemy like Hamas who has no problem using civilians as shields, you’re faced with a difficult moral decision.

Oh wait. That’s right. You’re not actually. At all.

If your enemy is using a civilian as a human shield, you don’t shoot. Period.

I recognize a nation’s right to sovereignty. A nation’s right to defend its own citizens. I don’t think it’s ideal, but I recognize that for the moment, in this world, the most efficient and fair way of organizing things is by separate nations with often-competing interests.

But being a member or leader of a nation doesn’t mean that other citizens are second class. You don’t get to kill other civilians in defense of your own. No matter how you dodge, you’re stating that you value your own citizens more highly as humans than others’. And that’s fundamentally wrong and inhumane.

And the same is true of those using their own citizens or fellow countrymen as shields. It’s inhumane, disrespectful, and ultimately counterproductive.

I will, without reservation, continue to condemn anyone who endangers civilians, whether they’re on the defense or the offense. It’s simply inexcusable.

Coming to terms with Afghanistan

2009-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

Straight up. U.S. out of Afghanistan.

I’m beginning like this because it’s a change of heart. I’ve never been supportive of a full withdrawal from Afghanistan until now. I’ve believed that there are definite military actions we could take to defeat the Taliban and prevent the drug trafficking economy from supporting them and Al Qaeda. And I still believe this is true. But I don’t think it’s worth it any more.

Which is more of a threat to our national security right now, the Taliban, or global climate change? Which is killing more citizens, extremists or health insurance recision?

There may be a place for U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan in the future. But given the amount of resources and political energy we’re putting into it right now, it’s not worth it. Perhaps with a meaningful international effort, one that gathers world leaders together to discuss not the current strategy but the current problem. Because there is definitely a problem. But what we’ve been lacking this far is an even-handed evaluation of how to best approach that problem. From the beginning, it was the Bush administration botching what could have been an effective campaign by diverting attention to Iraq, turning our allies against us by committing human rights abuses, and now it’s generals holding press conferences rather than using the military chain of command. Our strategy in the Middle East has from the beginning been based around self-interest, and that’s holding with us today.

We need to step back, and confront the problem from an outsider’s stance. I don’t think there’s any other way to really do this well.

Hilary Clinton said something during the 2008 Democratic primaries that I thought was very insightful. When asked about the apparent success of the Bush troop surge in Iraq as compared to her proposed strategy, she pointed out that there are different ways to define victory. She said that yes, it’s true that putting more troops somewhere gives you a tactical advantage. But were we then any closer to being out of Iraq than we were before the surge? And the answer was no.

We may be now, but what was the cost? Too high. We can’t repeat that.

Obama, let’s end this before it starts. Afghanistan will be another Iraq, it will be another Vietnam, it will be another distraction from the countless issues facing this country that affect far more people ad are farm more solvable. As Jon Stewart says, it’s chow time.

Civilian control of the military is important. Go back to the definition of victory. Realize that we’re dealing with generals here. Their job is to win wars. To have a tactical advantage. We don’t need a tactical advantage now. We need our money, our troops, and our time back.

Bring them home now.

On the motivation of campus police

2009-10-03T00:00:00+00:00

What makes someone want to become a campus police officer? I say this in all seriousness. Not at all to demean them. I’m really curious. Being a normal cop is definitely a drag sometimes you have to do stuff like traffic that I could imagine being pretty boring. But you also see a lot of things, I imagine you learn a lot about society, and you can genuinely help people. Not to glorify the dirty work, but I can empathize with that feeling of wanting to actually get out on the street and help someone who’d be getting hurt otherwise. To be honest, I sometimes think that if I have grand ideas about politics and helping people, I should work as a police officer first. Then I’d have a real understanding of how the problems I’m claiming to come up with solutions for actually look in real life.

The same motivations of wanting to help people could apply to someone wanting to become a campus police officer. You’d help people stay safe in a new place, living away from home from the first time, etc. But there’s another aspect to it that I started thinking about last night.

Last night, I went to a 1920s themed party at a dorm on campus. I had heard about it from a lot of cool people, and it was billed as having a live jazz band, lots of dancing, and I figured it would be a cool scene. I expected that there’d be some drinking, but from the way it was described, it sounded like it would be mostly a fun scene.

So I got dressed up, and headed over a bit after ten. It quickly became clear that the party was not at all what I had expected. It was extremely crowded, and if there was a live band, I didn’t see it (there was a drum set in one corner of one room, but no one was playing). There was of course an iPod sound system blaring some typicalish dance music. And the drinking scene was way beyond what I had been expecting. It was totally out of control. About three minutes after I got there, the campus cops showed up and everyone had to leave. It was a big disappointment given the fact that I was expecting some socializing (I didn’t really care if there was a bit of alcohol I wasn’t planning to drink either way), good dancing, and a laid back night. None of those things happened.

As I was leaving with the same friends I had come with, I was thinking about what the cops must think. It must feel so hopeless. So futile. I mean, maybe some of them had bad experiences with drinking, or knew someone who was badly hurt in a drinking-related incident, and decided to take it into their own hands. But it must be so hard to carry on, busting up one alcohol-soaked party after another. It must feel like there’s nothing you can do. No matter how many drunk kids you kick out, no matter how many times you make someone leave who potentially could have hurt themselves or gotten hurt later, there will always be another. I suppose there’s a satisfaction in knowing that you helped even one person, but it’s not like that’ll make it stop. For every person who is reformed like that and doesn’t do it again after such a close call, there are a hundred who just carry on.

It must take a lot of perseverance to keep going with that job, feeling as though you can never really have an effect. I have an enormous amount of respect for someone who makes that decision. I don’t know if I’d be able to. But I almost feel like I should, like if I’m not going to engage in the kind of behavior they’re up against every night, that I should be out there helping them. Maybe there’s no place for taking a back seat here. Maybe I need to get off my high horse of moral superiority and just try to help someone out.

I don’t know if that’s what the cops actually think about it. This is all purely speculation. But I do know that this is a societal problem. Can the cops fix it? I don’t know that either. But they’ve got an incredibly important job to do. No matter what the politicians are doing, no matter how society is changing or staying the same, they’re there to make sure it happen safely. To me, the institution of the police is one of the most important there is. It’s a government agency that exists for no reason other than us. No politics, no values, just priorities. Safety and respect. Those are elements of a civil society that don’t exist in a lot of places. During the Bush years, when our civil liberties were being assaulted left and right, and our country was making a mockery out of its core values domestically and internationally, I would hear people say that we were living in a dictatorship, that our government was no better than a military junta, and I would say, no, that’s not true. Because we could wake up in the morning and know that there wouldn’t be a mob running through the street. This country’s ability to maintain peace and domestic tranquility through changes of power and huge catastrophic events is incredibly important. It’s something that we should treasure, and not write off thoughtlessly. Without that support from the bottom up, none of the institutions we prize would function.

It’s not always perfect. There are corrupt or inefficient police forces all over the place. But in the big picture, they’re the exception, not the rule. I look at police as a body of people who, as a general rule, genuinely want to help people. And as such, I maintain a great deal of respect for them, and a great deal of sympathy for the things they deal with every day so that we don’t have to.

The question is, should we?

Cross-posted from Jewschool: A season of firsts

2009-09-30T00:00:00+00:00

This high holiday season was new for me in many ways. It was my first away from my family, it was the first time I fasted without drinking water, and it was also the first time I didn’t go to services during the day on Yom Kippur. This last one, and a related concept I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, are what I want to talk about here. As anyone who’s done it knows, praying is not a simple concept. It’s a big category within the religion (as in it encompasses a lot of practices and ideas), and there are a myriad of opinions about every single aspect of it. When, how, where, and why you should do it, and so on. Like many Jews, I’ve always had a complicated relationship to prayer. I was raised religious, but without much connection to a synagogue. Although very nice, the shul in our town never excited us that much (I think I’ve talked about my struggles with this a bit in a previous post), and I’ve looked for other options for a long time. This was bound to complicate my relationship with prayer. Even since starting to wear tzitzit three years ago, I’ve never prayed regularly, and I’ve never in my life wrapped tefilin. A lot of this has to do with my historical connection to praying it’s never been associated with an excitement to be Jewish for me, so I’ve never felt too enthusiastic about it. Say what you will about willpower, but it’s hard to shake those things.

That being said, do I want to try? If something doesn’t have a lot of meaning to me, how do I make the decision as to whether or not to pursue it with the intention of giving it more meaning? In my life thus far, I’ve never felt the need to pursue regular prayer as a component of my spiritual life, and I’ve never felt a weaker spirituality for it. So it’s clearly not a uniformly bad thing.

Anyway, on the High Holidays, this issue is especially pressing, because the liturgy is so intense. To be honest, I’m really not that into a lot of the language from Yom Kippur. This is not at all to insult those who do appreciate it, but it’s just never really fully synced up with my religious philosophy. I don’t think I’m clay in a potter’s hands. I don’t think I need to give myself up to become a better person. I think that everything I need in order to change for the better is already within me.

So although I went to services on Erev Yom Kippur, I didn’t go back the next day. I slept in a bit, I went to a really excellent class with the rabbi, and I hung around and listened to good music and thought. It was a really good day, and as I mentioned before, the first time I had fasted without drinking. That part was made more difficult by the fact that I hadn’t decided not to drink until late the night before, so I hadn’t drunk a lot beforehand and was pretty thirsty. I made it, though, and was glad I did.

After all this, I’ve definitely figured out more about how I feel about this type of liturgy. Most of my problems with it tend to stem from incompatibilities as a believer in free will, I have a hard time coming to terms with the idea that there are things humans can’t do. I believe in an almost unlimited potential for humans to effect self-change. It’s not easy at all in a lot of cases, and I guess that’s where a lot of people find solace or relief in G()d. So I have a lot of respect for that.

Problems with Yom Kippur-specific prayers aside, in the past few weeks, due I suppose to the High Holidays and their associated increased-shul-time, I’ve had some interesting thoughts about the Amidah. At least one of them was brought on by the use of Xeroxed pages of the Artscroll siddur for a Havurah minyan on Erev Yom Kippur (a weird combination). During the Amidah, there are instructions in Artscroll that say things like “Recite this paragraph while focusing intently on G&d’s sovereignty”. This is, in my opinion, sort of weird. I mean, how can you make a statement like that and expect it to apply to everyone? Before this week I would have said that the answer was that it didn’t have to because the Artscroll is a siddur associated with Orthodox Judaism not everyone’s using it. But now that I’ve used it in a Havurah service, I’m not so sure. This experience makes me think about what role a siddur should have in our prayer. Should it be nothing more than a script in Hebrew, English, and often with transliteration? Should it also contain instructions on how one is to approach the prayers? Most do, certainly. Where’s the balance?

This particular experience is part of a larger shifting of focus I’ve been undergoing about the Amidah. A little background on my experience with this prayer is useful here: I went to Schechter school up until halfway through third grade, at which point I dropped out and went to Hebrew school until seventh grade, whereupon I dropped out of that also, and had my Bar Mitzvah independent of the shul. I learned the Amidah in day school, and then revisited it in a learning sense while preparing for my Bar Mitzvah. The first time, I only learned the parts that are chanted out loud. I never knew anything about the rest of it. We would just be taught something like “You sing this bit, then you wait, and then you sing this bit.” I didn’t have a full concept of the prayer as a whole. This was also the case in my pre-Bar-Mitzvah studies, due only to a shortage of preparation, if nothing else (my tutor was superb).

Given this, davening the Amidah is always an interesting experience for me. I do the first part with a lot of feeling, always adding in the matriarchs as I was taught in Schechter school (I don’t want it to sound like it was a monotonous and completely non-insightful teaching philosophy), but once I pass the Kedusha, I’m in a weird position. I can sound out Hebrew, but I certainly don’t know enough of it to be able to understand what I’m reading, so I often read through the English text of the prayers. This is nice, because I feel connected to the meaning of the prayers. Except for the places where I don’t like the meaning of the prayers. Too often I find myself reciting things I really don’t agree with. In some other parts of services, like a Prayer for our Country, and a Prayer for Israel, I just don’t recite along. I try to be unobtrusive to avoid stepping on other people’s enjoyment of those texts, but I really don’t feel comfortable asking for divine involvement in government. But in the Amidah, I’m doing it silently. There’s no reason for me to say anything I don’t really believe. So after the Kedusha, I’ve started standing silently, usually still shuckling because it feels natural (weird how that happens), but meditating on very different concepts than what’s on the page of the siddur that I now hold closed in my hands, against my chest, on my forehead, or open, obscuring my face. I think about politics, about human rights issues. And usually I end up going back to the three-way bow at the end with “oseh shalom bimromav”. Sometimes I even go back and do the actual motion of bowing many many times, almost subconsciously, between my thoughts. To me, this is the most meaningful part of the prayer. We’ve just spent all of this time glorifying and praising G%d’s name, and now, as a final request, in a final bow, we ask for G@d to use that power for peace. That seems pretty powerful to me, and, based on my complicated experience with the prayer, the most worthy of repeating.

I continue to be challenged by many aspects of the Jewish liturgy. My hope is that I’m able to continue finding ways to make these texts to relevant to me. I also hope that I know when I shouldn’t try. That I don’t feel tied down to those prayers, bound by their sentiments, withheld by their rituals.

Judaism retains relevance to me because of my ability to make it relevant. In this new year, I resolve to continue that quest.

Shana tova.

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

Why do we expect Iran to be doing anything different?

2009-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

I think there’s a key misconception in public and diplomatic approaches to negotiations with Iran. We look at it as a defiant country, self-centered and uninterested in meaningful contact with the outside world. To a certain extent, these things are true. But look at them in the lens of Iran’s domestic situation. It’s crumbling. It’s undergone a revolution and a fraudulent election, and the citizens noticed. Ahmadinejad is in fact a crazy Holocaust denier, but it’s not like the country’s being run by a crackpot. I maintain that the Iranian government is scared s*^#less of what will happen when its citizens come round.

There’s an inherent discrepancy in the way Iran presents itself to the outside world. Ahmadinejad repeatedly calls for all sorts of sweeping changes to international politics, for huge changes in the way countries deal with each other. In a lot of cases, the things he’s saying make a lot of outward sense. Countries shouldn’t deal with each other on the basis of military might, and the will of several powerful countries shouldn’t be the only thing that matters. But the reason he’s calling for these things isn’t because he believes that they should actually happen because they’re just or proper. Iran isn’t involved enough in world politics to have any sort of meaningful effect on these issues. No, the reason he keeps mouthing off about them is because in order to join the established world order, to actually deal with other countries without deception, Iran would have to own up to its internal problems. It’s an oppressive theocracy. As this article (which in full disclosure is the reason I decided to write this post) points out, Iran is heavily dependent on the rest of the world economically. If we ratchet up the actual pressure, Iran will have to face its very real internal problems. That would mean stopping the funding of covert nuclear research and starting to build a more functional civil society. It would mean creating honest trade relationships with the rest of the world and deregulating the Internet and cell phone use within its borders. It’s a win-win situation; the people of Iran will be granted the freedoms they deserve, and the rest of the world will no longer be dealing with an angry, insular, and unstable country that’s trying to assert its place in the world to mask its real problems.

The Obama administration has signaled that such sanctions and pressure might be forthcoming.

I’m waiting.

Reflections on the college experience thus far

2009-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

It’s pretty different, to say the least. Living on my own poses some definite challenges. I have a nasty cold, and there is no one to bring me soup or tea. And I realized that I didn’t know where the Health Services building was. That’s no good. I had to go out and buy myself a thermometer and cough syrup. I mean, in normal life, these are just things that I expect to be there. But I guess someone had to buy them at some point. Which is an interesting thing to think about. At what point in your life, living on your own or with someone else, do you buy household things? Plates, Advil, soap, etc.? I guess I’m more self-sufficient now.

I’m swamped with work. And that’s even after I switched out of the basic freshmen Chem class down to an introductory one that is more appropriate to my level. I’m in a math class that’s intended more for math majors, so it’s very theoretical and proof-based. I like it, but it’s definitely my most difficult class.

I also don’t really like having huge lecture classes. There are so many people in them who have so many interesting things to say, but I don’t get to here most of them. It’s a bummer. It’s also demoralizing, and a hard thing to pay attention to first thing in the morning because of how impersonal it is.

I’m adjusting to the whole experience in some ways, but in others I think my Western-MA, small-homey-school mentality that I’ve been operating within my whole life is pretty deeply embedded in me. And I’m okay with that. I find myself feeling lost in such a huge place as this. Not to say that I don’t have friends or feel comfortable around people. I just don’t like not knowing everyone. It’s weird that I see people I don’t recognize every day. In my dorm, even. I feel like if you live in the same building as people, you should know them. It’s weird.

I’m definitely learning a lot. I do have one class that’s a small seminar, on Talmud, which is great. I mean, all of my classes are, but this one’s just very personal, and the other people in it are really smart and talkative. We’re going to cover various aspects of the Talmud, including historical background and context, legality, morality, ethics, and others.

Also, I am swing dancing weekly.

It’s going to be a good four years. Tiring, but good.

Is there a place for observers in the health care debate?

2009-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

First of all, I should say that I’m a bit ashamed to call it a debate. I’m tired of trying to include in discussion those who don’t wish to be discussed with. And I fully support the notion of decrying them as such. Good job, Congress.

We’re letting the policy discussion on this issue be co-opted. I know I’ve written about this before, but it’s an issue that I continue to see additional sides to, additional angles from which to approach it.

I’ve moved past the “no cooperation” phase, but I’m feeling more and more strongly about the GOP’s essential hypocrisy: claiming to support reform and oppose the slew of Democratic plans for moral reasons, but failing to generate any serious proposal based on those so-called morals that supposedly resonate so strongly with the American public (as if a lawmaker has the right to make blanket statements about what “Americans” want).

And another thing: GOP attempts to portray this as a scientifically hasty and baseless move should be looked in the same light as climate deniers: lying. Because they’re wrong. If they know that (which they must), they’re lying. If they don’t, they should, and that’s a serious enough breach that they deserve to lose their elected positions.

No one is “ramming” a health care bill through Congress. Obama’s disengagement from the legislative process up until his speech was, I believe, responsible for how slowly the whole thing moved. And in practical terms, we’ve been “studying” this phenomenon for half a century. I don’t think Obama’s going to get his wish of being the last president to take up health care (although I fully intend that this should be the last time such a major overhaul is required), but he’s right that this is not a new problem.

Joe Wilson, you’ve now been formally reprimanded. Chuck Grassley, you voted for the same thing you’re now calling “death panels”. Michelle Bachmann, you expect us to take you seriously when you say stuff like this? To you, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and every other fear-mongering racist xenophobe out there: sit down.

Evan Handler is totally right. This thing’s going to happen sooner or later. To the Democrats: how much more time will you waste? Let’s get something done, and, come 2010, let’s not be afraid to remind people who it was who did it. GOP, either become advocates of progress, or stop labeling yourself as such. Really, I have no problem with supporting a status quo in a vacuum. It’s not like everything always has to change. But saying that you support change while stubbornly working against it is dishonest. You might gain some seats in 2010 for it, but does that matter? Obama’s already been quoted as saying that he wouldn’t mind being a one-term president if that’s what it takes to get meaningful health care reform. Democrats, this puts the ball in your court. If you don’t sell the package well enough, then the GOP can ride in on a white horse in 2010 and 2012 and repeal whatever does pass.

It’s up to us now to prevent that from happening. This is something that the vast majority of Americans will benefit from. Lawmakers, don’t let your opponents shout you down about that. They’re loud, but wrong.

And as for we the people? The pressure can’t let up. Every person in this country with misinformed opinions, who gets their analysis from rich white people and has never bothered looking around at the rest of society, or who stops short of condemning people like Glenn Beck for what they are is going to cost us down the road. Economically, as we shoulder the bill for emergency room care for the illegal immigrants those people want excluded (out of some pathetic sense of patriotism even when it’s to your direct financial advantage not to exclude those people). Diplomatically, as we lose even more credit in the eyes of the world.

And ultimately, morally. I’m not threatening my opponents with some kind of judgment in the world to come. But if we fail to do this, we, as a society, slip further away from our already tenuous grasp on the claim of high moral standards. That alone is enough to make this fight worth it to me.

So, a summary of the argument. Progressives: Health care reform is a moral imperative. GOP: But it’s too expensive.

Seriously, guys? Get your priorities straight.

“In a functioning civil society, people take care of each other.” Elizabeth Smith, the 27-year old Kansas waitress who was laughed at by her Representative (Lynn Jenkins) and told to “go be a grown-up” when she told Jenkins that she’d lost her insurance and her son hadn’t seen a doctor in almost two years (receiving only ER care) because she couldn’t pay for insurance or check-ups, said it best. Would any GOP lawmaker dare disagree with that statement directly?

And if they would, what the hell are they doing in the federal government?

The threshold of doubt

2009-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

Last night, I attended the third of our mandatory class meetings. The first was on alcohol use, the second on issues of identity and bias, and this one was on sexual assault. Oddly enough, I had actually been looking forward to it the most, because I thought that it would be the most applicable presentation. The first two were certainly interesting (great speakers, excellent presentations), but this one went beyond. The featured speaker was Katie Koestner, whose story and presentation were incredible. I’ve never seen so many people so attentive. I don’t think I heard a word spoken out loud throughout the entire thing.

But what I really want to write about is a discussion I had afterwards. I approached some of the event coordinators who had told us how to get involved with some peer-education programs, to ask some questions, and got involved in a discussion with another guy about the ability to criticize the actions of a victim of such abuse. The discussion lasted a while, but where it ended up was with the concept of a threshold of doubt; a point past which we have no reliable way of asserting how we would act in a situation. I submit that rape is over such a threshold. None of us can predict how we would act given such an intensely demoralizing and disempowering event.

That being said, the guy I was discussing with made the very good point that if we always hold off on judgment based on a lack of certainty, we never reach any conclusions, because nothing is certain. It’s when we make assertions without declaring or implying the proper level of uncertainty that problems happen.

The result of the conversation was the dismissal of several assumptions. When I first heard this guy speak, I assumed him to be an angry, misinformed, and subtly sexist person who denied the role that society and masculinity play in a culture of sexual abuse. By the end of the conversation I had realized that I was completely wrong. This was a thoughtful person who personally knew several rape victims, and was extremely dedicated to moral and practical consistency on opinions and debates relating to this topic.

And I will venture to say that I had taught him something. At the end, we agreed that it was important to understand the context in which one criticizes the actions of a victim of something like rape. I had spuriously accused him of doing more damage than good by bringing it up. He made the very good point that none of the three of us (another person was also involved in the conversation) were in a position, had a desire, or were likely to spread dangerous misinformation. So, with this in mind, I amended my statement, and said that I wanted to make sure he understood the ways in which one must modify such speech in a public forum. This he agreed with.

So we both left the conversation with a heightened respect for the other (he had initially accused me of getting “violent” when I raised my voice following his assertion that beating up a sexual aggressor would help solve the problem), and an increased awareness of how difficult it is to engage in meaningful debate about these issues.

This is the kind of discussion we need more of. Not to sound self-centered, but I think we exemplified the way people should be talking about these things. Especially because both of us had spoken to Katie after the presentation and conveyed our gratitude and interest.

Make no mistake, these issues are incredibly hard to discuss. Emotionally, logically, and morally. But we owe it to the past and future victims to try.

Obama's best speech yet

2009-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

Tonight’s health care speech was solidly the best speech I’ve ever seen Obama deliver. He backed the public option. He called out the liars. He put forward a plan. And he did it without sacrificing bipartisianship. He conceded tort reform, supported an individual mandate, and mentioned the people who’ve worked with Kennedy across the aisle.

The speech had exactly the right mix of stubbornness with regard to morals and understanding of GOP positions. But he also wasn’t afraid to condemn those who don’t have any interest in reform. People who have legitimate concerns will be heard, now, as ever. People who don’t won’t be invited to negotiate.

To the supporters: Keep your minds open and your morals strong.

To the opposers: Bring us your concerns and we’ll work through them together.

To the naysayers: Your time is over. Get out.

This is the bottom line. Reform now.

Impressions

2009-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve been at Brown now since yesterday morning. I’ve met SO many interesting people, and there are so many more to meet. One of the biggest transitions has definitely been class size. PVPA, all six grades, is less than a quarter the size of just the incoming freshman class here. It’s SO BIG! I’m coming to terms with the fact that I will not know everyone. But I am making some good friends.

People are really friendly. Especially when you remember that they’re all in the same boat as you; they’re nervous about meeting people as well. If I suspend my judgment long enough to meet someone, I usually find them to be interesting and really engaging. So it’s been a really rewarding experience so far.

Orientation programming continues essentially through Tuesday, when our first academic meetings with advisors occur. I also have two job interviews on Tuesday and another on Thursday, all for on-campus jobs. They are all really interesting positions, so I will be figuring that out pretty soon.

Things are coming together. There’s certainly a lot to keep track of, but I feel pretty on top of it, especially with the help of the advisors and orientation committee, who’ve been awesome.

So far, a big thumbs up. College is pretty fun.

Cross-posted from Jewschool: To date or not to date?

2009-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

As a young Jewish man, I have often wrestled with the dilemma that dating poses: that is, do I confine myself only to Jews? In my view, the question it comes down to is one of priorities. Which is more important, an uninterrupted or unimpeded relationship, or my obligation (desire?) to raise my kids Jewish? Are they mutually exclusive?

Theoretically, and in my ideal world, they wouldn’t be. But in actuality it’s a lot more complicated. In my hometown, for instance, there are a lot of families with one Jewish parent, usually the father. I have many close friends like this. And almost universally, they are completely non-religious. I don’t say this in any sort of condescending, not-Jewish-enough-for-me kind of way. What I mean is that they as a family have no interest in being Jewish. Now that is obviously their own personal choice, and as such I have no intention of criticizing it, but I fully intend to have a Jewish family. Here’s the issue: how many of those people did too? How many went into that relationship convinced that they could do it, convinced that their spouse would be interested, engaged, capable, and that they would have Jewish kids if not a Jewish family (i.e. their mom wasn’t really a part of it)? The answer is that I don’t know.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that none of these men went into the marriage with the intent of having a Jewish family, as I do. Again, a personal choice. But I doubt that’s as universal as the lack of that concept’s actual instances in the real world. It’s definitely food for thought.

Thus, there is an issue of whether I can even do it if I try. But I suppose the more basic question is, should I try in the first place? Is it moral for me to insist to whoever I marry thatmy religion take precedence? Is it okay for me to be the influence? Is it Jewish? Obviously “mainstream” Jewish teaching is in favor of the maintenance of the heritage. But that same teaching frowns on intermarriage, and, in my opinion is, as a philosophy at large, responsible for the seclusion Jews have often held themselves to. It’s true that Jews have been historically discriminated against in many respects, but there has definitely been an element of deliberate self-seclusion, perhaps in response to that discrimination.

But the modernized Jewish philosophy that I tend to associate with in most cases, the same one that says that a two-state solution is better than a “pure” Jewish homeland, and that gay marriage is acceptable in a synagogue, tells me that I need to keep my religion out of other people’s way. That they have as much a right to theirs as I do to mine. That all religions are created equal. So do I have a basis for almost arbitrarily imposing my religion on my future family within Judaism? I could certainly mix-and-match between Jewish schools of thought, borrowing from more orthodox viewpoints (maintenance of the bloodline at all costs) to allow for my raising my kids Jewish, and still maintaining an attitude of general tolerance. Nope. That seems completely immoral and subversive to me; using orthodoxy to enforce the spreading of progressivism, in a sense. I need a progressive basis for raising a Jewish family with a not-born-Jewish wife. Or I need to prove that none exists, and drop the idea entirely.

I guess I could say that it depends on the person I marry. If that person is up for becoming Jewish and raising Jewish kids, then we’re all set. Otherwise, I can say goodbye to having a Jewish family.

Do I want to leave it up to chance? Or what might as well be chance, because I’m not really going to screen who I date by how likely I think they’d be to want to convert at some unspecified point in the future. That’s just too much to ask. Picture meeting someone in high school or college (I’m there now!), and telling them you can only date them if they’d convert if you got married. That’s almost a more difficult criteria than “I won’t date you if you’re not Jewish”. At least not being Jewish is an immediate disqualifier – I’m not asking someone to look ten, twenty years into their future, and decide if they will a) still be with me, b) want to marry me, and c) want to convert at that point. You can’t start a relationship by looking at how you want it to end.

But no more can you ignore its end. I don’t like the idea of starting a relationship with the*intention *of ending it, in any case, whether it’s because you don’t really want to stay with the person, or because you don’t think they’ll convert. Either of those is just manipulative.

This is as of now an unresolved issue I’m thinking about. I certainly haven’t confined myself to dating only Jews in the past, and I don’t think I will in the future. I see intermarriage and intermingling as beneficial to any group; being insular is ultimately weakening. So I suppose that, because of my desire to have a Jewish family, I’m looking for a way to ensure it within the moral bounds I’ve set for myself (equality, etc.); a fail-safe. I haven’t yet found it. I think I can do it, but I don’t want to step on anyone along the way.

Ultimately, this is the struggle of being a modernized Jew; how do you maintain the practice of a religion while simultaneously subscribing to ideas of universal religious equality? They’re not mutually exclusive by any means, but you can’t just sit back and expect them to coexist. You have to self-define and expand your boundaries constantly.

To me, that’s the most Jewish practice of all.

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

Know your enemy?

2009-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve just returned from a health care reform town hall meeting and rally in West Hartford, CT. It was quite an experience. After shouting into a megaphone for hours, holding signs, arguing with all sorts of people, and listening to peoples’ questions, I’ve learned a lot. First of all, I’ve learned that people will try any tactic to distract you from the issues at hand. I had people come up to me today, observing my various bits of Jew-apparel, and tell me that I should feel unsafe about the socialist direction the country was headed in, because socialism would lead to Naziism, etc. And not only that, but that therefore I should be “pro-Israel” (a phrase I DESPISE), as it would be my last refuge when this country went down the tubes. I say, when your last refuge is an introverted, outwardly violent, and discriminatory establishment, something is seriously wrong somewhere.

But I digress.

Sort of.

Because during that conversation, in which the gentleman I was discussing with said that we need to “break radical Islam”, he said something else that struck me: “You need to know who your enemies are.” I responded by saying, “Sir, I don’t have enemies. I have differences”. But I’m not so sure that’s true. In a way, my constant obsession with dialogue and discourse has blinded me to some important realities:

The GOP, as a party, does not support health care reform.

The GOP is not interested in compromise. They want to kill this bill (as many protesters today chanted) as a political tactic. Now, I know this is nothing new in terms of political wrangling, but to pose as having legitimate opinions on reform is just deceitful. Make no mistake: the GOP opposes reform.

The GOP relies on misinformation and fear to keep its constituents behind it.

Today, I saw a lot of smart, educated people, who were very afraid. I saw children younger than my youngest sister screaming hateful slogans. What is it that makes these people want to live like this? It’s the media’s willingness to pander to make money, and the GOP’s disgusting willingness to capitalize off of that. Spreading fear of socialism is not constructive. I had an entire crowd of people chanting “Get-A-Job” at me today, as I yelled through a megaphone about my MassHealth and my experiences with the system. And when I talked to people afterwards, they said “You’re a Marxist”. I said, “I’m not a Marxist, I believe in the free-market. But you can’t turn peoples’ health into a profiteering racket”. And then they said “What are you doing here?” I was stunned. I said “This is a free country. All ideologies are welcome.” The GOP should hold itself in higher esteem than to court the values of xenophobes and racists. Being insular is not a political philosophy, it’s a moral shortcoming, and one that the GOP is exploiting for political gain. That being true, I will call the GOP what it is: an immoral organization with no regard for real progress of any ideological flavor. It is a self-serving organization, not one that exists for its constituents.

There are people who will do anything to make you feel as though your opinions don’t matter.

I was decried as a Marxist, a Communist, and (along with my Jewish friend next to me), an anti-Semite. These are accusations meant to take away from the substance of the argument. This is not an ideological issue. This is not a political issue. If you believe that everyone has a right to health, there is no more debate except on how. But that’s not what these people are debating. When someone stood in front of me and said “I worked for my health insurance, and they should to”, I said, “So you are calling 47 million people slackers? Are you prepared to stand by that?”. They said, “Well, not all of them.” So I said, “Then what about the ones who aren’t slackers? How many are there?” He couldn’t answer. When faced with the reality of the issue, that millions of people who work just as hard, if not harder, than any of us, do not have the insurances we do because of disadvantages and fundamental inequalities that they have no control over, they can say nothing. He tried to change the topic, he fear-mongered some more about my religion. I told him I was quite comfortable with my existence as an American Jew. He said, “Then why do people die trying to come to this country?” I said, “Because there is a promise. A promise of opportunity. And the current health care system is a fundamental betrayal of that promise.”

I don’t mean to just write about my exploits, but I am coming to realize that not being able to negotiate is not a bad thing. When you’re facing people who don’t want to talk, people who don’t respect progress or change, when people like Senator Enzi walk away, you have to cut your losses sooner or later. This bill is going to happen. And if we have to do it without the naysayers, so much the better. Anyone who has something to contribute is welcome to join. Welcome to talk to me or any other Democrat in the entire country any time.

But if you don’t have anything constructive to say, your time is over. Fox News may be filming you, but they’re not making the policy decisions.

I’m extending a hand. Will you take it?

Fun with tow trucks

2009-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

Driving south on I-880 from San Francisco to Alameda, we ran out of gas. I pulled over to the shoulder, turned on the hazards, and took a breath. I tried starting the car again, and was surprised to find that it worked. So I pulled out, and continued on, planning to get gas at the next exit. About a quarter mile later, it started coughing again, and I figured “Uh oh, this is really it”. Now, of course, there was no shoulder to speak of, and we were going uphill. The engine gave out completely, and I got as far to the right as I could, still blocking the lane entirely. Since we were right in front of an entrance ramp, a large traffic jam ensued. Most people were polite, pulling around us as I waved them by. I was considering my options as far as Triple A and the like, when I felt a bump, and then another. I turned around, and there was a man in a pickup truck repeatedly backing up and bumping into me. I waved him by, but he wouldn’t stop. I was getting worried for my safety (my sister was in the car also), so I decided the best thing to do was to call 911. Of course as soon as I did, he pulled away, and I couldn’t see his license plate. So much for him. The dispatcher told me he’d send a tow truck over and an officer in the meantime to check on me. No sooner had I hung up with him than a man tapped on the window, with a large Mack truck idling behind me. “I’m a tow truck on break,” he said. “I can give you a push to the nearest exit if you want.” This was a very generous offer, but I had to turn him down, since I already had an officer and a truck on the way. So I told him thank you so much for the thought, but I’ll be fine. No sooner had he pulled away, than a Triple A truck pulled up in front of me. Now I was confused. The 911 dispatcher had said the truck would be from Micky’s towing in Oakland. What was going on?

I was soon to find out. The Micky’s truck appeared next to me, and honked its horn loudly. It pulled up closer to the Triple A truck, and honked again. The Triple A truck skulked away. I, of course, was ecstatic. I had just witnessed a tow truck battle! Over the right to tow me! What a sight! Now the whole thing was worth it. I felt so proud, to be the subject of a confrontation between two grease-covered burly men with chains and pneumatic lifts!

Except that then the tow truck driver told me there was, by virtue of a state contract between the Highway Dept. and any service truck, a $175 fee for being towed off the freeway. This was an issue. I dropped a whole lot of money on fixing my dad’s car the other week, after a minor scrape that did some serious damage to the steering (although no one nor any property was hurt at all), so I didn’t really want to pay. Fortunately, the police officer arrived at the same time, and extremely kindly offered to push me off of the freeway. So, with my sister hyperventilating in the passenger seat and the Micky’s truck preceding us with flashing lights, the cop bumped and shoved our beat-up Nissan pickup all the way off of the freeway. From there, the tow truck brought us to a gas station. And when I asked him what we owed him for the tow (expecting to have to bargain down from $175, since he had essentially towed us), he said “Don’t worry about it”! I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

And now it gets interesting. After shelling out $50 for a full tank of $3.15/gallon California gasoline, I got in the car, and was ready to head back to the house to rendezvouz with my aunt and uncle and head out to their purportedly-really-awesome friends’ house for dessert. “Don’t worry,” I said jauntily to my sister as we buckled up. “We’ll be home in five minutes.” Everything was just fine.

Just fine, that is, until I turned the key.

The engine sputtered.

It coughed.

But it wouldn’t turn over.

I was flabbergasted. The other night when I took this ancient jalopy out for the first time, we had had to jump it first, but since then I had been using it to drive back and forth between my aunt and uncle’s place in Alameda and my grandparents in San Francisco with no problems. I asked the gas station attendant for a jump. They didn’t have one. I asked security (we were in inner-city Oakland). They didn’t have one. So I called my uncle, who was on his way home from a late day at work, and he said he’d come by. So we waited. I tried cleaning the battery terminals with a cardboard coffecup thermal holder, but to no avail. That Nissan wasn’t budging.

Eventually, of course, he arrived, and we jumped the car with no problems, and drove home. So ended the saga.

It was a damn long night. We had to cancel the dinner plans, and were unable to reschedule them for tomorrow as had been hoped.

So it goes.

Cross-posted from Jewschool: Quaking before G-d

2009-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

You may not be looking for the promised land, but you might find it anyway / Under one of those old familiar names / Like New Orleans, Detroit City, Dallas, Pittsburg P.A., New York City, Kansas City, Atlanta, Chicago, and L.A.
-James Brown, Living in America

“We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and weve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then well build”
“And then what?” said her Dmon sleepily “build what?”
“The Republic of Heaven.”
-Phillip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

People grapple with how to make something larger than themselves significant in a personal context all the time. Obviously, religion is no exception. And when one tries to extrude one’s own understanding of a concept such as religion onto others, the consequences are disastrous.

That being said, I personally have found it extremely productive to learn more about other people’s approaches to difficult concepts. I struggle to maintain a balance of originality (i.e. not adopting someone else’s viewpoints) and applicability (not becoming so caught up in my own opinions that I become insular and self-centered) in my opinions. I talk to experts, I weigh their opinions, and I try to form my own based on a hopefully well-informed view of the situation.

So it was when I started wearing tzitzit and covering my head after freshman year. I spent time with some Modern Orthodox Jews, I talked to some more Reconstructionist-ish rabbis, I talked to friends and family, and I spent time just thinking about it myself. I ultimately came to the conclusion that it was something I wanted to do, to help provide me with the sense of constant responsibility and Jewishness that I felt I had been missing.

I knew then that that wasn’t at all a final step in my religious deliberations, but I’ve definitely gone in some directions since then that I didn’t anticipate. One in particular seemed to me a good topic for a post; my recent attendance of the weekly Quaker meetings in Northampton. My father was raised Quaker, although his family was Jewish by blood, so the RSoF was always on my radar in a vague sort of sense. I knew that Quakers worshipped in silence, and that one stands up and just speaks if one has something to say. I suppose I had thought a bit about the theological implications of this form of worship, but not extensively. So, about a month ago, I went to a meeting.

I have quite a few Quaker friends, so I had a bit of an insider view on the community from the beginning; I could sort of see it through their perspectives. There were not that many people at the first meeting I went to, owing to a annual meeting elsewhere in the area that drew a lot of regular members, but it was still very interesting. There were a couple “messages” given over the one-hour period. One woman spoke about a trip she took to Austria, and an experience she had in a small village where no one spoke English. She had a hard time understanding the local dialect, but she did know that everyone was very friendly, because whenever anyone passed anyone on the street, they would greet each other familiarly. It took her a while to figure out that what they were saying was Gruss Gott, which translates as “Greet G*d”.

The format of Quaker meetings can be taken in a lot of different directions. Some of my friends informed me that there’s a name for when too many people are giving messages at a meeting. They call it “popcorn”. So there’s a subtle stigma towards talking too much. But my perception was that that’s not because they don’t encourage thought. It’s that they encourage room for thought. The format of the meeting is deeply rooted in the Quaker belief that G@d is within everyone. The meeting is designed to provide space for you to clear your thoughts and share them if you feel that it’s appropriate.

My father remembers the meetings feeling very oppressive as a child. I can see how this would be true. A woman I talked to last Sunday told me about the childcare service the Northampton Friends’ Society provides; they bring the kids in for only the last ten minutes. Clearly, it would be difficult for a lot of kids to sit in silence for an hour. Even for adults, it’s difficult in some ways. But I’m continually surprised at how subtly natural it feels to just be with people. I find it refreshing. As much as I like to think that I’m unflappable, that I’m capable of forming rational opinions and coming to valid conclusions under even the most pressing and stressful of circumstances, I’m not; I’m only human. And since we live in a not-exclusively-Jewish community, my family has sacrificed any kind of Saturday Shabbat worship, instead focusing on being together Friday night. Thus, Quaker meeting on Sunday mornings is ironically enough my Sabbath.

I was taught in dayschool (before I dropped out) and then Hebrew school (before I dropped out of that too) that Go_Od is everywhere. The Friends’ Society embodies that fully and faithfully. Like the progressive Judaism that I have tried to form for myself, Quaker meeting embraces the notion of humanity, rather than denying it. Instead of condemning personal flaws and limits of ability, it recognizes them and calls on me to work within those constraints to fashion something useful and beautiful.

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

Ideas for actually getting stuff done

2009-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

My last post expressed my significant frustration with the status of the “debate” over health care. That frustration has definitely not decreased since then (it’s increased, if anything), but I have been doing a lot of thinking about what to do with it. In other words, how should I be responding to the outrageous things that are going on? For one, it’s useful to understand their significance. There have always been ignorant people in this country. They are easily ignored for most of the time. But the right is incredibly good at harnessing those people’s ignorance by lying. And so far, Democrats, or at least those on Capitol Hill, have been terrible at doing anything about it. Jon Steward did an extremely good job of pointing this out last two nights ago, with a great montage of stuttering incoherent Democrats.

What they/we need is a cohesive message. I don’t really know who should provide it. More and more, what I’m seeing from this debate is how much of politics is about disparate interests. The issues is of balance between elected representatives’ right to free choice and a centralized leadership. Ultimately, it wouldn’t be right to have one body making strategic choices; that would undermine the democratic process. So it’s an issue of individual responsibility. Do I have confidence in every person in Congress to make honest choices based on their beliefs? The short answer is no. Too many of them are in the pockets of lobbyists and special interests. That includes Democrats as well as Republicans, and not just those labeled “Blue Dog.” Enough of these divisions. We elect these people to have honest debates about values and concepts, and we need to require more of them.

So ultimately, this is the electorate’s problem. Let’s debate and discuss on our own, let’s talk to our senators, let’s stay engaged. The tactics we see now from every part of the political spectrum have arisen because Americans didn’t care, because we were content to be lied to because it sounded nice, because we were content to vilify instead of unite.

The best time to plant a tree was thirty years ago. The second-best time is now. Similarly, the best time for change we could believe in was at the dawn of humanity.

The second-best time is now.

Cut the act, Obama

2009-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

When senators are being burned in effigy, shouted down at meetings, and having their offices graffitied with swastikas, something is wrong. In this case, it’s the blatant lies and distortion the media is feeding much of the American public. This needs to stop. Meaningful health care reform is something that everyone has a stake in, and whether or not you support a certain component of it, the discussion needs to occur. We need to put political pressure on the Obama administration not to let the big pharmaceutical companies off the hook with price negotiation bans. That’s a subjugation of the free market principles the GOP touts so highly, yet backs away from when they interfere with lobbyists desires.

And Obama needs to stop with the diplomatic responses to crackpot questions. When someone asks him about “death panels”, he shouldn’t say “I don’t support that.” He should say “That’s not true. That is not part of the bill. That is not part of the plan.”

In a way, this situation is analogous to the birthers. A bunch of lies have dominated the exchange of ideas, and are being regurgitated by the media, and then seized upon by those same pundits when people repeat the claims that the media’s made. A self-fulfilling prophesy, a vicious and malicious cycle.

America deserves better.

Cross-posted from Jewschool: Judaism and internet anonymity

2009-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

I said before that I would share some biographical information about myself, so here it is. The real reason I’m writing this post is to talk about some issues that I thought of while deciding what sort of biographical information to share. One criticism of the internet that I hear a lot, particularly regarding blogger, concerns anonymity. People don’t like the idea of someone being able to write whatever they want without their name or identifying information attached to it. I’ve been thinking about what this means from a Jewish perspective. What ethical responsibilities do I, as a blogger, have to those who read my writing? Do I owe them information about myself? I don’t think I do. There’s no reason a blogger can’t write responsibly, with well-researched and well-cited information, while still maintaining anonymity. I personally have no problem with people on the Internet knowing who I am, but there a lot of cases where that’s not true. The key is this: there’s a difference between anonymity and cowardice. I can write under a handle without ever linking that handle to any kind of real-world information, but I still have a responsibility to provide honest content and to respond honestly to criticism. Using anonymity as a shield for ignorance or deception is not acceptable. That’s true in any field, and the blagotubes are no exception. Neither is it acceptable to use my anonymity to spread lashon hara. So from a Jewish ethical perspective, as well as one of scholarly responsibility, with great anonymity comes great responsibility. Given the pitfalls of anonymity, are there any advantages? Well, if one provides useful content free of charge (most bloggers dont’ get paid), it could be considered a form of tzedakah. I’m not trying to sound self-centered here, but ideally blogging is a useful form of information and perspective, in donation form. Maimonides said that one of the higher levels of tzedakah is giving anonymously to an unknown source. So if a blogger writes an anonymous post, they’re engaging in a high level of charitable giving. They don’t know who’s going to read their post; it could be anyone in the world. That’s the beauty of the medium. And the person reading it doesn’t know who wrote it. So there’s been an exchange of significant information between two people, neither of whom have any idea who the other is. There’s no ego involved (“look how much I know about this topic”), just learning. That, to me, exemplifies both the ideals of Jewish text study or chevrutah and those of journalism; the pure exchange of ideas. So in this case, as in most, the internet makes it easier to do really good work or really bad work. The question is, which one will you choose?

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

Cross-posted from Jewschool: Hello, world

2009-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

Hi everyone. My name is Harpo Jaeger. I’m a new poster on Jewschool. I’ve been blogging for a little over a year now at my personal website,harpojaeger.com. I’m really excited to start blogging here! Some of the other Jewschoolers I know from theNHC Summer Institute, some I don’t know at all.

At some point in the future I’ll be updating my biographical information, but right now I am here with the intention of posting about something very specific.

Being a pluralistic community, the Summer Institute (which I’m currently at) has some interesting halakhic quirks. For the members who don’t carry items on Shabbes, we create aneruv, a quasi-physical boundary around the campus that halakically turns the campus into one building, thus allowing those people to carry siddurim, a talit, and so on, between buildings. For several years, I’ve been a coordinator of this construction process, and I’ve learned a lot from it. BZ suggested I write a post about this, as a sort of “DIY eruv”, which is a very good way of putting it, so here it is.

The essential idea of an eruv is a series of simulated doors. To do this, we use a series oflecha’in(singularlechi, which translates as “doorpost”), with string run over the tops, representing the header of the door frame. There are various other components of the eruv in addition to sticks and string. For instance, a hill can act as a natural boundary around an area if it is steep enough. Part of the campus here is on a steep hill, so we can place alechiat either end and use the hill as a go-between. Additionally, an existing cable such as a telephone wire can be used if alechiis placed below it and the cable sags less than about eleven inches (inaccuracy due to conversion from biblical units of measure).

What’s interesting about the process we’ve gone through is that neither myself or my friend with whom I coordinate have a great deal of experience with this halakha. We’ve learned it from those who do, we’ve internalized it, and at this point it’s become a DIY ritual more than anything else. Without having a pre-existing complete grasp of the spiritual and traditional elements of the eruv, we are able to create one that is completely in line with all of the requirements. Also, it’s pretty fun. We stay up late drinking tons of caffeinated beverages, drive around in a golf cart with lumber and power tools, drive around the perimeter with one of the halakhic experts to verify the whole thing, and then sanctify it by saying a blessing (al mitzvat eruv) over a “communal meal” (in today’s case, half a bagel left over from yesterday’s sunrise hike up Mt. Monadnock). That meal is then eaten after the eruv no longer needs to be sanctified (although I anticipate the bagel being rather stale by then).

So, starting from a mere interest in construction, and with the counseling of some persons with more halakhic knowledge, we’ve learned a lot about the practice, had a bunch of fun, and helped some of our co-Institute-goers observe Shabbes more easily.

If you have the opportunity, I’d highly recommend getting involved in the construction of a local eruv. It’s a fabulous way to learn about some very interesting halakha and its modern implementations, as well as explore a host of pluralistic issues. Great all around.

That’s all for now. It is time to light candles here, and I must away. I hope this first post is food for thought, and I’m really looking forward to writing here. Shabbat shalom!

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

NHC Summer Institute 2009: Days 1.5-2.5

2009-08-07T00:00:00+00:00

I argue a lot. People who have met me tend to realize this pretty quickly. So I was pretty excited to go to last night’s dialogue on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After getting there, though, I had some serious reservations. The session was structured in order to deliberately avoid direct arguing! What would I do? I often feel lost in discussions where there’s no opportunity to challenge people.

But it quickly became clear that the model for this session was very well-planned. Designed and facilitated by the Jewish Dialogue Group, it allowed for participants to state their background and feelings on the issues, and then to engage in what was called a “connected conversation”, where we could respond to each other, but within the constraints of statements about ourselves. We could talk about how we felt about another person’s opinion, but we can’t directly challenge them or ask them for a response, except for clarifying questions. What this leads to is an absence of what on the surface appears to be the only type of probing discussion. However, participating in the discussion, I learned a lot about other points of view, and about the objective facts at issue. The session didn’t, as I had anticipated it might, descend into a bunch of people talking about how they felt with no material evidence in question. Rather, we discussed concrete and applicable concepts.

After the discussion, I spoke with the organizer, and indicated on the email list that I was interested in taking the facilitator training in order to facilitate (obviously) this kind of dialogue elsewhere. I don’t know what the status of Brown’s dialogue on these issues is, but I’m excited to get involved as a participant and potentially a facilitator.

I wrapped up both of my classes today. In the morning, we baked all of the challah for the Institute, and in the afternoon, we finished up by talking about the financial aspect of Shemitah, whereby debts between individuals are forgiven at the end of the Shemitah year. We looked at a recent opinion piece comparing a rabbinical exception to this procedure to Secretary Paulson’s bailout in late 2008.

I’m about to write my first post for Jewschool! If I’ve set everything up correctly, it should show up here as well.

WAHOO!

NHC Summer Institute 2009: Day 1.5

2009-08-05T00:00:00+00:00

I had intended to write last night about the first day of Institute, but was too tired. Thus, this post is going to try to cover yesterday and some of today.

I started off the day yesterday, after breakfast, with text study. There were only three people there, including the teacher, who it turned out lives in Northampton as well. We looked at a parable attributed to the Baal Shem Tov. In the parable, there is a fiddler, who plays a certain tune that the king likes very much. He commands the fiddler to play it for him many times a day. In order to prevent the fiddler from growing tired of the tune and playing it with less inspiration, the king brings a man off the street into the court every time the tune is played, someone who has never heard it before, so that the fiddler is always playing to a new audience, and feels inspired every time. Eventually, the king realizes that he can’t keep pulling dudes off the street, so he is advised to blind the fiddler, so he won’t know if there’s a new person or not. Thus ends the parable – rather inconclusive, but with a lot of food for thought.

The classical interpretation is that the king is God, and we are the fiddler. The particular song represents prayer or worship. The parable tells us to find new ways of keeping our prayer meaningful and applicable. Although I don’t pray regularly, this was the part I liked. When we get to the blindness part, there’s an issue. What this seems to be saying is that we are blind to God’s plans in the macro sense. I don’t like that idea. To me, it engenders willful ignorance; the idea that we should assume we can’t understand the universe, so we shouldn’t try. It implies that we should become more insular, caring only about our supposed personal relationship with God, and not about trying to discover anything else new.

That being said, it was an intriguing story, and a good way to start the day, particularly because it remained applicable to a lot of the other stuff I did, surprisingly enough. In my morning baking class, we talked about the spiritual and philosophical implications of preparing food, and looked at some historicaly Jewish rabbinical writings on this topic. Some of them dealt with what you do to make eating unique or worshipful. For instance, there was a rabbi who said that if you are eating while walking, you should stop walking to eat. If you are eating while standing, you should sit. If you are sitting, you should recline. And if you are reclining, you should wrap yourself in a prayer shawl and then eat. The idea is that you need to distinguish what you’re doing; you need to take a break and step back. I like this idea very much, especially considering the economic and social context of food in our society today.

My afternoon class began with an introduction to the historical definitions and derivation of Shemitah, the Jewish sabbath for the land that occurs every seventh year (depending on where you are and how you define it). This class as well is going to talk a lot about the politics and economics of food. Yesterday (and today as well) we worked on understanding the various perspectives on the practice; we haven’t really gotten to the meat of discussing how this practice should be applied today. However, it fit in nicely with the theme of yesterday’s text study; how do you keep a regular practice (agriculture) relevant? The agricultural justification for this law is somewhat questionable; you can farm land pretty constantly without depleting it (enriching it, in fact), if you do it properly. At the very least, a mandatory year-long break every seven yeasr doesn’t provide the flexibility I imagine a farmer would need to keep the land healthy if there was reason to cease farming entirely. But it does raise questions about how we should think of that practice to avoid abusing the land or ourselves in its context. More on this later, I imagine.

One of my friends accompanied me to this morning’s text study. There is a different teacher each day. Yesterday’s teacher wasn’t there as a participant, but the other participant from yesterday was, plus one more. We looked at the origin of Tu B’Av, which is rather grisly. In outline form, the story takes place during the period of Judges. The tribe of Benjamin commits a heinous crime against a traveler and his concubine, and in return all of the other tribes except one swear to never let their daughters marry Benjaminites. They also go to war and kill a lot of the Benjaminites. A ways down the line, they all realize that they’re about to entirely exterminate an entire tribe of Israel (which they surprisingly didn’t have any qualms about before), and they change course, working out an elaborate solution that involves abducting women to be brides (from a different tribe, one that had taken the oath, but since the women are taken without their father’s consent, it’s a loophole), but not before also killing a bunch of the tribe that didn’t take the original oath. I guess the whole being married without permission part is the origin of the festival’s tradition of women going out to get guys; I’m not really that familiar with the current-day practice (by which I mean that I didn’t know it existed until yesterday).

Obviously, this is a rather troubling story. The women leading the study pointed out that this story contains the first steps of Teshuvah (repentance). This is true, but it’s difficult to really give the repenters credit, because they haven’t admitted that what they did was wrong. A participant in the text study insightfully pointed out that what they were really donig is approaching a series of problems. They had the problem of the possible eradication of the tribe, so they dealt with it in a way that would create as few other problems as possible. But along the way, they killed a bunch more people, and abducted a bunch of women. In short, I don’t know enough about the holiday to say anything about how this might affect my perception of it as a modern practice, but its origin is pretty screwed up. This is true of a lot of parts of Judaism.

Today in the baking class we made seven-species bread, which has turned out fabulous (as did yesterday’s oatmeal-maple bread). Our teacher told us about his personal history with baking, and how it has affected his life as a rabbi and a person. I’m looking forward to discussing a lot of food issues in this class as well.

I seem to have unintentionally picked two classes that are both about the economic, social, political, and spiritual implications of food. I’m glad it’s worked out this way (it didn’t occur to me until yesterday), because this is something I’ve been getting increasingly interested in recently. Food is a big problem facing our society. I’ve heard it claimed that we can’t fix the health care system without fixing the food system. That’s true to a certain extent; we could save a lot of money if we were just healther in the first place, and many of our current health problems can be traced to poor dietary habits as a culture. But I do think that food change is going to be more of a grassroots effort than a legislative one. Ultimately, the system will correct itself as oil prices rise (with the passage of Waxman-Markey, I hope), and as we run out of the stuff. Michael Pollan puts it best: the corn industry is floating on oil. That can’t last by definition, if nothing else. The question is how many people will starve and be harmed before we get there. And that’s an issue the government can’t fix; as long as there’s cheap food available, people will buy it. It’s up to us to recognize the hidden costs of food. Food is not cheap. It’s probably one of the most labor-intensive commodities on the market. We need to make the choice to pocket the full costs of food by buying locally, organically, and sustainably.

Programs like this one give me hope that that kind of change can be effected. A lot of people come here to get educated and to educate, and there’s a lot of really important learning going on. That kind of education is self-replicating. Ignorance can only hold sway as long as no one is smart. The nation is getting smarter. We’re getting closer to real change, change we can, finally, believe in.

Live from Rindge, it's Monday night

2009-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

And here begins my first post from the NHC Summer Institute 2009! So far, the program is off to a fabulous start. I’m meeting a lot of new people, more than in past years, which is interesting. I think my sort of circle of teen friends is making a more concerted effort to expand ourselves this year. Needless to say, it’s been fabulous reconnecting with old friends. It looks to be a terrific week, between my awesome classes, the facilitated dialogue re: “Israeli-Palestinian conflict”, and the general atmosphere of interesting people doing interesting things.

In other, extremely exciting news, I am going to start blogging at Jewschool! A while back, I let Ben Murane know that I was interested in writing for them (I’ve been reading it for a while), and when I saw him today, he said they said yes. I am uber-pumped to get started. I don’t really know any details yet, but I am going to talk to a bunch of people who are part of the editorial comittee this week to find out more. I suppose I’ll write more when I know more.

So, in summary, I am looking forward to a terrific week of various awesome things, which I will write more about as they occur. For now, I will sleep.

One-year

2009-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

Today marks the one-year anniversary of this site’s transition to WordPress, and, thus, the one-year anniversary of my beginning to blog in earnest. This is a good opportunity to reflect on some stuff I’ve learned and look to the future of this site and my interests.

I’ve gone through a lot of different phases with this blog. I began by using it as sort of a journal of my actions and thoughts. Coupled with the WordPress client for iPhone, I did a fair amount of spontaneous and short blogging, expressing ideas I had, things I saw, and so forth. As school began, I started becoming more introverted, focusing on the way I felt (usually being under a lot of stress, as it was senior year). In January, my iPhone was stolen, and I lost the ability to blog at anytime. I started blogging almost compulsively when I got home every day, almost as a way to let out my feelings. Because of everything that was going on at school, it felt good to have a place to write about what I thought it all mean. Sometimes it’s hard to articulate that sort of stuff when you’re still in it. You need to take a step back. Blogging has definitely helped me do that, in other areas of my life as well.

When I got a new iPhone in early July, I started using Twitter for uses other than just tracking this blog, and shortly thereafter joined Facebook. Now I use those as two methods of communication (they’re closely integrated), and have begun to regard this blog as more of a place for contemplative, well though-out concepts or arguments. A lot of my writing has been inspired by the increasing amount of other blogs I’ve been reading, including Paul Krugman‘s The Conscience of a Liberal, Jewschool, CAP, andClimate Progress, to name a few. In a lot of cases, doing this writing has helped me solidify my own thoughts on subjects, and opened my mind to new points of view.

In the future, I want to blog more regularly than I have been recently; at least a couple times a week. Interestingly, it was easier for me to blog regularly during the school year than it has been now. I’m planning to blog a couple times next week from the NHC Summer Institute about the program and some issues that I will be considering during my time there. There’s a plan for facilitation of a dialogue about the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict (although I don’t really like calling it that), so I’m expecting to get some interesting stuff out of that.

As I begin school, I will almost definitely be undergoing some serious life changes in terms of how I spend my time and what I work on. I intend to keep this blog an important component of my work and thoughts, and I hope to attract a wider audience as I meet new people and discover new ideas.

It’s been an incredibly rewarding year in many ways. I look forward to many more.

Why is everyone so afraid of a wise Latina?

2009-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

It’s pretty silly to me that people would try to deny that who you are has an effect on how you think. I resent that Sonia Sotomayor was made to eat her words about such factors as her race and gender affecting her judging. That’s perfectly valid, and I admire her for saying it to a bunch of white guys. It’s not humanly possible to separate yourself from your background. Understanding people’s backgrounds is the only way to truly engage them. The idea that judges should be some sort of robots, carrying out legal judgments as if they are not people, is ridiculous. Sotomayor has conveyed enormous respect for legal precedent, as a judge should. The criticisms of her as being a racist, deviating from the law to suit her own biases are ridiculous. In the much-lauded, but seldom inspected, recent Supreme Court overthrow of her affirmative action decision with respect to the New Haven firefighters, she was acting in accordance with higher precedent. The Supreme Court created a new precedent in its reversal.

Conservative criticism of Sotomayor shows that, while the party claims to be a post-racial one, (having a black chairman, having nominated their own Latino to the Supreme Court), they’re, as a party (and I know some individual members to be better than this), still tied to racial politics. And what does it even mean to be “post-racial”? Race still exists, so how can you be “post” it? Acknowledging that different peoples’ backgrounds lead them to different conclusions is important. That diversity of conclusions is important. Republicans using race as a token for their acceptance, but then refusing to acknowledge the very real effects race has on individual people and society as a whole, is just plain hypocritical and dishonest. Whether or not they know that (some definitely do), it’s a backwards approach to people that is ultimately going to cost them their constituency. The time when having all of the white people agree with you was enough to get done anything you wanted to in American politics is over. It’s not coming back.

And that’s a good thing.

What Chris Brown and Scott Roeder have in common

2009-07-26T00:00:00+00:00

Recent news about Scott Roeder has got me thinking about the way people sort of rise and fall in the public eye. Chris Brown, for instance, was all over the front pages of everything when his case was breaking, and he’s faded since then. I’ve just learned while writing this that he’s been sentenced. So why haven’t we been hearing about it more? And why had Roeder’s name lain silent for that interim period?

The way the public reacts to news media is often unpredictable. It’s hard to tell which stories will be how popular for how long. Roeder and Brown have something important in common, though. Obscurity is a luxury they do not deserve. Roeder may have mental problems, so I’m a little more reluctant to judge him, but Brown has no excuse that I know of. Especially noteworthy in my opinion is his cultural status. Domestic violence is something we are taught. From the moment we are exposed to the outside world, we see images of men beating and dominating women, we see images of submissive women portrayed as attractive and desirable. We are bathed in these stereotypes from birth until death. That’s not just an American phenomenon, as easy as it would be for me to denounce it as such (even though this is the only so-called “civilized” country where it’s legal to beat your children). No, this is a crisis of global cultural expectations.

Domestic violence is never the fault of the victim. Period. But in this case, can we really even blame the aggressor? As a man, I know I’ve felt that same pressure before, to assert myself over women, in many ways, not just in the context of the relationship. He bowed to that pressure. Can we really judge anyone for that? Everyone witholds against pressure of any kind as far as they can without breaking; that’s human nature. Can you really blame someone if they can’t take as much as you? Just because you or I wouldn’t do the same thing in that situation, does that make him a lesser man, or a man less deserving of pity? I don’t know. But I do know that we’re missing an incredible opportunity for progress if we let this story slip by. If we call him just another angry man or just another pressured man, we miss the point. How many kids to whom this person is a cultural element have learned from his actions? No public apologies can undo the impact that he’s had on them. This is an issue that every single one of us needs to tackle head on. These are not isolated incidents.

Is that an excuse for Brown? No. We can’t solve this problem by witholding responsibility, whether from society or from individuals. He did something heinous. He physically abused someone who trusted him and who he was connected to. He betrayed their trust. He showed them that they could not relate to another person safely. That’s a scarring lesson to learn. It’s one that many people learn, and whose impact is significantly underrated.

Societies tend to ignore persistent problems or try to classify them as something else. Whether it’s widespread domestic violence, gun crime, or suicide bombings, we can’t turn a blind eye anymore. There are serious issues with the way the world expects people to function. Those issues need to be addressed by grassroots action in order to change.

First impressions: Google Voice

2009-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

I was invited to open a free Google Voice account, and so far, it’s pretty cool. I get an online inbox, free text messaging (although it may forward them to my phone, causing AT&T to charge me, I’m still figuring that out), and free calls anywhere in the US. It can also transcribe my voicemails, screen my calls according to my contacts, and allow me to listen in on messages. I also got a FABULOUS phone number. I’m probably going to mess around with the settings a little more before I start giving out the number, but I think this could be pretty useful. Probably its best feature is the ability to ring more than one phone. If I have a dorm landline at college, I will definitely configure this; I can save some serious money and always be reachable on campus. And I won’t have to give my number to anyone I don’t want to. I can just block them or screen them if I want.

Mennonites

2009-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Downtown today, I saw a whole bunch of Mennonites singing on the steps of City Hall. I took a bunch of videos with my iPwn 3G S.

It was a very interesting experience. Beautiful, in some ways. Standing by the curb, filming with the iPhone, with the sounds of pious and beautiful religious music in front of me and reggaeton, car horns, and motorcycles flashing behind me, it sort of epitomized the struggle to remain religious in a world that moves as fast as ours. Historically, religion has been a slow-moving concept; it begs contemplation, thoroughness, and reverence. Nowadays, it’s hard to maintain those things. It’s possible, but it’s hard. I liked that these people had the nerve and the interest to sing in that context. And it’s not like they were isolated. They were definitely old fashioned; the men wearing collared long-sleeved shirts, belts, dress pants, and the women wearing ankle-length, long-sleeved dresses and hair coverings, but they weren’t naive. One man came up to me afterwards, and introduced me to his five children, and commented on my iPhone. Then he asked me if I “knew the Lord”. I told him I did, and that I was Jewish, and he was very pleased. There was this sense of genuine excitement at appealing to someone else’s faith. He liked that a Jew appreciated their Christ-oriented music, and I liked that they wanted to sing it for me. He told me about their congregation, which is in Russell, and I think I’m going to try to go to some services. They sound very interesting. The congregation sings in this area often during the summer, so I will try to see them again. I loved hearing them sing, and I want to talk more religion with them. I don’t know all that much about Mennonites, and they seem like very interesting people.

Diplomacy weapon or tool?

2009-07-13T00:00:00+00:00

Why is it that we expect diplomats to use their positions as weapons? We look at the idea of diplomatic sanctions or the breaking off of diplomatic relations as a good thing. The point of diplomacy is to keep lines of communication open. Even if a country has leveraged economic sanctions against another, has public denounced its conduct, or even is at war, diplomats should always be communicating. If war is a failure of diplomacy, then nations should have the expectation that diplomats will work constantly throughout a military conflict to try to end it at any point.

I’m thinking about this because of Britain’s decision to withdraw diplomats from Iran following Iran’s detention of some of their diplomatic staff. Not that it wasn’t an unprovoked and improper act, but how are we supposed to communicate that if we withdraw the very people whose job it is to do so? Iran, and really any country in its situation, has proved itself to be resilient to world opinion. The more we denounce them, the more they’ll close up and oppress their people. We need to maintain a strong diplomatic presence to pressure them to change.

If we start using diplomacy as a weapon, as a threat towards other countries, we defeat its entire purpose. Worse, we risk pushing reclusive countries further into their shells, limiting our ability to deal with them rationally, and ultimately harming their citizens. Iran is a good example. We need to stop thinking about ways to punish Iran’s government and start thinking about ways to help its people and pressure its government to do the same. That’s the true aim of diplomacy.

A crisis of expectations

2009-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

What is it that makes Israel different than other countries? Why do we (speaking from the American point of view) regard it so differently? And is that changing?

Considering the fact that very few people understand Israel’s origins (myself included; I cannot claim to have a total grasp of what happened, only a cursory understanding), it doesn’t seem likely to me that that’s the issue. That is, people probably aren’t inclined to treat Israel differently because of knowledge of how it came to be. Rather, the issue is ignorance, in that area and others. If someone understanding is limited to the concept that Israel was created as a Holocaust reparation, they’re not in a position to accurately understand the current position of that region. That being said, I, without having that detailed knowledge of Israeli history, am able to clearly distinguish unacceptable behavior on Israel’s part. What makes me able to do that and not others? I’m not smarter, not more aware, not more interested. Plenty of people are those things.

What I think it comes down to is essentially a question of expectations. We expect certain things of certain countries. We expect North Korea to be reserved and subtly hostile. We expect China to be oppressive and guarded. We expect England to be somewhat lofty but still friendly. And we expect Israel to be hostile and territorial. That’s because of our basic understanding of Israel’s existence is defined mostly by the measures it has had to take to preserve its existence, at least in its historical and current form. We’ve never seen an Israel that was open to any other kind of existence. That’s a result of internal politics, and the strong tie to the U.S. government, which is, again, not something that regular people really think about. So the real problem is that our view of Israel is defined by ideas and actions outside of our direct control. We only see the end result; Israel as it is now.

What do we do to change this? There’s a lot of responsibility and blame to go around in terms of meting out justice to those involved. But those of us who are fed that perception of Israel do need to step up and ask that we see the whole picture. We need to seek out media exposure, details, theories. Until the citizens demand that this become our concern, it’s not going to change. Israel’s government has shown itself remarkably resistant to political pressure, in a manner that is somewhat reminiscent of Iran. They can blame their problems on other factors, and use that to ignore other world leaders’ requests. Obama has made a start on breaking through re: settlements, but I question how much he can really do. This one’s on us.

I say we turn our attention from the leaders of Iran and the leaders of Israel to the people of Iran and the people of Israel. They’re the ones we can talk to. Apply that pressure effectively, and they’re powerless to stop us.

RIP Michael

2009-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

How do you mourn for someone as complicated as Michael Jackson? The amount of ways in which he’s related to the world is huge. Beautiful dancer, child star, messed-up man, criminal, and so on. I’m hearing people say that he’s just a person, and that people die all the time, which is true, but he’s more than that. Before his long and slow fall, Michael Jackson was a beautiful man. And here’s the thing: I think the reason people are either so gossipy or apathetic about his death is precisely because of his long slow decline. Picture someone who was disgraced instantly, like OJ (I know he’s another black man, but that’s not the point). He’s almost canonized, despite how much people might loath what he got away with. Michael Jackson just faded.

And as a result, I would argue, the world doesn’t know what it’s lost. I’m mourning not for the Michael Jackson who was a screwed-up kid, not for the Michael Jackson who messed with his body so deeply, not for the Michael Jackson who came to represent the depravity of a dirty old man, but for the amazing, sexy, and beautiful man who danced with zombies and pioneered the moonwalk in front of a screaming crowd. After all he’s done and been through, and if he couldn’t in life, he deserves, in death, to finally rest in peace.

Up

2009-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend Pixar’s new film, Up. It is one of the best of recent memory. I continue to be impressed with Pixar, not only because of their technical prowess and writing skills, but because of their dedication to the art form of animation. Having seen Disney lose touch with this and degrade animation for so many years, it’s refreshing to find a company with as much respect for the style as Pixar.

Up’s plot is very original, which is probably the first reason that it’s intriguing. That said, originality isn’t enough; I found Ratatouille to be lacking in terms of how compelling the plot was, although original. There was no reason to care. Up avoids this neatly. The plot is funny, both juvenile and mature at the same time, and extremely compelling. The story speaks to many generations at once. The more childish element urges children to do what they love, and to live what they love. All of the characters embody this from minute one – young children hungry for adventure, idolizing famous explorers, and a Boy Scout with a complicated family past who seems to take pride in actually doing important things for other people for no other reason than it’s all has. But the movie is really about growing up. I found the first fifteen minutes, in which we meet the main character as a small child, are introduced to his future wife at the same age, and then experience a montage of their lives together, ending with her death, to be sweet, touching, and sometimes tragic. It sets up the rest of the movie elegantly; we understand this old geezer better than any other character like him. We know what he was like as a kid, we know how he grew up, and we feel the way he feels about Paradise Falls. The montage also allows the plot to pick up immediately, without lagging around waiting for the backstory to develop. Twenty minutes into the film, he’s already tied balloons to his house and is floating away. That’s a pretty good record, in terms of the amount of things that have to happen to get to that point. Pixar is to be credited with keeping the movie moving without sacrificing any important information.

As the movie progresses, we see the characters change. In my opinion, that’s really the most important part of a movie or play. Why should we care what these people go through? We need to empathize with them. Up is very good at this – because of our knowledge of the characters’ backgrounds, we empathize very strongly with them, and we see them change in a way that seems natural and almost personal.

The conclusion of the movie is heartwarming enough that it could be written off as canned or unoriginal, but I found it to be a perfect ending. This is because it doesn’t just end the plot, it ties it together. We see what it is that the characters have been missing, and they finally find it. Mr. Fredericksen’s house is finally at rest by the falls, and Russell and him form an somewhat familial bond. It’s sweet to have a movie remind you that being driven doesn’t mean ignoring others, that you can do good while still getting what you want. Up is a very good movie for right now, when, societally, people feel a lot of pressure to either prioritize themselves or others. We’re made to feel as though we either need to become more insular and care about ourselves only, or we need to be so selfless that we intimidate others by our virtue. Up strikes an ideal balance between these two extremes. We’d do well to mimic that philosophy of worldliness.

3G S & Cadence

2009-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

The saga of my purchasing of the new iPhone 3G S began yesterday, when my mom asked why I hadn’t camped out for the new iPhone. I explained to her the upgrade eligibility requirements, which resulted in my being unable to buy an iPhone at the unsubsidized price until December 12th. She tried to find a way around it, and we spent a while on the phone, somewhat unsuccessfully. The result was that I went to the Apple Store in Holyoke today to try to badger them into giving me a phone for the cheap price. They couldn’t for any of the reasons we had thought of, but it turned out my father’s line (on the family plan) was eligible for an upgrade, so we bought the phone through that line, and then went to the AT&T store and had them switch it. This took two full trips back and forth, but it got done, and the result is that I have the new iPhone, which is awesome. I’m still working on a case for it, but the new features seem to be pretty great.

This evening I was in Natick seeing Cadence with two other members of 5-Alone. The show was excellent. They did a lot more jazz standard and barbershop type stuff than I was expecting. It was all good, but some of it felt a little recursive after a while. Except for the Cole Porter. Cole Porter is really the best. You just can’t beat him in terms of standards. Fabulous.

It has been an extremely successful day.

Reading list

2009-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

I have four books that I need to read right now, five if I count one for Brown (summer work!). One is not in the library yet – Seeds of Terror, which is about the connection between Al Qaeda and the Afghan opium poppy trade. I saw the author being interviewed on The Daily Show, and she was one of the smartest people I had ever seen. So I reserved the book right then, and am waiting to read it. I have with me The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which I’ve been meaning to read for a while and I think will start tonight, The Cluetrain Manifesto, which is about the way the Internet is changing business, and a book by the Motley Fool about direct investing. I think I will write reviews of each after I finish.

Israel – Iran; why the connection?

2009-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

We continually here that Iran is the biggest threat to Israel’s national security. Whenever we talk about Iran in the U.S., or whenever U.S. diplomats talk with Iran, Israel is always on the table? Why? Well, we’re told it’s because Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier (which he is), that a “nuclear Iran” would result in Israel’s annihilation (which it well might), etc. Here’s the problem: we’re ignoring what it is that keeps Iran in this position. Ahmadinejad is indeed a crazy dude, in my opinion unfit to lead a country, and has demonstrated his disrespect for the Iranian people in this last election. But there’s a larger pattern: crazy dictators have been fine with us for a long time. Israel’s hardline foreign policy stance and refusal to engage in meaningful diplomacy when it needs to has historically driven people away from it. Netanyahu’s denial of Arab’s right of return, and ignoring of their connection to the land, is, frankly, biblical and archaic. I’ve said this before, but I still think the issue is at the core of Israel’s identity; as a religious state, Israel is in a position to claim divine right to the land. No wonder people like Ahmadinejad adopt a polarizing stance against Israel. Israel maintains that it is the most legitimate entity in that region. That’s no way to approach peace, or even dialogue about peace. That’s something that Israel needs to stop if it wants to call for negotiations “without preconditions”.

Netanyahu’s speech shows that he’s capable of more of the same. Obama’s pressure on him is having an effect; Netanyah actually said the phrase “Palestinian state”. But there’s a long way to go. As citizens of the U.S., we need to demand that the Obama administration continue direct and tough diplomacy with Israel.

Denizen

2009-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

A lot has happened recently. I’ve been involved in some very complicated issues at my school. It looks as though they are progressing favourably. I’ve also gotten a Facebook. I had been resisting this, but I think it had to happen. I suppose it will make my life easier and all, but I’m still skeptical.

Big

2009-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

I have upgraded this site and the LC(A) to WordPress 2.8. 2.8 doesn’t have as many new features as 2.7, but it’s a bunch faster, and I like it already.

I’ve made a monumental shift in my desktop computing setup. For many many years, I have been using Namely as an application launcher. I’ve tried LaunchBar and Quicksilver, but neither was as fast or responsive as Namely. I have now, for the first time, found a better application. Google Quick Search Box for Mac can launch applications with the speed of Namely (which the other two apps couldn’t), and it has more functionality as well (similar to the other apps). It can search files on the computer, all sorts of application data, the internet (because it’s Google), and my Google account, including Gmail, Docs, Photos, Wikipedia, Google Finance, and more. It’s incredibly useful. It also has a somewhat under-documented and, as far as I can tell, under-utilized feature; Twitter updates. This alone could persuade me to start Twittering, which I’ve been holding off on. We’ll see. Either way, QSB (for that is what they are calling it in the inter-tubes) is going to be great.

Structureless

2009-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

Lacking the motivating force of school as a timekeeper is making it difficult for me to coalesce my thoughts into an actual blog post. I still have plenty to write about, but it’s less natural to write about it. I think this will be responsible in part for some shifts in the way I approach this site in the coming months.

That being said, I do have some pretty interesting stuff to write about. Today me and my friend presented our honors project to the Rise and Fall of the Great Powers class back at high school (remember that place?). It was cool to be back there for the first time since graduation. I felt out-of-place already. I’ve moved on, and new people have taken my place. And that’s as it should be. People shouldn’t waste their time and effort hanging on to lingering memories. I want to be remembered, but I don’t want to be canonized (not that I expect to be) or overly retained. So I sort of felt as though I was injecting myself back into the lives and routines of people who I should be leaving alone. But it was nice to see them, and people were happy to see me, so I felt okay about it. Also, the presentation went really well. Originally, it was going to consist of a lecture by the two of us, and a simulation we designed to demonstrate some of the economic principles we dealt with in the project. However, we ended up doing the project later than we had expected, and we only had about an hour for the whole thing. So, last night we designed an extremely stripped-down version of the simulation with the intent of demonstrating Gresham’s Law, a simple but extremely important principle. The simulation worked PERFECTLY. We hadn’t had time to test it out on our own by playing it a couple times, but it went exactly as we had hoped. We created a small system for buying and selling commodities (corn and iron [represented by corn kernels (intended for burning for ethanol) and steel hex nuts]) and a system for switching between gold and silver bullion (raw metal). The commodities could be bought and sold in either gold or silver, creating a ratio between the two (simulating the effect a government-regulated currency would have), but the bullion exchange forum (representing goldsmiths, a historically accurate and important figure), operated on its own terms (historically speaking, according to the amounts of bullion available). This creates an imbalance, and allows people to make a profit by exchanging currencies. By manipulating the prices of the commodities and the bullion ratio available at the goldsmith station, we were able to force one currency entirely out of circulation. We did this both ways; we first started with silver being hoarded and gold spent, and within the span of about two turns, we turned it around entirely. We also employed paper currency for silver at the commodity stations, adding a twist, as it could be used to buy and sell, but not to exchange for bullion. Also historically accurately, the winner had an extremely wide margin, almost three times the amount of money as the loser. Our simulation elegantly proved Gresham’s Law, and also sort of proved capitalism too; that the more money you have the more you can make. So that was a great success.

Also speaking of money, now that I have a debit card, Mint.com, which I was already using, has become vastly more useful. I am starting to be able to track how much money I spend on what, and set budgets. Within the next few months, I think I’ll gain a lot of insight into where my money goes, and how to spend it more effectively. I also figured out that you can add your PayPal account to Mint, which is nifty.

I have been submerging myself in resources on investing. Right now, I’m leaning towards ShareBuilder for a brokerage, because of their low fees. Since I’m doing long-term investing, it doesn’t matter that they’re executing trades only once a week at maximum. However, I’ve realized that I should research direct investing before committing to a brokerage account. If I can do that effectively, I can avoid a lot of fees. I would then have to keep track of my own investments, but with the help of Google Finance that shouldn’t be too hard. I hope to have a substantial amount of money invested and in my planned Roth IRA within a few weeks.

Return

2009-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve decided not to try and write about all the things I’ve been doing since I last wrote. There are too many, and I think it would become to much of just a laundry list. Instead, I have some stuff to say about what I’m up to now. I have graduated, and am done with school. Tomorrow, however, I’ll be back in my Rise and Fall of the Great Powers class, presenting my friend and me’s honors project. We’re doing a simulation to demonstrate the creation of the gold standard, which was first instituted in England in 1816/1821, depending on how you look at it. The next day, I’ll be back again working with the Holocaust Studies classes. The one-act I wrote for them is going to be performed that day, and I’ll spend the first forty-five minutes of each hour-and-a-half-long class working on the play before it’s performed. I am super excited for this; I think it’s going to be really fun and interesting.

I am SO behind on the Sonnet of the Week. I need to write two every week for FIVE weeks.

Current events things I am thinking about and may write about soon: Sonia Sotomayor, Dick Cheney, the Northampton bike trails projects, environmentalism (as always), and food ethics.

Check-in

2009-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

It’s been over a week since I wrote, an uncharacteristically long time. I’m not going to attempt to write about all the things that have happened since then right now, because I’m still in the middle of tons of stuff. Graduation is tomorrow, and I am overloaded with stuff to do. Sometime in the next few days I hope to write about what I’ve been doing, as well as some pretty important political and current events topics that have gone down recently. Also, I’m pretty behind on the Sonnet of the Week (five weeks delinquent after this week). A couple weeks ago, as the end of school started to really come close, I decided I’d have to wait until after graduation to get back to the sonneteering.

This summer, I am planning to start blogging about current events much more regularly. I am going to have to do some serious thinking about what I want this blog to be like next year.

That’s all for now. More to follow.

Affluence

2009-05-24T00:00:00+00:00

In the grand scheme of things, my family is pretty wealthy. We a own a house, and rent one floor out, my parents both have jobs, I am going to an expensive college, we have two cars, we eat well, we travel, etc. Compared even to some people in this immediate area, we are very wealthy.

Today I went to a friend’s graduation at NMH. Compared to the people there, I felt poor. There were exceptions, of course, but the vast majority of people there were incredibly wealth. They were underdressed in the way rich people are. And you could just tell from the way they conducted themselves. It gives you a chance to see how the other one-thousandth of a percent live, if you will.

It’s weird. Right now, the gap between the rich and poor in our nation is the biggest it’s ever been. It’s like the Gilded Age, or the Roaring Twenties. But I think that the societal shifts that are being brought about by the economic situation are going to change that. It really seems to me that the whole culture of American consumerism is changing. That wealth gap is going to start getting smaller as our education system improves, as urban infrastructure starts to improve, as clean energy begins to redistribute the population.

But for the moment, it’s still startling to consider how poor I am compared to some others. I’m not feeling sorry for myself; I’m acutely aware of how privileged I am, and I’m fortunate to have the opportunities I do. But I do think about people less fortunate than myself, and never less than when I’m staring the upper class elite right in the face.

Promenade

2009-05-23T00:00:00+00:00

Prom was last night. I had a fabulous time. I have decided that whatever lies in my future, I want it to involve the regular donning of tails. They are pretty awesome.

In somewhat less personal and more important news, the Waxman-Markey bill is generating quite a splash in the House. The New York Times‘ blog Green Inc.has an excellent post detailing some of the reactions to the bill. I’m worried by its claim that the bill is going to meet opposition from the House Agriculture Committee. Special interests in Congress need to realize that they are going to be negatively affected by the effects of global warming no matter what. We’re talking about epic shifts in societal organization, from top to bottom. Geographically, the earth is going to change, and humans will be forced to deal with the effects of those changes. Whether or not we’re ready is what will, I believe, ultimately determine the long-term ability of our species to survive and prosper.

Pushing against serious and meaningful measures to counteract and deal with global warming is right now one of the least constructive things anyone can do. Once the public really comes to realize that, politicians are going to have to shape up. When a politician drags their feet on an issue that their constituents recognize as serious, they don’t last.

To boldly go where no man has gone before

2009-05-22T00:00:00+00:00

I saw Star Trek last night. To cut straight to the chase, I loved. It was completely clear how much the writers and director loved the original stuff. I think people complain about remake movies of this kind way too much. They often don’t accept that people appreciate different things than they do, and make a different movie than they would. That being said, I didn’t think it was perfect. Parts of the plot didn’t seem to make sense to me, and some of the acting was a bit overdone. But I did not get the feeling that the movie was created with the sole purpose of extending the franchise. It stands on its own, and is a good piece of film even ignoring its predecessors.

Also, I really want to buy this and one of these (for when I get my laptop).

Tonight is my school’s prom. I am wearing tails.

Bibi+Barack

2009-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

The media is calling it a big change in U.S.-Israeli relations. I like that, but I’m not sure how true it is. On the other hand, it’s too early to judge, whether optimistically or pessimistically, how U.S.-Israeli relations are going to evolve from here. I think it’s important that Obama’s called for an end to the settlements in strong terms. But I dislike that the Israel is trying to shift the focus entirely to Iran. Iran is definitely an issue, but Israel makes it sound as though they are the only thing that matters. Obviously, they are trying to shift the focus from their own problems, and I’ve had enough of that. I think Obama has too. One reason I appreciate the diplomatic work he’s doing is that he’s got priorities, but he doesn’t let them get in the way of actual diplomacy. He understands that you work towards a goal for the future using the tools of today. Those tools include by necessity diplomacy. We can’t ignore our problems any more.

I guess the upshot of this is that I’m hopeful we can set the stage for some real pressure on Israel to shape up. I’m not counting on it happening overnight, but I’m ready to hold the Obama administration to a high standard on its timely and effective accomplishment.

In a side note, I’m worried about the denial of funds for closing Guantanamo. I haven’t found out enough about it yet to know who to look to for an explanation, but it’s a big deal.

St. Johnsbury

2009-05-18T00:00:00+00:00

I got back late last night (around ten-thirty) from the St. Johnsbury tournament. It was awesome. We started in the B division, and since we won all four of our games on Saturday, we moved into the A division. We lost to Four Rivers Sunday morning, but then won our final two games, putting us in fifth place in the A division, which is pretty impressive. I am exhausted and sick, but it was a great experience. I’m home from school today recuperating, and tomorrow we have two away games, one after the other, at Four Rivers, and then we are having a big party, which I think will be a lot of fun. Four Rivers, and the other school we’re playing, Compass, are both really fun teams to play, and just nice people in general.

The members of the Mock Trial team who are on the competing team for the AMTI(not me) are in New Jersey right now. I don’t know how they’re doing, but I’m hoping to here from them soon. They’ll be back very early in the morning tomorrow, and I will see them on Wednesday or Thursday at school. We have no school on Friday, and that night is the prom. I will be wearing tails.

Disc

2009-05-14T00:00:00+00:00

We lost to Amherst JV A today on a universe point; it was 5-5, game to 6. It was a pretty awesome game.

Tomorrow, I am biking to school (as I did yesterday) with a ton of other people. It is Community Day, so we have no classes, and there are activities and free food (Chinese and Jamaican) all day. A friend and I are performing a Talking Heads song at the open mic later. Then the frisbee team leaves for the St. Johnsbury tournament after school. That I am really looking forward to. We’re in the B division, which means that some of our newer players should get to play a bunch more. It also means that I am planning to win the division, which would be pretty awesome. The tournament lasts through Sunday. I will be bringing my megaphone. Enough said.

Last night I finished the first draft of the one-act I’m writing. It’s a collaboration between my Playwriting class and my school’s Holocaust Studies class, which I took last year, and will be used, once completed, in the Holocaust Rescue unit. We read it in class today, and I got some very useful feedback on it. I am very excited to see how it plays out when completed. The Holocaust Studies class will do at least one reading of it, hopefully public. This will be the first time I’ve ever had any of my work read outside of class. WAHOO!

Pope

2009-05-13T00:00:00+00:00

I’m actually quite impressed with how the Pope has been handling his tour of the Middle East so far. The fact that he’s declared support for a Palestinian state is pretty excellent. I still have some legitimate problems with him, like when he went to Africa and told them that condoms cause AIDS. Not true. Obviously. But he still said it. That’s not okay.

But I’m glad he’s willing to be a bit more humanitarian in this instance. Arguably, that’s because he has no vested interest in the opposite; in Africa, if people started using condoms, the Catholic church might lose sway. Or so they think, anyway. When their only priority is keeping people in the faith, messages get distorted or altogether falsified.

As the influential head of an influential group, the Pope has the potential to do great good. I think it’s up to us to be the voice of reason that doesn’t let him do anything else. We shouldn’t let our voices be drowned out by the leaders. We create leaders, and we follow them. We can change them.

Sin Nombre

2009-05-10T00:00:00+00:00

We got fifth place at the Greenfield tournament yesterday. It was an awesome day. Very tiring, but very fun.

I just got back from Sin Nombreat Amherst Cinema. It was really good, but extremely scary. I would not recommend it to anyone who can’t stomach violence. That said, I didn’t find the violence to be gratuitous. I dislike movies where the violence is for no purpose other than to sell, and I didn’t feel that way at all about this one. It was a scary story, and one that needed to be told in the way it was. I think I will write a longer review of it soon when I have more time. Tonight I need to finish a paper for school tomorrow.

Also, I now am the owner of a megaphone. Very useful.

SUCCESS

2009-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

Calvinball was AMAZING! There must have been forty people there. We spent the whole lunch running around, sometimes in a huge group, sometimes in a couple, sometimes with stragglers. We had people in every grade, and some teachers as well. We went inside, outside, all over the place.

People took lots of pictures, which will apparently be in the yearbook, or maybe next years’. The school’s executive director (the principal in normal public school terms) said that this was one of the most notable events in the HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL!

IT WAS AWESOME!

We are going to try to do it at least once more before the end of the year.

Calvinball

2009-05-06T00:00:00+00:00

We lost to Four Rivers, but that is okay. Especially because a friend and I have organized a game of Calvinballtomorrow during lunch. It is going to be awesome. We have flags, bags, hobby horses, masks, a croquet set, and I am bringing all sorts of other things.

This weekend is the Greenfield ultimate tournament. We are in the A division again!

Weight

2009-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

My academic load is finally starting to lighten up, for a variety of reasons. This morning, I turned in my joint honors paper for Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, under the title “British Finance and the Development of the Gold Standard”. Having that off our backs leaves us with having to plan the simulation we are going to run with the class to demonstrate some of the principles we studied. Students in the class will take on the role of merchants, buying and selling goods and currency, and attempting to make profit as regulatory and financial systems change. The simulation is pretty complicated, and we are turning in the plans for it on Wednesday.

I have, after much thought, decided not to do the AP Physics C exams. There is too much work remaining, and I have not done enough this year. I’m still going to try to finish my independent math study, but since that doesn’t have an AP exam attached to it, it should be significantly easier. I will need to kick it into gear, though, because I graduate in less than a month (AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!). As of Friday, I will be done with Spanish, when I will have my presentation/evaluation with the head of the World Languages department and a Spanish teacher who will be assessing my independent work. I am expecting that to go well.

Up until now, I’ve been assigned to write a one-act play as a normal part of my Playwriting class, an another one-act for Honors in that class, as a collaboration between the Theater and History departments. That one-act would be used as a curriculum piece in the Holocaust Studies class in the Holocaust Rescue unit. However, after consulting with the teachers of those classes (who are the department heads), we’ve decided to make those two one-acts the same. In other words, the normal one-act I do for Playwriting will be the collaboration. The Playwriting teacher has also said that if it works well, he will not have a problem giving me Honors Credit, because of the collaboration and research aspects which would not be required in the normal one-act assignment. Once I get a good plot locked down, it should be pretty easy to write.

We have a Frisbee game tomorrow against Four Rivers. They are an excellent team. So are we. It is going to be an epic game.

Havurah

2009-05-03T00:00:00+00:00

I have registered for the NHC Summer Institute! I am taking Jonathan Rubenstein’s baking classand Ben Dreyfus’ shemitah class. This is going to be a fabulous Institute.

Pride

2009-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

Today was the Northampton Pride march and rally. I took a longish lunch break to march with my school’s GSA, and then got some excellent food, including deep-fried cheesecake, which a friend and I sampled simply so we could say we had. It was not very good. The fried plantains and rice were, however.

And now, for the homework.

HTML PWNAGE!

2009-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

I have discovered how to make floating tooltips appear over a block of text. Or over anything, I suppose. The possibilities are endless.

I suppose this is a rather simple concept, but somehow I’ve never run across it before. I am PSYCHED! There is so much I can do with this! I will probably start implementing it very soon on this site. I will have to think about cool content to put there to keep people looking.

Hilltown

2009-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

Tonight I am heading to the Annual Meeting of the Hilltown Cooperative Charter Public School, where I attended from fifth through eighth grade. Some members of my class (the class of 2006) have been asked to come talk about our experiences there, as we are all heading off to college and such places next year. I am looking forward to seeing a lot of people who I haven’t seen in a while, students and faculty. The part where we talk is not till about 7:20, but I am going for the whole thing beginning at 6:30. I have never been to one of these before, and I’m curious to see what goes on.

Float

2009-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

The HCCPSannual meeting was a great success. I ended up going with some friends separately from my mom. Afterwards, we went and got some ice cream (I had a root beer float) at Herrell’s. It was great to see everyone again, and I really liked being at the meeting. We talked a bit about ourselves, and our experiences at Hilltown, and then people asked us some questions. Overall, a wonderful evening.

I have a bunch of homework to finish up, and then I am off to catch up on some much-needed sleep.

Buckle

2009-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

It’s been a while since I wrote. I have been very busy and very tired.

The NMH tournament was awesome. We got destroyed (we were 0 and 5), but we won the Spirit of the Game award, with an unprecedented-at-that-tournament perfect score of 50/50, receiving a 10/10 from each of the five teams we played. We got a nice plaque, and everything. After the tournament, me and some friends, including one from NMH, went for a quick dip in the river.

That night I went to a late show at the Iron Horse, Gokh-Bi System. They are a sort of funk/hip-hop/fusion sort of band, with members from around here, and Senegal. They were great. They had three frontmen from Senegal, who would rap, sing, drum and also dance. They also had this sort of designated dancer dude who would come up onto the stage at certain times and do incredible dances. We danced a lot in the audience, and people were coming up on stage all the time to dance with the band, and throw money all over them. It was fabulous. I think I may buy some of their music from iTunes, now that it is DRM-free.

Sunday I went to see that same friend from NMH’s senior honors recital, which was also fabulous. He played two pieces with piano accompaniment (on violin and viola), and played viola in the string quartet he wrote. This was the first time that piece had been performed, and it was really good. He wrote it mostly this winter, immediately following the unexpected death of a friend from leukemia.

Two other students played at the recital, one on drums, and one on piano. Both were excellent, and after the show there was a reception with those sort of round wafers with chocolate filling in the middle, and strawberries. Also there was confectioners’ sugar to dip the strawberries in, which I had never done before, but which was great.

I have been getting very little sleep in the past few nights because of mounds of homework, which will continue tonight. With that in mind, I will say that Arlen Specter is a very brave soul.

RIP, Frankie Manning. We will miss you.

Reset

2009-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

I am working on a pretty excellent shell scriptthat resets a Mac OS X computer back to factory defaults. This is useful for when I do a clean install at work and then need to install after-market software. I create an initial user account, install the software, and then run the script to remove the user, leaving the installed software in place and ready to use when a new account is created. As it is right now, the script does what it’s supposed to do. I think I will give it a few more features and make it a little prettier, and then put up a link to it here, as it could be pretty useful.

We have an ultimate tournament on Saturday at NMH. We are in the A division, which is cool because it will be really competitive and awesome, but not cool because a lot of our newer players will not get much playing time. That is a bummer. I went to the Y tonight and am going again tomorrow, so I will be in excellent shape on Saturday. I think it is important that I have been exercising regularly when the tournament comes around, so it is not a shock to my muscles to suddenly be doing work. I had an awesome workout tonight and am looking forward to another tomorrow. And now, sleep beckons.

Rain

2009-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

It rained really hard on the way home today, and as the defroster in my dad’s car is broken, we were mopping the windshield with a sweater every few minutes. It was awful driving weather.

The actual day at Brown was really nice. I met some really interesting faculty, and learned a lot of really cool stuff. Since the program was designed for admitted students, not just those who are already comitted to the school, as I am, there was a fair amount of courting, which was annoying, but expected. Also, now that the students have been admitted, and the school is essentially trying to woo them into giving the school their money, the control shifts to the parents, who start asking all sorts of ridiculous and non-productive questions. At a certain point, it seems as though they don’t even really care about the educational component, they are just looking to put people on the defensive, because that is fun. It can be easy to fall into the trap of wanting to hear yourself talk when you are interested in something.

Anyway, I had a really good time despite all of that. Not only did I have some excellent conversations with various faculty members (chiefly in the Geology department), but I was fortunate enough to start a conversation with a senior who then offered to show me his thesis work, which was on historic wind and temperature changes in East Africa. It had all sorts of cool charts and studies involved, and he had a lot of interesting stuff to say about the department and the way science in general works at Brown. The main thing I gained today, from him and others, was a really good sense of how to navigate the departments and resources once I get there. I am really looking forward to begininning in the fall.

The conversation I began to have with some of the Geology faculty and continued somewhat with that student was about public policy. One thing they pointed out, that I agree with, is that Geology is very much a study of how humans can interact with natural cycles. In this way, it is extremely applicable to public policy. Or rather, public policy is extremley applicable to it. There is an abiding notion in politics that the best way to become, for instance, a statesperson and work in international relations is to study political science, and government, and stuff. I would agree that it’s important to understand how governments work, but if you’re going to go work for one, as, say, a broker of international environmental policy, you had better understand how nitrogen cycles work. Scientists are in a unique position to set and influence public policy, based on their formidable understanding of the way things work. Policy needs to be set based on scientific truths, not the other way around. If you decide what your policies will be and then look for science to back them, that is bad. It is data mining, and it is just general quackery. Science necessitates conclusions, and sometimes painful ones. Governments need to respond to that by setting policies that are based on scientific truths.

More and more, I am getting interested in some kind of intellectual property law, or something of that sort. For that reason, I am considering doing some kind of engineering major (perhaps Computer Engineering, which seems to be a strong division at Brown), and then going to law school, perhaps earning a Master’s degree in Engineering as well. Having a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering makes it easier to find work, which could potentially help me pay for law school and graduate school. I also really want to teach high school math, so I am definitely considering some kind of math major as well, perhaps dual.

Also, if I work hard on my investment plans for this summer, I could enjoy a lot more financial flexibility in the future in terms of education and career.

Things are starting to come together.

Email

2009-04-20T00:00:00+00:00

I set up my Brown email address! It redirects to my Gmail account, and I can send mail as it from there. This is awesome.

Tomorrow I am going to be at Brown for the day at a program for admitted students. I will get to meet people, see cool presentations, and such. I am also planning to spend a bunch of time in Providence and just generally browsing the campus to get a feel for it. This will be the first time I have visited since I was admitted, and I am looking forward to it.

Sleep is now my highest priority.

Vinyl

2009-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

Everything That Happens Will Happen Today has arrived. Vinyl is fabulous. I highly recommend this album.

YouTube Symphony Orchestra

2009-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

I didn’t get home until about three in the morning, so I took the day off from school today to sleep and catch up on work.

The concert was amazing. The orchestra itself was really cool; a blend of people from all different countries. The conductor, Michael Tilson Thomas, was incredibly fun to watch. He had more expression than almost anyone I’ve ever seen before.

Four ten-thousand-watt (I think) projectors covered the entire ceiling and back wall of the stage of Carnegie Hall. Before each piece, they would show maps of where the composer lived, as well as periodically showing videos about select performers from the orchestra, compilations of audition videos during intermission, and some really cool multimedia stuff during a few pieces. During John Cage’s Renga and Aria, for instance, they projected the shapes and syllables he used to notate the piece, which is pretty cool sounding. Will and I got a look at the control room for all of the video, and it was intense. There were racks and racks of complicated audio-video and computer equipment, and all sorts of things we didn’t understand at all.

The orchestra also played Ride of the Valkyries, which is pretty much the most epic piece of music ever.

For me, the two highlights of the performance were the Internet Symphony No. 1, Eroica, composed and guest-conducted by Tan Dun in its world premier, and a piece they did with Mason Bates, a really awesome electronic DJ. He played with the full orchestra. Dun’s piece had a part for car rims which were played with ball-peen hammers.

The irony of wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt in a concert hall named after Andrew Carnegie did not escape me, and I think it was responsible for my being rejected by an interviewer from the BBC, who I guess was looking for people more well-dressed than us. We were a rather odd-looking group.

We hung out in Times Square for a while beforehand, got some excellent food from a street vendor, bought some hip-hop (which we listened to on the way home), and almost purchased some Obama condoms (“Michelle approved, ladies and gentlemen”, and “Create your very own stimulus package”), but they were $5, which was not practical.

The YouTube Symphony Orchestra is a historic event, but not for the reasons I had originally been thinking of. In terms of the formation of musical groups, the real democratizer was the recording process. In that respect, this is really no different. But it does really represent the way that classical music, and, indeed, the idea of collaborative music in general, is changing in response to this type of technology. It opens up new ground for the way music can be composed, put together, and performed. I am excited to see where it goes from here, and I am proud to have witnessed this event.

Also, this post has more categories than any I have ever written before, I think. It is just that awesome.

Salad

2009-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Egg salad (made with fresh eggs) and Tabasco on matza.

Apparently there is a scientific measurement of how spicy something is. I wonder where my sandwich would rank on it.

York

2009-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

Tomorrow I am heading to Carnegie Hall to see the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. It is a half-day at school, and since I normally have no classes in the morning on Wednesday, I am not going in to school at all. Will will be picking me up at home, we will grab another friend a couple blocks away, and then head to New Haven. From there, we will take the train into the city.

The show is at seven-thirty, so we are going to be back pretty late.

Resources

2009-04-12T00:00:00+00:00

I have been doing a lot of thinking about how society is going to change as the effects of global warming play out and we run out of fossil fuels. We have a lot of thinking to do about how we want to restructure to avoid starving people. It is going to get a lot harder to feed people.

I think the solution is to start centralizing the population around farming areas, with efficient public transportation to allow people and goods to be efficiently moved within relatively small areas. Importing food from long distances is a luxury we cannot afford. Areas of the world that cannot be used efficiently for farming should become centers for power generation (by nuclear fusion ideally), and research into such techniques. That way, any safety concerns associated with running power plants will be removed from the population, and the land will be put to good use.

The current model of people living far-flung, away from distribution centers, and having to drive to get their food, is completely unsustainable. We need to create small, localized, microeconomies that are self-sufficient in terms of food. Electric power can be transported over long distances by the use of high-voltage lines, so it is no problem to create that thousands of miles away. But goods such as food can no longer be shipped long distances, because that is the source of most of the energy expenditure associated with them.

We also need to scale back on our use of commodities; we need to consume less. Some products require special facilities to be manufactured, and if we go through them too fast, we will waste energy getting them from place to place.

On the other hand, if we have enough clean energy, that won’t really be a problem. Nuclear fusion has the potential to produce an immense amount of energy with almost no harmful byproducts. If we harness more efficient electrical engines to power our machinery, we should be able to live comfortably without having a negative impact on the planet. That balance is the key.

There is no intrinsic disadvantage to modernization. The problem arises when we ignore the natural order of things, when we forget that as the dominant species, we are in a unique position to screw ourselves and everything else over with our tremendous influence on the planet. That influence is both our greatest asset and our greatest liability, and we must tread carefully around it.

Holes

2009-04-12T00:00:00+00:00

I dug three holes, each three feet wide, and one-and-a-half feet deep. Two and half hours of work for a total of thirty dollars gives me twelve dollars an hour (not bad). But I wanted to calculate how much I was paid per volume of dirt (disregarding the rather substantial rocks I had to dig out and move).

So:

Three holes, with a radius of one-and-a-half feet, and a depth of three feet.

r²h = (1.5)²1.5

3/2 ft.³dirt per hole.

Thirty dollars for three holes is ten dollars per hole.

10/(3/2)=20/(3) $/ft.³dirt 2.122065907891938 $/ft.³ dirt.

I bought David Byrne’s new album, Everything That Happens Will Happen Todayonline. So far, it is pretty awesome. I wish I had noticed the option to buy it in FLACas well as MP3, seemingly for no extra charge, but I didn’t. Oh well. I did buy the vinyl package, so in a few days I will receive the album on vinyl, which is going to be great.

Chinese food approaches. As does bimetallism.

YMCA

2009-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

Of course they would be closed on Easter Sunday. Why on earth didn’t I think of that?

I had planned my whole day around going to the Y in the morning, then work, then a mock trial meeting. But it turns out that the Y is closed, work is closed, and the meeting is not happening. It looks as though I will be going up to Ashfield to dig some holes in the morning. Then I will do homework before meeting with a friend to work on our honors project.

The Overpass

2009-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

We had a Passover seder last night, which was pretty wild. A total of thirty-one guests were in attendance. The Manischewitzand the Dr. Brown’swere flowing fast, and a wonderful time was had by all. Tonight we are heading to the house of my congregation’s rabbi for a seder, which promises to be excellent.

Passover is a good time to reflect on a lot of different things. At this moment in particular, the idea of the way Jewish people relate to slavery and freedom is pretty important. The situation in Israel is, in my opinion, continually deteriorating. A foreign minister who believes that Israeli Arabs should swear an oath of allegiance to the Jewish state, a government that is increasingly willing to pursue military action before diplomacy and compromise, and an international assumption that the land is Israel’s to do with as it wishes; these are all huge obstacles to peace, and, in Jewish terms, Moshiach.

I do not agree with those who say that all Jews are responsible for what the state of Israel has done. That’s like white guilt; it’s polarizing and non-constructive. But I do think that, as Jews, we have a duty to stand up and say “Look, we’re not okay with what’s being done in the name of our religion.” We, the constituency of international Jewry (a FABULOUS word), are the strongest voice of conscience. I can’t speak for the views of Israeli Jews, many of whom I know do not agree with the way the government has approached these problems, just as many Americans despised the way George W. Bush treated the rest of the world, but I am not self-centered enough to pretend that I am the only Jew who is not blinded by fundamentalism. I am only one of many Jews who believe that [the] religion stands for something greater than its own personal gain; the betterment of humanity, whether or not the particular humanity is involved happens to be Jewish.

There are always people willing to use religion as a justification for their own racist or extremist ideals. I don’t distinguish between Avigdor Lieberman and a Muslim extremist who sets off a car bomb on an ideological level. Clearly there is a practical difference; it’s not illegal for Avigdor Lieberman to have views that I consider racist and it is illegal to blow people up. But it is immoral for Lieberman to be allowed to apply those values to a society in which he is in a position of leadership. Racist views have no place in government. Neither does religion.

In my household, we place a strong emphasis on having non-Jews at our Seders. We believe that is a mitzvahto share our traditions and celebrations with others, and to experience theirs. Coming from this place, I see it as central to the Jewish faith that Jews be willing to cooperate with others. Judaism places a high value on human life and dignity, and its intrinsic worth, and we must always prioritize that above all else. I strongly believe that religion can be a force for good, and that despite arguments about whose is “better”, who is the “true believer”, or if it’s even valid at all, we cannot discount the effect it has on many people. All persons of religion have a duty to deal with others on their terms. This means that a religion must not become insular and self-absorbed. It must prioritize the basic needs of others over its so-called “religious truths”.

There is a myth that a lot of American Jews support Israel’s generally conservative stance towards religious cooperation, but a new survey from JStreet finds that this is not true. It is clear that Jews have individually progressed. Judaism needs to follow. All religions, Judaism included, need to take their rightful place in the modern world, allowing their practitioners to maintain their reason, logicality, and respect for others. When any religion begins to cloud these things from view, this must be immediately addressed with progressive and productive dialogue.

I support the abolition of the state of Israel and the forming of a single secular state in the region. But this does not preclude me from dealing with and listening to those who support the state of Israel as a religious institution. Nor does it prevent me from having a close and personal relationship with that historic and significant area. I don’t view it as the Promised Land, but, being a person who picks and chooses from the history of the religion to suit my own needs, I understand the significance it holds for others, and would not take that from them. But we all must realize how our actions affect others. Jews do nothave more of a right to that land than any one else. Period.

Deval Patrick

2009-04-09T00:00:00+00:00

Our plans changed rather suddenly this evening. We were not able to go to the rabbi’s house for dinner, so I instead went to our synagogue’s community Seder. And this was no ordinary seder. Deval Patrick himself, the governor of Massachusetts, arrived, and ate with us. I managed to corner him before he left, and talked to him about charter schools. I had heard that he opposed them (which I doubted, as it is an oversimplification), and he vigorously denied it as I had thought he would. He did make the very interesting point that what Massachusetts has not done such a good job of is using charter schools as “laboratories”, as he put it, and applying what we learn from these schools to the district system. Building off of this, I would say that the reason people are often angry about charter schools is because they don’t see any benefit to having them. If we look at charter schools as a government investment that allows a new perspective on public education, we see an immediate benefit, as long as those perspectives are used constructively. I don’t know what specific legal steps Patrick plans to take to make this more of a reality, but I appreciate the clarity of his goals, and his willingness to communicate them.

I got a photo with him, but I was using my mom’s celphone camera, and did not save it properly, so it is gone forever. So it goes.

Ultimate

2009-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

On Friday we had a double-header game, first playing NMH and then St. Johnsbury. In the NMH game, we both fielded two teams, and A and a B. On the A field, we won 11-4, but over on the B field, we were kicked 11-3. We beat St. Johnsbury though at 6-6 with next point wins, by which time it was completely dark.

Today we played Amherst College B. Technically they won, but by the end of the game it was a total farce anyway; we made a cup-o-saurus, which is pretty much the best move ever. It was very muddy, and we played Miniature Tanks afterwards, which was awesome. Basically what you do is everyone gets on their hands and forearms in a shoulder-to-shoulder circle. Then everyone starts crawling in towards the center, chanting “Miniature tanks, miniature tanks, miniature tanks…”. You have to keep going no matter what. Everyone ends up crawling all over everyone else. Then a friend and I layed out into some mud, which was also excellent. However, in the course of the ensuing chest-bump, my right big toe was cleated, and now my nail is coming off, which is extremely painful. So it goes.

I have no regrets.

MacHeist

2009-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

I just purchased the MacHeist bundle. I am not using all of the apps in it, but just for the ones I am using, $39 is a fabulous price. As Wil Wheaton said, I really hope that BoinxTV gets unlocked. Anyone who has a Mac should by this package, save a bunch of money, help charity, and get awesome apps.

First game

2009-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

We won our first game of the season! It was an awesome one, against Longmeadow B. It was pretty great that it was not a pushover; we were quite evenly matched and the game was intense. Also, I layed out for the first point of the season! I am extremely proud. And dirty. My glasses are pretty destroyed, having been stepped on and dirtified rather well.

Today I played an excellent game of Apples to Apples. I won. Here, then, is a list of my qualities, as expressed by the infallible and omnipotent logic of Apples to Apples:

Crazed
Masculine
Smooth
Influential
Misunderstood
Wild
Important
Offensive
Primitive
Hilarious
Nerdy
Frightening
Powerful

The Mock Trial team is entering an invitational tournament in New Jersey. We got the case today. It is negligence!

I am now able to moonwalk.

Brownian Calendar

2009-04-02T00:00:00+00:00

Google Calendaris becoming really awesome. I just spent about forty-five minutes entering various data about Brown stuff, and it is going to be really useful. I have a calendar shared with my parents, and have entered all filing deadlines, special events, etc. Also, the discussion feature has thus far allowed me to take some notes on what I’m doing (like filling out paper forms and getting things to my college counselor), and as my parents start to reference the calendar more, we will all be able to keep track of our progress there.

College

2009-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

I really hate the college application process and system. It is so detrimental to people’s self-confidence and perspective on education. It changes the focus from getting a good education to getting into a certain school. What you do where you end up is so much more important than where you end up. It is important to be somewhere that you like, but if everyone was applying to fewer schools, and everyone could get a free or affordable college education, this would no longer be an issue. Schools now have to pay close attention to where people come from, making it less likely that a bunch of people in the same area will all get in. They have to do this because there is an expectation of geographic spread.

This is one manifestation of what I think is a U.S.- and world-wide mis-focus. In terms of transportation, education, farming, and economics, history has shown that smaller localized economic and social communities function better than large-scale importing and exporting ones. This is not to say that international or intranational trade is not important, but communities need to be self-sustaining in terms of where they get their food and other staples, and where they educate themselves. If people need to travel far distances or have their food shipped them, they will consume valuable resources that the rest of the world has to take up rather than moving production closer to themselves. If a community can’t educate itself, or rather doesn’t have local options available to do this, it will lack the tools to keep up with others.

I guess this forms the core of the argument for local farming and distributing (CSAs) and an effective government-run public school system that guarantees a college education to everyone. Barack Obama is right when he says that we can’t solve today’s economic problems by thinking about today alone. Education is an investment in the future. If people, whether the government or students, underestimate themselves, they hurt not only their own chances in a society driven by jobs requiring education, but those of others who will suffer when the economy is unable to sustain itself any longer without people to fill those jobs.

Anyway, one reason I’m thinking about this is that a bunch of my friends who had applied were not accepted to Brown. I’m still excited to go there, but I really would have liked to go there with them, and I feel that it’s unfair that they weren’t admitted and I was. I am not more deserving than them. I am not smarter than them. But for whatever reason, Brown couldn’t see that these were people who any school should be envious of, people who have taken on their own education, and will benefit any community they’re in. That is their (Brown’s) and my loss. I am sure my friends will be happy wherever they end up, and some of them may try to transfer somewhere else later if they want to, but I am disappointed that we won’t get to go to school together any more.

Both ways

2009-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

I have just discovered that if I edit my subscribed Google calendars in iCal, they sync to the server. This is awesome. The only issue is that iCal has to be open to sync stuff. So I can no longer just use my really awesome natural-language event-creating dashboard widget QuickCalon its own. I have to open iCal first. This is not really that big of a deal. In fact, putting things in perspective, it’s pretty cool that I can receive an email, press a button, type in “Meeting tomorrow from noon until 12:30 pm”, press enter, and have it appear in my Google calendar. All that QuickCal lacks is location support, but I am sure this will be implemented soon. Perhaps it will support attendees and invitations as well for the ultimate Google integration experience.

AAAAHHH

2009-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

Okay, it turns out that the Google Calendar gadget on iGoogle has natural-language input support too! Also, it can do locations. This is just ridiculous. Everything is going to work so much better than it would have before.

It is a good thing that Google is not evil, because if they were they would control the world.

My new motto for all things technological:

If there is a product, service, or technology, Google makes a version that is better than the one you have, and it is free.

Upload

2009-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

I am switching entirely to Google Calendar. I am in the process of uploading my iCal calendars. Then I may subscribe to them in iCal once they are uploaded, so I can still sync them to my iPod.

I still need to find a good solution for my contacts.

Cloudy

2009-03-29T00:00:00+00:00

It worked! I have done it! My calendars are all online now, and I am subscribed to them with iCal, so they show up on my iPod. Any changes I make online show up on my iPod the next time I sync it. More importantly, I don’t have to be at home to update my calendar.

The future is now.

Home

2009-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

We got home earlier than expected, at about four or so. I have been doing some yardwork, and am heading up to see Will at the farm. I will stay there tonight, and we will catch up on our math and physics work, on which we are extremely behind. I may also bring the LC(A) to show off. Will has told people about it, but I don’t think they’ve ever actually seen it in the flesh (plastic?).

Our first Frisbee game is on Thursday.

Waltz With Bashir

2009-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

We are going to see Waltz With Bashir tonight! I am so excited! I have been waiting to see it for a while.

Waltz With Bashir Review

2009-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

Waltz With Bashir was excellent. I am going to do my best to review it here, briefly summarizing the plot and what I thought of it. WARNING: plot details most definitely follow:

The movie is an animated documentary, focused around the recollections of the filmmaker, Ari Folman, about the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. He was in the IDF at the time, and has only dim recollections of certain events. It begins when a fellow soldier tells him of a nightmare he has been having, and Folman then begins to have his own vision of a massacre he knows occured, but knows little of. He seeks out other veterans, including one who he sees in this dream, and tries to learn more of what went on there. As he uncovers more and more details and personal stories, the film transitions between different animation styles as we travel through the memories of these people, and come to understand the whole story through these fragmented viewpoints. At the very end of the movie, it suddenly snaps to about forty-five seconds of live authentic archival footage, and then ends. This is extremely jarring, and I was at first a little ticked off at that they had abandoned what had until that point been a purely animated feature for the sake of dramatic impact, but I am coming to understand why they did this more. It was certainly effective in terms of impact, but the question is whether or not it serves the film’s interests. I think it ultimately does. It is almost as if the animation represents the fact that these memories are all fragmented, subjective, and limited to the perceptions the soldiers had at the time of the events’ occurring, and then at the end when Folman comes to understand what actually ocurred, and the role he had in it, we see the footage, reminding us that there are in fact concrete records of these sort of things, that it is a matter of contextualizing them.

One theme the film treats especially well is that of ignorance. Character struggle with the concept of blissful ignorance, and how certain people might have shut out certain stimuli to keep themselves happy or sane. This is served especially well in a scene with the psychiatrist.

There is also one particular veteran who routinely offers very interesting analyses to Folman (who is a character in the movie) of Folman’s own viewpoints. At one point, he says that perhaps the reason Folman is so interested in discovering the details of this massacre is that his own parents were in Auschwitz during the Holocaust, and this idea of massacre has been with him all of his life. Now he is seeking to understand the situation in which he unwittingly took the role of the Nazi (to a lesser degree, but a definite parallel).

That particular exploration reminded me of a part of Maus in which Art is talking to his psychiatrist, Pavel, who says “Does the world really need another Holocaust story? Maybe they need a bigger and better Holocaust.” It seems to me that a lot of the art that comes out of trauma and tragedy, like the Holocaust or this particular military conflict / genocide, is focused on the idea of awareness. When will humanity finally get to the point where an understanding of genocide or human suffering is not limited to retrospect? When will we no longer be afraid to call these things what they are? It seems that Arik Sharon knew about this particular massacare, at Sabra and Shatila, and let it occur anyway. When will the world understand these things well enough to at least grant them classification? From this will follow action, inevitably, but we must take that first step of recognition.

Overall, I really liked this movie, and found that it explored these themes very effectively. The artwork was beautiful. The first scene, which is a dream that a veteran is having, and subsequently describes, is particularly striking. It starts with a dog running, and then more join it, finally coming to a halt underneath a window, which they bark at, where a man stands. The veteran then tells Folman that there are twenty-six dogs in the dream, and that they are the twenty-six dogs he shot during the invasion. As his unit approached Lebanese villages, the dogs would bark and awaken everyone, so his commander had him snipe the dogs before they entered, because they knew he was too afraid to kill a person. For some reason, this veteran describing the fact that he remembered the faces and the wounds of every single one of those twenty-six dogs struck me as completely tragic, and I lost it. Even at the end of the film, faced with the gruesome archival footage, I wasn’t as deeply affected. That first scene really set the tone.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone in the mood for a though-provoking and contemplative theater-going experience. If you’re looking for easy entertainment or something you can just walk away from and not think about, look elsewhere. Waltz With Bashir is not to be taken lightly.

NYC

2009-03-27T00:00:00+00:00

Shawarma is probably one of the best foods there is. I had a fabulous chickens shawarma sandwich. We are staying at my aunt and uncle’s apartment now. We walked around for a bit before coming here, as we had been in the car for about an hour from New Jersey.

This morning, before we left, we visited my great-grandmother at the nursing home she is in. It was very nice in some ways, and not nice at all in some other ways. It made me think a lot about how I want to be treated and live when I am that age, and how I want to cope as my parents get towards that age. I think that it is weird that in America we pay people to live with and take care of our old people, rather than just doing it ourselves. If everyone was in a better position to take care of their relatives as they aged, we wouldn’t need to spend so much money on those institutions. Ideally, the government would provide money to anyone who is taking care of relatives to help them cope, but until we are in a position to have that sort of health care infrastructure, we will have to deal with these not-so-friendly institutions. This particular one is rather nice, but it is still an institution, with all of the benefits and pitfalls that implies. It is a tricky situation.

I am glad that my relatives are being well taken care of, but I wish it was a little more personal, and I wish I saw them more often.

Mourn

2009-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

I am in New Jersey right now at my grandmother’s house, having just come from Long Island from another family member’s house following the graveside service, which we were unable to get to, as it was at ten-thirty this morning. We didn’t want to catch all of the rush hour traffic, so we left at about ten and got in at one-thirty. We were there until about eight. There was a very nice evening service at about seven.

Throughout the afternoon and evening, I spent a lot of time with a lot of different people. Some of them I knew and had seen recently (in exemplum my grandfather [most recently sighted at my aunt’s wedding in L.A.]). Some of them I knew and had not seen for a long time (in exemplum my grandfather’s cousin, the widow of the deceased [most recently sighted at her apartment several years ago]). Some of them I had never met before in my life (in exemplum her sister). Anyway, I had a really good time, or as much of a good time as one should have at a post-funeral Shiva session.

Everyone has their own way of mourning. Some people cry a lot, some people are solid and stoic and then cry a lot in private, some are solid and stoic and never cry. Some are somewhere in between, defying categorization. It is weird. It is hard to predict how people will act. I try not to stop trying though, because I think that if you just sit back and accept the way people feel, it can be easy to get caught up in emotions and not understand what’s actually happening around you. It is important to be sympathetic and comforting while still trying to understand your feelings.

No

2009-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

Well, we didn’t win our trial yesterday. Thus, we are out of the competition. So it goes.

I am more seriously considering opening a Facebook account.

Comics and competition

2009-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

The Webcomics Weekend was a huge success, at least for the two hours I was there. I met a lot of awesome people, including Ryan North, David Malki, Joey Comeau, and Emily Horne. I bought two shirts, the first for me and the second for a friend who couldn’t come but is a die hard Dinosaur Comics fan. Also I got a gigantic pastrami sandwich on an onion bagel at the restaurant at Eastworks, which lasted me the rest of the day.

We didn’t do so well at Harmony Sweeps. We didn’t place or get Audience Favorite (we did both last year), but the groups that did were fabulous. I didn’t feel that disappointed, because I had a really great time, heard some really good music, and got a chance to perform with some really fun people.

Also, I had a singularly AWESOME experience after the show. A bunch of girls came up to the group, and asked for our AUTOGRAPHS! And they wanted pictures with us! It was SO COOL! I have NEVER given an autograph before, and I enjoyed it so much. They said that they were part of a high school choir as well, and they wanted us to come see their show, which we totally would have, except that it is on June 1st, which is 5-Alone‘s big show as well, and my birthday with all of its investment and skydiving-related opportunities and commitments. Speaking of my birthday, I was recently informed that Lucky’s, a tattoo and piercing parlor in Northampton, will give you a free piercing on your eighteenth birthday. This fits in perfectly with my planned theme for that whole day, so I am considering getting another piercing. It would definitely be an ear. I have to decide if I want to get my other (right) earlobe pierced, or if I want to go for one of those upper-ear-type things, and if so, if I want it to be on the left (already pierced) ear, or or the right. Decision, decisions.

Tomorrow I am sleeping, going to see my school’s production of Hair with a friend, and going to a Mock Trial meeting.

Comic

2009-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

Tomorrow I am heading to the New England Webcomics Conventionbefore going to Boston to compete in the Boston Regional Harmony Sweepstakes. It is going to be a busy day.

Other

2009-03-19T00:00:00+00:00

The other semifinals trial on Monday will be between Sharon High School and Westford Academy. This one’s in Boston, at John Joseph Moakley Courthouse, which is a fabulous place. It looks out over the harbor, and that wall is made of entirely of large rectangular panes of glass, giving it an astounding view.

Our trial is at Worcester Superior Courthouse, which is also a pretty great building, although it doesn’t have a view.

We have no school tomorrow, but the Mock Trial team is meeting.

Maimonides…

2009-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

has beaten Newton South in their quarterfinals trial. We will be playing them on Monday in the semifinals.

Home

2009-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

I am pretty sick and did not go to school today. I spent the day at home recuperating, running some errands, and I had a rehearsal this evening.

Last night I had a conversation with my mom about transgender health care, and, after reading articles today about the Pope’s anti-condom remarks en route to Cameroon, I am pissed off. People need to realize that some things supersede religion or personal belief. Human life and health is always more important. Always. Whether or not you think people *should *be having sex-changing surgery, the fact is that they do, and if you are a health care provider of any kind, you have a duty to those people that supersedes your beliefs about the morality of what they are doing. The same holds for religious figures. If you want to preach abstinence, that’s fine, but the fact is that condoms save lives, and to tell people in Africa, the continent worst-hit by AIDS, that condoms are “part of the problem” (yes, he actually said that), is just plain lying. That is outside of the realm of belief. That is false, and it should not be tolerated.

Semi

2009-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

We won our trial today against Massachusetts Academy of Mathematics and Science. Semifinals are next Monday. We will be facing either Newton South, whom we lost to in finals last year, or the Maimonides School, depending on which of them beats the other.

I am considering getting a Facebook.

RIP Ron Silver

2009-03-16T00:00:00+00:00

Ron Silver has died. I have seen only Reversal of Fortune, but he was fabulous in that.

Happy Pi Day!

2009-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

Need I say more?

Chicks

2009-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

Our new baby chicks arrived at the post office this morning. There are about twenty. We only ordered nine hens, but they have a certain amount they have to send in each box to keep them warm, so they just give you extra roosters, because no one wants roosters. So once they get old enough to crow we will get rid of them, but for now they are pretty cute.

Also, we have eggs arriving pretty soon that we will be hatching. We opted not to use an incubator and just to let some of the more broody hens sit on the eggs, which will be pretty awesome.

I picked up two more books for the honors project that I am doing with a friend for Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. The project is on eighteenth-century European finance and economic policy, and these two books look pretty interesting. Apparently there was something called the Dutch Tulip Mania, and there was an economic group called the Loco-Focos. Both sound pretty weird. The Dutch Tulip Mania involved bulb futures, a rather odd concept, and the Loco-Focos appear to be some kind of group that advocated a no-paper-money policy. We will see.

Our opponent for our next trial has been revealed: Massachusetts Academy of Mathematics and Science from Worcester, who beat Lowell Catholic High School. We will face them in Springfield on Monday.

Tryout

2009-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

Today was the first day of tryouts for the boys’ ultimate team. It was mega-cold. My hands were in excruciating pain by the end of the game. I CANNOT WAIT for the weather to be uncold again.

I realized that the most scary part about skydiving will definitely be the falling. I mean, that’s obvious, but think about it like this: In real life, when you jump off of something, or fall, you are never in free fall for more than about two seconds, usually probably less than one. When I go skydiving, I will be in free fall for between thirty seconds and one minute. Apparently you reach terminal velocity pretty quickly, after something like twenty seconds, and at that point, there is so much air resistance, that you feel as though you are standing on something, but that is still twenty seconds of free fall, far longer than I have ever experienced before. It is going to be awesome.

Someone I know who has gone skydiving says that once your chute opens, you feel as though gravity has reversed and you are falling up. I am SO PUMPED!

Eighteen

2009-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

I am solidifying plans for my eighteenth birthday. Here is a list of things I am intending to do, in no particular order:

Go skydiving
Open a Roth IRA, and potentially a separate investment account
Register to vote

I called JumpTown in Orange this evening, and confirmed that part of the plan. It will cost me $205 to jump as a student, and I will require a twenty to thirty minute training session before going up tandem with an instructor. I suppose I am thus going to take the day off from school in order to get all of this stuff done. Also, 5-Alonehas our big show at the Iron Horsethat evening, so it will be a busy day.

Eighteen 2.0

2009-03-11T00:00:00+00:00

I forgot something in the last post. I am also planning to get a credit card on my eighteenth birthday.

Jumptown offers a video and still photos of your jump for an extra $115. That is a lot of money. But they also have edited the footage, and put it to music, which is sort of silly. I watched a few demo videos, and they’re sort of cheesy. Perhaps I can get them to just give me the raw footage, which I would much prefer, and maybe take the price down a bit.

ULTIMATE AWESOMENESS

2009-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

WE PLAYED A REAL GAME! ON A REAL FIELD! WITH GRASS!

It was awesome. I have not played a legitimate game since August. I am SO out of shape, and SO looking forward to this season.

My father is taking tomorrow off of school, so I am going in late. Sleeping until nine. WAHOO!

Switching?

2009-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am probably going to switch to a different web host sometime soon. Currently, I use GoDaddy to host this site, and the harpojaeger.com domain is also registered with them. renaissanceboy.org, my first domain, which now redirects here, is registered with DirectNic, the company I was using at the time.

The reasons I want to switch are complicated. For a while, I’ve been impressed by GoDaddy’s low prices but dismayed by their site’s operation in a technical sense; it is confusing and slow. In addition, I have never been fully supportive of their marketing techniques, which are frequently subtly, sometimes blatantly, sexist, base, and calculative. I have never really devoted much thought to it, but my father mentioned to me that there was a movement afoot to ditch GoDaddy because of these tactics, and he directed me to this article. It sums up the issues at play very well.

I was already aware of DreamHost, having worked for a client who used it, and the other hosting service the article linked to, LunarPages, looks excellent as well. I am going to spend some time in the near future researching different services, and will probably make the switch soon. I think I will also consolidate all of my domain names to the same registrar, ideally the same company that’s doing the hosting. This should make stuff a lot easier.

Purim

2009-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

Tonight was Purim, a rather exciting Jewish holiday, which features strange costumes and pastries. Also, we won our first playoff trial today, advancing us to the next round on Monday.

I have been doing homework since returning home from synagogue. Tomorrow, my Rise and Fall of the Great Powers class will complete its trial of Napoleon Bonaparte for Crimes Against Humanity. I am playing Napoleon. I have prepared a ridiculous French accent, and hopefully will be acquitted. It is always interesting to see how these historical mock trials will play out. On the one hand, I somewhat believe that Napoleon is guilty of the charges, so I am playing devil’s advocate in that sense, something I often do and enjoy greatly. However, I am also speaking in line with what happened historically; Napoleon was not in fact ever tried, much less convicted. So regardless of which side one is on in such a trial (I had similar thoughts in our 10th grade trial of President Harry Truman for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity concerning the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), one is arguing against some sort of establishment.

Frisbee practice tomorrow! Hopefully the field will be clear enough that we can play an actual game.

Economics

2009-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

I have been doing a bunch more research into investment options. It turns out that I have to fill out a bunch of forms to open an IRA as a minor, so I may just wait until this summer to do that to avoid the trouble.

There are a lot of different brokers online. I looked at ETrade</a>, TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, and Scottrade. Schwab has the highest transaction fees (close to $50 for funds!), but that is probably balanced by more services. I think that when I start investing I will probably go with ETrade. Not only were their fees pretty reasonable, but I liked their site design; it was simple and easy to use.

I think I will open a Roth IRA. Once I get a credit card this summer, I will have a certain percentage of each of my paychecks go into a savings account, which will in turn be accessed monthly by my IRA, withdrawing a fixed or percentage amount. I could also bypass the savings account a go directly to the IRA. This would have the advantage of placing more of my money in a position to be invested, but allowing me less spending flexibility.

Watchmen

2009-03-06T00:00:00+00:00

Due to the fact that I got less than three hours of sleep last night, I am pretty exhausted. But it was worth it. Watchmen was fabulous. It is not perfect, but I am SO glad I went, and it is definitely a movie to see. The CGI was also really really good, especially in the scenes on Mars, for anyone who knows the plot.

I would have liked to see more of The Comedian, especially as a younger man; his acting was great. In general, I was most impressed with the historical development of the characters. Most of the credit for this goes to the original authors of the comic, but I credit the director with doing a good job preserving this most important aspect.

I did dislike the gratuitous and graphic violence. The comic book is violent, to be sure, but the movie took it over the top. There were subtle changes to scenes that were more conservative in the book, and just shots that didn’t have to be included, for the purpose of selling the violence.

Overall, though, the movie represents a concerted effort to work with the source material, and it is ultimately successful. It has been getting really bad reviews. I think this is because of the critics’ mentality that if a movie makes any concessions from their idealized view of “perfect art”, it is no longer worthy of attention. I.e., any movie that shows the slightest influence of “culture” or “industry” over a pure “vision” is junk. This is simply not true. Movies need inspiration and motive, to be sure, but they are products of the time; they cannot be isolated from the culture. Too much culutural influence can, and often does, interefere with a film, but this is not the case for Watchmen.

I recommend it to anyone who is not squeamish about violence and superhero sex.

Birthday

2009-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

Today was an odd day. My sister is fifteen. This is a rather advanced age. I am still grappling with its implications.

The day did not begin well, however. My sister (yes, the same one whose birthday it is) was very sick, and was up early in the morning. I was woken at about four, and was able to fall back asleep, but other members of my family were not so lucky. My sister did not go to school today. Then, when my youngest sister went out to let the chickens out of their coop this morning, she discovered that one had been locked out last night, and had been killed by a predator. This is the first time we have had a chicken killed in the almost two years we’ve been raising them, and it was rather shocking. My sister was rather traumatized, having just been presented face-to-face with the mangled carcass of a bird she thought she was letting out, and she came back inside sobbing. My father and I had to clean up, and as the poor thing had been out all night, it was frozen solid. It was quite a job, and I thus had a very sad start to the day.

School went well after that, except that I did not have enough food, and was thus rather headache-ish and grumpy all day. We had a rather cold ultimate practice outside, and I managed to go the entire day without eating the four cupcakes I was entrusted with by a classmate of my sister’s who had baked them for her birthday and asked me to transmit them to her. This was no mean, feat, but I got one after dinner, so I am happy.

Our plans for Watchmen are solidified. A few members of our extended group have been their since a bit before five PM, and I will be meeting them there within a few hours, along with some other friends arriving from elsewhere. I will be picking up one other on the way. The movie is two hours and forty-three minutes long, so it’s going to be a late night. But it will be worth it.

Late

2009-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

We won our trial today, and will thus be moving on to the first round of the playoffs on Monday. We will be playing the winner of Region #16, the Berkshires, which will be either Lennox or Longmeadow; they have a tiebreaker trial.

My plans for tomorrow night are almost completely formed. I am getting PUMPED! I am going to go to Ultimate practice before returning home, having dinner with my family, and going back out to the movie.

The Ultimate Trial

2009-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

I am pretty tired from practice today. We are postponing tryouts until all of this DAMN SNOW has melted and we can actually get to the field. Until then, we are running outside, and doing workouts inside. Speaking of workouts, I came up with the most AWESOME workout today. To begin, I must explain my school’s building. There are three floors, and there are three staircases, one at each end, and one about 2/5 of the way down the hall. The workout is that you run up and down a single staircase about ten times to warm up, and then, when you reach the bottom, you open the door, and sprint down the hall to the next stairway. You run up and down that one, and then sprint to the next one. Then you run up and down that one, and work your way back and forth again. It is great because it combines light jogging (down stairs), heavy jogging (up stairs), and sprinting, which are all important in ultimate. Better still, it gets you used to changing which one you are doing and then going back to another; endurance and explosiveness. It is FABULOUSLY tiring. After, we joined up with the people who had been running outside, and had an excellent workout inside.

We have a trial tomorrow afternoon; a tiebreaker in our region. We are playing Tantasqua. We have never faced this school before, so we don’t know what to expect. Also, since we are up to the tiebreaker level now, this trial and all after it are coin flips. That is, we arrive, and the two teams flip a coin. The winner of the coin flip determines which side their team will present. We know which side we will call if we win, but we have to be ready to do either one. Thus, I will run my closing through a couple times tonight, and then get a lot of sleep.

Having trials on Wednesdays is great for me because it means I have no classes. Thus, I do not need to do any homework.

I am solidifying plans for Watchmen. We have an extra ticket because one friend backed out on us, so I will try to sell it to someone beforehand, or at the show, which I imagine will be pretty easy. The question I am dealing with now relates to the fact that I have discovered that another group of my friends is going to the theater right after school to get on line. I would go with them, but it is my sister’s birthday, so I will need to be at home. I am therefore debating the morality of having them save us spots on line. It would only be four people, so it is not as if we will be doing a huge disservice to the people behind them, but it could result in some pretty serious anger from the rest of the people on line. I have to consult with my friends tomorrow before making a decision.

YES!

2009-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

I have finally found out how to do something I have been trying to do for a LONG time. Safari, the web browser that I use, has tabbed browsing capability (and I use it primarily), but does not, as, for instance, Firefox does, force any link set to open in a new window (target=”_blank”) to open instead in a new tab. It turns out there’s a hidden feature for it:

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

This makes my life SO much better.

Tentativity

2009-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

Is that a word? If it isn’t, it should be.

Anyway, we might have a snow day tomorrow. I have elected not to watch Murder by Death with the rest of my family and instead do my homework to prepare for potential school. That way, if we do not have a snow day, I can sleep late and not feel guilty.

I went to a Mock Trial meeting after work today. It was quite productive. We had a trial on Friday (which we won), and are now preparing for a tiebreaker trial to determine the winner of our region (against Tantasqua, a team we have not played before, but who are also 3-0 at this point) on Wednesday. We have a lot to do to be ready. I am confident in our ability to do so, but it will require some really hard work.

Poll

2009-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

I am trying out a poll plugin for WordPress. If it works, I may start having a Poll of the Week or something like that. The current one (tonic water) comes from a discussion I had at school about how AWESOME tonic water is. My classmates were not so refined as I on this matter. I had a FABULOUS day on Friday because I began it by drinking a glass of tonic water, but my peers remain unconvinced.

Vote, vote, vote. Unless you are a felon. ‘Cause felons can’t vote.

Return

2009-02-28T00:00:00+00:00

It has been almost a week since I wrote a post that was an actual post, not a sonnet. It has been nice to have a break, because I am still gathering my thoughts about how I want to continue blogging, and what form I want this blog to take in the future. Once I go to college, I think it will probably start to focus more on the things I am working on there. I am also thinking of starting some kind of separate political blog, whether associated with Brown or not, or perhaps just starting to write more about politics on this blog.

In other news, I am going to see Watchmen at midnight on opening night. I am approximately as excited as I was for Quantum of Solace, and I have heard good things about this film.

The Reader

2009-02-22T00:00:00+00:00

I have just returned from seeing The Reader. It is a fabulous movie. I will not talk about the plot too much, as I am a firm believer in being able to see movies without knowing anything about them beforehand. This was not exactly the case for this particular film; I knew a bit, but the movie was so expansive and covered so many ideas that what I did know did not detract from the experience at all.

The movie made me think a lot. First of all, the acting was phenomenal. Kate Winslet continues to amaze me. As did Ralph Fiennes and David Kross, the other two leads. The film also made me think about something we’ve been talking about in my playwriting class; character versus plot. Which is the driving force in a dramatic piece such as a play or movie? My teacher argues that it is plot, because the plot is what creates a conflict, and allows the viewer to move with the story. This is very true, but movies such as The Reader reinforce my belief that characters are more important. The Reader is a picture of lives. Yes, those lives were conceived of and designed for the purpose of serving a plot (in this case one that was originally in book form), but it would be a mistake to say that because the plot necessitated the characters, the characters are supplemental to it. The reason this movie and others like it are so good is that the film is not about certain people or created to “tell” a story. The film is made as if you are a witness to the story. This sounds obvious, but it’s not; it seems that a lot of film is about taking the viewer through something or making them move in a certain way. The Reader presents us with fully developed characters in fully developed situations; an accurate depiction of real life. No matter how one-sided a situation may seem in real life, or how flat a character may seem, there is always something behind them. Simplicity is the result of logic. Simplicity is the result of a full personality, one that manifests itself in predictable ways according to its attributes. In real life, if you knew everything there was to know about someone, you would always know what they would do. We don’t know everything about everyone, so we clearly don’t always know what they will do, but in a film like this, you are put in the position that we find ourselves in often in real life; having to understand why someone does a certain thing. Puzzling out what it is about them that makes them act the way they do.

Anyway, I had a great evening, and am going to sleep well. Except that now I am thinking of a tragic scene in which the main character gets out of bed in the middle of the night and tells a lover that he has to sleep alone, and returns to his own room. It is hard to explain why this is so sad without explaining the rest of the movie, but believe me when I say that it was heartbreaking.

Engage

2009-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

Kung Fu Jew was kind enough to respond to yesterday’s post about Israel, and ask some very interesting questions, to which I most eagerly reply. Please note that my dissection of these questions does not signify a desire to prove them wrong, merely an attempt to more fully explain my opinion, and to more accurately respond to the state points.

But do all people have a right to their own land?

I think that everyone has a right to land. Whether it’s “theirs” or anyone else’s is a matter of contention. What I do know for sure is that no one has the right to take someone else’s land. This goes both ways. The Israeli settlers who took Arab land in the past have built their lives there, and handed those lives down to their children. Those children deserve the right to continue living there as much as anyone else does. Unification into a single state with equal religious recognition and proprietary rights for all must occur.

And is that peoples or people?

What a fabulous question! As I understand it, what we’re dealing with here is the idea of national identity. If a person declares themselves to be part of a larger group (an ethnicity, religion, political party, etc.), can that group claim legal status or recognition based on the fact that its constituents have those rights? I don’t think so. Human rights don’t add up. They do not accumulate. If there are four people in one group and two in another, the first group doesn’t have twice the rights of the first. Each person still retains all of their full, inalienable rights. The system of a parliamentary democracy is actually conducive to this; it allows for compromise between seemingly uncompromisable factions. Hence a great potential for Israel to set a standard of religious tolerance and socio-political cooperation.

Im asking whether every nation should have a state, and whether each person is entitled to property ownership?

It is my opinion that no nation should have a state. Such a state will neverreach total neutrality towards all of its citizens. As long as it is a religious state, it is intrinsically biased. Bias by a governmental system or agency towards or against any of its constituents is intolerable. Government must be by the people, for the people. End of story. As to property ownership, it is is an injustice if someone is afforded more opportunities by virtue of governmental privilege to accrue property, or exempted from punitive measures applied to others for the same transgressions. Whether it is a case of the U.S. usurping land from native peoples by governmental policy, or of the Israeli government closing one eye and looking the other way as settlers steal land and property from its rightful owners, it is the same: the government is making a decision as to who to prosecute for crimes and who to silently endorse. In this case, complacency truly is compliance.

I welcome more opinions on this issue. My viewpoint is not at all static, and I am always looking for meaningful debate and discussion.

Existence

2009-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

Partially inspired by an excellent article by a friend of mine, I have decided to write about some of my recent thoughts about Israel’s current political situation. This is something I’ve talked about before, but it’s also something I continually think about, so I think it deserves revisiting. I will probably write more in the future.

I have come to the conclusion that I do not, as a religious Jew, believe in the concept of the State of Israel. Judaism tells me that all people have a right to their religion. Judaism tells me that all people have a right to their land. Judaism tells me that all people have a right to their dignity. A religious state, whether a fundamentalist one that forces women to hide their skin from view or one with a democratically elected parliamentary majority, infringes on people’s basic human rights by nature of its existence.

No country can exist for any purpose other than the safety of its citizens. No governmental system can have any purpose other than ensuring that everyone is granted all of their rights. Perhaps the “ultimate” solution would be a world government allowing free and unrestricted travel to everyone everywhere. But society and politics have not evolved to the place where this is possible. Trying to create some kind of worldwide government now or anytime in the at all foreseeable future would be disastrous. For the moment, we must be content with our compartmentalized world, and strive to make it as humane and just as we can.

A very wise person once said “To be a Jew, it is not to be secular or to be orthodox, it is to be human.”. Jews need to move forward in the world; allow our understanding of it and how we relate to it to change as our surroundings do. This is how we have survived throughout history, and it is what we must do now.

Welcome to the working week

2009-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

Man, what an exhausting couple of days. Between two full time work days (another tomorrow), Mock Trial, and the first episode of Joss Whedon’s new show, Dollhouse, I am wiped out.

Recently I have been doing a lot of thinking about what the purpose of blogging is. I am still not sure. I know that I find it interesting because of the potential to act as both an extroverted and introverted journal simultaneously, but there is a lot of other potential, and a lot of other considerations. For instance, does one target the entries towards other people, or should it be more of a picture of what the author is thinking? Are they mutually exclusive? Ultimately I don’t think they are, but there’s a fine line between revealing your thoughts and acting like other people don’t exist.

I think I will probably write some more about this topic in the future.

Forward

2009-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

This has been an exhausting weekend, and it is not over yet. Yesterday I was at work all day, and was fortunate enough to have someone bring in a computer that had been dropped repeatedly, and, I kid you not, had port spilled over the keyboard. Last night we cooked a sumptuous Valentine’s Day meal, which included steak, sweet potatoes, and other such awesome things. Then we watched The Truman Show, with Jim Carrey, which is officially one of the best movies ever. It is transcendently beautiful and astute, especially because it was made before the era of reality TV.

I discovered a fabulous article on the BBC. My first name is Rafael.

Today I went to Costco in the morning to pick up my new glasses, which are very subtle. Then I worked from 12-4. Now I am home. My family is on their way back from a show at my school (M. Butterfly [which I was REALLY bummed to miss (they sold out of tickets to last night’s show [we got tickets to the matinee today (which I couldn’t go to [because I was at work (but last night my friend told me that there were in fact seats available at last night’s show [so I could have gone (which makes me pretty angry)])])])]), and we are going to go to dinner at our friends’ house in Conway. I have not seen this family for a long time, so I am looking forward to it immensely.

As I got my requisite slice of pizza for lunch it occurred to me that I have been eating junk food all day. I had pie when I woke up, a hot dog at Costco, and then pizza for lunch.

Pizzazz (Gonna Give It To Ya!)is a video made by two of my coworkers when they were in college. It is one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time.

We are having a Mock Trial meeting at my house tomorrow. I will be bedinnering the team. Pesto.

Over and out.

Placement

2009-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

Now we have a week long vacation. This seems like rather poor planning to me; we have had one week of second semester. It was a good week, but it is weird to come back and then leave again immediately.

That aside, I think this is going to be a fabulous semester. I have awesome classes.

Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
Playwriting
Chemistry
Statistics
Mock Trial

Besides these, I have three independent studies in Spanish, multi-variable Calculus, and Physics E&M (electricity and magnetism). I have not done much work on these for the past few months, so I will be doing a lot of catch-up this vacation. My hope is to burn through the Calc assignment I’ve had sitting around for about three months, get a few more from my teacher by email, and finish all of the Physics work I should have had done by the end of first semester. The Physics study is a bit harder than Calc. First of all, Willand I are preparing to take both of the AP Physics C tests in May, so we have an actual rubric to measure ourselves against. Secondly, my advisor gives me assignments for Calc, but my advisor for Physics was too busy to do this. So while he’s still my advisor on paper, and is very helpful when I have questions about the material, Will and I are making up our own assignments as we go. We’ve created some shared Google Documents to keep track of our work on these two independent studies, but have really fallen behind since then. No more.

It is good to reach the end of the week. I will be working both days this weekend, three days next week, and potentially next weekend as well. Also, the Mock Trial team is meeting four times over vacation. One of them is to go bowling.

Config

2009-02-12T00:00:00+00:00

I am leaving the house in a little while for some freelance work. School was tiring today, but very productive, especially Mock Trial. We debriefed (a rather silly word) about yesterday’s trial, and we are working on our plans for meeting several times over next week’s vacation. I have also almost finished working out my work schedule for next week.

Success

2009-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

We won our trial today. One more in the region. If we win that one, we have a tiebreaker against Tantasqua to determine who proceeds to the playoffs. Since we have school vacation next week we will be trying to meet at least once or twice to make up for the lost class time. We might also go bowling. Fun is an option.

Homework will now ensue. A two-page scene “with conflict” and a paper on the French Revolution.

Car

2009-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

Our car broke down on the way home from school today. It had been making strange noises since yesterday, starting with a loud squealing, which I determined to be a bad belt yesterday. On the way home today very odd things began to happen. The radio turned off and then on again, started to sound fuzzy and crackly, the lights flickered, and then all electrical power cut out entirely. When I tried to turn on the heat and my father tried the headlights, the car lurched and started to lose power. Then, about five blocks from the house, the engine shut off entirely. We are pretty sure that the belt that I noted as bad is the one that drives the alternator. If the belt stopped working (when I opened the hood this afternoon it seemed very loose), the alternator would have stopped, and we were thus running only on battery power. As the voltage drained, we lost electrical systems, before the entire engine shut off altogether. My father is on his way home from the garage now. We will find out about the car tomorrow I suppose.

Meanwhile, I have a trial tomorrow. We’re leaving at twelve-thirty, and as it’s Wednesday, I have no classes whatsoever in the morning. I will spend my time relaxing, eating, and doing homework. I am not sure how we’re going to get to school without a car. I suppose we will figure it out.

Also, Will Szal’s site is up and running now. Check it out; there’s some pretty awesome stuff up, and more in the works.

Intellectual Property, school, and blood

2009-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

Three important things have taken place in the last 24 hours. In reverse chronological order, I received an AWESOME Red Cross ID card in the mail that has my name and blood type and such AWESOME information, I had the first day of second semester, and I had some revelations about intellectual property.

The blood card doesn’t really need any further description. The first day of school went well. It was great to be back and see a lot of people I hadn’t seen in a long time. This is looking to be a fabulous semester; I have great classes.

Intellectual property, however, is a tricky topic. For a long time, I’ve been strongly of the opinion that it was permissible to pirate music (although I didn’t download for purely practical reasons [I just swapped with other people]) because the money that I spent on music did not go to the artists anyway, and I felt that I was listening to the music for the purpose of learning more about what I liked, and then buying tickets to shows and buying merchandise for my favorite groups, thus providing them with income down the line. I still believe that this is a good way to get money to artists, and support them. But a lot has changed since I initially formed these opinions. The Internet has evolved a great deal, giving artists a meaningful way to distribute their music to people without having record labels getting in the way of their profit. The Internet brings consumers closer to the suppliers, which is a potentially mutually beneficial arrangement.

So since this has happened, I now no longer have a method for justifying pirating music. I am in fact now stealing money. As much as we might like to consider ourselves Robin Hoods who steal from the rich for the sake of the comparatively poor (us), we are stealing, and that is wrong. Ultimately, if an artist expects to make money because they believe X number of people will purchase their music, and then half of those people just pirate it, they have lost half their money. There is no way around that.

Given all this, I run into problems. I have always strongly morally opposed DRM (digital rights management), because I think that people have the right to do what they want with music they own. The concept of intellectual property is that you are buying the right to use this music however you want. But you can’t just do whatever with it. There are laws and morals. You can’t argue that you should have the right to distribute that music to twenty other people (or just one) because that is illegal and wrong. So what is the issue with DRM? Why does, for instance, iTunes’ five-computer-per-account limit violate our rights as consumers? I mean, in an ideal world you wouldn’t need this protection because no one would be stealing the music. But the companies have a moral and legal right to impose protection in the name of preventing consumers from stealing the music.

My friend and I were arguing about this today, and it seems that the central conflict is in determining whether the duty the distributor of the music owes to the consumers or the artists is stronger. While I agree that we, the consumers, have a right to do what we want with the music, there has to be some give. What if someone has six personal computers that they want to use the music on? iTunes only allows five, so one gets left out. Is the five computer limit reasonable? Well, we have to weigh the potential inconvenience to consumers (or the infringement of their rights as the owner of the music) against the potential that removing or loosening such restrictions would do significant damage to the artists. Certainly the iTunes restrictions can be overkill and keep people from performing legitimate activities, but they definitely avoid a lot illegalities in the first place. If we were to remove all such restrictions and place the burden of enforcing this type of law on the government, it would never work. What governmental agency would have enough time or resources to prosecute everyone who violated these laws? It would be like trying to find the source of a chain email. The Internet is too big and too fast. The only thing that can stop this illegality is restriction of the content in the first place.

Wget

2009-02-07T00:00:00+00:00

Wget is an awesome command line utility for file transfers. I just wrote a script that will check every day at midnight to see if any files have been changed on my website, and if they have, download them and write the progress to a log file. It will not redownload the entire site every time, which would take forever and be a complete waste of disk space. Wget has tons of options, and can be made to do almost anything.

X

2009-02-05T00:00:00+00:00

We won our first trial!
This evening I took a hot tub in subzero weather, which was a fabulous experience.
I also watched X-Men. Similarly fabulous.
Sleep approaches.

Exquisite Corpse updates

2009-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve made some back-end changes to the Exquisite Corpse page. I have been having problems with the script; the component that assigns a unique id to each poem for internal identification was malfunctioning. Sometimes more than one poem would end up with the same id, and since the script that displays completed poems didn’t know what to do, it would only show one. Thus, there were several completed poems that were not being displayed. I think I have fixed the problem by having the script renumber poems when they are completed. This has the added advantage of having the poems now proceed in numerical order according to when they were ended, not when they were begun. It should look nicer as well as operating more smoothly.

Silverware

It looks as though school may be cancelled tomorrow. If it is, our trial will be postponed until the designated make-up week. This would be disappointing, but not terribly unwelcome; I suppose it would be nice to have some more time to prepare.

Full

2009-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

Today was my first full day of school since I returned from DC. Since the Mock Trial team had scrimmages on Thursday and Friday, we were only there for the morning.

More to the point, we are in the three-week long break between semesters called Paidea that happens at my school. Although this began last Tuesday, I was not there, and today was my first full day of it. During Paidea, you choose one activity or group-type thing, and you do it all day everyday. There is everything from rock climbing (which my sister is in) to conspiracy theories, to Mock Trial. This is when the team does most of its work; we essentially do nothing but Mock Trial from 8:30 to 2:30. It is intense. I got a whole lot done today.

Our first trial is on Wednesday. Tomorrow after school I am going to get a haircut with a bunch of other people from the team. Now that the season is beginning, we have to trim up.

Basically, the way the competition works is that the state is divided into sixteen regions. We are in #15. There are three weeks of regional trials, during which you play other teams in your region. At the end of the three weeks, the team in each region with the best record (percentage of trials won), is declared the winner of that region. If more than one team has the same record, there is a week reserved for tiebreaker trials. Then the sixteen regional winners play each other in the playoffs, which are elimination; if you lose a trial, you are out and done for the season. The state winner goes to the national tournament.

Within each trial, though, things are more complicated. Every team receives the case materials; signed affidavits, exhibits, rules of evidence and procedure, and applicable case law. Then, they must prepare both sides of the case; since it’s a criminal case this year, that means both prosecution and defense. In the regional trials, the sides each team will present are predetermined. However, in the playoffs, the two teams arrive at the trial and flip a coin. The winner of the coin flip decides which side their team will present, thus forcing the other team to play the opposite side. For this reason, everyone has to be ready to go at any given trial. Our first two regional trials are our prosecution, and the last is defense. I have parts on both sides, but I am focusing on my prosecution roles at this point.

This year’s case is first-degree murder with an insanity defense. The defendant is an ex-Marine who came home from Iraq and shortly thereafter killed his childhood rival. He claims innocence by reason of a PTSD-induced hallucination, contending that the military failed to diagnose him. On the prosecution side, the witnesses are a close friend of the victim who was present at the shooting, the detective in charge of the investigation after the shooting, and the military psychologist who approved him for discharge. On the defense are a friend of the defendant, also present at the shooting, the defendant, and a psychologist whom he met before the shooting, and was evaluated by afterwards, who claims that he does in fact have PTSD. It is a fascinating case, probably the best I’ve seen in the four years I’ve been on the team. It is not quite as applicable to real life as last year’s case, which was a civil suit involving a sexually hostile work environment, and retaliation by the defendant, but it is very demanding legally. This looks to be an excellent competition season.

Early

2009-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

Bed is nigh. I am going to get a lot of sleep tonight and tomorrow night in preparation for our trial.

Dumb Slog Nilly O'Mare…

2009-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

…is a fabulous movie. After our Mock Trial meeting today, I went to see it with two other friends.

It has been a busy day. I didn’t go in to work, so Will and I worked on the LC(A) website until about two forty-five. The meeting was very productive, but tiring, and I was glad to get to let of some steam. The movie was not terribly relaxing, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The main character’s brother Salim looked strikingly like Michael Jackson.

I am now officially a denizen of the Intertubes. I have a Twitter. I’m only using it to track my blog posts; whenever I post, a new Twitter with a link to the post is automatically created. Still, though, I feel as though I have sacrificed a little bit of my Internet individuality. On the other hand, Twitter is a widely used tool, and if it can help me get my content out to a wider audience, it is rational for me to use it. We shall see.

M.I.A.

2009-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

I have been extremely busy for the past two days with Mock Trial. We had scrimmages both yesterday and the day before with Holy Name and Newton South, respectively. Both were extremely productive, and exhausting. On Thursday I didn’t get home until after ten.

In other news, my iPhone is, as the name of this post implies, missing in action. It may have been stolen at school, or it may be in the locked lost-and-found, or it may be in the maintenance supervisor’s office if the cleaners found it. I will not know for sure until tomorrow or Monday. Until then, I am rendered iPwnageless. I have deactivated my cel service and changed all of my passwords, and now I just have to wait.

Happy birthday, Macintosh

2009-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

Today is the 25th birthday of the Macintosh Computer. I am thinking of baking some cupcakes, and I may set up our old SE, which is in the closet upstairs.

Review

2009-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

I am home. I got here just before 4, and had to run out immediately for an eye exam. Now I am back, unpacked, settled, etc. We had a rather smooth drive home, except for when we stopped at a rest area in CT. We managed to lose the car key inside of the dashboard, and the driver and I spent about half an hour disassembling the dashboard before I was able to fish the key out.

DC was a fabulous experience. Overall, the city was in the strange state of limbo; everything had sort of stopped, and yet there was a feeling of great motion within the city. This may have been due to the literally millions of people in the streets.

We had tickets to the Silver area for the inauguration ceremony, which was closer to the Capitol steps, but when we got there, the ticketholders’ line was about five or six thousand people long, and growing longer, so we decided not to risk missing the ceremony standing on line and to go in the general admission, which didn’t have any security, and thus no line, just a whole lot of people. A whole lot. I have never in my entire life seen crowds this size before. We ended up on the National Mall at around 9th street. We watched the inauguration on gigantic screens, which realistically is probably what we would have been doing if we were in the Silver area.

One thing that pissed me off was that the sound and video were out of sync. The sound was live, but the video lagged about one second. I do not understand why they didn’t fix this; it seems like it would have been fairly simple to jump forward in the feed by a second; certainly easier than jumping the sound forward if it had been lagging. Oh well. We could hear the proceedings, and that’s what counted.

Back at the apartment on Penn. Ave. (when we finally got there), it was a mob scene. Everyone was jubilant, and there was an enormous quantity of most delectable food. Once the parade started, we trooped out to balconies and roofs to watch. At first, it was rather boring; imagine about 50 consecutive motorcycles driving at five miles an hour. But then Obama’s motorcade came along, and we saw him! Him and Michelle got out of the car, and they walked and waved! I got some pictures, but the iPhone camera is not very good, so it’s hard to see who’s where. Some of them give a pretty good image of the parade overall, though.

We came back inside and watched coverage of the parade for a while. It lasted for many hours, and if we opened the door, we could hear it outside; marching bands galore.

We also saw some footage of the Obama’s special presidential limo. It was a rather unremarkable black hulk, until I saw them open the door. The door must have been a foot thick. This thing is apparently bullet-proof and bomb-proof, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was mortar- and apocalypse-proof. I have never seen such a beefy car. It must get awful milage.

In terms of current happenings related to the inauguration, the Obama administration appears to have gotten off to a flying start, ordering Guantanamo detainee trials frozen as part of a broader effort to shut the place entirely, and making some excellent statements about transparency, as well as sining executive orders to this effect. And John McCain, ever the honorable man, has urged fellow Republicans to work with the new administration and Congressional Democrats to move forward. This is truly a new era for cooperative and constructive politics.

On the road again

2009-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

We are on our way back out of DC. It is going to be a long ride home.

Security tunnel

2009-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

Photos: Inauguration

2009-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

Data networks were down earlier today, so here are the rest of the photos, including ones from the National Mall, the collossal crowds on the way back, and the parade, which I watched from a roof.

**
**

Ocean

2009-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

Walking the opposite way through crowds of people. It is difficult not to be batted around. I’m like a leaf on the wind.

Crowds

2009-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

Sniper everywhere. Blockaded streets.

2009-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

I am at the apartment where I’m staying. DC is in a state of sort of citywide ecstasy. There are PAs blaring news channels through the streets, and cops cordoning off roads.
Sleep is imminent.

Airborne

2009-01-19T00:00:00+00:00

No data connection at 32,000′. Photos taken at and around 6:27 PM ET.

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Shorts!

2009-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

I am wearing shorts! WAHOO!

Moving

2009-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

The bride has joined us and we are off.

Jet lag

2009-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

My sleep schedule is all messed up. I have been trying to keep on East Coast time so I’ll be awake during the inauguration, but it’s proving rather difficult.

Ceremony

2009-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

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Boarding the mystery bus

2009-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

“I’ve got an invitation / To make a reservation…”

Bagels and transportation

2009-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

We have obtained a great quantity of bagels at Brooklyn Bagel

I also learned from our host some very interesting information about the history of public transportation in LA. Apparently there was a regional trolley network that went from downtown LA all the way out to places like Silver Lake where we are now. In 1948, GM created a fake company for the purpose of buying the rail system from the government, and shut the whole thing down within two weeks, citing the supposed need for a bus system that would move where the people did. This is clearly nonsense; historically, infrastructure such as transportation has dictated were population centers arise, not the other way around. If you create a reliable and efficient means of getting from place to place, people will use it.
But the historical precedent set by GM has apparently endured to this day; LA’s public transportation is primarily provided by buses, and there are still arguments about increasing its reach with revenue from tolls, meeting with heavy opposition.

Now the crazy guy who paints the house numbers on the curb in from of houses is here, giving his theories in eveything from synagogues to Jesse Jackson. What an excellent morning.

Recap

2009-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

My father and I spent several hours this afternoon in The Museum of Jurassic Technology, which is an incredibly odd place. The best simple way to describe it is as a museum about the idea of museums; sort of a simultaneous parody of and homage to curated exhibits, or as a monument to human attempts to make sense of the world.

There are all sorts of weird things in it. Diagrams of geometric logic operators:

Strange electrical doodads:

Exhibits about string games:

A tea room, with a samovar:

Mice on toast, as part of the room full of physical models or dioramas of old folk remedies

An entire room dedicated to Napoleon. Pictured here is what I think is an oud, and what I know is a painting, although I’m not sure of whom:

There were many additional things that I couldn’t even begin to list. One of them was an entire room of letters that people had written to the Mount Wilson astronomical observatory when it first opened in the 1930s. Some of them were commendations, some were asking for money, some were total crackpot theories. I got a shirt that says “No one may ever have the same knowledge again – Letters to the Mount Wilson Observatory The Museum of Jurassic Technology”.

What I think sums up the place pretty nicely, though, wasn’t even an exhibit. In the lobby, I observed that the display on the cash register at the check-in desk, which was below the counter, and could thus only be seen by the cashier, had the following text scrolling across it:

From the familiar to the unfamiliar
Like a chain of flowers

To me, this is sort of symbolic of the whole place. Rather than have a “message” or something, the museum forces viewers to find their own. It is almost as if someone said, “I have a brilliant idea that I don’t want to tell anyone. I will build a strange museum to make people try to decide what it could be.” This, I suppose, implies that there is a central idea to the museum that you have to “figure out”, which I don’t really think is the case, but there is a level of concealment present.

After the museum, we went to dinner with my relatives at a rather loud and packed open-air mall. I obtained what may be the largest pickle known to mankind:

Note the relative size of the pickle compared to my hand. Or should I say the relative size of the MANPICKLE?!

While at dinner, I articulated what it is that makes that type of place (the mall, not the Museum) rather overwhelming and unattractive to me. It is the feeling that the place was designed to make people do a certain thing, and that you are doing it. Make no mistake, I don’t have a problem with functionality. My favorite places are those that serve their purposes well; they are comfortable, efficient, and pleasant to exist in. But there is a difference between this type of efficiency and the feeling that a space is designed to create needs rather than address them.

I did have a very good time, though; I met my aunt’s soon-to-be-husband (fiance, although that implies an indeterminate time [they are getting married the day after tomorrow (hence my being here)]), who is very interesting and I like very much, and I saw some relatives I haven’t seen in a while.

Also, I am still enjoying the weather. It is still unfair that some people get to have this weather all the time.

Plants

2009-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

There are all sorts of plants here. Strange cacti that look rather like Cousin It from The Addams Family. There are also orange trees. Fresh-picked oranges are amazing. These are incredibly juicy and soft, with many seeds.

Out of the Closet

2009-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

A thrift store like any other, except that all the money goes to an AIDS charity.
It appears that all thrift stores share the same smell. It is a necessary characteristic.

Evening

2009-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

It was wonderful to get to see relatives I haven’t seen in a while at the brunch, and to meet more of the Taubers (Joel [the fianc]‘s family), whom I enjoyed greatly.

I had forgotten how much I enjoy small children. I have been having a great time with all of my little cousins. Eli and I did some building with these nifty sets of magnetic balls and rods which can be stuck together in all sorts of ways. I attempted to build a hypercube, but was thwarted by time, material availability, and the physical limits of the pieces. So it goes.

The dinner was a great success. I met and talked to many interesting people. And the food was FABULOUS. The lamb was not to be believed. Also, the restaurant had very interesting architecture.

Tomorrow morning we’ll be hanging out here at the house, and in the afternoon we go to the wedding, which is in an unknown location. We all get on a bus; no one but the bride, groom, and a couple of their closest friends know where we are going. It looks to be a lot of fun.

Brunch

2009-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

It is not really the right time for brunch, but my mother insightfully points out that people expect a different type of food when you say “lunch”, and the food here is of a distinctly brunchish variety (bagels, lox, etc.).

So in an intrinsic sense I disagree with Israel. On another level, it symbolizes Jews’ desire to have a homeland. Ultimately, to me, it signifies the potential for coexistence. This war makes that potential harder and harder to achieve. It is not gone, but we must keep our eyes on it. Politics and military objectives must take a back seat to deliberately progressing towards reconciliation. In purely practical terms, it is impossible for Israel to sustain itself like this forever. No one can survive in the midst of such animosity.

Late night

2009-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

I have just returned home. My various meetings went very well, and a couple of us went to see Milk after we had dinner. I had already seen it, and was happy to do so again. It did not disappoint.

And now, to bed. I have to wake up early for school, and I need to pack tomorrow evening. I was supposed to do it tonight when I got home, but I had not originally planned on going to the movie. Sleep is more important.

Early night

2009-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

Tonight is going to be an early night. I am packing for the trip to L.A., and will finish once my laundry’s done. I have not been getting enough sleep recently, and I mean to catch up tonight.

Is it still a snow day if it's on Sunday?

2009-01-11T00:00:00+00:00

My boss just called to say that work is closed today. Will and I will probably do some more work on the website before I leave for a Mock Trial meeting. Will might stick around at my house for the afternoon, since our old calc class has a reunion this evening. Coincedentally, it is at the same place as my Mock Trial meeting, so I’ll be spending the whole day at home and there.

I'm finished…

2009-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

I turned in my last assignment of the semester yesterday. It’s not due until Monday, but I’m missing the last two days of school (Thursday and Friday), so I figured I’d get it in early in case it requires revision. It’s great to have a weekend without piles of homework to do; I am SO glad to be finished.

Speaking of leaving early, I suppose I should explain. I’m going to my aunt’s wedding in LA on Thursday, so Wednesday will be my last day of school. My family will be staying in LA until the following Thursday, but I’ll be flying back early (Monday morning) into DC to meet some friends at the inauguration.

Normally, I try to keep this blog non-partisan. That is, if I write about current events or politics, I try to do it from an unbiased perspective. This isn’t a political blog, so I feel that it’s important that I don’t alienate people who disagree with me.

That being said, I will be blogging avidly while I’m in DC. I think everyone should appreciate this occasion, whether or not they voted for Obama. John McCain has been extremely honorable since his defeat, more than once reprimanding conservatives who would smear the incoming administration, and as Americans, I think we all owe it to each other and ourselves to come together. Obama’s message of reconciliation and bipartisanship isn’t trumpeting a new era, it’s a product of existing sentiments. People, Democrat and Republican alike, are tired of this internal fighting. We are turning the page on a new era of brotherhood and cooperation. Obama is not the herald of a new way, he exists because of the desire for it.

I am very excited to be going to the inauguration, and I hope that others share my excitement in this historic time. We are faced with challenges of epic proportions, and we have the potential to do epic good.

When the vegan's away…

2009-01-08T00:00:00+00:00

My sister is out of the house for the evening! Bring on the turkey kielbasa!

Sonnet paper

2009-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

My Sonnet of the Week project continues independently beyond my current semester, which is almost done. However, I’ve just handed in the final paper on the project yesterday. It discusses what I learned from the project, and compares the evolution of my sonnets to that of Shakespeare’s. Once I get it back from my teacher, and make any revisions necessary, I will post a copy on the Sonnet of the Week page in PDF form.

Dow snay

2009-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

Toe nool schooday. Hi om ame, hand ave la ot wof womehork do to. Wi ill ge boing oo ta riblary goo tet bum sooks or pa faper oo don Dunmay, cand atching op un Nanspish.

Drained

2009-01-06T00:00:00+00:00

I have returned from the blood drive. It went very well. I observed some extremely interesting technology there; the same nifty one-way valve devices that allow them to take multiple tubes (and the actual blood sample) with a single needle. There was also a small finger-sized device that used a tiny spring-loaded needle to quickly shallowly puncture the tip of a finger to test iron levels and such. The technician doing this was fast; he swabbed my finger, and took a sample within twenty seconds. There was also a complex network setup involving laptops, some sort of Palm Pilot-based device for keeping track of blood samples, and I would imagine some sort of server or gateway. It was pretty awesome.

I got a bunch of stickers too.

Unfortunately, one of my friends couldn’t give blood because her temperature was too high. It was very disappointing, but it was good that we went.

I ended up not being able to meet my family for dinner; by the time I was done they were home. Just as well, because I heard that the food was not too good. So it goes.

Blood

2009-01-06T00:00:00+00:00

I’m at the Hotel Northampton waiting to give blood with two other friends. I would take some pictures, but I think that would be a violation of people’s privacy.
We filled out a short form, and now have to have an interview with Red Cross workers before we actually get the blood drawn. When we got here, they told us the wait would be about 45 minutes; this was about 25 minutes ago. The three of us got food before we came here, and I’m meeting my family afterwards to sample a new hamburger joint in town.

Still no end in sight

2009-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

I pulled an all-nighter last night, and I’m still not done with my homework. I am about to get started.
I also recently discovered a fabulous new webcomic, Questionable Content. The character development is amazing, the artwork is wonderful, and it takes place in the town where I live.

Papered!

2009-01-05T00:00:00+00:00

I have finished the first draft of my paper. Editing time.

Grounded

2009-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

Well, now it’s officially a war. Israeli ground forces have moved into Gaza. There doesn’t seem to be much information on what they’re doing or where they’re going, but they’re there.

The problem is, is there really another way to stop the rockets? Wouldn’t we do the same ifsomeonestarted shooting rockets at us? The people firing those rockets aren’t doing it out of retaliation to Israel’s strikes. Would a ceasefire really happen? I don’t know if those people would ever agree to stop shooting. Perhaps, grim though this is, it is the only way.

Half day

2009-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

I have only just woken up, so I have only have the day left to do homework. This is alright with me. I am very excited for this afternoon, however, because for Hannukah, my parents renewed our family’s membership to the YMCA, and I will be going this afternoon. It has been over a year since our membership expired, and I have missed it. Especially in the winter, when I don’t get out of the house or bike as much.

Google-izer

2009-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve spent months trying out free iPhone RSS readers, and comparing specs and capabilities of all the paid ones, trying to decide if I should invest, continue using one of the free ones (I’ve tried NewsGator‘s NetNewsWire for iPhone and Simon Oualid‘s Free RSS Reader), or write my own once I get an Intel Mac. Last night I realized that I should just use Google Reader. This has the advantage of being an online service, so I can get to it from anywhere and not have to read the same articles over and over. It’s fast, powerful, and the mobile interface is very user-friendly.

Occurrences of this nature seem to be rather common. I become frustrated with the available options for a certain task, and begin looking for other solutions. I spend a while jumping between solutions, beating myself over the head, and considering writing my own (which is not always feasible), and then realize that Google makes a free product that is better than any of the others. I had this experience with Gmail and Google’s movie showtimes tool. Picasa, Google Calendar, and Google Docs aren’t quite there yet, but I think they will be soon.

Here’s to the next generation of web-based apps. Centralization and reduction of client-side data processing are the way forward.

Tranquility

2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

My house is very quiet, as all of my friends have left. I am actually enjoying the silence very much. I like having people here, and we had an awesome time, but I am exhausted.

Last night was awesome. We went to all kinds of shows, ending with Zoe Darrow, a fabulous local fiddle player, and the Gypsy Wranglers, a fabulous local folk/swing band. There was much dancing. Then we watched the ball raising (it goes up instead of down here for some reason), and walked home. We stayed up for a while hanging out, and then went to bed. I had to get up 6:30 to drive someone to the train station, so I got very little sleep. But it was worth it; I was glad to spend some time with my friends and be in town a lot.

After having a long discussion with several friends about the continuing situation in Gaza, I have a lot to think about. One of the issues we touched on was that for every settler who has actively usurped land from its rightful owner, there are those who have been born there, and have lived there all their life. Do we have a right to take that land from them? Ultimately, I think the answer is still yes, but there are complications. What did that person do to deserve having their property confiscated?

Chicken HVAC

2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

This evening I built a water heater for our chickens to keep their water from freezing. It is a cookie tin with an incandescent lightbulb inside; the bulb provides a fair amount of heat. It was a rather straightforward process, except that the bulb socket I was using wasn’t grounded, and I didn’t like the idea of an ungrounded device near water, so I had to replace the cable with a grounded one, and run a ground wire to the cookie tin. This took some time, but I’m proud of the end product.

Here are some photos of the process.

: The tin with fixture and bulb installed.

: The tin with fixture and bulb installed.

: The original non-grounded power cable.

: The original non-grounded power cable.

: The final product, without the lid on, with the red grounding wire and the newly installed black power cable.

First Night

2008-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

Tonight I am going to Northampton’s First Night celebration. My friends from the NHC Summer Institute are all here in full force for our annual Recodion. At the moment we are hanging out, and we will be heading downtown soon; I am performing at 3:00 and need to be there at 2:00. It is snowing like crazy. Six to ten inches by the end of the night. It is going to be an excellent New Year’s.

3G to the rescue!

2008-12-30T00:00:00+00:00

We’ve had no Internet access all day at my house. Verizon terminated our DSL for some reason. Hopefully I will be able to convince them to turn it back on tomorrow morning. Fortunately, I have WordPress for the iPhone, and a cellular data connection, so I’m still connected to the tubes.

More?

2008-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

The situation in Gaza has worsened significantly. More than 275 have been killed by Israeli airstrikes.
I for one have had enough. Enough of people who claim that they are entirely right and that the ends justifies the means. To Hamas and the militants firing rockets, I say stop harming and harassing civilians. No cause is worth that. To Israel, I say the same. No matter who think they are right. This is the twenty-first century. Humanity has come so far. We do not need to fire explosives at each other over territorial disputes. Sit down and talk it out.
America has the power to end this. Rather than just condemning Hamas’ “bringing this on themselves”, America should step in and mandate a ceasefire.
I’ve also had enough of peaceniks who think we can just ask for peace over and over and it will work. Decisive and definite action is required. I propose the following terms of a ceasefire:

Israel stops all airstrikes and infantry operations.
Gaza halts all rocket attacks.
Israel lifts the blockade entirely.
Egypt opens its border with Gaza to allow refugees a place to run to.
All Israeli settlers be given a forty-eight hour deadline to pack up and leave. If they are not gone by that time, the IDF should forcibly remove them.

This is pretty harsh. Especially kicking the settlers out of their homes. But it’s necessary. Their continued presence is an insult and an affront to Judaism, Zionism, Arabs, and regional stability. As a Jew, I will not permit those who share my faith (even if only by name) to stain it with their fundamentalism. These people are no different in ideology than suicide bombers. They believe that their religion and heritage give them more access to the truth than others.

Enough, I say. Let this end. If Israel and Hamas can’t end it on their own, we who call ourselves civilized countries must. It is the only the civilized thing to do.

Boxing day

2008-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

I am going to a friend’s Boxing Day party this evening. Boxing Day is a rather archaic holiday, still celebrated in Europe and other parts of the world, but not America. It has its origins in the tradition of giving presents to those less fortunate than yourself; it may have roots in the Roman festival of Saturnalia, which involved masters and slaves switching roles.
I am not really sure what a Boxing Day party will entail, as I’ve never really experienced it before, but I am interested to find out. I think there will be food.

United States Patent Application: 0070078663

2008-12-25T00:00:00+00:00

United States Patent Application: 0070078663.
This is pretty much the most awesome thing ever.

Goodwill to all men

2008-12-25T00:00:00+00:00

With last week’s expiration of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, the rocket attacks and cross-border strikes have begun again. I, for one, am getting tired of this, and I can only imagine how the residents of those areas are feeling. The Israeli PM Ehud Olmert has asked residents of Gaza to stand up to the militants themselves, who he says are acting against the ideals of Islam. This is true, as no religion really encourages violence in its name. So I appreciate a leader of a religious state recognizing this, even if only in his enemy. But he’s missing the point. What about all the Israeli settlers who use anti-Semitism as a justification for their occupation of Arab territory? The ones who, when questioned about their motivation, say that the Arabs just want Jews off of the land. Of course they do. It’s the Arabs’ land.
The international community should step in at this point, and demand an unconditional ceasefire from both sides. Israel must halt all raids and airstrikes, and the Gaza militants must halt all rocketfire. Israel must entirely lift the Gaza blockade and keep it lifted. And every single Israeli settler must yield their land to its original owners, with government intervention if necessary. This process has already begun, but the Israeli government must put more resources and effort into it. I read an article on the BBC saying that, while almost all of the settlements are illegal under international law, a certain one has recently been found to be almost entirely illegal under Israeli law.
This has gone far enough. No more usurping of land in the name of Holocaust reparations, or the securing of Jewish identity or destiny. For thousands of years, Jews have not had a homeland. And we’re still around. We don’t need these territories that much.
Today, let there be peace on earth, and goodwill to all men; Arab, Israeli, and otherwise.

Various holidays

2008-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

I just got back from a friend’s Christmas party, which was excellent. Today was our last day of school; we are off until January 5th. I had a bunch of people over at my house for the third night of Hannukah, and we were here until about ten, so I only was at the last hour or so of my friend’s party, but it was a fabulous evening overall. At my house we ate a lot of food, and played Charity Dreidel Smackdown, a game we invented last year where you play a normal game of Dreidel (which is entirely luck-based) and whoever wins gets to choose which charity all of the money gets donated to. My youngest sister won and chose Heifer International, so we are donating all of the money (and matching it ourselves).

Apparently I missed sledding at my friend’s house, since the party started at seven and I got there at ten-thirty, but I did get there for the present swap (I brought brownies, and received a rubber fish for putting over a trailer hitch), and I saw A Charlie Brown Christmas for the first time. I feel like much more of a man now. Also, I surprised everyone by knowing all of the words to the Christmas carols they sang. Christmas carols are awesome. For many years, I have gone caroling with some close friends, and I hope to again this year. It is a ton of fun.

Tomorrow I will be sleeping extremely late, and getting a leg up on a rather daunting homework load. My old Calculus BC class might have a reunion this weekend and go out for Chinese food, which would be a lot of fun.

I am glad to have a vacation.

Vacation!

2008-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

I slept nice and late this morning, and have been hanging out being unproductive. I think I will probably not do any homework today, but I am going to work on Mock Trial as we have a lot to get done in a very short period to be ready for the season. I am postponing my trip to Staples and Acme Surplus for my yearly supply of pens, legal pads, and some sort of folder/briefcase for another day or two because it will probably be a complete mob scene over there, and I do not really want to get in the middle of it.

One really awesome thing I did today, though, is that I installed the Mint.com application on my iPhone. It took me a little while to set up my accounts there, but now I have full access to all of my financial records, live-updating, at all times. I can view my balance, transaction history, and more. I can also create monthly budgets for various different expense categories, and track how much money I’ve spent on what and how much I have left. My setup is not optimal for this capability, because I have a Statement Savings account, and my ATM card is therfore not usable at POS. So all of my withdrawals are from an ATM, not from a store. If they were from a store (i.e. if I had a debit/credit card), I could set up Mint.com to automatically sort my transactions by category, assigning different merchants to different categories, and thus automatically tracking my budgets. If I bought groceries at Stop&Shop, Mint.com would immediately update my monthly food budget, or whatever budget I had assigned Stop&Shop to, and show me how much money I have left to spend on food this month. Once I get a credit card or checking account (when I turn 18), I am definitely going to take advantage of this feature. This program is going to be incredibly useful.

A bind

2008-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

It is true that the short-term solution to a recession may be some sort of stimulus package. To this effect, I am glad that the Obama team has articulated a plan for this. What I’m more concerned about, however, is long-term investments. Not in the incoming administration’s desire to make them, but its ability to. Facing, as we are, a huge national debt, I don’t know if we have the capital on hand to make the necessary investments. And there are a lot of them. Obama talks about education, but we also need penal reform, social services reform, transportation reform, and that’s not to mention energy, which is a cover-all. Usually this wouldn’t be a problem; this is what government bonds are for, but no one is buying government bonds. MA has recently put off a huge bond sale, and I think a lot of states are doing the same. Whether it’s federal money or federal mandates to redirect local money to specified projects, we don’t have enough. I suppose we could borrow from other countries, but considering the state of our internal mortgage and loan infrastructure, and the global recession, there isn’t going to be much money on hand.

Ultimately we need an international solution for an international problem. Car manufacturing is just the first of many important international industries that are going to be hit or even fail completely. Governments need to come together and present a unified front to the crisis, in terms of short-term stimulus spending and long-term goals for reconstitution of the global economy. We need to lift trade barriers and embargoes, encourage domestic production of important goods, and discourage outsourcing. We need to address the human rights issues that allow such practices to be profitable, and provide incentives for businesses to do their work at home. In the long term, this is the only way to create a stable economy.

Milk and others

2008-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

Milk was WONDERFUL. I think I will go see it again after New Year’s with a friend who couldn’t come with us on Friday. I also might go on the 30th or 31st with my friends who are going to be here from out of town.
I had an interesting day at work yesterday. I though I had heard every strange sound that computers make when they are broken, but I was proved wrong. A gentleman brought in an iBook that, when turned on, made an shrieking noise like a soul in torment. Although I can’t be sure without a diagnostic, it sounded to me like the hard drive; it was coming from that area, and I think it could have been the read/write head physically dragging on the surface of the spinning disk. It was incredibly loud and sounded as if the computer was crying out in pain.
I think I will not be able to go into work today, as I have a lot of homework to finish, and an igloo to build. If the construction goes well, I may sleep in it tonight with my youngest sister, who started building it yesterday.

Hanukkah

2008-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

Tonight is the first night of Hannukah. I am looking forward to the food more than anything else, but I did find some very interesting information on what historians now believe to have been the circumstances of the traditional Hannukah story.

Snow day!

2008-12-19T00:00:00+00:00

We have no school today. I am so far enjoying this day very much; I’m still in my pajamas, drinking tea and eating a bagel. I am going to see “Milk” this afternoon with some friends. I will also be doing some present shopping and a lot of homework this afternoon.
I have a lot cleaning to do before I go, which I am now going to begin.

PARTAY!

2008-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

I just got back from my school’s faculty holiday party. Since my dad works at the school, I was invited. I had an excellent time. One rather intriguing thing that happened was that I discovered a Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate bar that was packaged upside down. Chocolate bars are in the shape of a trapezoidal prism, and usually the longer side of the trapezoid is the one on the side of the wrapper with the seam that you peel to open. The shorter side, with the ingots and respective logos stamped into it, is on top, where the brand is printed on the wrapper. However, this one was backwards. It was very confusing, and I have saved the chocolate for posterity, and further consultation with the requisite authorities. My statistics teacher and I discussed the implications this has for quality control, but given our low sample size (there were no other chocolates of the same variety [thus n=1]), we could not draw any statistically significant conclusions.

So it goes.

Chrysler's holiday gift

2008-12-17T00:00:00+00:00

Beginning Friday, Chrysler is shutting down production for a month. This is big. A huge automaker is not just announcing layoffs, production reorganization, or cutbacks in employee pay or benefits, they are shutting down entirely. Clearly they will still be selling (or trying to sell) new cars, and advertising, and such, but their actual supply is grinding to a halt. I am curious to see how this goes. I suppose they will save a lot of money; it costs a lot to build a month’s worth of cars, but the disruption to their workflow could have larger effects. It may not be able to start up again smoothly. Plus, it is as yet unclear what kind of money the government will be throwing at them, and when. A lot is up in the air.

Adopt-a-parrot

2008-12-16T00:00:00+00:00

A family friend recently passed away, and we have, for the meantime, adopted her parrot. It is a stunning creature, with incredible colors, and it makes some amazing noises. It shrieks very loudly when it is lonely, and you have to go over and talk to it soothingly, and move your head around like a bird, and not look it in the eye, because that is threatening to it. It also makes an amazingly communicative array of coos and clucks, and rings the bells in its cage with its beak. I am told that it speaks sometimes, but I haven’t heard that yet. Regardless, it is quite a remarkable bird.

Conservation

A steak in the matter

2008-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

I made steak tonight for the first time ever. I have eaten many times before, but never made it. It turned out rather well. I made a dinner of roasted russet and sweet potatoes, and sauted the steak with onions. My father assembled a salad at the last minute, as I realized I had neglected to do so.

Sunset and surprises

2008-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

Coming out of school this evening, there was a beautiful sunset. I took some pictures, one of which is included here.
I was also reminded on the way home that I am going to a David Byrne concert tonight, which I had managed to completely forget about. I am very excited, especially because Young At Heart, a local old folks’ chorus, is performing (or so I am told). They are always really awesome.

Post-David Byrne

2008-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

The show was incredible. Definitely ranking with the top shows I’ve seen (in no particular order):
Eddie Izzard
James Brown
Toots and the Maytals
They Might Be Giants
They played a bunch of Byrne and Eno’s new music, which I didn’t know very well, but it was fabulous. They also did a bunch of Talking Heads songs, some very similarly to the older rcordings, some reimagined, but all incredibly moving and vitalized.

2008-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

Surprisingly, I have had less time to write while on vacation than I normally do when school is in session. I have been working a lot, but that gets me home only a little bit later than school does. Anyway, it’s not because interesting things don’t happen to me; I have had a very interesting few days. At the moment, our dining room is rather smelly, because my dog attacked one of our chickens and tore out a bunch of her feathers, so she (the chicken, that is) has to be kept inside in a dog kennel until it is warm enough for her to go outside or she’s grown back enough feathers. My sister and I went to Wal-Mart this evening to get some bedding and disinfectant for her. Unfortunately, I forgot that chickens can’t have cedar bedding, and I got real Betadine instead of the house brand. My mom went to return the cedar and get pine instead, and she took the Betadine to try to exchange it for the house brand, which is about eight times less expensive. So I wasted my, and everyone else’s time. But we also got a King Size Reese’s (four pack) so it was not a total loss.
I have a lot of homework to do. I have a Chemistry worksheet to finish, and I have to complete the second component of my honors project for Honors Shakespeare’s Comedies. The Sonnet of the Week project is the first, but I also am reading the full text of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and writing a paper analyzing how his sonnets changed over time, how mine changed, and how they compare.
I went on the Common Application website today for the first time since I submitted my application to check on the status of my recommendations. My second recommendation, from the math department head, was finished today, and we are working on getting it in to the Brown admissions office. I have a third, supplementary, recommendation that I’m waiting on from the music department head, but that may or may not come in, as his father, may he rest in peace, passed away recently. I have not seen him in a while. My father, who works at school (and has been there this week), said that he saw him today, but he was only in for a little while. Clearly, I’d like a recommendation, but for the moment I am just glad that he is doing well. Mitch, if you’re reading this, we love you.
I am taking tomorrow off work so that Will and I can work, but that belongs on the Plog rather than here. Enough said.
5-Alone (PVPA’s a cappella group, for which I am the beatboxer) is getting interviewed by a college student for a project of hers. We might be on the radio, which is exciting.
Over and out.

Packed

2008-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

I had a busy and exhausting weekend. But first things first. Quantum of Solace was AWESOME the second time around. I had some trouble getting home afterwards; I was much later than I wanted to be, but it worked out in the end.
I worked all day yesterday, and had a very interesting thing happen. Someone brought in 5.5″ floppy disks, wanting to retrieve data from them. The reason this is interesting is that 5.5″ floppies are older than I am. These particular disks were from 1992, but the technology was old even then; it originated in ’71. These are from when they were actually floppy; the disc consists of a flexible plastic case with a data disc inside. These particular disks had a capacity of less than 1MB. I can’t think of the last time I saw ones like them.
Saturday evening, Will came over. Along with some other guy-friends, him and I went to see Twilight. My friend pointed out that we just had to take a group of guys to this unashamedly teenage-girl-targeted movie. It was a tremendous experience. Everyone in the theater was laughing, most at the movie, except for a group of girls next to us who thought that we were very funny. And so, I suppose, we were.
Will and I worked this morning, and I went to work for the afternoon. I was supposed to have a recording session tonight, but there was a miscommunication, and it is not happening. I will, however, be going tomorrow through Wednesday nights as originally planned.
I am going to be working tomorrow, and possibly some more this week. Will and I will be working a fair amount as well. I have a bunch of homework and college-related stuff to do, such as sending SAT scores. Despite this somewhat obnoxious stuff to do, it looks to be an excellent and productive vacation.

One more line

2008-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

This sonnet done, I now will go to bed.

I have to get up at 8:00 to work, so I need some sleep.

Much excitement

2008-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

Several exciting things have recently transpired. First, I am going to see Quantum of Solace again tomorrow after school with a bunch of friends. I am looking forward to this; I knew I wanted to see it again after the first time – like Casino Royale, it needs further consideration to be fully appreciated.
I have also made some interesting back end changes to this site which are making my life a lot easier. I’ve switched from the WP-reCaptcha anti-comment-spam plugin to Akismet, which is more popular, and, as popular software often (but not always) is, better. Instead of requiring extra input from the user, Akismet has its own database and spam-filtering algorithms which are highly effective. WP-reCaptcha worked perfectly, clearly, since it prevents computers from posting comments in the first place, but Akismet is nice because it (so far) has had the same effect without making the user’s job more difficult. Further updates on the use of this plugin as I continue.
I have also installed the WordPress.com Stats plugin, which ties a self-hosted WordPress or WordPress MU blog (such as this one) into WordPress.com’s stats algorithms. It’s only been running for a day, so there’s not much for me to see, but it has a lot of interesting features, and I think it may help me a lot in making this site more interesting and easy to use.
Finally, I am going to take my recertification exam tonight. For real this time.

Hooray!

2008-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

I passed my recertification exam! Here’s to another twelve months of Apple-authorized service!

Half-day

2008-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

We got out of school at noon today, and a rather large crowd went to a diner for lunch. Afterwards, we headed to Salvation Army. It was our intention to then go play laser tag, but the place turned out not to open until 4:00. So we all went our separate ways, my car (actually a friend’s that I was driving) stopping at Trader Joe’s to pick up some Gone Bananas chocolate-covered frozen bananas. Which are the best thing in the world. My mother and I have become so addicted to them that they have become known as The Chronic at my house, with tonic water being called Chronic Water, since we’re rather addicted to that too. It was a great relief to get the bananas, since the last time I went there they had none, as their frozen food warehouse had burned down. Fortunately, they were back in stock now, so my cravings have been satisfied.
This afternoon I will be taking my ACMT recertification exam online, which probably won’t take very long. I will also be doing a bunch of homework, and getting to bed early. Hopefully.

False alarm

2008-11-19T00:00:00+00:00

I just finished reviewing the training materials for my recertification exam, but I can’t take it now. I will be doing it tomorrow evening, probably. They say that it takes between one and a half and two hours to complete, but I think it will be a lot less; they said that about the certification exams too, and I finished those in about half an hour each.

Let the work begin

2008-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

I ended up not going into work today. I have to finish all of my homework before about 4:15, so I will have time to shower and get ready for rehearsal/the performance.
Egg salad sandwiches without Tabasco are a woeful thing.

Jolly good show

2008-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

Considering that it was our first of the year, it went very well. We had a lot of confidence, which is important, perhaps more so than an exquisite grasp on the material, at this stage. Based on this show, it looks to be a superb year.
Homework (a limerick in Latin) calls. As does a shower, and a bed.

Tom's a-cold

2008-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

King Lear was awesome. The cast was extremely solid, and the director (Keith Langsdale) did a wonderful job with the concept. The flow was also great; the actors did a superb job of keeping the play moving. It was modernized, with most of the characters in suits or dress clothing, and cellphones used as the messages from the original text. The fool was also very interesting; sort of punked out, with a lot of makeup, zippers, and ripped clothing. A wonderful show, all in all.
Also, the scene in which Cornwall puts out Gloucester’s eyes contains three of Shakespeare’s best lines: “Oh, I am slain!”, “Out, vile jelly!”, and “I have received a hurt”. Pure poetry.
Will and I did some physics work this evening, and will work on the LC(A) tomorrow morning. Bed is nigh.

Deploying the calculus

2008-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

I have returned from work, and Will has arrived. We are going to deploy the calculus and do some physics work before the show this evening. We will probably work on the LC(A) tomorrow morning.
Today at work I checked in repair number 3000. It was very exciting.

Welcome to the Working Week[end]

2008-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

Here ends one of my more exhausting weeks. Between the general pressure of school work and my long night (morning) yesterday (today), I am very ready for this week to be over. I will sleep well tonight.
Tomorrow I am going to work before meeting Will and going to my school’s production of King Lear. We will work tomorrow night and Sunday morning. I will be going to work again on Sunday, and that evening I have a rehearsal and then a show.
I need to find some time to do homework somewhere in there. I’m not sure how I will do this, but somehow I don’t feel that stressed about it.
Let the relaxation begin.

Quantum of Solace'd

2008-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

I’m back.
It started with a car chase. First scene. James Bond in an Aston Martin. Enough said.
I will need to see it again.

On my way out

2008-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

I have awoken, am eating yogurt, and am about to head out.
I have not been this excited in a long time.

Bond approaches

2008-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

My plan for this evening is to do a bit of work, until about 7:30 or 8:00, nap until just before 11, and then get up and go to the movie. I am VERY excited. I am picking up two friends on the way, and we are meeting at least one other person there, possibly more. It is going to be a great night.
I also had the chance to do something that I’ve been hoping to do for a while. I received a chain letter via email from a family friend, successfully looked it up and confirmed its falsehood via Snopes, and sent the link back to my friend. Snopes is a wonderful rumor-tracking website, useful for such things as chain letters and various online hoaxes. They maintain a database with user-submitted rumor reports, descriptions of what you, the user, are likely to see, and its status: confirmed true, false, unknown, etc., along with supporting facts and arguments. It is very informative, and some of the stuff on there is just plain hilarious; you don’t realize exactly how ridiculous this stuff is until you see it debunked.

Anticipation

2008-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

I am here and we have our seats.

Veterans' Day

2008-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

Joe Biden said something in the vice-presidential debate that I though was very interesting and it wasn’t a political attack or a policy statement. Here is the excerpt:

I have never since that moment in my first year questioned the motive of another member of the Congress or Senate with whom I’ve disagreed. I’ve questioned their judgment.

On this day above all others, what he said rings true to me. I think that the thing that’s taken the hardest beating and that’s been the most excommunicated from Washington politics is the respect for other peoples’ motives. Certainly that is no more important today than any other day, but it is certainly more poignant. We all can and should have a uniform respect for our veterans’ and soldiers’ service, regardless of our party affiliations and political views.
I think this is historically the essence of American patriotism; the idea that differing opinions are not the same as conflicting motives. Now, more than ever, I am proud to be an American.

Quantum of Solace

2008-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

I am going to the midnight showing of the new James Bond movie on Thursday night (technically Friday morning) at 12:01 AM with a friend from school. I am PUMPED! Apparently it is the shortest Bond film ever, which is pretty cool. I really like Daniel Craig, the new actor, and I like the direction they went with the last film. From what I hear, this one’s similar.
Craig really plays Bond like a character, rather than just trying to be more manly than Sean Connery (which is not possible) like every other actor before him did. This makes the movies a lot more interesting, and very refreshing, especially when you are, like myself, a total Bond fanatic (I had seen every movie by the time I was 12).

Manhunt

2008-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

Some friends and I played manhunt at school this morning. It was a ton of fun, but I ended up twisting my ankle, which rather hurts now. On the bright side, I have tomorrow off from school. On the other hand, I live next to a graveyard, and they fire off a cannon at six in the morning. I am going to attempt to sleep through it. I suppose we will see if that actually works. I also have a doctor’s appointment at ten, I may be working in the afternoon, and I have a rehearsal in the evening, so tomorrow’s not much of a break at all. But it’s better than nothing.

New things

2008-11-09T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve just finished writing a new contact form for the site. Up until now, I’ve been using a WordPress plugin to generate the form, but I got tired of not having enough control over it. It seems to work fine, and looks rather similar to the one I had before.
I also bought a snazzy new Apple Aluminum keyboard and a Bluetooth mouse, taking advantage of my employee discount today at work. They not only look cool, but work much better. Typing is so much easier now, and I have cleared up a significant amount of space – my old mouse was a Microsoft wireless, and it had a big clunky receiver plugged in. Bluetooth is far superior.
Bedtime.

NASA progress

2008-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

I think my proposal will be directed to the NASA Ames Research Center, as they handle the search for extraterrestrial intelligence and solar system exploration. The proposal has to be delivered via snail mail, so it will take me some time to draft a letter to send them. It also has to include detailed cost data and the like. I think I will do some research on the space shuttle and how cargo is stored and deployed so my letter at least appears well thought-out, even if it is a complete practical joke.
I am very excited to see what NASA does in response. As far as I can tell, I am not doing anything illegal, but they probably won’t be very happy.

Back at work

2008-11-08T00:00:00+00:00

Today was my first day back at work since the beginning of school. I have been way to busy with college stuff to get there since then. It was excellent to be back.
I also learned that the store has changed its Sunday hours. Rather than being open from eleven to four, we are now open from twelve to four. Extra sleep!

Uberpwny

2008-11-07T00:00:00+00:00

We just observed a miniature pony in someone’s backyard on the way to school. We discussed the possibility of getting one. My sister wanted to trade our chickens for one (it is no secret that she rather dislikes them), but my father and I wanted to just get one. Or a goat. Except that a goat would just eat our yard, and house, probably.

Exquisite Corpse adjustment

2008-11-07T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve made a minor change to the script that powers the Exquisite Corpse page, because I’ve noticed a tendency for people to end a lot of poems at once. This is wonderful, except it means that there aren’t always that many poems running, which can tend to slow stuff down since people start getting their own lines back very quickly. Therefore, I’ve modified it so that when you submit a line or end a poem, you are then only prompted with the “start a new poem” form. It’s not meant to entirely prevent people from immediately contributing to another poem; you can just click on the link in the sidebar again to completely refresh the page. It’s just to encourage you to start new poems as well. Hopefully if there are more poems running at once, the general activity will be higher.
Please feel free to let me know what you think of this feature, as I’m trying to make this page as simple and effective as possible.

Stay up late

2008-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

I was up rather late last night watching election results. Suffice it to say, I am exhausted, and glad to be done with this entire process. This comic came to mind.

Impending exhaustion

2008-11-05T00:00:00+00:00

I had a very tiring day today, and I am heading to bed early. I have a meeting tomorrow with my guidance / college counselor.
I haven’t minded dealing with and thinking about my application recently, because it’s already submitted. I’m actually excited to talk about it tomorrow morning, especially because I recently realized that I will hear back from Brown in only about five weeks.

One last day

2008-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

I have not been blogging a lot recently because a lot of my time has been taken up with political work, which I don’t feel it’s appropriate to write about here. I will say, though, that regardless of my political views, I am glad that the election is going to be over. Two years is a long time.

Never again

2008-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

I have finished my final standardized test. I will NEVER take the SAT or ACT again.
I have a bunch of homework to do this afternoon before heading up to Will’s for the rest of the weekend. I am excited to have some time off from my normal, hectic, college-laden life.
In completely random news, WordPress 2.7 is now available. WordPress is a popular blog and Content Management System; I use it for this site. The new version is still in beta, and there doesn’t appear to be a MU (multi-user) version yet. Since I use MU on this site, I am probably going to have to wait about another month, when the development team predicts it will be out of beta, but I’m very excited.
This season’s Mock Trial case comes out on Monday, which means that our school’s team (of which I am a member) is getting ready to kick into gear. We have a lot of work to do, and I am very glad I have college stuff out of the way before this all starts.

Last time

2008-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

I am on my way to the SAT Subject Tests for the last time. I am taking Math 2, Physics, and Literature.

That Was Halloween

2008-10-31T00:00:00+00:00

Today was Octoberfest, my school’s annual Halloween/fall/random celebration. Everyone (who is not lame) dresses up in their Halloween costume, and we have no classes in the afternoon, an outdoor open, mic, and other such activities. I was Inigo Montoya, from The Princess Bride.
This is the first year I can remember that Halloween has not been on a school night. And wouldn’t you know it, I’m taking the SATs tomorrow morning, so there will be very little trick-or-treating. I am probably going to go to sleep at about 9:00.

Running late

2008-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

I am on my way to school, having just finished a battery of Pulmonary Function Tests at the hospital. I was supposed to be done by 8:30, but I beat the receptionist there (I arrived at 7:06 for a 7:15 appointment), and the Respiratory Therapist who was doing my tests had some computer trouble, so we had to wait for another CRT to come down and fix it.
For all of the tests, I sat in a chair in a glass case and breathed into a valve while wearing a nose clips. For some of them, I had to squeeze my cheeks with my hands to prevent them from holding any air. Most of the time, the door of the case was open, and I was just using the equipment inside, but for one test, the door was sealed and it took all sorts of temperature readings and such.
I managed to make it out of the lab with the nose clip, which I am sure I can find some sort of interesting use for.

Liftoff!

2008-10-29T00:00:00+00:00

I SUBMITTED MY APPLICATION! WAHOO!

Counting down

2008-10-29T00:00:00+00:00

I met with my guidance counselor this morning, and I have just a few miscellaneous changes to make to my college application before submitting it. I am literally counting the minutes until I am done.

Google Earth iPwnage

2008-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

Yesterday I downloaded the newly released Google Earth for iPwn. It
Is awesome. Although its tracking algorithm doesn’t seem to work quite as well as the built-in Maps app, it has some additional features that are really nifty. You can rotate and tilt the display, viewing from any orientation in three dimensions. Google Earth has 3-d terrain data, so you can tilt the iPwn up and down to view mountains and such in all their glory.

I may be done with my college app, but…

2008-10-27T00:00:00+00:00

I’m still exhausted. I have just returned from musical auditions, and I have a little bit of homework to do. I think I might go directly to bed afterwards, because I am unbelievably tired.

The end of a long weekend

2008-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

I had an excellent day at Olin, although very tiring. There were several interesting and informative presentations, and I also spent some time listening to a presentation / Q&A session with a Computer Science professor, who talked about some very interesting topics and demonstrated some fascinating programs. One of them generated random text by taking an input (he demonstrated it with the text of The Great Gatsby). The program then generated a list of all the words that appear in the text, and a corresponding list of all of the words that follow each of those words, respectively, in the original text. Then it chooses a random word, chooses a random word from the list of words that follow it, chooses a random word from the list of words that follow that one, etc., building a randomized string of text. The result is a nonsensical and non-grammatical string of random words that still sounds exactly like the book. It is awesome. I have decided I am going to write the program in PHP and post it on this site somewhere. I am also thinking that it might be very interesting to run the program on the content of the Exquisite Corpse poems.
This weekend marks the end of my college application process, or at least the brunt of it. I will be submitting my Brown application on Wednesday evening, and will then be done until I hear back from them, at which point I’ll either be completely finished, or will apply elsewhere if I don’t get in.
I am indescribably glad to have this stuff finished.

The home stretch

2008-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

Almost done. I’ve essentially finished the entire application, essays and all. Now I just have to go through the whole thing one more time on Wednesday with my councilor at school, and I’ll be ready to submit it.

Almost there

2008-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

I have been working on college applications all day. I’m taking a break now. I was out of the house for a little while, and I’m waiting for a free computer to get back to work. I’m visiting Olin tomorrow, and possibly staying the night, so I need to have everything finished tonight. Fortunately, my father has taken over the CSS profile, which saves me a lot of number crunching, but it is a rather lengthy process.

ACT

2008-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

Yesterday was tiring, but a good end to the week. I am on my way to the ACT right now, and I’ll be finishing my applications when I return. I am looking forward to having all of this done more than I can possibly describe.

A day off

2008-10-23T00:00:00+00:00

I was pretty sick last night, and didn’t get much sleep, so I’m taking today off from school. I’m going to the doctor’s later, and I will spend most of the day working on college stuff. It is good to have a break from my routine. I did have some important stuff to get done today, but I think I will be able to catch up on it tomorrow. I have also told all of my teachers that I am expecting to be pretty behind until I finish college stuff, and that I will buckle down after that’s all done to get back on track with my normal schoolwork.

Know what this is? A brain-sucker.

2008-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

Not to be unoriginal or anything, but the college application process continues to take up a great deal of my brainpower. Between my constant homework-and-college-induced exhaustion and my actual schoolwork, I have been having a hard time functioning at school and at home. Fortunately, it will all be over this weekend.
I have decided to apply early decision to Brown. This will also help lighten my load; everything will be done a lot sooner.

Dance, dance

2008-10-21T00:00:00+00:00

Tonight is Simchat Torah, the festival that marks the completion of the Torah, which is read through once a year. Aside from a service, there is a lot of dancing. My family is probably going to go to the dancing part, because we are all too tired to go to a service.
I have made a lot of progress on college applications. Last night I finished my essay and got a lot done on application content organization-wise, and I distributed a bunch of forms to teachers today. I have also obtained a copy of a newspaper article about last year’s Mock Trial finals, which I will be including with my application. It is good to have these things out of the way. I am on track to be done this weekend.

Where has all the brainpower gone?

2008-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

Long time passing. My brain is being severely sapped by the college application process. I am doing my best to keep up with it, but it is difficult to stay on top.
The Exquisite Corpse page is doing very well. I’ve made a few minor adjustments to the page since it was launched, and I am overall very pleased about how it’s gone so far. I’m excited to see it continue.

Somewhat finished

2008-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

I have made a lot of progress, with a first draft of pretty much all of my essays and questions, and a final draft of most. I still need to assemble some supplementary materials, like demonstrations of my music, and a copy of an article about the Mock Trial team last year. I’m taking a break for a little while to eat, relax, and otherwise distance myself from the application process.

College

2008-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

I am starting work for the day on college applications. I have a lot of editing to do on my essay, various other miscellaneous changes to make to my application, and the Olin and Columbia applications to complete.

The Ultimate Weird Town in MA

2008-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

OK, stop everything. In the car on the way home today, I discovered the name of a town/region in Massachusetts that triumphs all others. Ever. Even ones I don’t know about yet. There is a place somewhat east of Wilbraham called Dingley Dell. This is not only a ridiculous name, but it is in a Monty Python sketch.
I am going to go there sometime soon.
I am not sure what I will do when I get there, but whatever it is will be AWESOME.
I am also thinking of trying to get a mailing address or P.O. box there, just so I can have people send me things addressed to Dingley Dell, and I can put it on my return address.
This is one of the most exciting moments of my life.
The Exquisite Corpse page has gone live, found in the projects section. So far it has had a lot of success with the help of a bunch of my friends and family who have started a whole lot of poems. I am hoping that it continues to flourish and becomes self-sufficient. It is my plan not to contribute to it at all; I am interested in the idea of my creating something that is not ultimately owned by me. Although I’ve enabled it, I want it to be more of a medium for others than a demonstration of my skills.

Providence

2008-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

I am on my way to Brown University for the day. We are currently on I-90 E, and so far I’ve noticed several things. First, the leaves are beautiful. There are all sorts of shades of pink and purple that you would never expect to see in nature. Secondly, we just passed a huge black armored vehicle of a type that we had never seen before. It had all sorts of antennas and lights on it, bearing some kind of small logo we couldn’t read in the lower right-hand corner of the back. Upon passing it, we noted the name “BEAR” on the front. A Google search for “bear armored vehicle” reveals that it is produced by Lenco Armored Vehicles, and is used as an ambulance or deployment unit in areas under fire. I tried to find more information on price, size, etc., but most of the site is restricted to military and law enforcement officials who have been provided with a username and password.
In other, somewhat less covert news, I’ll be going to the typical tour/info session at Brown, as well as the engineering open house in the afternoon.

Meeting Street

2008-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

I was on the phone with a friend who knows Providence and they recommended the Meeting Street Cafe. It turned out that we were around the corner from it, so we are there now, splitting a pastrami sandwich, soup, and coleslaw. There are also, as my friend said, huge cookies, which I think I will sample later.

Brownout

2008-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

We’re on our way home after a long and tiring day. On the way here we wrote a song inspired by a sign for Woonsocket. The lyrics are as follows:

Woonsocket x8n

where n=number of verses.
We also passed signs for Purgatory Road and Purgatory Chasm. We thought about going, but decided against it.

Brown

2008-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

I have just gotten out of the info session, and we’re heading into downtown Providence for lunch. We left the tour partway through and got some food before going to the info session, which was very large (~100-200 people). I am excited for the engineerig open house this afternoon, but for the moment I am ready to find some food and relax.

Another exhausting week

2008-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

This week was pretty tiring. I watched the last Presidential debate on Wednesday night and went out swing dancing on Thursday night, which was excellent. I had originally planned to leave for my visit to Brown in Rhode Island this morning, but I put that off until tomorrow. I will be going for the day to the engineering open house.
Today we did not have open mic during the normally scheduled time, from 2:00 to 3:00 at the end of the day, so we had recess instead. For the last hour of school, everyone was outside playing foursquare (which me and a few other people have made extremely popular recently) or just hanging out. There were also footie pajamas involved.
I have been working on a version of the literary game Exquisite Corpse for this site for the past few weeks. I think it will be ready to go live tonight or sometime in the next few days. I am very excited to see how it works once I have it running.

The last presidential debate…

2008-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

…is tonight. I will again be watching it at a friend’s house.
Over the last few days, I’ve been reading a lot of news articles about both candidates’ tax and economic policies. This has made me both more and less excited for the debate, in several ways. I am excited to see how well the candidates can defend their policies; this will show how well they understand what’s going on. I am less excited because, after reading a lot of actual substantial coverage of the issues, my perceptions of how shallow these debates actually are have been reinforced. Useful information can come out of the debates, though, even taking the format’s flaws into account. We will see…

Erie?

2008-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

We are on our way to Brandeis. Just a minute ago I asked my iPwn for directions from I-90E (where we are) to Brandeis, to determine which exit to use, and was surprised to find the total distance given as 517 miles. It turns out that the Maps application calculated the driving directions from the beginning of I-90E, which is in Erie, PA.

Brandeis and bed

2008-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

I had an excellent day at Brandeis. I ran into a few people I knew, one who used to go to my school and one who I went to a summer program with a few years ago. I learned a lot about the school, and had a very interesting conversation with some of the computer science faculty. One of the people I talked to also dealt with intellectual property law, something that interests me very much. We talked about this, as well as the Lego Car of Awesomeness, and other topics in computer science and the like.
I liked the school a lot, and am definitely planning to apply there.
As to the bed portion of this post, that is where I am imminently headed.

Brandeis

2008-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

I am visiting Brandeis University tomorrow for their open house. Registration is at 10:00, so we’ll leave around 7 or 7:30 to allow for traffic and the like. I am excited, but tired, and wishing I could have a day off from constantly thinking about college. The pressure never seems to let up.

Take me back

2008-10-10T00:00:00+00:00

My school always makes the Friday before Columbus Day a curriculum planning day so that we have a four-day weekend. In my case it is actually a five-day weekend since I took yesterday off as well, and I am taking this opportunity to go with a few other friends to our old middle school in Haydenville. We’ll be there for the all-school assembly that happens on Friday mornings, and today my youngest sister will be getting up because her birthday is on Sunday, so we will be there for that. I am also going to meet my sister’s teacher who is new this year.

The fast is broken

2008-10-09T00:00:00+00:00

We had a ton of people over at my house for the break fast this evening. There was much wine, food, and revelry. The fast today was relatively easy. Last year and the year before I recall being rather crabby, but I wasn’t today. I had a bit of a headache in the early afternoon when we returned from synagogue, but it didn’t last. I lay around, cleaned my room, did a lot of laundry and dishes, and wrote the sonnet of the week. All in all, a most fulfilling and relaxing day.

And so it is sealed…

2008-10-08T00:00:00+00:00

Tonight begins Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. We will again be shutting off all electronics at dinner before we leave for synagogue. Tomorrow is a fast day, and we will break the fast at home in the evening. I am heading out to do a few errands before dinner, and I think I will spend the day tomorrow reading, writing, and thinking.

Uphill both ways, almost

2008-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

After getting home at about 12:45 today, I decided to bike to school in time for my social dance class. I have just returned now; it was extremely tiring. I took Route 5, so it’s about 30 miles round trip. I noticed lots of things along the road that I never see when I’m driving, like small streams and such. There was also more roadkill than I remembered, but I guess you can see that better when you’re on a bike. I stopped to get a slice of pizza in Northampton before returning home. I am planning to watch or listen to the debate tonight, to which I am looking forward.

Two down, one to go

2008-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

I am proud of both candidates for staying away from personal attacks in tonight’s presidential debate. It was remarkably centered on the issues. Both, of course, did their fair share of misrepresenting the other’s arguments and record, but this is to be expected even in such a situation. I credit them both with putting a great deal of effort into launching substantive attacks on the other’s position whenever applicable. I have a lot of hope for the future of American politics no matter who wins.

Information overload

2008-10-07T00:00:00+00:00

The information session was a success, inasmuch as any of these things can be. I learned a lot, and I am glad I went. I am going to head home now, and get to school in time for my last class, Social Dance.
Overall, this visit was a lot of fun. I learned a lot about the school and myself in that I was really living the experience of being in college. I am going to be glad to be home, though.

WPI

2008-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

I am at WPI, and have spent the day visiting classes and seeing the campus. I left at 7:45 this morning, dropped my mother off at work in Springfield, and, after some brief confusion in the area of I-290, got on the Mass Pike (I-90 E). I got to the apartment at about 9:45, and after dropping my sleeping bag there, had to run to avoid being late to the first class, which was Chemistry Thermodynamics. Although it was a large lecture-style class, rather impersonal, I enjoyed it very much. The professor was very interesting, and he was lecturing on entropy, enthalpy, and something called the Gibbs energy of a reaction, which I learned is essentially the “free” energy left over in a reaction that is available to do non-PV work (work that is not changing the pressure or volume of the gas, such as electric, thermal, etc.).
We then proceeded to GOV2311-Environmental Policy and Law. This was a two-hour long class. It was much smaller, probably about 15 students. The professor seemed incredibly smart and interesting. The class went over the midterm exam, which they had just been handed back, and talked about its content, as well as some other stuff related to product and process innovation, and regulations that typically affect these things. The class was supposed to end with four or five students presenting the work they had done so far on their final research papers to the class, but there was only time for two. The first student talked about pesticides used in farms in several states damaging ecosystems in the Chesapeake bay, including Obama and McCain’s plans for cleaning up the Chesapeake bay and other jeopardized aquatic ecosystems such as the Great Lakes. The second student talked about e-waste; discarded computer and electronic components such as CRTs and other lead- and mercury-bearing parts, and the sort of regulations that applied or didn’t apply to their disposal.
This class was also interesting because I recognized someone in it. One of the students had attended Holy Name High School, and I had faced them several times in court during Mock Trial. They remembered me once I introduced myself to them after the class.
The third and final class I saw was Linear Algebra, another large lecture. Again, a very interesting professor, and very interesting material; the topic was matrices and linear transformations of vectors from n- to m-space, and under what circumstances we could demonstrate that such a transformation was reversible.
After Linear Algebra, I headed over to the Admissions office, in hopes of getting some kind of impromptu interview. I was unable to get one on such short notice, but I did get a short tour with a Biology major, which was very interesting. There is a group information session tomorrow morning at 10:00 which I may go to, and I left my cel number at the front desk in case any spaces for interviews open up between now and then.
I am hanging around until 7:30, when I am leading the Kung-fu class. I still haven’t decided exactly what I’ll do for that, but it should be very interesting.

I know kung-fu

2008-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

The Kung-fu class went very well. I led the first one, a one-on-one with a more advanced third-degree white belt student who also runs WPI’s unoffical parkour mailing list. My friend led the second class and I participated, working with two of the beginners as he worked with the other one. This class was severly disrupted by cheerleading practice taking place in the adjacent gym, which is aurally inseparable from the martial arts room due to a low dividing wall and high ceiling. It is very difficult to meditate through cries of “T-O-U-C-H-D-O-W-N”.
After class we returned to the apartment. My friend appears to subsist entirely on a diet of noodles with Parmesan cheese, so I prepared myself a sauce of tomatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, and various spices to accompany my spaghetti.
I am planning to shower and head to bed. I will wake up around 9:00 tomorrow mornig to attend the 10:00 information session. I will then return to the apartment and leave in the late morning or early afternoon.

A full weekend's work

2008-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

Last night I went to the potluck at the Food Bank Farm in Hadley, which was a lot of fun. One of the highlights of the night was when all of the teenagers danced to “The Bear Missed the Train”, as played by the most excellent children’s entertainer Roger Tincknell. We also had a rousing game of Capture the Flag. Simon and Will both stayed over at my house last night, and Will and I did various types of work (calculus, physics, Lego) today after Simon left early in the morning (before we arose).
I am leaving tomorrow morning at about 8:00 to visit a friend at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. I’ll be staying over and coming back Tuesday afternoon in time for my social dance class at school at 2:30. This looks to be a very interesting visit. The friend I’m staying with trains at my kung-fu school when he’s not in Worcester, and he’s started a little mini-school at WPI, training students and testing them. He’s asked me to lead a class tomorrow night, which I think will be a lot of fun. I am somewhat out of shape because I haven’t been at kung-fu in a while due to my ongoing pertussis, but I am looking forward to the class.

SATs

2008-10-04T00:00:00+00:00

I have just taken the SAT Reasoning Test. It was not as difficult as it was the first time, and I think I did better, although I clearly can’t know until I get my scores back in a few weeks. I’m not allowed to talk about the content of the test, but I will say that one of the reading passages reminded of a Simon and Garfunkel song.

VP Debates

2008-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

The Vice-Presidential debate is tonight, Biden v. Palin. I’m planning to watch it or listen to it on the radio. Although these debates are sort of an exercise in pseudo-politics, designed to appeal to those out-of-touch with the issues and tailored to fit television’s characteristic short attention spans, I do think it will be interesting to see how the two candidates approach it. In general, I think valid results can be obtained from invalid systems, so these debates can yield useful information, even if it’s not of the type that’s intended. For example, one could get an understanding of what the candidates think about the debate format by how seriously they take it, how well they work within it, etc., even if we’re meant to be thinking about the issues (which is effectively impossible given the format of the debates: how do you summarize something like the Iraq war in two minutes?).
The main issue tonight is the gigantic difference between the two candidates in almost every respect. Experience is the most notable, but it is also worth noting that she is a woman and he a man. A lot of people have been comparing this to the debate between George H.W. Bush and Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, in which Ferraro accused Bush of being patronizing and condescending in attempting to “teach her”. Biden will have to step carefully to avoid falling into this same situation. If he can accurately criticize her lack of experience and highlight his own, it will be advantageous. A lot of this depends on the type of questions they are asked; yet is another reason these debates are not terribly important. Apparently there will be even less time tonight than there was for the last presidential debate for the candidates to actually “debate”, that is, respond to each other rather than stating their position on the moderator’s question.
We will see how it turns out. I am hopeful that it won’t descend into name-calling and groundless accusations. That may be an empty hope, but I can still have dreams.

Happy new year

2008-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

I had an excellent day yesterday. It was very good to have a rest and not have to do anything or go anywhere. I even took a nap, which is something I haven’t done in a long time.
We ended up not going to synagogue on Monday night, but we did go Tuesday morning. The rabbi’s sermon was excellent; it focused on the idea of anger as a tool of empathy. The main thing he talked about was veterans of the war in Iraq and how he had heard the stories of many of their families. He said that this had inspired anger for the fact that they were going through what they were, and empathy for the many others who were as well. I liked his point that anger and empathy were the two components of social change, or religious action. Although I sometimes don’t feel that connected to my synagogue, I do like the rabbi very much, and he always has something interesting to say.
We went to our friends’ house for dinner, which was also most enjoyable. I didn’t end up getting to bed until around eleven, but I feel rested after such a slow day, and I’m ready to be back in the thick of things at school.
When we returned home from dinner last night I briefly checked my email and read the news efore going to bed. It was an interesting experience. Normally I am on the computer rather constantly, and although I don’t think I’m “addicted” to it, like people who have to compulsively check Facebook or something all the time, it had been great to have a day off. When I then returned to the computer, I had things a little more in perspective; it was easier to feel like the computer was a tool to use, rather than a force to contend with. I enjoy having it or my iPwn there to use, as it lets me keep in touch with people, feel up to date with the news, blog, etc., but it’s nice to know that I don’t need it, or at least to have a material manifestation of this concept.

Signing off

2008-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, begins tonight, and continues through tomorrow. We will be at synagogue for most of the day tomorrow, although we’re not going this evening. My iPwn (on which I am writing this post), is the last remaining powered-on electronic device in our household, so I am now going to shut it off. Happy new year!

Recommendations and mirrors

2008-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

I turned in my various recommendation forms this morning. It is great to have those off of my chest; it severely lightens my load.
I observed a large curved mirror in the first-floor hallway of my school, which had not been there previously. Upon questioning the principal, who was standing nearby, I learned that it was mounted outside of the maintenance supervisor’s door so that when he is exiting his room with large boxes he does not hit people.

Movin' right along

2008-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

I have finished the first major edit of my main essay, and the first drafts of the various smaller essays for the various supplements. Now begins the arduous process of editing and reviewing my application. This will probably take the rest of the day and beyond, as I still need to meet with my counselor at school.
More and more, I am thinking about the philosophy of the Common App. And more and more I am disliking the supplement process. Some people criticize the Common App by saying that it allows people to apply “too easily”, by simply adding a school to the list. While it’s true that it makes it easy to apply somewhere, these people are missing the point; by freeing students from having to worry about the particulars of an application and whether or not they can complete it, they are left to think about whether or not it is a place they actually want to apply, rather than a place that they can apply.
Ideally, students could apply only to the places they were interested in, rather than having this elaborate system of various admission deadlines and early action policies and safety schools and the like. People would end up only applying to a few schools, which they would be much more likely to get into, because everyone else would have applied to less schools as well, and they would then be free to go where they really wanted to. Invariably, there would still be competition around institutions with better reputations, but it would be legitimate competition, not the kind of artificially constructed competition that surrounds the process now.

Done…for now…

2008-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

I have finished work for the weekend. I wrote the final draft of my main essay, completed the main section of the Common App, completed the supplements, wrote first drafts of the shorter essays for the supplements, and started the Columbia application, as they’re not on the Common App. I still need to do the Olin application. I am going to take a shower, eat, and head downtown for a few hours. I will be doing more work this week, and possibly some next weekend as well.

Arise, fair sun

2008-09-28T00:00:00+00:00

Well, I’m up, and I’ve been working for a while. I have put together a list of admission deadlines for regular and non-binding early admission. I am in the middle of planning where to apply under which programs. It looks as though I will probably apply to Yale’s early action program, which is single-choice, meaning that although it is non-binding, I cannot apply early action to anywhere else. That is OK, because only two of my other schools (WPI and UMass Amherst) have non-binding early action anyway.

Repeat

2008-09-27T00:00:00+00:00

I am heading to bed after returning from the concert. We did not, as we had planned, go to Mass MoCA; instead we went to see the Northern Harmony concert in Ashfield, which was excellent. I ran into some friends there as well.
Tomorrow I am waking up at 9:30 to continue working. I think I will be able to finish the supplements and the Olin application. My plan is to meet with my school’s college counselor next week to go over my application and check in about my plans for testing and such. I registered for the ACTs today, so I am on track to have all my preparations done within a week or two. Then all that remains is taking the tests. Compared to all of this organizational work, the tests will be easy.

"Debates" and college

2008-09-27T00:00:00+00:00

I watched the first presidential debate last night between McCain and Obama. Disregarding the candidates’ actual positions on the issues, I was a pretty fed up with the format of the debate. It really represents the way the whole campaign process is run. The candidates have to dodge around the real substance of debate, which is telling the other person that they are wrong, and resort to this weird combination of sarcasm and feigned ignorance, using phrases like “I don’t think he understands” and “I don’t know about my opponent, but I…”, instead of saying “Your are incorrect. Your position on issue X is wrong because of reason Y. My position is correct because of reason Z”. This annoys me, because it short-changes the people watching the debates; we don’t get an accurate picture of who thinks what or who’s right and who’s wrong.
In other news, my college applications are coming along well. I have a friend coming over at one, who will be coming to the show tonight, but he is bringing a bunch of work he has to do as well, so we will not be hanging out as much as working in the same area. I am looking forward to the show tonight; it will be a good way to relax after a long day of monotonous work. There are some very interesting exhibits in the galleries as Mass MoCA right now as well, so we’ll be going a bit early to see them. One of them, by Jenny Holzer, is a huge darkened room filled with beanbag chairs. Poems are projected moving over the floor and walls from two projectors at either end. I saw this one before, but would like to see it again. There is also a back room to this exhibit that I neglected to see the first time.

…and still no end in sight

2008-09-27T00:00:00+00:00

I am still slogging knee-deep through miles of college applications. I have completed the main section of the Common Application, and the first draft of my main essay, and I’m now beginning the rather repetitive process of filling out the various supplements. Seven out of the nine schools I am applying to through Common App have their own supplements. I just went through and filled out all of the biographical, multiple choice, and short-answer-type questions in the supplements, and now I’m starting the various essays. This is going to be a long process.
It seems to me that the supplement sort of defeats the purpose of the Common App. The whole point is the admission that all of the schools can use the same data and come to different conclusions if they wish to. The Common App simply exists to make it easier for students to submit applications, and the supplements work counter to that. At least they are not as long as the main application, but they are still inconvenient.

A brief reprieve

2008-09-27T00:00:00+00:00

I am taking a break, having finished two of the seven supplements. I have not begun the Olin or Columbia applications, neither of which are part of the Common App.

Buckling down

2008-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

This weekend is crunch time. I will be at home all day Saturday and Sunday working on college applications. I’ll be going out on Saturday night to see a show at Mass MoCA, but other than that there will be no distractions. My hope is to have all of my applications finished and ready to submit, and my recommendation request forms ready to turn in to teachers and the Guidance office, by the end of the weekend.
For now, though, I am ready to be done with what was a fulfilling, but exhausting, week.

NASA returns

2008-09-25T00:00:00+00:00

I got another email back from NASA in response to my second letter.

Dear Harpo:

Thank you for your inquiry to NASA of September 15, 2008.

Under Federal regulation, NASA is authorized to accept technical proposals for evaluation only under one of two conditions: a proposal must either be (1) submitted in response to a formal competitive solicitation; or (2) presented as an unsolicited proposal. The procedure for submitting an unsolicited proposal is described in a NASA guidebook located at http://ec.msfc.nasa.gov/hq/library/unSol-Prop.html. The concept you describe is not structured as an unsolicited proposal as defined by the guidebook. Therefore, as submitted, it cannot be accepted for review. These rules are primarily intended to protect patent rights and copyright privileges of inventors.

Also, included in the above Web site are the respective NASA Centers and their particular technical areas of responsibility under the section entitled, NASA Research areas and addresses for submission. Perhaps you can address your questions directly to the respective NASA Center for an expedited response. After you review that information, should you continue to believe that your proposal would be more appropriately aligned with an area of research associated with a particular NASA Center, please forward a valid unsolicited proposal directly to that Center. You are strongly encouraged to follow the instructions as outlined in the Guidance for the Preparations and Submission of Unsolicited Proposals, Web site so that NASA Center personnel can process and fairly review your proposal.

NASA hopes that this information will be helpful to you as you pursue your goals.
Your interest in NASA and Americas space program is appreciated.

Sincerely,

Public Communications
Public Services and Protocol Division
Office of Public Affairs

Based on my experience at the strike yesterday, and the show in general, I have created a law that applies to the use of tie line (the cord that is used for hanging cable in theaters). It is called “Harpo Jaeger’s Law of Tie Line Use” (or “Jaeger’s Law” for short), and reads:

You always need more tie line than you think, even if you take into account Jaeger’s law.

The SPD (sounds pretty weird, huh?) that I installed is called reCAPTCHA. It is very interesting in that it uses the input from the user to digitize books. The database from which it generates the weird pictures contains scans of old books; type that cannot be read by computers and so cannot be digitized. If enough people enter the same word for a given scanned image, reCAPTCHA assumes that that is the correct word. So it is both a highly effective SPD and an effective method of harnessing existing technology to do additional useful work. Pretty fascinating. And of no end of usefulness to webmasters. I highly recommend it.

If you do not understand the title of this post, watch this video.

Eyeglasses, literally

2008-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

I broke my glasses playing Ultimate Frisbee today, and when I picked them up off the ground, there was a perfect imprint of my eye on the right lens. So now, at least if I can’t see, I have a perfect replica of my eye. Very useful.

The Refridgerator Shuffle

2008-09-09T00:00:00+00:00

Our refridgerator has been broken for several weeks, and since our second-floor tenant moved out recently we decided to use his fridge until this Saturday, when our new one will arrive. So every time we need something from the fridge (like this morning when we were all packing our lunches and eating breakfast) we have to go up and down the stairs to get it. Coming downstairs in the morning, one is liable to run into someone carrying a plattter with milk, cereal, and turkey, all headed for the refridgerator.
Our food supply has been laid waste to this fall by a combination of moths, mice (which we are trapping with great efficiency [but still no end in sight]), and the refridgerator breaking. Today was the first day on weeks we have had cereal in the house, and last night we had our first bread in at least as long.

The Year (or Hour) of Our Band-aid

2008-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

This morning I cut myself on a can of baked beans. As I was going to the bathroom to get a band-aid, I remembered that a friend had recently sent me a very special band-aid in the mail, one decorated with Jesus’ “visage”, as she put it. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I opened the package, but I was surprised and pleased beyond my wildest expectations.
I have no doubt that I will soon make a full recovery.

Let no question go unanswered

2008-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

Shortly after posting about my wonders on the etymology of “mugshot”, I received the following two emails from my friends.

Harpo, did you ever track down the origins of slang “mug”, meaning face?

Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable(16th edition, 1995) didn’t have much on the etymology, but said that “mug” in “mugshot” doesn’t mean “criminal”, but rather “face”, which was my intuition. “Mugging” someone is “from the old slang use of ‘mug’ meaning to rob or swindle” and “mug” as a noun is also slang for “one who is easily taken in, possibly coming from the gypsy meaning, a simpleton or ‘muff’.”

The OED (1971 edition) says “mug” meaning “face” might come from the commonest sense of the word (something you drink from), because in the 1700′s mugs in the shape of grotesque faces were common. The first citation of “mug” in this sense of “face” is a dictionary from 1812. The first citation in context is from 1824.

The OED didn’t have “mug” as a verb meaning “to rob” or anything along those lines, although it did have several other verbal uses of “mug”. It agreed with Brewer’s about “a mug” being a dupe, so maybe those uses are related. Besides for the noun usages I mentioned, the OED lists several others.

oed online (3rd entry, after cup and sheep):

1. a.A face,esp.an unattractive one.

1708Brit. ApolloNo. 2. 2/2 My Lawyer has a Desk, nine Law-books without Covers, two with Covers, a Temple-Mug, and the hopes of being a Judge.1798G. COLMANHeir at LawIII. ii. 47 Never let him clap his damned ugly mug in these here doors again.1824P. EGANBoxianaII. 412 His mug was often disfigured with the claret trickling down.1850E. FITZGERALDLett.(1889) I. 200, I found A. Tennyson in chambers at Lincoln’s Inn: and recreated myself with a sight of his fine old mug.1897G. MEREDITHAmazing MarriageI. xvi. 186 Look at old Rufus Abrane. I see the state of the fight on the old fellow’s mug. He hasn’t a bet left in him!1930J. B. PRIESTLEYAngel Pavementii. 84 They were all tired of seeing his depressing old mug.1955A. WESTHeritagei. 16 This is for you because you’ve got such a funny little mug.1986L. CODYUnder Contractxvi. 59 What! Miss a chance to get your ugly mug in the papers!

b.A grotesque or exaggerated (and freq. humorous) facial expression; a grimace, a ‘funny face’.

1844E. R. LANCASTERManager’s Daughter(ed. 2) inOxberry’s Budget of PlaysI. 110/1 Who does he suppose was to cut comic mugs before noblemen, without being paid double sals.?1865Leaves from Diary Celebrated Burglarxxxiii. 109/1 Many were the queer ‘mugs’ put on by those who had been ‘gone through’… Artful..shook with suppressed laughter at the victim’s bewildered and doleful phiz.1907J. M. SYNGEPlayboy of Western World(1979)II. 51 He’d be..making mugs at his own self in the bit of a glass we had hung on the wall.1914D. H. LAWRENCEWidowing of Mrs. HolroydI. ii. 26 Oh, indeed! You think I’ve got to pull a mug to look decent? You’d have to pull a big ‘un, at that rate.1929K. S. PRICHARDCoonardooxvii. 169 The obstinate little mug Mollie had drawn her face into.1995Christian Sci. Monitor10 May 13 Mary Alice leans forward and scrunches up her face into a delightfully comic mug: eyes wide, mouth open, and shoulders in a shrug.

c.orig.U.S.A photograph or other likeness of a person’s face, esp. in police or other official records. Cf.mug shotn. at Compounds.

1887Lantern(New Orleans)9 July 2/2 He had his mug taken in fireman’s clothes.1889C. T. CLARKSON& J. H. RICHARDSONPolice!xxiii. 323 Circulating thieves’ photos… Pushing the mugs round.1940R. CHANDLERFarewell, my Lovelyvi. 43 Nulty turned over a photo..and handed it to me. It was a police mug, front and profile.1982L. CODYBad Companyvii. 46 We’ve been showing them the books, natch, and some women picked out a mug.

2.The mouth.

1820J. H. REYNOLDSFancy(1906) 22 Speak, Mrs. Tims; open thy mug, my dear; Mouths here are made to speak, and not to eat.1835T. C. HALIBURTONClockmaker(1837) 1st. Ser. xx. 202 Hold your mug, you old nigger.1896E. TURNERLittle Larrikinxvii. 192, I was afraid I must have said ‘Shut your mug’, or ‘chump’.1939S. SPENDERtr. E. TollerPastor Hall64 Shut your dirty mug!

3.The act of throttling or strangling a person. Usu. into put the mug on(someone)**.

1862Sessions Papers Cent. Criminal Court26 Nov. 41 Roberts..said, ‘You want me for putting themugon, do you? I will put the bymugon you.’1862Sessions Papers Cent. Criminal Court26 Nov. 41Mugis slang used by thieves; it means garotting.1902H. HAPGOODAutobiogr. Thief(1912) 271, I explained how I would ‘put the mug on her’ while my husky pal went through her.1940Amer. Speech15121/1To put the mug on(a mark), to put a stranglehold on a mark who grows obstreperous after he has been fleeced.1955Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc.XXIV. 171 A strangle hold is applied… This hold is called..amugon the East Coast.</p>
COMPOUNDS mug bookn.U.S.(a) a book in which business or professional people publicize themselves and are exhibited in flattering photographs; (b) a book containing photographs of people’s faces, esp. in police records.

1902C. L. CULLENMore Ex-tank Talesiv. 85 I’d often seen him in New York, and I’d seen his mush in Byrnes’s *mug book, too.

mugfakern.a street photographer.</p>
1933‘G. ORWELL’Down & Outxxxii. 236 A *mugfakera street photographer.1934P. ALLINGHAMCheapjackiv. 40 Thirty years on the road with a mug-faker and I come to Southend and graft to a bunch of grinnin’ Lakes o’ Killarneys.

mug shotn.orig.U.S.a photograph of a person’s face, esp. in police or other official records (cf. sense 1c).

1950in H. Wentworth & S. B. FlexnerDict. Amer. Slang(1960) 349/1 Police passed around a *mug shot of Willie.

Now I know the answer(s). And I didn’t even have to look it / them up.

Use your own!

2008-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

Grown tired of others using my bath towel, I decided to take extreme action. This should make them think at least twice.

Street music to the max

2008-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

Arriving back in town after rehearsal (which was, as I had forseen, very tiring), I am surprised to see a man playing piano on the street. Not a keyboard. A piano. My town has some pretty odd street performers – I have at times belonged to their ranks myself – but this just about tops them all.
What a strangely beautiful (and beautifully strange) juxtaposition.

Faking a lab report?

2008-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

I arrived at Chemistry class last week all prepared (or so I thought) with a three-ring binder, looseleaf college-ruled paper (which turns out to be my teacher’s favorite kind), pencils, pens, a graphing calculator, etc. Turns out that we are required to have a marble composition notebook for our lab notes. This is because a real lab notebook would have unremovale pages, so a scientist could not “cheat” and take out pages for whatever reason. I have reluctantly, therefore, just finished another school supply trip, this one to the local overstock outlet. Better than Target and Wal-Mart, but still a drag.
On the bright side, I am looking forward to this class. I think it will be a lot of fun. We may even get to blow things up.

16 tons, almost

2008-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

My backpack weighs 22 pounds. And it is not full yet.

Even the government has bad links

2008-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

The link NASA sent me that would supposedly allow me to submit my “theory” did not work. Here’s the email I sent them:

Thank you for your prompt response. The link to information on theory
submission was very informative. Unfortunately, the first link did
not work, so I am unable to continue with submitting my theory.
Please let me know how I can go about this. Thank you very much for
your time.
I eagerly await your response.
-Harpo Jaeger

A tiring day, and another ahead

2008-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

I spent the day working on college essays. It was rather monotonous. Tomorrow will also be tiring, although much more interesting. I’ll be at school all day working on a show. In the morning we are cuing, and after noon when the actors leave, we will be setting up some A/V equipment. I don’t know how long I’ll be there, but I imagine I will be exhausted.

And I didn’t do any homework today.

The email from NASA

2008-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

Here it is:

Dear Mr. Jaeger:

Thank you for your inquiry to NASA of September 3, 2008.

The web site: http://ec.msfc.nasa.gov/hq/library/unSol-Prop.html contains information on how to submit a proposal to NASA. Basic information on theory submittal can be obtained at

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/960908.html.

Your interest in NASA and America’s space program is appreciated.

Sincerely,

Public Communications

Public Services and Protocol Division

Office of Public Affairs

Needless to say, I will be following up on this and submitting my “theory”. Further updates will follow.

NASA!

2008-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

NASA replied to my phone call! I will post the content of the email I received as soon as I get home.

First week

2008-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

The first week of school has ended. Although it was an excellent week, I am looking forward to the weekend. I will be at school again on Sunday working on a show that goes up a week from today, but it looks as though tomorrow will be a day to relax. And do homework. Lots of homework.

1GB

2008-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

I am currently using 1023MB of storage in my Gmail account. This is only 1MB below 1GB, clearly a very important benchmark.
To find out why one gigabyte is not, as the name would imply, 1000 megabytes, click here.

SSH

2008-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

One of our chickens is a Silver-Spangled Hamburg, and this morning when we were talking about her, my sister referred to her as an “SSH”. I found this rather amusing. If you don’t understand why, read this .</p>

Mugshot

What DO they teach in school these days?

2008-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

I was at my old elementary school this evening doing some computer work, and I ran across a rather silly spelling excersize sheet. Look about halfway down, after the first block of text.

Ridiculous, huh?

Musical endeavors update

2008-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

My quest to listen to all of the music in my iTunes library is going well. The strategy I came up with for syncing only unplayed songs to my iPhone is working as desired. Already, I have listened to a lot of music I didn’t know, some by artists I already knew, some by completely new people. Great success!

Prolon

2008-08-24T00:00:00+00:00

We are on our way out of the hostel where we’ve been staying since Friday. We recently discovered that some of the plates in the kitchen were manufactured by Prolon, a division of Pro Corp., an old plastics manufacturing company based Florence MA. Not only is Florence right next to where we live, but the Pro building has since been turned into studio spaces, and my father rents one. I figure that the odds of this happening are about the same as us ending up here with that woman from Haydenville, so that’s twice that we’ve beaten seemingly insurmountable odds.

Robitripping?

2008-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

This is actually about something that happened to me on Thursday. I have had a rather terrible cough for about a week and a half now, and before I left for Saratoga Springs to pick up my father I stopped as CVS to get some cough medicine. Upon bringing a bottle of Tussin DM, the CVS house brand knockoff of Robitussin, up to the front counter, the cashier said “Can I see some ID?”. Stunned, I said, no, because I’m under 18, and then asked why on earth I needed to be 18 to buy cough medicine. The cashier informed me that kids are apparently now doing what he called “Robitripping” – chugging cough syrup. I asked if he could let me off, since I had been coughing constantly and extremely audibly during the few minutes I was in the store. He told me it was his fourth day on the job. The upshot of it was that I had to pay someone else to buy my cough medicine for me. It was utterly humiliating.

One in a very large number

2008-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

Somehow we have ended up here, in Truro, on the opposite side of the state, with someone who lives in a town right next to ours. I’m not sure what the odds are of this happening, but we beat them. We’ve done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.

Truro

2008-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

Truro could be considered the knuckle of Massachusetts, in that it is the second town from the end if the Cape. Despite this rather unattractive metaphor, it is a most attractive place. I spent the afternoon at the beach, and I am currently on my way to a bonfire.
Spending time here has made me understand the origins of American patriotism. Anyone arriving in this area, or one like it, would have no choice but to deem it the land of opportunity. It’s breathtaking. If you don’t believe me, take a look at these photos.

Massachusetts=weird

2008-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

Driving to Truro for the weekend, I am struck by how strange the names of towns in MA are. I just passed a sign for Mashpee and Sandwich. Whether Mashpee is a food or an action I cannot say.
Other strange names of towns in MA:
Belchertown
Athol
Braintree
Alewife
I think I will keep a running list of such strange names. Expect more posts on this in the future.

Biiiiig concrete thang

2008-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

I am on I-90E, on my way home from picking up my father at Yaddo and visiting a friend from the NHC Summer Institute. The trip there was uneventful, and I had an excellent time in Saratoga Springs. On the way back we encountered, in rapid succession, two trucks carrying gigantic concrete I-beams, probably for some sort if overpass construction. For some reason, they were traveling in the left lane, at about 50 MPH, slowing everyone down, especially because each of them was traveling in a convoy of two police cars and two maintenance vehicles. It reminded me of the scene in The Dark Night when they are transporting Dent to the prison in the police convoy. Except no one was firing a rocket launcher at the trucks. Considering the speed they were going at, it probably won’t be long, though.

Musical endeavours

2008-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

As part of my ongoing quest to listen to every song in my iTunes library, I have changed the way my iPhone syncs. It now contains only songs that I have not played. When I play a song, it is removed from the iPhone and replaced by a new song the next time I sync with iTunes. Theoretically, this will force me to listen to new music, potentially expanding the amount I know, and allowing me to free up space by deletig music I don’t like.
Since my sister and I share the same iTunes library, I have come up with a way for us to track which songs we both want to delete. I created two “Delete” playlists, one for each of us, and a smart playlist that shows only those songs that are on both lists. We can now both add music to our own playlist individually, and delete music that we know neither of us wants to keep.
I will probably write further posts about the status of my quest.

Jews and Mountains

2008-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

The institue is in full swing. As we speak, I am standing on top of Mt. Monadnock, having arisen at 4:30 for a (theoretical) 5:30 departure time. I have no cell service, so I’ll be publishing this when I return to campus. It is now 8:23; I arrived at the summit just before 8. I’m taking some photos of the view from here, which is incredible.

Packing

2008-08-11T00:00:00+00:00

I’m leaving for Institute sometime in the next hour or so. I’ve started packing, and I’m getting pumped! I will write another post once I get there. It’s about an hour and a half drive.

NHC Summer Institute

2008-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

Tomorrow I leave for the National Havurah Committee’s annual Summer Retreat in New Hampshire, a weeklong Jewish extravaganza. The NHC organizes many such events, but this is the biggest. Basically, a lot of really awesome people get together for a week and learn, talk, and debate about pretty much everything. I look forward to this event all year, and I’ll probably write a few posts over the next week about what’s happening there.

Yaddo Photos

2008-08-07T00:00:00+00:00

As promised, here are the photos taken at Yaddo. See the last post for details.

Yaddo 2008

2008-08-07T00:00:00+00:00

Yesterday I dropped my father off at Yaddo, an artist’s colony in Saratoga Springs, NY. In addition to being located on a beautiful green estate, the place has some pretty great history. It was originally a mansion owned by Spencer Trask in the late 19th century. He was one of Thomas Edison’s financial backers, so the mansion is pretty incredible in terms of furnishings. What’s really intriguing, however, is the Trask family’s history. Spencer and his wife Katrina had four children. At one point, Katrina had tuberculosis, and it was thought she would not survive. The children were brought in to see her on her death bed. Two of them caught TB and subsequently died. Katrina made a full recovery. Another of their children drowned in the pond, and the fourth perished in some other tragic manner, the nature of which I’m not quite certain. Katrina and Spencer were left childless, and on New Year’s Eve in 1909, Spencer was shaving with a straight razor on a train to New York, when the train was rear-ended by another train, causing him to cut his own throat with the razor. Katrina later suffered several heart attacks, but survived. She then had some sort of vision or premonition that she should turn the estate into an artists’ colony, which she did.
I took a bunch if photos while I was there, of the mansion, and of my father’s living/working space. Gallery to follow.

Photos: Village Harmony Teen Residential Session Concert, Ashfield MA

2008-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

Final touches

2008-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve just finished uploading the photo galleries for the Lego Car of Awesomeness, as well as migrating the blog posts over from the old system. This, I think, puts the final touches on the site. I’m also working on getting together a group of people to blog.

We're live!

2008-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

The transition to WordPress Mu is now complete. Finally, I can edit my website without having to be at my home computer. I’m still fine-tuning some things, so expect some strange things to happen every so often. Also, I haven’t yet put up the galleries for the Lego Car of Awesomeness yet. They should be up soon, along with the entries from the old blog and Plog.

Using the WordPress client for the iPhone, I am now able to blog from anywhere. This means that the blog page will get a lot more interesting very soon.

IPWNAGE!

2008-07-12T00:00:00+00:00

Well, I got the iPhone. I don’t know if I can describe the elation. Suffice it to say, it is everything I expected, and more. The more consists of a lightsaber program, and a virtual beer program. I will, however, enclose herein a copy of the log that myself, Will, and our friend Brianne took while camping out on Thursday night / Friday morning.

Here is “The Log”:
Reporting: Snakes, The Incredible Zulk, The Silent One.

TSO, 0015 hours, 140 Main Street 01060: So far, all is quiet on the Northampton front. There are three others here, origin and destination unknown. They do not appear hostile. Snakes and myself were here from 1800 hours onwards. MRE at 1815 hours. From then until approximately 2000 hours, we worked on Snakes’ and my websites, and other such activities. Reinforcements arrived at approximately 2000 hours. At the moment, the three of us have assumed our defensive positions, and are holed up for the wait. Further bulletins as the morning progresses. I’m handing the helm over to Snakes.

S, 00:26: Operative Garbus has return. We are considering gaming, but are probably going to remain conversing. I can hear the transformer in the light post behind my head. G has been talking of and interesting e-mailing experience with Professor ‘Li.

00:33 Eban has join our camp. His region of origin is Warwick. TIZ and G are making and expedition to 7/11: chocolate.

00:41 TSO here. The two foreign operatives have returned. We have learned from Eban (if that is indeed his name) that only the other male operative is purchasing an iPhone. We are attempting to analyze the frequency of the transformer hum formerly described by Snakes.

00:47 TSO. Eban has begun doing pushups. Approximately 20. The unknown male operative is speaking of his dislike for shingling roofs.

0100 TSO: We have determined the frequency to be 237 Hz. We determined this using PD.

0122 TSO: We are preparing to withstand the cold. Currently it is 288.71 K, and dropping. Reports indicate it may go down as far as 284.26 K.

0158 TSO: TIZ and I have returned from an expedition to 7-11 for bathroom purposes. We also obtained free Slurpees, as it is Free Slurpee Day, and purchased aluminum straws. We determined that music can be played by drumming on various metal objects in our immediate environment. The most memorable part of the expedition was when a drunk black man asked me what the “little hat” I was wearing was. I proceeded to explain the concept of humility before and respect of G-d. He seemed interested, if somewhat out of it. Taken in total, the operation was a success.

0221 TSO: We have narrowly escaped death or a severe dusting. Located as we were by the curb on Main Street, we were forced to rapidly relocate when the street sweeper drove through. Will was off urinating in a cracked-out alleyway, so we all had to pull extra weight to make up for his absence.

0314 TSO: An episode of the highest order of excitement has occurred. We stole Haymarket’s wireless bandwidth to download the newest version of iTunes, 7.7. The transfer ran sometimes as fast as 528 KB/sec, and incurred much exclamation.

0347 TIZ: Our crew is mindlessly idling on the street, having realized that the power on our computing device is running low. Several minutes ago, the gang completed a futile search for electric power. Unfortunately, we were not successful in our pursuit and now we suffer with the crippling boredom that comes with lack of internet capabilities and computing power. TSO has begun a chess match with new-found friend Eben. Will is approaching sleep. I sit here, wide awake, eating Nerds. Our conversations have reached a point of much inanity.

0517 TSO: A relatively uneventful several hours, punctuated by bathroom endeavors and encounters with the police. TOS and TIZ, when returning from a Dunkin Donuts bathroom run, were faced with the difficult task of carrying out a pleasant passing conversation with a narcotic dependent individual. This feat accomplished , they returned unscathed to Mission Control, where they then assisted in the transition to the storefront-sitting phase, lining the opposite of the storefront with chairs to establish a queue. Further updates on the status of this phase to follow.

0554 S: Breakfast was just had, location – Bruegger’s. TSO and I incorporated lox into our selections, while TIZ decided upon a simple raisin bagel. Our device of documentation is currently charging. The App Store looks preeminent. We all took advantage of facilities. The line is remaining mellow, but we will return soon.

0623 TSO: We have returned from Bruegger’s, after securing S’ camera, again encountering the unconscious narcotic-dependent populace. Photos will commence. After being interviewed by a reporter from MassLive (who will be receiving a copy of this log), S has reinstalled his polymer contact refractors, as the sun is becoming prevalent. We may attempt a time-lapse capture of the registration process at 0800, with TIZ supervising the photodigital capture equipment.

0713 TSO: Traffic and daily life is picking up here. I have just realized why today is free Slurpee day at 7-11. It is because today’s date is 7/11.

0746 TSO: I have finished the Large Mocha I purchased from Haymarket 12 hours ago. We are going to start making preparations for the registration procedure and photodocumentation. TIZ will be photodocumenting the registration process as S and I walk through it.

1018 S: It is severely challenging to think about anything not iPhone.

"Flip-flop"? Yea, say I.

2008-07-08T00:00:00+00:00

This makes the second election in a row where a nominee has been accused of being a “flip-flop”. Stepping outside of my personal political views, I think it makes sense to support someone whose opinions change. History (and common sense) show that when someone refuses to change their opinion in the face of overwhelming evidence, the consequences are dire. By accusing someone of being a “flip-flop” you are essentially saying “Your beliefs have changed over time, therefore they are not valid”, when we should really be commending them for changing what they think. It shows that they are open-minded, and willing to consider all options, rather than desirous of pursuing their own personal agenda at all costs. That’s the sort of person who should be leading our country. Vote 2008!

iPhone Pwnage

2008-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

Will Szal and I (of Lego Car of Awesomeness fame) will be purchasing iPhones on Friday morning when they are released. To this effect, we are camping out in front of the AT&T store on Thursday night to get in line. Lyle (also of the Awesomeness crew) may be joining us, although he’s not buying a phone himself. Will has a laptop, so I may try to figure out a way to blog while I’m there. Either way, it will be AWESOME.

Blog reorganization

2008-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve reorganized the blog so that the entries pertaining to the Lego Car of Awesomeness are now contained in a separate blog in that project’s page. This should make it easier to follow the progress of the car, and easier to ignore it if you don’t care.

Independence Day

2008-07-04T00:00:00+00:00

Here’s to the casting off of tyrants, whether foreign or domestic! Vote 2008!

Sex and the City

2008-06-03T00:00:00+00:00

Now I’m old enough to legally see the movie. Pretty unexciting. The problem with 17 is that there aren’t any new priveleges you gain except for being able to see R-rated movies. And I could already do that, because no one cares. But it’s exciting anyway. Happy birthday to me.

And then there were 4

2008-05-01T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve been idolizing Eddie Izzard and dreaming of seeing him for about five years. Considering how much I’d built up my expectations for the show last night, it would have been difficult for me to enjoy it. That being said, my expectations were wholly exceeded. Eddie Izzard is, and was last night, the funniest human being alive, as I said in my last post. Anyone who has a chance should see this latest “Stripped” tour. There are just enough references to other jokes to make it funny and engaging, but not so many that it seems like he’s recycling material. Overall, he was amazing.
The four best shows I’ve seen, in no particular order, are:
•Eddie Izzard
•James Brown
•They Might Be Giants
•Toots and the Maytals

Eddie Izzard

2008-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

Well, tomorrow I go to see Eddie Izzard in Boston. For the unenlightened among you, Eddie Izzard is a British transvestite stand-up comedian, possibly one of the funniest humans alive. This looks to be an epic night.

And then there were 3

2008-04-13T00:00:00+00:00

Toots and the Maytals has taken its rightful place among the best shows I’ve ever seen. There are now three, the other two being James Brown and They Might Be Giants. And the openers – Fear Nuttin’ Band – were amazing! They have an album coming out sometime soon I think, and I encourage all of you to buy it. Sort of a blend of hardcore, reggae, and rap; incredibly tight and very loud. Toots and the Maytals were somewhat more relaxed, as was the audience (which might have had something to do with how much more of the audience was high once Toots came on). Regardless, the show was incredible, and I didn’t get out until after midnight. A most enjoyable evening all around, and extremely memorable.

I feel obliged to mention…

2008-04-10T00:00:00+00:00

…that I’m going to see Toots and the Maytals tonight. I am PUMPED!

New site

2008-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

Hooray! It’s a new website! Designed with RapidWeaver (which is AWESOME), this site will be a lot easier to maintain and update, and hopefully easier for you to use. Still in progress, please let me know using the contact form if you’ve got comments.