A statistically improbable polymath's views on politics and culture.

 
I hadn't posted anything for a while (my only gateway to the Internet was a 486 and a 56K modem sharing a line with the phones), so I was feeling guilty. So when I found Will Baude's line about homosexuality I found it striking enough to share, and I realized that I knew some weird things about Dupont (like the fact that it's rather influential in Delaware politics). I'm actually not running a contest.

We now return you to really, really light blogging, probably through the rest of the holiday season.
posted by Maureen at 4:42 PM

 
"Homosexuality was not invented at Dupont in the 1970s."

NOTE: We know this is true because if homosexuality had been invented by Dupont, gay marriage would be legal in the state of Delaware. Since I haven't heard of any gay marriage ceremonies in Dover lately, I'm assuming it's not.
posted by Maureen at 4:29 PM

 
A few days ago I bought the November 2003 issue* of "The Believer", everyone's favorite published-but-not-edited-by-Dave Eggers literary journal (eight bucks: not cheap. At least I got the Seminary Co-op Discount). Anyways, there was a piece in there, "Camp Trans", by Michelle Tea, which explores the conflicts between an old-school lesbian music festival (the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival) and male-to-female transsexuals who were denied admission to the festival and eventually started a protest camp (the eponymous Camp Trans) across the road. Apparently the Michigan Festival wants to make itself as man-free a place as possible, and so has decided to ban anyone who has possessed a penis.

The piece was thoughtful, and really well-written. It reminded me of why I roll my eyes at some aspects of second-wave feminism--for instance, spelling "women" as "womyn" seems to me to be a piece of pure political foppery. Other random thoughts follow:

--Some of the festival-goers who oppose the admission of trans women (most don't, according to the article) seem to have a real fear of maleness--male voices, male bodies, whatever. Some justify this by claiming that women want a male-free time in their lives; I can accept this. But some of these women seem to believe that trans women still harbor the "taint" of maleness--even after outright rejecting masculine identity to the point of undergoing painful, expensive surgical procedures--as if an excess of testosterone were a poison that could never be completely eradicated.

--Um, wasn't one of the original points of feminism to make physical sex not that important? And, by having a fear of maleness, aren't you transcribing some kind of special power onto maleness that you, as a female, can't fight?

--Regarding the lesbians who are attracted to "trannyboys" (female-to-male transsexuals) but fear being labeled as "straight"--aren't there statistics to show that a) most people aren't absolutely straight or absolutely gay** and b) females are more likely than males to have non-absolute sexual preference? I know you want to proclaim your unconformity, but isn't pigeonholing yourself to a category so much more conformist than not?

And finally, fulfilling the promise of the post title...
--Lesbians rejecting trans women oddly parallels early 70's feminists disassociating themselves from lesbians, male chauvinism in the Civil Rights Movement and anti-Vietnam movement, latent appeals to anti-immigrant and racist sentiment during the Women's Suffrage movement, sexism and racism (yes, racism) in the abolition of slavery movement... have I missed anything here?
So we have a consistent pattern of group A's movement being the Big Civil Rights Movement. In group A, there exists subgroup B which is marginalized in the movement. After group A wins major victories, subgroup B splinters off, attracts new members, becomes group B and the Big Civil Rights Movement... lather, rinse, repeat.

So--to sum up--based upon my great command of history, my strangely intuitive knowledge of America's subconscious, the University of Chicago gender-neutral bathroom debate, and the fact that I just read Middlesex, I predict non-traditional gender will become the next Big Civil Rights Issue (at least on the Left).

At least, that's the thing I see next on the horizon. I could be wrong.


*I also recommend the article on "Smallville" and nineteenth-century Midwestern Christian communalism, the Tina Fey interview, and... I need to finish the magazine (80 pages of prose with a few drawings and no ads, and it's finals week. I'm still embarrassed.)
**Dave Eggers reference: In the front of A.H.W.O.S.G. he gives a nice little line graph that shows him as mostly, but not absolutely, straight.

posted by Maureen at 3:15 PM

 
Our friends downstate in Urbana-Champaign also, apparently, have a sizable squirrel population--check out Rana's Squirrel Project (unfortunately, it tends only to work on IE) in honor of our furry friends.
posted by Maureen at 11:36 PM

 
I'm afraid Will Baude is mistaken about Sherlock Holmes's death--none of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories mention Holmes's death (except for "The Final Problem", where Holmes "dies"--but in "The Adventure of the Empty House" he reveals that he faked his own death and bummed around Eurasia for three years before coming back to London.) Tradition--at least the tradition of The Game--holds that, as there has been no notice of the death of Sherlock Holmes, we must still regard Holmes as among the living until notified otherwise. And no, nevermind that he must be at least 142 years old by now (taking a later approximation of his birth, see King, 1995)--he's been beekeeping in Sussex for the past ninety years; he has access to royal jelly, and who knows what that stuff can do for you.

Works cited
King, L.R. "The Beekeeper's Apprentice; Or, on the Segregation of the Queen". New York: St. Martin's, 1995.
posted by Maureen at 12:15 AM

 
Howard Dean or Wesley Clark--unless George pulls out the nukes (Via HotAIR)
posted by Maureen at 2:19 AM

 
So (Professor) Daniel Drezner's blog links you to his brother Jay's blog, which links to their cousin Andrew's blog, which links to his mother's blog... which is currently bashing Wal-Mart.

I wonder how Professor Drezner, who has of late become the Chicago Weekly's go-to guy for pro-globalization sound bites, feels about Wal-Mart. Of course, since we don't have Wal-Mart anywhere around Hyde Park, it's kind of a moot point.
posted by Maureen at 1:50 AM

 
Andrew Sullivan tries to justify (again) his membership in the Republican Party by quoting Ward Connelly: "Please, please, please at this moment of national crisis on so many issues, let's not fracture our conservative/libertarian family over one issue."

I'm just curious--besides national defense, what exactly do Andrew Sullivan and, say, Trent Lott agree on anyway? I'm being quasi-serious here: Either comment below or e-mail me at (mcraig) [at] (uchicago) [dot] (edu).
posted by Maureen at 1:14 AM

 
Here I noted a CNN story about how special ed students were being factored into the test scores under No Child Left Behind. Now the Department of Education has caved in, admitting, in so many words, "Yeah, it's kind of retarded to try to make severely retarded seven-year-olds take the regular achievement tests." So they're giving severely disabled students alternative tests that would more accurately describe their improvement over time. It's going to affect about 1% of students*.

*CNN notes that this equals "about 10 percent of all special education students", but "special education" in this case probably includes kids with dyslexia, ADD, and the kids in remedial reading--or at least that's the only way I can figure that 10% of public schoolchildren are "differently abled". This may reflect an anti-testing bias on the part of CNN--a bias I don't agree with, because I want people to realize just how much worse the, say, Melrose Park, IL school system is compared to Evanston's.
posted by Maureen at 11:44 PM

 
Joan Jett Running in NY as Dean Delegate

This is just too damn cool for words.
posted by Maureen at 2:17 AM

 
This is even better than the Congressional Sleepover: Since Berlin city universities are getting funding cuts, the students are striking--and the physics professors of Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin (and from what I can tell by the initials after some of the lecturers, also some professors from the Technischen Universitat Berlin and the Freie Universitat Berlin) have joined in by giving what could be the longest physics lecture in history. (Here's the topics in the original German)

I think we can all agree that this is more fun, more useful, and less of a waste of taxpayer money, than Bill Frist pacing the Senate floor reciting the Declaration of Independence (Via Slashdot)
posted by Maureen at 1:40 AM

 
There are times when I wish I could take the speaker's head in my hands and bang it repeatedly against a hard surface:

"The Army says the discharged linguists were casualties of their own failure to meet a known policy. "We have standards," said Harvey Perritt, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va. "We have physical standards, academic standards. There's no difference between administering these standards and administering 'don't ask, don't tell.' The rules are the rules."

Does anyone know how to say, "WE'RE IN A FUCKING WAR HERE" in Arabic?
posted by Maureen at 7:12 PM

 
"Special Ed Students Skew Test Results.

Duh. If they could pass, or even complete, the regular test then they wouldn't be in special ed in the first place. And yet NCLB's requiring that they be factored into the school scores? Please.

posted by Maureen at 12:37 AM

 
And victories keep on rolling in...

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An American citizen detained as an enemy combatant for two years after being captured fighting alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan will be allowed access to an attorney, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

Giving a lawyer access to Yaser Hamdi, the Pentagon said, "will not compromise the national security of the United States.""


The tide has turned.
I hope.

posted by Maureen at 12:32 AM

 
Okay, now why haven't I been hearing more about this?

Continuing his criticism of rap, Spike Lee told an audience at Brown University that popular music portrays blacks in a negative light.

Speaking to an audience of more than 400 students Monday night, the director of films including "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X" repeated the complaints he's made at colleges and universities over the past year.

"I've always felt you can feel the progress of African Americans by listening to their music," Lee said. "Some of this 'gangsta rap' stuff, it's not doing anybody any good. This stuff is really dangerous."


--For several years we've been hearing both conservative and liberal commentators complaining about how the modern hip-hop bling-bling culture screws over urban youth. But these guys have all been oldish, not that hip, and frankly not powerful enough in youth-oriented media to make a difference in youth culture. Spike Lee, I think, can do something about it... perhaps the next Bamboozled could puncture the street pretensions of Jay-Z and P.Diddy?

But then, I'm probably not an authority on these matters. I don't even own any rap CDs.
posted by Maureen at 11:14 PM

 
The next hit reality series:

"CBS executives announced Monday that they have begun filming Antebellum Island, a new "alternate reality" series in which 12 strangers compete for $1 million while isolated on an island still under Confederate rule.

[...]

Executives were reluctant to reveal the themes for Antebellum's weekly competitions, but said contests might include skeet shooting, quilting bees, formal-dress cotillions, and working at a textile factory on the west side of the island for the entire show's duration with no chance at the $1 million prize."


Personally, I would love to see this project come to fruition. First of all (nitpicky history geek in me), it would instruct America that the Rebel Battle Jack is not the real Confederate flag. Secondly, it'd be a damn better show than "Dixie Stampede". And finally, it'd provide a nice reality check to all of that Confederate nostalgia that's been floating around the South since ~1866.

But a quick heads up to the boys in naming: "Antebellum" means "before the war". Why not just "Confederate Island"?
posted by Maureen at 9:59 PM

 
Woohoo!

But wait a minute. CNN's claiming that only Muslims were complaining about the registration requirements? Our campus chapter of the ACLU had a letter-writing campaign; I sat at a table in the Reynolds Club for an hour trying to get passerby to sign form letters to their senators protesting the law and its enforcement*. This wasn't a Muslim or Arab issue, this was an equality-before-the-law-during-wartime issue.

Oh, wait, there's a mention of the ACLU... two-thirds of the way down. As if we didn't really do anything.

*A sidenote: During a discussion with Geoffery Stone, an expert in civil liberties during wartime, writer of the Korematsu amicus brief, etc., one of us asked about Stone's feelings about registration of aliens in general. Professor Stone here mentioned that during WWII and the Cold War, all aliens in the country who weren't permanent residents had to periodically register with the government--you just went to the post office, kind of like how U.S. citizens get their passports. This seems to me to be a far more sensible solution; terrorists can come from anywhere. And by having all aliens register, it satisfies equality-before-the-law more than the Bush plan did.
posted by Maureen at 2:02 AM

 
Sorry about the hiatus. Regular blogging to resume... now.
posted by Maureen at 1:46 AM

 
And speaking of gender-neutral bathrooms...

One of the arguments that advocates for the gender-neutral bathrooms are using is that by entering a gendered public restroom, an intersexed person has to "declare" themselves male or female. I think that this is a valid point. But what about the flip side: By entering a gender-neutral bathroom, are you declaring yourself to be of non-conventional gender and sexuality?
posted by Maureen at 7:47 PM

 
Quick blogging from the Reg: I'm happy to report that the first floor restrooms have been remodeled, and they are beautiful--aesthetically, they rival the Classics (2nd floor) and Eckhart (2nd floor) restrooms, and the lighting's certainly better. (Although Classics and Eckhart still win points for the old-school wooden doors). Although there's one feature which Sara of Diotima will probably take issue with--when passing by the men's room, I noticed that they had a baby changing table installed. I did not see one yet installed in the women's room. I'm guessing that the crew ran out of time on the installations (there's a bar where I'm guessing the table'll be mounted in the women's room), and decided to put political correctness over probability. I'm amused, although it should be noted that I'm not affected by this decision and thus may enjoy an indulgent chuckle at the University's expense. Of course, when the gender-neutral bathroom is installed at the Reg, that problem will be solved. Or will it?
posted by Maureen at 5:56 PM

 
I'm not really sure this is the best system...

Apparently Chicago now has a blogmap that corresponds to the various El and Metra lines running around the city and environs. Which is great; Chicago needs a blogmap. Except... the thing is that when you live in Chicago, you don't identify yourself by train stop the way that, say, New Yorkers do. You identify yourself by your neighborhood (maps vary; there's a bitching poster that details 220 neighborhoods, but they won't allow closer views on the website. This one looks pretty accurate, except I'd label Grand Avenue and/or Douglas as Bronzeville, at least in parentheses, and I can't seem to find Andersonville.)

Right, back to what I was saying: Chicago blogging needs to be mapped out by neighborhood, not by train stop. An example: the U of C fiefdom campus is large enough such that it's possible to be closest to three different train stops--55th/56th/57th and 59th on the Metra Electric Line, and (if you live in Burton-Judson Courts) 63rd and Cottage Grove on the Green Line. But we can pretty much agree that most, if not all, of the U of C blogs can be labeled as headquartered in Hyde Park.*


*Yes, I know that everything south of the Midway is technically in Woodlawn, but it's all University-controlled. Kind of like how the Aquitaine was technically in France, but ruled by Henry/Eleanor/Richard, who all also happened to be King, Queen, and Prince of England.
posted by Maureen at 10:18 PM

 
Clergy Group to Counter Conservatives

This is officially cool. And it's about damn time, too.
posted by Maureen at 11:20 PM

 
When I first posted about David Auburn's previous career as a writer of Jane Austen-inspired erotica, I worried for a bit on how it would affect the public's perception of the University, as well, of course, as Auburn's chances of winning an Oscar. However, I needn't have worried. There's a long tradition of Chicago graduates writing the occasional salacious piece--from Nobel Laureate Saul Bellow to America's favorite priest/sociologist/romance novelist (Fr.) Andrew M. Greeley; even Christie Hefner, regent of the Playboy empire, matriculated here. Besides, it looks like Northwestern's beating us in the sex scandal department. (Via The Morning News)
posted by Maureen at 10:47 PM

 
Life imitates The Onion, continued:
Senate holds sleepover all-nighter all-night debate session

I'm not sure I approve of 60 year old men engaging in this sort of behavior. I mean, I have a hard enough time staying up late, and at least I know that I won't get a heart attack from the massive amounts of coffee, diet soda, and Red Bull I consume. But do we really want to see Robert Byrd on three Starbucks Doubleshots?

(Yes, I know that most of them won't really be staying up all night; they're staying on the floor in shifts. )



posted by Maureen at 1:33 AM

 
IN THE Chicago Tribune TODAY: First, the good news:

Dioceses Expected to Answer Abuse Survey
"William Burleigh, a member of the review board, told the bishops that the panel has worked to maintain its independence from the bishops as it oversaw the reviews.

"In adopting this posture, we hope we are not seen by you as hostile or untrustworthy. Nothing could be further from the truth," said Burleigh, board chairman and former chief executive officer of E.W. Scripps Co. "As a board we are united by our love for the church and a burning desire to see her wounds healed."

And now for something less heartening:

Catholic bishops tackle politicians: Sanctions for lawmakers are studied
"Bishop John H. Ricard, of the Pensacola-Tallahassee diocese in Florida, asked prelates Monday at their semiannual meeting to help draw guidelines by which the church could sanction Catholic lawmakers who defy church teaching on issues such as abortion, the death penalty, war, welfare and immigration."

Cue "shootout at the O.K. Corral" music.

And I watch, and record, and wait, feeling like it's 1515 all over again.


posted by Maureen at 9:28 PM

 
Extra! Extra! Tony-winning playwright and U of C graduate revealed as writer of dirty Jane Austen parody!

After clicking through what Austentatious promised would be exerpts from the Jane Austen parody Pride and Promiscuity* (link via CS), I couldn't find anything--so like any good twenty-first century cheapskate, I Googled the title to see if there were exerpts lying around in the cache. (It's a great way of trying to find old NYTimes articles). After clicking through a few sites, one of which mentioned that one of the authors was actually "a prizewinning playwright in New York City whose identity I guessed at once, but promised not to reveal", I found an amazon.co.uk listing that listed one David Auburn as one of the writers. Hmm, that name sounded familiar. Could it be...

Yes. David Auburn, writer of the play/upcoming feature film "Proof". University of Chicago alumnus. His name's on the UK edition, but he's listed as "Dennis Ashton" on the US edition.

I wonder if Gwyneth knew about this...


*I'm trying to see how much damage has been done to the Canon. Really.
posted by Maureen at 9:20 PM

 
The most awaited literary tally in North America has arrived: Crescat Sententia's 100 Novels I haven't commented on the Guardian's "Big 100" list, because... well, because it was one of those very standard books-you-should-read-to-be-considered-educated-goddammit lists. Very little on it was in any way surprising; all of the Big Dead European Novelists were covered once, as well as all of the Granddaddies of Modern Literature. But the CS list... this is not a list for Allan Bloom. It's rather like what I would have expected Allan Bloom's undergraduate students to have replied in an anonymous poll. It's very Chicago--Crime and Punishment, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Umberto Eco... the only books it's missing are Contact and maybe a 20th century dystopia or two.

But Harry Potter as No. 3? Everyone knows that the "His Dark Materials" series by Phillip Pullman is far superior. And why is the "Dirk Gently" series ranked higher than the Hitchhiker's Trilogy? And while I applaud the decision to put The Moon as a Harsh Mistress higher than The Fountainhead on the list, thus establishing Heinlein's work as the far superior libertarian-themed novel, why did The Fountainhead have to appear at all? The relationship between Roark and Dominique is creepily fascinating, and it's certainly an important work in terms of its political philosophy, but it's not great literature and it isn't even good propaganda--whereas The Moon is a Harsh Mistress made me sympathetic to ideas about minimalist government by showing libertarianism with a human face*, The Fountainhead's "individualist" hero is an emotional cripple. Do you really want to live in a neighborhood composed of these guys?

*Doesn't mean I want to get rid of 95% of the government, though. I'm not sure our nation as a whole has enough of the "frontier spirit" that seems required. Maybe once our hole-filled public education system is fixed... wait, straying off topic.
posted by Maureen at 12:12 AM

 
Andrew Sullivan's been collecting horror stories about moderate-seeming Muslims living in America who suddenly reveal themselves to be anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists. He's content to just point out the anti-Semitism, but I'd like to go a step further:

In history class today we were discussing Thucydides's assumption of the constancy of self-interest as the main facet of human nature and the main impetus for action; this led to whether historians must assume an unchanging human nature, whether human nature really does change or not, and (yes, I do have a point) how assumptions that self-interest is the prime motivating factor for most actions are critical during wartime. That is, if you keep bombing the hell out of a city, you expect it to eventually surrender. Somehow my mind wandered off to wondering about the present world conflicts, and then my thoughts strayed to the Sullivan bloglet I mentioned earlier. Wait a minute... there's a connection...

What if these "Jewish hegemony" conspiracy theories are based, in part, on what some in the Arab world think that they could do if they had the power that individual Jews seem to have? In the past century there's been a rising sense of Arab nationalism and pan-Islamicism--an idea that's based upon "tribal" identity of a sort. Thus some who have a tribal, instead of an individualist mindset (and thus feels that tribal self-interest trumps individual self-interest) may believe that their aggressor has the same sort of tribal worldview. So maybe some Arabs/Muslims/Iraqis/whatever secretly believe that if the Arabs/Muslims/Iraqis/whatever had the relative wealth/influence per capita of the aggregate Jewish community, they themselves would be secretly trying to take over the world. But--and here's the kicker--American Jews don't have a significantly greater "tribal feeling" then, say, the American Irish. They're too busy pursuing individual dreams. But I'm not sure that the anti-Semites realize that.

BTW, if there really were a Jewish conspiracy to control the world, how come George W. Bush got to be president? You'd think the world Jewish conspiracy would have wanted to have a Jewish vice-president--unless it turns out that the conspiracy is fractitious, ineffectual, or both. But why should anyone pay attention to a toothless conspiracy?
posted by Maureen at 8:42 PM

 
You know, I don't ordinarily condone vigilantism, but in this case, good for them:

Girls pummel man who exposed himself
A man described by authorities as a known sexual predator was chased through the streets of South Philadelphia by an angry crowd of Catholic high school girls, who kicked and punched him after he was tackled by neighbors, police said Friday.

Rudy Susanto, 25, who had exposed himself to teen-age girls on as many as seven occasions outside St. Maria Goretti School, struck again on Thursday just as students were being dismissed, police said.

But this time, a group of girls in school uniforms angrily confronted Susanto with help from some neighbors, police said.

--Somehow I don't think this generation of Catholic schoolchildren will be as meek as their predecessors in many, many ways. Mark that.
posted by Maureen at 6:50 PM

 
The U of C's best-known student blogger, Will Baude of Crescat Sententia, has a new article in the Chicago Maroon. Okay, it's only sort of new, because it's this post from a couple of weeks ago with a few additions but without the fun hyperlinks. But two comments come to mind when reading the print version: Is "After the Teacups" going to be the general heading for all Baude columns in the Maroon? And what the hell does it mean? Oh yeah, and the print quality on the "author photo" sucks, especially when you contrast it to the subtle shading of Joshua Steinman's photo on the facing page.

posted by Maureen at 8:54 PM

 
IT"S HERE:The ultimate headgear for the Republican hipster. Now if they only had a foam-cap version...

UPDATE: Turns out the link doesn't work. Okay then... click here, then go to the "Hats" section, and look for the mock John Deere cap
posted by Maureen at 6:00 PM

 
For class I had to read an essay on the Hippocratic Oath by George W. Bush's go-to guy on bioethics, the staunchly anti-stem-cell-research and (formerly?) anti-in-vitro-fertilization Leon M. Kass, M.D. There's a provision in the original Hippocratic Oath where doctors swear that they will never induce abortion, and Professor* Kass was discussing this portion, noting that abortion could be considered incompatable with the medical mission to preserve life. Then out of nowhere he delves into this bizarre little parenthetical that I'm going to recount in full:

"I shall refrain from considering whether proper medical ministering to female humanity is finally compatible with assisting women in abortion, for reasons having to do not with fetal life but with the meaning of womanhood. The question, admittedly complex, is whether in opting for abortion a woman is doing harm or injustice to herself as a woman [i.e., by contradicting her generative nature] however much it may serve her wishes as a [gender-free] human being."

Okay then. I don't think this was his intent, but upon reading this I felt reduced to my child-bearing parts. Somehow this seems to contradict his indignation at modern medicine's view of human beings as mere bodies. Just a thought.

*Yep, he's yet another UofC "public intellectual". I wonder if Amanda at CS can persuade her boss to license the term for a companion T-shirt to the now-needs-to-be-changed Nobel Laureates shirt. Just wondering.
posted by Maureen at 10:43 PM

 
An Act of God or Mere Coincidence? It appears that the actor playing Christ in Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ (formerly known as Passion) was struck by lightning today. But the weird part is that the assistant director's been struck twice--once today, once a few months ago.

So. Is this a sign that God doesn't approve of this movie, or does this kind of thing happen on a lot of movie sets and it's just getting press here because the movie's so controversial?
posted by Maureen at 9:57 PM

 
Is it just me, or is Matt Yglesias becoming just a teeny bit obsessive in his anti-Vaticanism? I mean, that comment could not have been more provocative--my grandmother regards Mother Teresa as a saint. I think it's cool that he linked to the article and all that, but does he really have to become another Barbara Kingsolver?
posted by Maureen at 1:37 AM

 
My one note on the California recall-can't we have recalls of school boards that do demonstratively shitty jobs of providing for the education of their pupils? Just a thought.
posted by Maureen at 7:25 PM

 
Which is the bigger sin:
1. To let a person die when you could have prevented it
2. To use a condom when having sexual intercourse

Apparently the Vatican thinks it's number 2. Either that, or they hired some really bad scientists. I hope it's the latter--Church government hasn't had the best scientific record of the past 500 years.

Still waiting for Vatican III, but Reformation II isn't looking too bad either.
posted by Maureen at 10:52 PM

 
Walked by Gwyneth on my way to physics today, watched Gwyneth and Jake (Gyllenthal) shoot a scene at Rockefeller, and saw U of C President Don Michael Randel taking a tour of the Committee on Microbiology (I clerk there). And it's not even 5:00 pm. Unfortunately, I have not seen Sir Anthony Hopkins--or maybe I just didn't recognize him.
posted by Maureen at 4:39 PM

 
Proof Update: This is public knowledge at the U of C, but it may not have filtered down to the Internet yet: For a funeral scene (held at Rockefeller Memorial, natch) the producers want extras to wear "somber" clothing, but not black. My guess--they want Gwyneth to be the only one in black, as a symbol of her deep mourning. Also--among other mathematics professors and students, Mathematics Department Undergraduate head Paul Sally will make an appearance in the film. You'll be able to spot him right away--he has an eye patch and an artificial leg. Really.

More choreographed "random walking" shots today in front of Harper that onlookers were shooed away from. On an unrelated note, as they were filming, the 2003 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics (he's with Argonne National Laboratory, does that count as a U of C affiliation?) was holding his press conference in the Reynolds Club. Yes, even at Chicago, Gwyneth Paltrow outranks Nobel Laureates. At least to a certain extent among the undergrad population.

UPDATE: According to Will Baude of Crescat Sententia, Alexei Abrikosov did teach here in 1996--that's enough for bragging rights. 76 Nobel Prize Winners--eat it, Harvard.
posted by Maureen at 10:03 PM

 
Live from the set of Proof---okay, not really "live", and not exactly from the set either. Rather, I'm at the Harper Library, recalling what I saw around noon today: a rehearsal for the extras. The extras, students and professors playing students and professors, were all choreographed to follow these random-seeming-yet-precise patterns in the background of... Gwyneth Paltrow's body double.

So I watched them go through the scene twice when Gwyneth came in, passing right by the students watching the filming. She was wearing this massive black quilted coat, even though it was about 60 degrees. She sat down in her chair near the crew and chatted with her assistants... and yes, her hair is straight and blond in this movie. When actual filming was slated to begin, all of us onlookers were chased off the set. Anyways, there was still a lot to see--the row of trailers along University Avenue (none of them labeled), the craft services (hamburgers, probably for the crew), etc.
posted by Maureen at 5:01 PM

 
Yeah, I haven't been blogging much lately... sorry about that; I've been kinda busy, y'know, with, like, real life and stuff--specifically, the start of the academic year. Congratulations to Crescat Sententia for their new site, Chicago's 75th Nobel Laureate, John M. Coetzee, and TAPped's decision to attributed posts. And I am pleased to note that the University of Chicago squirrels are in excellent health.
posted by Maureen at 12:02 AM

 
On a lighter note, why am I interested at all in Fashion Week Spring 2004? I'll never wear the actual clothing spotlighted, and it's very likely that I won't even buy anything merely inspired by these clothes. It all looks like the Spring 2003 Fashion Week stuff, which all looked like... Okay, maybe not. But has the "uniform" of Americans between the ages of 14 and 25 changed to any great degree during the past three years? And what can we do now? Waistlines can't get any lower, shirt/skirt/short hems can't go higher, Fashion has tried every print and fabric known to man in order to tempt us to buy... and nothing looks NEW anymore.

Maybe a sartorial revolution's imminent. Maybe, when the designers have sucked every variation dry on every wardrobe theme they can think of, that's when someone bursts onto the scene, bearing something that had never been conceptualized before--and everyone, starved for variety, buys it. Or maybe we're looking in the wrong place--could men's fashion be where the revolution's taking place? Don't laugh--it wasn't until the mid-19th century that the suit as we know it today was solidified. During the middle period of Louis XIV's reign men's breeches were as lacy as, if not lacier than, women's skirts.
posted by Maureen at 5:29 PM

 
Two years ago, America was brutally attacked at both military and civilian targets. Three thousand people were murdered--by collision, burning, implosion, or falling down one hundred stories to meet certain death as quickly as possible--for the sin of living in America and working at symbolic, supposedly imperialist places. Your race, religion, sex, age, citizenship, thoughts on American foreign policy--the men (for they were, like Gollum in Lord of the Rings, not so different from us once but now horribly changed) who did this didn't care about these; even the most devout Muslim working at 1 World Trade Center was the infidel to them.

So, as any nation with a sense of self-preservation would do, we attacked their main base of operation, sent their fellow murderers-in-waiting into the hills, and installed a new government in the capital. But then--what happened? Why did George Bush drop the ball on Afghanistan? The remnants of the Taliban are still running the rural parts; Al-Qaeda is still on the loose, and our main haul in the "War on Terror" so far has been brother thugocrats from a regime with no clear connection to Al-Qaeda. There is a government with Al-Qaeda ties, but we're addicted to their sweet, sweet oil (because while we're ready to give up judicial oversight over terror-related searches, we CANNOT be expected to give up our precious SUV's!)

I want the head of Osama bin Laden--preferably alive, so he can be publicly disgraced instead of martyred. I want vengeance--not distraction. I want results, and I'm not getting them.
posted by Maureen at 1:06 PM

 
I'm surprised that Yale students are angry about having to eat out with meal vouchers because of the campus worker strikes--I mean, yeah, they allegedly have the best cafeteria food in the country, but who doesn't relish the thought of eating out for free?
posted by Maureen at 9:22 PM

 
Matthew Yglesias has been assimilated into the nameless bloggers' pool known as TAPped. There are several possible avenues for protest:

1. Boycott TAPped until they attribute posts;
2. A massive e-mail campaign (tapped at prospect dot org; Will Baude has a nice form letter that you can alter to your heart's content);
3. Replace the "Fair and Balanced" on the template with "TAPped Attribution Now!", "Free Matt Yglesias!", or a similar sentiment;
4. For those of us who don't want to boycott TAPped, the find-the-Matt-post game. For instance, I think that "Curiouser and Curiouser" is a MY post; but "Not Too Late to Fail" probably isn't (unless it were edited to camouflage writing style). Google domain searches can be an asset in this quest; unusual turns of phrases can be searched for on MY.com. [joke]I wonder if Don Foster, the man who helped identify the Unabomber and proved that Shakespeare did write an unattributed funeral elegy, would be willing to help.[/joke]
posted by Maureen at 11:53 AM

 
Yesterday, I was at Wal-Mart, silently condemning the administration's cozy relationship with Saudi Arabia and Americans' reluctance to forego consumer goods as a form of protest; I was thinking of the millions of diamond engagement rings bought in America during South African apartheid. Then I suddenly realized my hypocrisy--I was doing this in a Wal-Mart, a store which I know very well has rabidly anti-union policies, discriminates against women and minorities, and generally screws over its employees. "But what can I do?" I asked myself. "I haven't heard of any boycotts against Wal-Mart." So I decided to blog on the supposed lack of Wal-Mart boycotts, but I took a quick look on Google to see if there were any such boycotts in place. Turns out there are organized Wal-Mart boycotts around the country, and even better:

www.walmartdayofaction.com

On November 21st, union workers, civil rights advocates, and other assorted folk will assemble at Wal-Marts across the country and protest. I don't think that I'll be near a Wal-Mart then--Chicago has stayed Wal-Mart free so far--but I've decided to start my protest early, and I'd like all of you to join me: I'm boycotting Wal-Mart in earnest and I'm switching to Target. Apparently the only people boycotting Target are veterans' groups because Target wouldn't give money to veterans' causes--compared to every other corporation in America, that seems pretty tame.
posted by Maureen at 8:01 PM

 
WOW. Via Crescat Sententia, Eugene Volokh has one of the best arguments for tolerance of homosexuality that I've seen in a long time:

Say that a few Hindus are hired as teachers in a public school district; and that some people start to complain. Hindus, they point out, routinely and unabashedly violate three of the Ten Commandments (they worship other Gods, they create images of their Gods, and they don't observe the Sabbath). What's more, the Hindus would therefore be bad role models for children: Some kids, seeing the teachers' example, might be drawn towards Hinduism; and other kids, seeing some nearby authority figures who aren't Christian, might have their belief in Christianity undermined -- and of course the results of that would be truly dire, since they would jeopardize the children's salvation. Therefore, the people argue, the school must refuse to hire Hindu schoolteachers. My guess is that such an argument would be pretty broadly condemned, even by many conservatives and Christians[....] So my question, as many of you might well have guessed, is: Why shouldn't devout conservative Christians apply the same principles to homosexuals that many of them would to Hindus?

You have to read the whole thing.
posted by Maureen at 12:31 PM

 
As I look at the blog to see if there are any comments out there (long, empty echo chamber) I notice the two Google-supplied ads at the top. One is for Hispanic telemarketing lists. Er, wasn't I criticizing those?
posted by Maureen at 10:20 PM

 
The U.S. News and World Report college rankings are in, and instead of linking to them, I decided to write a small haiku encapsulating my, and indeed the entire University of Chicago community's, reaction:

Northwestern beat us
We are not in the top ten
--But we outrank Brown!
posted by Maureen at 11:39 PM

 
Prompted by Tacitus and Matthew Yglesias's complaints about receiving telemarketing calls in Spanish, I realized that the current cultural view of Latinos is hopelessly flawed. When I say "Latino", who pops into your head? Probably not Martin Sheen or even Emilio Estevez, but Ricky Martin/taquerias in Spanish Harlem or Cicero (depending on city affiliation)/billingual education/migrant workers/Telemundo. You probably don't think about the large numbers of suburban middle-class Latinos in the American Southwest whose families have lived here since before the Mexican-American war, nor Sammy Sosa (Dominican Republic), nor Brazilian jetsetters, nor Cameron Diaz. Nope, your base conception of Latino culture is shaped by urban Chicano/recent Mexican immigrant culture, neighborhoods where everything is in Spanish and you feel alienated by them and they feel alienated by you. Thus you classify them as a Fanonian/Sartrian "Other", and not much in the culture contradicts you. And since our main cultural impression of Latino culture comes from these barrios....

posted by Maureen at 1:32 PM

 
WE'RE NUMBER ONE! Click here for details.
posted by Maureen at 1:58 PM

 
Another out-there suggestion from the deep recesses of my brain: Most classical liberal political theory postulates that government is the result of a social contract between the governing and the governed. Hence, those who are not full members of this social contract, such as minors (denied full membership due to lack of suffrage), do not have all of the rights and responsibilities of a full member. So how do we justify trying minors as adults for certain crimes? Because they are not able to vote or emigrate, they cannot approve (either actively or tacitly) the social contract. They are given a jury, but this jury is explicitly not one of their peers--it is a jury of members of the social contract trying someone who is barred from participating in the social contract. That's got to be contrary to the spirit, if not the letter, of the Bill of Rights.* Now, I realize that to put a 16-year-old murderer/rapist behind bars for only five years is not adequate punishment or protection for the community at large. However, there are two ways in which the court system may be refined so as to more adequately give juvenile offenders a more just place in the social contract:
1. In all criminal cases involving a minor, at least one quarter of the jury must be made up of minors (of the same age or older than the defendant).
2. (The more controversial option) Whenever a minor is charged as an adult, the voting age in the state where the minor is tried will be automatically lowered to the age at which the prosecution claims the minor committed the crime. Of course, this option would sort of include option #1, as the voter ranks (from which juries are chosen) would now include "minors". (Of course, this option would never pass a state or federal legislature, because I have a feeling that many legislators are afraid of reprisals from the younger generation.)

*I would suggest that this idea be tested by an appeal, à la Gideon v. Wainwright, to the Supreme Court
posted by Maureen at 1:03 PM

 
Via Will Baude of Crescat Sententia: Francis Boyle, the University of Illinois law professor most noted for claiming that St. Patrick's Day pub crawls are anti-Catholic and anti-Irish, has just condemned his alma mater, the University of Chicago, as a "moral cesspool" for producing John Ashcroft, the Federalist Society, and Straussian neo-conservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz--in short, half of GWB's war advisory circle. Would Dr. Boyle like to include John Mearsheimer, Cass Sunstein, Martha Nussbaum, Andrew Greeley, George Chauncey, and every other non-neo-conservative faculty member as part of the cesspool?
posted by Maureen at 8:34 PM

 
You've probably noticed that from time to time I have tried to create various "middle paths" between libertarian and liberal ideas on the marketplace, public schools, the tax structure, etc. Just a few minutes ago I came up with an idea that will probably never work, but then, they thought the same thing about

Short description: The Opt-In Welfare State

Long description: You work for the government (federal/state/local) for four years and get all of the benefits of the welfare state (federal health insurance, Medicare, Social Security, unemployment, subsidies,etc.) for the rest of your life, as well as free college education. If you choose not to work for the government for four years, you can either pay a slightly higher tax rate to receive the welfare-state benefits or you can go libertarian, pay the "mininum" tax (which covers stuff everyone shares, like roads, the military, public works, and public education) and forego the welfare state. There can also be "hedge the bet" options where you work for only two years and get half-benefits.

So how did I come up with this model? Simple--it's based upon current practices. We're currently bribing 17, 18 year olds to risk their lives for the next few years in exchange for paying for college and all those sweet veteran's benefits. For idealistic college graduates, the non-governmental Teach for America promises the forgiveness of college loans in exchange for teaching in a low-performing school for a few years. A friend of mine once told me that the Department of Energy will pay for graduate studies in the sciences in exchange for working for them one year. So currently the federal government is funding the college educations of military recruits (who tend to be less well-off) and grad students (whose family backgrounds are typically from the higher half of the socio-economic map).

But if people are given the option of leaving the welfare state, does this mean that all of the money will drain from the pool? And does this put an unfair burden on the poor? Please comment: Tell me if you would opt in to this program, your current economic status, and the economic status you think you'll have twenty years from now.

For example: Me: Would opt in at least partially, on beaucoup de financial aid, fairly secure and comfortable
posted by Maureen at 1:07 PM

 
WOW. Sullivan's contemplating both leaving the Catholic Church and voting for Howard Dean. More later.
posted by Maureen at 2:48 PM

 
I read two reviews of the new "Sisters of Magdalene" movie (in Salon and NYTimes) today; the movie's about the Irish Church's virtual enslavement of sexually suspect girls during the mid-to-late twentieth century. And it made me more ashamed to have given money to the Catholic Church, if more shame is even possible after my former bishop was found to be a child molester, recent stories about the Vatican's inaction during the Holocaust... yeah, yeah, you know the rest.

And the Vatican still thinks it has any moral authority? A few days ago the Congregation for the Defense of the Faith released its plea to Catholic politicians to vote against recognition of same-sex marriages. I don't see anything immoral in a loving same-sex relationship, but I understand that many people do. Okay. But I think that even those who view homosexual conduct as sinful would agree that rape, enslavement, or letting people be murdered when you're in a position to stop it are all far worse.
posted by Maureen at 12:31 PM

 
I'm pleased to report that the new Todd Oldham home collection at Target is actually, well, cute. He's focused less on circa-1950s "team spirit" and more on 1950s-60s swank, and the colors actually somewhat coordinate. (I'm not big on the navy/plum/lime main scheme, but it's better than orange/red/baby blue/navy.) This has me wonder: Is this new collection actually the product of Minneapolis (home of Target)-based blogger/ Target addict James Lileks? The light-up 'lounge' sign feels like it could have been lifted from the Institute, but on second thought, there are too many similarities to last year's Todd Oldham Dorm Room collection. Maybe Target HQ just told Oldham "for the love of God, could you please make this year's color scheme palatable to the non-color-blind? If this collection tanks, you're outta here."
posted by Maureen at 3:13 PM

 
This is absolutely meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but why doesn't Arnold Schwartzenegger dub his own lines in German? I was watching one of those celebrity-access shows today and saw a clip of "Terminator Drei" in which Arnold was not saying his own lines. What gives?
posted by Maureen at 12:34 PM

 
An open letter to theocrats, the mullahs ruling Iran, etc:

Dear Theocrats,
In the past few days the Blogosphere has concentrated on your opponents, the pro-democracy protestors in Iran. Now, since you mullahs have been sending your money out of the country, you know the end is near. For the moment I'm going to assume the best about your intentions--that you have ruled Iran the way you have in order to stop immorality, not as a show of personal power. So you all must be pretty panicked right about now, worrying that in a few years Teheran will be one massive orgy. I'm here to tell you one thing: It's not going to happen.

Oh, sure, once the restrictions are lifted, there'll be a few years of relative debauchery. But in a few years, people will long for stability again--and they will become moral from the inside out. Outward shows of piety will actually mean devotion to religion and not just conformity to the expectations of a regime. Individuals will have to make their own moral choices--and in the process become morally stronger.

Think about a corset. When worn, it supports the back and stomach muscles. Yet if a corset is worn too long, the back and stomach muscles atrophy, and the corset is needed just to keep the spine erect. Would it not be better for the condition of the back and stomach muscles to exercise these muscles and forego the corset? The effect will perhaps not be as dramatic, but it will be truer and have more meaning. When Iran's governmental corset is removed, many will admit openly that your reign alienated them from Islam. Many naturally pious people will complain that their piety was aped by everyone in the struggle for survival.

Or it could be that you're just in it for the power. I can understand that--everyone is aroused, titillated, piqued, fascinated by... power. Grrrr.

Sincerely,
A Democrat
posted by Maureen at 5:14 PM

 
Shoutout to Iranian reformist protestors! You may not know it yet, but you're winning--I'm willing to bet hard cash that the theocracy is broken, or at least reined in, within the next ten years. Maybe there'll still be religious influence on government, but I don't think that ten years from now any religious council will have unchecked powers.
posted by Maureen at 1:21 AM

 
When sitting around the house last night it occured to me that one of the reasons why school funding is racked with economic inequity is due to a simple competition problem. In wealthier school districts, parents have more money, ergo more choice about where to send their kids to school, ergo the public schools must be competitive with private schools in order to keep receiving federal funds. In poorer districts, parents can't afford to send their kids to private schools, and so the school district doesn't have the pressure to spend a lot of money on the schools. In this context, the idea of school vouchers makes sense. However, since school vouchers open up a lot of church/state issues, I'd argue that there's an easier way to deal with the issue of education inequity:

Stop funding the schools through property taxes. Anything that's funded through property taxes will give the most resources to people who need them the least. I don't know how schools should be funded--personally, I think that federal funding is preferable, but some people go into fits: oh my God, the Feds are going to force us to read Heather has Two Mommies to first-graders!. Not going to happen. Contrary to popular opinion, UC-Berkeley does not run the Department of Education. (All of those DOE-affiliations that Berkeley has are Department of Energy.) The most controversial thing I can think of that a national curriculum would do is to force high school biology classes to discuss the scientific evidence favoring Darwinian theory* of evolution.

Wait a second... the most controversial and revolutionary thing a national curriculum could do is to incite critical thinking. On the one hand, if children are taught to think critically, politicians and corporate executives will actually have to be honest. On the other hand, if children aren't taught to think critically, our civilization will decline.

*The scientific usage of the word "theory" does not mean "one of many possible explanations", it means "the most likely explanation", usually with a likelihood of at least 50%. It should be noted that Darwinian theory does not exclude the possibility of a supernatural being endowing the human species with free will and that breed of consciousness we call a soul. And we still haven't figured out how the first living cell came into being.
posted by Maureen at 11:38 AM

 
As outgoing Privacy Chair of the American Civil Liberties Union of the University of Chicago, it is my duty and my privilege to issue the following statement regarding today's decision on Laurence v. Texas:

YES!

Please note the mention of the "Professors of History" amicus brief; it was co-written by the brilliant George Chauncey, author of Gay New York and professor at the University of Chicago. I had the great fortune of attending a lecture by him on the history of sodomy laws a few months ago; similar comments are made by Justice Kennedy in the aforementioned ruling.
posted by Maureen at 6:23 PM

 
It is time to use my loyal readership to good use. If anyone knows of an employment opportunity in Knoxville, TN, please post it in the Comments to this entry. Thank you.
posted by Maureen at 11:12 AM

 
It's occured to me several times that James Lileks could only be called a conservative in Minnesota (or Vermont, Illinois, Michigan...). Let's look at his positions on several issues:
1. He has made fun of Rick Santorum and has indicated support for the decriminalization of sodomy
2. He's noted that he's become uncomfortable with the death penalty in many cases.

A similar thing occurs with Andrew Sullivan:
1. He's gay
2. He's grudgingly pro-RU-486 and describes himself somewhere between "pro-life" and "pro-choice"

Sure, these men are both "conservative" when it comes to the military and fiscal issues. But if either of these men moved to East Tennessee, I'd bet that they'd look at the Republican candidates for ninety percent of the offices and shudder.
posted by Maureen at 1:24 PM

 
Thanks to Volokh I've learned that Tony Blair is considering two moves:
1. Dissolving various links between the Church of England and the British Crown--e.g., the monarch would not have to be an Anglican or even a Christian
2. Abolishing the position of Lord Chancellor

Wonder if Tony Blair's been watching Becket and A Man for All Seasons lately, hmm?
posted by Maureen at 9:59 PM

 
Nothing that original or exciting right now, I'm afraid; I've been trying to finish my Soc paper for the last few days and study for my math final. But after 5:00 pm tomorrow... I'm FREE!
posted by Maureen at 11:41 PM

 
DAMMIT! I had tried to post this morning and f**king Blogger deleted my post. On the plus side, my essay is done.
posted by Maureen at 8:16 PM

 
Still trying to write the Hum paper; I'm currently sucking on sugarfree Red Bull in an attempt to perk myself up.
posted by Maureen at 12:03 AM

 
I had never thought it would happen here:

1. There have been accusations from one of the unions that represents workers at the U of C hospitals that hospital administration is trying to disrupt union activity. A piece appeared in the Chicago Maroon on Friday about the controversy--and now, according to some labor activists here, all of the copies of the Maroon at the hospital have "disappeared".

These are Wal-Mart tactics. They should not be used by any branch of a great university allegedly committed to freedom of expression, and I'm surprised they're happening in Chicago.

2. Tonight at Bartlett: Sunday Dinner Special: Freedom Toast Sticks.
I spoke to one of the cashiers about it, figuring that it was a joke, but a supervisor noticed and began complaining about how the French didn't support us in the last war. Again, may I just say that this kind of thing is demeaning to the University?*

*If it's not done in jest, that is.
posted by Maureen at 5:41 PM

 
I was fipping through our beloved school newspaper, the Chicago Maroon, when I noticed an article proposing that Chicago reinstate Division I athletics. Now, I grew up near Knoxville, TN, home of the Tennessee Volunteers. I have had my fill of football-mad crowds, drunken guys wearing face paint--and that's just from television. So no, I'm not very keen on the idea of my university becoming another jock school. But the opening sentence of the article made me take another look:

"The University of Chicago... is that a state school?"

I've had this experience before, of course... even from people who live in the Chicago suburbs. Anyways, the author contends that if we re-enter the Big Ten (we left in 1939 to do more important things with our football stadium, like the world's first nuclear self-sustained reaction*), people will actually recognize our school's name and we won't have random people think we go to UIC** He also mentions the extra benefit of alumni coming for the big Chicago-Northwestern game who will be more likely to donate to the University.

At first this argument looks tempting. Even I have wished on occasion that we could play Northwestern and Notre Dame. But then I realised something. Our fellow universities in the University Athletic Association (aka the "Nerd Nine") have better street cred than we do--I don't see anyone looking askance at Emory, NYU, or Carnegie Mellon. So there's got to be another factor.

But how do you build name recognition anyway? Wash U.'s certainly done a pretty good job of it by sending every high-scoring PSAT taker enough brochures, postcards, and viewbooks for the name to sink into everyone's conciousnesses. Maybe Chicago needs a marketing blitzkreig--send stuff to students you know won't be coming but will actually look at the brochure. I think the University's appearance in "The Core" will help, as will frequent mentions by the news media on Ahmed Chalabi's math Ph.D. from here--and maybe also note that Paul Wolfowitz got his PoliSci Ph.D. (1972) around the same time as Chalabi (1969)***. A television special: "Chicago: Crucible of the War in Iraq" would be possible, with interviews from John Mearsheimer, Paul Sally, and the like. (Dr. Sally's eye patch will interest channel-surfers: "Hey! Pirate movie! Oh, wait, it's just some guy with an eye patch.")

*Okay, so it wasn't the intended reason, but merely a side effect of sorts.
**Before I get protests from UIC students and alumni: My mother went to UIC.
***For some reason foreign news sources call us "Chicago University". Look, the rules that you use for Oxbridge name usage (either "X University" or "University of X" are acceptable) don't apply to American universities, all right? Oh, and never put "state" somewhere even if the university's a state school... Tennessee State University is not the University of Tennessee.
posted by Maureen at 6:43 PM

 
Salon has an article on the business of gay weddings. This reminds me of a question I've been pondering for a while: why doesn't the marriage industry court gay clientele? Open gays are a small, yet relatively wealthy, segment of the population, concentrated in urban areas, and fairly trend-setting as a whole. Lesbian weddings would require two bridal outfits (and we all know that's where the money is); gay men are less embarrassed than straight men about interests in fashion and therefore would be more open to buying and wearing expensive tuxedos. And then there's the wedding industry itself. It's an artistic metier, many similar professions have offered a "haven" for gay men; hence, based upon extrapolation, one would expect a higher-than-average number of gays among the men who work in the wedding industry.

Of course, Big Wedding (TM) is scared of alienating conservative customers. That's fine. You don't have to let them know that you have a stack of brochures tailored to the same-sex crowd or that "Unconventional Ceremonies" doesn't just mean dual-officicant weddings. And if someone starts screaming that they saw an ad in the local gay community newspaper--well, why were they reading it in the first place?
posted by Maureen at 7:20 PM

 
Movie Recommendation: The Unicorn. A claymation short that shouldn't be seen by anyone under 18. Watch it at www.mookfarm.com.
posted by Maureen at 12:48 PM

 
Time for some frivolity: U.S. currency that looks like it came from Lileks' "Curious Lucre" collection. Hint: Click on "Front of New Bill" at the Tribune and keep that window open as you click through the foreign money.
posted by Maureen at 12:41 PM

 
Lileks on The Handmaid's Tale:

Oh, it’s ripped from the headlines, all right. But they’re headlines in the Arab News. There are theocracies that oppress women, and it’s odd how they look like nothing Atwood describes.

Funny, I always thought that The Handmaid's Tale was the blueprint for the Taliban regime--just substitute "Wahabbism" for "fundamentalist Christianity" and... wait, both were post-devestating-war-with-the-Soviets. Atwood had visited Afghanistan before writing the novel, and claims to have based the outfits in the book partially on the burqa. Most of the author's notes make references to Iran and the Islamic Revolution, as well as fundamentalist Christianity. Really, if Margaret Atwood had sued Mullah Omar over copyright violations back in '96, the world would be a whole lot safer now.

Besides, Brave New World looked nothing like Hitlerism. Except for the eugenics part. And the worldwide government. And the mentions of Nazi-sympathizer Henry Ford. And the weird half-tribal, half-orgastic religion. And maybe a few other details that were floating around in the early thirties.
posted by Maureen at 11:23 AM

 
Shit. Al-Qaeda's back. Yeah, Bush's strategy for fighting the war on terrorism is working real well.
posted by Maureen at 11:05 AM

 
"Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act."

I'm assuming that you, if "you" are a political/activist group, have at least ten members, a message, and have committed yourselves to non-violent social change. If this doesn't describe your group, then you may want to start again.

All right. First entry: The Importance of Intelligent Spokespersons

Last summer P.J. O'Rourke wrote a column in The Atlantic on "Postmodern Protest in the Age of the Neo-Demo". Here are some embarrasing quotes from the piece, which was apparently a demonstration about everything. I'll be using this piece as an example of Demonstrations Gone Wrong in the future:

Max found campus feminists to interview. One admitted that the Taliban's treatment of women was terrible and said the United States should have done something earlier, "in the name of women."
"Wouldn't that involve war?" Max asked.
"Yeah, it's a tricky one," the feminist said. "There might be some nonviolent approach such as micro-lending."

Please roll that around in your mind for a minute. Then ask yourself: Would a government that didn't allow mothers to teach their daughters how to read permit, say, the Grameen Bank going in and giving the women of Kabul start-up loans for tea shops and cell phone rental businesses?





posted by Maureen at 8:33 PM

 
"There--my blessing with thee,
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel,
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched, unfledged courage. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear't that th' opposèd may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure ,but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy,
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulleth edge of husbandry.
This above all, to thine own self be true,
And it must follow as the night the day
That thou cannot then be false to any man"
--Hamlet, I.3.56-79

For the past few years I've been irritated at the way that some liberal activists act. Most of them, as well as almost all liberals, are courteous, polite, and wish to engage in discourse with their opponents instead of completely alienating them. Then there are the ones who get all the press. I am not talking about those who stopped traffic on Lake Shore Drive (I feel it was a creative act of civil disobedience, but then again I didn't have to get anywhere using Lake Shore Drive that day), but rather our good friends ANSWER and their fore--"foreparents" would imply a nuclear family, hence "foreguardians"--foreguardians ACT UP, SDS, and others. These organizations--at least not ACT UP and SDS--didn't start out as ultra-radical. But their alienating tactics eventually caused them to become that favorite insult of the sixties, irrelevant.

It's debatable whether or not radical groups are ultimately helpful or harmful to their causes. Of course, what one generation defines as "radical" the generation ten years younger will dismiss as "conciliatory". But I have a feeling that most liberal activists want to be perceived right now by their peers as sane, rational people instead of that weird guy who hasn't bathed for weeks and shows up at every anti-war march stoned out of his mind.

Therefore, at the grand age of 18 years and ten months and full of youthful arrogance*, I shall attempt to create a guide to activism using Polonious's advice to Laertes in Hamlet. Yes, I realize that Polonious was an idiot. But it makes a nice framework.

*At least I'm being honest about it. Everyone at age 18 thinks they can save the world. Please poke holes in my arguments.
posted by Maureen at 10:07 PM

 
Six out of nine: That, my friends, is Team Bara: The Universal Truth's ranking in the final reckoning of ScavHunt. This is actually pretty good, inasmuch as we're a fairly small team. At least we kicked the commuter team's ass.*

*The Commuter team is usually the most pitiable Scav Hunt team, but since this year they joined forces with a dorm, they actually scored eighth. Ninth place was filled by... oh, the irony... Fire Escape, the student film club that was co-producer of The Hunt, the movie about ScavHunt. You'd think that collecting eighty hours of footage of different teams would aid in strategy.
posted by Maureen at 9:38 PM

 
Check out what fellow Knoxvillian South Knox Bubba found on the RNC home page... scroll down to "Who is..." for each candidate.

Whoa.

(Also check out South Knox Bubba right here.
posted by Maureen at 4:00 PM

 
SCAV HUNT ITEM #97:

John Poindexter: (301) 424-6613
John Ashcroft: (816) 471-7141
(573) 334-7044 (Vacation Home)
Tom Ridge: (610) 274-3276

These are, or were, the home phone numbers of three of the most loathed men in the United States government. The Poindexter number was changed last year after a San Francisco journalist published the number and people just kept calling.

These are provided as a public service for the American public, and as fulfillment of the University of Chicago 211 (2003 according to the French Revolutionary Calender) Scavenger Hunt item 97 for the Hoover House team: Team Bara: The Universal Truth.
posted by Maureen at 6:02 PM

 
We all know that you want to here the latest about the twelve-year-old med student. Here it is.
posted by Maureen at 9:53 PM

 
Man, even the UN can't resist the prospect of free food:

Hunger pains can apparently turn even the most upstanding diplomat into a looter. At noon on Friday, food workers at the U.N. headquarters walked off their jobs, calling a wildcat strike. The result: none of the U.N.'s five restaurants and bars was staffed. The walkout left thousands of U.N. employees scrounging for lunch — eventually, the masses stripped the cafeterias of everything, including the silverware.

Note to the UN: You're really undermining your authority by doing this. I mean, one would have expected something like this from a world legislative body:

An unidentified UN official called for the formation of a food preparation committee immediately. Delegates from the United States, China, the Netherlands, and Brazil, among others, volunteered. Lunch at the UN consisted of broiled chicken, vegan couscous, green salad, and red bean ice cream for dessert. Afterwords, the delegates carried their own used table settings to the kitchen, where several high-ranking members of the Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods figured out how to turn on the dishwashing machine.

Or:
Committees fended for themselves in terms of lunch, most of them electing to order pizza, Chinese, Thai, or other takeout from one of the many delivery services near UN headquarters. A few ventured out into the kitchens, where they prepared sandwiches and fruit.

I mean, really.

In other news, the UN will now have ARAmark as its food service provider. I warn the delegates to be wary of wasabi mashed potatoes.
posted by Maureen at 11:48 AM

 
Would the psychiatrists please stop diagnosing every great scientist/world leader as (pick one: autistic, having Aspberger's Syndrome, ADD, manic-depressive, clinically depressed)

"The fact that you try to assign mental health disorders to great men is a sign of your underlying feelings of intellectual inadequacy"--hypothetical Freudian response.

There's a reason why very intelligent people sometimes act strangely in front of other people: Personal history. We grew up smarter than most people in our class and so never really fit in, therefore causing social awkwardness and a general retreat into ourselves. During class, we were bored, hence our stimulation-craving minds began to wander around. Maybe the reason for the multiple diagnoses of Einstein as having this/that disease isn't motivated by feelings of inadequacy--maybe it's a way to try to excuse society from almost losing a brilliant mind due to neglect. That way the psychiatrists can make money over-medicating gifted kids while our public school systems go down the drain.

One of my cousins was misdiagnosed with ADD when he was nine. At age fourteen, it became clear after an IQ testing that the real problem was he was borderline-genius. Now, at age sixteen, he spends most of his time with his heavy-metal band and isn't planning on going to college. I was lucky, I went to a school system that recognized gifted kids early and gave them tons of individualize attention. He goes to a school that doesn't have a gifted program. (Apparently, Illinois does not grant gifted children 'disability' status, therefore entitling them to individualized education programs (IEPs))

A trick of geography. That's what launched my cousin and me onto different paths. That and the stupid, antiquated system referred to as "local control", e.g. "Let's shaft the poor some more by depriving their kids of much of a shot at a better life."

So I say to you, all those psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychoanalysts who may be reading this blog--stop trying to pin mental disorders on the gifted. Give us the proper care and attention our minds need, and we'll be just fine.
posted by Maureen at 3:05 PM

 
So, skeptical about chiropractic now?

(For those of you who start shouting "Hey, it doesn't say anything about chiropractic here", scroll down to where they start talking about who practices "manual therapy".)
posted by Maureen at 2:43 PM

 
I feel old:

Some said that at 9 years old, Sho Yano was too young for college. Then he graduated in three years. Summa cum laude. This June, the shy 12-year-old, who speaks barely above a whisper, will defy the skeptics once again when he becomes perhaps the youngest student to enroll in a medical school. He has been awarded a full scholarship to the University of Chicago.

Wow. Wowie wow wow wow.

I have no doubt that the kid can handle the work; he was evaluated twice as much as any of the other applicants. I'm just not sure about how he'll do with the social scene. I mean, he'll probably be the first graduate student in University of Chicago history who can't* go into Jimmy's during his stint.

Oh, well. At least he'll be able to go to the Lab Schools' middle school dances.

*I speak, of course, regarding the period when Jimmy's has been open, and purely on a legalistic basis; there have been countless U of C grad students who have not entered Jimmy's for religious or other reasons.
posted by Maureen at 11:55 PM

 
This is in response to a comment thread on Matthew Yglesias.com on "Shooting Protesters". I will reprint it here because I feel it holds up well enough on its own:

Unfortunately, other than giving each recruit going into boot camp a crash course in the atrocities of military history, I have no radical solution for this kind of thing (e.g. military atrocities). I do, however, have a proposal for fostering cultural understanding among our troops:

There is a group of professionals whose focus is the study of the culture of other countries and the relaying of this information to persons completely ignorant of these cultures. They are remarkably successful at this.

Who are they? They're not professors or anthropologists. They're travel guide writers.

Consider every Frommer's or Lonely Planet guide you've ever picked up about a non-American destination. Consider the hundreds of books telling businesspeople how to conduct business without offending people in countries from Argentina to Zimbabwe. Consider the number of books which purport to tell the reader how they can avoid being spotted as an American in Paris. And consider that all of this information is given in handy, easy-to-read, easy-to-carry book format.

In short: Uncle Sam wants YOU, Arthur Frommer!
posted by Maureen at 9:17 PM

 
In response to Yglesias's "The Forgotten Issue"

I have a dream.

I have a dream of a day when a Democratic presidential candidate stands up in front of a big ballroom full of reporters, retorters, and campaign supporters and says:

"Let us all admit that the phrase 'local control' is to school inequity as 'states rights' is to segregation: Under the guise of protecting the federalist system of government, those who advocate these measures are in reality trying to perpetuate inequality in perpetua.

Let us tear down this structure of spending, this allocation of monies according to the wealth of the community, which has forced our great universities who wish to correct historical injustices by a system that has fostered resentment and suspicion of those whom the system was designed to help.

Let us realize that the streets of Washington Park in Chicago, South Central Los Angeles, and the South Bronx shall be filled with bloodshed and violence born of despair until the despair is lifted by the hope of education.

Private organizations; charities and universities, have tried to alleviate this despair, but they cannot go it alone. It is up to all of us to share their burden.

And what of the small, poor towns of the mountains and the prairies, where the local industries are dying? The money municipalities, states, and the federal government spend every year to keep corporations in certain locations could make the American education system the finest in the world. Our attempts to resist the displacement of factories to countries with cheaper labor is futile; the laws of history and economics are against us. So why do we squander our capital on this?

Because we--as individuals and as a nation--are guilty of a lack of foresight. It has been said that America has a short sense of history; in part, this is a good thing. It has cooled the turmoils of ethnic and intra-national conflict faster than in all of Europe. Yet we are still creatures of history, and to forget this is a grave peril.

I have a dream.

I have a dream that one day my (number of children/nieces/nephews) will be able to move anywhere in this great nation of ours and not have to worry that the school system won't teach their children to read.

I have a dream that Mississippi, that bastion of ignorance, will someday become an oasis of knowledge.

So let the clean, pure light of knowledge into every valley, crown every mountain, and sweep every prairie of this great land. Let it burn away ignorance, and hatred, and despair, and let it give hope and love to all those who receive it. And we will speed up the day when all of our children, black and white, rich and poor, will cross the stage of a high school auditorium, and receive a diploma that actually reflects a quality education."

But will this happen in my lifetime? Here's hoping.
posted by Maureen at 2:01 PM

 
More quotes:

"We will kill them all........most of them."
--Hey, at least Ari Fleischer knows Bush's policy.

"On this occasion, I am not going to mention the number of the infidels who were killed and the number of destroyed vehicles. The operation continues"
--Probably because you killed, oh, about three infidels and destroyed a Jeep. Woohoo.

"We're giving them a real lesson today. Heavy doesn't accurately describe the level of casualties we have inflicted."
--You're right, it doesn't. (Nice instance of what looks to be a Freudian slip: perhaps he meant adequately instead of actually?)
posted by Maureen at 8:57 PM

 
A few comments that came to mind while looking at quotes from Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, Iraqi Minister of Information:

"They are superpower of villains. They are superpower of Al Capone."
--Finally, the Iraqis recognize the POWER of Chicago. Second City, my ass.

"We are not afraid of the Americans. Allah has condemned them. They are stupid. They are stupid" (dramatic pause) "and they are condemned."
--Okay, we're stupid and condemned, got that. And stupid. And condemned. (Maybe it loses something in translation.)

"I speak better English than this villain Bush"
--Can't argue with that.
posted by Maureen at 8:52 PM

 
This is funny. But Quizie needs picture capabilities:

I scored a 44% on the "How U of C are you?" Quizie! What about you?
posted by Maureen at 8:21 PM

 
Okay, after a long hiatus, I'm back, inspired by Matthew Yglesias's challenge for someone at Chicago to give him the dish on Paul Wolfowitz's doctoral dissertation. Thus, here is a (very, very) short summary of "Nuclear Proliferation in the Middle East: The Politics and Economics of Proposals for Nuclear Disarming", which earned Wolfowitz a Ph.D. in Political Science in 1972:

Wolfowitz first notes that "for today, the possibility of desalting vast quantities of sea water, by harnessing the terrible power of the atom, appears to offer promise that the deserts can be made to bloom" (Wolfowitz 1) and refers readers to the Straude-Eisenhower Plan for Middle East Nuclear Desalting (MEND). However, his thesis attacks this optimistic premise: "[T]he benefits from nuclear desalting have been vastly exaggerated while tis costs have been underestimated and the potential harm it could do largely ignored." (5)

Some other striking points, culled from the text:
--Wolfowitz claims that using "conventional fossil fuels" (6) to power desalination plants in the Middle East would be more economical than nuclear reactors and uses the "coals to Newcastle" analogy. Later, he uses about 300 pages of cost-benefit analysis to list the costs of nuclear reactors. I skipped all of the pages when going through the microfilm, but if someone really wants to look...
--Attacks the perception that the wars between Arab states and Israel were partially/primarily based upon water rights by showing that there exist alternative water supplies in the Middle East (further explained in Chapter 7)
--Notes that Arab countries didn't allow Palestinian settlement, and Palestinian refugees after the 1967 war refused permanent-looking housing in U.N. refugee camps.
--Claims that if Israel had nuclear weapons, it would "weaken Israel's conventional military position by cutting her off from friendly countries in the West" (33) and could result in the USSR and China arming the Arabs or providing them military aid in the case of a war.

Wolfowitz's conclusion: Bringing fissile material to the Middle East is risky, and the whole thing wouldn't be economically worth it anyways.

There's an interesting observation in Appendix A, where Wolfowitz predicts (correctly) that Israel will probably reach a peace agreement with Egypt and Jordan before it does with Syria, noting the situation with the Golan Heights and Syrian opposition to the November 1967 Security Council resolution on the Arab-Israeli war.

So there you all have it. I know, you're all chomping at the bit for more, but I have a feeling someone else'll come up with a copy shortly and actually have time to devote careful study to it. Please remember I'm an undergraduate at the University of Chicago and therefore have no (well, little) free time.
posted by Maureen at 7:33 PM

 
Please surf on to www.chicagomaroon.com for some of the finest collegiate reporting in the country. But do go before Friday, or you'll miss out on the exquisite features of this issue.
posted by Maureen at 11:24 PM

 
REPRESENT: Oak Ridge mentioned on The West Wing. More details to follow.
posted by Maureen at 8:19 PM

 
Sorry about the long, long absence of any posts--but really, are you going to count on me for your war news? Of course not. Go click on one of the links on the left for war updates; I really have nothing to say that isn't on Yglesias, Reynolds, or Lileks. (Please bear in mind that unlike these fine gentlemen, I was (and am) still against this war. But I figure that we can't back out now, so we may as well kick some ass, take some names, and leave Iraq a better place then when we came. Oh, and there had better be evidence of WoMDs. If not, our credibility is going down the toilet. Not that I particularly care about GWB's cred, but....)

Question of the Day:
Is Colin Powell in the Adlai Stevenson (during the Cuban Missile Crisis) role? That is, is Colin Powell being presented incorrect evidence linking Saddam to Al-Qaeda? I personally have a very hard time believing that Saddam and Osama are in bed together, but stranger things have happened, do happen, and will happen.
posted by Maureen at 5:11 PM

 
On The Speech--I'm going to leave the obvious comments aside for right now. But why did Bush ask the Iraqi troops first not to destroy oil wells, then not to use weapons of mass destruction? I don't know. I would've thought his speechwriters would be more careful than that.
posted by Maureen at 7:52 PM

 
In honor of the close of Humanities 11600 on Tuesday, a list of quotes taken out of context:

"God is reeally pretty."
"It's a Superthought!"--On Descartes' Third Meditation

"For someone who acts crazy a lot, he looks like a really rational guy"--On Hamlet

"Man is Hume really smart."
"You can un-mysterize them."--On Hume's On Miracles

And finally, this exchange:
"Reaganomics."
"No, it has to be true."--I can't remember
posted by Maureen at 9:48 PM

 
Yep, still working on the Soc paper. It's an absolutely gorgeous day outside--warm, breezy, sunny--the kind of day that was meant for lounging around the Quads, not writing 6-8 pages on the reproduction and change of social and cultural structures. So after I get this done I've got to study math for the final, then write my Bioterrorism paper and study for my Hum final. Joy.
posted by Maureen at 2:57 PM

 
Still working on the Soc paper... I'm thinking of creating a quiz: "Which 20th-Century Literary Dystopia Are You?" What does everyone think? Hello? Anybody?
posted by Maureen at 10:12 PM

 
I'm writing this paper for Soc class... long story short (I really should be working :) I finally realized what's so wrong about John Ashcroft being anointed with oil whenever he begins a new position in civil service. After all, the kings of France were anointed with oil at their coronations, as were pre-diaspora Jewish priests; oil is used in the Greek Orthodox baptism and in sacraments for the sick of various Christian denominations, as well as the Catholic taking of Holy Orders. So nothing's wrong with the practice in general.

Instead, it's the fact that Ashcroft isn't qualified to be anointed with oil. He is not king, priest or prophet; he's attorney general of the United States of America. It's presumptuous for him to be anointed during his induction.
posted by Maureen at 8:39 PM

 
I'm not surprised:


Democrat - You believe that there should be a free
market which is reigned in by a modest state
beaurocracy. You think that capitalism has
some good things, but that those it helps
should be obliged to help out their fellow man
a little. Your historical role model is
Franklin Rosevelt.


Which political sterotype are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

posted by Maureen at 6:04 PM

 
Well, the start of 24/7 quiet will be at 11:00 pm CST as we all convene silently in our rooms and the Reg in study and solitude during Reading Period, the Weekend of Study, and Finals Week.

When we don't have work, review sessions, house dinners, movie night, and other diversions, that is.


On an unrelated note: Question of the day: Is the House (of Representitives) cafeteria now going to call French Onion Soup "Freedom Onion Soup"? Does the House cafeteria even serve French Onion Soup? Just wondering.

It's kind of pitiful what people will do do feel like a "big man"... I mean, that Representitive is chair of a b.s. committee. Will he be re-elected? Probably not. The Democrats can just mention "Freedom Fries" at all their campaign junkets and he'll be laughed out of office.
posted by Maureen at 10:20 PM

 
Finally, we get some respect:

"Altering the flow of time is a dangerous and complex proposition," said Dr. Arthur Wistrom, a University of Chicago physics professor. "If Turner is not careful, he may unintentionally change the course of his own history, causing, for example, something to go awry with his loving, happy marriage to Jane Fonda."

Huzzah!

(Oh, and sorry for the delay, everyone.)

posted by Maureen at 8:30 PM

 
You want to know why I don't post as often as Matthew Yglesias does?

Simple.

Click here and here
posted by Maureen at 8:53 PM

 
Hey, everyone... buy an N-95 mask; they're more useful than duct tape. Take your pick. They're cheap, portable, easy-to-use... and if you click here you can see the one I got today. Folded, it looks like another Kimberly-Clark product... which makes me wonder if the Dept. of Homeland Insecurity shouldn't recommend something more... controversial than T-shirts as impromptu breathing filters.
posted by Maureen at 8:46 PM

 
Headlines that never were: First in a series
The New York Times, 6 February 2001
TALIBAN CRUMBLES FROM COPYWRIGHT SUIT:
The Hague forces Afghan government to cease governance in a way "overtly similar to" Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

posted by Maureen at 9:52 PM

 
Matthew Yglesias is calling for a Muslim version of The Handmaid's Tale... but didn't that come to fruition with the Taliban? It's rather backwards for the dystopian novel to come after the dystopia itself. I've heard that Margaret Atwood was thinking of Iran when she wrote The Handmaid's Tale... I wonder what her position on the war with Afghanistan was. Hopefully it was more reasonable than, say, Barbara Kingsolver's*.

*Who wants to read my essay on the connection between Kingsolver's beef with the U.S. government and her preoccupation with abusive fathers? (I wrote it in junior year of high school; don't expect brilliant prose).
posted by Maureen at 12:32 PM

 
Thanks to Instapundit: We're discussing Klein's No Logo in class, and I was going to use blogs as an example of advertising-free media (except for those stupid banner ads which no one looks at anyway)... but now....

I'm not sure that they'll be that successful. I mean, can you see one of the big-time bloggers shilling? Nope. The closest you'll see is Lileks raving about Apple, but that's really more of a Mac-geek thing. The itty-bitty bloggers, like me, might go into the game... but it's not like enough people see our blogs for it to have that much of an impact... unless, of course... no. Not going to give Corporate America any more ideas.
posted by Maureen at 2:38 PM

 
So if you're visiting, please click on the Blog Hot or Not link... thank you.
posted by Maureen at 5:09 PM

 
In cases like this, I'm not sure if the Church has any moral credibility left.
posted by Maureen at 6:46 PM

 
Yay!
posted by Maureen at 6:30 PM

 
Let me try adding comments... this had better work.
posted by Maureen at 6:25 PM

 
No!!!!!

posted by Maureen at 6:15 PM

 
Glenn Reynolds got "Good". I got this:




What the *&$!
posted by Maureen at 10:59 PM

 
Man, MUNUC had elections tonight and they were soooooooooo long. (Please excuse the lapse into teen lingo.)
posted by Maureen at 10:30 PM

 
Finally, a Middle East story that brings a smile to my face.
posted by Maureen at 12:16 PM

 
If ever I start a humor newspaper here...

Milton Friedman Gets Free Lunch

Ryerson Astronomy Society Holds Séance To Contact Carl Sagan
posted by Maureen at 12:05 PM

 
From the New York Times's Style Section, a list of twenty things you can do to "add color to your life". At first I thought they were just the usual rich-girl-without-sense-of-reality suggestions when I saw this and stopped dead in my tracks:

10. Stop oohing over Richard Meier's white boxes and start aahing over Ricardo Legorreta's brilliantly colored constructions.

I live in a Legorreta "brilliantly colored construction". It's orange, pink, and purple. You wanna see? As a critic pointed out, "It's Chicago... but the wrong Chicago."
Don't the couple in front of the Barbie Dream Dorm look exactly like Barbie and Ken? And don't be fooled by the sandstone color of the brick in the rendering. It's orange.

posted by Maureen at 7:48 PM