if the kilo of cocaine and the machine gun weren't incriminating enough...

I just read this article about a dude in Lowell who had 40 POUNDS of pot FEDEXED to him AT HOME. But that's not the only funny part:

When local and state police searched his apartment they said they found baggies containing cocaine, another 10 pounds of marijuana, a bullet-proof vest under his mattress and a loaded 40-caliber semi-automatic handgun.

Under his bed they found a box with Soviet military writing on it containing 14 boxes of machine-gun rounds.

In the closet, police found an Ultimac Mac 90 machine gun with two, 30-round magazines.

They also found a magazine called High Times in the apartment.

what is...

black and white, black and white, black and white and green?

three nuns fighting over a cucumber. I've done a lot of non-work "reading" today, some things funnier than others. First the Not Funny, lifted from Scott's blog:

A recent Pew Research Center study shows that people who watch The Colbert Report and The Daily Show correctly answered 54% of questions about current affairs, whereas viewers of regular TV news correctly answered only 35%.

I do love the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, but it still strikes me as kind of a sad state of affairs.

And now the funny, meta-funny in fact, because I found these jokes on a facebook group started by one of my old philosophy professors from college. I'm glad to see this guy and some of my other old professors are spending just as much time doing non-work as I do. I guess I really could grow up to be just like them.

From a Latin American Studies professor:

Q: How many atheists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: None: "Light bulb? What light bulb? Clearly this "light bulb" is a construct of your primitive imagination to help you cope with reality. I know this is darkness and I can deal with it. Obviously, you can't because of this light bulb delusion of yours."


From one of my Human Rights Program professors:

This cowboy is in a bar and talks about how lonely he is. "You know, it's just me and the horse out there. Now my horse is very smart, but you can really have a philosophical discussion with it. You know, you just can't put Descartes before the horse."


A seal walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a drink.

The bartender asks the seal, "What's your pleasure?"

The seal replies, "Anything but Canadian Club."

roo roo's meme

What were you doing 10 years ago?
I was 15 and had just started working at my very first real (not my dad's store) job. It was a truck stop/diner/bakery on route 20 in Worcester. It was actually kind of cool, in the front we served meatloaf and american chop suey, but in the back they were making these incredibly elaborate wedding cakes. I started off washing dishes and eventually got to wait tables. ah, the beginning of my long and illustrious waitressing career. good times, free food, learning dirty jokes from gnarly truckers. then right before school started, I got fired because the owner's daughter was back from 'maternity leave.'

What were you doing 1 year ago?
It was my first summer off the Cape in 4 years, and it was motherfucking hot in Lowell. I had just inadvertently signed myself up for a world of pain, working two impossible jobs at the same time, yet still managing to accomplish very little. I was at the office for like 9 hours a day, the first three of which I spent on email or the phone with boss #1, trying to coordinate a seminar series that never quite went according to plan. The rest of the day I sat outside writing in a notebook, pretending to work for boss #2 and freaking out because she was coming back from vacation and I had done nothing in weeks, making phone calls and socializing with passersby.

Kelly had just had Croix, so that was pretty exciting. there was a girl from Spain who had just arrived to live at my house for a month. Amanda and I spoke drunken Spanish to her at the Folk Festival. she kind of sucked, but there were way better foreign exchange students to come.

Five snacks you enjoy
1. string cheese
2. granola bars
3. string cheese
4. string cheese
5. string cheese

Five songs that you know all the lyrics to
1. "shoop" - salt n pepa. no self-respecting girl between the ages of 23 and 33 will ever forget a line of that one.
2. "ripple" - grateful dead. same as above, except by "girl" I mean "hippie"
3. "meet me in the morning" - bob dylan
4. "el baile de los que sobran" - Los Prisioneros
5. all of Remain in Light - Talking Heads

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire
1. buy a regular car
2. buy the house I live in right now
3. quit my job
4. go to Morocco
5. do something, uh, philanthropic with the rest

Five bad habits
1. spending money I don't have
2. vanilla kreme donuts
3. chronic, debilitating procrastination
4. constantly indulging my desires to escape (from the house, the office, work, thesis, responsibilities, awkward situations, consciousness, etc.)
5. self-indulgence part II: drinking, smoking, eating and sleeping as much as I want, pretty much all the time

Five things you like doing
1. road trips
2. iced coffee
3. writing
4. frolicking, preferably in nature
5. escaping/eating/drinking/smoking/sleeping

Five things you would never wear again
1. champion sweatshirts over white turtlenecks
2. jelly shoes
3. bodysuits with the snaps
4. blossom hats
5. legwarmers. kidding!

Five favorite toys
1. coffeemaker
2. coozies
3. cell phone
4. the internets
5. my brand new mortar and pestle

orbit mint mojito gum

don't buy it. it's gross. alcohol-flavored gum shouldn't exist. also, mojitos are "mint" by definition, so the flavor name is redundant. orbit, you suck. why do you make your gum pieces so large and cumbersome, so that I have to rip them in half, and constantly have half-pieces of gum floating around the bottom of my purse, with nasty debris stuck to them, that I eat anyways because I refuse to waste gum? why, orbit?

but Patty gave me the gum, and she's the shit. she dropped by my porch today with iced coffee and vanilla kreme donuts. a pleasant surprise, and just what the doctor ordered after my long day of "work."

remember me?

I used to write stuff, mostly emails and blog posts but occasionally other things too, like my thesis. Well all of that is over now, thanks to Facebook. Facebook is ruining my life, it's the devil incarnate, it's irresistible. I love you Roo Roo, but you're going to pay for this one.

editorial note

due to an, um, incident, I have decided it's probably best to stop using people's names in my posts. I hope this doesn't cause too much mystification, or take away from the fascinating-ness of my narcissistic ramblings.

Also, I think I'm about two days away from this:

Grad Student Deconstructs Take-Out Menu

the plan: update

a paper tacked to my bulletin board says the following:

Week of March 18

• NO CLEANING
• NO POINTLESS EMAILS
• NO UNNECESSARY PHONE CALLS
• NO RESD
• NO SOCIALIZING
• NO COOKING
• NO PROCRASTINATING

this week, not only did I clean my house, but I went so far as to completely disassemble my vacuum cleaner, clean every single one of its five thousand tiny parts, put it back together and vacuum every vacuumable space. Amanda's mother is right, they don't make vacuums like they used to. I also went to RESD several times, socialized excessively, cooked, composted, blogged, emailed, sledded, napped, puttered, and talked on the phone for no apparent reason. There are still two huge piles of mystery papers cluttering my desk, and six of my seven tape-recorded interviews remain untranscribed. I guess "Week of March 25" is going to be the one...

untz untz untz

my interview was, technically speaking, f-ing awesome. this guy told me bloodcurdling tales of floor stripping woe: shoes destroyed, third-degree burns, legs lost... seriously, legs lost. while all of these things, coupled with his happier anecdotes about the switch to green cleaning, speak directly to what I'm trying to prove, I feel more than a little guilty for how I got at it. I mean, how can I be so selfish as to revel in these horrible things happening, just because it supports my goal of promoting green cleaning? I've always been a firm non-believer in the "ends justify the means" theory, so I'm hating myself a bit for even having recorded this thing.

Luckily, my own stupidity assuages a little bit of my guilt, as I accidentally turned my recorder speed all the way up to "fast" and didn't notice it until 45 minutes into the interview. I was too scared to review the tape, but I have a feeling it's going to take a lot of technology finagling to get this thing transcribed. On that note, I've completely embraced my nerdiness and decided that I want voice-to-text software for Christmas.

In other news, it's spring break! I'm not going anywhere fun, or even doing anything fun in Lowell - in fact, I'll probably sit around the library writing my thesis and generally being miserable all week. For some reason, though, just knowing it's spring break is enough to make me feel all vacation-y. I forsee a good amount of weeknight drinking and general irresponsibilty this week, not really different than any other week except that I feel somehow entitled to it since it's spring break...

handy like what

today I used the following things:

• hammer
• power drill
• spade
• nails, screws, AND brads. yeah brads!
  
• picture wire
• wire cutters
• pliers
• yardstick
• pencil
• allen wrench
  
• level
• screwdriver
• pointy stick
• sewing machine
  
• studsensor (like I need one of those)
  

who's impressed? who's impressed that I OWN all of those things? I know I am.

power is a great aphrodisiac

Henry Kissinger, who I FUCKING HATE, said that. I guess that means he was lucky with the ladies, and although I weep for my entire gender if that is true, I wonder if he had a point. Personally, I think power corrupts, and I also think power tends to coincide with money, another characteristic I find generally unattractive. It's one thing to make a good income, but it's another thing to have a lot of money hanging around - that means you either make way too much and you're contributing to the ridiculously wide gap betwen rich and poor, and/or you need to give some away (i.e., you're selfish).

But I digress, back to power. I found that quote on an egregiously sexist website about Ladder Theory. I first heard about Ladder Theory at a friend's party - the girl who mentioned it was one of those highly-manicured types who feigns "edge" in such a nauseating way. She talked endlessly about how useless men are, moments later sucking face with another girl just to get a guy's attention (not that she needed to go to such lengths considering the gratuitous amount of tittie popping out of the corset-y thing she was wearing). But again I digress, and also I'm starting to sound bitter. I'm not, she was just gross is all. And she subscribes to Ladder Theory, which comes as no surprise.

Anyhow, since I looked up Ladder Theory it has been nibbling at my brain - it seems like total bullshit at first glance (as well as second glance, third glance, etc.) I especially disagree with the pie chart breaking down why some women are attracted to jerks. I disagree both with the ingredients in said pie as well as with the statement that "women dig assholes". I think it's kind of a sexist generalization that encourages men to be jerks and women to think that masculinity is equal to jerkiness. That's a whole other story though, and the God's honest truth is that over the past three years or so I've witnessed a majority of my girl friends dating JERKS. After college, at least 75% of my closest friends settled into long-term relationships with incredibly lame boys - from the innocuously lazy to the maliciously jealous, cheating and lying and verbal abuse and everything in between.

Three and a half years later, I'm happy to report that at least half of that original group has broken up with their Mr. Lame, and learned some valuable lessons along the way. I think the biggest lesson I learned was that "all of your friends can't be wrong". For some reason people think "Oh, I don't care what Suzie says, Johnnie is a wonderful person on the inside and he's just misunderstood". But when Suzie, Mary, Steve, your parents, and the Suffolk County District Attorney ALL think your significant other is bad news, perhaps you ought to listen. This is not to say that I'm adept at taking my own advice - trust me, I'm not.

OK, I have digressed beyond the point where I could strategically transition to the point I was originally trying to make, so I'm just going to go for it. To make a long story short, I just got off the phone with a friend who shall remain nameless. She wondered how to politely avoid making plans with a guy she just met, a guy she is not interested in a romantic relationship with. Here's where Ladder Theory may or may not come into play: the tricky part about this situation is that of course, the guy did not call and say "Hey, female, would you like to go out for a drink sometime? We can develop what you think is a beautiful friendship, while I strategically gauge how long it will be until I can bang you."

Now Ladder Theory would have us believe that every guy who ever meets a girl, no matter how attractive or not, compatible or not, etc., definitely wants to sleep with her. The difference between actually sleeping with her or not depends upon two factors: 1) whether or not she's interested and 2) her position on "the ladder" (i.e. is there a way hotter girl standing two feet away?) I hate hate hate this! But back to the story; she's not 'interested' in the guy but of course can't presume that the only reason he wants to get together is because he is 'interested' in her. That would be, in her opinion, not so much conceited as just...dangerous?

Ladder Theory has me all worked up now, and I have dishes to do. I'll await other peoples' opinions instead of obsessing over it myself, at least for a few hours. Today I'm off to Winterfest, which if all goes well, will be a little less ridiculous than last year.

urbane renewal

I have a lot of catching up to do. To all three of you people who actually read my narcissistic ramblings, I hope you haven't been crying yourself to sleep every night, asking The Lord why He has not answered your prayers for more blogging from me. I also hope that my lack of blogging hasn't caused anyone to get more work done while at work. As you know, people died so that we could slack off and read blogs at work.

Now then, where to begin? Let's go back, way back in the day to Christmas. It was good. I decided that "finishing my final papers" was a pipe dream, asked my kindly professor for an extension, packed up my most festive belongings, and went to Worcester. Only one of my Woo peeps was around so I was forced to spend a lot of quality time with my family. They have recently given up hoping that I'll get married and resigned themselves to Single Anne in some very interesting ways. Case in point:

Yes, that's me with the awesome set of Tupperware my parents got me for Christmas. Their line of reasoning, as my mother so tactfully explained, is that normal people get Tupperware (et al) as wedding gifts because they are "setting up house." Since I won't be getting married anytime soon, it logically follows that I won't be getting any wedding gifts. I do, however, need Tupperware just as much as a married person might. Despite many key differences, I have a few things in common with married people, namely that I Cook Food, Eat Food, and Put Food In The Refrigerator. Other notable presents included a nice set of Pyrex, a cookbook, and a double boiler. My brother got games and money and other fun stuff, but I'm not bitter.

So while at my parents' house, one of my traditional favorite activities is to go through the drawers and closet in my old room, scrounging for stuff that may be useful to me now that I'm a starving Rad Student. I found some good books that I never read when they were assigned, some shoes I'll probably never wear, some age-old chocolate that I totally ate anyways, and... my old diary in the drawer of my nightstand...

Now, finding an old diary could be considered a happy occasion - it's fun to look back and remember all the crazy shit you did when you were younger. Reading my old diary, however, my nostalgic giddiness was soon replaced by a feeling of extreme panic. This diary, chronicling my last year of high school and first year of college, had been laying around in a drawer in my room for seven years. About two years ago, my mother began sleeping in my room occasionally because my father snores loudly. About five years ago, my parents began moving random crap (the Nordic-Track, appliances, etc.) into my room. Most importantly, about twenty-five years ago my parents began going through my stuff at will. I'd be very naive to assume they never happened upon this old diary, and I'd be even more naive to assume that if they found it they'd say "Oh, look, it's Anne's old diary. We'd love to see what's inside... But no, we have the utmost respect for my daughter's privacy, as well as the utmost faith that there's nothing in there that she wouldn't have already told us! We're walking away now, bye-bye Anne's diary!"

It's pretty likely that given a whole seven years they've read that thing at least once or twice, and I am officially mortified. My only hope is that they got distracted by a phone call or fire alarm right before they reached the deflowering episode. Needless to say I put that thing right into my overnight bag and brought it back to Lowell, where it can't do any more harm than it's already done.

Well, I'm not doing a very good job of catching up here, but I have a Grad Student Association meeting to go to. I love being part of an organization whose members are so f-ing cool that they meet on Fridays from 5-7pm. Peace!

christmas, yay.

every christmas eve eve I hear this weird ominous music in my head.














it's coming...

public school

I spend a good amount of time trying to convince people that UMass Lowell is a great school, that it doesn't deserve its horrible reputation, and that I'm getting a super rigorous education (well, as rigorous as I can handle anyways).

Then UML decides to put THIS on their homepage to advertise how eeeeeeasy it is to get a few credits over winter break.

I have no words to describe how misguided this marketing scheme is, how many months of convincing this is going to set me back, how much lamer I now feel for being overwhelmed by my coursework...

Thanksgiving

"That was horrible.  If you want to end war and stuff you got
to sing loud.  I've been singing this song now for twenty five
minutes. I could sing it for another twenty five minutes.  I'm
not proud... or tired.

So we'll wait till it comes around again, and this time with
four part harmony and feeling.

We're just waitin' for it to come around is what we're doing.

All right now.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
(Excepting Alice)
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant"

I have no idea why, but hearing this song on Thanksgiving
always makes me cry like a freakin' baby.  Seriously, I don't
know what comes over me.  I wish I had the kind of family that
sat down and listened to it all together, because there are
families that do that.  My family, on the other hand, went to
a restaurant for Thanksgiving, which I consider to be the
gravest possible Thanksgiving sin.  So I was forced to hear my
Alice's Restaurant in the car on the way to the restaurant. 
Then I got lucky and heard it twice on the way home.  Then
I got home and made the mistake of turning on NPR, and now
I'm seriously depressed.

I was all aggravated that I had to go to Worcester to spend
Thanksgiving with my family.  This is the first year since
college that I have been home for Thanksgiving, and I would
have much preferred to spend the holiday working at the
restaurant as I've done in past years.  I would bust my ass
all day from 11am to 11pm or later, never stopping for more
than thirty seconds to stuff a roll in my mouth, gulp down
some gingerale and bitters (Thanksgiving Eve what what) or
smoke half a cigarette in a single drag.

At the end of the marathon we were all sweaty, filthy, and
so beyond tired that our arms and legs felt more tingly than
achy when they finally stopped moving.  We had mint jelly in
our hair, gravy in our shoes, and pecan pie encrusted our
shirt cuffs.  But at the end of it all, after we all served
our last seated parties, the chefs started to dole out the
little styrofoam boxes - turkey, ham, or lamb with creamed
peas and onions, mashed potatoes, squash, and all the rest. 
They always ran out of ham before the restaurant closed, but
the chefs always managed to pull one out of some mystery
location for me. 

We were like people who had been stranded in the desert
getting our first taste of water in a year.  We all ate
standing up in the kitchen, styrofoam boxes spread out on
every available surface, bread board, salad bar, ice chest,
cardboard box.  We barely talked, but looked at each other
as if sharing the happiest secret - it was almost over.
Even though we inhaled our food in a matter of minutes,
having to go back to check on tables or give checks or
whatever, that was the closest thing to a family Thanksgiving
I ever felt. 

Earlier in the day we had fought with each other tooth and
nail for forks, and screamed that someone had taken the
wrong drinks or bumped into someone.  Some of us cracked
under all the pressure, some of us broke down because of evil
customers, some of us cried because we got boiling water
dumped on us.  In fact, one waiter organized a trifecta bet
every holiday, in which people picked the three waitstaff
most likely to break down first.  At the end of it all,
though, we were all on the same team and knew that none of
us would make it through the day without everyone else.

I missed those little styrofoam box Thanksgiving dinners
this year, and the people I used to stand around eating
them with.

get your patchouli stink out of my store!

There are certain songs that always conjure memories of my most horrible experiences at school and work. It seems like every time I get myself into one of these situations where I procrastinate to the point where I have to stay awake for 72 hours at a time staring at a computer screen, I inadvertently adopt some anthem and listen to it over and over because it somehow soothes or motivates me.

Right now I'm in precisely such a situation, trying to whip my crap-ass thesis proposal into shape and "send it by Thursday". It's officially 2am, so now I'm just aiming for 6am Friday morning. And I'm miserable. And no one can fix this except for ME. And yet "ME" is writing a blog right now instead of doing the proposal. And "ME" keeps listening to "Hallelujah" and feeling sorry for MEself. "ME" is a dumbass, or perhaps, as some have suggested, a masochist. But not in the sexy way. And by sexy I mean "relating to sex", not as in appealing or whatever. God knows there's nothing less appealing than unwashed overtired dehydrated me who seeeeeeriously needs to get going on that freakin proposal.

So anyways, this is a list of my Top 5 "time of incredible school-related stress" songs EVER. There are way more than five songs I could write about - I have an incredibly long history as a crappy, stressed, procrastinating-to-the-point-of-absurdity student. As sad as it is to leave out some really good ones, my boyfriend John Cusack taught me that five is a magical number.

5. Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen, but I hate to admit the Rufus Wainwright version is kinda better).
This is my song of the moment, the Thesis Proposal song. When I listen to it I kind of insert "thesis proposal" where nouns such as "she" and "love" are supposed to go. Example: "Maybe there's a THESIS PROPOSAL (God) above/ And all I ever learned from THESIS PROPOSAL (love)/Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you". Yeahhhhhhh...

4. Only Living Boy in New York (Simon & Garfunkel)
"Hey, I've got nothing to do today but smile". Even though most days I have a laundry list of things to do that would not include "smile" in the first fifty or so, hearing Paul Simon say it somehow makes me believe it. Happiness on a stick, except it's not "on a stick", but rather "in a song". Or something. This song was especially dear to my heart about eleven months ago during my first finals week of grad school.

"Half of the time we're gone but we don't know where" was especially inspiring, in that funny way that really depressing things can be inspiring, as I tried to figure out how to use Excel the night before my Research Methods final was due. Needless to say, we were supposed to be using it all semester, but I somehow slipped through the cracks and managed to do everything by hand until we got to multiple regressions. My economist friends Alexis and Bill Jenkins III got many a 3am T-Stat-related phone call that week.

Hearing that song also makes me think of eating this totally nasty Chunky Soup that was the only food item in the house at the time of that particular schoolwork spree. It was so horrifically gravy-like, my arteries probably aren't fully recovered yet.

3. Wooden Ships (Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young)
"There's just one thing I got to know, can you tell me please, who won? Say, can I have some of your purple berries? Yes, I've been eating them for six or seven weeks now, haven't got sick once." I literally wrote a five-page section of a term paper about this song. It was during my year of school in Chile, when I wrote all of my papers with a pen and paper (well, pencil first of course. and graph paper - that was the thing down there.)

I was sitting at the dining room table of my Chilean family's house in the middle of the night, trying to write a paper; the assignment was "What is Psychedelia"? Yes, I took a class in which the final paper was about Psychedelia - it was called History of the Underground, and it was quite possibly the best college course I've ever experienced. Anyhow, I started writing about this song and other stuff I was listening to at the time, Talking Heads and King Crimson, etc.

I ended up making the argument that "true psychedelia" was what happened after Psychedelia, i.e. some kind of post-modern absurdist surrealist rejection of what had come to be considered the "movement" (and a rejection that denied its own existence, to boot). I threw in the craziest lyrics I could come up with (thank you Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno) and upon re-reading it in the morning though to myself "whoa, this is the craziest and possibly most questionable paper I've ever written" but I didn't really have a plan B. Amazingly, the professor fucking LOVED it. I kid you not, he gave me the paper back with a perfect score and said it was the best paper written for that class. He also threw in "gringo or otherwise" which really warmed my little heart since he was a major gringo-hater (as all good Chilean revolutionaries are).

2. Trouble (Ray LaMontagne)
"Feels like every time I get back on my feet she come around and knock me down again". In this case, "she" was the personification of my collective final papers from this past spring semester. There was the draft thesis proposal that got rejected and I had to rewrite (long story, see my MySpace blog if you really want to know), the infamous Honduras Incident (too painful to go into), and my first foray into writing about green cleaning, a paper which took every fiber of my being to complete.

I kept hearing this song on the radio and bought the CD, listening to it repeatedly one night while I was up late editing the Honduras disaster, feeling like the world was about to end. Miraculously, the world did end, kind of. That was when the whole flood thing happened, giving us a two-day extension on our final papers. When that week was all over, after much stressing and crying and adderall-borrowing, I left for a roadtrip to DC with Amanda, which is an apocalyptic tale all its own (again, see MySpace blog if you really want to know). I subjected her to endless Ray LaMontagne for the duration of the 12 hour trip. I know what you're thinking, and no, it definitely should not take that long to get to DC from Massachusetts. But it did, and after returning from that trip, "Trouble" became a much more cathartic and happy song that gives me all kinds of sappy "you can overcome any obstacle" thoughts. I didn't mean to end this one on such a lame note, but I just can't be fascinating and edgy all the time - just ask anyone who knows me in person...


1. Naive Melody (Talking Heads - who deserve, and will soon have - their own category)
"I'm just an animal looking for a home, share the same space for a minute or two. And you love me till my heart stops, love me till i'm dead". In addition to being quite possibly the sweetest love song ever, this song went along with my undergraduate thesis, quite possibly the hugest disaster of my life (so far). While I'm confident that I'll soon look back on that time longingly (while I try to do my master's thesis), at the time it was quite an ordeal. A 100-page document, en espanol, which I wrote in record-shattering time (three weeks, tops) and with a record-shattering lack of actual research to back up anything I wrote.

That thing was ridiculous - I clearly remember the day a week before the due date when my adviser Gustavo called me into his office, sat me down, and said gravely "Tu tesis esta en crisis. Tu tesis ES una crisis." Yeah, there was crying and stressing and adderall-borrowing then too, but on a much larger scale. I even went to the Wesleyan library during Spring Weekend in order to avoid the potential distractions posed by my friends having "fun", something with which I was unfamiliar for almost all of May 2003.

Anyhow, I would always play Naive Melody during my many many many all-nighters. I was always alone in MCEC, feeling very isolated and depressed and hopeless, especially when the sun started to rise as if to mock my night of non-productivity. I would go outside and smoke a cigarette and consider how it was a new day, the air felt different and people were starting to emerge from various corners, I would only be alone with my thesis for another hour or so.

The line "Home - is where I want to be, but I guess I'm already there" made me so sad - I always imagined that I might really be sleeping and dreaming, and I might wake up and magically be in my bed at my parents' house, where I would be safe and secure and happy and not have a thesis to write. But like the song says, I was already there - college and MCEC and the sunrise and my unfinished thesis were "home", and I had to accept that painful reality. Much like the previous song and its story, I did eventually finish, and then the song took on a much happier meaning as far as school is concerned, and also resumed its position as one of the most understatedly beautiful love songs I've ever heard.


So that said, I need to get on back to the proposal... I hope my procrastination is indicative of some kind of serious, but treatable, mental illness - because if not, it means I'm just an unambitious dumbass. I'll let you know when I figure it out.

no blogging allowed

Good thing I didn't actually sign up for the NaBloPoMo thing in time, because I am not allowed to blog today! My thesis proposal is due at midnight... Everyone on my committee will be asleep by then, so if I'm not going to get it sent out anytime soon, I technically have until they wake up...

more democracy in/action

Excerpt from D.E. Campbell's Why We Vote:

"On September 26, 1989, Traci Hodgson cast her ballot in Boston’s City Council election. It was the only vote cast in her precinct. For a number of reasons, the political science literature predicts that Traci should have been like the other 275 registrants in her precinct and not turned out to vote. She was only twenty-one, she had lived in Boston for less than two months, and she admitted that she was “not very familiar with the candidates running.” So why did she vote? When asked she replied, “I just think it’s important to vote. If you have the right, you ought to exercise it—whether you are going to make a difference or not” (Mooney 1989).

This book is about why Traci voted, and why she voted alone.

MADISON AND TOCQUEVILLE: A TALE OF TWO MOTIVATIONS

Our starting point in answering this question is not what did motivate Traci, but rather what did not. Clearly she did not vote to protect or advance her interests, as she admitted that she did not know enough about the candidates to select them on the basis of who best represented her. To someone with only a cursory familiarity with the study of American politics this may seem difficult to explain, as politics is typically described as a forum for the “clash of interests.” Equating politics with conflict underpins much of the political science literature and is an assumption shared by scholars working within many theoretical frameworks. I recall an introductory political science course in which a professor defined politics as the “scarcity of consensus.” In 1960, E. E. Schattschneider wrote simply, “At the root of all politics is the universal language of conflict” (2). Forty years later, Morris Fiorina and Paul Peterson note matter-offactly in their introductory textbook on American politics that “politics is fundamentally about conflict” (1998, xvi). For all the ink spilled by contemporary political scientists, however, no one has ever expressed this way of understanding politics better than James Madison in Federalist 10. Madison writes compellingly of how “the latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man,” and that “the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts” (1961, 79).

It does not seem, however, that Traci had her passions kindled as Madison describes. Instead, by her own account she was motivated by the glowing embers of obligation. She felt that she ought to vote, that it was her duty.

In invoking a sense of duty as a motivation to vote, Traci highlights a second, if more subtle, theme in both contemporary and classic writings on political engagement. If, in Federalist 10, Madison has written the quintessential statement on political participation as “protecting one’s interests,” then perhaps Tocqueville has written an equally quintessential description of political participation as driven by “fulfilling one’s duty.” In Democracy in America, Tocqueville observes that American political institutions lead citizens to see that “it is the duty as well as the interest of men to be useful to their fellows. . . . What had been calculation becomes instinct. By dint of working for the good of his fellow citizens, he in the end acquires a habit and taste for serving them” (1988, 512–13).

These two opposing views of politics are not merely the abstract statements of theoreticians, the political science rendition of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. They also inform the writings and doings of political practitioners, with some of America’s founders as notable examples. Of course, Madison was one of the founders and, as noted, in his words we find a cogent description of how politics is inevitably defined by conflict. However, George Washington’s vision was of a republic free from strife among its citizens, in which citizens were involved in public affairs out of duty (Schudson 1998). Ironically, given their disagreements on so many other matters, Thomas Jefferson’s vision for the new republic mirrored Washington’s. Jefferson idealized a nation of small Tocquevillian communities, mentioning his ideal in almost every speech he gave (Morone 1990).

The ongoing debate between civic republican and liberal political philosophers over the nature of political life at the time of America’s founding underscores the two competing visions of democracy’s nature. In summarizing this extensive literature, James Morone writes,

[T]he dominant interpretation of liberal America focuses on the pursuit of self-interest. . . . In the republican view, the colonial and Revolutionary ideal lay, not in the pursuit of private matters, but in the shared public life of civic duty, in the subordination of individual interests to the res publica. Citizens were defined and fulfilled by participation in political community. (1990, 16, emphasis added)

The distinction between engagement driven by interests versus duty need not be seen as either/or. The very fact that evidence can be mustered to support both interpretations of the founders’ ideals suggests that neither one dominated to the exclusion of the other. Nor should we assume that the essential difference between engagement spurred by a threat to one’s interests and engagement motivated by a sense of civic obligation has faded over time. Indeed, the distinction between interest-driven and duty-driven engagement is at the core of this book, which is about contemporary patterns of public engagement in the United States."

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So anyways, what I take from this is that there is a good, albeit never-discussed outside of this book, reason behind those ubiquitous and lame excuses of "I'm not voting because I don't like any of the candidates... "I don't know enough about the issues/candidates to choose..." "My vote doesn't really matter anyways..." "The whole political system is so fucked up I'm not voting just to protest it..."

The way I see it, not voting because you don't approve of the system is basically admitting defeat to the hegemonic two-party system. People in power have created and perpetuated this crazy dichotomy, which exists in such an intense form in very few countries (including the U.S.) So we don't have much choice if we want to vote for someone who is likely to win, but we do have a choice and we can't get scared off by the language of "conflict". Although which choice we make is crucial to each of us and our quests to further our personal interests, exercising the right to make the choice is crucial to our collective interest.

No, the world is not really separable into black and white, good and evil, Democrat and Republican - so it may seem unsatisfactory to have only those two choices before you. But by not voting to "protest" that, you are doing exactly what they want you to do. When less people vote, power remains concentrated in the hands of those who already have it. Although one vote may not matter much statistically, there's NO OTHER WAY to make changes. Unless, of course, the non-voters of the world are willing to put together a coalition, lobby and petition, run for office themselves, and go out into the streets to make their point. I am not saying non-voters are all kept away from the polls by laziness (although some might be) but rather that this frustrating political situation makes apathy a more reasonable choice for some people. However, those people shouldn't blame their apathy on the system, because they are the only ones who can change it.

As far as "not knowing enough" about the candidates or policies or ballot questions, I really can't come up with a polite way of saying that there's no excuse... Listen to NPR while you're in the shower or commuting. Watch the news in between commercials. Shop online for a candidate you agree with instead of shopping for a pink Teflon-coated frying pan. Read the newspaper, cnn.com, or The Nation instead of reading this blog. Fuck it, for all I care you can even watch a little Fox News - just don't listen too hard - while you're at the gym (why do they always have Fox News on in gyms?)

The point is, it does not require superhuman effort to be reasonably informed. In addition to learning about the candidates in your local elections, you will inadvertently learn about other stuff too. The latter will likely get you so fired up that you'll find it impossible to resist voting ever again. Even if it doesn't and you find my entire argument pointless, the frying pan will still be there.

election day

I didn't write this, which is all the more reason to read it:

Congressman John Lewis (GA-05), Chief Deputy Democratic Whip, delivers the Democratic Radio Address. In his address, Congressman Lewis celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and reflects on his own personal struggles and the struggles of everyday Americans in the 1960's to secure the right to vote for people of color. The Voting Rights Act is regarded as the seminal legislative accomplishment protecting the rights of voters of all backgrounds. It was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson on August 6, 1965.

"Good morning. I'm Congressman John Lewis of Georgia.

Just 40 years ago in many parts of the American South, it was almost impossible for people of color to register to vote. Poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses - as well as violence - were used to deny us this fundamental right.

People stood day-after-day in unmovable lines waiting on the courthouse steps trying to register to vote. And when they reached the front of the line, if they could not answer outrageous questions like, 'How many bubbles are in a bar of soap?' they were turned away. Doctors, lawyers, college professors, business owners, teachers, farmers, housewives were all told they could not read or write well enough to pass the test.

During the 1960's, the struggle to secure this most basic right involved the efforts of many brave Americans across the country. The cost was high: church burnings, bombings, shootings, and beatings.

It required the ultimate sacrifice of ordinary Americans: James Chaney, Andy Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner, who simply sought to register voters, Jimmie Lee Jackson, whose death precipitated the famous march from Selma to Montgomery. These names are forever etched in our nation's history; they died for the cause of freedom.

On March 7, 1965, I marched with 600 men and women to draw attention to Jimmie Lee Jackson's death. We left Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma and walked two-by-two down the sidewalk - not in the middle of the street - and when we reached the crest of the Edmund Pettus Bridge we saw a sea of blue Alabama state troopers.

We kept on marching on that bridge crossing the Alabama River. And Hosea Williams, who was leading the march with me, turned to me and asked, 'John, can you swim?' I said, 'No, Hosea, I can't swim. We're not going back. We're not going to jump. We're going forward.' And we continued to march within steps of the troopers.

We were beaten, tear gassed, and trampled by horses on that bridge. We paid a price, but that's what it took to bring voting rights for people of color in America. The events of 'Bloody Sunday,' as it came to be known, aroused the conscience of the nation. Under President Lyndon Johnson's strong leadership, the nation responded and Congress passed the Voting Rights Act. President Johnson signed it into law 40 years ago today.

The Voting Rights Act provided extensive protections by prohibiting any voting practice that would abridge the right to vote on the basis of race. It effectively abolished poll taxes and literacy tests and provided for criminal and civil sanctions against persons interfering with the right to vote.

Our nation's history is one of expanding rights. In 1975, the Voting Rights Act was amended to require bilingual ballots and voting assistance in areas with significant language minority citizens. English-only ballots had the effect of serving as literacy tests for Latinos and Native Americans who were non-English speaking voters. In 1982, the Voting Rights Act was amended to protect the rights of voters with disabilities.

Thanks to the Voting Rights Act, today there are 81 Members of Congress of African American, Latino, Asian, and Native American descent, and thousands of minorities in elected offices around the country.

Our democracy depends on protecting the right of every American citizen to vote in every election. We must honor the legacy of all who died in the struggle for civil rights. We must renew our commitment to remove obstacles to the right to vote. Democrats are committed to protecting the right to vote, and will work to reauthorize and strengthen the sections of the Voting Rights Act that are set to expire.

We cannot forget that people sacrificed and died for the right to vote. They didn't die in Vietnam or Iraq. They didn't die in South America or Eastern Europe. They didn't die in Africa or Southeast Asia, they died right here in the United States, trying to exercise their Constitutional right to vote.

The moral value of our society is defined by the veracity with which we defend the dignity of humankind. We need to continue to address these needs if we want to build an interracial democracy where all Americans are treated with dignity and respect, what I like to call the Beloved Community.

I'm Congressman John Lewis. Thank you for listening."

i heart illustrated nihilism

Swallow your poison, for you need it badly.

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

As you may have noticed, I'm no Che, but I do have my own little idiosyncratic mission. Today's topic is the antibacterial frenzy - thanks to Brian for bringing this one back to my mind's front burner where it belongs. As an introduction take a look at the article he sent me, from the Fashion & Style section of the New York Times, which aspiring revolutionaries should not overlook on moral grounds:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/fashion/05germ.html?em&ex=1162875600&en=b77c5ca96dea5ea0&ei=5087%0A

So these people are crazy, that's a given. But there are several larger problems I see with this trend (bullet points again - you LOVE it!):

• Society suffers when we keep finding more and "better" ways to distance ourselves from others. Spatial separation between people translates easily into emotional distance and a loss of feelings of community.
• This effect is enhanced, in my mind, by the reason for imposing the distance: germs. Germs have been around forever, and yes - modern medicine has saved a lot of lives by finding new ways to kill germs. However, the threat of germs is used and abused by companies that make cleaning and personal care products in order make us afraid. Fear has a long history in marketing strategies: we buy things we never knew we needed, hoping they will protect us from scary elements we never knew existed. Just like we bought this war.
• Furthermore, the more little doses of antibiotics we take, the less our immune system is able to battle serious diseases. When you are prescribed antibiotics or a similar drug in pill form, the doctor tells you to make sure you finish the bottle as directed, even if you're feeling better after a day or two. Why? If you take less than the whole dose, most of the bacteria may have been killed, but the strongest germs, those that were not killed by the drug, survive (in small enough numbers that you no longer feel sick). When you stop taking the medicine the remaining germs have the opportunity to multiply and make you sick all over again. This is called developing antibiotic resistance. One of the major contributors to this problem is that doctors tend to over-prescribe antibiotics, even when they suspect the symptoms may be due to a virus, not a bacterial infection. They aren't the only ones to blame, of course, people misuse antibiotics all the time...they are in the milk...we wash our hands with them...

• Getting back to antibacterials/disinfectants/sanitizers in the more concrete sense - they're just not good for you! Now that milk-providing cows are being pumped full of antibiotics (among other chemicals, a discussion for another day) we have built-in levels of the chemicals in our bodies. Then we slather on antibacterial hand gel, shower with antibacterial body wash, use products treated with Microban, and even spray sanitizers directly into the air in closed indoor spaces! For anyone who hasn't read Silent Spring (do yourself a favor and read it) I will make a huge oversimplification: germs are living organisms, and chemicals that kill them do so by attacking their central nervous systems. When these chemicals (biocides) are applied repeatedly to our bodies, they build up over time (especially when they are encapsulated in petroleum-based lotions). When we spray them into the air, we inhale the tiny killers into our lungs. When we wash them off, they go down the drain and into the groundwater, building up in our water supplies. I could go on all day, but you get the picture. These articles are a good introduction to some of the best reasons to QUIT BEING OBSESSED WITH ANTIBACTERIALS!!! NOW!!! Love, Anne.
  

http://www.grinningplanet.com/2005/10-04/triclosan-article.htm

http://jac.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/49/1/11

Enough righteous indignation for the moment, unfortunately I have to get back to my real work now...