low key

that's exactly how i want this winter break to be, extremely low key. i'm a few weeks from 21. to some people 21 one means a whole new world opening up to them, a world where bars and clubs can be hit up with glee, a birthday party of 21 shots in 24 hours, to me it's a signal that i really need to focus.

i think i've really been spreading myself thin for the past god knows how many years. spread thin among friends, spread thin with the things i like to do, spread thin with what i want to do with myself after school. i think i'll start off the new semester thusly:

return to nyc with long bastard ass indie kid disheveled hair. write more. climb more. swim more. goto concerts again more. meet more rockstars. try not to go out with 10 girls at the same time. immerse myself in the new york culture that seems to have been hidden to me in the past few years that i am starting to see glimpses of now, if only materialistically. there are a lot of cool people out there, there is a lot of cool stuff out there, i like cool stuff. wasn't that profound?

all of this before new years... i don't like to make resolutions, resolutions are meant to be broken, especially if they are as contrived as the new years' ones are. i can see it now, there is going to be a huge influx of people into dodge gym the first two weeks of school, you will never see the again, that is of course, until next year.

i wish people would paint things for me, i had forgotten how much i like art. not your typical museum art, but art that is created out of sheer impulse of the momment, i made an amazing collage for sydney before break, it was.... (redundancy is cool) amazing.

i might just be the most random person ever or maybe i just have undiagnosed ADD. then again i don't believe in add, i just believe there is always something more interesting somewhere else some time else (some time else sounds cool, i'm going to start using that more).

and to finish off the journal, these are my favorite websites of the past few days.

- Threadless t-shirts. everyone is an amazing piece of art work. the community driven creation of shirts is just a brilliant idea. thanks to amy for steering. http://www.threadless.com/?streetteam=isuperwang

-Medium Shoes. i'm going to find a pair of these www.mediumfootwear.com

-Royal magazine. absurdly awesome, Wired was the only magazine i used to care to read, it fulfilled everything dorky about me. now there is this for artsy fartsy me. www.theroyalmagazine.com

-SHoP architecture. interesting ex-CU:architecture students' firm. www.shoparc.com

PS.....
still doing research to write an article about 'liberal' bias in the media. topic focus; if it doesn't exist, why do so many people claim it does + conceptions of liberalism.

long journal on everything

merry christmas everyone, it just occurred to me that this journal is going to be read by very few people, but... i guess that's ok, because what is a journal in the end? it is something for myself. and now that i think about it it's probably going to be quite long because there are a few things on my mind.

the boring part comes first.

this past semester was the most difficult few months of my academic career. it was the first time where i've seriously thought that i wasn't going to pass a class. not just one class, but three were up in the air. the most serious of which, was posted to ssl this morning and... thankfully i somehow recovered from my record breaking lowest score on the first midterm of 16/100 ( i was EXTREMELY tired) to get by, but as of Christmas another two loom like spectres waiting to say, Stephen, you tried hard but... you just weren't good enough. Let's hope that doesn't happen. Suzie was crying on the side of lerner a few days ago, she 'failed' her japanese final, 'failing' meaning... she could possibly get a B. it impresses me a lot that people can still pull of straight A's. it was pretty easy in highschool, at least i thought so, I made 2 B's in highschool, one was a class I took over the summer that I didn't want to argue about and the other was taking Spanish 3 my first year of highschool. Now... SEAS has shed new light, I wish i had the leasure of getting mad at getting a B, now I hope to at least get a B, i've seen quite a few C's the last 3 years and they aren't going to stop coming. i think i'm a-ok though.

what's next...
finals finished on tuesday for me. we went out everynight until thursday. to tell you all the truth i've never been happier. i don't want to say that i like the friends i've made in college better than the ones from home, my dad says that the HS ones are the ones that will be there forever, but the truth is, they are the ones that are the most foreign to me now. For the first time in 5 semesters of Columbia, I think i've found friends that I can call good friends, friends that I can actually picture being there 10-15+ years down the road. Friends that will be standing there in dresses and tuxes if I ever walk down the aisle with big smiles on their faces, they are the best men and bridesmaids. but wouldn't you know it, matt is leaving for Madrid next semester, and as depressing as it is to see him go, i know it's going to be absolutely fucking amazing for him. I envy the cc kids that can take 12 credits abroad and just take in the sights and sounds of a completely different culture and worldview.

i'm glad the distance of dormitories didn't crush things this year, you know who is sticking with you when you don't recess into just being another facebook friend as soon as the year is over, you go home, you live somewhere new, and they discover a whole new group of people that they think are way cooler than you ever were.

but anyways, the weekend was amazing. i may have seen almost every girl i've ever been interested in at CU/barnard (well not all of them) and i just let them all... go. i knew they were there though, even if the semester of working my ass off did basically crush and spirit and energy i could put forth toward anything with the women. the semester parting of the matt, tim, and stephen squad was capped off, in what more bizarre finish than a mecca. a mecca that only in its absence of Neal patrick harris and other way more weird things, could have been the multiracial adventure known as harold and kumar goto white castle. we stumbled into a cab at 4 in the morning to white castle, dragging matt and tejal and then we feasted. as matt and tejal argued with the employees over the validity of not serving them english muffin egg sandwiches until 6am, tim and i began our quest, the Crave case.

within the hour, tim and i destroyed 30 hamburgers. this was after our earlier dinner of Deluxe's hamburgers with our crew + tim's brother and his accompanying hot girlfriend. may god strike me down, she was 16, nevermind, i'm shameless, she was hot.

more substantive:
i'd like to do some research over break and retype this part, because i think it is without a doubt worth looking into. michael moore and al franken find it absolutely ludicrous that people peg the mainstream media is having a incredibly blatant liberal bias.

to me, the gut reaction is, liberal bias? the only liberal bias that exists in the media is the fact that there are lots of letters and words on pages of newspapers and print ads.

i love wired magazine, i respect the readers who send letters to the editor, this one stood out when i was reading it today,

the September issue is an insult. I get plenty of left-wing propaganda free from the major media; I won't pay [you] to deliver more into my household. When resubscription time arrives, don't bother sending the bill- I won't be renewing. - Milton Woodham, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

If al franken, michael moore, and myself ALL think that the comment that the media is liberally biased is without a second thought, without a doubt completely and unquestionably stupid, then why is the statement so prevalent. sure we could make the case that GOP leaders force feed those talking points into people so much that people repeat it like a parrot. i am inclined to disagree, there must be something more to this. Why would so many people take offense to things in the major media and label it as liberally biased if it really was not so? that just seems to prevalent and common to be some kind of right-wing conspiracy. it has occurred to me recently that perhaps what i consider liberal is left from my conception of what the center to me is, the center being far left of normal americans. if this is so, then I think that there is a problem with America, at least in what or ideals as citizens of this nation are, the things we hold most important to us, the drive that keeps us going from day to day, there must be a cog in the gears.

I'm going to at this momment do a quick survey of the major headlines from some prominent internet websites.

msnbc.com
• Christmas in Iraq: Soldiers, celebrities help spread cheer among U.S. troops
• WP: U.S. lacked postwar plan, strategist says
• Tanker blast in Baghdad wounds 12 Iraqis
• Lawyer: Aziz won't testify against Saddam
• Bush calls service members to thank them
• Ukraine braces for presidential runoff | Video
• Saturn moon probe descends toward Titan

cnn.com
• Space probe on way to Saturn moon
• Tanker truck suicide bomb hits Baghdad | premium content Video
• Russian military tests top-of-the-line missile
• Aziz won't testify against Saddam | The face of Iraq
• Five killed by Vietnam War shell
• Abducted children returned to mother
• Fast-food worker rescues drive-thru customer
• Airman saves woman, son from river

nytimes.com
• Bitter Divisions Rife in Ukraine as Voting Nears
• Remembering the Dead and the Horror of Mosul
• Program Coaxes Hospitals to See Treatments Under Their Noses
• Spitzer, in a Shift, Will Yield Inquiries to U.S. Regulators

since it's christmas, i think we should look at the headlines on a different day since they will probably try to be cheery right now. i believe right now that the cause for accusation of left wing bias and the disbelief is created because Americans do not reside in the center. there are people like me who are very liberal, and there are many very conservatives folks out there, I think their conceptions of a mutual center is still too far to the right and vice versa.

in my eyes, conservative america has pinned the stories and themes that make newspapers sell, that bring large tv audiences as liberal bias. newspapers reach out to stories like the poor family that can't eat and can't have christmas gifts because of poverty, of AIDS victims that are suffering, this is not the newspaper presenting liberal bias, it's writing news that sells. i don't know where i'm going with this, but America has put too much faith in the validity of what institutions and people present them with as true. we live in an age where we are truly the fast food age, we want our information and we want it fast. we don't goto the library to read books written by experts of the age, we double click a firefox icon, a stylized blue 'e' and instantly we get a filtered version of exactly what someone wanted to give us, and guess what, we accept it. we don't want to look at the second search result, we want what's at the top of the page, and in our rush and haste, what's at the top is the only thing that counts, everything else is lost as a excess heap of 1's and 0's.

the end.

more racism?

On Thursday I was sitting in a classroom on the second floor of Mudd when someone walked by saying 'that fucking asshole' really loud. My solid state professor didn't even flinch and we continued with our final. Turns out it was Sasha talking to Christ Cheng.

Anyways, they were quoting from a piece written in the Columbia Asian Journal known as Tablet. The article in reference was titled 'Yellow boy starts a ruckus" or something like that. While I was eating lunch Sasha told me to look the article over... apparently it is starting the same racist sentiment amongst some people on campus in the same way the Fed cartoon did last year. I'd really like to know what people found so racist about this article... because if anything it was a commentary (albeit it didn't really do any interesting analysis) on how racism is still prevalent and can come from anyone given the right stimulus. The irony was the racism stemmed as a retaliation to other perceived racism.

Just wondering if anyone read it and what they thought. If this sparks another 'we are being silenced' protest, I'm going to have to protest the protest, because it's in my view illegitimate.

edit:
------------------------------------------------
i just reread "A yellowboy starts a ruckus" by peter kang. i knew there was something disturbing about this when i first read it, but it was so subtle in my quick reading that i completely missed it.

he begins the story with a kid asking another korean on the subway if he was Asian or Chinese.

ok whatever, and then Kang decides to shift to acknowledgement of his fellow Korean subway rider's puzzled look. He states it would have been bolder to call himself "american". this is a legitimate statement but one that i think has been taken out of context over the years, especially when people are asking about your ethnicity purely based on physical appearance, you know what they are asking.

In Kang's story what sets the korean kid off is when the black child asks 1. why he isn't chinese because he has "chinky" eyes and 2. if he has a small penis.

Like Mike said, there are a billion ways to go about dealing with this and the recounted action was absolutely not it.

Let me ask you something" he said to the boy, "I could never figure it out. What's the difference between a black person and a monkey?" This is the part when the entire train goes apeshit and tries to beat the fuck out of the korean guy.

What Kang was trying to do with his article was show that everyone can be racist when prompted. No shit. The stereotyping of asians as squinty eyes, small penises, "ain't never seen a chink like that, they usually quiet and don't speak english much". Kang tries to make himself seem like he is a third party objective arbitrator, "Was he racist? Who was more so? I couldn't quite figure it out".

The fact of the matter is, if you read this article and get the subleties, it is incredibly biased in favor of the Korean guy's racist remarks simply because it was retaliation. After a quote comparing Black people to monkey's a flashing light went off in my head saying that he should address that somewhere, because a statement like that is ABSOLUTELY ridiculous, especially given that it was in response to a little kid. What really hit me is that 1. the black people in this story are portrayed as a bunch of urban thug ass kids and ignorant and racist (maybe showing that racism is prevalent even in blacks) but all of the korean kids comments are addressed not through Kang, but through the responses of these 'ignorant' blacks.

What was actually addressed by the author? I was glad the Korean guy wasn't passive and wasn't afraid to reply when called a "chink". In fact, I was annoyed just because the little kid was so damn ignorant. What do they teach these kids at school anyways? No wonder rich white people always opt for taxis"

Mike has a problem with that last sentence. I have a bigger problem with the weight that Kang places on ignorant blacks. The blame is completely shifted to racism that is perpetuated by ignorance, where is the chastising of the korean guy, the older, wiser, nicely dressed intern whatchamahoosit, who should have known a lot better than to make his retaliatory remarks? where was it? instead Kang pats him on the back for standing up to a little kid who called him squinty eyed and small penised.

I didn't think this was a racist article at first, probably wasn't intended to be (just like the fed cartoon wasn't) but ... the subtleties dropped into the writing of Kang shows a lot. Way to be sublety racist when you are making a commentary against it.

some round about interviewing

My mother used to like the church, she also used to like the Reverend Billy Graham a lot. There have been a lot of things over the years that have eroded her connection to both and I find it suprising that more Americans have not had the same feeling of "hey that's not quite right...". Just skimming over a newsweek interview with Billy Graham's son Franklin also a reverend I believe, just shows you how someone who said something incredibly 'not -PC' is trying to maintain his integrity as a credible man and person of the faith, with all the toleration and moral attitude that you may expect from those that are tenets of organized religion.

Here are some quips I found rather... round about answers and contradictory. Does the rest of America not scratch their heads over this, or does religious doctrine and agreement just cause a mass head nod of agreement?

Newsweek:The president seemed to signal that he was OK with civil unions in the last weeks of the campaign. Is your objection to marriage as a word?

grahamThis was an issue that I think in this election where people finally said, “I’ve had it. I don’t want that agenda being forced and pushed and mandated on me.” You can’t legislate morality. A homosexual’s sins are no different than a heterosexual’s sins. If I go out tonight and I sleep with someone who’s not my wife, it’s just as great a sin as gay people [having sex]. Sin is sin.

*keep this answer in your head. interesting, 'the people finally said'. finally said what? civil unions and gay marriage hasn't exactly been pushed on america in all 50 states and is a super hot issue threatening to undermime the morality of america. he says you can't legislate morality, i believe the legislation was EXACTLY to legislate morality, why did we sign into law in probably 200% more states that gay marriage is ILLEGAL. then, he's right a sin is a sin, if you sleep with someone that's not your wife you are performing adultry. sin. must have missed a lesson in making analogies in middle school english, because adultry and gay sex have nothing to do with one another and doesn't even provide a semi coherent illustration of what he's trying to say, which is nothing anyways.

Newsweek:Some people have said that the evangelical community has a disproportionate amount of interest about what goes on people’s sex lives as opposed to spending more time fighting poverty, healing the sick, feeding the hungry and trying to do more that is in line with Jesus’ teachings.

grahamI don’t have an interest in what goes on in other people’s bedrooms. I think it’s a fascination by the media. When I go around with other Christian leaders, we don’t have those conversations, “Hey, Franklin, did you hear who’s sleeping with so-and-so?”

*for someone who just answered the question that he really cares about people sinning and sleeping with people other than their wives and gay sex, it's interesting that he says he has no interest in what's going in the bedrooms of america. he doesn't care about who's sleeping with so and so but apparently he cares about sodomy and gays making out. go figure. maybe i read the answer wrong.

Newsweek:You were quoted a couple years ago as calling Islam an “evil and wicked religion.” Would you care to revisit that comment?

grahamThose comments started a debate in this country. I don’t know what I can add to it. I respect the people of the Islamic faith that have come to this country. I have Muslim friends. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to help them. That doesn’t stop me from loving them. I certainly don’t believe the way they believe, and they don’t believe the way I believe, either. That doesn’t make me dislike them, and I love them very much. I want to do all I can to help them. In Khartoum, we have been working for years in a mission in the south. I want to demonstrate to those Muslims that my love for them is sincere. I want them to know about God’s son, Jesus Christ. I want them to know but I certainly don’t want to force it on them. I would like some day for Muslims to know what Christians do.

*can you answer this in a more round about manner? no analysis necessary. cool he has muslim friends. he says he doesn't want to convert people but he wants them to know jesus,... which is converting people. ok.


Newsweek:Talk about AIDS if you would. What work do you see that needs doing in that arena?

grahamI’m a pilot. If I am up at altitude and I am sitting inside the airplane and I stick my head out, I’m not going to live very long. God didn’t create me to live at 40,000 feet. I go to the Caymans each year, and I like to scuba dive. If I put my nose just a millimeter under water and I don’t have a breathing apparatus on, I’m not going to live very long because God didn’t make me to live underwater. If we get outside of God’s perimeters, we are at risk. When we use sex outside of how God intended sex to be used, we are at risk. People have to be educated as to what these risks are. What [distributing] condoms says is: “If you use this the risk is now dealt with. So enjoy sex however you want to use it because you’ll be safe.” Wrong, you’re not safe. And the only way you can be safe is to use sex as God intended: between a man and a woman in a married relationship. That’s not a message that the world wants to hear.

*i just think this is rather silly.

Newsweek:Was Brown v. Board of Education a case of activist judges making their own law?

grahamI don’t know; I’m not familiar with it. Look, there’s a lot of good that takes place in this country every day. In spite of all our problems, I am pro-American. I am pro-Republican, I am pro-Democrat and I am even pro-a-few-of-those-Independents-we’ve-got-laying-around. We’ve got a great nation. But I do believe that the majority of people, people of Christian faith, are under attack. No question about it.

* wow. for such a high profile figure... i would have thought he'd be at least somewhat familiar with Brown vs. Board. Billy Graham's son has never been pro-democrat... at least not that i've ever seen, i randomly went to him and his dad when they came to jacksonville in 2000, definately heard a giagantic speech about how we should all vote republican and for Bush. Democrat values, whatever they were/are at the time, demonized. Why are these people the spokesman for a large majority of the population?

george w. bush, visionary? (*cough*)

In January of 2004, George W. Bush leveled with America in his State of the Union address. We were confronted by massive job loss, a rapidly increasing deficit, and the ever present specter of terrorism. I and 50% of the United States watched our televisions and listened to our radio, mocking the absurd cheerful 3rd grade painting of the nation that was complete with rainbows and butterfiles, that Bush painted around us. Little did we know, 11 months later, that he was right. He said the economy was going to get better, good people were working hard, it was hard work, and then a grim look came over his face.

The despair that was conveyed by his ruffled brow could only spell one thing. disaster.

To help children make right choices, they need good examples. Athletics play such an important role in our society, but, unfortunately, some in professional sports are not setting much of an example. The use of performance-enhancing drugs like steroids in baseball, football, and other sports is dangerous, and it sends the wrong message -- that there are shortcuts to accomplishment, and that performance is more important than character. So tonight I call on team owners, union representatives, coaches, and players to take the lead, to send the right signal, to get tough, and to get rid of steroids now. -January 2004- GWBUSH

How did he know? 11 months after he addressed the nation, how did he know that America would be faced with such a crisis that even legend Hank Aaron would turn his back and refuse to bring dignity to it? Amidst intelligence reform, and a growing death toll in Iraq, Barry Bonds "unknowingly" used steroids.

Today the Whitehouse spoke out, for once they saw the problem and attacked it with the ferocity that one would unleash upon Osama Bin Laden.

“The president believes it’s important for Major League Baseball management and the player’s union to act by taking strong steps to address the problem,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. “Professional baseball players are people our children look up to. Players who use drugs undermine the efforts of parents and coaches to send the right message to our children.”"

From MSNBC.comBaseball commissioner Bud Selig repeatedly has called for more frequent testing and harsher penalties for steroid use, stepping up the intensity following reports of grand jury testimony by sluggers Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield.

It doesn't trouble America that CIA agents identities are revealed to the world. It doesn't trouble America that it is a given that private grand jury testimony is regularly leaked to the press. What troubles America, and it's nice that the president knows what we care about, is that 703 homeruns as of the end of 2004 season were aided by performance enhancing drugs. For shame, John Kerry should have tiraded about OJ Simpson and Ricky Williams, that could have pushed him over in Ohio and Florida.

people are sick

on thursday i took the train to go meet my parents at the newark airport, we were going to go to my grandmother's house together.

before that all happened i was standing in penn station trying to figure out how the hell to find my terminal for the train since it pops up about 2 seconds before the train leaves. i felt a tap on my shoulder and standing in front of me was a little asian guy with a really desperate look on his face. he asked me why i didn't respond to him for the last 2 minutes, i said i was listening to music and didn't hear him, and he said he thought i was a banana.

so we start speaking mandarin, i was really happy to practice a little bit since the only people who really ever speak it to me are Novi and Isaac, neither one being chinese... well Isaac goes out with enough Chinese girls I guess he could in fact be part of the exclusive club. Anyways, so after making fun of me for not being able to speak Taiwanese, he gets into his story about how his friend told him to get on this bus and go visit in Boston and how he is returning to Malaysia soon. And he at first said he needed $10 and I thought, what the hell, it's Thanksgiving. I only have a $20 so I ask him if he has change and he obviously had a couple bucks because he flashed them in my face when he first came up to me. The entire time, I'm thinking, "make sure he doesn't steal your wallet, be prepared to run after him and tackle him, watch his eyes, make sure he doesn't steal your bag or ipod." So I fish out some money and he starts hopping up and down with an even more pitiful look. what the crap.

He points to a circled dollar amount $28. ticket to boston. I think I rounded up about $26 for him and he was very happy and wanted to get my address to mail me the money back and my phone number to take me out to dinner because he works at a restaurant. I just wanted to get on my train so I jotted down some info and we parted ways. Thinking back about it, about 5 minutes afterwards, why the hell did I give him my contact information.... The guy obviously wasn't going to pay me back or take me out to dinner, for an entire minute, i was thinking about free dinner and being a part of some shady underground asian mafia that I gave him money and my info. stupid.

I talked to my mom about it when I met my family at the Avis car rental place. 10 years ago, I was 10, same station, same short Chinese guy, my mom and dad gave him $30. Apparently he is well known and bounces between Penn Station and grand central. It was Thanksgiving, I actually felt bad for the guy. I really can't understand how someone can have 0 moral regard and go around with this story, pegging Chinese people for money on some fake sob story. He seemed so nice... how does he sleep at night, that was about a few days worth of good eating for me, I hope he needed that money. If I ever see him again I am going to get my money back, shake him upside down for his lunch money and put him in a trashcan highschool style. I'm such a sucker for down and out people. and they know it.

5:30 am. about me.

i like to think of my life as a weird one.

my lucky number over the years has turned out to be 13. Everytime I turn, I see another permutation and combination of 13, I answered a random question during a few math club competitions right with it, my department's floor is there... as life rolls along, i wonder if i'm slated to be shined upon by a gift or hovered over with a curse. 13 is not lucky, it is an odd man out that carries a strange stigma with it.

i was never the smartest kid, but i was always the kid that could pull it all together and come out ahead in the end, always the one that made it during crunch time and say 'i can do it' and it happened. i'm hoping i'm that same person, because i've been looking at my last 2 and a half years of college and realizing that that dependable person i once was, not dependable like a friend, but dependable to myself is fading. i don't want that to happen, one of these days i'm really going to need to take a hard look at myself and fix things or i'm afraid i'll end up someone i'm not.

i've noticed that often in my life i've been faced with two options, suprise suprise. often there is the path that i think is more or less concrete. be it an easier piece for a piano recital, what to eat for dinner, or even the girl that i like that i know likes me. then there is the other path. it's not like the frost poem that paints of a picture of the road less traveled as one that is overgrown and difficult, i'm optimistic about it. i've always thought that the other side of the fence could be greener, and everytime i've based this assumption of something that i thought could become concrete but didn't show itself as such yet. the harder piece that would be in my mind a better concert performance, or the girl that i thought was prettier, possibly more fun, and could like me a lot more as showed a few signs.

i've never liked to resign myself to second best, but it's become apparent to me that striving for what you think is the best at a given time often does not end well. the reward is great, the risk is too high. i've never backed down from risk, but after things fall apart, after things don't work out the way they needed to in order to work, i can't settle back with what is concrete. what's there, feels like second best, what's there feels like a consolation prize for failure.

i've missed out on a lot of wonderful things in my life because of this. i've missed out on a lot of potentially amazing relationships because i've turned people away with a head scratching change from interest to disinterest. i'm always looking for that green pasture but really i'm just passing up the ones that i've already jumped the fence for and know are great.

it hadn't happened in months, i'm not suprised to faced with it again nor am i suprised that i've resumed my strange lack of sleep schedule along with my 'pseudo deep' analysis of myself. i don't know what's best for me anymore, i want the best but i'm missing out on everything. it'd be a lot easier if things would just work out when i want them to. i don't know if i should risk it this time.

the end.

you make me sick.

kerry '04

(collected away messages that i wrote throughout the day... i am so mad right now, the president of the united states of america lied to your face for 4 years and you let him win the popular vote. we will begin at the mccain-feingold campaign finance reform act and hopefully the american political process will be fixed. if the bush administration has shown us anything it is that we are
a. susceptible as ever to terrorist threats
b. americans are easily manipulated and do not bother to learn the truth
c. it is still easy strategy to not untruths in order to slander your opponent and it will stick.

remember. tommorow, nov. 3rd, america will be more divided than it has been in a very long time. i hope bush has someway to bring together the nation, he does not have my ears or my heart for the rest of his existence. there are few reasons for you to have voted for bush, i'm almost positive you did it for the wrong reasons. the next 4 years will open your eyes, i gurantee it. too bad for me i have to be there with you to experience it, i told you so won't mean a thing. the election wasn't about "silly liberals" it was about america acting aggressively and pre-emptively and being wrong and not being able to admit fault. it was about an admistration that kept secrets and lied to the public. i learned more about the president in the last two months than i have in the last 4 years, that's saying a lot, and it's saying he hasn't done anything for us. america you failed me and the rest of us today. thanks.)
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if bush wins, history will show that he has been the worst president our country has had in a rather long time. it's almost telling enough that at least half of the country doesn't like him, if i was the president and about 150 million people didn't like me i'd think i had a problem...

if kerry wins, republicans will grumble about how great things would have been in the event of a bush victory. kerry will inherit a population completely polarized by the bush administration as well as a situation in iraq that has no better explanation than, "a big fucking mess (strategically and logistically)". If anything goes wrong trying to pull us out of this shithole, kerry will take the brunt of the blame. Half the population won't realize that they just avoided an extension of a presidency that has basically taken american domestic and international political and social progress of the united states backwards.
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it's sad when you don't know your candidate's position.

*72% of bush supporters believe Iraq has/had WMD's (they didn't)
*75% of bush supporters believe Iraq was aiding al Qaeda. (they didn't)
*82% of bush supporters believe the administration told them there were WMDs/al Qaeda-Iraq connection

it's depressing that the administration has so polarized the american public that no one is willing to listen and accept truth anymore.(swiftboat veterans for truth: FALSE; Kerry flip flopping: FALSE; all fabricated)

bush did not support the department of homeland security, he did not support the creation of the 9/11 commission. is this your candidate, are you supporting him because he looked in charge 4 days after 9/11 while talking into a megaphone on a pile of rubble in nyc? your candidate has done nothing for the american public but keep secrets for 4 years. 4 more years? you're killing yourself.

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if it turns out george bush wins he will have won on a combination of pandering to the christian fundamentalists of this country, creating a false characterization of his opponent, and lying to the american public.

the next 4 years will be a repeat of the nixon years, i have never ever seen a credibility gap this ridiculous in my entire life.

the worst part about it is that my friends voted for him. half of you i talked to believed the lies of campaign propaganda, if tommorow kerry is not vindicated we will have 4 more years of proof of executive ineptitude. you all make me sick.

the greatest indignity of them all.

How far will republicans go to supress the democrat voters of Columbia University? I had no idea until it steamrolled me this afternoon. Throughout the year Prof. Keren Bergman, our wonderful Solid State Devices professor told us she was Republican, what of it? We did not know that it had anything to do with us, so we continued on, pushing through chapters of minority carrier diffusion, crystal lattices, and p-n junctions.

Today she announced that she was going to hold class on Tuesday, election day. Being an important class where missing one could throw you into a pit of confusion, how many voters will not be able to go home to vote, men and women from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, etc. stuck in room 227 Mudd at 2:40 PM silently watching the clock, knowing that they could be relaxing, voting, and then drinking beer.

Why class on Tuesday? Obviously it is a conspiracy that goes all the way up to the upper ranks of the GOP. She is on the payroll of the NSA afterall... (i don't think there is a real connection, but it sounds incriminating!). Her excuse for holding class on Tuesday? Of course she wouldn't say, "i want to make sure Democrats don't go out and vote". She had a much more... almost more scathing excuse. She was going to a conference. Apparently Prof. Bergman had two choices, goto a conference in Pittsburgh (which she chuckled to herself after dismissing it) or goto the conference in Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico, "i guess i'm just going to have to enjoy the weather... sigh, So i'm just going to have to have class this coming Tuesday as a make up for my absence". Blasphemy!! How intricate a web of deceit she weaves... She has single handedly crushed go home and vote plans and put the illusion that somehow, a trip to Puerto Rico is in our Electrical Engineering futures... the sly fox. She's good... she's very good.

(ps. she's a great prof. if anyone is an EE major)

oh... in other news. haliburton is in big trouble.

1. Haliburton Subsid. can't account for about $3 million dollars worth of stuff that was supposed to goto Iraq. Where'd it go? Army is pissed, Haliburton subsid says, hey we did a good job.
(link)

2. Usually the FBI doesn't investigate you unless you really did something wrong... one group already has said they unfairly awarded Haliburton a no-bid contract. favortism or were they the only capable company? we shall see.
(link)

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eminem-

[I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
And to the Republic for which it stands
One nation under God
Indivisible・
It feels so good to be back..]

Scrutinize every word, memorize every line
I spit it once, refuel, reenergize, and rewind
I give sight to the blind, mind sight through the mind
I ostracize my right to express when I feel it's time
It's just all in your mind, what you interpret it as
I say to fight you take it as I知 gonna whip someone's ass
If you don't understand don't even bother to ask
A father who has grown up with a fatherless past
Who has blown up now to rap phenomenon that has
Or at least shows no difficulty multi task
And juggling both, perhaps mastered his craft slash
Entrepreneur who has held long too few more rap acts
Who has had a few obstacles thrown his way through the last half
Of his career typical manure moving past that
Mister kiss his ass crack, he's a class act
Rubber band man, yea he just snaps back

Come along, follow me as I lead through the darkness
As I provide just enough spark, that we need to proceed
Carry on, give me hope, give me strength,
Come with me, and I won't stear you wrong
Put your faith and your trust as I guide us through the fog
Till the light, at the end, of the tunnel, we gonna fight,
We gonna charge, we gonna stomp, we gonna march through the swamp
We gonna mosh through the marsh, take us right through the doors

To the people up top, on the side and the middle,
Come together, let's all bomb and swamp just a little
Just let it gradually build, from the front to the back
All you can see is a sea of people, some white and some black
Don't matter what color, all that matters is we gathered together
To celebrate for the same cause, no matter the weather
If it rains let it rain, yea the wetter the better
They ain't gonna stop us, they can't, we're stronger now more then ever,
They tell us no we say yea, they tell us stop we say go,
Rebel with a rebel yell, raise hell we gonna let em know
Stomp, push up, mush, fuck Bush, until they bring our troops home come on just . . .

Come along, follow me as I lead through the darkness
As I provide just enough spark, that we need to proceed
Carry on, give me hope, give me strength,
Come with me, and I won't stear you wrong
Put your faith and your trust as I guide us through the fog
Till the light, at the end, of the tunnel, we gonna fight,
We gonna charge, we gonna stomp, we gonna march through the swamp
We gonna mosh through the marsh, take us right through the doors, come on

Imagine it pouring, it's raining down on us,
Mosh pits outside the oval office
Someone's trying to tell us something, maybe this is God just saying
we're responsible for this monster, this coward, that we have empowered
This is Bin Laden, look at his head nodding,
How could we allow something like this, Without pumping our fist
Now this is our, final hour
Let me be the voice, and your strength, and your choice
Let me simplify the rhyme, just to amplify the noise
Try to amplify the times it, and multiply it by six
Teen million people are equal of this high pitch
Maybe we can reach Al Quaida through my speech
Let the President answer on high anarchy
Strap him with AK-47, let him go
Fight his own war, let him impress daddy that way
No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our soil
No more psychological warfare to trick us to think that we ain't loyal
If we don't serve our own country we're patronizing a hero
Look in his eyes, it's all lies, the stars and stripes
They've been swiped, washed out and wiped,
And Replaced with his own face, mosh now or die
If I get sniped tonight you'll know why, because I told you to fight

So come along, follow me as I lead through the darkness
As I provide just enough spark, that we need to proceed
Carry on, give me hope, give me strength,
Come with me, and I won't stear you wrong
Put your faith and your trust as I guide us through the fog
Till the light, at the end, of the tunnel, we gonna fight,
We gonna charge, we gonna stomp, we gonna march through the swamp
We gonna mosh through the marsh, take us right through the doors

[Eminem speaking angrily]
And as we proceed, to mosh through this desert storm, in these closing statements, if they should argue, let us beg to differ, as we set aside our differences, and assemble our own army, to disarm this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president, for the present, and mosh for the future of our next generation, to speak and be heard, Mr. President, Mr. Senator

hypothetical re-emergence of the draft

The youth of America has become disillusioned. In many countries, military service is a requirement for its citizens. As the world's last true superpower, we have adopted an attitude that something needs to be done, but that someone won't be me and someone else will be there to pick up the slack. Admittedly, I'm part of this and don't plan to change that stance. Our country has seen a great many decades of peace and prosperity where the specter of domestic and global threat has become virtually a non-issue. It wasn't until 9/11 that "we had to look at the world differently". We weren't so much looking at the world differently, but it was the alarm clock that gave the semblance of a wake up pinch to the citizens of our nation that we are not living in a protective bubble, protected from outside threats by the esteem and power position of our nation.

It is easy to go on the internet and write "I support the troops!". You feel so patriotic and American after that don't you, especially after all the jibing that you are un-american because of anti-war sentiment. Of course we all support troops. How many of us would actually become one of those troops? In my time at college i've seen a few of my friends decide to take the exam for the AirForce, i've heard about guys enlist in the Army. Back at home, in our naval base centered town, a few of my friends signed up for the Navy instead of going to college. One of my good friends just graduated from the University of Florida only to go directly to officers school for the United States Marines. These are only a few. Burning in our hearts, the educated, the elite, is not overwhelmingly the desire to fight for our nation abroad, it is to make money, be successful, have a family, close ourselves off in our materialism driven bubble life and be good consumers.

During the last month as well as the Presidential Debates, the issue of reinstituting a draft has arisen. Kerry talked about increasing our active military forces by 40k, Bush said some other things, but vehemently, both opposed and disregarded the idea of the draft. Abosolutely, we shouldn't need a draft, we shouldn't even need a military if the world wasn't so hell bent on fucking with their neighbors. We have seen it as the topic of Liberal media as well as Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 Documentary, the issue of the composition of our military forces in terms of race and economics. I refuse to believe that our current military is composed [majority] of poor people who were recruited out of lower class neighborhoods and ghettos, this does not however take any force away from the reality that the military does use economic incentive to 'lure' people into service.

A good question is whether or not this is good or bad. On the surface, I think it's perfectly legitimate for a lot of people. Why would you goto the military, a lot of my friends didn't want to goto college, a lot wanted to learn pertinent life skills, a lot didn't think they had a future anywhere else. The military isn't a half bad deal if you are impoverished, you can get enlisting bonuses of about $20k, college repayment loans of about $65k, un-taxed pay,etc. As good willed as this sounds, it is yet another thing to dangle these incentives in front of low-income, low education grade school kids without ever looking at the fine details.

"And many of those who do accrue student loans find it impossible to work through the military's bureaucracy in order to access the money. The first wall they run into is a requirement that the college loan be at least one year old. By this time the recruit has served at least two years. The second wall is that only 15% of the loan will actually be paid each year after that. This means the recruit obligated for at least another seven years of duty for a total of least nine years of service. The third wall is that the military will only pay the loan if the recruit is still active in the reserves. But most contracts end after only six years of duty, far short of the nine-plus needed to pay the full loan. So, in the end, the recruit only gets a fraction, if any, of the $65,000 promised by the recruiter." http://www.mecgrassroots.org/NEWSL/ISS44/44.12trigger.html

As to my point in this journal. There is no doubt that in our military, there is a significant portion of our active duty forces and reserves that is composed of the minority low income low education soldier that democrats like to point to. The rest of the forces are people who a. really believe in duty to country b. didn't think they were going anywhere in life c. family history of military service d. political aspirations e. something else.

With Bush and Kerry pushing for the reforms that America needs to push for to remain competitive in the 21st century, I almost can see the draft becomming something that needs to be put into serious consideration. If we are to raise economic disparity among the populace, if we are going to create more jobs, if we are going to stress more adamantly education and going to college, what exactly are we doing? We are pushing more people into higher education, pushing more people to be our market analysts, engineers, writers, artists, musicians, doctors,lawyers, and politicians of tommorow. The stress being largely on education and economic raising of the bar. With those two bars risen, who will enter the military instead of the work force? Being a college student, joining the military hasn't crossed my mind in a while. I think about working the 9-5 in the engineering sector. We have the mentality that we are being prepped for bigger and better things and that other people will do it. As of now, this has been true. We have brave men and women who join the military and goto Iraq and Afghanistan to do the government's bidding, "to spread liberty". The increase in education and economic balancing will enevitably lead to a reduction in military service. This breeds even more strongly, that the other guy will do it. I can sit at my computer and write about how bad things are, but I never have to see how bad things really are or can get.

When and if the United States is thrown into another conflict that is fought on a power level similar to that of World War II, will it be enough to say, let the other guy do it? In Iraq, our comparative might is staggering to that of a backwards oil nation. In a more level playing field, where the security of our nation is severly threatened, where the conflict is fist vs. fist (instead of fist vs. mosquito) I doubt it will be enough to stand on the sidelines. Who will compose the military at that point down the line, those who are on the fringes who still can't be economically secure? those who believe in service more than materialism? i don't think there will be enough if we make society better as a whole (increasing education levels as well as economic disparity). I have no problem with the draft, if my country needs me I'll step up to the plate. If we are threatening dictators who hide in holes, i'll keep sitting in the bleachers cheering.

HIlarious

oh boy, i was going to goto sleep but this was too good to pass up. email from mary beth cahill of the democratic party sent me to fox news to go vote in their vp poll or whatever. i couldn't find the poll to vote, what i did find instead was quite hilarious.

during the debate Cheney instructed people to goto www.factcheck.com to check up on factual innacuracies that he claimed that edwards was making. so what did fox news do? obviously they linked it in their story. so what's the problem? www.factcheck.com isn't the right site, it's .org. the .com site redirects you to www.georgesoros.com. hahahahahaha

the page is titled. "why we must not re-elect president bush" that's what you get for slipping up, now see if you were al gore and you invented the internet you wouldn't be making mistakes like that, lol. but seriously, that was a stupid move on cheney's part, albeit unknowingly.

www.foxnews.com has a really partisan article on the debate. what suprised me is that no online news source quoted the part where cheney accused kerry of voting down military weapon systems, and edwards shot back at cheney saying that cheney had voted the same way back in 1984 which was right after the cold war situation.

but. fox has some great tidbits on its site. like... it's factual innaccuracy article it pulled from the Associated Press. Cheney said he never met Edwards until tonight. completely false. even fox didn't have the gall to run with that line.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134589,00.html
whoops cheney. slip up.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134580,00.html
fact check reveals more of the same, especially at the ever changing number of times the republicans have said kerry and edwards have voted to raise taxes. that number has gone from 300 times to 98 times and isn't even close to either number. so yes indeed cheney, direct people to www.factcheck.org or .com if you will... they might discover you've been bullshitting and spinning the facts more than the democrats have.

funny couple of stories.

and in case you didn't notice the other tidbits of internet fun. check out tao's old journal. goto the www.columbia.edu website and do a people search for ninja. real ultimate power baby! http://www.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/lookup.pl?col=cuweb&rq=0&qp=&qs=&qc=&pw=100%25&ws=0&la=&qm=0&st=1&nh=10&lk=1&rf=0&oq=&rq=0&qt=ninja&x=0&y=0&formaction=lookup

we're not f-in dashboard confessional

when i came to new york a little more than 2+ years ago to start school at columbia i still thought of the city as the coldest place on earth. not because of the weather, although that does get pretty bad, but the people. people walk by each other so quickly, often with little more than a blank stare, everyone is consumed by the hustle and bustle of their lives that you'd think you were in a city... of well.. haters.

not so. nyc is full of lovers. my impression of a stone cold populace has been proven wrong so many times i've considered staying here (assuming i find a job here) after college.

last year on our way to a yankees game and bleacher seats, elizabeth, aimee and i were stopped by this black lady outside the stadium. we honestly thought she was trying to scalp us tickets and well... we're poor we don't have money to buy expensive tickets. well that lady gave us 3 tickets, box seats that were 6 rows behind home plate. (well tim was there and had front row seats and was sitting next to spike lee... but that's tim, he gets everything... lucky bastard).

last night on my way to the subway, i saw a man get out of his suv with his wife and bend over by the concrete column beneath the bridge to EC. he dropped a handful of butterscotch candy there and then drove off. beautiful.

--------------------------------------------------------------

and now for a great story from last night's concert. i went to brooklyn's northsix club for a show put on by conor oberst and the new york lawyers guild that was raising money towards the defense of those wrongly arrested during the RNC.

conor was up playing with his band bright eyes and they start playing this song that everyone knows... well i didn't know it, but anyways..

so everyone is singing along and then conor stops. looks out and says, "hey stop it. you're making me feel like we're fucking dashboard confessional. if you don't mind that's not how we do it, we do the singing you do the listening." oh shit. those were some harsh words.

he later apologized with "hey i'm sorry i wasn't trying to be a dick, we just don't do that".

conor conor conor... you're lucky your fan base is a bunch of heart throbbing girls and pretentious indie hipsters and scenesters that gobble up every word you say.

politicians are but men.

Four more years.,. Four more years… four more years. From the chants you may have thought these words to be ingrained in the human psyche just as Lincoln’s famous “four score and seven years ago” speech.

<>
George W. Bush will continue to be our 43^rd president, leading the nation (or misleading… oh crap, I exposed my satirical ploy) through the year 2008. After watching the Republican National Convention I think that this result is almost inevitable. From the American flag waving, the support your military signs, the signs that say “freedom!”, the marketing of the letter “W”, the pandering to the religious right, and the politicization of September 11^th, 2001. It is obvious to me and all Americans that if we do not vote for President Bush come November, we do not support the military, hate America, are shameless murders who want to kill babies, moral-less husks of flesh who support the love between two human beings (because they are of the same sex), and that it is we who choose to divide America. This is the message of the RNC.

In the past few days, seeing as how I am nothing more than an undergraduate college student, I have begun to scratch my head about the republican economic plan and that of tax cuts. The economy is not exactly my cup of tea and admittedly I do not know much about it in detail. But that wasn’t much of a problem, because of course, the economy is seldom mentioned. The only problem our country seems to be actively facing is that of protecting our homes and our children. If I could insert the teariest eyed picture of a toddler here I would.

<>
I’ll start being serious now. Tonight’s performance from Zell Miller was absolutely one of the most hypocritical speeches I have ever heard in my entire life. And I think I rightly call it a performance, because I think if I was 80 years old and senile it would have caused me to jump up in my chair and shake my cane and yell “four more years” in unison with the crowd. Senator Miller spoke of bipartisanship during times of war, the banding together of individuals as Americans in our greatest time of need and insecurity, but that bipartisan spirit was only reserved for his belief in re-electing George W. Bush and not for his compatriots and citizens in the Democratic Party. What exactly was Zell Miller thinking when he ripped into John Kerry about Kerry’s defense issues voting?

Miller said he was mad that Kerry voted against a whole laundry list, including from what I remember: the B1 bomber, B2 bomber, f14, f15 planes, apache helicopters, patriot missiles. etc etc etc. actually I don’t think Miller even had to know any of this, he cold have just pulled it off the GOP website like I just did.

<SO WHICH IS IT? IS THE RECORD FAIR GAME OR NOT?

ü Sen. Kerry Voted Against B-1 Bomber. (S. 3189, CQ Vote #273: Passed 79-16: R 37-5; D 42-11, 10/15/90, Kerry Voted Nay)

ü Sen. Kerry Voted Against B-2 Stealth Bomber. (S. 3189, CQ Vote #273: Passed 79-16: R 37-5; D 42-11, 10/15/90, Kerry Voted Nay)

ü Sen. Kerry Voted Against F-14. (H. R. 5803, CQ Vote #319: Adopted 80-17: R 37-6; D 43-11, 10/26/90, Kerry Voted Nay)

ü Sen. Kerry Voted Against F-15. (S. 3189, CQ Vote #273: Passed 79-16: R 37-5; D 42-11, 10/15/90, Kerry Voted Nay)

ü Sen. Kerry Voted Against F-16. (S. 3189, CQ Vote #273: Passed 79-16: R 37-5; D 42-11, 10/15/90, Kerry Voted Nay)

ü Sen. Kerry Voted Against AV-8B Harrier Vertical Takeoff And Landing Jet Fighters. (H.R. 2126, CQ Vote #579: Adopted 59-39: R 48-5; D 11-34, 11/16/95, Kerry Voted Nay)

ü Sen. Kerry Voted Against AH-64 Apache Helicopters. (H.R. 2126, CQ Vote #579: Adopted 59-39: R 48-5; D 11-34, 11/16/95, Kerry Voted Nay)

ü Sen. Kerry Voted Against Patriot Missiles. (S. 3189, CQ Vote #273: Passed 79-16: R 37-5; D 42-11, 10/15/90, Kerry Voted Nay)

ü Sen. Kerry Voted Against Aegis Air Defense Cruiser. (S. 3189, CQ Vote #273: Passed 79-16: R 37-5; D 42-11, 10/15/90, Kerry Voted Nay)

ü Sen. Kerry Voted Against Trident Missile System For U.S. Submarines. (S. 3189, CQ Vote #273: Passed 79-16: R 37-5; D 42-11, 10/15/90, Kerry Voted Nay)

ü Sen. Kerry Voted Against M-1 Abrams Tanks. (S. 3189, CQ Vote #273: Passed 79-16: R 37-5; D 42-11, 10/15/90, Kerry Voted Nay)

ü Sen. Kerry Voted Against Bradley Fighting Vehicle. (S. 3189, CQ Vote #273: Passed 79-16: R 37-5; D 42-11, 10/15/90, Kerry Voted Nay)

ü Sen. Kerry Voted Against Tomahawk Cruise Missile. (S. 3189, CQ Vote #273: Passed 79-16: R 37-5; D 42-11, 10/15/90, Kerry Voted Nay)

Now to me, Joe Schmoe sitting at home, that would outrage me. How are we going to fight a war without equipment? But after all, things are never as one sided as they seem, especially if you are reading the completely liberal dominated media. It’s a good thing we have the internet, or I’d think Miller was right. HMMM.

<>
I kind of like this one I found from NBC’s August 1^st 2004 “Meet the Press”

MR. RUSSERT: “But on defense and intelligence authorization bills, you have the same voting record as John Kerry.”

SEN. MILLER: “…(long awkward pause)…I didn't try to cut--now ultimately he came along and voted for some”

Just sort of amusing. Anyways, time to check into these claims about trying to cut these weapons out of production. I think even common sense might tell us something was fishy if we are still flying in cold war era planes into Iraq. What happened to giving our soldiers the best equipment? How badly can a vote be taken out of context?

<>
I think that if Cheney says as Bush (41) secretary of defense,

Overall, since I've been Secretary, we will have taken the five-year defense program down by well over $300 billion. That's the peace dividend. … And now we're adding to that another $50 billion … of so-called peace dividend. Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements. … You've directed me to buy more M-1s, F-14s, and F-16s—all great systems … but we have enough of them.

Nobody would say anything bad about that, because hell, that was after the cold war was subsiding and the Soviet Union breaking up. Context context context. Slate sure knows his stuff; he basically tore Miller’s argument apart for me without me having to move a finger.

Did Kerry vote against these specific weapon systems? No actually he voted against the Fiscal Year 1991 Defense Appropriations Act and Bill. So I guess Slate’s right, you could actually say that Kerry voted to abolish the US military. But c’mon that’s crazy talk. The Defense Appropriations Bill has thousands of things on it. That’s an absolutely unsubstantiated claim. But it doesn’t matter if these things aren’t really true or aren’t really false at the RNC. You can really say anything you want, if you have Zell Miller who wants to be critical of Senator Kerry he can say anything he wants. If people believe him it hurts Kerry, if people think he’s full of shit like I do, well… then they can always say he’s a Democrat anyways and is not affiliated with the Republican party (psst. Although his voting record would suggest otherwise).

If Zell Miller is going to conduct this sort of disingenuous brainwashing of the American public he does not deserve to be a US senator, Republican or Democrat. And he will not, he is not running for re-election. The US does not need more senile stuck in the mud 78 year old senators who are living in the past.

But the main issue that has faced me personally during the RNC is one that is voiced by a few people on Cucommunity. I believe we should rely on intelligence gathering forces such as the CIA, etc. to inform us of plots and acts of terrorism that threaten us. If they are factual statements, such as Al-Qaeda attacked us, then by all means, go send troops to kick his ass and get justice. If they are not, aka. Iraq, then resume relying on intelligence. Everyone keeps saying retrospectively that Saddam Hussein was a bad man. Sure I agree, was he an imminent threat to the welfare of America? Was he plotting to launch an attack on us? Was he trying to do anything, build up a military, and make weapons? We don’t know yet, but now we can say, oh yea sure he was, he was going to kill us and amass huge support. We don’t know that.

The other side of this is minority report, Phillip k dick science fiction-esque foreign policy where we attack and kill them before they get the bright idea to kill us. I don’t believe in this, we are not a country of war mongers that goes to war because we get an itchy feeling in our bottom and is still cold war paranoid. We don’t spend billions of dollars on intelligence for nothing you know.

But then again I could be wrong. I accept that fact. But nothing has proven to me otherwise.

Dick Cheney said we have the strongest healthcare system in the world. I don’t know how exactly he measures that, but I have a strange feeling he’s wrong. The RNC keeps telling us that democracy is the only way to have a successful economy and that America is the strongest power. How are we to address China in the coming years then? Are we going to call them communist and attack them because they attack or status quo of the sole super power in the world? I don’t know what we will do, but it is inevitable that the China situation goes away. And it does not make it any better when George W. Bush tells the world that the United States will protect Taiwan if China makes a move of aggression (reversing the US’s non-involvement no comment stance for the past how many years?). Taiwan is not Israel, our foreign coddled child. China will be come a hugely industrial power, with nuclear capabilities, with science that towers our own, with production methods that rival ours, and a booming economy. With a president like Bush who doesn’t examine the world unless it is immediately in his face, how are we to plan for the future? I don’t understand how he plans to take care of America, even domestically if he is predominantly concerned with playing real life- Counter Strike.

letter to kerry

Dear Senator Kerry,

I began tonight looking at Ted Sampley's website 'Vietnam Veterans for Truth'. It is irrelevant to me if he is lying or not. I began reading the online forum on the site to try and determine why in fact Vietnam Veterans are questioning your honor.

Although there is some talk that your entering Vietnam was politically motivated and that you only enlisted because you could not avoid it. This is however not the issue that is predominant among these veterans, it is your activity during the post war time.

I sincerely believe in your bid for the presidency, despite inconsistencies in your senate voting record (not just on war), as I believe bills are not what they seem at face value. As for your war protests following the war, (I read your book 'the new soldier', I actually found it quite touching) this is something I believe if you are to win the presidency later this year, you MUST address. As I read through the forum, I found many sincere and heartfelt messages that they believed that you, a brother in arms, had in your post war protest and allegations, betrayed them. You noted war atrocities by our American soldiers, many which are quite sick, but which I am not surprised they happened given that they, in a foreign environment, fighting an unknown and politicized as evil force, were in the end only men.

I believe you have to reach out to these veterans and apologize. Not because you are wrong but because they misinterpreted your actions. I believe that you were protesting a government that put our soldiers in a situation that we would inevitably lose, not the majority of soldiers themselves. But by calling out to the Vietnam soldiers, in their camaraderie, your accusation of a few, have mutated into an accusation of the masses. They believe that you are a traitor and a communist (not that that even means anything since it is unrealistic to believe that world success is contingent upon worldwide democracy). You accused soldiers of atrocities, a claim in its truth that served to vilify all soldiers who returned home in the eyes of some. I have seen this kind of vilification. I have friends in the marines and in the navy, as my hometown of Jacksonville is a naval base, who upon returning from duty are called out to be war mongers and murderers although they were simply performing the tasks that they were ordered to do. By this kind of reception home, these men and women were hurt. I believe if you are to win them over and the non-veterans that sympathize with them; you must relive those years and apologize. Not because you were wrong, but to help them understand what you were hoping to achieve. (You must also explain somehow that you voted down an $87billion Iraq appropriations bill, not because you wanted to show Dean supporters that you were not a war monger, not because you are a flip flopper, but because it was not coming from an economically viable source nor would it have been effectively distributed. People on the whole are not willing to look for this explanation; you must tell them or allow the Republican propaganda machine to tell them. It can and it will).

I hope that you take my suggestion to heart; I do not want to see my friends in the military sent to Iraq, Iran, Sudan, etc. if there is no justifiable cause. I used to think that President Bush was an intelligent man, but one that was simply misguided in his interpretation of running the country the only way he knows how, as an M.B.A student. I think it has become clear over the past few years that not only is this true, but he is also not fit to be president because he does not know the issues and he relies on his cabinet to tell him everything. I believe this puts him in a position of having no domestic goals and locked into an imperialistic – post cold war mind set. This is unacceptable for the next four years. Please take action, Americans will not seek to discover the truth, most do not read the newspaper, do not watch the television, read the internet… Senator Kerry, you must let them know the truth and heal old wounds with veterans who (fairly and unfairly) fault you for ruining their lives. You have my vote in Florida. [the 2000 election will not repeat itself].

Very best wishes (and good luck),

<>
Stephen Wang

Columbia University ‘06

Sfw2003@columbia.edu

there's an olympics in my bush.

greek writers were fond of using hubris as the tragic flaw of their heroes. those who stood the tallest, gleamed the brightest, always seemed to ultimately meet their end by the price of their arrogance. it is almost fitting that in the olympics' return to athens that pride is still an issue.

a few days before the olympics, coordinators stated that they were finishing their first security check. President Konstandinos Stefanopoulos said that he was enraged that the united states and nato were pushing for such security concerns that would inevitably push security costs and anti-terrorism efforts during the games to over $1 million. enraged, security would put a bad taste for the olympic games that would be destroying the true original spirit of the olympics. maybe it is an attitude of the greeks, an idealization of the world that there are no potential security threats. i would love for the olympics to be as such, an international contest of talent, of heart, of resilience that causes the world to come to a halt, for people to watch from their televisions and from the stands and for once let no other thoughts enter their minds except for pure competition. this is reality though, a reality where in probably most other olympic candidate countries they would have been on their 5th security check at that same point in time. this is not a reality where people respect competition and don't boo teams as they step onto a court. not the reality where players are so thrilled to be competing on the international spotlight for their country that they did not pass on the invitation to protect their multimillion dollar salaries and endorsements or to avoid potentially being blown up. the world didn't stop this year for the olympics, it spun on and bob costas put it all in a nice tidy package.

for the best all around swimmer in the world, michael phelps, in a sport that pits one athlete against the one next to them, it turned into a medal hunt. he was surrounded by the media propping him up to be the one to topple spitz's 7 gold medal performance and the $1 million bonus for 8 golds from speedo. records exist to be broken no? they no longer seem to exist to display the pinnacle of athletic achievement. for phelps he said he would be happy to get the chance to win just one gold medal, he realized few people in the world get this opportunity. instead of celebrating the greatest swimmer the united states has seen in years, questions posed to him such as "are you dissapointed to no longer be on track for 8 gold medals?"get misconstrued to be pompous answers. of course he's dissapointed, he didn't win. everything else was fabricated by the ever present camera hoping to catch a glimmer of humanity. he knows he is one of the best, he pushed himself against thorpe in an event that he knew he was unlikely to win, he gave crocker a shot at his own gold.

the athens games got a few other shots to put other athletes into the mold of hubris. first there was svetlana khorkina who after winning silver, said that she was still the world champion. "i'm just furius, I knew well in advance, even before I stepped on the stage for my first event, that I was going to lose." That, is a winning attitude. she said she has faced much more formidable opponents, she also seems to forget that she still lost to patterson.

and only a few days ago there was pual hamm. can you imagine being awarded the gold medal, lights flasing, your mother sobbing, girls around the country wanting to bear your children. a day later, you find out there was a judging mistake and you really got silver. the gold medal is for the best. paul was not the best, he was second best. how do you keep a medal you know you did not truly win, that you were not the best the world had to offer. that's a good question, ask paul hamm as he clutches his gold and acts like he's smeegle. your precious indeed. spirit of the olympic games, indeed.
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all week senator kerry has been pushing george w. bush to specifically denounce the swift boat veterans for truth's ad running negative campaigns about his service in vietnam. bush replied that he has not and will never question kerry's service to his country. he also won't denounce the ads against kerry.

today bush came up with perhaps his most brilliant move of the presidency. he said is asking for all not endorsed by the candidate ads to be removed, that would include swiftboat ads and moveon.org ads. he says "i think they are bad for the system".

news headlines on the internet say, "bush calls for halt to swift boat veterans' ads". except once again, like war justification, it is hindsight. the ads have already done their damage. he is playing a child like, i'll do this if you do this. in one move, he could have let the damaging ads take their toll and during a time when the authenticity of the claims and the cheney/rove connection with the group (which would be illegal) is kind of being examined by the press, he can put and end to that and all of the moveon.org ads that continue to throw the same shit he throws at kerry back at him. i hope kerry keeps pushing, because this 'truce' is bullshit.

“That means that ad, every other ad,” he said. “I can’t be more plain about it. And I wish — I hope my opponent joins me in saying — condemning these activities of the 527s. It’s — I think they’re bad for the system. That’s why I signed the bill, McCain-Feingold.” - george w. bush.

that's funny, bush did the same thing to mccain when they were running for the republican ticket and now there is a campaign finance reform bill with mccain's name all over it. don't let bush take the moral highground, kerry better show he's got some back bone and pee all over this shit.

on elementary school and politics

i remember back when i was in third grade, back when one teacher taught every subject you needed to know in school. i think it was '92 and it was yet again election year. it was bill clinton faced off against george bush. what did i know about politics that year? nothing really, i was still collecting baseball cards, happily writing semi coherent creative writing stories, and trying to do multiplication on my fingers and in my head. the only thing that stands out about anything during that year was it was gulf war time and for some reason we had gotten war trading cards... i felt cool, i had some kind of tank and a bad ass card with a mounty on a horse.

we were going to do a mock election just like the big boys. clinton. bush. perot. what's a 9 year old to choose, i didn't know issues, all i knew was we were fighting a war and i think we were winning, being a navy town, we had a lot of pro-bush enthusiasm that was to be expected now that i look back on it retrospectively. we were the good guys, they were the bad guys, we had m-16's and were shooting all the bad guys and were winning, i probably played out kuwait action on my carpet with my gi-joes sometime along the way. my then friend sam asked me, "who are you voting for, i'm voting for bush, my mom says he's keeping us safe". what did i know, i said i was too and that i was republican. what did i know. issues? my biggest issues were making sure my homework was right, that i had a good tasting sandwich in my transformers lunchbox, and that i gave my parents a hug before i left for school. voting on issues was not something that i was prepared for, and really... i wasn't going to prepare for it and regardless of my faux vote, the sky would be blue tommorow.

sadly, i think that's how the majority of voting americans vote, not THAT mindlessly, but similarly in a biased uninformed way. that's why mass media campaigning works. i think it was in one of the more recent journals or news articles on cucomm about the swiftboat ads directed at john kerry, where ...it was probably kalonji who said, the republicans are going to throw all sorts of bullshit right at kerry and depending on if and how kerry responds gives the american public a conception of his character. are they going to vote for someone that even has a spine? someone that can take a punch to the face and then get right back up and throw on right back? these are the kinds of things that i think sway the vote, not the issues so much, but the american public's perception of their future president of the united states' character.

you may say kerry's vietnam record does not matter. bush' air national guard record does not matter. kerry's purple hearts does not matter. bush's absence during duty does not matter. but realistically i think they do. look at the statistics of random polling at key points in time. after the conventions, when people get a good look at the man/woman running for the head office in our country, to hear them speak, to look them in the eyes from the vantage point of behind a camera, do they think he can be president? from those first impressions, do they trust him to take their lives into his hands? it's the stupid things that seem to matter most.

there are so many haters in america during election time. you hear all sorts of things. that john kerry is funding terrorism. that george bush is going to bring upon the apocolypse. john kerry is unfit to be president because he comes from a family of riches and privelege. it's all in how you present yourself i guess, nobody thinks bush went to yale or has a bajillion dollars in his bank account well because... he lives on a ranch and rides horses. they hate on kerry because he is married to heinz ketchup. but nobody cares about that. what happened to the war in iraq? it seems to have faded into oblivion, things are a-ok. iraq's soccer team is winning right? bush saved the day and has paved the way for 2 countries to make their way to the olympics... sans the fact that iraqis were secretly airlifted out of the country to athens.

what happened to going to war for oil? i'm no economist but i thought gas prices would be a lot lower. instead they keep approaching $50 a barrel. what happened to going after bin laden? all the headlines say we are tracking his #3. mccain said that the swiftboat ads are awful. bush didn't say anything. now bob dole and his my happy pants viagra self is saying kerry should apologize for having been involved in the anti-war effort accusing soldiers of awful travesties. why isn't the media investigating anything? people just want the news of what the latest dirt being thrown from one of the bunkers is and they want their news to be a reflection of that. just report it, whoever throws more and counters more wins.

i find it absolutely amazing that clinton was investigated in the blink of an eye for white water, his first affair when running for president, his monica lewinsky thing, etc. a blink of an eye. people were questioning his character from 1993 to 2000. and they still do.

as far as i know the majority of the american public doesn't give a shit about cheney's involvement with haliburton + iraq. nobody cares about bush's actions with the iraq plan. they care that bush is going to put on a happy face and tell them everything is going to be alright. america is depressed, anyone who says there is a light at the end of the tunnel is going to cut it. there's a little more to it that will swat a vote i think, i've talked about it in past journals and that's niche issues. the formula is, put on a happy trusting face and hope the voters agree with you on niche social issues or economic ones. we know we predominantly votes anyways. your mom.

national review sucks

the original journal was just going to say, "Rich Lowry is an asshole" and that was it. but apparently i kept on writing...
-------this wasn't a well written journal, it's long, not cohesive and i apologize. i didn't even want to write it, but not doing so just made me sick. the political situation is just in the shit hole.-------
i was trying to stay away from watching and writing about politics for a while (i don't know when the hell i started getting interested at all to tell you the first place... the things an election year fires you up to do) BUT.

i was having a pretty good night of watching the jaguars play their first preseason game when i started flipping channels. somehow i landed on C-Span, that was a bad idea. Rich Lowry, the editor of the National Review was speaking to the "young america's foundation". you know the drill, Rich stands at the podium and University students from across the U.S. throw questions at him. now i firmly believe that regardless of if you are liberal or conservative you should at the very least be civil and do some research if you intend to blast the opposition, but watching the 20 minutes of this Q&A session made me cringe. this was also the first time that i ever heard conservatives use a mentality of "anyone but kerry". i realize that if you are trying to get across an agenda there will be a fair amount of spin involved, but you are talking to your constituents for god's sake, you don't need to make every argument one sided and every freaking question was like the kids were trying to pat themselves on the back and get Rick Lowry to pat them on the head for how smart and what good conservatives they were.

The first thing that i heard was a girl pose the question about why the liberal slanted media keeps pushing for embryonic stem cells as opposed to adult stem cells and why we hard headed liberals are just out to abort fetuses and burn villages. (ok so i made up that last part). Rich Lowry starts off by calling Ron Reagans speech at the DNC shameful. He said that the only reason that Ron was up there was because his dad had died. I ask you, what's wrong with that? Ron Reagan never thought about using science to help his dad and other people who have incurable disease until his dad had alzhymers and died, but he was made aware about it and now he's being pro-active and trying to do something about it. He's not trying to bring Ted Williams back to life or something. Why try and make a room full of "america's future" see a man as a self motivated asshole? his response to the stem cell question had no science or logic backing it up aside from that the decision for embryonic stem cells is pure politics and the furthering of an anti-pro-life agenda. ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

not to get into a big argument, but the man really needs to look at science. If science was able to harvest stem cells from adult humans stem cells that are able to change into AS MANY different kinds as embryonic ones, I would avoid the whole ideological debate and go with adult stem cells. but this isn't the case. there is currently no magic adult stem cell. currently you have to go digging and sucking out a portion of your hip bone bone marrow, from your blood, or from your umbilical chord and even those don't have a whole lot of possibilities. but look at the alternative, i really think that the biggest problem with bush's stem cell policy is that he has limited funding so much that it is very difficult to compare the advantages and viability differences between the two sources of stem cells. i have no idea how to get around this because people who feel very strongly about pro-life just isn't going to allow that out of pure ethics. you can call it stupid, a lack of separation of church and state hindering science or you can call it a staunch stance of ideology, but there is no way to argue to millions of americans that you aren't killing babies (even if they are still blastocysts that are just a pile of cells floating around). now if this was his answer in some way shape or form, i would have had a lot of more respect for him. but it wasn't. he makes it as if the conservatives take the moral high ground and liberals are always trying to do something underhanded and shake the core values of america and blow up the world.

the next question was about hilary clinton. apparently there is a big conspiracy in the left where the clintons are secretly wishing that john kerry lose the election to protect the viability of hilary's running for president in 2008. true or not, lowry has stated concretely that this is the Clintons' mission, to regain and hold power, the endure four more years of Bush for their own agenda. sure Hilary may want to run, but do we really think that democrats who have turned 2003-2004 into one of the biggest political protests seen in years are just going to hope for a Bush victory out of self interest? i think that's far fetched. big accusation to make. good thing no one watches C-Span.

the next question was attacking the Mccain compaign finance reform bill. move-on.org and george soros are psychos and the "liberal hate machine" and it was a sneaky but succesful trick by the democrats to get a supposedly not-affiliated organization to run ads and raise money for kerry. maybe so, but doesn't seem like it's a one sided issue when most of the endorsed by GW bush ads are "kerry sucks, kick him in the balls" and you have the Swiftboat veterans for truth. how can these people go on tv and act so morally superior to the rest of the world?
politics has gotten increasingly stupid. both sides everything is character assasination, who really cares about the issues and the people they are supposed to help? all people want to do is talk buzz words and hot topics these days without knowing a glimmer of what they are talking about. "bush is stupid", "kerry is a flip flopper", "bush doesn't hide his faith", "kerry is unpatriotic and lied about his purple hearts", "kerry only got shot in the butt, wussy". the biggest thing i have been dissapointed in the bush campaign has been their focus on why john kerry is the wrong choice for president. i haven't ever seen a why bush is right for president. it seems they are running their own, "anyone but kerry" campaign. you should have seen the miffed faces when Lowry was talking about how he has been very critical of Bush and how he doesn't think he has been conservative enough.

hmmmm other highlights... the comments about libertarians. how lowry thinks that libertarians aren't serious about their own issues and how they should just concede some things and be republican. apparently he doesn't believe in the viability of anything but the two party system. you might call that... conservative.

rich lowry... thanks for being a douche.