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.