Wallmart Supporters League
Proud member here. A piece for y'all.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Something that has been on my mind for awhile
There is no such thing as a safe drug - a good portion of the regulatory decisions of the FDA involve choosing whether the benefits of the drug outweigh the risks. Why shouldn't this be decision that educated practioners or knowledgable consumers make for themselves? Read more here.
There is no such thing as a safe drug - a good portion of the regulatory decisions of the FDA involve choosing whether the benefits of the drug outweigh the risks. Why shouldn't this be decision that educated practioners or knowledgable consumers make for themselves? Read more here.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Paper Complete!
I just finished my 58 page paper on Calculating Interest on Slave Reparations (in the event we choose to pay them). Next steps - turning it in for the grade, finding faculty/high level grad readers to make comments on it, and hopefully, with luck and and an abscence of bias against the controversial - publication.
I just finished my 58 page paper on Calculating Interest on Slave Reparations (in the event we choose to pay them). Next steps - turning it in for the grade, finding faculty/high level grad readers to make comments on it, and hopefully, with luck and and an abscence of bias against the controversial - publication.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
,Reality and Psuedonames
Update: Now I'm embarrased - it turns out that E is not me. I had a talk with Phoebe two nights ago and E is a guy she usually calls N (N being nickname initial, E being his real name initial). Also, it wasn't literary according to her - this schmuck really did grab her. Jerk.
Reading Phoebe's last post it is clear that I am meant to be E, just as another past boyfriend of hers is clearly V. The trouble is that "Phoebe's" details about what happened when she told me about her latest fling are off. I never "bitched her out" let alone called her a "cold-hard bitch." While she may have been in a bubbly meth haze (I honestly don't know, but with Phoebe anything is possible), I didn't grab her left loin to make her hurt because
(a) She doesn't have one;
(b) Even if she had a left loin, I am not a masocist and as such wouldn't have grabbed it to make her hurt;
(c) Even if I were a masocist and she had a left loin, I couldn't have grabbed it because she was in San Francisco and I was speaking to her by telephone from Ohio and since I am not a Jedi I don't have the ability to manipulate objects at great distances;
(d) Even if I were a masocist Jedi and Phoebe had a left loin, I would have done something cooler to hurt her, like make her spin suspended in the air while doing Jedi mind tricks so that she would think she is a glass of Orange Juice that is in danger of being spilt - all from three thousand miles away.
What I did do was make fun of her for being promiscuous, but only because she had made fun of me for dating too much a few weeks prior. I guess she still has issues with dishing it out, but not being able to take it.
I shouldn't be too hard on Phoebes though. She is going through a lot. She just transfered from Stanford to UPenn for her final semester so she can be with her cancer-stricken mother in the final months of her mother's life. If going from the beauty of California to the gloom of philly's winter along with dealing with your remaining parent's demise wasn't enough, she is stuck in a house filled with memories of an abused childhood by the same mother who can never be convinced that her daughter loves or has forgiven her. Oh yeah, she also has an off/on relationship with not one, but two ex-boyfriends that she has never quite sorted her feelings out for. So I guess I should probably cut Phoebes some slack. She has a lot on her plate. And despite shameless attempts at character assassination, I still care about her deeply.
Update: Now I'm embarrased - it turns out that E is not me. I had a talk with Phoebe two nights ago and E is a guy she usually calls N (N being nickname initial, E being his real name initial). Also, it wasn't literary according to her - this schmuck really did grab her. Jerk.
(a) She doesn't have one;
(b) Even if she had a left loin, I am not a masocist and as such wouldn't have grabbed it to make her hurt;
(c) Even if I were a masocist and she had a left loin, I couldn't have grabbed it because she was in San Francisco and I was speaking to her by telephone from Ohio and since I am not a Jedi I don't have the ability to manipulate objects at great distances;
(d) Even if I were a masocist Jedi and Phoebe had a left loin, I would have done something cooler to hurt her, like make her spin suspended in the air while doing Jedi mind tricks so that she would think she is a glass of Orange Juice that is in danger of being spilt - all from three thousand miles away.
What I did do was make fun of her for being promiscuous, but only because she had made fun of me for dating too much a few weeks prior. I guess she still has issues with dishing it out, but not being able to take it.
I shouldn't be too hard on Phoebes though. She is going through a lot. She just transfered from Stanford to UPenn for her final semester so she can be with her cancer-stricken mother in the final months of her mother's life. If going from the beauty of California to the gloom of philly's winter along with dealing with your remaining parent's demise wasn't enough, she is stuck in a house filled with memories of an abused childhood by the same mother who can never be convinced that her daughter loves or has forgiven her. Oh yeah, she also has an off/on relationship with not one, but two ex-boyfriends that she has never quite sorted her feelings out for. So I guess I should probably cut Phoebes some slack. She has a lot on her plate. And despite shameless attempts at character assassination, I still care about her deeply.
Saturday, January 08, 2005
out with the new... and in with the old
hello.
satire, art, politics, reconstructionist feminist theory, crass humor, stanford law students... this post will be none of the above. so if that's what you're after, please ignore the following.
this is phoebe. writing to you from somewhere at or near the eastern seaboard. still bruised, battered (emotionally and somehow deservedly) and recovering from a truly pathetic case of guilt, catholic and otherwise.
my last days in san francisco were much more and much less than i expected. there were a few people i never got to say goodbye to. i regret that. there are a few i regret saying goodbye to. but really that's not what i wanted to talk about.
i wanted to talk about how it felt lying in bed under the uncovered white duvet woven too tightly and too shiny for comfort looking at e. whom i know so well, who knows me so well... having him tell me thru a bubbly meth haze that i am a cold hard bitch, bitching me out for being a bitch, having him pissed off at me for having slept with another boy, thinking i know he's only pissed at me because i told him what i did so consensually last weekend..... feeling e grab my left loin and squeeze hard so that i could know he wanted it to hurt, punishing me for having "given it up" and not to him.... i said there wasn't going to be any feminist theory in here... so i should stop now before the quote marks above blossom into neofeminist sadistic bromide...
k was a freak but not like me. but he did like me. that was the surprise, and i told him so but only because i was hammered enough and just threw up over all these people at a bar and was so surprised nobody noticed or seemed to care. i was wearing this tight sweater that was dusty rose but it used to be metallic. v got it for me when we were both 19 and catholic. it was part of an outfit he got me so i could look up to par when i met his parents for the first time, but i didn't wear that outfit to meet his parents. maybe that's why i did so "badly" that day and now hang out in biker bars and fall asleep on the couch when i get too wasty to walk.
my mom... just came in here and it was the first time i saw her bald head without the ugly gray cloth she normally ties around it. the fact that my mom's got a bald head which is not totally bad, cause she used to have these huge bushy eyebrows that would embarrass me because she never looked enough like a barbie doll and i wanted my mom to be pretty in a totally generic way when i was a kid and she never was because she had these eyebrows and wore birkenstock sandals with socks on even in the winter and never wore a skirt (even to parties) and i felt totally unfeminine having a mom like that. so now that her eyebrows have mostly fallen out from the chemo she looks kind of cool like a hairless cat, and i think she's so much more beautiful this way than before.
but now she's coughing this awful drawn-out hacking cough in the other room and it makes me feel bad but i don't like how it sounds and it makes me wonder about compassion and how i could have so little of it as to be annoyed by this cough when i know it's just a little fleghm getting coughed up from cancerous lungs...
and i imagine myself squatting on this beach with all these fluorescent clouds melting and prancing across the horizon and i am looking at them, and then i turn around and i see these people swarming lethargically around this fire rubbing their hands together... but they're all too chilly and soon their cheeks start sinking into their jaws and they all look hollowed out like so many aids patients and crack whores and they just keep circling ceremoniously around this fire until they dance their grotesque bony feet into the hot coals and the flames lick at their nappy leg hairs before smoking and swirling round bruised and bony thighs...
together we construct our pyre and then intoxicated, we celebrate its kindling. when the yellow flame is high and snatches at our golden robe-hems, each cell blazes its final burst in solitude, the fatal popping sound of its incineration lost in a cacophonous symphony of identical others.
hello.
satire, art, politics, reconstructionist feminist theory, crass humor, stanford law students... this post will be none of the above. so if that's what you're after, please ignore the following.
this is phoebe. writing to you from somewhere at or near the eastern seaboard. still bruised, battered (emotionally and somehow deservedly) and recovering from a truly pathetic case of guilt, catholic and otherwise.
my last days in san francisco were much more and much less than i expected. there were a few people i never got to say goodbye to. i regret that. there are a few i regret saying goodbye to. but really that's not what i wanted to talk about.
i wanted to talk about how it felt lying in bed under the uncovered white duvet woven too tightly and too shiny for comfort looking at e. whom i know so well, who knows me so well... having him tell me thru a bubbly meth haze that i am a cold hard bitch, bitching me out for being a bitch, having him pissed off at me for having slept with another boy, thinking i know he's only pissed at me because i told him what i did so consensually last weekend..... feeling e grab my left loin and squeeze hard so that i could know he wanted it to hurt, punishing me for having "given it up" and not to him.... i said there wasn't going to be any feminist theory in here... so i should stop now before the quote marks above blossom into neofeminist sadistic bromide...
k was a freak but not like me. but he did like me. that was the surprise, and i told him so but only because i was hammered enough and just threw up over all these people at a bar and was so surprised nobody noticed or seemed to care. i was wearing this tight sweater that was dusty rose but it used to be metallic. v got it for me when we were both 19 and catholic. it was part of an outfit he got me so i could look up to par when i met his parents for the first time, but i didn't wear that outfit to meet his parents. maybe that's why i did so "badly" that day and now hang out in biker bars and fall asleep on the couch when i get too wasty to walk.
my mom... just came in here and it was the first time i saw her bald head without the ugly gray cloth she normally ties around it. the fact that my mom's got a bald head which is not totally bad, cause she used to have these huge bushy eyebrows that would embarrass me because she never looked enough like a barbie doll and i wanted my mom to be pretty in a totally generic way when i was a kid and she never was because she had these eyebrows and wore birkenstock sandals with socks on even in the winter and never wore a skirt (even to parties) and i felt totally unfeminine having a mom like that. so now that her eyebrows have mostly fallen out from the chemo she looks kind of cool like a hairless cat, and i think she's so much more beautiful this way than before.
but now she's coughing this awful drawn-out hacking cough in the other room and it makes me feel bad but i don't like how it sounds and it makes me wonder about compassion and how i could have so little of it as to be annoyed by this cough when i know it's just a little fleghm getting coughed up from cancerous lungs...
and i imagine myself squatting on this beach with all these fluorescent clouds melting and prancing across the horizon and i am looking at them, and then i turn around and i see these people swarming lethargically around this fire rubbing their hands together... but they're all too chilly and soon their cheeks start sinking into their jaws and they all look hollowed out like so many aids patients and crack whores and they just keep circling ceremoniously around this fire until they dance their grotesque bony feet into the hot coals and the flames lick at their nappy leg hairs before smoking and swirling round bruised and bony thighs...
together we construct our pyre and then intoxicated, we celebrate its kindling. when the yellow flame is high and snatches at our golden robe-hems, each cell blazes its final burst in solitude, the fatal popping sound of its incineration lost in a cacophonous symphony of identical others.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Cute Little Debate
Orin Kerr and Cass Sunstein are arguing over whether the phrase "Restoring the Lost Constitution" (refering, broadly, to constitutional theory with greater respect for the schema of enumerated powers that was scraped during the New Deal) is one that is (a) used by conservatives to describe their goal to return the constitution to its pre-New Deal form; (b) if not actually used as a phrase, than at least describes their goal.
It started when Sunstein wrote this piece.
Kerr responded with this piece.
Kerr's fun point so far focuses on minimizing argument (b) (he can find no evidence for argument (a) ). Basically - so what if several legal conservatives want to restore a "lost constitution" - there is a lost constitution that several legal liberals want to restore to - its called the legacy of the Warren Court.
It will be interesting to see Prof. Sunstein's response.
Orin Kerr and Cass Sunstein are arguing over whether the phrase "Restoring the Lost Constitution" (refering, broadly, to constitutional theory with greater respect for the schema of enumerated powers that was scraped during the New Deal) is one that is (a) used by conservatives to describe their goal to return the constitution to its pre-New Deal form; (b) if not actually used as a phrase, than at least describes their goal.
It started when Sunstein wrote this piece.
Kerr responded with this piece.
Kerr's fun point so far focuses on minimizing argument (b) (he can find no evidence for argument (a) ). Basically - so what if several legal conservatives want to restore a "lost constitution" - there is a lost constitution that several legal liberals want to restore to - its called the legacy of the Warren Court.
It will be interesting to see Prof. Sunstein's response.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
