Not like a Rolling Stone.

And just like that, the dream died. In order to make the deadline I would've had to send my application packet out tomorrow, so this afternoon I set about making the 5-10min. introductory video with Joah, and with her invaluable help and support, we had the makings of a damn good video. However, iVideo would have none of it, or at least none of the audio, as the video format was the only one that is unable to import sound along with the footage. So with no ability to reshoot with a proper camera and figure out iVideo in time to make a DVD, all the while finishing up the rest of the packet, my hopes of appearing on MTV with a shot at my ideal job at my ideal magazine have been dashed. And even though I knew I was probably a longshot, I still feel amazingly bummed tonight.

Oh, and congratulations Keith. But it doesn't reduce the fact that your state still has bugs, Bush (Jeb), and Bobby Bowden.

The greatest Lawrence day ever since ever began.

Great Harvest Bread Co.
Au Marche
Urban Outfitters
Cocoa nibs
Great Danes
Love Garden
Feminist postcards
Vanilla & raspberry gelato
Wood wind chimes
An hour and a half trying on vintage dresses, shirts, and jackets (I just did the last one, thank you.)
Seventy-eight degrees

Thanks Mischa!

Like a Rolling Stone.

The magazine that single-handedly changed my life when I was 18 is casting for a new MTV reality show. I originally heard about this a few months back, but from the parameters thought that I would be ineligible to apply. Well, it appears that I can, so I've been looking at the application, and it is a beast. It'll take me a full-time effort this weekend to fill it out and hone my answers down, because I don't want to be one of those guys that sends in a six-page addendum to an application because I have no ability to edit myself. I mean, I think I've moved past that.

On Brokeback.

I admit, my flippant 'review' of Brokeback Mountain the other night was written just moments after I got home, and before I had a chance to fully grasp the movie, which I did yesterday.

Despite all of the reviews I read and comments I heard, I was still expecting the movie to be almost solely a love story about these two men; I knew the movie went on for a period of two decades, and that the wives and family would be integral as well, but I predicted the relationship between Jack and Ennis to be where everything developed. Well, what I realized yesterday was that while their story is of course central to the movie, the real strength of Brokeback lies in the periphery, in that relationship between the men and their families, and to society at large. The scenes with Alma (Michelle Williams) were so arresting that they haunted me for hours; the breakdown of Cassie, knowing that she'll never understand what lies inside Ennis, is a slug to the gut.

The more I thought about the last half-hour of the movie, the more I appreciated the work of Ang Lee in structuring it the way he did. To watch Ennis' daughter still come back to him, to see the struggle on the faces of Jack's parents, to listen to the phone conversation between Ennis and Lureen was to see cinema at its finest; I believe each of those scenes showed the true nature of Jack and Ennis' relationship more than any of their scenes together.

Well now I really feel like a jackass for my first comments, but my gut reaction remains the same: as far as emotional, wrenching romantic stories between two protagonists, I've seen better. But for a film that goes this deep into love and its ripple effects, this will be hard to top.

'I don't have even a blanket.'

I just came back from watching Invisible Children about the orphans and otherwise abducted children of the seventeen year civil war in Uganda. The words don't exist to describe the impact of this film, because words cannot do justice to the inhuman conditions experienced every damn day in a continent that the richest country in the world could care less about. It was indeed most heartening at the end to see the projects and events being organized to help, but though I wanted to feel hope, I found it very difficult.

Africa is a ticking timebomb; we talk about the millions dying of AIDS or malnurished from famine or abducted by warlords, but those are numbers simply for today. What happens in ten, or twenty, or even thirty years when Africa needs workers? What about those fortunate enough to live, finding that there is no economy for them? We may well witness the disappearence of a continent within our lifetimes. So much for the 21st century.

Brokeback Mountain.

Considering I couldn't understand half of what they were saying, a damn fine film, if a little anti-climactic after months of hearing about it. Gotta admit it wasn't nearly as emotional as I expected it to be, but the acting was sublime on many levels and the scenery, my God the scenery. Michelle Williams, of course, broke my heart, but Anne Hathaway (who must never again be allowed to dye her hair blonde) is my new crush. Yowza.

And that, with apologies to my good friend Lee, is the shallowest review of Brokeback Mountain you will ever read.

Brownie whore.

My mom priority mailed three containers of black & white brownies to me, which arrived yesterday. I've already eaten one entire container. I need professional help.

Too cool.

Dreams do come true in Southern California.

Second chances.

I'm taking a cue from Dan Shanoff at ESPN.com's Daily Quickie by having another go-round with the bracket, since my previous one tanked in a blazing torrent of fire.

I think LSU does take down Duke, but loses to Texas. UCLA should be able to handle Adam Morrison, but his moustache will then go on to score 25 points in a failed rally; they knock off Memphis, who will, hoping beyond hope, crush Bradley so far into the ground that Peoria, Illinois itself will implode. I'd like for Washington to beat UConn, because I really don't like Calhoun and I really like Grey's Anatomy; Wichita State should get into the Elite Eight, and then go back to their usual status of being known only for the crude sexual practice symbolized by their mascot. And I'm going to go back to my original gut instinct and take BC to the Final Four; Georgetown's run will end after nipping Florida, which can't come soon enough. I've never rooted for a team from Florida, and I won't start anytime soon.

And in that Final Four? This is one of those times when I really wish they would reseed the teams for the national semifinals; Texas and UCLA should be the title game, but instead we'll see Texas vs. BC. Now sit back and watch as every game goes exactly the opposite of what I picked here; it wouldn't be March if my love of college basketball wasn't horribly and decisively betrayed by Duke.

In Commie bloood!!!

Without a doubt, the greatest movie review I have ever read. And the best blog post title, too.

The best reading material ever.

Because our government seriously has nothing better to do:

With respect to the first factor of our contextual analysis, we find that the material is explicit and graphic. The material clearly depicts a woman’s naked breasts, which are sexual organs. In this respect, this case is similar to other cases in which we have held depictions of nudity to be graphic and explicit. The fact that the guest’s nipples are covered with jewelry does not render the depiction of her breasts, which were otherwise fully exposed, insufficiently graphic to weigh in favor of a finding of patent offensiveness. Here, the audience had a sustained view of the guest’s breasts from several different angles, and the dress only served to enhance the view.

And no, that is not referring to the Super Bowl.

ETA: If you can, check out page 27, under "The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper." Sorry Founding Fathers, but Section 87 is the most amazing passage I've seen in a federal document.

It's 50 degrees in Moab.

And I'm in hell.

Weak tot action.

When given the option of going strong to the hole or not going at all, we chose instead to stand by and watch Bradley shoot lights out from three-point range. Sasha Kaun should never again wear a Jayhawks uniform.

Costs.

Via Atrios, this quote from Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter's NSA:

The war has proven to be prohibitively costly. American leadership, in all of its dimensions, has been damaged. American morality has been stained – in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. American legitimacy has been undermined – by unilateral decisions. American credibility – particularly the case for the war, has been shattered. Leadership depends on morality, legitimacy, credibility. The economic costs of the war are escalating into hundreds of billions of dollars. More importantly, American casualties are in the thousands, with more than tens of thousands maimed. We are not even counting Iraqi casualties; we prefer not to know what they are.

Though I must admit, I first momentarily thought this was Kissinger talking. Then I realized 'Wait, he's a fucking war criminal.' Which is also how history will be referring to this Administration en masse.

Gimme a S! Gimme a E! Gimme a X! What's that spell!?! Wait...

Oh sure, Kansas misses out on all the fun:

In Iowa, a 15-year-old cheerleader was arrested for allegedly writing "Columbine-style" threats to blow up her school.
In Boston members of a high school cheerleading squad produced "a homemade lesbian porno video".
In Minnesota, a cheerleader paid $50 to have a rival beaten up.
In Brooklyn kids at a school "pep rally" heckled, punched, kicked and then battered a cheerleader they considered "mediocre" with a garbage can.
In Pennsylvania a mob of drunken cheerleaders, doped up with malt liquor by their coach, went on a car-trashing rampage.
In Texas, teen cheerleaders were accused of sending a "shit pizza" to their local rivals.
In Colorado two cheerleaders were arrested for dealing morphine.
And - most famously - last year in Florida two Carolina Panthers cheerleaders were arrested after one of them hit a woman who objected to the "Top Cats" having sex with each other in a bar toilet stall.

But seriously, the balance of the article is fascinating in describing such a seemingly insignificant part of American sport and school culture, but which may itself be a microcosm of our larger society.

Last call.

My final bracket has Kansas beating Iowa, and Villanova besting Illinois in the Final Four. KU then beats Nova to take the title. Farfetched? Yeah maybe, but I've taken one for the team this year (in a kinda weird and potentially boring yearbook story that you know you don't want to go into right now) so I'm pulling for our boys.

Upsets (first round): A&M over Syracuse, San Diego St. over Indiana, Utah St. over Washington, G. Mason over Michigan St., Wis.-Milwaukee over Oklahoma, and Northern Iowa over Georgetown. I only have one addition to my aforementioned second-round upsets, Nevada upending BC. All of the No. 1s except Nova will fall in the Sweet Sixteen to their respective four seed, and none of the No. 2s will make it to the Elite Eight either. Alright, that's it for me; I think the first game starts in about nine minutes. Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

ETA: And yes! Sonic has brought back their 'Weak Tot Action' ads. I know how much the rest of the Council of 1118 has been anxiously awaiting this!

Bracketology: the only science that matters.

This is about the most wacked-out bracket I've seen since I started running illegal tourney pools back in high school. I have no bearings at all as I go through it, to the point that my current submitted bracket has all of the four-seeds (Illinois, BC, LSU and Kansas) going to the Final Four by taking out their respective No. 1s in the Sweet Sixteen, along with such upset specials as (7) Cal beating (2) Texas and (7) Wichita St. taking out (2) Tennessee in the second round. Because seriously, when did Tennessee even hear of the game of basketball, let alone play it at a two-seed level?

Finis.

I had to break into the Union last night to get them done, but the remaining 66 pages of the Jayhawker Annual 2006 are at the printing plant. I literally made my publishing representative gasp when I told her I finished it this morning. That makes me happy.

Cancellation.

Monday's classes at KU have just been cancelled. Our boys just put a Texas-sized beatdown on the Longhorns for the Big XII tournament title. And I am still five pages away from completing the book because they still won't open the Union where my office is located. The tornado giveth, and the tornado taketh away.

That. Was. AWESOME!

I just watched a fucking cyclone come down Campanile Hill and hit my apartment complex, uprooting trees, messing up the stadium, and tearing the third floor railing off the building opposite mine. There are sirens and debris all over town, but seriously, I can't believe I watched the thing come towards me. I couldn't decide whether to stay in front of my big patio screen door, or run for cover. I did the sensible thing; I stayed. And it was sweet.

ETA, 10:29am: There are sooo many trees down all over campus and at the dorms up the hill. I went walking with the yearbook camera and it is incredible, the amount of damage just in our little neighborhood, considering all of the reports and footage from downtown and also from south of campus. It's still all dreary and cloudy outside, so it's like being in a warzone.

Five pages out, or, Wow I really now how to overdramatize things.

So I won't be dead on Monday. But I will be very somber with the end of my yearbook career, an end that came in the form of approximately 700 photos taken in an eight-night stretch, and the better part of 70 pages put together yesterday afternoon. The remaining few pages are just waiting to be graced by more RCR photos from tonight; tomorrow I put on the finishing touches, check for typos, preflight the PDFs, and make the CD that will be FedExed same-day on Monday to the plant. By the week of Stop Day, we will have 805 copies of the Jayhawker Annual 2006 sitting in the Kansas Union. It's an incredible feeling, knowing that I was able to pull this off; once again my thirst for drama and pressure has saved my ass. Thankfully I had RCR; without them I would have 30 empty pages. All those crotch shots were not in vain, after all.

On a related note, CinderEllie was truly the best overall show, but I thought Joes & Dolls had the better original song, In the Club should've received best use of sets, and Rockin' the Boat got robbed of best costumes. None of you care.

Influence.

I like to think I had some impact on that bottom headline, thank you.

Reunion.

I would've posted on this last night, but I was too tired to care. Apparently yesterday was Humboldt reunion day here at KU; my classmate Jennifer happened to be in town on a little break from her neuroscience studies in Amsterdam, so I took her and her little sis, Amy, an RA at McCollum, out to coffee. On the way to the dorm, though, I saw a freshman who graduated from Humboldt walking towards the cafeteria. Then at afternoon tea on the other side of campus, I saw another Humboldt freshman. And while taking yearbook photos at the Rec in the evening, I saw Brad and David keeping up with their basketball jones.

And yet, I still don't have an easy answer for 'What are you still doing here?'

Revue.

Every other week out of the year, I make fun of the fraternities and sororities. In my circle of friends, that's what we do. We decry the conformity and perpetuate the stereotypes and make a grand ole time of it. But for one week, I can't. This is that week.

I just spent the past 3.5 hours at the Lied Center for the dress rehersal of the Rock Chalk Revue, our annual variety show. Ten frats and sororities paired up to put on five plays; the proceeds from the show go to the United Way. Last year I was introduced to RCR when my friend Lauren and some of her friends were involved in the show, and when I went to watch on opening night, I was hooked. The time and energy that all of these students put into the show (it takes all year to put together and rehearse a 20min. original play); the closeness of the performers; the pressure to put on three consecutive performances was all incredible. Call me a softy, but I can't help it; I was never part of something like that, and to watch it up close is rather special to me.

Which is why I take my photography at RCR seriously, knowing that I'm one of the few people allowed to take photos during the event (and that's just during the rehearsal; the other nights I can only take pictures backstage and during the awards on Saturday night). It makes me step up my game because I know I have only one shot at getting the perfect photo, and when I miss, and I certainly did miss quite a few times tonight, I get that much more frustrated. I know most of the performers will probably never see my work, but their moments are ours, and I can't let them slip away.

The American Republic, 1776-2006.

It was a good run, but I'm sorry you went out with a whimper.

And surprise surprise, the man who drove the final nail into the coffin went to K-State.

Consequences.

If you want to know where you won't find me or my robust tourism dollars in the near future, this is a nice place to start. [Though, to be fair, it's not like those states were high on my list to begin with. Except Utah; I'd love to go back to Zion for a few days of canyoneering.]

[In his best Anakin/Vader voice] NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Why, Yanni, why!?!?!

Boring.

I was flipping through several moments ago and on the Oscars caught the montage about controversial films. Combined with George Clooney's great comment after receiving his award, that Hollywood should be outside the mainstream, and I got to thinking about all of the conservatives who bust a nut because those damned celebrities have the audacity to speak out on issues and create movies that might make one feel a little squeamish inside. (Never mind that the films and celebrities who are on the side of the president or the 'mainstream' aren't given the same treatment: Gary Sinese, Britney Spears, Ted Nugent...wait, that's all they got? How sad.) I like that celebrities are outspoken and politically and socially minded, but not because of the great spirit of dissent and freedom of expression that we give lip service to. No, I like it because without them, society would be pretty frickin' boring. Admit it, Tom Cruise may be a batshit loonball whose grin you want to slap all the way to the planet Xenu, but when you see him argue with a German reporter, you feel better about yourself all over again.

Priorities.

So we're against deadlines in getting our troops out, but we're for deadlines in potentially sending our troops in. With royalties to Atrios, Worst Administration Ever.

Things I Love, #56.

The sweet, soft 'oohh' that Deb Talen inserts in the chorus of 'Painting by Chagall' by the Weepies. I bought this album last night, and had to tear myself away from the computer so I would go take pictures at Mo Rocca's 'Gamekillers', before ending up at a bonfire with Mischa. But this album was playing in my head the entire time; I am a sucker for cascading tonal changes within words, and the Weepies bring that in spades.

On my first college road trip ever, and it just happens to be Pancake Day.

Pretty freakin' sweet, considering that I spent 13 hours in a car for 11 waking hours in Liberal, KS. Jeff, Annie, Tim, and I all headed west for the grand festivities of this Shrove Tuesday. We left at noon yesterday, and spent the night at Jeff's parents' house (they happen to be super nice, by the way; they will receive the Church of Beer's highest order, just as soon as we, uh, think it up) where I realized that I am, indeed, a cookie addict (to go with my other status as a brownie whore). This morning, we dined on pancakes that really had quite a bit of soaking power, and watched as another KU grad student, Henry, gave a speech as England's official representative to Liberal for the day. Then we headed downtown to watch the series of pancake races held under sunny skies and in perfect temperatures (perfect, we believed, for what could be world record times). At noon the feature event, the international women's race, ended with the front-runner tripping 20 feet from the line, and the winning time in Liberal was five seconds slower than the time recorded in Olney, England, six hours previous, thus snapping Liberal's seven-year winning streak. Fortunately, this did not dampen our barbeque lovin's, and we then piled back into the car for the 6.5h trip back to Lawrence. A fantastic time with my best friends and some good food and the international brotherhood of running with breakfast pastries.

On a completely unrelated note, I wanted to amend my column that ran in today's Kansan; in my submitted version, the following paragraph goes in right after 'And, please, for the love of Tonya Harding, stop taking it all so damn seriously.' The editors are perfectly in their right to cut down as they see fit (they also made stylistic changes that I in no way take responsibility for, as always), but this passage makes a larger point that I wanted to discuss in addition to the others presented.

Lindsey Jacobellis fell in the final seconds of her snowboardcross final. She had a sizable lead on her Swiss opponent, and coming off the next to last jump, she pulled a method air, went off-balance and nearly wiped out before recovering to her feet and finishing with a silver medal. Her actions were treated with unimaginable disdain; to the journalists watching, she should have gone straight and narrow down that course, won her gold medal and waved her flag while giving a Wheaties smile. That she is still one of the top snowboarders on the planet doesn’t matter; that she and her fellow extreme athletes operate by a less, shall we say, stringent notion of athletic behavior is seemingly forgotten in the media. It’s not surprising, though, as it was forgotten by our society long ago.

And on another completely unrelated note, I am less than two weeks from the end of my yearbook career. I not only have to design 70 pages in the next twelve days, but likely come up with most of the pictures for said pages. In other words, I will be dead by 13 March. That, or I'll have an I.V. pumping maple syrup straight into my veins.

I can stop watching TV and have my life back!

[Compliments to Jeff for the title of this post.] Yes, my grand, unprecedented Olympic viewing experience is now complete. There are many, many things I could say about the Torino Games, but for right now I'd like to cap it with these few thoughts:

In such a magnificent stadium and setting, on such a special night...Ricky fucking Martin?

I have a serious crush on Mary Carillo.

I don't even want to know how many athletes have already gotten laid over there tonight.

I did go buy the Bode Miller autobiography. This is like when I finally started rooting for Howard Dean just as all of his momentum evaporated. Yes, a lot like that, but not really.

Bob Costas is getting on my nerves more often than usual.

And my videotape for the last day of competition and the ceremonies ended at literally the very second that the traditional closing montage on NBC ended. If that's not a sign, I don't know what is. Buona notte, all.

Ryan's TV time.

Updated daily to reflect the number of hours I have spent watching NBC's Olympic coverage since the Opening Ceremonies on the night of 10 February 2006: 106h

10 Feb: 4h
11 Feb: 7.5h
12 Feb: 7h (I'll have to wait until next weekend to go for the eight hour barrier)
13 Feb: 4.5h
14 Feb: 4.5h
15 Feb: 5h (Includes some Olympic late-night and the Today Show's Matt & Al going down a luge run while screaming like little girls)
16 Feb: 5.5h (An extra half-hour in primetime, plus some Olympic late-night on tape)
17 Feb: 5h (Lost a half-hour due to the greatest car battery replacement *ever*)
18 Feb: 11h (Admittedly, about five hours of this is on videotape to be watched tomorrow during the Daytona 500, when I should be studying)
19 Feb: 6h
20 Feb: 8.5h (Thanks presidents!)
21 Feb: 4.5h
22 Feb: 4.5h (Can I break one hundred?!)
23 Feb: 5h
24 Feb: 7.5h (Finally watched some of the Olympic late-nights that I had on tape)
25 Feb: 10h (I did it!! The Closing Ceremonies will truly be the icing on the cake)
26 Feb: 6h

Goosebumps.

It's amazing that as much figure skating as I've watched in the last thirteen days, I just can't seem to get into the ladies. All of the talk about the new scoring system detracting from the artistic elements has finally caught up to me I guess. While watching the pairs and the ice dancing I thought it was great that the system was now demanding athleticism to be brought in to the routines, but we expect something different from the women as they skate alone. We want grace, and we get endless spinning crotch shots. We want them to float, not speedskate. We want art and power, and the times we get both seem to be few and far between anymore.

Perhaps I spoiled myself when I accidently broke cardinal rule #1 and clicked on ESPN.com this afternoon and was a touch too slow to raise my hand to the screen. Perhaps I further inflamed it when I went to NBColympics.com and clicked up the video of Sarah Hughes' free skate in 2002. But I'm not sorry for the latter; it was perhaps the most sublime performance I have seen in eight Olympics, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I choked up a good number of times while rewatching it. In every Olympics I have what I like to call the 'goosebumps test': who makes me absolutely unable to sleep that night after watching them. Sarah aced that one four years ago, a rising performance that just took your breath away with each element.

Tonight, there was sadly none of that (though of all the Olympians this time around, Irina was most certainly my most favorite to watch). I wish a gold medal could always be won in the strength of a competition, and not merely by default. With this new system yes we get plenty of jumps, but we don't get our goosebumps. Athletics and aesthetics, when done right, should be inseparable. When done right, they should make us jump.

Forza Italia.

I would apologize for the lack of posts about anything other the Olympics this past week, but I could give a damn. Not since Atlanta in '96 have I had this much fun watching an Olympics. Throughout the 60 hours so far that I've devoted myself to, I've been picking up on all sorts of little things about each sport: skidding in the bobsled, tucking in the downhill, lifting on the ski jump. Indeed the big surprise for me has been my newfound fascination with figure skating; tonight's ice dancing performances have made me repent for all the laughs I ever gave to comedians who made fun of this event.

And after yesterday's superb documentary on the 'Great Race', the 4x10km men's cross-country relay in Lillehammer '94 in which Italy upset the heavily-favored Norwegians on home-snow, I was even more excited about the fourth installment of that famed rivalry. Ultimately, one of these years the race would have to be a blow-out, and this time it was Italy coming in first, a minute and fifteen seconds in front of Norway; regardless of margin of victory, the party was on in Torino and Italy, and it seems to have simply poured fuel onto the fire to carry these games through this last week of competition. Exams, yearbook, and Pancake Day notwithstanding, I'll carry on as well.

Nothing short about 5K.

If I knew how to skate, I would take up short-track speedskating in a heartbeat so that I can take part in the 5000m relay. That looks like the most fun sporting event *ever*. And that includes anything that the Swedes ever came up with.

(The joke there being that they like doing things naked. Like volleyball and go-cart racing.)

You can keep your basketball.

And your football, and your baseball, and your what the hell ever. I just watched the most amazing display of athletic courage and fortitude in my life. Zhang Dan bashes her knees on the ice, hits the boards, and still manages to skate well enough to win a silver medal, but I'm sure that was the last thing on their minds during the remaining four minutes of their free skate. They attempted what had never been done (and I mean never; Inoue and Baldwin hit a throw triple axel before they came to the Olympics, so they were just here for the record), chose to complete what they stepped onto the ice to do, and I'll be damned if I wasn't a babbling idiot by the end. God I love this stuff.

ETA: A commenter in the TWoP 2006 Winter Games forum (no, my TV time doesn't reflect all of the time I spend on Olympic related materiel each day, which is sad in itself) said "How incredible is it that all 3 medal-winning pairs have had major injury within the past year and a half, 2 of them on ice? That speaks to the toughness of these athletes." Indeed.

Sequins.

I am finding myself absolutely transfixed by the pairs figure skating right now. I've watched figure skating since Albertville in 1992, but I guess I never really looked at the athleticism required to do some of the things these guys and girls are able to do on a sheet of ice with quarter-inch wide steel blades on their boots. I'm not saying that I'll be just as devoted to ice dancing, but for tonight they've got a convert.

And to prove the point, I totally forgot about this.

Commercialization.

I am very much in love with the ExxonMobil commercial of the kids walking, bouncing, and otherwise making the movements of winter olympians, because I very much did that myself when I was in third grade and first realized just what the Olympics were. I especially remember speed skating down the hallways at school...and everywhere else we went, I suppose.

Meanwhile, Chick-Fil-A is on my shitlist until the end of time. Their new spot in which a cow holds up a line of bulldozers trying to build a new burger joint is about the most dispicable commercial I've ever seen. Using one of the most powerful images and symbols of freedom in history–the man standing in front the tanks at Tiananmen Square–is and should be beyond the pale for any profitable use, especially for second-rate chicken sandwiches (and no, not even your waffle fries can save you this time).

Of all the times I wish I had HDTV.

I'm not quite sure it was the best opening ceremony I've ever seen, but it was definitely the most beautiful. Stadio Olimpico looked absolutely stunning from every which way; the dove and the ski jumper were about the most original artistic portions I've ever seen in an OC; Pavarotti deserved to be in the largest opera house ever; and the lighting of the cauldron was neat and imaginative (if solely because the only other way to light it would've been by helicopter). The disco music during the parade of the athletes was definitely inspired, though it ranks behind Athens bringing in DJ Tiësto for a live house rave. And if there are more women over there who look like Carla Bruni, then Fabrica or no Fabrica, I'm making my way to Italy when I'm all said and done here in Lawrence.

Now for the minuses: STFU Brian Williams. You damn near ruined my seventh opening ceremony; if you're around for an eighth, I will cut you. NBC has a habit of splicing out lots of stuff to make room for the seven million hours of face time they have to give to Kwan, Bode, Chad, and Tomato Guy; they edited the hell out of Athens in 2004. And last but not least, somebody give Bob Costas an enema. Man's gone downhill since Barcelona in '92; maybe he's still suffering Dick Enberg withdrawals.

XX.

Fettuccine with organic spaghetti sauce: check. Two packs of blank videocasettes: yep. Couch and TV in optimal viewing angle: you got it.

My mom was saying earlier today how neat it is that I still get as excited for the Olympics as when I was a kid. To which I say, indeed. Let the Games begin.

On reviewing a movie when he should be sleeping.

So I realize I'm a little late with this, but Cidade de Deus (City of God) might be about the most amazing feature film I've ever seen. It didn't take my breath away like Diarios de motocicleta (The Motorcycle Diaries), but I set that standard pretty high when I walked out of Liberty Hall, turned to Tom, and said 'That's the greatest movie I'll ever watch.' Greatest, most amazing: there's a fine line there, even if only I can see it.

City of God was just flawless in its execution, in every way including the innovative flashbacks to tell the story (normally they can bog down, but the piecing together was fabulous). The acting, the cinematography, even the typography (nerd!) used for the chapter headings were all inspired. Well done indeed.

Alright, now it's off to bed. Almost fourteen hours until the opening ceremonies start in Torino! (Nineteen hours until the broadcast; damn NBC.) If you need me, you can find me in 17 days.

Record breaking, Pt. 2.

And as if the TV wasn't bad enough, I'm addicted to a computer game too. Nikefootball.com has this game called Upgrade where you pilot a vehicle that is shaped like a soccer boot through obstacles to score as many goals in a minute as you can, while also picking up time and point bonuses. I routinely place in the daily top ten, mostly in the top three, and I've been keeping track of my own records. A week ago my personal best was 31 goals and 4276p., which I thought to be damn good until I had the game of my life last night with 34 goals and a whopping 5222p., including 1600p. each for levels 2-4. Tonight, I couldn't play for shit, and only had 31 goals for 4506p. That's the problem with stellar, MVP performances; they weigh down on you every time you take the field of battle afterwards.

Goddammit, I'm serious about this.

I have TV again.

Yes it's only basic cable, but it still sucks you in sooooo fast.

On reading the very first issue of 'Play', the Times' new glossy sports magazine.

SI and ESPN should be thanking God that this is only a quarterly.

Cause the NFL can suck it, that's why.

I chose not to go somewhere to watch the Super Bowl this year, because I didn't want to be lambasted by the commercials and the pre-game and the pre-pre-game and the halftime show and everything that helps hide the fact that there is, in fact, a football game being played. I was hoping to listen to said game on the radio, but the NFL in its infinite wisdom has apprarently given the radio broadcast rights to Sirius and Westwood One; I don't have the former, and the latter has no stations near Lawrence. So congratulations to the National Football League: I'm going to spend this evening reading and listening to podcasts about anything other than football. Well, at least your kind of football.

"Bill made a funny. Hee!"

I used to think the biggest loss I suffered when I shut off my cable was 'The Daily Show.' Lately, though, I'm thinking it might be 'The Countdown' on MSNBC. Watch Olbermann destroy O'Reilly. And then watch it again, simply because you can't stop yourself.

Talk of the weather will do.

On this, the last day of January, I counted five people on campus wearing shorts, three of them sans jacket or long-sleeves. For all of the talk about 'Oh how nice it is!', I'm cringing and bracing myself for the other shoe that must–must!–inevitably drop. Where last year it snowed briefly during spring break, I'm expecting this year nothing less than three inches of ice. Or perhaps a typhoon.

Power of the press.

So I had this cute little post all ready for the publication of my first column for the Kansan. The title was going to be Let the hate mail begin! and then the post would just be 'They're sooo gonna start hucking rocks at me on campus today' with a link to the column on Kansan.com. However they're not posting today's opinion stuff (and *just* the opinion stuff). So I can't.

But that doesn't mean there's not still the possibility that I'll be forced to run a gauntlet through Frasier Hall; the worst thing would be to get pricked by those 'This is what a feminist looks like' buttons. I hate shots.

Record breaking.

Forty pages in under three hours. I am a yearbook god.

"This run has the highest probability of producing a lawsuit."

Now this is how one does a scientific study: double-diamond ski runs, moguls, and alcohol. What could possibly the fuck go wrong?

Seven weeks out, or, Why I'll be dead by spring break.

For the first time since I took over the Jayhawker, I will miss a deadline. It upsets me and makes me feel like I've failed, which as my advisor David said today, "at least shows that [you're] not a sociopath." Including this deadline, I have 108 pages, including four full-color pages that are due within five days of the Jayhawks NCAA tournament end. At the way our team is currently standing, I'll probably go ahead and have those pages done with the rest of the book by 13 March.

Course this gets a little more involved due to the lack of interest shown by most of my photography staff. I have a couple of people who are still contributing, but for the most part, I haven't fulfilled my duties in really managing my staff. So I'm taking it upon myself to carry this book home; instead of planning things around my classes (which don't count anymore anyways), I'm planning around photo opportunities. Last night was an concert by our a capella group, tonight was a swim meet and Chinese New Year's dinner, tomorrow is a track meet and Mozart tribute concert. I also woke up at 5:15am this morning and decided that since the Rec was opening in 15min., I might as well go ahead and get a work out done. And now it's 6:40pm and I'm supposed to meet Jeff, Annie and Tim for dinner downtown and I'm exhausted.

At this rate, I'll be a wired, emaciated former yearbook editor by St. Patrick's Day. But dammit, I'll have a portfolio to send to Italy. Visions of pasta are the only thing getting me through this anymore.

The surly bonds of Earth.

I can't believe it's been twenty years since the Challenger exploded. I vaguely remember that day; we were living in Rifle, Colorado at the time, and I wasn't yet in school so I was home that day to watch the lift-off (being full-on in my astronaut phase, as all four year olds have to be). The only thing I really remember about the disaster, though, is my mom calling my dad at his radiator shop to tell him what happened. Eighteen years later, my mom would do the same to call me from New York when the Columbia disappeared off radar, to break apart in the skies over Texas.

Anyway, NASA has put up a tribute site on their Day of Remembrance. Take a look, and take a moment.

On not freezing my bollocks off in an Alaskan winter.

Via Deadspin, this is what temperatures of sixty below look like (video).

Extinction.

Because, obviously, one futuristic sci-fi action movie featuring a pretty girl as a trained assassin capable of taking on entire armies in a fight for mankind while canning the most crappy one-liners of dialogue ever ... wasn't enough. Anybody who thinks the traditional Hollywood studio/creative structure needs protection should be forced to watch those movies with their eyelids taped open.

Granted, however, this is not the worst punishment imaginable. That would be watching Michael Douglas or Tim Robbins trying to exude any notion that they might still be capable of having sex.

"I think we show up at his house two years from now naked with a box of cigars and go, 'You know what, stick them wherever you want, just come back.'"

Jon Stewart, in June 2001, on Bill Clinton. What I wouldn't give for us to go back to the days when getting one's winky wacked was the worst thing one could do in the Oval Office.

Finally, somebody at K-State is useful for something.

Course, the president will likely still get away with playing with truthiness, but good on ya' Tiffany Cooper.

As if curling didn't have enough problems already.

Continuing with our series on just what the hell is going on up in Scandinavia, the Swedish women's curling team joins up with a heavy-metal band for 'Hearts on Fire.'

I know what you're thinking, and no, it's a different 'Hearts on Fire.'

Mmm, beer.

Those Aussies sure get right to the point, don't they?

Visionary.

The brightest mind in the entertainment business today? My vote goes to Mark Cuban.

On bumming around in sweats and not leaving the apartment all day.

Not like I don't have a good reason. Canada, sorry but I'm gonna have say 'no.'

Housekeeping.

When I came back from a week in Humboldt, I actually weighed in at 148 lbs, which is a bit over my prediction. However, thanks to my new resolution and figuring out a good schedule for going to the Rec, I was able to shave a good four pounds off that in the three weeks since coming back. Plus, as pertains to Resolution #1, I ran 5K on the treadmill Wednesday with a (rather unnecessary) quarter mile walk break at the halfway point; I may be able to run 10K by the end of February, and spring break at the latest. My new resolution is now to break my personal best of 48'50" at 10K by June.

For R#2, I have decided to set aside my grad school plans and pursue some alternatives, namely the Columbia Publishing Course at the famed Journalism School in New York City. It is a summer program, and being as I won't know my status for sure until March or April, I have had to decline working for Duke TIP again this summer (which sucks, because I was very much looking forward to being around Mischa and Lee and Julie and any other returning staffers again). In addition to that Course, I am also hoping to get accepted into Fabrica, Benetton's communication studies institute about 40km outside of Venice, Italy. If I get through the trial period (which in itself would be two weeks in Italy; score!), then I sign a contract for a year-long internship to work on publishing projects and such.

On R#3, last night was indeed 80's Night, or Neon as they prefer to call it, at the Granada. I went with Mischa and Michelle; being a little rusty from months of no dancing, I was pleased with my groove by the end of the night. However, if I were to get on a treadmill and force myself to run 10K while wearing kevlar body armor, I would not have been as sore as I was while walking out of the Granada. I forgot how much twisting one tends to do when one listens to classic Madonna.

This being my last semester at KU then, I'm excited. I only have two classes, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 1-4pm, and I'm way excited about them (if for no other reason than because it's the lowest amount of money I've ever spent on textbooks). The first is from my dear mentor, Prof. Bob Antonio, on Sociology and the Economy; this will be my third class with him, the two others being the two best classes I've ever taken in college. I'm sure he can handle the expectations. The other course is History of Photography, my first ever art history course; I really don't have anything else to say about it, but I hope that changes.

The yearbook is, um, well, hm, going. We have a deadline of 40 pages that I have to send off a week from today, and at this moment in time I only have about a dozen pictures of the campus buried in snow. Which is cool, but there's not even any sledding, and I am *all* about sledding photos. Nevertheless, I'm sure Joah and I will pull it off; we're like Harvey Birdman and Peanut. I'll leave you to determine which one is which. (Hint: I'd be the one more likely to say 'Oooh, sprechen sie sexy...')

On that note, I watched two and a half hours of Harvey Birdman DVDs this week. Best written show on television AND it has Stephen Colbert.

In addition to the yearbook, I am also serving as a regular columnist for the University Daily Kansan this semester. My column starts on Tuesday, 31 Jan., and will run every two weeks after that (meaning that I get the Valentine's Day column. Ha ha! Chocolate fueled depression). My parameters are roughly anything within the realm of politics and economics, so I'll be writing on, among other things, the politics of Roe v. Wade (hmm, I wonder where I'll go with that...) and the economics of organic farming. And if I get more hate mail from the Young Democrats than from the College Republicans, well that's just icing on the cake.

I've also applied for the position of Commissioner of Elections for this spring. The elections for Student Body president/VP and for the Student Senate are held every April, and they need a non-partisan student who is interested in politics and the law to administer the elections and investigate campaign code violations. It should work with my schedule well (I'll be done with the yearbook by spring break), and I looove the title of Commissioner Scarrow. *chills*

And finally, this is really something that only I could pull off: I managed, over the course of the past seven months, to forget my mom's, my dad's, and my sister's birthdays. In case you're new to the show, that's my entire family. I've already invoked the 'freebie' rule to cover this past year, and have sworn a blood oath that it will never happen again. Until I forget my blood oath. Because it has happened before.

Nothing more useless than a bulletproof vest that can't, you know, stop a bullet.

And they say that bloggers aren't 'true' journalists. My ass.

Is it something in the water?

I don't know what goes on in Iceland, but if I can have kids as gorgeous as these, I might just move there. And you know, their music scene doesn't seem to be all that bad either.

Shot in the arm.

The times when I read an essay that floors me in both its analysis and foresight with regards to current geopolitical realities seem to be fewer and farther between anymore. Prepare to be floored.

Heart.

I was explaing to my mom the other night what it meant to *heart* something. For example, I *heart* this keyboard.

No no, you don't understand. I *heart* it. Badly. With a devotion so strong and solid that it is unknown to but a few other people on this planet.

Wait, what?

That was word for word my literal reaction upon seeing this.

Jason Statham is the greatest badass in the history of badassery.

I was a little disappointed with the special effects in Transporter 2 until I realized: Hey, Jason Statham is putting on some of the best fight scenes I've ever watched. What the hell do I care?

Besides, I'm all for positive representations of men with high hairlines. Although I'm sure the suit and the Audi A8 also help.

White paper.

Facebook deserves many things from us. Scorn. Ridicule. Dismissive smirks. Whether or not it deserves statistical analysis, though, is something I'm not prepared to deal with yet.

That being said, earlier this morning I surpassed 10K people that I'm connected to through friends. I could post a screengrab to prove this, but I don't want to make things any worse than they already are.

I am frightened by whoever photoshopped this.

But I'm more frightened at the thought that it actually isn't photoshopped. My whole 'fleeing to Europe' thing makes more sense with each passing day, it seems like.

Can you feel it?

I sure can. It's starting to feel very Olympic, not least of all because NBC finally released their broadcast schedule. Reading through it becomes crystal clear that I will have to go back to the cable company and have my TV service reconnected (sadly, the attempts to get an attenae to work were blocked by the fact that I live on the side of a hill). On the upside, though, I will only need the limited cable, and not the expanded cable, as NBC proper will be showing a good enough cross-section of the events; USA will be showing some biathlon and curling, but the bulk of the cable service is dedicated to every single hockey game of the Olympics, and that is really not worth the extra money. I haven't missed an Olympics since I realized they existed halfway during the Albertville '92 games, and I seriously wouldn't be able to live with myself if I skipped out now.

Snark.

I never knew the New York Times could be so campy and sarcastic, yet I never really expected to see them do this long of an article about the porn industry awards.

[The best feature award] went to "Pirates," a relatively high-budget story of a group of ragtag sailors who go searching for a crew of evil pirates who have a plan for world domination. Also, many of the characters in the movie have sex with one another.

..."There's nothing worse then when the pizza boy rings the doorbell, the girl says she doesn't have a tip, and then they get it on," she said. Ms. Daniels also won an award for best screenplay for a parody, "Camp Cuddly Pines Power Tool Massacre," which presumably had a storyline more in keeping with her tastes.

#*&@!

There are lines that must be drawn in a civilized, law-abiding society. I believe the Bush Administration and its bastard child, the Dept. of Homeland Security, may want to look behind it and find that line again. Far, far behind.

Cause the FCC can suck it, that's why.

Howard Stern's first day at Sirius, by the numbers. (Mom, you might not want to look at this. Trust me.)

Host with the most.

Just when I couldn't possibly care less, now I gotta watch the damn thing.

Fight On.

Here we go folks: let's hope for a glorious evening in Pasadena.

Resolved.

1] To be able to again run 10K on the treadmill by June. (I still have plenty of homemade treats to finish off, so this is as much for pragmatism as it is for pride.)

2] To have a grad school, internship, or job for the fall lined up by June. (They have internships in Europe right? They have bars and bartenders over there, that's for damn sure.)

3] To go dancing at a club at least every other week; techno, 80s, salsa, whatever. (I've been told I have great rhythm; it's a shame to deny it to the people.)

4] To try and get a second date with a young lady whom I fancy. (Course, there's always the obstacle of getting that first date. Damn.)

5] To get and I mean the hell out of this state.

Chart topper.

Yes it's an arbitrary list from a site that many people don't read, but I take much solace in knowing just how many albums from this 2005 top ten list I already had on my iTunes: #10 Bloc Party, #7 ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of the Dead, #6 British Sea Power, #3 M83, #2 The Decemberists, and #1 Wolf Parade. Seriously people, listen to these bands as soon as possible; they're why I still have hope in music today.

On saying 'no' to the black & white brownies.

Yeah fucking right.

Detox.

Alright, after a week of eating everything that I felt like eating, topped off with ribs, cake and beer tonight with J&A, I'm going into detox starting today. If I do happen to go out for New Year's Eve, I will not be drinking; I figure it may well take me three weeks of constant diet and exercise to make up for my week-long binge, and the sooner I start, the better. I satisfied my cravings, so now, I just have to say no to the black & white brownies. I love them hard, but they don't love me.

Rockstar.

The birthday present from my parents. Any resemblance to Bono is entirely by design.

On coming back from a week of homecooking.

I currently have in my kitchen, approximately, five thousand pumpkin bars, sixteen thousand brownies, a thousand pieces of fudge, and enough chicken and noodles to fill a large tub. You know, give or take.

Crackpipe.

This. Is. Hilarious. And just in time for the Holidays! Have a good weekend everybody; I'm in Humboldt until Thursday the 29th (my birthday), so do be merry and joyful and enjoy the assload of food.

Layers.

So I was watching this fantastic movie today, Layer Cake, starring the new 007 Daniel Craig, and my biggest celebrity crush Sienna Miller (despite her still smoking those blasted cigarettes). Anyway, it's a very slick, very clever movie (and fits in nicely with my recent British kick), but the ending took the wind right out of my sails. I hate to give it away, but seriously, it's one of those things where you're watching and thinking 'Ah, I hope they wrap this up in good order' and then the ending comes and the only words out of your mouth are "Fuck me."

It's still an awesome film, but bloody hell.

Career.

So I've considered it before, but after reading this NY Times article about premium drinks and the bars that serve them, I think I might just forget about journalism and professional politics and such. After all, the tip on a $1,500 cocktail would help soothe the realization that I won't change the world. Besides, it's probably a great career; you have an excuse for sleeping in, plenty of downtime to read and exercise, and you get to laugh at the little yuppies and hipsters as they waste away into the night.

PS: In the recipe for the 'World Cocktail': 4 Drops of 23-carat edible liquid gold. My ass.

The long awaited slippery slope finally presents itself.

Indeed.

Think about it. Many Jews weren't keen on leaving Germany because they figured the rampant anti-Semitism would blow over, and heck, they'd survived plenty of other storms in the past by keeping a low profile. And even as the SS pushed them closer and closer to the abyss, people thought "this is it, this is the absolute bottom." It is a pretty long way from relegating a people to particular professions, to forcing them to register and wear Yellow Stars, to putting them into ghettoes, to killing them, isn't it?

So we fight erosion of civil liberties at every turn, no matter what the justification from the State might be. That is the 'eternal vigiliance' of which Jefferson spoke. The Constitution doesn't guarantee any rights. The Senate doesn't safeguard our liberties. The President doesn't protect us. Only we the People do. Once we abdicate our responsibility to be skeptical of our government, to engage in oversight, to scrutinize its every deed, we lose that liberty we're supposed to defend.

Game Over, Pt. 2.

Atrios is on fire. As, indeed, we all should be.

"You're talking shit."

Ladies and gentlemen, let me be very clear: this is the most brilliant show I've ever heard in my life. And by brilliant, I mean absolutely demented.

Game over.

On the subject of the president knowingly violating the law, this says everything I want to, and more.

Well read.

I started this book at the very beginning of the semester and I swear I'm going to finish it within the next week, so that I can then finish this book. Then I'll get around to finishing a few others, like this one, and perhaps this one, and then I can get around to starting this most important book (while knowing that I need to finish this other most important book). And if I have some downtime, I might finish the post-WWII period of this book too. But that might be getting a little greedy.

Mmm, coffee.. Pt. 2.

Now they have a competition for latte art.

"As long as I got a job, you got a job. Understand?"

RIP John Spencer, 'Leo McGarry' on the West Wing. Perhaps fate deemed that I spend the last two days watching West Wing DVDs for season two, which may have been the greatest season of any television show in history. Not five minutes ago I watched the end of perhaps the most cinematic TV episode ever, 'Two Cathedrals', and I then logged on only to find this tragic news. For those of you familiar with the episode, it ends with a fitting song while McGarry and the rest of the staff watch Bartlet put his hands in his pockets, look away, and smile at the question of whether he would run again for president. John Spencer was the backbone of that show; his acting, personality, and charisma was of a finer calibre than most others in the business and friends, that is indeed saying something.

Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it’s written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We’re fools to make war
On our brothers in arms
–Dire Straits, 'Brothers in Arms'

Congressin'.

Via Eschaton, this congressman gets his priorities right; too bad the rest of the House has its head lodged between the buttcheeks of Rupert Murdoch.

Mrs. Claus.

Dammit I love Christmas.

Process.

So I've realized that applying for graduate school sucks. See, last year I didn't get to the part of the actual filling out of the application forms; I had only had recommendation forms sent in and taken the GRE by the time I decided to call it off for a year. But now I'm trying to get these two schools (NYU and SFU) taken care of before Christmas, and today I find out about another program: the Globalization Studies track in Dartmouth's MALS program. It really sounds like it would be right in my wheelhouse, as I'm all for interdisciplinary approaches to modern history, poli sci, sociology and, *cough*economics*cough*. And it's not due until 15 Feb., which gives enough time to round up yet another batch of recommendations if I choose to shoot for it. But definitely no warm-weather options this year; the deadline for USC's Politics & International Relations PhD program has already passed. Had I been up for committing myself to five more years of this stuff, I would've jumped at it.

As if I'm not gonna be immersed in politics and international relations for the next five years anyway. Dammit, at least I would've gotten paid for it *and* lived in Southern California. It might steal your soul, but maybe I'd finally get a tan.

On obsessing over my weight.

This morning at the Rec I weighed in just over 141 pounds, which was a little lighter than I was expecting considering my lack of cardio exercise lately. I'll probably work out every day until I leave for home next Friday evening, and during my week at home I'll probably go to the Rehab & Fitness Center a few times until I come back on 30 Dec. Considering my weakness for elk steak, mashed potatoes, homemade bread, cookies, and anything else my mom sees fit to cook, I'm curious as to what my weight will be when I go to the Rec again on 3 Jan., so please feel free to state your guess in the comments. Hey, blogs are for nothing if not overwrought vanity; myself, I'm gonna go with 143 pounds, if only because I'll force myself into a massive calorie deficit within the next week.

I may need help.

Tidings of comfort and joy.

One of the things about not having TV is that you miss the little things, like this 'War on Christmas' exchange between Sam Seder and Bob Knight (no, probably not *that* Bob Knight) that Atrios managed to capture for us. How the Santa Claus/Al Queda link somehow escaped us is beyond me.

I'd very much prefer not to take these people seriously, but I have a feeling that sometime soon I'm not gonna have a choice. I knew this whole thing was out of hand when Bill O'Reilly a few weeks said that 'Every business in America should be on their knees thanking Jesus for being born and giving us the Christmas shopping season.' Because yes Bill, the non-existence of day-after-Thanksgiving sales is the only way our world would be changed in the past 2,000 years had Christ not been born. What an ignorant pusswad.

Is there any place I missed?

create your own visited states map

From Keith!

Kal-El.

I was reading, for reasons passing understanding, this message board about the content of the new Superman Returns trailer, and somebody asked why there would be flashbacks to Clark Kent's youth if the movie is a 'semi-sequel' that supposes he has been gone for a few years after the first movie ends. The response was that people need to be reintroduced to the character.

Reintroduced to the character? It's freaking Superman. Hello? Truth, justice, the American way? Unnecessary cape and ridiculous briefs? We know the guy, alright. But that doesn't mean we don't like watching hijinks about learning to fly and seeing gratuitous shots of how flat Kansas is.

On the Morality of War and the Power of Words, or: What I want to be when I grow up.

Since I was a junior in high school I wanted to go into journalism. No, I didn’t want to just go into journalism; I wanted to be absorbed in journalism, to be a throwback to the old-school guys, to be Henry in The Paper who finally gets to yell ‘Stop the presses!’ This went through several phases of wanting to be, in order: a cityside reporter for the New York Daily News; the next Hemingway; a correspondent for the New York Times; a page designer for really any major paper; an assistant editor for Rolling Stone; the next HST; and finally a page designer for a major magazine, before I finally burnt out and dropped out of the J-School (which was a primary motivator for coming to KU in the first place).

It’s a little odd, yes, considering that most of the past decade of my life has revolved around journalism to the point that I was recruited out of Humboldt to start and being the founding editor of a community college newspaper, that I would then give up a prime slot in journalism school. But by the time I got here I just didn’t see the J-School as giving me the guidance and education that I craved; I felt that at least majoring in history or poli sci would give me the tools I needed to truly understand the world around me. The journalistic training could come on the job. Thus I decided that my only contact with journalism would be in token slots as an editorial board member for the Kansan, while I pursued what I thought would be my actual calling: a PhD in sociology, leading to a professorship and the possibility of writing books exposing and destroying the idea of American exceptionalism.

But always in the back of my mind was that twinge of envy when read a barbed, reasoned column in the Guardian, or saw a stunningly designed magazine or front page (a fix that not even two years as designer of the Jayhawker can seem to cure). I had been reading the works of Lewis Lapham, Frank Rich, and James Fallows for a few years, and appreciated the depth and breadth of their columns and essays enough to know how they achieved it: years of study combined with writing whenever and wherever they could. I realized that I had, in a pique of purity and indignation towards the state of journalism and J-Schools in our modern society, perhaps gone about this the wrong way. Reading Hendrik Hertzberg last winter confirmed it.

I bought his compendium, Politics: Observations & Arguments, 1966-2004, last August, but due to the pressures of 18 course hours (plus said yearbook duties and the hassle of a crash course in applying for grad schools) I didn’t get around to it until winter break. While I read it all in the matter of a week, it was not one of those books that hit me right away; the wit, the complexities, the vitality, and the process of reflection that Hertzberg used in his writing were all notable at first glance, but they took a while to sink in. So did the issues he wrote about.

A year later and I’m still rereading his essays, much more so than I am with any other writer (and considering the guys I mentioned above, that’s saying something). I could say that Hertzberg and Lapham and Rich have influenced me to apply to the School of Journalism at NYU, specifically its Cultural Reporting and Criticism master’s program, but more importantly it was the understanding that they crafted their style to get their positions, and then used the freedom of those positions to use that style to its greatest advantage, that pushed me towards that program. (Realizing that I’m not ready for a five-year doctoral commitment now, despite how much I love social theory, was also, admittedly, a factor.) Will it all be moot if I can’t figure out how to pay for a year and a half in NYC, attending a graduate school of journalism? I hope not, but whatever the outcome of the next few months of waiting, I’m pretty sure that this gut feeling is the right one; it’s possible that by burning out and dropping out of the J-School, I’ll end up with an even stronger love of journalism, and a better intuition for where it’ll take me.

••••

I bring all of this up by way of responding to a recent blog posting by my colleague from this summer, Vince Myers. Vince is a committed conservative, as he has made clear many times, and I have found his writings to be thoughtful and clearly rooted in his ideals. On the issue of Iraq, we have a history of clashing over U.S. policy and the future of that nation in the midst of a continued insurgency.

When I said that reading Hendrik Hertzberg’s book didn’t fully hit me at the time, one of his essays was an exception then, and continues to be today. Though written over two decades ago while Hertzberg was editor of the New Republic, his “Why the War Was Immoral” is I believe a classic in essay writing; the demolition he delivers to the twin pillars of the rationale behind the Vietnam war is as stunning in its brevity as it is in its ethical & political examination of that turbulent time.

Hertzberg finds that with Vietnam, there were those two pillars to why we were there: the geopolitical and the moral. He exposes the geopolitical ‘domino’ theory for the straw house that it was: our Cold War understanding of Communist aggression/expansion was rooted more in fear than in reality. It was combined with the notion that we should continue the war in Vietnam because to pull out would show weakness: “We said we would fight, therefore we must fight: at many a juncture along the way that logic seemed compelling. But it was not a compelling reason to fight forever. Our guarantees were not worthless. It was the war that was worthless. (35)”

Dispatching this, Hertzberg than focuses on why the war was said to be moral, because it would save South Vietnam from communism. “And to the extent that the war was fought for this aim, it was fought for a moral aim. But this says no more than that the war was fought with good intentions rather than evil ones, which is saying very little. If good intentions were enough, there would be no neoconservatives. (35)”

He finds in examining the moral case for war that for it to be sustained, “the war must be judged to have been winnable–winnable, moreover, at a lower cost in suffering and death and than the cost of a communist victory. (36)” But as he explains, there had to have been a point where victory can be reached, where the cost-benefit balance tilts our way, where the suffering can be justified, where North Vietnam would have given up. This point didn’t exist.

“If the North Vietnamese were willing to accept limitless casualties, if they were willing to pay any price, than the war could not have been won except by the physical destruction of North Vietnam and the killing of a large proportion of its people. … Of course no American wanted to kill everybody in Vietnam. Americans are not monsters. But Americans are not losers, either. Americans are winners. But the logic of winning in Vietnam was inescapably the logic of genocide. We did not lose in Vietnam. We chose not to win. (37)”

In writing this essay Hertzberg is responding to Norman Podhoretz, who wrote that victory was beyond our the moral capabilities. “Yes, it was beyond our moral capabilities–except that what he understands as a moral failure I understand as a moral success. It wasn’t cowardice that finally impelled us to quit. It was conscience. (37)”

••••

One of the things that always infuriated me about the anti-war movement was the ‘No war for oil!’ signs and slogans. The mindset that the war was all about material gain, about staffing the oil fields with Halliburton men and stacking the tax rates in favor of foreign contractors permeated the entire movement before the war started, and refuses to go away. It is a dangerous, debilitating mindset, one that has hindered the movement in ways that they don’t even understand yet. Because, you see, the war was in fact about oil.

Not in terms of seizing tankers and bringing back $1.20/gallon gasoline; that would negate the need for ANWR. No, the war was about oil in that it was about power; if the world is a chessboard, than the Middle East is the center four squares. Control it and you dictate the rest of the board; you don’t even need to occupy those squares, but simply have your knights, rooks or bishops in a position to strike with one move and reestablish dominance.

In the middle part of the century, we wanted control and friendly relations with Middle Eastern nations in order to satisfy our oil needs as we became a superpower engaged in a struggle that would eclipse all geopolitical rivalries before it. To have access to the petroleum reserves would allow our military and economy to function at full-out expansion; anything less was unacceptable. And thus we chained ourselves to sultans and monarchs who governed with an iron fist, just as we allied ourselves with murderers and despots in Vietnam and Latin America to curb ‘aggression’.

Now, however, it’s not our oil needs that satisfied, but the rest of the world. The Middle East accounts for a fraction of our total oil inflows; the lion’s share of our petroleum comes from this hemisphere, with Canada as our biggest supplier, followed by Mexico and Venezuela (Hugo Chavez will be a topic for another day). But, the rest of the industrialized world isn’t as diversified as we are (or perhaps simply doesn’t have the kind of sway that have historically claimed within this half of the world). The European Union and Japan have been much more dependent on Middle Eastern oil for the past few decades; the East Asian tigers revitalized that part of the world and in a hurry during the 1990s, and caused massive economic and social changes to their nations. Now the elephants are stirring; India and China are ever increasing their economic output, which means industrialization, which means new money, which means cars. Lots of them. And no emissions standards to hold them back either.

By holding onto the center of the chessboard, the U.S. is desperately clinging to its power over the developed and developing world. Keeping military units in stationed in the Middle East allowed the U.S. to effectively say to those industrialized countries “You want to step in and take care of this? No? Okay then.” When we invaded Iraq, it was a further step to reassert our control; by grasping to a geopolitical (stopping the spectre of Islamic fundamentalist theocracy) and a moral (spreading democracy) framework, we bet the house on the prospect that the rest of the world would respond and work with an America that has only the best interests of the world at heart. It is clearer now, more than ever, that we have lost that bet.

Thus my frustration at the protestors I mentioned above; they are looking at the world through glasses that do not fit anymore, and thus they fail to address the greater injustices of a global culture that allows for despots and democracies to operate unhindered in the guise of neoliberalism. I do not subscribe to the theory that we are in the midst of an American Empire; I believe we had our empire, and are now on the tail-end. Our economy is showing signs of strain that were not thought possible in the late 1990s; every day trucks full of U.S. hard currency roll into the Chinese central bank to finance our debt. Brazil will surpass us in agricultural output by the end of the decade; we are losing our industrial capacity in the name of unfettered global capital; we are eroding our scientific and technological edge in the name of intelligent design. Our moral credibility decreases with each new mention of black sites in Europe and elsewhere; we have failed to heed the lessons of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, and in so doing consigned ourselves to a shame that could have been avoided had we heeded the lessons of the Trail of Tears. Our military is tied down in Iraq to the point that we may be witnessing in front of our very eyes the destruction of the modern volunteer army, and certainly the national guard system; if needed to operate in a theater of war in the near future, there is much reason to fear the responsiveness of units and troops called upon to fight a war by people whom I swear to God seem to have never read a history book.

There is reason to debate policy in Iraq. There is reason to believe that our policies are not working, just as there is reason to believe that perhaps we can pull it out. But any and every discussion must start with a frank and solid grounding of our aims and our capabilities to fight and ultimately win in Iraq. Is there a point at which we can claim victory in Iraq? This presumes that the insurgency will eventually draw down and fail; this presumption, in history, has been the cause of too much suffering and destruction to keep rolling the dice. How much is enough? A half a trillion dollars and 3,000 U.S. soliders? A trillion dollars and 5,000 soliders?

Too often we look at the cost-benefits and try to find that magic equation that will solve everything, but terror and democracy and nationalism can’t be plugged in like regular integers. They are factors that govern the actions of men more so than armor plating or dollar bills, and thus they are beyond our capabilities to control or fight. The North Vietnamese were prepared to sustain losses we couldn’t even imagine in order to drive out what they perceived as an occupying army; in throwing numbers at the variables, we failed to see the absurdity of the equation. At the time we could explain and justify it, but how can we do so now?