| Save Public Broadcasting and Radio |
[Jun. 16th, 2005|07:52 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  pissed off | ] |
For those who like commercial free radio programming filled with substantive local, state and national news and programming; and those who remember fondly growing up with Sesame Street, 3-2-1 Contact, The Reading Rainbow etc., that is now more than ever under threat of being axed. Following the appointment of Kenneth Tomlinson to the chairmanship of the CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting), a self-admitted conservative who has made it clear that he feels NPR is liberally biased (the typical neo-con gripe about objective journalism and reporting) - he set about making it is goal to ram "balance" down the throats of the CPB. I feel that since the collapse of the Fairness Doctrine and its corollary rules there is no bigger threat to media journalism and the independence of public broadcasting today (which the general public overwhelming does not consider biased) and certainly staffing the CPB with Republican partisans is'nt going to help Public broadcasting.
For those who recall, last year the PBS program "Postcards from Buster" drew harsh criticism from the Bush administration when Buster visited a family with lesbian parents. (The Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings wrote a letter asking PBS for a public REFUND of the money for the episode because "Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in the episode.") John Lawson, the president of the Association of Public Television Stations, a Washington-based group that lobbies for public broadcasters said that the proposal to cut funding is "at least malicious wounding, if not outright attempted murder, of public broadcasting in America."
The justification for these cuts from Republicans is that the deficit is sky-high, and that public spending needs to be reigned in. I'm sorry - but that justification from this Congress is the most abso-fucking-lutely absurd thing I have ever heard. This comes from the hypocritical Republican Congress which had to raise the deficit ceiling and broke all records of deficit spending and borrowing. As a New York Times editorial points out:
"The pending highway bill alone has 3,800 pet projects (cue Porky Pig, not Oscar the Grouch). These include $2 billion-plus for two ludicrous "bridges to nowhere" in rural Alaska, where, incidentally, station officials say public broadcasting may fade from the air unless the Senate blocks the House's spiteful cuts." (NY Times Jun 15 Ed.)
Save Public Broadcasting from this partisan encroachment! Save Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch! Contact your member of Congress, be it your Senator or Representative, and ask that they restore funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. For more information, go here:
http://www.apts.org/actioninc/LookupYourMember.cfm |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 22nd, 2005|05:48 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  satisfied | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Episode III Soundtrack | ] |
Well Episode III is out at last! Whats the verdict? Well according to Anthony Lane of the New Yorker (who gives the film a less than thrilling review):
"The general opinion of “Revenge of the Sith” seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, “The Phantom Menace” and “Attack of the Clones.” True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion."
Well I for one, actually did like it - more for the quality the film had of "putting all the final pieces in place" and the imagery of foretelling that which will be for the next three films. Anthony Lane's review was mentioned on this weeks "Wait Wait, Don't tell me," and I had to read the entire thing after hearing Peter Sagel quote pieces from it. Lane apparently has some major hostility to Yoda, as evidenced here:
"No, the one who gets me is Yoda. May I take the opportunity to enter a brief plea in favor of his extermination? Any educated moviegoer would know what to do, having watched that helpful sequence in “Gremlins” when a small, sage-colored beastie is fed into an electric blender. A fittingly frantic end, I feel, for the faux-pensive stillness on which the Yoda legend has hung."
This extends to even Yoda's famous method of speech phraseology:
"Also, while we’re here, what’s with the screwy syntax? Deepest mind in the galaxy, apparently, and you still express yourself like a day-tripper with a dog-eared phrase book. “I hope right you are.” Break me a fucking give."
Regardless, has the eerie sadness to it - we are bearing witness to the end of an era; the rise of empire and the end of reason - as surely as greek tragedies play out. Beyond the stilted dialog ("Oh you're so beautiful!" "Oh no, you are!") and "acting" there is a finality of the star-crossed lovers.
What I did love was all the references towards what is to come - the similarity of the fighters to their TIE counterparts (the sound FX were all there) the familiar wedge shaped precursors of Imperial Star Destroyers; the emperor's shuttle presaging the Tyberium design; the explanation of the netherworld communication to explain Obi Wan's appearances to Luke; and of course the construction of the Death Star. Now one can re-watch A New Hope/Empire Strikes Back/Return of the Jedi with much more satisfaction. |
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| Fear the LSAT |
[Apr. 9th, 2005|03:33 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  lethargic | ] |
So I decided recently with an upswing in my overall laziness and re-emerging addiction to computer games that my own discipline could not be trusted if I was to really prepare for the LSATs. I would find that after one to two hours of exercise preparation that gee, I really didn't care about assumptions and parallel reasoning - they would make my head swim! Studying in my room presented a problem too, since I'm surrounded by potential distractions. Halfway through a reading comprehension practice, I grew too frustrated a few weeks ago and stopped; I picked up the closest book to me (John Grisham's "The Firm") and started to read a few pages out of boredom. A few pages turned into a chapter; I and I ended up rereading the entire paperback while enjoying a snack. That entire affair took about 3 hours (how the time passes!) That evening, I was suddenly hit by an urge to watch the film version again since I hadn't seen it in such a long time (and because I always like comparing film adaptations to the originals) so I watched that too. After that, I tried to be good again, but it only took an evening phone call from a friend offering a spot in a raid which ruined it again for me (but I got my priest a new staff from Dire Maul.)
In the end I caved to pressure and my own dislike of testing programs and enrolled in the Kaplan test prep for the LSAT (the only program I trust from the books they release) at about $1200 for the two months. They have a diagnostic test to gauge how well you MAY do at the get-go, something I was fairly confident I do somewhat well in. Anyway, after taking it a few days ago, I realize that I was utterly mistaken. Since it is not a test that measures accrued knowledge and recollection, but rather skills, I fell for almost every trick the deliberate testmakers had laid for a novice like me. My time managment was horrendous; and the logic games section of ill repute was, as I discovered, truly a test killer. It was a real self-esteem buster which completely left me mentally drained and tired by the end of the 4 and a half hour ordeal. My end result score was below my expectations (I conspicously shall choose not to publish it) and confirmed at least my personal assessment of strenths and weaknesses: Reading Comprehension was my strongest; logical reasoning so-so, and logic games a bomb (I will say that I did not completely 50% of the games.) There is nothing that gets the pulse pumping and panic to set in than the proctor coming into the room and annoucing "5 more minutes!" when you are at # 16 out of 25/26 questions, nearing the end of the 35 minute allotment per section.
Here was a question chain I got wrong out of the logical reasoning section, for those so inclined at giving it a try: (Keep in mind that you should ideally do each question under 2 minutes under test circumstances)
Professor Chan: The Literature department's undergraduate courses should cover only true literary works, and not such frivolous material as advertisements.
Professor Wigmore: Advertisements might or might not be true literary works but they do have a powerfully detrimental effect on society - largely because people cannot discern their real messages. The literature department's courses give students the critical skills to analyze and understand texts. Therefore, it is the literature department's responsibility to include the study of advertisements in its undergradaute courses.
20. ) Which one of the following principles most strongly supports Professor Wigmore's argument?
(A) Advertisements ought to be framed in such a way that their real messages are immediately clear.
(B) Any text that is subtly constructed and capable of affecting people's thought and action ought to be considered a form of literature.
(C) All undergraduate students ought to take at least one course that focuses on the development of critical skills.
(D) The literature department's courses ought to enable students to analyze and understand any text that could have a harmful effect on society.
(E) Any professor teaching an undergraduate course in the literature department ought to be free to choose the material to be covered in that course.
21. ) Which one of the following is an assumption on which Professor Wigmore's argument depends?
(A) Texts that are true literary works never have a detrimental effect on society.
(B) Courses offered by the literature department cannot include both true literary works and material such as advertisements.
(C) Students who take courses in the literature department do no get from those courses other skills besides those needed to analyze and understand texts.
(D) Forms of advertising that convey their message entirely through visual images do not have a detrimental effect on sciety.
(E) The literature department's responsibility is not limited to teaching students how to analyze true literary works.
Try to figure it out! I'll post the answer next time. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 31st, 2005|08:50 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  confused | ] |
Tom DeLay is a real oddball sort of fellow. He absolutely disgusts me - even more so with his recent conduct in terms of slippery ethics evasiveness and attitude on Terry Schiavo. When it was revealed that he himself had participated in a family decision to end the life of his own father who was on artificial life support, his spokesman had the audacity to claim that any parallels between his own decision and the Schiavo matter were completely different! I wonder how he would have felt if the State and Federal governements got involved. How about the aide from Florida Senator Mel Martinez's office, which wrote that the Schiavo matter was good for Republicans? Oh no, that wasn't blatant and nakedly political. What, the Republican party intentionally manipulating its base for political gain? Gasp! Of course, President Bush was meeting with the heads of state (Canada and Mexico) which wasn't too important obviously - so he theatrically flies back to Washington to sign the legislation to allow Congress to butt in. But now what! We have an "out of control" judiciary! Judges, already under threat from some extremists get some oh-so veiled threats from DeLay himself about impeachment and that sort of good thing. The wildly hypocritical right leaves me flustered and confused.
As Jonathan Rauch of the National Journal writes:
"Life is not the ultimate public value for most Americans. Law is. Conservatives, of all people, should know this, because they have been saying it for years. More than four years before Schiavo, another difficult legal case transfixed the country. In Bush v. Gore, the outcome of the 2000 presidential race depended on Florida's disputed vote. Democrats, having narrowly lost in the initial tally, demanded manual recounts. In an election, they said, accurately determining the intent of the voters is surely the ultimate value. What could trump that?
Law, replied Republicans. They insisted that a fundamental principle was at stake. Florida's election statutes did not provide time or authority for manual recounts, they said; and if the rule of law means anything, it means not making up the rules as you go along. In The Weekly Standard, Noemie Emery wrote that the two sides had "ended up fighting to vindicate the deepest beliefs of their respective parties. Democrats believe in intentions and feelings.... Republicans believe in the rules."
Democrats, Emery explained, "are the party of malleable standards, in the interests of what they think of as just." They "want courts and well-intended politicians to intervene to engineer outcomes they think are fair." Conservatives, in contrast, know that life is unfair, but "they do not believe laws should be calibrated to account for individual instances of unfairness, as there is no legal system conceivable that can begin to account for all the myriad forms of unfairness life metes out." After all, "there is no way to remove error from human endeavor. Life is chaotic, which is why we need rules to channel it, to give order to happenstance, and keep things from reeling out of control."
Conservatives believe that sound law depends on predictability and finality -- or at least they did before the Schiavo case. The rules should be written in advance instead of being continually reinvented on the fly, and legal disputes should not be allowed to drag on and on."
Nothing like a good article to get one thinking. |
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| Death Ray! |
[Mar. 27th, 2005|04:15 am] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | chipper | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Avenue Q soundtrack | ] |
I wonder if this could be done with a huge magnifying glass, about the size of telescope mirrors - it would be heavy, by mounted on wheels you'd have quite a little death ray too! Anyway, these people must've been bored:
http://solardeathray.com/about.html
Also had just gotten back from New York and am off the plane quite literally a few hours ago, so I'm running three hours ahead PST. It's always easier to get used to being three hours "slower" than faster. Anyway, not much has changed over the course of the year - it has been literally about a year since I was there last. The fountains in Central Park were still shut down (I really should go during the Spring or Fall, and same with DC.) and we got a brief but furious snow flurry the first day, but it was much better afterward. The NYU campus wasn't too interesting - but in a nice location, while Columbia's campus was a disappointment, considering it was a Ivy League school. The requirements for admission are still very much certainly demanding! But wow, it sure is small. The new MOMA is very very nice though - 6-7ish stories of one of the world's finest collections of modern art (though I didn't care too much for the furniture art pieces). We also got to see it free for about 3 hours, along with a good number of people!
Anyway, back to the drudgery of LSAT preparation. The software that came with my Kaplan book is actually really really helpful and nifty - but since my dad's offer to pay for a course, I'm really thinking about also just taking a class too. I'm not sure if I trust myself with the discipline to remain wholly committed (my will has wavered already on several occasions.)
Speak of the devil, my priest is now level 60 :) |
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| Congratulations Joe Solmonese |
[Mar. 9th, 2005|09:35 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | blah | ] |
Wow, I realized that I haven't touched this thing in months. With so much and so little going on, sharing my thought processes with strangers has just been one of my most nominal concerns.
My LSAT test date approaches slowly but surely, and I'm not sure I'm ready. It's hard to get all whipped up about it too; I am often easily distracted and there is a part of me which remains recalcitrant to have to undertake the test earlier than my personal choosing. I still haven't settled my traffic school ticket and student loan paybacks that should be taken care of, but it's really hard to care about any of it - I'm still floating in a sea of apathy that seems not to be easily dispelt.
On a random note, I was listening to a City Arts and Lecture series the other night - didn't catch the speaker - but it involved children now involved in combat theatres all over the world; and the speaker made a remark that the United States was once this beacon of multilateralism, creating all these international institutions. I think about that, because the President shortly appointed John R. Bolton to be the UN secretary, a guy who has ruthlessly criticized it; and because today the Bush administration pulled the U.S. out of the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. State Dept. Spokesperson Darla Jordan said "Withdrawal from the protocol is a way of "protecting against future International Court of Justice judgments that might similarly interpret the consular convention or disrupt our domestic criminal system in ways we did not anticipate when we joined the convention."
While not enough to get my blood boiling, I feel so winded by all the little things the President is doing to screw us over.
On the bright side, HRC got a new executive director today - Joe Solmonese from Emily's List. The organization as well as Solmonese also quickly recommitted HRC to some of the core GLBT issues that have recently been biting at HRC's heels (esp. when NGLTF questioned HRC's commitment to controversial issues.) Speaking of the devil, NGLTF has interestingly decided to create its own committee to lobby Congress while insisting it wasn't stepping onto HRC's lobbying turf. Hmmmm... If anyone knows anything about DC area politics, turf is very very important to government agencies and NGOs alike, so my first impression would be to wonder where the NGLTF is planning to go with this...
Anyway, I'm going to go back and read Jared Diamond's "Collapse - How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." While not as riveting as "Guns, Germs and Steel" it has been nonetheless a very intriguing read - much more exciting then say, reading about the nine different types of logical reasoning questions that are on the LSAT... |
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| Inaguaral Day of Mourning |
[Jan. 20th, 2005|03:51 pm] |
Ugh, No. 43 continues another four year term today (42 for you history buffs who don't count the non-consecutive terms of Cleveland). What did many wear today? I'm told from Terry that the Chronicle had a poll which showed many wore mourning colors for the day. So if you're not sad and morose, I will be melancholy for you.
(Don't read this part if you're a West Wing fan who hasn't seen past year 4) Also, I am dealing with the awkward adjustment...of CJ Cregg as Chief of Staff. It makes my stomach turn to see what's happened in the one year I've been missing the show.
Bleh |
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| Wow, you go Senator Boxer! |
[Jan. 18th, 2005|12:52 pm] |
I tend to write random things often in a spur of a moment - be it from boredom, an interesting news bit, or from anger. Today, I write in admiration of our own liberal icon Babs Boxer, who just tore Condi Rice a new one. I really wonder if this is a sign of things to come - while the President had promised bipartisanship in his first time, that ended up not being so - so perhaps the dems this time around are going to adopt a more confrontational approach. Boxer certainly did, and I have to say, listening to her do it - sure felt good. While no transcript was immediately available, I borrowed this from the Post:
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) later engaged Rice in an acerbic exchange, challenging the nominee over what she said were contradictory statements on the rationale for the war in Iraq. Boxer said Rice had played up the threat that Hussein would develop a nuclear weapon on some occasions and minimized it on others to suit her purposes.
"I personally believe . . . that your loyalty to the mission you were given to sell this war overwhelmed your respect for the truth," Boxer said.
After this particular run through before Chairman Lugar (R-IN) interceded, Boxer also said that Rice was on "public record...for making contradictory statements," and was short of calling her a liar by a hair thread. WOW! Now if only other lawmakers would be more courageous on this issue, I'd be much happier. It really is time to have a lot of these questions answered from a secretive administration. (I sure sleep better at night knowing our President has declared himself a mandate, and absolved his administration of any wrongdoing leading up to the Iraqi war and after, don't you?) |
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| Wow, what a hiatus. |
[Dec. 22nd, 2004|08:14 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | chipper | ] |
It's been over a month and I believe I am now beginning to shake off the post-electoral debacle funk of Nov. 2nd. While I had pretty much resigned myself to the reality of another four years of crap, I had to go through a month-long mourning process of apathy and withdrawal. Thanks to many many books, Alias season 3, and World of Warcraft, I think I've weathered the most depressing part of the storm - and come inaguaral day perhaps I'll join some thousands of fellow Americans who will make their distaste of Georgie well known by waving a sign and yelling phrases.
Then again, maybe not.
Two things I had to blog over because they've been in the news and I was simply enthralled by them (I rediscovered my love of All Things Considered recently as well) - the Washington state Governor's race seems to be in the Democratic column by 10 votes! (This is out of 2 million-ish cast) with possible additions from a batch of votes not included in the tally from Democratic-leaning King County (which includes Seattle etc.) While hardly a sweeping mandate no matter who wins, I'm more so glad that no more blue states are having the odd bipolar relation of having a Republican governor (i.e. NY, CA.)
Second item, marriage equality in CA in the coming future? I sure hope so! Today the at the trial court level in SF the city heard arguments from the city attorney and the gaylegal organization NCLR on the question of marriage and the state's position. Having failed to derail the expansive Domestic Partnership law that is to go in effect (which does grant nearly all the same state-level privileges/benefits as marriage) some Christian right-wing leaning organizations are jumping on the "marriage protection" bandwagon, foremost among them the Alliance Defense Fund (based out of Arizona) and the Liberty Counsel (based out of Florida) which make the same arguments over and over again - the state has a compelling interest in procreation, and tradition and therefore marriage should be between a man and a woman. Well, if it looks like a duck, talks like a duck, walks like a duck....it's a duck. Outdating arguments premised on prejudice may change clothing, but remains the same. If marriage was about procreation, then quick - revoke the marriages of couples who are barren/impotent/infertile. Then revoke the marriages of those in menopause. Disqualify the elderly from marriage. Make sure everyone who marries signs a state affidavit pledging that they will continue the human race ASAP, and making said marriage binding on reproductive results within a standard timeframe.
As for tradition? Tradition cannot not be an excuse to heed progress. You can be cautionary with tradition, but adherence to tradition does not mean to be placed in stasis. If ever such arguments were heeded in the past, the 14th, 19th, 26th Amendments would not have come to pass.
Anyway, thats all my dithering for now. I much look forward to a relaxed time in Oahu off a beach among the reefs. |
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