Entris

There is a god.

2007-03-20T15:53:10Z

There is a God.

It sleeps among the limbs of a tree.

The leaves of the tree are wide and soft, and shelter the sleeping God. The branches are studded with buds which blossom after every rain, with purple, yellow, and pink petals that wither and shortly fall off. Shiny hard berries sprout from the ground touched by the dying petals. Once ripe, they float upwards into the tree's canopy and pop. The popping berries coat the tree in a fine, sweet-smelling mist, inhaled through the snoring nostrils of the sleeping God.

The tree stands alone in a verdant savanna. Rolling gentle winds sweep the long grasses of the plain, and the wide leaves of the tree. There are scattered clouds, with rain-heavy grey interiors. From these roaming clouds, periodic rain storms fall with a subdued hissing. It is not humid, although warm. The sun hangs forever in the sky, and streams warmth down between the clouds.

To the west the savannah gives way to a calm vast lake. Its waters gently ripple under the wind, and it fills the western horizon. To the east and north lay brown rocky foothills. The grasses of the plain fade from vibrant green to golden yellow.

In the tree, the God breathes deep in its sleep, and stretches.

The leaves sway softly in the wind.

Dirty little secret #452

2007-03-02T23:45:54Z

...I like the TV show Reba.

It's on Lifetime.

-.

On Chinese Fortune Cookies

2007-02-26T01:07:31Z

Fortune:

"Time is Money."

I thought it was stupid, but then Alina pointed out that when I become an attorney, this fortune will be true.

Oh man I can't wait to be a lawyer... : \

-.

did i really just use an emote? whatever

This is a journal entry.

2007-02-21T03:54:43Z

Therapy is interesting.

Today I learned that I have trouble expressing fear / anger out in the open, face-to-face. Like a tiny emotional circuit breaker, which is tripped any time I get angry or scared. Only, the feelings don't go away, they just stay bottled up inside, which really means they turn inward and eat at me from the inside out. It's probably been happening my whole life, and it's definitely affecting my current life.

Self-awareness is not as fun an experience as Utne and other ultra-progressive magazines would have you believe.

That is all.

-.

Hooray!

2006-10-23T23:17:51Z

I use Office 2004 for Macs on my laptop (which is a Mac). I use Office at school, when I am connected to my school's wireless network.
Office has this "neat" little "feature" where it encrypts your Product ID information and sends it out to other open Office applications on the same network as you. If another application sends out the same product ID, the two programs will decide which program should close, and one of them will shut down. If you open up Office, and your product ID is already on the network, you get an error message telling you that someone else is using the same product ID, and you must close your copy. It even tells you the name of the other person. It is an anti-piracy device.

This device has made it nigh impossible for me to use Office and be on my school's wireless at the same time. I bought my copy of Office from the Mac store when I bought the computer, I have the original packaging, I know for a fact that I didn't pirate it. So it really irritated me when I got the error message telling me that my product ID was already in use on the network. This first happened during my second year of law school, when some guy named Jacob something-or-other apparently had the same product ID as me. I looked him up on my school's network, I emailed him, and we compared product IDs. Guess what? They weren't the same! Awesome, I thought, the program is screwy.

So I called Microsoft, I had all my information with me, and they looked up the product ID key in their database. Conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi, I'm getting an error message where Word thinks that my product ID is already in use on my network.
Operator: Did you make a copy of the program and install it elsewhere?
Me: Nope. I've even met the guy whose program is conflicting with mine. He's from California. I'm from Virginia. We've never met before.
Operator: What is your product ID?
Me:
Operator:. ....
Me: Is it registered to me?
Operator: According to our database, over 50 people across the country are using that ID.

So yeah, apparently the product keys aren't very unique. The operator promised to send me a new one, if I could provide them with the receipt showing that I bought the software. I didn't have the receipt, and that was that. No solution.

.....until now!
I just had the error message pop up again. I was infuriated. I was trying to read my Tax assignments in Word while getting the online course documents at the same time. Word pops up and says "Product ID in use...", which means that I'd have to manually write out what my assignments are, close Word, then go download them. Fuck that!

So instead I do a quick google search, and find an interesting article about how the Product ID mechanism uses certain udp and tcp ports in order to send and receive the encrypted product IDs. The article's purpose was to draw attention to the fact that the mechanism leaves those ports completely open to attackers. The article then goes on to suggest an easy way to block those ports vis-a-vis the internet at large while leaving them open to other Office applications.

So I copied the lines of code, wrote them up in Terminal, and successfully blocked Word from sending out my product ID! Voila! Word and Internet at the same time!

So yeah that's a big Fuck You to Microsoft and their shitty anti-piracy mechanisms.

-.

Americanism

2006-07-21T15:10:28Z

Much to my surprise, this morning I became aware of that limit of my psyche which is American-focused. Reading a case, there is a reference to September, 2001. I daydream a little about 9/11 for a moment. (Perhaps daydream is too light-hearted for that sort of remembrance.)

I thought to myself, "9/11", "September 11th", these are new phrases in our lexicon. I remembered my college days before 9/11, and I guarantee that I almost never thought about terrorism or bombings or what-have-you. It was at this point in my recollection that I realized that 9/11 really introduced those concepts into my world-view. And this revealed my nationalism, my American psyche: all those terrorist events that occurred before 9/11 never made a dent in my awareness, but 9/11 certainly did.

Weird.

-.

Nature

2006-07-19T15:58:47Z

Tick.

I look around. That damn sound. Been bothering me all morning. Whatever, back to work.

Tick.

There it is again. I look around the gloomy basement office. Lots of shadows, lots of old furniture, papers, and such. Maybe it's the air conditioner or some heating unit. I've heard those things make weird noises.

Tick....... tick!

The worst kind of sound is an unpredictable one. Noise at regular intervals can be ignored after a while. But unpredictable, irregular noises are the worst. They keep you guessing as to when they sound again. The ticking in this office is unpredictable. This suggests that perhaps it isn't some sort of mechanical malfunction.

Tick.

That's it! I've had enough! Time for investigating. I keep a flashlight on my desk, because the back file room had no working lights for a while. Grabbing the flashlight, I do the classic head-cocking-to-one-side thing; I learned it during my first tour of duty with the squirrel army, back in '86.

......................tick.

Ah-ha. Not behind my desk. To the right a bit. I readjust.

Tick.

Over there, near the cabinet by the front door. Near the fake, stuffed, slightly-balding golden retriever with its tongue out. I shine my light into the shadowy recesses.

And there it is. The source of the maddening Tick. Hidden by the gloom before, the silvery strings light up under the glare of my flashlight. A web. Dangling in the middle is a helpless beetle, with a smaller spider slowly binding him up. I wish I had undertainment's knowledge of creatures, that I might more specifically describe the spider and his meal. But I don't.

Tick. Tick. Tick. The bug and spider vibrate each time. I can't tell why the duo make the noise they do. But each time the bug squirms a little, its legs flailing. Is it the bug frantically trying to snap free? Is it the spider tapping on the bug to hold it in place? Is the spider stabbing it with some sort of venom injection limb? I have no idea. But it's clear that the captured bug isn't in a good situation. I leave them to it. It's not my place to mess with nature. Besides, I have work to do, a few feet away.

Tick.

I'm going to ignore the fact that two tiny creatures are battling to the death.

Tick.

I'm going to ignore the certain doom of the beetle.

Tick.

Just get it over with already, spider!

Tick.

Gruesome.

-.

One thing I can't stand about myself....

2006-05-04T21:07:18Z

...I am intellectually lazy. Once I realize that I *can* learn something, my motivation to do so drops off dramatically. Then I enter this cycle of sporadic bursts of intense studying followed by lazy, lazy, periods where I pretend that I understand the topic in its entirety, even though I don't. I fall into this trap of getting the basic gist of something, and then telling myself that I can simply extrapolate all the advanced knowledge of it. Yeah, right.

I don't care how smart you think you are, if you're not willing to put in the effort to really learn the material, you're no smarter than an orange. The times when I really felt smart were the times when I put in a lot of effort and came away with a robust understanding of something. The times when I grasped the basics right-of-the-bat were not times where I felt smart.

Try to come up with examples of the "smartest" people. People that I think of as super-smart all tend to be people who also worked very hard throughout their lives. Intelligence really starts to seem like it is based on the power of your will to force yourself to learn. Persistence and dedication seem to lead to intellectual discoveries more than some vague notion that your intelligence is pretty static. I don't know.

What I do know, though, is that studying for exams, really forcing myself to study, always makes me feel reconnected to the smarter side of myself. After exam periods end, I always walk away saying to myself "I'm going to study like that, all the time." If I did, I'd be a goddamn genius. I don't mean that to be arrogant; I think anybody who can study with exam-level intensity all the time is basically a genius. Of course, I never do this because once the pressure of exams dissipates, I stop pushing myself, and once again fall into the cycle of being intellectually curious about things but not curious enough to actually learn about them in a critical way. Whatever!

This is also why sometimes I really, really hate video games, the internet, and computers in general. When I get into this mindset, where I can sense a greater potential for myself, I don't want to fuck around. And playing video games or surfing the internet dulls my brain into lazy mode. They may not have the same effect on everyone, but I know that when I play games, if they are in my life, part of my brain shuts off and my creativity just evaporates. When I don't play them for a long stretch, I can almost feel the extra pistons in my head turning on and firing away. I start to write down ideas about story plots, about random thoughts, I read a lot more, etc. But then I inevitably get pulled into a game for whatever reason and those exciting thoughts, inspiring thoughts, they fade away.

Am I blaming video games for my laziness? Yes absolutely. They are fun activities which engage my brain in a way which makes it very interested in the game, but not much else. Maybe some people can play them and still retain their full creativity. For me, they are a distraction which prevents my brain from thinking about other topics at full force. It's hard to right a paper about identity and economics as applied to legal jurisprudence when you can't stop wondering the optimal way to structure your virtual character in a virtual world. Irritating.

And the internet! Oh god, it's the worst. Surfing the internet, you can learn a little bit about lots of different things, without actually learning the complexities of issues. This really really facilitates intellectual laziness: you spend twenty minutes reading about the history of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, then move on and read about the difference between "ketchup" and "catsup," then move on and read about the difference between milk and dark chocolates. It just never ends. Basically, you have an endless buffet of information, and you can just eat little appetizers for as long as you want, and sample everything. It's seductive, but ultimately unfulfilling. Because you don't learn to think deeply about any one topic, you fail to really grasp issues. You go off half-cocked about your knowledge in a bunch of different areas, and you don't even see the limits of your vision. This sort of learning keeps you on the surface layer, which is useless in almost every situation except playing Trivial Pursuit.

-.

Why I love Gadgets.

2006-04-07T17:58:35Z

Like many technophiliacs, I often browse electronics catalogs with the feeling that I need more gadgets. Travelling alarm clocks, wi-fi network extenders, wireless mice, extra batteries, power supply adapters, new headphones, satellite wireless internet, I need these things! They are too wonderful.

Yesterday, I got a parking ticket. I was parked on the south side of E ST. On the north side, D.C. local gov had posted emergency no parking signs dated "4-7-06." The no parking signs are apparently for "tree work," whatever that means. Yesterday there were no signs on the south side of the street. Yesterday was also 4-6-06.

So I got this parking ticket, and it says I violated the emergency signs by parking on the north side of the street on 4-6-06. I think to myself, "Fuck that! A) Wrong side of the street. B) Wrong date. C) No signs yesterday anyway!" So I decide to contest the ticket in-person, with evidence.

So I drive back to E ST this morning. The weather is somewhat uncooperative, and so I park in an alley while waiting for a brief respite from the moderate rain. Hurray, no rain! I'll only have a few moments, so I use Alina's digital camera to snap a dozen pictures of the parking space and the no parking signs. Cupping my hand over the top of the lens, to shield it from any errant raindrops, I make sure to get pictures of the signs (dated 4-7-06!) and then hurry back to the car. Sitting in the passenger seat, I whip out my laptop and download the pictures into iPhoto. Then I burn the photos on CD, to submit as evidence! Hurray. Then I hop onto an available unsecured wireless network, and locate the D.C. DMV adjudication services address.

Gotta love gadgets!

-.

P.S. They wouldn't let me contest in-person, because I'm not the owner of the car. BASTARDS. I'll have to go back next week after having Alina sign a form giving me permission to contest.

No, she's incorrect because knowledge of market value is imputed to her as a reasonable shareholder.

2005-12-11T21:35:12Z

More law exam humor, again from the corporations flashcards:

"Cock Robin launches a tender offer to the common shareholders of a public company, The Sky Is Falling Parachute Manufacturing Company. In his disclosures to Sky's shareholder and the SEC, Cock Robin states that his offer, at $25 a share, is $15 over book value. Eartha Wormm, a Sky common shareholder, tenders her shares, believing this ratio of selling price to book value is very attractive. What Cock Robin doesn't say is that $25 isn't that much better than the stock's market value. Thereafter, Eartha brings a §14(e) fraud claim against Cock Robin, claiming his failure to state the stock's market value is a material omission. Is she correct?"

You had me at Cock Robin.

-.

Exam studying humor

2005-12-09T20:58:41Z

Here's a question I just read:

"Do violations of the federal proxy rules require intent or knowledge, or will negligence suffice?"

Proxy rules govern shareholder proxies, which are agreements in which shareholders of stock agree to let Person X (the Proxy) vote for them. The rules govern what information must be included with the request for a proxy. This question is about whether a company must intentionally violate the rules or whether mere negligence in its compliance is enough.

OK so here's the answer:

"Courts are split, so you're right no matter how you answered..."

Uh, ok. So if I said either intent or negligence was required, I'm right? I guess the people who write these questions/answers don't remember law school. In law school, if the courts are split, and you answer one or the other, you're WRONG. The only right way to answer the question is to say that the courts are split, and that it depends on the jurisdiction. There is no situation in which you can choose one of the alternatives and be "right no matter how you answered."

Silly flashcard people.

-.

Ludacris, Move Bitch, and my confusion.

2005-11-18T16:16:26Z

OK so Ludacris has the song "Move Bitch" featuring Mystikal and I-20. I don't really know who these last two are, but that's what the mp3 says. Mystikal does the 2nd verse. It totally confuses me. Here is his part:

-------------------------------------------------
Here I come, there I go
Uh oh! don’t jump bitch, move
You see them headlights? you hear that fuckin’ crowd?
Start that goddamn show, I’m comin’ through
Hit the stage and knock the girlies down
I fuck the crowd up - that’s what I do
Young and successful - a sex symbol
The bitches want me to fuck - true true
Hold up wait up, shorty
Oh wazzzupp, get my dick sucked, what are yoouu doin’?
Sidelinin’ my fuckin’ bussiness
Tryin’ to get my paper, child support soon
Give me that truck and take that rental back
Who bought these fuckin’ t.v.’s and jewelry bitch, tell me that?
No, I ain’t bitter, I don’t give a fuck
But i’ma tell you like this bitch
You better not walk in front of my tour bus

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

Ok so he starts off talking about a show, a crowd, then he moves to how totally awesome he is and oral sex. Ok, I'm with him, I get what he's saying. But then he starts talking about child support? And a truck, t.v.'s and jewelry? And he's not bitter? What the hell is he talking about? His ex-wife? I dunno, I totally crack up when I hear that part, because it doesn't make any sense to me.

-.

I like learning neat things.

2005-10-13T00:53:50Z

I didn't know that Liberia was founded by freed African-American slaves who emigrated to Africa! I just thought it was some random African country, but it has a direct link to the U.S. and to slavery here! Crazy! If you look at the CIA World Factbook, check out the government structure outlined there: it's modeled on us! Well, it was until the first revolution+civil war. Neat.

Background story of Liberia:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/libhtml/liberia.html

Oct. 11, 2005 story about recent Liberian elections:
http://news.findlaw.com/ap/i/625/10-11-2005/05a3002e3772736d.html

Link to CIA World Factbook's entry on Liberia (for reference):
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/li.html

-.

Angst Angst Angst

2005-10-04T03:08:10Z

So a little less than a month for a post. I'm angsty enough to complain for a bit.

It's Monday Night, and I'm going to go home after I write this. It's the first time I've wanted to write. I have a paper due on Wednesday on a topic which elicits only moderate interest. I am going to write a paper about assisted reproductive technologies, and I'm going to focus on issues concerning access to these expensive medical procedures, specifically as experienced by GLBT and disabled folks. It's kind of neat, when I phrase things that way. The problem, of course, is that I've kind of screwed myself on the time-management side of things. So let me explain.

I was on top of the semester for the first two weeks, then I signed up for this oral argument competition. The competition is somewhat old (like 80 years or something) and you get this closed packet of research, you read it, you write a brief, and then you argue both sides of it. If you do well, you advance to the next round where you randomly argue one side. The Finals are conducted by real judges from local benches. Pretty cool. Sounded neat. And if you win, you get your name inscribed on this wood plaque which hangs forever+1 in the auditorium. I wanted my name on that plaque.

Well, the competition was last weekend, at least the oral argument part, and if you haven't guess already: I didn't make it. We were given ten days to write out briefs, and I skipped all my classes for a week in order to really get into the research materials and really write a strong brief. I have no idea if I succeeded, because you don't get feedback. But I spent a lot of hours on that damn thing. Then Thursday night I dressed up in my suit, went to school, and proceeded to nervously fuck up my argument and pretty much do poorly. That sucked, but I kind of expected the first round to go semi-poorly. I then argued the other side on Friday, all dressed up in front of the student judges, and I thought I did much, much, better. Apparently not well enough, because when the I.D. #'s of the advancing competitors were sent out, I wasn't included. That sucked. Instantly, I realized that I had lost an entire week of time that I could have spent on this paper.

I also realized, again, that I am not on par with my classmates. See, last year I worked really hard during my first semester, *really* hard, like I didn't even try to make friends because I wanted to do well. And I didn't. In fact, I did painfully badly. So I redoubled my efforts and tried again in the spring, again foregoing the whole "friends" thing. That time my grades were better, above average, but not A's. And that's bad, because my cumulative GPA for that first year came out to a 3.14, which is right in the middle of the pack. This is especially bad for me because, unlike most of my classmates, I didn't do anything legal related between undergrad and law school. So my resume pretty much rests on my grades.

Fast forward to this fall. Fall of the second year is the traditional recruiting season. The week before school starts, we get all dressed up and interview with lots of law firms, who may offer us jobs which turn into permanent placements after we graduate. Very nice. I had 11 interviews, and didn't get a single callback. That sucked. Now I'm moving into the government recruiting season, and hopefully I'll get something there, but here's the problem: my resume depends on my grades, and my grades are middle-of-the-pack for my class. I'm in a no-mans-land, and it sucks. Even when I have a good interview, all I gain is a rejection letter. (If I have a bad interview, I don't ever hear from the employer again) So, on the job front, things are not looking up.

So I'm at school, I don't know what to do about the job thing. It is hard for me to compete against my classmates, who are all rockstars. They just have amazing resumes, incredible experiences which they play up to supplement their grades. What do I have? A bachelor's in Philosophy, some tutoring experience, and one summer internship at the Family Court. I'm not impressing anybody. I have classmates who have PhD's and masters, for christ's sake! Oh, I forgot to mention that I'm on a student-run law journal which does add something to my resume. And that brings me back to my paper.

This paper on ARTs is for the journal, so it's not graded. But it has to be good, because the whole point is that I'm going to be published in the journal. That's cool, I guess, except no one really cares about whether you're published, unless it was on the law review. I'm on a specialty journal, which is cool because I love the topic, but not really helpful for the job search.

So my paper is due wednesday. I didn't get to choose the topic, which has been a thorn in my side since the beginning. Like I said above, there's only moderate interest in this topic.

But you know, honestly, I do love my classes right now. They are just neat neat neat. But they don't make it better. Law school is making me unhappy again, and on top of the whole job thing, the grade thing, and the failed competition thing, I have one other problem: I don't have any real friends at this school. I know a lot of faces, and there are a couple guys who I theoretically could hang with, if I could ever persuade myself to stop working on homework or journal stuff or whatever.

But really, I don't have any friends that I see every day. Instead, I see everyone else from my class who have formed friendships, and they walk around happily and laughing. I would like to laugh, I want to be happy. I want to talk about things from class, and laugh about the guy in the fifth row who eats his own buggers. The guy is in law school, and he eats his buggers. What is that about? Honestly.

But I don't have that experience. And every time I think about making friends, I find myself in the library, working on a paper that I am starting to hate, and getting angry at myself for skipping classes to work on a competition in which I failed miserably. I need better grades, stellar grades, if I am ever going to convince someone to hire me over any of my classmates. So I need to work hard for my future. But that means less time for new friends. I've already managed to starve my undergrad friendships nearly to death. I've already dropped out of my favorite hobby. Thank god I still have my girlfriend.

Oh so I'm going to harp some more on that competition. Here's what really pinches: I worked really hard on my brief, and on preparing for my oral arguments. I practiced my oral args with other competitors, several times. I did outlines, talking points, whatever. And I didn't even make it past the first round. So I'm left asking myself what more could I have done? And I'm forced to consider two alternatives: 1) I am just not as intelligent as my classmates or 2) They know something I don't. This crossroads is familiar, because I felt the same thing when I got last year's grades back.

So either I'm stupid or a slow learner. Fantastic. Most of my classmates took time off in between law school, and so they are a little more mature than me. I am one of the few students who longboards to school, that's true. I also dress like a slob. While I was working a temp job in richmond, just relaxing before law school started, they were out doing really impressive things. There is a guy here who played the piano at Carnegie Hall when he was like six. A whole bunch of people have grad degrees. Many of them went to schools like Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, etc etc.

They are just amazing people, with incredible energy. So there's no doubt that my classmates are great people, really just all-stars all around. Why the hell am I here? How the hell did I get into this school? Every time I try hard to succeed, I come up short. I'm like a house cat racing against cheetahs; I may be the fastest kitty in the neighborhood, but these people are eating me alive.

And what makes the injury so particularly painful is reading the accomplishments of "grown-up" lawyers. Supreme Court Justices, Law School Professors, Attorney Generals, Commissioners on Federal Agencies, Federal Judges in General; all of these people, and others in similar positions, they have incredible histories. You know, these were the kinds of people who worked for judges or firms after their first year, because their first-year grades were just so amazing. They then worked for prestigious law firms for a while, then did some other crazy stuff. And, at the same time, they manage to be on the boards of non-profits and other community groups.

I know it is stupid to compare myself to the leaders in my field, but every time I think about my grades or my failure to get on law review or my failure to win that competition, all I can see is more and more doors closing right in front of me. I won't be working for a prestigious firm. I won't be clerking for a federal judge. Those doors are already shut, and that's infuriating to me. What's especially terrible is that I'm willing to work harder, but I don't know what to do. My god, I just don't know how to beat this system.

Sometimes, and I actually said this to Alina today, I feel like the only reason I was admitted to Georgetown was to fill out the curve so that other students could do better than me.

11 PM. Enough. I'm going home.

-.

quickie

2005-09-14T15:15:07Z

At school, in computer lab checking assignments and whatnot.
A girl sits next to me, and she takes forever adjusting to her seat, settling her things, pouring water (glug-glug accompanied by the tinkling together of ice cubes), and generally sitting down.
For a brief moment, I have the most potent feeling that I am sitting in an airplane next to her. All of her body language, her movements and sounds, everything reminds me of being on an airplane during the pre-flight settling in phase.
It is the weirdest memory association I've ever had.

-.

Music, Car Horns, and Rain

2005-08-19T14:37:41Z

I learned something useful for city-driving today: If I turn up my music loud enough, I don't have to listen to any car horns. People in this city honk all the time. They honk if you slow down to let someone into the lane. They honk if you don't begin acceleration a half-second before the light turns green. They honk at pedestrians. It's ridiculous. So, whilst listening to Saves the Day, I realized that I couldn't hear anyone honking. It was so wonderful, I made a point to let people into my lane. I think the folks behind me got mad, but I wouldn't really know.

Also, on a more intellectual note, cities make weather seem ugly, barbaric, and unnatural. Let's face it: cities are asphalt gardens. Buildings often have some greenery, but these shrubs and small trees are watered via the janitor's hose or sprinklers. Driving around D.C.'s financial district in the rain illustrates my point: water runs off nearly everything, and ends up sweeping down the streets. The gutters often swell like small creeks, massive puddles form everywhere, and all the women in high-heels look oh-so-unhappy. Driving Alina to work this morning, we saw a woman on a bicycle with the seat of her shorts soaking wet: this long strip of water went smack down the middle of her shorts. To me, it looked like she was in for a long day of moisture-induced butt rash. Yay!

So rain in the city isn't needed, it isn't pretty, and all of the water on the street turns black with dirt and grime. Since there are so few plants, all we see is dirty, dirty water. We don't really see the rain as it occurs in nature: getting soaked up by plants. This makes the rain seem unnatural to us, because it doesn't seem to help the ecosystem, it doesn't get soaked up, and it looks unclean.

This is why I remain in my basement apartment, largely ignoring the deluge outside. It just looks, well, gross.

-.

Spammers Almost got me!

2005-08-15T13:46:42Z

Clever, clever spammers. They almost got me this time. Nestled amongst the ads for porn and mortgages, I see an email from "Ice Cream Survey" with the subject "Ben & Jerry's or Haagen-Daaz?"

Oh yay, I think, they want my opinion! I love giving my opinion on ice cream! YAY. But then I look closer and see that "or" is spelled "0r" and "Jerry's" has only one R. So close! I almost clicked. Man.

I guess it was inevitable; the spammers have begun to realize that I am vulnerable to ice cream, cookies, and sugary spams, as opposed to naked women, viagra, mortgages, and "vaskar;;;;", whatever that is.

-.

In character

2005-08-10T13:46:31Z

"Everyone is looking for themselves. Me. You. Him. Her. Your dog, your cat. Well, maybe not them. Depends on who you ask.

During a parent-teacher conference with my parents, my eighth grade advisor said that I was a boy who "marched to my own drum," who already knew who I was, who didn't bow to school pressure. Thanks Mr. Eighth Grade Advisor. It's a good thing that you knew that I knew who I really was, because I sure as hell didn't feel like that way in eighth grade, and I still don't. Smarmy fuck.

So here's the dark, dirty thought that I used to have, and I'll bet you've had it. Everyone in our culture has it. We love the idea, really, although we'll never admit it publicly. I used to long for tragedy in my life, some sort of sudden destruction that would leave me with some conflict and paint that I could use. Maybe I'd be maimed; a finger, a couple toes, a leg amputated below the knee. Maybe I'd lose my hearing and be deaf. I never wanted anything too big, just enough so that my suffering could be my identity, something to wrap myself around and focus on.

It used to be, humans struggled. We fought the elements, ourselves, the gods. Every story ever told is built around some conflict, some drama. Man v. Nature, Man v. Himself, Man v. Man. But we don't really have to struggle anymore; it's all play-pretend now. We have Social Security, Medicaid. You walk into an emergency room, you're dying, they'll save you first, then ruin your life with the hospital bills afterwards. Soup kitchens, staffed by trust-fund teenaged volunteers, provide free food. The standard of living is so high, you get a television and a car even if you live in poverty.

So I'd daydream at night: one side of my divorced family, dead in a train accident, or a plane crash. I'd still have my other half, wouldn't be hard to move on. But I'd forever be a dark, brooding soul scarred by the loss of my brother, my sister, my mother, whatever. Maybe a girlfriend would die. Or get pregnant, and die in childbirth. I'd have a kid at age 16 and be a single, widowed dad. What a story! What an identity! The meaning of life? I'd never ask again. Pain is the meaning. Pain and suffering. Yoda was wrong; the dark side is the only way you'll ever find out who you are. And everybody knows this, everybody wants it. But not too much, just enough for our pain to be authentic, so that our identities can anchor, strong and deep, in the sorrow of one good tragedy. We all lay awake at night, wishing for that one unfortunate event.

Maybe that's why we love war, because tragedy abounds on the battlefield. Best friends, holding each other as one dies, choking on his own blood. A pair of dog tags, bloody, passed between them. "Give these to my son, tell my wife I loved her!" Cue the orchestra, cue the tears. Now the best friend can go home and tell his buddy's wife how heroically her husband died. Now he can hold her while she cries out her grief, then they'll go into the bedroom and lay down on his dead buddy's marriage bed, and he'll comfort her, and she won't want to be alone. Then they'll fuck. Thank god for tragedy, or some of us would never get laid.

Our world is diseased with cleanliness and purity. We're breeding conflict right out of the American way. Black people need structural racism just to keep the black identity fresh. Evangelists love gay people, they love their newly-minted culture war. Thank god we're finally talking about family values; now we can really start to fight each other. Thank god for economic disparities between the haves and the have-nots.

Now we can really get to know one another."

Finally

2005-08-02T14:30:30Z

Finally, finally, I feel at home in the apartment. Today is the second day since Christmas break where I've had no formal obligations. Lots of informal errands to run today, though.

I had an internship at the D.C. Superior Court this summer; it started the beginning of June and just ended on July 31st. Only two months, I know, but it was good experience, and I tried to make it 9-5 as much as possible.

Finished moving all of my stuff in, or taking it to Richmond to store at my parents house. The only pieces of furniture in the apartment are my couch and a bookshelf. We'll probably get rid of the couch soon, store it in Richmond, so that we can make room for a T.V. The O.C. starts in September, and I totally can't miss it! Not after the finale of last season. Hello, Marissa shot Ryan's brother ! Goodness! Also, I want to find more seasons of Scrubs and watch them. The first season of that show was also rad-cool. Ok, enough kid stuff.

School starts Aug. 29, yay. I have five classes set up, but I'll probably drop one. The week before school are law firm interviews, where I will try to get a high-paying job for next summer. That job is especially important because law firms usually offer permanent jobs to their summer associates. So, if I interview well, I will be able to get a permenant well-paying job at a large law firm. I am not sure if that's what I want, because the hours for those jobs are hellish, and the actual work isn't all that interesting. But, I may take it if it's available. School loans and all that.

Between now and then, I have to prepare a writing sample for potential employers. I also want to learn more German, using the Rosetta Stone program, which is just way too cool for its own good. It helps that Alina speaks German, too. I'll try to read a law-related book, if I can. And I really need to get into a work-out rhythm again.

The new apartment is great, I spent most of yesterday cleaning it and doing laundry. Alina's laundry was difficult to fold, because women's clothing is way complicated. Way. I need a suit, too, or else I'll never get a law firm job. But maybe I'll go work for the Public Defender Service or the DOJ, those are sweet jobs too.

I (brefly) saw Blair, Cory, and Bruce in Richmond last week. That was cool. They brought me Krispy Kreme Donut-holes, wow. So tasty. Good friends, you guys are. Very forgiving and patient. Yay. Bruce, Cory, Alina, and I went to some professional tennis at the Legg-Mason Classic, courtesy of Bruce's company. He was able to get some free tickets. The pros were serving at speeds of 120 mph to 130 mph. That was cool. A little hot, but not too bad. Ate some barbecue, which made Alina feel not-so-good.

On the way back, on the bus, I noticed another bus going west on Eye St. Instead of displaying it's line ID, like G2 or D6 or whatever, the bus's display said "Call 911" "Police" "Emergency" "COPS". So I told the bus driver, and he relayed it in. I hope that nothing was horribly wrong on the bus. I also hope the police found the bus quickly. It was interesting to see that, because it could have been really bad (re: Speed; or bus bombing).

(The cats are "playing" - Oscar runs up when Sophie is licking herself and doesn't notice him, and he bats her then runs like hell. Good thing, too, because he's a wuss and she's bigger than him.)

At the encouragement of my stepfather, I've started listening to podcasts on my iPod. Originally, I thought they were stupid. This first impression has not entirely dissipated: essentially, they are audio files of people talking. This is not a new innovation. Indeed, iPods have always been able to do this. I guess the difference is in the culture. I have downloaded some law-related podcasts. One had two speeches: the Dir. of the American Anti-Slavery Group, and a speech by a former slave from Sudan. The podcast was about slavery in modern-day Sudan. It is fucking ridiculous that slavery continues to exist, and I apologize for my ignorance. God. Listening to the ex-slave's story angered and saddened me. But,

It also made me more patriotic, which was new. I'm not ordinarily a ra-ra-ra kind of guy, but listening to this guy talk about his experiences as a slave, (he lives in NYC now), it really made me respect the Founders' vision. Alina and I were walking around the Capital the other night, and it was inspiring. She's much more patriotic than I, but she's also more well-traveled than I. She's seen other countries, and is more familiar with their weirdness. But you know, I'm impressed by our country, I am; we were founded on the idea of personal liberty and equality. Yes, there were lots of bad parts to our history, and no we have not fulfilled our promise to African-Americans, but the essence of our country is awesome.

I guess the problem I have with America is that there is a disconnect between the Founders' vision, the language of our founding documents, and the behavior of modern-day politicians. Interestingly, Bush uses "freedom" rhetoric in all of his speeches, and he keeps trying to convince us that the Iraq war was just because we're freeing Iraqis. I can agree with these things, but I also remember when the whole reason we went to war was the WMD thing, which he doesn't talk about it anymore. So I see the purpseful shift in his rhetoric, and it is very slimy to me, no matter how much I may agree with the whole freedom-for-Iraqis bit. He may try to talk like the Founders, but he still seems like a corporate pawn to me.

Ok, well, that's enough for now. I have things to do.

-.

Update

2005-06-26T04:23:51Z

Brief Update for ya

Long week of priming, painting, repriming, repainting. Should have picked the right colors the first time. Painting the bedroom green was not a good idea, surprisingly.
This weekend we're moving in all of Alina's stuff and some of mine. I am worried that we have too much stuff for our place. Oh boy. A trip to the Container Store may be in order.
I don't like her purple rug. She wants to keep it. Trouble already OMG.
We rented a U-Haul 14' truck for the day; Bruce has kindly agreed to help us move her couch, which is the only item that she and I can't lift together (or so I theorize... we haven't actually tested the rest of the items, so we'll see.)

Work is interesting and fulfilling, except for the whole not-getting-paid part. It's sad what some people do to their kids. Also, crack is a horrible, horrible thing, and so are other addictive substances.
My grades come out on the 29th, which is like 4 days. Yay, or OMG, depending.
I find out about law review in August, so that's still far enough away that it's not on my radar.

Next weekend: 4th of July in Rva with the family ! I should visit you, Blair. And hopefully I'll have your present with me. That should be my deadline, maybe.

Bedtime. We're getting up early, I have to go get the truck at 9AM.

Also, I have Tiger for my mac. This means I have widgets. Widgets are cool. Saying 'widget' is cool. Well, not necessarily cool, but definitely fun. W-i-i-i-d-g-e-e-t. Man. That will never get old.

-.

Test test

2005-05-30T18:21:34Z

http://homepage.mac.com/justintrent/PhotoAlbum1.html

My first attempt at putting photos on the web. Easy, if not a little messy and way-too-Geocities, but hey I'm not a design guy.

-.

Wheeee

2005-05-14T23:40:25Z

There is this movement in legal academia, it is called law and economics. What they do, they look at legal principles and critique those principles using economic concepts. They look at questions of efficiency, externalities, and transaction costs. Law and economics folks believe that the law should be structured so as to facilitate the free market as much as possible, and that it ought to be as economically efficient as possible.

One well-known L&E guy is Richard Posner, who is now a federal judge. Here is a quote from his essay "The Economic Approach to Law." He is talking about wealth maximization, and how wealth maximization doesn't have anything that we want to hear about the distribution of rights. These next quotes are, in my opinion, enlightening about Posner's biases:
"Suppose it were the case -- it almost surely is the case -- that some people in modern American society would be more productive as slaves than as free person. These are not antisocial people whom we want to punish by imprisoning; they are not psychotic or profoundly retarded; they just are lazy, feckless, poorly organized, undisciplined people -- people incompetent to manage their own lives in a way that will maximize their output, even though the relevant output is not market output alone but also leisure, family associations, and any other sources of satisfaction to these people as well as to others. Wealth would be maximized by enslaving these people, provided the costs of supervision were not too high... Yet no one thinks it would be right to enslave such people, even if there were not problems in identifying them, the slave masters could be trusted to be benign, and so on;
"[Wealth maximization] teats people as if they were cells of a single organism; the welfare of the cell is important only insofar as it promotes the welfare of the organism. Wealth maximization implies that if the prosperity of the society can be promoted by enslaving its least product citizens, the sacrifice of their freedom is worthwhile. But this implication is contrary to the unshakable moral intuitions of Americans, and... conformity to intuition is the ultimate test of a moral theory."

Ok, so in the beginning of the quote he says "Hey, let's assume that some people might be more productive as slave..." And in this first part, he actually says that "it almost surely is the case". Well, that's a nice little opinion, Judge Posner, that you actually believe some people would be more productive if they were slaves.

At the end of the quote, he says that "conformity to intuition" is the ultimate test of a moral theory. Wow. So our moral theories, ultimately we just test them against our intuition? If they match our intuition, they pass muster? Let's move on.

Next amusing/disturbing quote:
"Suppose it were the case -- it may be the case -- that some religious faiths are particularly effective in producing law-abiding, productive, healthy citizens. Mormonism is a plausible example. Would it not make sense on purely secular grounds, indeed on purely wealth-maximizing grounds, for government to subsidize these faiths?
Consider now a faith that both has few adherents in the U.S. and is feared or despised by the rest of the population. (The Rastafarian faith is a plausible example.)"

Ok, so let's see: It's plausible that Mormonism is particularly efficient in producing lawful, healthy folks. And it's also plausible that Rastafarianism is "feared and despised" by the majority of Americans.

I think tei and his wife might disagree with the former statement. I'm also pretty sure that Rastafarians aren't really "feared and despised" by the majority. But I'd like to point out this: Mormonism is a predominantly white religion loosely based on Christianity, and its members do not drink alcohol or use other substances. Rastafarians are, on the whole, black or Caribbean (sp), and smoke pot. So what I see is that Posner, a white male, assumes that a fringe predominantly white religion is plausibly more efficient than a fringe predominantly black religion. Maybe that's due to the difference in attitudes towards substance use. But I think it has less to do with that, and more to do with an underlying bias on Posner's part. I don't think he knows very much about Rastafarians.

I dunno, but as I'm reading Posner's work, I can't help but feel that despite his incredible intellect, he remains biased by his life experience.

-.

Followup

2005-05-11T18:16:52Z

Ha!

Crazy. The white plane and fighters that I saw earlier were indeed engaged in an aerial conversation:

White Plane: I am A) Lost, B) Terrorist, or C) Really Confused.

Fighters: We don't care, get the fuck out of our airspace before we tear you apart like so much pulled pork.

White Plane: I accept your proposition, please don't hurt me.

Anyway, here are some links: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050511/ap_on_go_co/capital

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/11/evacuation/index.html

I like how Cheney was moved to a secure location. I feel like we hear that phrase in connection with him all the time. It's like his motto: "Dick Cheney: Moved to a Secure Location."

Also, I forgot to mention that I saw one of the warning flares they fired at the plane. I thought it was the sun glinting off another plane, but now I realize what it was. Neat.

Whee back to work.

-.

Uhoh someone's in trouble.

2005-05-11T16:12:13Z

Wow. Loud loud plane sounds overhead. People on the street below my window were all looking up. I watch as two fighter jets go flying by, making load of noise. Binoculars time!

So There were two fighters, and I saw a small white prop plane as well. My theory is that the plane wasn't supposed to be there and they were politely escorting it out of the area. The fighters looped around in broad circles, I saw them go by twice more, now all is quiet.

What the hell was that all about?

-.

Brief study break

2005-05-06T23:18:00Z

Some pharmacists have refused to dispense birth control, claiming that their beliefs do not allow them to give out birth control. The issue for this post: should they have a First Amendment protection for their decision not to dispense birth control?

The First Amendment provides for the free exercise of religion, without government imposition. I won't try to discuss the actual law in this area, because I haven't studied it and I don't understand the arguments yet. But I will ask: Should pharmacists have a right to refuse birth control if they think it conflicts with their religious beliefs?

I don't think so. Looking at the American Pharmacist's Association website (www.aphanet.org), I see a code of ethics. Here are principles II and III:

II. "A pharmacist promotes the good of every patient in a caring, compassionate, and confidential manner."
As elaboration, the ABA has written under this rule: "A pharmacist places concern for the well-being of the patient at the center of professional practice." (excerpt)

III.A pharmacist respects the autonomy and dignity of each patient.
As elaboration, the ABA has written under this rule: "A pharmacist promotes the right of self-determination and recognizes individual self-worth by encouraging patients to participate in decisions about their health. A pharmacist communicates with patients in terms that are understandable. In all cases, a pharmacist respects personal and cultural differences among patients."

So the ABA thinks that pharmacists should not let personal and cultural differences (such as religious faith) get in the way of serving the patient. The emphasis is on the patient's needs and well-being. Therefore it seems patently unethical for a pharmacist to refuse birth control.

But let's extend the issue: What about gay patients with AIDS? Could a pharmacist refuse to dispense AIDS medication because his beliefs condemn gays?

What if a pharmacist was a Christian Scientist, and wanted to refuse almost all drugs? Would that be alright? If we didn't want Christian Scientists to become pharmacists in the first place, should we be allowed to tell them "You can't be a pharmacist because of your religious beliefs?"

What about STD medication? If a pharmacist believes that premarital sex is a sin, may she refuse to give STD medication to unmarried people?

Here's another issue: If a pharmacist refuses to dispense birth control, and is fired for it by his employer, he could challenge his termination on the grounds that his right to free exercise of religion was violated.

And another issue: What about women in small towns with only a few pharmacists? What if all the pharmacists in the town decided together to stop dispensing birth control? What then?

And another issue: If a pharmacist chooses not to dispense birth control, he may become the target of discrimination and prejudice. For example, a Muslim pharmacist who refused birth control would not be well-liked in this country, and his emphasis of his faith would not shield him from bigotry. In fact, I think that one of the reasons these pharmacists are getting away with their shenanigans is that they are Christians. If they were Muslims, it wouldn't be tolerated. If Jewish pharmacists had done in earlier American times, I'll bet they would have been discriminated against and persecuted.

Pharmacists who refuse to dispense birth control also risk the prejudice of the community on religious grounds, and that is not a good thing. Women would stop going to them, and perhaps some members of the community would try to eject the pharmacists from their towns. People used to try all sorts of things to keep blacks from buying houses in "white" neighborhoods. What if people tried to keep certain pharmacists from setting up shop? What if the pharmacist's refusal led to violence against that pharmacist?

I don't see any reason why pharmacists should be allowed to act this way, and in fact I see lots of reasons for why they shouldn't. I hope this issue is decided soon. I hope DeLay and Bush don't pass special laws protecting pharmacist's right to refuse medication. What would be next?

-.