I don't automatically think reading Harry Potter as an adult is a bad thing (I'm 22 and my fiance is 20 and we both LOVE HP), but the article is correct that many people do not read enough and that Harry Potter is all they read. I see this first hand in my fiance's family and even my own.

And yes, "His Dark Materials" >>>>>>>>> Harry Potter in terms of complexity and literacy (it is an allegory of Milton's Paradise Lost, after all), but very few people I've suggested this to seem to want to pick it up.

Lack of reading for pleasure is a huge problem in this country, and while I am happy HP seems to get young adults interested in reading for the joy of reading, there still remains the problem of making it a life-long habit.

I don't see this as a snobbery issue, but as an indicator that we as a culture do not vale reading anymore. Hopefully, this can change.

With the news today that the Bush Administration will not be complying with the subpoena request, it appears that there will be a constitutional showdown. And with that in mind, how could we not have seen this coming a mile away: Bush's consolidation of power is completed when the Supreme Court rules that all the horseshit Bush has been doing is completely constitutional. It'll be a 5-4 ruling.

This seems to have been perfectly executed so far, doesn't it?

When will the Congress take a stand and stop this constitutional nightmare? At this moment, removing Bush and Cheney from power is the only thing that can stop this runaway consolidation of power.

At the very least, this administration will be known for "merely" being unconstitutional in nature; at worse, I fear it could be what our founding fathers feared: a tyrannical monarchy.

How ironic this is Ash Wednesday.
I am a member of the GLBTQ/Leadership Counsel (GLC), the ONLY organization on campus that political advocates on behalf of BC's GLBTQ community. Obviously, being on a very Jesuit university leads to many clashes. Last year, they canceled our benefit gala because they thought it was a "gay" dance where gay sex (yes, this is what actual BC administrators said to our face last year)and advocate the "gay lifestyle". Never mind the dance was not exclusive to just the GLBTQ community, was designed to raise funds for the Boston Living center, yada yada. They chose to cancel it because they were too homophobic to realize how being gay doesn't mean reducing us to who we have sex with, or even just an act of sex in general. This year, we decided to try to hold another dance that was explicitly in compliance with last years's demands from the administrators. Our benefit social gathering (we can't call it a dance) was to be called "A Celebration of Gay History" which would also include an award given to a member of the BC community who did something positive for the GLBTQ community.
Well, surprise surprise, they wanted us to remove:

1)"gay" from the title
2)"Celebrate" from the title--apparently celebrating means advocating the "gay lifestyle"
3)We could not use our name in the title or advertisements--we wouldn't be running the dance, it wouldn't be in our name.

So, we decided that because the event as the administrators wanted to see it wasn't in the spirit of what we, the GLC, wanted to convey.

I'm so sad and depressed.

Why can't people just let people live?

Homophobia, as I thought about it tonight, is inseparable from the concept of freedom. The freedom to love who you love, kiss who you kiss.

How sad it is

Were you around during the Nj marriage debates? Because many straights said straight up they disagreed with the ruling simply because it might cost the Democrats their November victory.

That's both homophobic and horribly crude to suggest that an entire community's rights be put on hold for political reasons.

Part of the problem is that heterosexuals don't realize the inherent privledges they get with being straight--while most may not mean any harm or offense, when someone who is not a member of the GLBT community tells us not to be offended (like the Snicker's ad), it is both offensive and arrogant. I was offended. My queer friends were offended. My straight friends, for the most part, told me to "get over it".

That's why there's a lot of pain right now, imo.

Romney is so ridiculed by everyone that knows his name in MA-- he's the (former) governor of MA, who lives in NH, who originally lived in Utah, and made a living of traveling the country bashing his own state that he was elected to be governor. He often complained how "awful" it was to be a Republican in the "bluest of the blue" states. This guy is a weiner, a whiner, and has possibly the greatest potential of the possible nominees to just be curb stomped in every way. In addition to being a loser, he also has flipped on several issues, most prominently gay rights and abortion, in a move to appeal to the RW jackals.

Compared to McCain and Guilliani, Romney is a candidate of almost W quality; any decent guy the Democrats field should be able to manhandle Romney easily.

Thoughts?

There never, in the first place, should have been this widespread panic. Period. If it really WAS a dangerous, suspicious item, then guess what--it took them 2 weeks to figure it out. You don't think the terrorists are going to give us a 2 week "heads up" on finding the bomb, do you?

We've thrown away our civil rights, our country's dignity and honor, and we've turned into a nation of chicken-shits. I'm disgusted. We've got no backbone anymore, but we'll try to claim we're "tough" in this "post 9/11" world by flipping a shit over LED Mooninites. Congrats America, you suck!

The response to this was unbelievably sad and shows just how deep the bullshit 24/7 terror news culture has pussified this country.

I'm posting this because I feel very, very strongly about this issue. In my experience, there is a large segment of the population that just doesn't take global warming seriously, or even understand what is is and why it is occurring. For the most part, most DUers seem to get that global warming is 1) real and 2) there is a complete lack of evidence and scientific support for hypothesizes contrary to this fact; for example, that we are actually going through "just" a warm period or that the earth is possibly cooling due to pollution.

However, there have been several threads the past week on the issue of global warming and in each thread, there are some who question the impact and very real danger of global warming or who question the near monopoly of consensus in the scientific community about global warming.

This bothers me because there seems to be a misunderstanding on just how strong the evidence for global warming is. There is evidence in almost every discipline in the scientific world that things are changing and things are changing in a way that is going to dramatically change our lifestyle, our way of life, and life on earth on a large, probably unthinkable scale. The oceans are changing. The weather patterns are changing. The world we know now isn't going to stay this way for much longer.

There is literally no legitimate scientific evidence that supports things are going to be fine left on their own. The only real discussion right now regarding global warming is how much impact human activities--namely CO2 production-- are having on global warming. That's it. Global warming is real, and even if we're not causing it, it's still going to change people.

The cool thing about science is that it takes a lot of imagination. If you think there is another possibility, you have the opportunity to go out and try to gather evidence to support your line of thinking. But saying that global warming might be overblown, non-existent, not a problem, is downright ugly and ignorant thinking. Pulling up RW hacks like Michael Chricton and scientists hired by Exxon Mobile is not evidence that the massive, massive evidence compiled over the past decades is wrong. As one of my favorite scientists Bryan Sykes said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Many scientists have gone against the grain and claimed unorthodox things--like proteins weren't the genetic transmission vehicle (we all now know DNA is), that mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) can be used to accurately map out a person's genetic lineage. But you know what? They all had evidence. Lots of it. They needed to. You just can't say "well, today's scientists might be wrong!" Coz you know what? We might. There's always uncertainty in science. But you can't just leave it at that. You need to prove your claims.

And quite frankly, I, nor any of my various scientist colleagues, have seen any evidence for the contrary. All we get is political squawking "teh liberal scientists suck!!!11111111"

Global warming needs to be taken seriously. Otherwise, it's going to be too late to do anything.

"The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara" is a remarkable documentary I saw when it first came out in 2004, a year after we started our illegal invasion of Iraq. The movie hit a lot of raw nerves for comparing the Iraqi war with the Vietnam war; this was still when comparisons between the two conflicts was often shot down.

Nearly 3 years later, after the announcement of the "surge", I re watched this documentary and found it to be even more prophetic and painful to watch.

The mistakes we made in the past keep getting made. With the same results. This troop escalation is nothing short of another twisted scene from Vietnam and I think that Iraq and Vietnam are beginning to look an awful lot alike.

For anyone interested, here's a link to Amazon for the DVD:

http://www.amazon.com/Fog-War-Eleven-Lesso...

Now, my question is this: Is it now fair to compare Iraq with Vietnam? To me, I don't see how they could not, particularly because of the nature of our latest "goals" in the country-- to quell uprisings in civilian areas. To build massive "embassies" (courtesy of our buddies at Halliburton). To try to wipe out the past symbolically by killing Saddam. Iraq is being invaded and trying to be completely subjugated for a political ideology that is almost entirely created. In Vietnam it was the threat of communism. In Iraq, it was/is the threat of "terrorism". Both are un winnable. Both are set up so the war will not end.

Is it the same? Not 100%, but I think it's not debatable that we've allowed the same madmen in Washington to make the same mistakes in our name.

So last week, Prof.Behe, who has a PhD in bio chem, came to my college to give a lecutre on "The Case Against Darwin: The Biochemical Arguement against Evolution".
The lecture can be boiled down to "I'm an intellectually lazy fuck who doesn't even know what evolution is so I'm just going to say God did it".
Among other things, he claimed (lol), that evolution is bunk because "no modern scientist has observed evolution" and that cells are set up today so that if you remove a part, it the cell ceases to function.

I was pissed that this quack's ramblings were representing science (I'm a bio major), so I shot off a letter to my college paper. Here it is:

As a soon to be graduating biology major who intends to teach high school biology, the controversy of "Intelligent Design" interest me deeply, and it is why I am writing this letter. The arguments Prof. Behe presented at his lecture were grossly misleading as to how scientists understand evolution and were, many times, strictly theological in nature and not science. For example, in his lecture he tried to claim that "no modern scientist has ever observed evolution". Are you kidding me? Never observed evolution? Has Prof. Behe completely forgotten what the point of why having a different flu vaccine is needed for every year? Viruses are mini-evolving units--the predominating flu strain that we are vaccinated against every year is the result of a shift of different viral receptors. We quite literally witness every new flu year. And what about the fact that antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria are now becoming resistant to most known antibiotics? Secondly, his "irreducibly complex" argument falls apart when one considers that modern day mitochondria, which are now part of modern eukaryotic cells, are thought to have once been independent cells that were integrated into emerging eukaryotic cells in a symbiotic relationship. Of course, if you take out the mitochondria of a cell today, the cell ceases to function. But billions of years ago, mitochondria were probably quite independent
There is absolutely nothing wrong with believing God is behind evolution, as many biologists and scientists do, but in no way does that mean you can simply circumvent the whole process of scientific methodology. ID has no testable hypothesis--simply put, this is not science.
At best, Behe's arguments are merely theological, at worst, he is disingenuous and deserves no recognition as representing scientifc thought, nor should his arguments be recognized as science-- either here at Boston College or in our public schools.

Scaring animals? Are you serious? Do you have any idea what people in the animal rescue line of work do? He saved animals that would have been killed had he not stepped in. He put his life on the line every day to dispell myths about the "murderous" nature of crocs, snakes, and various other wildlife.

On edit: he also donated 100% of what he earned on Animal Planet to CONSERVATION EFFORTS.

Just WTF do you people WANT someone to do to save the fucking planet and inform the public? No wonder people don't believe in global warming or the danger of diminishing biodiversity-- people like Irwin who have a passion to defend the planet and inform the public are ridiculed.

This biologist who has worked HANDS ON with animals is calling BULLSHIT on your post.

Wolves at Sunset

I’m running now

under a thick and heavy sky.

The air is on fire and the sky is blazing.
bursts of starlight are rising from the spreading ink
of the horizon and

I couldn’t believe my ears
when I heard the singing
cut through the summer sky.

I hear you now
I hear you calling out

And I’m running to you now, I’m coming as fast as my body can take me—

With each stride—

With each blade of dried yellow grass that passes silently and softly
under my ignorant feet:

I see the rise and fall of the curve of the earth ahead of me with
the dust of human creation and
all the riches and splendors I was taught to seek out,
all the fallacies of ego and despair—

all far behind me.

I hear you singing and
I can barely contain my laughter,
it’s been so long since

I heard your song.

The air is on fire and the sky is blazing.
I’m coming, I’m coming


It won’t be long now.

Took 3.5 hours, but it was WORTH IT.

I am SO pleased with the results, and the color should be even brighter when it is fully healed (I got it a week ago, so there's tons of flaking and the color isn't that bright)

As promised, here are some photos from my recent trip back to Oregon with my SO Kyle to visit my mom and sister.



This is on the coast, near Florence. We went camping here for 2 days.



Me without coffee = grumpy in the morning.



Me with my mom.



Kyle and me by the tidepools.



A verrry big crow.



Tidepools!



Heceta Head beach-- we went up a trail to the lighthouse...





I *lurve* this picture of Kyle and my sis' horse-- he has this impish smile on his face

It was a great trip.

PS--

Oregon bud is like, whoa, amazing...

I'm giving my SO these two pictures of us framed before he moves back to Utah-- they're our favorite pictures of us but he doesn't know that I'm getting them framed

I love these. They make me so happy...





It really sucks that he's moving back to Utah, but it's for the best (he's starting school) and we've already made plans to see each other for semester breaks.

You know how you know when something going to work out, even when it sounds like it doesn't? This is one of those things.

I feel it because of these pictures...especially the first one.

This is too good to simply go away.

We're best friends, and I feel no worry.

I love you Kyle.

Over the course of college, I've discovered that for me, it's:

1)music. It gets you through the worst times in your life-- the times when your heart aches and you want everyone to go away. See: Damien Rice, Elliott Smith, etc.

2)true friends. Not the kind that you just get drunk with/smoke with, but the kind that stay up in the wee small hours of the morning listening to your hopes, dreams, and fears.

3)siblings. My sister and I hated each other growing up (due to some serious family issues), but now we're extremely tight.

I'd love to hear more!