Monthly Archive for March, 2004

A better campus center 7 cmts

Looks like Wellesley is going about a project very similar to our Shapiro Campus Center. Strange, angular building, theirs is named the Wang Campus Center. Except they seem to be doing things right…making it a student building. It will contain dining, mailboxes, and a whole bunch of student meeting spaces and club storage. Also, all the highlights that we’ve talked about – a pub/bistro (heh, echos the debate about whether The Stein is a pub or a bistro here at Brandeis), a game room, an expanded bookstore, a large multipurpose room (no theater, though), and, most exciting, a big parking garage hidden down the hill and behind trees.

Just like Brandeis wants, but can’t afford. I have no clue what the deal was with Carl Shapiro and the architect Charlie Rose and the University, but boy was it a mess, whatever it was. Something went seriously wrong along the way, and we were left with a monstrosity of a building that really didn’t fulfill any of the goals set for it. Well, except the theater isn’t horrible. That’s about it.

Wed

Mar

2004

0 cmts

Rides Through Chernobyl – [P]eople lived, had homes, country houses, garages, motorcyles, cars, money, friends and relatives, people had their life, each in own niche and then in a matter of hours this world fall in pieces and everything goes to dogs and after few hours trip with some army vehicle one stands under some shower, washing away radiation and then step in a new life, naked with no home, no friends, no money, no past and with very doubtful future.
Who is that with Jeremy?
Bob Edwards yanked from Morning Edition – A shame…what does NPR have up it’s sleeve?
Dick Clarke Is Telling the Truth

Tue

Mar

2004

Criticism 0 cmts

This is very interesting. This morning I received two very legitimate pieces of criticism about things that I’m doing that are stupid. I’m not exactly sure what to do with this information. The logical reaction is to attempt to fix the shortcomings, but, because that is hard, I’m instead spending time with internal meta-commentary on the criticism, the act of criticisizing, and probably, justification of my actions, although that’s all fuzzy and I’m not sure if I’m doing it or not.

Generally in a situation like this, I would createa task list or schedule. The problem is that I won’t stick to it. I guess I’m trying to think of something better that I can do.

I know one thing for certain though — one should not send somewhat self-righteous emails to people at 3:00am…the mind is not at the high point of it’s clarity.

Sun

Mar

2004

0 cmts

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – Slate calls it the best movie in 10 years.

Deanitude 0 cmts

You can win if you run a smart, disciplined campaign, if you studiously say nothing — nothing that causes you trouble, nothing that’s a gaffe, nothing that shows you might think the wrong thing, nothing that shows you think. But it just isn’t worthy of us[...]

It isn’t worthy of us, it isn’t worthy of America, it isn’t worthy of a great nation. We’re gonna write a new book, right here, right now. This very moment. Today.

I think the great hope of myself and so many others was that Howard Dean would be our Bartlet, a dark horse who wasn’t suppposed to win but did, who could run a campaign that was different, who could be idealistic to a fault, who could change the level of discourse. Well, he was eaten alive. Perhaps there is a reason why The West Wing is fiction.

Wed

Mar

2004

The strangest thing 0 cmts

The strangest thing just happened to me. I was reading through an Everything node when I hit a writeup (the last one) that I thought made a lot of sense and was meaningful to me. Yeah, I thought, I should be more like that. Work towards more positive change instead of opining about the glory years of the past. Still, this person is walking a dangerous line, they could get a lot of negative reputation points for this post!

The last sentence mentioned Ted Koppel speaking at the person’s school and I thought, that’s odd, he spoke at Brandeis’ commencement a year or two back, I wonder if this person goes to Brandeis.

Looked at the name of the author. Realized it was me.

0 cmts

The fact that you make no sense doesn’t mean you’re an artist

Mon

Mar

2004

Troop committment in Iraq 0 cmts

Now that the new Spanish government has committed to removing it’s troops from Iraq, it’s probably worth noting (in an I-told-you-so way) a statement made a month ago by James Webb, former Secretary of the Navy under Reagan, in a WashPost Op/Ed. It’s probably been widely quoted, but this is the first I’ve seen it:

Bush arguably has committed the greatest strategic blunder in modern memory. To put it bluntly, he attacked the wrong target. While he boasts of removing Saddam Hussein from power, he did far more than that. He decapitated the government of a country that was not directly threatening the United States and, in so doing, bogged down a huge percentage of our military in a region that never has known peace. Our military is being forced to trade away its maneuverability in the wider war against terrorism while being placed on the defensive in a single country that never will fully accept its presence.

Books are good 1 cmts

I’m feeling really stupid right now. For a while I’ve been taking notes in my SOC 181a class (“Quantitative Methods of Social Inquiry”) but not really understanding what I’m doing. It all seems fairly clear on the board when he explains it, but I never quite know why we’re doing various things, or where they are useful. I’m getting flashbacks to, oh, every match class after geometry.

Tonight I realized that the reason I’m so lost is because I don’t have a textbook. The book didn’t come in at the bookstore and the professor has been posting it chapter by chapter as these evil image PDF thingies, and I found them almost impossible to read so I skimmed them but didn’t get anything out of them.

Tonight I just printed everything out (after having to adjust is a bunch to get it to print in a readable format) and now I have something somewhat equivalent to a “textbook” that I can flip through and highlight and actually read, and now I have just a bit of an idea of what I’m supposed to be doing.

If I can spend most of tomorrow reading the darn thing, maybe I can catch up in this class before it’s too late.

Here’s hoping.

Sat

Mar

2004