west

i spent 4-1/2 days in the bay area: sunnyvale, san francisco, san jose, berkeley, davis. i saw catherine at this yummy sandwich shop, then spent a couple of hours with daniel (and met his wife!, claire). getting back to san jose was more difficult than i anticipated, so i got picked up at the san fran airport. now i'm in la with my cousins. la isn't as strange as i expected, though perhaps that's because i haven't been to beverly hills yet.

i realized today that i haven't thought about anything remotely political since i left new york. i wonder what this means, if anything at all.

next: vancouver, on thursday night.

voice

i wonder how much the recent shake-ups and controversy at the village voice are responsible for the sudden disappearance of savage love? there's a new column in the stranger, so i know it exists. well, there goes the only good reason to read the voice.

in other news, i'll be on the left coast for the next couple weeks: san francisco, LA, vancouver, portland. wowee! see y'all in may.

the golden rule

A person who is nice to you but not nice to the waiter is not a nice person.

surprising success

A new WP-ABC News poll indicates that seniors who have enrolled in the new Medicare drug benefit (Part D) are generally happier with the drug benefit than they were without it.

I'm ashamed to say, I had to remind myself that This Is A Good Thing. Despite all the talk about benefiting drug companies, older people are saving money and getting the medications they need. This is going on the "further research needed" list.


One strange thing I noticed in the WP article:

Still, opinions about the program, which passed Congress in 2003 by narrow margins and over substantial Democratic opposition, remain heavily influenced by partisanship. According to the Post-ABC News poll, a majority of Republicans (56 percent) said they approve of the new benefit, while a similar majority of Democrats disapprove. [emphasis added]

Since when is 56% of anything a majority overwhelming enough to indicate heavy partisanship influence?

lucidity, and sadness

Just to shake things up, I've started setting a radio alarm (NPR) for the morning, instead of a shrill, ambulance-in-your-skull beeping alarm. Also, I like to hit the snooze button.

This morning I woke up to hear that President Bush, at one or another talk, was trying to dispel rumors that the US is considering military (and possibly nuclear) action in Iran, presumably in retaliation for flouting the Security Council's non-binding non-resolution to stop nuclear bomb-making. The President said no military action is coming. Being more than half-asleep at the time, I snoozed for another 9 minutes. But before falling back to sleep, I remember thinking to myself, "I have absolutely no idea if he's lying. I have absolutely no faith that when the leader of my country speaks, he's telling the truth." He could say that 2+2=4, and I would question. Not because I have a particular grudge against the man or the office, and not because I have some sick desire to disbelieve everything he says. It's because I've learned, from experience, that this President lies, and it would be foolish of me not to doubt.

It reminds me of a children's fable I'm sure I've heard somewhere. Maybe the President should be reading Aesop to schoolkids, and to himself, instead of My Pet Goat.

omg

A reporter recently obtained several [flash] drives at the bazaar [in Bagram, Afghanistan] that contained documents marked "Secret." The contents included documents that were potentially embarrassing to Pakistan, a U.S. ally, presentations that named suspected militants targeted for "kill or capture" and discussions of U.S. efforts to "remove" or "marginalize" Afghan government officials whom the military considered "problem makers." The drives also included deployment rosters and other documents that identified nearly 700 U.S. service members and their Social Security numbers.

wow.

wow.

john vs jon

the new york times on john mccain's recent forays into the conservative base in anticipation of his '08 presidential campaign, i.e. his commencement speech at jerry falwell's liberty university.

the article quotes mccain's recent appearance on the daily show with jon stewart (scroll down and click on citizen mccain). it's a great interview, that makes me like john mccain just a little bit less. "has john mccain's straight talk express been re-routed through bullshit town?" i'm going to go ahead and say, "uh, yeah."

stewart: so you're not - you're not freaking out on us. are you freaking out on us?
mccain: just- just a little.
stewart: 'cause if you're freaking out on us, and you're going into the crazy-base world... are you going into crazy-base world?
mccain: i'm afraid so.

i know i say this everytime i watch the daily show, but still: jon stewart, marry me.

watch this

a good development for people fighting for sensible and accountable US foreign AIDS policies:

This week, the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE) and Health GAP (Global Access Project) launched PEPFAR Watch, a new website intended to share information about U.S. global AIDS policy. The new site is found at www.pepfarwatch.org.

On the site, you will also find a new report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), which analyzes the effects of the abstinence-until-marriage requirements under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), as well as our press release concerning the report. We also will soon be posting an analysis of the findings of the GAO report by CHANGE as well as by colleague organizations.

a no-brainer?

Massachusetts will soon require (and enable) all of its residents to have health insurance.


I think I should be psyched, but I have to say, I don't know how I feel about that.

More later.

yuppie + hipster = new york city

a fantastic article, and today's required reading.

"Let’s start with a question. A few questions, actually: When did it become normal for your average 35-year-old New Yorker to (a) walk around with an iPod plugged into his ears at all times, listening to the latest from Bloc Party; (b) regularly buy his clothes at Urban Outfitters; (c) take her toddler to a Mommy’s Happy Hour at a Brooklyn bar; (d) stay out till 4 A.M. because he just can’t miss the latest New Pornographers show, because who knows when Neko Case will decide to stop touring with them, and everyone knows she’s the heart of the band; (e) spend $250 on a pair of jeans that are artfully shredded to look like they just fell through a wheat thresher and are designed, eventually, to artfully fall totally apart; (f) decide that Sufjan Stevens is the perfect music to play for her 2-year-old, because, let’s face it, 2-year-olds have lousy taste in music, and we will not listen to the Wiggles in this house; (g) wear sneakers as a fashion statement; (h) wear the same vintage New Balance sneakers that he wore on his first day of school in the seventh grade as a fashion statement; (i) wear said sneakers to the office; (j) quit the office job because—you know what?—screw the office and screw jockeying for that promotion to VP, because isn’t promotion just another word for “slavery”?; (k) and besides, now that she’s a freelancer, working on her own projects, on her own terms, it’s that much easier to kick off in the middle of the week for a quick snowboarding trip to Sugarbush, because she’s got to have some balance, right? And she can write it off, too, because who knows? She might bump into Spike Jonze on the slopes; (l) wear a Misfits T-shirt; (m) make his 2-year-old wear a Misfits T-shirt; (n) never shave; (o) take pride in never shaving; (p) take pride in never shaving while spending $200 on a bedhead haircut and $600 on a messenger bag, because, seriously, only his grandfather or some frat-boy Wall Street flunky still carries a briefcase; or (q) all of the above?"