Mindless Philosopher

Two-minute blog: Segovia (decent alcazar and cathedral), Grenada (Al-Ahabra == awesome), Cordoba (haven’t seen the city yet, just the hotel), and Sevilla (everything like I remember, Levies’ food was just as tasty!).
Have to run — am taking lots of pics, which will be posted by Monday.

I´m in Spain this week on a Princeton “Muslim-Jewish” dialgue trip. For some reason, the staff here decided they needed to send 23 Princeton students across the Atlantic to achieve real dialogue. Well, I wasn´t going to object :)
The itinerary is Madrid, Segovia, Toledo, Cordoba, Sevilla, and Grenada — lots of places I haven´t been before. Today we visited the now-unused Royal Palace: it was my first time in a Throne Room. And since not much is open on Mondays, I toured the Reina Sofia (modern art museum) for the second time in a year. A Salvador Dali painting caught my eye that I had missed my first time through: atómica melancolica. Now it´s time to get to catch up on sleep (I only got 4 hours on the plane).
And I´m tied for first in my family´s NCAA pool! Hopefully leaving the country won´t jinx anything :)

A few items that should have happened years ago, but I’m glad to finally report them:

• Women’s Soccer will be back in the US in 2008! Only six teams (including a DC team), but that’s a good start. By the time this league gets underway, I’ll have fulfilled all my PhD requirements except the dissertation, giving me plenty of time to head to DC to watch the Freedom (or whatever their new name will be). Until then, go Wildcats!
• My sophomore year at MIT, I suggested to the administration that they use the free space in W20 (the student center) for my favorite restaurant: Subway! Unfortunately for me, back then LaVerde’s market handled the demand for subs. Recently, however, LaVerde’s became lame (see p.16), and MIT decided to put in a Subway. According to Dawn, it’s still not completed, but when it does I fully expect a dramatic increase in the acceptance rate among MIT admits!
• I finally solved the problem that I came to grad school for (mostly). I presented the solution at the Princeton Methodology seminar on Friday and received good feedback. Look for the working paper to be posted on my CV page in about a month.
• The DNC finally decided that having one voter file in all 50 states is a good idea! No kidding. And they couldn’t have picked a better company to contract with, VAN. It’s the only propriety voter file solution that I hear anything good about.

In NCAA news, my 5 teams this year (for my uncle’s pool): Florida, UNC, UCLA, Texas A&M, and Tennessee. So far, I’ve got one win out of Texas A&M.

Sometimes I fail to blog because nothing is happening in my life. But, these last two weeks have just been too hectic for me to sit down and compose my thoughts.
Friday a week ago, I hosted a Princeton grad student Shabbat dinner. Attendence was great: 23 people showed up. And we had enough food, thankfully. I made two 9×13 pans of veggie lasagna. The only bump in the road was that the supermarket had no zuccini for the lasagna, so I bought cucumber thinking that might work as well. I came to my senses when I started chopping the cuc’ — clearly this vegetable was too moist for lasagna. Anyway, everyone had a great time (I think — they stayed *really* long) and I look forward to hosting another one next year :)
Saturday I went into NYC for Seth’s birthday party. It was a regular 2E reunion (sans Amitha and James). Samidh thought they had screwed us on the check so I bet him my dinner portion of the bill to his and his new SO’s that the restaurant staff was being honest. Everyone pulled out their Treo’s and sure enough, my natural inclination to trust people came through: free dinner! And I don’t feel guilty since Samidh is making a fortune in his consulting job.
Sunday, I was off to DC, where I said goodbye to Taren who is now in Australia for about a year. Then I met up with Steven and Carrie and saw Bridge to Terabithia. The movie, despite the trailer, follows the book quite closely. The flim starts slowly but gets much better at the end, which is super depressing. (Just as I remember the end of the book being!)
Last week I pushed the deadline for my paper at the State Politics and Policy conference. Five hours of sleep a night is no fun. But the conference, in Austin, TX, was great. The city’s motto is “Keep Austin Weird” and I must say that they are successful. Received helpful comments from folks, and one very correct observation that I was “quite enthusiastic about data.” (There’s a reason for my license plate.) Returned Saturday night (sans bag — grrr, Southwest) and watched a terrible movie, Keeping Up with the Steins, with Gayle.
Sunday, back to NYC for the Chinese New Year’s festival with Chicklet, MFD, and Jeff. People were popping confetti cannisters, and they had weighted red ribbons that floated down via parachutes. Everyone would reach up their hands to try and grab them as they descended. Being taller than all the Asian folks (sorry, sometimes the stereotypes are true), I caught one pretty easily. The ribbon read “Good Luck” in both Chinese and English, so I guess I’ll have a fortuitous year. (I’ll need it for generals.)

Came back to NJ to find my bag waiting for me (yay Southwest) and headed over to Kate and Nathan’s for game night. We played a game of RummyKub in which Miranda kicked all of our butts (damn she’s good). After she left to do work, I won the next game. But, then everyone had to go home and do work. Sad.
But, on the bright side, I’m making a dent in that generals reading list. And two of my four presentations this term and now done with. Though the next one, on March 9, will be the hardest to finish on time. So I see more 5-hours-of-sleep nights ahead of me.

Without spoling the plot, last night on Gilmore Girls: Rory goes to the library looking for a book for her gender studies class, specifically Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble. Paris finds the book for Rory and hands it to her, cover-side down. While this slight degree of obfuscation might be enough to hoodwink the majority of TV viewers, I was not fooled by their Jedi mind tricks — that book was not Gender Trouble! First of all, it was the wrong color; the actual book is one lighter than that shown on Gilmore Girls. Second, in no universe could a publisher fit Butler’s rambling, impenetrable, profuse prose into the thin, flimsy paperback that Paris forks over.
Speaking of trouble with genders, check out what google returns when you search of “Gender Trouble”:

Methinks the semantic web needs to attend sensitivity training :)
Update: I couldn’t have been more wrong. A frame-by-frame playback via MythTV shows that Paris obtained the new, 2006 edition of Gender Trouble, the cover of which does not have the distinctive yellowish frame of the older version. And the book was cover-side-up when it was passed to Rory (who then turns the cover away from the audience). Whoops! Sorry, false alarm.

Here we go again. Today, the New York Times front-pages an article that claims Iran is the source of deadly roadside bombs in Iraq. The source for this accusation? Anonymous administration officials. No experts or skeptics were interviewed; no independent examination of the bombs themselves was completed. We’re just supposed to trust the administration, who are so confident in their conclusions that they won’t even stand by their claims. The ironic part is that the author of the piece, Michael Gordon, co-authored the now-obviously-false 2002 story about Iraq attempting to acquire nuclear weapons. Will the press (or, specifically, the NYT) ever learn?
See DK Diary and Glenn Greenwald for more in-depth coverage.

Yesterday was the first American politics General exam meeting. Yikes, the reading list is huge. In essence, we have to read 60 books in 90 days. Given that I read half a book yesterday, but it was for class and not generals, I think I’m already behind. Sigh…so much for any Spring Break plans.
I’m going to try and put up a counter that permanently displays at the top of this page and tracks my progress, but for now, here’s what I have to do:

• Core list: 32 books
• Public Opinion: 13 books, 11 articles
• Political Psychology: 10 books, 21 articles
• Legislative Institutions: 5 books, 17 articles
• Plus review Formal and Quant

(I’m sure I miscounted, so future reports will be more accurate.)
In happier news, my favorite DC United player earned his first international cap yesterday. On July 14th, 2004, I watched D.C. United defeat Nottingham Forest in person and spotted 22-year-old midfielder Josh Gros as incredibly poised on the ball and as a pinpoint ball distributor. His calm, selfless play led me to adopt him as my personal favorite.
Yesterday, the U.S. shut-out Mexico in an international friendly, 2-0. Gros came on as a sub in the 68th minute and played right back, which is a more defensive position than his usual midfield role. Unfortunately, he didn’t look too comfortable on defense, as the Mexican left wing beat Gros several times over the game’s last 20 minutes. However, I thought Gros distributed the ball well and he won a couple of headers, demonstrating why he belongs more in the attacking end of the field. Perhaps with a bit more time, Gros will earn a starting spot in the midfield. But, for now, I’m just happy to see him represent the US.

I beg forgiveness today to the “father” of the Democratic Party, Mr Jefferson, for my recent transgressions. At a dinner party at a Prof’s house a few nights ago, a fellow graduate student was telling a story that involved him and the descendants of famous people. As the story became more elaborate, Lauren accused him of “always exaggerating”. To which I chimed in, “Yes, he’s a regular Al Gore”. Ouch–I winced internally and immediately felt guilty. Disgracing my former candidate’s good name…well, I can only ask the blogosphere to absolve me of my sins.
Oddly, I was rewarded for this good behavior. On my annual shopping trip yesterday, I found two Docker corduroys and an Alfani thin sweater at $15 a piece. And $50 ACG Nike’s; my old pair literally came undone during indoor soccer on Tuesday. It’s difficult playing defense when the sole of your shoe is flapping about :)
Oh, and Princeton creamed Brown at the Women’s Basketball game I attended last night. Maybe I should make fun of Al Gore more often…although that’s probably not good for my conscience.

I’m at a conference and didn’t have time to compile a complete who-I-know-in-DC list, so:
Lebanese Taverna
5900 Washington Blvd, Arlington
Saturday (tonight), 6:30pm
Either RSVP or show up on time
See people there!

This article will give you a case of the “Monday’s”: WaPo’s Jonathan Weisman scours Capital Hill for Democrats who will go on record against Speaker Pelosi’s recent decisions and finds some! This dissent comes after Pelosi engineered the “6 for ’06” votes to garner plenty of GOP support and actually finished the job in only 42 hours of House floor time. Seriously, people, if you’ve got quibbles, grumble them to your leadership in private; don’t plaster them on the pages of the Washington Post. The worst offender? Rep. Jim Costa:

Some Democrats were frustrated with her decision not to give Republicans a chance to offer even one amendment on the six bills that passed in the initial spate. … “As we try to move forward, we have to make sure transparency and cooperation is part of the legislative process,” said Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.), an advocate of more comity in the House.

That perspective is a Republican talking point. The Democrats campaigned on these six issues, and the American people voted for us: how much more debate do you want?! Now, if Pelosi restricts debate on more complex issues (e.g., Iraq policy), Costa might have a point, but we haven’t even gotten there yet.
I don’t understand how these statements are in Costa’s best interest. His constituents don’t read Jonathan Weisman, and he doesn’t need to move to the center as he ran unopposed last cycle. Given that Pelosi isn’t going anywhere soon, could bashing the leadership help his reputation in any way, shape or form? Maybe guys like him just like seeing their name in print…sad.