Mindless Philosopher

Stopped by the New York Public Library during my brief hours of free time last week in NYC. Their main exhibit was “Before Victoria: Extraordinary Women of the British Romantic Era,” which, given my attempts to further my feminist education, I felt warranted my attention. Mary Wollstonecraft dominated the exhibit hall, and I was disappointed to see Ada Lovelace relegated to a small table in a corner. Clearly the librarians are not as fond of computer science as I am.
More space, however, was allocated to Jane Austen. Ever since a certain someone made me sit through the entire Sense and Sensibility movie (though Atlas Girl was a nice reprieve), I had been prejudiced against that author. The combination of Austen being placed among these other pioneering women and recent recommendations, bade me to reconsider my prior judgement. Thus, on the long train ride back to DC (delayed considerably due to a gas leak in Maryland), I used my treo to begin reading Pride and Prejudice. I won’t follow Elizabeth’s example and will withhold judgement until I finish.
The weekend saw a celebration of Rain’s birthday (happy real birthday today!), a 3-0 pickup soccer win (scuffle and resultant head-butt, included), a disappointing headliner at the DC Improv, and cloudy weather in Baltimore as we watched the O’s take the weekend series and dined at Pazo.

For the first time in four years, the person for whom I voted on the top ballot actually won! Leslie Byrne carried the Lt Gov primary on the Dem side with 33 percent of the (low turnout) vote. In better news, tax-reactionary Republicans failed in their bid to unseat moderate GOPers.
The last time my candidate actually won was in 2001, when Warner took the Governor’s mansion in Richmond. Prior to that, Warren Tolman, Shannon O’Brien, Howard Dean, and John Kerry all bit the dust. Perhaps this is a sign of things to come, and my decade-long losing streak will come to an end.
Tracking back to last weekend, I was a weekend warrior, playing soccer, golf, and basketball. In soccer, our team dropped to 2-3, after losing a game to a team that was a step above us in terms of skill level. I did my best to preserve a shutout, but my attempt lasted all of a minute and a half. I fared better in pickup basketball, winning 2 of 3 games (one by a score of 16-14 in a “play to 11” game).
In New York right now for focus groups. Will be back tomorrow, in DC for an exciting weekend (party, improv, movie, aquarium, O’s game) before leaving for CA for more groups next week.

Do you live in Virginia? Then you should go vote. I voted this morning and I was the only one casting a ballot, which leads me to believe that not too many people intend to go to the polls today. One reason for the light turnout is that, for much of Virginia (my own precinct included), if you vote in the Democratic primary, you’ll vote in exactly one election. However, given the relatively few number of votes, your vote has a larger chance at being pivotal (especially if there is a delegate race in your district). Whatever your reason, go vote. Plus, they give you a free sticker :)
I actually reminded a fellow Crystal Plaza resident to vote in the elevator this morning. (She saw my sticker and enquired–see, they do work!). So I informed her where our polling place was…and then afterwards I noticed her driving off in a car with the bumper sticker “Bush: back by popular demand.” Good thing this isn’t a general election!

I’ve been traveling quite a bit, which somewhat accounts for the blogging lag (though my laziness accounts for more). Last week I went up to MIT for my brother’s graduation. They successfully awarded him with a couple of degrees (math and mechanical enigeering). The commencement speaker (Qualcomm’s CEO) was quite boring, reciting more an autobiography than dispensing pearls of wisdom. The graduating class audibly chuckled when the next speaker thanked Mr. Qualcomm with his inspiring address–the rest of us were polite enough to bite our tongues.
On Saturday we had an extended family dinner in Boston. Whenever a critical mass of the Strauss clan gather in the same room the subject invariably turns to riddles. First, my cousin offered up this bridge riddle, which I had heard before but thanks to a faulty memory had to re-solve. Next up was this riddle I had never heard of, and it took me a couple of days to solve. It’s not the most fascinating I’ve heard, but it should keep you occupied:

Three people are in a room with numbers on their heads. They can see the other two numbers, but not their own. Two of the numbers add up to the third number, and all the numbers are positive integers. The first person is asked if, from looking at the other two numbers and using smart, rational logic, she knows the number on her head. She does not. The second and third persons are asked the same question sequentially and they respond similarly. The first person is asked again, and this time she replies, “Yes i do, and my number is 50.” What were the numbers on the second and third persons’ heads? Good luck, and email me for confirmation.

Right now I’m in California (San Fran), read to return after a successful night of focus groups.

Growing up watching the X-Files resulted in me viewing FBI agents’ attempts to thwart government conspiracies as commonplace. Hence my disappointment today when we learned that Mark Felt, then #2 at the FBI, was Deep Throat–Woordward’s anonymous source in the Watergate scandal. The captivating, decades-long build-up did not end in some startling revelation of Republican back-stabbing, but with a government employee ostensibly doing his job. Perhaps the FBI was different in the 60s and 70s, with the agency beholden to the Commander-in-Chief, but when I became introduced to politics, Louis Freeh was recommending a special prosecutor to investigate the Clinton Administration. Thus, it seems natural to me that an agent with knowledge of a vast cover-up that harms the American public would do his or her best to fight it. And that appears to be just what happened. Yawn: what’s next?
(A potentially more interesting aspect of this story is why the Washington Post has taken so long to comment on this revelation and if they are disappointed that they could not break the story of the final chapter in the Watergate saga.)

Featured on the front page of ESPN is a fellow Camp Wigwam alum, Andrew Goldstein. The story is about being an openly gay athlete at the upper level of sports. Congrats to Andrew for being an All-American, this amazing goal against ‘Cuse, and overcoming his obstacles.

Went to Theatre J with Taren and Rain last night, where we watched Hannah and Martin, a play about the philosopher Martin Heidegger and his student/paramour, Hannah Arendt. The play raised several moral conundrums, the primary of which was what limits (if any) that should be imposed on the marketplace of ideas.
For instance, as Heidegger began to sympathize with the Nazis, he dismissed the ideas of the Communists (and to some extent, the Jews) out of hand because of their background or politics. Arendt, the protagonist in the play, and her husband vehemently argued that all ideas should put in the open for discussion. But, the play goes on to ask, what about ideas that brainwash and ideas that lead to Holocaust? And while it’s clear that those dangerous ideas should be rejected (if not censored), what about Heidegger’s work after the war? Should he be barred from teaching? Should his books not be published? And how much did his politics have to do with his philosophy? Interesting questions and ones I don’t have complete answers for.
On a lighter note, LOTD: Store Wars (really funny)

On Wednesday night, some co-workers, Rain, and I went to the midnight showing of Episode III at Gallery Place. The theatre sold so many tickets, it had to increase the number of theatres showing the movie from three to six. Most of the people in our party had theatre 10 and three had theatre 12. So three of us, Rain, co-worker Taren, and I set off to get everyone T10 (theatre 10) tickets by bartering with others. Taren found a young woman wanting two T12 tickets and willing to trade for theatre 10 tickets. Perfect. So I get set to trade our tickets, when I realize I have two theatre 12 tix and a credit card stub (which I thought I threw out). Whoops! I had accidentally tossed away Dave’s theatre 12 ticket. Well, no matter at that moment, we still had two tickets to trade. After that trade we needed a ticket for Dave and a ticket for co-worker Allison who hadn’t bought a ticket yet. It turned out that the same young woman we traded with had two extra tickets, so we bought back our original theatre 12 tickets. Then I made my second dumb move for the evening: in trying to trade for two theatre 10 tickets, I traded for one theatre 10 ticket and one theatre 13 ticket. I thought that Settlers of Catan-like trade was progress…survey says: X. Now we were stuck with one theatre 13 ticket, and even though theatre 13 moviegoers didn’t have to wait in line (they were already being seated), trading a single ticket is difficult (to say the least). Taren gets the idea that we should try to trade the ticket in at the counter, but the cinema will only give out theatre 9 tix, since they are still selling theatre 9 seats. Taren also thinks we may be able to sell several of our T10 tix for T13 tix and then split into two groups. But I wasn’t willing to give up the chance to all sit together just yet. Yet another option was to buy an extra ticket to pair with our current T13 (which we would have traded for a T9) and eat the $10. We then both (1) found a couple with T10 tix willing to trade and (2) thought of the fact that we could cinema-trade one T13 and one T10 for two T9’s and then barter them off. Hence: success! Everyone got to watch Star Wars in the same theatre. (Thoughts on the actual movie a bit later.)

A great article in the New York Times about Katie Brownell, who pitched a perfect game (all strikeouts) in little league.
I believe the antiquated 1952 ban on women MLB players is still in effect, which is why Ila Borders had to play in an independent league. Hopefully, young women like Katie will change this ridiculous policy.

This creative blog should help tide you over until Episode III is launched. (Start with the first entry and work your way forward.)