|
|
Saturday, January 1st, 2005
| |
1:52 pm - 2004 Book List
|
|
| Tuesday, June 8th, 2004
| |
8:51 am - Introductions
|
Oh, if I just added you, it's probably because of ![[info]](http://library.vu.edu.pk/cgi-bin/nph-proxy.cgi/000100A/http/web.archive.org/web/20040609062441im_/http:/=2fstat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) shadesong's friending frenzy. Just in case you were wondering. Welcome, and hi! If I don't know you yet, I'd love it if you would introduce yourself. You can introduce yourself even if I do know you, actually.
|
|
(6 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, June 7th, 2004
| |
9:59 pm - Musings on conscientious objection
|
So, we have those two proposed draft bills (to take effect in June 2005, if passed): H.R.163 and S.89.
Ages 18-26 would be affected. I turn 24 in January 2005. Damned if I'll take orders. I'd have to either get slapped in irons, run off to the hide in the mountains, or find someone in another country to marry me.
Disclaimer: No, I don't think it'll happen, and I know it's old and unrelated to reality. ^^ I'm really just using this as an excuse to play with niggly details in how the bills are phrased.
Also, my brother tells me that it was proposed by a Democrat in an attempt to make the president less willing to order war.
Anyway, both bills read in pertinent part:
SEC. 8. CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION.
(a) CLAIMS AS CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR- Any person selected under this Act for induction into the uniformed services who claims, because of religious training and belief (as defined in section 6(j) of the Military Selective Service Act (50 U.S.C. 456(j))), exemption from combatant training included as part of that military service and whose claim is sustained under such procedures as the President may prescribe, shall, when inducted, participate in military service that does not include any combatant training component.
(b) TRANSFER TO CIVILIAN SERVICE- Any such person whose claim is sustained may, at the discretion of the President, be transferred to a national service program for performance of such person's national service obligation under this Act.
Two things stand out for me:
1. Why does conscientious objection have to be religious in origin? I object as my conscience demands, agnostically.
2. I particularly like the way a conscientious objector is given military service that does not include any combatant training component. You will take orders, you will fight, you will kill, you will die - but you won't get trained to handle it first. (I think I'm joking, but it's hard to tell.)
|
|
(15 comments | comment on this)
|
| |
3:47 pm - Whether med mal is a defense to criminal charges
|
Because australian_joe might find this interesting, I hereby inform you that there are a number of criminal cases addressing the issue of whether medical malpractice bars criminal homicide convictions. In prosecution for homicide, where the defendant claims that medical malpractice was a supervening cause of death, the defendant is relieved from criminal responsibility for the death IFF the medical malpractice is the sole cause of death. People v. Griffin, 80 N.Y.2d 723 (Ct. App. 1993) (defendant convicted of second-degree murder after stabbing victim died from blood poisoning from wound missed by doctors). Even when improper medical care may have contributed to the death, a defendant whose assault had also been a cause of the death could be held criminally liable. The defendant’s actions must be a sufficiently direct cause of the death, but they need not have been unaided by other causes. A secondary cause of death, such as medical malpractice, is only a defense to criminal charges if the death was not at all induced by the defendant’s conduct. People v. Stewart, 40 N.Y.2d 692 (Ct. App. 1976) (conviction reduced from manslaughter to assault where death was caused by unrelated medical negligence); People v. Kane, 213 N.Y. 260 (Ct. App. 1915) (defendant convicted of murder by shooting woman who died from septic peritonitis subsequent to improper medical treatment).
Just a bit of a corollary to an issue we were discussing earlier.
|
|
(5 comments | comment on this)
|
| |
2:39 pm - The elevator guy wants to help you go up and down and up and down...
|
The elevator guy just serenaded me in what sounded like Italian (I know I heard 'amore' in there somewhere) all the way up to my office (11th floor). When I left the elevator, I said 'thank you' (because I always thank elevator guys), and he replied, "I'm not drunk."
We automated elevators just to rid ourselves of you people! You, the elevator men, a scourge upon the earth, finally vanquished by our decision to view little kids pushing all the buttons as the lesser evil! Yes, you greet me by name every day, you know which floor I'm going to. Yes, all I have to do is walk in and out, and you'll take care of the rest. That is your allure. But my fingers are not yet limp with age! I can push buttons myself, I tell you! And, most importantly of all - in unmanned elevators (unmanned by my stiff index finger, no doubt) sometimes I am alone - and then, as in the shower, I get to sing.
(Can you tell I don't feel like filling out authorizations? I did a morning full of interesting research work, but there is scut work to be done, too, alas.)
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Sunday, June 6th, 2004
| |
5:19 pm - High Tea
|
It is wonderful to know someone (luxnightmare) who can totally handle and enjoy discussing gangrenous scrotums and death by pierced prostate glands over afternoon tea, and can then make fun of Andrea Dworkin while showing me even more neat stuff on or about Rivington Street.
Also, if you have a chance, go to the corner of Rivington and Allen and note two things:
1. On the NE corner, someone dressed up (with well-crafted stickers) the little white light man on the Don't Walk/Walk light. He is wearing green and carrying a boombox now.
2. Where people normally tie shoes together by their laces and throw them over the wires in the middle of the box, instead there were hanging several pairs of 2d painted wooden shoe silhouettes and a pair of lizards.
|
|
(8 comments | comment on this)
|
| |
5:10 pm - I'm sorry, but he needs to see this!
|
I have a general no-posting-stupid-web-quizzes rule. But this one is too damned funny, and he'll think so, too.
| regyt's LJ stalker is the_lexpert! | | the_lexpert is stalking you because another friend of yours told them you liked them. They are also stalking you in real life. Look out! |
|
|
(2 comments | comment on this)
|
| Friday, June 4th, 2004
| |
12:48 am - B5 knew where we were going
|
|
| Thursday, June 3rd, 2004
| |
6:41 pm - Wall Street and Eyemeats
|
Working on Wall Street is surreal. Walking from the train to the office early in the morning, I am a person in a suit with shiny shoes and white iPod buds in my ears, among many people in suits with shiny shoes and white iPod buds in their ears. It is the least diverse neighborhood I've ever worked in, even when explored with Hedningarna blasting in my ears. I don't think I could work there long-term, though the part of me that remembers Jerusalem and Minas Tirith adores those narrow, cramped streets and gorgeous architecture.
Also: Best wishes to reene's doomed eyes!
|
|
(9 comments | comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, June 1st, 2004
| |
7:26 pm - More fire
|
|
| |
6:31 pm - Work-related posts
|
|
Today was my first day at my summer job. I work at a teensy medical malpractice plaintiffs' firm on Wall Street. All work-related posts will be friends-only, for obvious reasons. So, if you want to read them and I haven't friended you, just say the word and friended ye shall be.
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Monday, May 31st, 2004
| |
9:57 pm - Photos from a week with a Liz
|
|
| |
5:08 pm - A Week With a Liz
|
Where to begin? treyvadi (o Liz of my great joy) arrived last Tuesday afternoon, and left just a few hours ago to return to Indiana. We did a lot this week, so I want to just sum it up for you. (With photo galleries to follow, of course.)
Liz arrived on Tuesday afternoon. We went out shopping for fruit and settled in to make a strawberry blackberry pie. underwatercolor showed up right as we were getting into our pie-making, and proceeded to take photographs every 9 seconds or so for the remainder of the evening. We ended up with an overly sweet and exceedingly well-documented pie. We hung around with him for the rest of the night, and with others the next day.
On Wednesday night, Liz and I went out to take a MIG welding class at the Madagascar Institute. We met Touch, our unbearably cute shopmonkey of a teacher, and ShopKat, who is smart enough to stay away from hot metal even when beckoned to and likes being petted by people wearing big heavy welding gloves. We weren't half bad, and could definitely see our skills improving over the course of the evening. (I turned two pieces of steel into one piece of steel! Go me!)
Thursday began with taking the youngest of my brothers to school and watching his dance performance. Tinfoil swords and zombie dances galore. Then I dragged Liz off to Metalliferous, a dream of a metal shop. It has a bead store off to one side, and then the metal store on the other. You walk into the metal store to the sight of tools and books, and then they invite you to wander around behind the counter. They give you a tray and little plastic baggies and send you back into the dusty depths of the store. It goes on back forever. It has everything. We palpitated with overwhelming bliss and delved onwards. Then off for pho, where my waiter gave Liz his number. Then off to Thompkins Square Park for poi, where we met up with penguinjunky (Andrew) and did some twirling.
After poi, we wanted food, so Liz and Andrew and Sthenno (random poi girl) and Jillian (hula hoop/poi/masseuse/teacher girl) and I wandered off down the Lower East Side in search of foodstuffs.
( The Tale of the Bouncer at the Hip New York Club )
On Friday, replicantgrrl (Ami) came over to play with us. We did lots of dress-up and gothy photo shoot goodness. Such silliness and doom! Ami is unbearably adorable, I am what I am (you should be used to me already), and Liz was a bit sick and mostly in photographer mode. After Ami left, Liz and I went out with my brother, thejoshu, to see The Day After Tomorrow. It was awful, but we completely enjoyed the experience of watching it. And once the wolves showed up, we just couldn't stop giggling.
Saturday, we spent at home making wings out of broken umbrellas and assorted junk. Watched Dangerous Lives of Altarboys, which has magically appeared in my mailbox via Netflix.
Sunday was dim sum with Andrew and watching of Troy, which was full of pretty long-haired men in skirts hurting each other. You were all right: I adored Achilles. Then off to the Williamsburg waterfront, where we had a barbecue and spun fire. I got to meet sterlingspider and her friends, who I hope will join us more often this summer.
I'm probably forgetting a lot, but the end result was: this morning we took photos with our new homemade wings, and then off she went to the airport, to fly back to school.
Now, if you'd please excuse me while I pause for breath...
|
|
(11 comments | comment on this)
|
| Monday, May 24th, 2004
| |
1:24 am - Billionaires for Bush
|
Last night, on a last-minute whim, xopods and I went out to the Billionaires Ball, organized by Billionaires for Bush.
Photos from the evening are here.
The Republican National Convention is heading to NYC in August, to the general bewilderment and disgust of all. There have been and will continue to be a lot of anti-Bush events leading up to this. The Billionaires Ball was one such event. The decor was most affluent. All dressed as billionaires and acted out a satirical ode to how much we love Bush and all he has done for us, the billionaires of corporate America.
Plus, there were hula hoopers, so how could I resist?
xopods was still in town, visiting from Canada, so he got dragged into this evening of nonsense, debauchery, and American politics. He tried to teach me how to mingle, to little avail. Mingling is not my forte. He claimed that if I bother to smile when I make eye contact with strangers, they'll approach me. This sort of worked, if you count a few girls, a couple from California, a born-again Christian, and one of the performers as a success. I really like the people-watching and chatting with people I'm introduced to, but for the most part don't really know what to do with myself at parties.
We finally found my friend, Jillian, late into the night. We were with her when a girl in marvelous pink $$ pasties approached her and gifted her with pink-and-diamond pasties, then promised pasties to all who followed her to the sex room. There was no sex in the sex room, so it was poorly named, but there were lots of comfortable chatty laughing people and lots of pasties being applied. The lady gifted me with these.
We saw a guy doing something between gymnastics and rap and preaching, and he was making noises, and I whispered to xopods, "Last time I saw this guy he was dressed in gold paint and he was saying 'Do not let yourself be distracted by the flying pieces of chocolate while you try to remember when you were in the womb.' " Moments after I said this, of course, the fellow went back to extolling the virtues of remembering the womb. Personally, I fail to see the appeal.
There was one skit where the poor liberal revolutionaries marched in and told us about a liberty and free speech event to take place at 26 Wall Street (at which point I whispered to xopods, "I'll be working down the block from there this summer!"). The head revolutionary then gave a slow sneer at the crowd of faux billionaires, and continued in a voice dripping with disgust: "...Wall Street, which some of you may be familiar with."
Serious content to follow eventually, but I still have a bit over a week left before I start work at my [Wall Street] firm for the summer.
|
|
(13 comments | comment on this)
|
| Friday, May 21st, 2004
| |
1:57 am - xopods's first interaction with the youngest of my brothers
|
xopods is sleeping in my guest bedroom. He wakes up around 7:30 am to go to the bathroom. While in the bathroom, he hears the boy bound loudly up the stairs.
My mother yells, "Be quiet so you don't wake him up, he's sleeping!"
The boy knocks on the bathroom door. xopods says, "I'm in here."
The boy incredulously declares, "He's sleeping in the bathroom?!"
|
|
(4 comments | comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, May 19th, 2004
| |
3:25 pm - The Princess Bride and the youngest of my brothers
|
There is something marvelous about introducing The Princess Bride (the movie) to a 9-year-old boy. It was the first movie he ever watched all the way through, but that was when he was too young to remember. I had been goofing around with my old plastic She-Ra sword, when he was very very young, declaring, "Father, guide my sword!" He was confused, so I showed him the movie then. Today he watched it again, for the first time in his memory.
I stepped out of the room to get a drink, and when I returned, the boy gave me this update: "The farm boy is dead and she's getting married. Does he have anything to do with the movie?"
He was also half-convinced the man in black was actually Prince Humperdink, until we saw Humperdink interpreting the footprints where the duel had taken place on the cliff.
He seemed unduly amused by all the times Billy stopped his grandfather from describing the kissing scenes, and was pounding his fist against the arm of the chair when Billy let his grandfather describe the kiss at the end. Who knows what goes on in the minds of 9-year-old boys?
The boy gave me this wonderful big smile at the end of the movie, when the grandfather said to Billy, "As you wish." Hopefully he'll be scarred for life and unable to interpret that phrase as anything other than "I love you," just like me. (Note to world: Don't you ever dare say that to me unless you mean it like that.)
It's such fun when the boy is home sick from school and thus at the mercy of my whims. He's reading A Wrinkle in Time now. He empathizes with Ender from Ender's Game. He is obsessed with books that involve dragons. He skateboards and makes chainmail and has a crush on a little girl who also has a crush on him, but he has decided not to pursue that, since he is only 9 and she is going to a different school next year. He has a little handheld chess game and he's a grade ahead in his math class. (As he described it to me, in his school, there are three math classes each year: the stupid class, the okay class, and the accelerated class. And then there's next year, which is where they stuck him.) I'm so proud of the boy.
(Mike, if you're reading this - the boy wants you to meet his math teacher. If you stop by, he wants to take you into school with him.)
(Joe, if you're reading this - the boy is upset that you're not teaching his grade.)
Edit: Go take wispfox's poll on whether or not you interpret "As you wish" as "I love you."
|
|
(19 comments | comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, May 18th, 2004
| |
11:25 pm - For wispfox
|
|
| |
10:01 pm - Quote of the [period of time]
|
|
"You're beautiful, girl. Get up so I can get your phone number." – Bleu (to a girl passed out on the sidewalk)
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Monday, May 17th, 2004
| |
1:21 pm - Summer 2004 Ice Cream #2
|
|
| |
2:35 am - Weekend in Sum
|
Spent Friday with snorkjoe and matt_rah, playing games and drinking coffee and ice wine and generally having a wonderful time.
Went to see Cirque du Soleil (Allegria) on Saturday with neopanda and co. Gorgeous as always. Except there was a fire staff performance, and I know people who are better, so I was too spoiled to enjoy it. The aerial stuff, the music, and the costuming is what really does it for me.
Went out afterwards to this fellow's apartment and played Killing Dr. Lucky, a Cheap-Ass game. Vastly amused was I, despite not winning. There was wonderful banter and argument and a really fun group dynamic. Also, for once I was not the biggest liberal in the room. Ended up crashing at neopanda's along with everyone else.
Came home, showered, changed, and promptly ran out the door, because it was time to meet up with Bleu and head to Williamsburg. We went to the waterfront, which was just gorgeous. A big cement platform covered in burnt sculpture, scrap metal, and broken glass. Had to head there after climbing past wreckage and through wild foliage. We were alone for a while, and I played with my flags. Oh, and the water, and the view of the skyline, and the hipsters playing lonely guitars and drinking on the beach. This will hopefully become a weekly thing.
I learned how to twirl a hula hoop from a girl who is a teacher and a professional masseuse. Then she requested a back rub, and seemed pleased with the results. Apparently I'm the only person to successfully manage deep-tissue massage on her. She died happy, opened her eyes to declare me her betrothed, died more, and then promised to tell all of New York how great I am in bed.
Eventually it grew dark, and we had ourselves some fire. Strangers discovered us, pulled out their own poi and toys, and joined in the fun. Some of them knew a friend of thejoshu's boss. There were lots of fire poi, fire baton, and some wire wool. A really good atmosphere, was the best part.
I played with my camera. Photos are here.
I got home at 2am, and my mother was up waiting for me. She hasn't seen me all weekend. She was very upset. She demanded that I think hard about my life, and what would make me happy, and what I should bar from my life now so as not to regret it later.
I am happy, I told her. I have thought very hard about such things, and I continue to do so. I have such a wonderful life, with such balance between my academic strength, my professional weekdays, and my eccentric time off.
|
|
(9 comments | comment on this)
|
|
|
|
|
