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Tuesday, November 30, 2004
The End of an Era
Watch Jeopardy! tonight to see Ken Jennigs suffer defeat after 74 victories and $2,520,700 of winnings.
I will be crying silent, invisible tears for many moments to come.
posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 5:58 PM
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Oh, I forgot to mention....
For the fourth year in a row, the Long Beach Wilson boys water polo team captured the CIF Division I title, and in doing so surprised exactly zero people. Many congratulations to Tony Martinho (my water polo coach for two years) for yet another awesome season, and the city of Long Beach in general for being cool in at least one way.
posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 10:36 AM
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Tuesday, November 23, 2004
'Tis the season for self-mutilation!
For those of you debating whether or not the wonderful world of piercing is right for you, now is the time to quit the equivocation and send yourself down an irreversable path of intentional pain. For starters, Thanksgiving is in two days, and it's always a good time to surprise the loved ones whom you haven't seen in four months with a new piece of metal. Second, my favorite piercing and tattoo vendor (Industrial Strength - on Dwight at Telegraph, next to 510 Skateboards) just got a new piercer and he rocks my socks off. His name is Todd. He's friendlier than Mr. Rogers, but with the occasional curse word. On Sunday he pierced my tragus, which is less exotic than it sounds. Normally getting one's cartilige pierced hurts like the dickens, but my new pal Todd managed to permanently scar my ear without the least bit of pain.
So go out, give into peer pressure, do the cool Berkeley thing, and get a hole poked into you.
As for the holiday, I'll be in Long Beach thanks to the generosity and vehicle of a certain Mr. Jessop. No one in my family knows that I'm coming, save for my older sister, so I hope they weren't planning to hold their Annual Rebecca Hatefest over Thanksgiving this year. For the record, this will be my sixth Thanksgiving as a vegan.
Have a great weekend, be it with family, friends, a freind's family, by yourself, or with complete strangers. See you on Monday.
posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 10:08 AM
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Friday, November 19, 2004
Articulating why moral relativism is wrong.
With the help of my brilliant Women's Studies professor Ayse Agis, I'm now able to put into words what I find so obnoxious about moral relativism and cultural relativism: in short, it's smug and patronizing.
The premise of moral relativism, as I understand it, states that each culture's values are legitimate because moral standards are not absolute or universal. Thus it is not one culture's place to unfavorably judge the values of another culture.
A lovely example to use when critiquing this position is the infamous burka Muslim women are instructed to wear based on some interpretations of the hijab (Islamic dress code) in the Qur'an. (A lot of anti-female guidlines in Islam are rhetorically protected by American moral relativists, but let's keep it simple.) According to the doctine outlined above, we bra-burning American women should not look down on the hijab because, well, that's just the way Islam works.
This attitude de-historicizes and exoticizes Islam, and absolves Muslims of blame for violence against women because they simply don't have the ability to think beyond their mysogenistic culture. (It's like when a little kid says a bad word; it's okay because he just doesn't know any better.) Distant and strange cultures are not held accountable to our rules. Forcing a woman to hide her hair or face as a clear symbol of her inferiority is acceptable because, even though I would never allow myself to be subjugated in that way, her culture is incapable of thinking differently.
No moral relativist would articulate their argument this way, obviously. The claim would go that there simply aren't universal morals. I agree to an extent. Things like legal drinking age, tax rates, agricultural policy...yeah, not gonna claim that there's one right way. But why is it so terrible to say that not letting women vote in wrong? How difficult is it to admit that cutting up a girl's genitals to prevent her from ever enjoying sex is just bad? I'm even going so far as to say that state-sanctioned executions are flatout-wrong, too (hey, I don't like certain parts of American culture, either). Though no one particular value seems to be universally applicable, the concept of empathy must at some point be recognized as present in each of us. No empathetic person should accept violence as a prominant feature in daily life.
Like I said, there are innumerable ways in which American culture sucks balls, as well. Aging hippie douchebag leftist moral relativists (or AHDLMRs, as I like to call them) don't seem to have a problem judging their own stupid country. Death penalty, economic imperialism, environmental destruction, nutritional irresponsibility; it's all bad. I like to think that I'm an equal opportunity judger. And I've got a lot of judgement in my heart.
I think we can all agree on one thing, though: GO BEARS!
posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 2:31 PM
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Why is it that conservatives in the Berkeley blogsphere seem to be bigger cowards? I was wondering this after having an imminently stupid argument over on another blog, but doesn’t it seem like the conservative bloggers use pseudonyms more? Rebecca and I and Brendan and Kevin and even Jon P all feel safe using our regular names, but very petty B and BAD and ddffssd all feel afraid. I guess it makes sense on the liberal Berkeley campus, but you’d think that people would fear the federal government’s CIA and “patriot act” more than being called on your political beliefs by your acquaintances. Anyhow, I guess the RIL boys don’t count since they’re probably afraid after reading the Protocols of the elders of Azlatan. I thought of using a pseudonym before. I even picked one out: doubting tommaso. I know, it has my real name in it, but the idea is there.
posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 9:05 AM
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Thursday, November 18, 2004
The answer is blowing in the wind.
The times they are a-changing, too. Let's face it: Tom and I aren't going to be around forever (he's got the HIV and I've got testicular cancer and the doc has given us only a few months each), and in today's fast-paced techno-global-meta economy, and blog can't afford to have just two half-assed contributers. That's where you come in. That's it, yeah, right this way.
Come write for us! Talk about national, state, local, campus politics; culture; food; family relations, human relations, intimate relations; anything that tickles your fancy but that isn't merely a rehashing of the Daily Cal. Please, dirty hippie-dippie leftist pinkos only.
Contact CalJunket at rcbrown@berkeley.edu for more info.
posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 9:32 AM
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Monday, November 15, 2004
Exactly what Democrats need to do
I don't usually link to other blogs but I’ve been thinking about this since the long car ride on Nov 3rd and this post at Orcinus just beat me to it. We need to pay attention to rural concerns, and this describes exactly why we need to do it. Not just because we want to win, but because it’s the right thing to do.
posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 5:59 PM
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A response to Hov.
(This is in response to Hov's comment to my previous post below Rebecca's )
Well, you do bring up a good point and it’s something I should be clearer on. It’s subtle but my word choice is dictated by what I think will get my point across best. In keeping with that, I sometimes have to use a word out of its historical context because most people I’m writing to have a different meaning in mind. Here, “conservative” means whatever most people think it means. Namely, it indicates the ideology of the Republicans, whatever that may be. When 35% or so of the US considers themselves “conservative” and when those people vote overwhelmingly for the Republican, and make up the bulk of their votes, you’ve got to take note. Now, I’m not saying that we can never break free of these popular definitions. They can be pretty crappy and downright misleading. When the public definition in misleading or unclear, a writer can and should redefine it. Then of course, you run the risk of your reader not accepting your definition. In keeping with that, let me take issue with the definition of conservative you gave. Defining liberal/conservative as “big government/small government” is silly. I don’t know where you get your “general analytic consensus” from, but in all my history classes, liberalism and conservatism were distinguished by the first wanting to experiment and change, the other wanting to stay with the old ways. “Big government/small government” doesn’t even make sense since “big government” has only been around since the 30s. Surely, the terms were in use before that. It was the liberals who pushed for enlightenment, democracy, and capitalism while the conservatives tried to keep religion, the king, and the aristocracy in charge. It was liberals who pushed for ending first slavery and then racism and female disenfranchisement while the conservatives defended “tradition”. Yes, there were some bad experiments: Prohibition, price controls, key parties, Affirmative Action quotas, and Wilsonian foreign policy were all failures. (I’m sure your ears are pricking up at prohibition: Didn’t FDR, a liberal, put an end to that? Yes! FDR was great because he knew when an experiment was over.) That’s why we keep conservatives around. At best they are the realist string which keeps the liberal kite flying. But 9 times out of ten, the conservatives simply represent the current power of the age. It makes sense, if you are doing good right now, why would you want anything to change? In modern times there is another faction which joins the conservatives besides the monetarily powerful, the culturally powerful who are threatened. 50 years ago it was the racists. They were fine liberals until the racist injustice of their way of life started becoming untenable. Then they promptly switched parties and started fighting all progress. That’s quite an about face! But the rich have no use for the RIL kind anymore, Hov. You guys can complain about Republican “Hispandering” all you want. The rich Conservative elite have found a new bunch of boobs. In our age, it’s the intolerant Christians elite who provide the Republicans with their 50% +1. Seeing their sway over public discourse fray over the years (see Will & Grace), and knowing that letting people to choose for themselves would weaken their power, they are reduced to trying to push intolerance through big government programs and laws. Of course, like the racists they won’t get much out of it. But I’m sure Bush’s Supreme Court justices will be busy whacking away at business regulation and efficient markets for years and years. Certainly, it would be a crime against conservatism if today's corporations had to... gasp!, compete to stay on top. Yay conservatism!
posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 9:23 AM
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Sunday, November 14, 2004
Who knew that the ASUC was actually so productive?
Sorry for the lack of posting as of late. Believe it or not, I've been spending my time doing work for your student government, and toiling away at my personal academic obligations, and playing Spider Solitaire.
Anyhow, le Big Game is this Saturday, and all campus is abuzz about how soundly we will spank our local rivals at the ol' pigskin. I say 13 points. My psychic dog told me. The ASUC is having a Big Game block party (repleat with alcohol) on Friday. We're also selling shirts that commererate Aaron Rodgers' general radness. ("Mr. Rodgers Neighborhood"...."Won't you be our Heisman?") Find us selling them on Sproul for $10. Even I bought one, and I hate t-shirts.
What we won't be selling are "Fuck Stanfurd" t-shirts. This was not based on the prudishness of any ASUC leadership so much as our reluctance to spend good will with the Chancellor on a stupid gimmick. We (the royal "we") were a phone call away from printing a few hundred of said shirts, but our buddy Chancey B got a significant number of letters from angry parents complaining that this kind of language was poisoning their children. (As if your lame SUV, polo shirt, and trophy wife weren't poison enough. Snuh.) The Chancellor didn't ask us explicitly not to participate in the "Fuck Stanfurd" hoopla, but better safe than sorry.
For my money, misspelling a university's name isn't a very good zinger anyway. In general, misspelling just makes you look stupid and petty. (Or should I say "stoopid"? See what I mean?) Maybe we should make shirts that say "Fuck Stanford for costing $30k a year and for being academically and athletically inferior to Cal and for making all their buildings look the same and for having a really terrible humor magazine." Now that would hit them where it hurts.
posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 1:43 PM
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Wednesday, November 10, 2004
On the recent Election, being an American Liberal
(Reprinted from a message to my friends)
I do not usually write e-mails to everyone on my list, but I wanted to let everyone know about my experience working for the John Kerry campaign in Nevada. Also, I wanted to get a few words in about politics in general.
Getting involved wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it was. I expected to be put in a phone bank somewhere getting cursed out by interrupted people at dinner. Instead, it turns out most of the work needed in a campaign is going door to door talking to supporters, making sure people know where their poll place is, and finding out which people need rides to get there. It was fun.
The first two days we spent in Reno and I was working “rural” duty. I got to know the town of Fernley NV pretty well. They have good hamburgers and blueberry milkshakes with actual blueberries in it! At first we thought it was weird to have so many people working Reno’s county (since it hadn’t gone Dem in a while) but it turned out it was a ruse. We made a go at Reno to draw off Republican efforts. They actually sent Cheney down there to do some last minute campaigning. If the only thing I accomplished during those four days was waste four or five hours of Dick Cheney’s time, it would have still been worth it. As it was, we ended up driving to Las Vegas.
The Dems put us up in a nice hotel and each car took responsibility for one prescient. Ours had a black neighborhood, a retirement community, and a rich neighborhood that had too many Bush/Cheney signs for my liking. (I’m told that people earning over $100,000 helped provide Bush with his margin of victory). Half way through voting, there was a hubbub at our voting place when a Republican poll-watcher illegally demanded that the people from the non-partisan “Protect the Vote” removed their identifying shirts. The public interest lawyers volunteering for the Dems pointed out that the Republicans were wrong and by the end of the day the whole thing was on the local news, with the sassy “Protect the Vote” lady giving the Republicans a piece of her mind.
We lost. I’m sure you all know that. And while it broke my heart to know that America would be gripped by corruption, secrecy and intolerance for four more years we shouldn’t lose sight of the good things that happened. For the first time ever the Liberals had as much money in an elections as the Republicans. We got 49% of the vote without the power of incumbency (like Gore or Clinton) or a third party nominee (like Perot). We had more people volunteer than ever before. We’ve started taking the media seriously with media watch dogs and talk radio stations (something which I was always for). Basically, people are starting to take politics seriously.
This is why I’m writing this letter. Most of you are (or recently were) students so like me, you can’t give money. But next time there is an election, think about volunteering. Read a book. I suggest “Lies, and the Lying Liars who tell them”, or if you’re into cog-sci “Don’t think of an Elephant”. Get a subscription to a liberal magazine. It’s pretty damn easy and it probably doesn’t cost more than $10 a year. Try Mother Jones for the emotional, Harpers for the literary, The American Prospect for the wonky, or whatever else you’d like. Mostly though, do something. It’s our country too, darn it, and in four years, when the conservatives (and anarchist libertarians, and intolerant theocrats) are through wrecking our country, dividing us through lies, and wasting our children’s future on their corporate cronies, we can say we did something.
We may not all agree on every point of policy, and we don’t have to. If you believe in getting serious about remedying terrorism, fighting its causes and its symptoms, you’re a liberal. If you think it’s wrong to log our countries forests for pennies or poison our air without punishment, you’re liberal. If you think it’s unjust for the wealthy conservative elite to raid their workers trust funds for spending money, you’re liberal. If you think it’s wrong to run up an unsustainable deficit because we’re afraid to ask corporations to pay their dues to society, you’re a liberal. If you believe that religion should inspire politicians, not policy, you’re a liberal. If you believe the government should be smarter, not bigger, you’re a liberal. In short, if you’re an American (in the true revolutionary minuteman sense of the word) you are a liberal. So don’t let people tell you otherwise. And be proud.
I would like to thank the two people who have read this far.
Update: A couple friends have written back with questions and comments. One constructive criticism was a friend who thought it was not quite right to sully Libertarians with an Anarchist reference. Another was from a friend who was upset that I would associate Libertarianism with the egalitarian Anarchists. The moral of the story: I know some pretty smart people.
posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 9:24 PM
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Sunday, November 07, 2004
Hanging with Mr. Birgeneau
With the aid of modern science and a little insider friendship (i.e., ASUC president), I got to watch yesterday's football game in the press box (first half) and in the student section with Chancellor Birgeneau and his wife (second half). The football game was pretty entertaining, but what was more entertaining was trying to maintain the schmooze level for seven straight hours. I don't know how people like Misha do it. Smiling and shaking hands and trying to say something witty every few minutes really takes the juice right out of me. On the bright side, the Birgeneaus are very cool and nice and always down for a good time.
Nothing terribly insightful to offer here. Just wanted to name drop.
posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 1:26 PM
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Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Ahhhh, fuck it.
I give up. Four more years. Shit poop. Vagina.
posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 1:41 AM
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Monday, November 01, 2004
Stick a thermometer in me…I've got election fever!
The 2004 CalJunket Voter's Guide
The day is already upon us! That's right, Around the World in 80 Days is coming out on DVD tomorrow. Also, people are gonna vote for a bunch of stuff. Here I offer my endorsements for a few offices and propositions that will appear on your California ballot.
But don't take my word for it; if there's one thing Ted Nugent and I can't stand, it's people who vote for stuff because other people tell them to. (If I had my way, political advertising would be illegal.) Not sure how to feel on a proposition? Read a comprehensive summary of the prop in your voter's guide. Still not sure? Read the primary source text of the prop (also in your voter's guide starting on page 83). If that doesn't inform you, at will at least bore you into making a decision.
It also doesn't hurt to talk about the issues with a significant other or good friend, preferably one whom you (a) disagree with on many political issues, (b) sleep with on a semi-regular basis, or (c) both. The best friendships, romantic or otherwise, are augmented by intelligent debate and subsequent romping.
Any offices, measures, or propositions that I do not include here have been omitted because either I'm not informed enough to make an endorsement or I do not have an opinion on the item.
Offices
President: John Kerry (C'mon.)
Senate: Barbara Boxer (She's a bit of a douche, but that doesn't preclude her from being a decent senator.)
Representative, Ninth Congressional District: Barbara Lee
Propositions
1A: Yes
59: Yes
60: Yes
61: No
62: No
63: Yes
64: No
66: Yes
67: No
68: YES
69: NO
70: No
71: Yes-ish
72: No
Berkeley Measures
I: Yes
Q: No
R: No
S: No (Trees? Honestly.)
I'll provide solid explanations for the more contested props after the election and when I don't have a paper due the next day.
Happy voting!
posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 10:51 PM
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