Friday, April 29, 2005

Let's get outraged for no reason. It's the American Mexican way.

From World Net Daily (an always reliable source of unbiased news) via RIL:

L.A. now in Mexico?
Billboard for TV newscast has 'CA' crossed out, nation's named added

An immigration activist group is drawing attention to a photograph showing a billboard ad for a Spanish-language TV newscast in L.A. on which the "CA" abbreviation after "Los Angeles" has been crossed out and the word "Mexico" added in its place.

Even Arnie is putting in his two pesos:

"I think they should take it down immediately," Schwarzenegger said. He called it "divisive" and "unnecessary" and said it promoted illegal immigration.

Uh, the fuck? Promotes illegal immigration? Explain that one to me, por favor.

Or maybe they're just honing in on their target audience, many of whom are from Mexico. It's a fucking marketing technique.

What ever happened to free enterprise, conservative America? Calm down.

Perhaps the concern is that images like these promote a compromised American culture, as if culture in California weren't based as heavily on Mexican influences as on any non-Spanish European influences. It's amazing how such blatant racism is acceptable if it's in the name of cultural integrity.

The most hilarious part of the outrage is the fact that, hey, guess what, Los Angeles used to be in Mexico! "L.A. Now in Mexico?"? How about "L.A. Back in Mexico?" Yeah, isn't strange how things change over time? Crazy.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 11:09 AM
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Thursday, April 28, 2005

No elections results for at least another week. Boo!

The lamest e-mail I've gotten in a long time:

This morning, Mr. Liberman informed the Judicial Council that he in fact plans to contest the following three charges filed by the Attorney General:

1. Violation of By-Laws 4.13.6.2
2. Violation of By-Laws 4.13.6.6
3. Violation of By-Laws 4.13.6.8

Because the defendant was notified of these charges on Monday, April 18, he has had an appropriate amount of time to prepare his defense. We will be hearing AG v. Liberman (1,2,3) this Sunday, May 1, at 7pm. Mr. Liberman requested a postponement of several weeks due to medical problems, but in light of the time-sensitive nature of these cases and the fact that Mr. Liberman can send a proxy representative if he is not in Berkeley this weekend, we are not granting this request.

Furthermore, because there is election litigation pending, the tabulation of votes will be delayed until this matter is resolved and the appeals period has expired.

RD Gregg

I hate it when people take advantage of their right to appeal, especially if it inconveniences me.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 6:49 PM
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Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Got nothing else better to do on a Wenesday night?

Then come watch Mike Davis sue the pants off of me at 9:30pm in the Senate Lounge!

Davis v Brown: Deathmatch 2005

Actually, I'm less likely to have my pants removed by any judicial procedures than I am by the handle of cheap vodka that might be accompanying me.

A good time will be had by all.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 7:40 PM
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Sunday, April 24, 2005

Posturing is half of doing

Inspired by the recent realizations that (a) I am brilliant, (b) I have a very poor memory, despite the fact that I have never smoked pot or huffed glue, and (c) many of my brilliant thoughts are forever lost in the recesses of my brain, never to be published or appreciated by a future audience of eager undergraduate students who cling to every word their brilliant (and attractive) professor Dr. R. Brown utters, I decided to purchase a quartet of handsome 3" X 5" spiral-bound notepads from the Cal Student Store today. Thus from here on out, whenever I am struck with insight, genius, verbal creativity, or a really good cock joke, I can lunge for my back pocket, whip out a Bic Roundstick, and capture my thoughts on paper.

Indeed, the three most creative and talented writers whom I consider my good friends (David, Sean, Matt) never leave home without their notepads. They also never leave home without their penises. This leads me to believe one of two things: either only men are capable of being excellent writers, or maybe I need a penis. Er, no. Maybe I need a notepad.

I figure that adopting all the behaviors of good writers will in turn make me a good writer. So in addition to my new notepads, I'll always be armed with a pencil tucked over my ear, an inquisitive furrow on my brow, and a tumbler of whiskey in my palm. Did I mention that David, Sean, and Matt all also drink a lot?

So as I hammer through the last forty pages of my thesis in the next seventeen days, look for me on campus dutifully scrawling in my little notepad while I walk through Sproul Plaza or sit through lecture. But please don't actually look at what I'm writing; it'll probably just be pictures of stick figures doing each other in the butt. Which is awesome.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 7:39 PM
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Friday, April 22, 2005

Fuck Yeah I'm Hot and You Want to Buy Me Woo Hoo!

That's right, party people. The ASUC is having a date auction wherein student group leaders, Greeks, and athletes will be sold like slabs of meat to a salivating student body. But it's all for the children, so the objectification is justified.

Yours truly, Rebecca C. Brown (aka Campus Personality Rebecca C. Brown) will be among those on the block. I'm planning on duping one of my friends into buying me for $50 of my own money. But hopefully, my inherent hotness will speak for itself and I won't have to shell out any cash to rescue myself from embarassment.

How hot am I, you ask? Hotter than your mom's crack pipe after she takes a fat hit. That's how hot. Not just hot, but hawt. Maybe even haugt. Boiling. Definitely worth the money.

And if short blond girls aren't your thing, there should be some other hot people up for sale, too. I for one am coming armed with some dough of my own to spend on my fellow ASUC-ites. If I can get two dates out of one event, all the better.

It's at the Bear's Lair...I'm hoping the presence of alcohol will increase my commodification potential.

Summer Love: A Date Charity Auction
Tuesday, May 3, 7:30pm
Bear's Lair
Proceeds go to Children’s Hospital and Research Center of Oakland

For more information, to submit an application to be pawned off, and to view the profiles of all the participants (as they submit them), please visit asuc.org/auction.

(Speaking of which - does anyone out there have any good pictures of me to submit for my profile? All the pictures I currently have of myself depict me being very drunk or very young. And only one of those traits is hot. I'll let you guess which one.)

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 5:02 PM
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Thursday, April 21, 2005

I hate Libertarians

(clipped from comments to "patr" made on calpatriotwatch)

Now, in this respect (it's ok for government to stop people from harming each other) liberals and libertarians are on exactly the same page. The problem is that libertarians try to create a phony distinction between harming through action and harming through inaction. If a man decides not to swerve around me with his car he is as guilty of hurting me as had he decided to swerve into me. Libertarian would argue against Universal Health Care even if it was proven that it is more efficient than the system we have (and it has been shown!). They would say that the thousands who die needlessly each year, and more importantly, the thousands who spend more then they have to have no right to ask the minority who would not benefit to agree to the system.

Libertarians are a strange breed. I like to view them as the last in the old-form ideologies that held that economic organization shouldn’t be a question of efficiency, but one of morality. In that regard they are more like communists than anything else out there today. I think they lasted so long because their ideas haven’t actually been implemented anywhere except where they were done so half-assedly by the business interests that feed them. (I’m thinking of Thatcher and Reagan here.) As such, they haven’t had any high-visibility failures like the Soviet Union. Of course, it’s crazy to think that such a marginal ideology would ever get any real power but I sure wish we had a “confederate libertarian republic of Botswana” or something like that to point to and laugh at whenever someone starts waving Ayn Rand about.

~ ~ ~ ~

(this is my new rsponse to "patr" that was too long to post in the comment section)

Free markets and free trade are indeed awesome ways to create goods and services. They are almost always more efficient than any other system. I myself am a firm supporter of free trade in general (although many “free trade” agreements are problematic) and have argued for it against Lou Dobbsian conservatives many times. The question is: what do we do in that tiny minority of cases where the free market is not an efficient market? What do we do when a market is so inefficient that even government can do a better job? Liberals answer that the social contract justifies government action (though we should be wary of the inefficiencies inherit to it). This is why Liberals support anti-trust laws, consumer protections, environmental protections and Jeese, basic things like public transportation (where appropriate). These things cannot be justified by any coherent version of libertarianism I know of. And yet they are absolutely necessary to maintaining our standard of living.

I want to make this very clear, because if the markets were always the best way to provide services, liberals and libertarians would never disagree.

It’s interesting to compare our nation’s healthcare system (the system by which we protect people from being harmed by virus and the like) and our national security system (the system by which we protect people by being harmed by guns and knives and things). It's obvious that free market can't provide security against invading armies as efficiently as a government can. Unless you are typing from a militia in Montana, I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s ok for the government to force people to pay their share of the national security budget even if they don’t want to. And yet, if we accept that Universal healthcare is more efficient than what we have now (no stretch of the imagination) I can’t see how you can escape the conclusion that the United States would be justified in instituting healthcare reform of that type. That’s really the limits of libertarianism.

The greatest mistake is to confuse libertarianism with an economic philosophy. It is a moral philosophy that uses half-assed economic theory to try and justify itself.

posted by Tommaso Sciortino at 9:59 AM
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Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Lamezors, Daily Californian

I see that Ben has already invested his two cents about today's edition of the Daily Cal, but I have my own bone to pick with my employer. I demand to have my name in the paper more, damnit!

Now don't get me wrong; I love the Daily Cal. They give me $15 a week to saw whatever I'm feeling at the moment, their review section is pretty good, and their women's golf coverage rocks!

But, seemingly for lack of anything better to print, today's opinion page was tarnished by three really lame letters to the editor.

As you can see, those last three letters each address page three columns from the previous two days, and while I don't oppose running letters about columns, I do oppose wasting that space with letters about columns besides my own.

Thus I must publish my own fan mail. The next few paragraphs are verbatim selections that I have received in my inbox over the last coupla weeks.

Just wanted to join a zillion other yahoos who've probably also done this
and tell you I think your column is brilliant. When I read the Daily Cal, I
sort of tend to skip the Op-Ed unless I see your name and a pair of
oversized sunglasses.

As I reader, I'd just like to say thank you for writing a readable (and actually enjoyable) column. You're the only Daily Cal columnist in the last three years who hasn't made me want to stab myself (or preferably them) in the eye. I hope you'll continue writing next semester, as that way I might some day no longer hate myself for reading the Daily Cal.

rebecca, you fucking rule

dear rebecca,
i wuv you.
i wuv you becuz:
a. i'm an older white man with no life other than berkeley cafes and fox news.
b. you get it.
...
ps. coud you send me a nude attachment of yourself?

If I lived in California, I would try to date you. You have an excellent sense of humor

See, that's the voice of the people!

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 7:15 PM
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Sunday, April 17, 2005

Best Fucking Idea of All Time

***UPDATE***
So I've decided that my idea was, in fact, very stupid. Thank you, my fine readers, for your consultation.
***UPDATE***

So I was at the Charter Banquet (where President Dynes, Chance B, Misha, and a thousand of our closest friends got our collective party on), and we were watching this cheesey Cal video montage about how awesome our university is, and it hit me like a ton of bricks:

I need to get the Cal logo tattooed on my ass!

That way, until the day I day, anyone who sees me naked will know where I got my undergraduate education. I'm a genius. That's how fucking much I fucking love Cal.

To help me envision this little idea, I threw something together in Photoshop:



For the record, my bottom is much more attractive than that. The bad tan line, however, is entirely accurate.

My only source of trepidation is that, like piercings, I'm sure tattoos can turn into an addiction. My older sister as of this moment has the familial monopoly on ink, whereas I'm the sole owner of any non-lobe piercings. Perhaps our failure to manifest a sibling rivalry in the last 21 years will now be remedied as we compete to give our mother the most serious heart attack.

Tell me what you think about my bright idea.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 10:47 PM
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Saturday, April 16, 2005

Chance B is Doper than Dope

There really are only two highlights to this 90-minute webcast of today's Chancellor inaguration, but they're both well worth the watch. First, at about 32 minutes, catch President Misha Leybovich's rocking speech (including a lengthy discussion of the Birge's facebook profile). Then, in the last 30 minutes or so, actually listen to what Bobby has to say. He's intelligent, pragmatic, likable, and uses concrete language. I especially appreciate his recognition of the fact that we need to cultivate education for both social and economic reasons. And he's so handsome!

Now I just really look forward to the Charter Banquet tomorrow night, at which "fine wines" will be served as an included benefit of attendance. Who'll give me ten bucks if I flash the chancellor?

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 12:01 AM
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Friday, April 15, 2005

2005-2006 Budget Proposal Posted Online

Hey check it out. ASUC student group budgets are up here! The Heuristic Squelch has been allotted $12,075 this year, thus making it yet again the best-funded ASUC publication on campus. I don't think there's a need to question the Squelch's status as most endowed pub, especially given the effort the team has invested this year into soliciting advertisers to complement ASUC funding.

The webmaster has yet again been budgeted for just a $1000 stipend, which I think is ridiculous. It's no wonder that we can't manage to find actual computer science students to fill this duty. This isn't to say that our current webmaster, Varoon, who is a Political Science major, hasn't done an awesome job; but unfortunately, by his own admission, his skills are limited. Luckilly we've been able to do everything we wanted with the website this year (at least from a programming standpoint), but in the long run the versatility and popularity of the website is going to be diminished if we can't hire students with more extensive coding capabilities. Sigh.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 5:48 PM
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Thursday, April 14, 2005

Get Your Nerd On

I try not to invest any value into stereotypes, but shit are engineers nerdy. Don't believe me? Just take a look at all the hawt fellas to be bought off tonight at 7pm at the EJC/SWE Engineering Date Auction. You could slice the dweebiness with a dull butter knife.

I personally won't be attending, choosing instead to geek it up humanities style in front of my computer tonight. (I'm still struggling to get started on that essay about closets.)

If Interdisciplinary Studies Field tried to put on a date auction, it would probably be cancelled once we realized that we couldn't agree on a time or location, or on whether or not exchanging social interaction for money was morally tenable. Just think, though...someone could buy me, Mike Davis, or Christine Lee for a tiny sum. Gee, I wonder which one of us would nab the highest bidder?

If I were to participate in tonight's engineer auction, however, I would double my fun with Chris Abad and Igor Tregub. Nothing gets me going like awkward stares and inscrutable accents.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 2:02 PM
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Monday, April 11, 2005

Sorry, adoring fans.

Rebecca C. Brown hasn't been rocking too hard as of late, so she wants to apologize for not posting for the last week. Please excuse her while she gets her proverbial shit together.

In the meantime, entertain yourselves with the image of our author writing an extensive cultural analysis of Americas from the 1920s to the 1940s using evidence from articles about closets. I don't know about you, but I'm laughing.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 10:29 PM
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Tuesday, April 05, 2005

It's Official: The Daily Californian is High

Vote for me, not because the Daily Cal told you, but because I have man hands, no eyebrows, and eyes that don't open all the way. I hate getting my picture taken.

Congratulations to fellow SQUELCH!er Ben Narodick for his well-deserved endorsement.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 1:11 PM
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Sunday, April 03, 2005

VOTERS' GUIDE NOW ONLINE

Hey party people, come read what all us loser ASUC election candidates had to say about ourselves. My vote for best candidate statements goes to...wait for it...ME! Find me under #22 for President, and #120 for Senate.

Find the .pdf at election.asuc.org, or just click here. It's a huge-ass file (over 5MB), so it might take a while to download.

On another note involving me uploading files to a server, check out the complete introduction to my thesis here. Almost as impressive as this 11-page document about cows is the fact that I finally figured out how to publicly share files from my webdisk. Anyhow, this text represents one sixth of what will eventually be my entire honors thesis. I have had the last 34 days to write 20 of the 35 pages that are due at 4:00pm tomorrow, and I chose to wait until last night to begin that task. Whoops! I'm now living to regret it. I currently have 10 new pages and 16 hours in front of me before I finally suffer from my own procrastination. The end product will be at least 60 pages long (I predict closer to 80), and is due on May 10.

If you find yourself short on sedatives, please read my introduction and give me any feedback. Mostly I'm wondering if those little cow head outlines are cool or cheesey.

I look forward to sleeping on Wednesday.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 11:11 PM
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No need to thank me. I'm self-satisfied enough as it is.

Thanks to this post, the phrase "Go go Gadget testicles" now appears on the entire World Wide Web a total of two times.

My work is done.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 1:28 AM
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Friday, April 01, 2005

I'm the biggest fucking idiot on the planet.

So much for my awesome journalism skills. I can't even read.

I got this charge sheet to post on asuc.org that was filed by my buddy Mike Liberman against Vikram Aiyer, but I was not paying attention and thought that Zack Liberman was filing charges, so I wrote a news story for the website with completely wrong information in it. It was up for five hours. It is now past 3 in the morning, and I hope my mistake didn't hurt anyone.

While I'm at it, though: Dude, Mike. What the fuck? This is worth filing charges over?

Again, my sincerest apologies to Zach. I'll have to find some other way to get your name on the front page, my friend, besides making shit up. This was a mistake and I feel terrible for it.

Speaking of the election, see y'all tomorrow at 5pm in 159 Mulford. That's the Daily Californian endorsement forum. Be there or be square. Or doing something else. But there's no way that it's cooler than the forum.

posted by Rebecca C. Brown at 3:05 AM
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