recent tracks:

Nory was spayed

and she didn't like it too well. She's doing better now, though, sniffing around a bit and venturing out from under the bed for brief spells.

Ok I just spent forever using validators to try to determine why IE seems to dislike rwuaclu.blogspot.com. The rest of the site seems to be in order now.

I have a new printer/scanner/copier/fancy machine on the desk in front of me. It is lovely. I have used each of those three functions much to my satisfaction. One such result may be viewed to the right!

Tomorrow my benefactors will be coming into town to celebrate some random day. That should be fun. There are also such things to work out as my midterm next Friday, paper the next Wednesday, and the fact that the $2 movie theater just got in a batch of movies I want to see.

Then there are the concerts! After the paper is turned in, Of Montreal, Islands (nee Unicorns), Neko Case, and Built to Spill, among other worthwhile acts, will be coming to Boston. How many will I see, if any? I don't know. I will hopefully at least see Wilco at Brown later in the spring.

And events at school. I've put in a bit of volunteer time for the Public Interest Auction this Friday, which will help fund stipends to compensate students doing unpaid public interest work this summer. My favorite source for Gitmo info, Prof. Goldstein, is speaking again this Wednesday (an ACLU event), there'll be GLAD and others coming, and this past Wednesday I attended an honors roundtable with the president of Women's and Infants' Hospital here in RI on the topic of government health care policy. Lots of interesting stuff to learn and consider.

Events not at school seem to give way to classes, as Brown has had some quite interesting speakers I've been forced to miss--linguistics, censorship, all my favorite things. Much sadness!

Laveranues got some upgraded digs today. He is ecstatic. Monroe could now use an upgrades, as the cats have been working on breaking down his shelter from the outside while he works on it from the inside.

And because I can't go a post without politics, here is a short BBC article on an interesting phenomenon. Mr. Rumsfeld claims that we "must respond faster to events and learn to exploit the internet and satellite TV." This seems to me to be a fundamentally flawed point of view and a symptom of the disease that is infecting our federal government right now. Another symptom of this disease, whatever exactly it is, is blindness to the way the international community as a whole views the United States. Another symptom is playing as fast and loose with international law as with grammar, using torture and terms without definitions (terrorism, enemy combatant). Even the conservative talk show hosts I listen to (O'Reilly and Graham primarily) have begun to acknowledge the "arrogance" (one of them used this word specifically; I forget which) of the current administration. The fact remains, though, that "the US is losing the propaganda war against al-Qaeda and other enemies" because we insist on defying the international community, the Geneva Conventions, and even the basic tenets of our own government (for example, the strong push in the courts to deny Guantanamo detainees the opportunity to challenge their detention via a writ of habeas corpus), we try to skirt the line between mere morally abhorrent treatment of prisoners/detainees and torture actionable as war crimes, and whatever moral high ground we might have had is therefore eroding quite rapidly. Maybe Mr. Rumsfeld should address some of these issues before rushing to update the DoD website next time insurgents behead someone (a practice they have apparently cut way back on after noticing its adverse effect on support for the insurgency).

After that rant, curious where I stand on the whole cartoon thing? Whether you are or not, this sums it up pretty well. "The Jordanian editors said that their intent was to show that the cartoons were silly and thereby to calm, not provoke, popular anger." Once again, the ACLU agrees as well. Now the violence that has ensued is absurd, and might counteract the point made in the HRW article (i.e. indicating that the cartoon does promote imminent violent action) but I believe that that is more symptomatic of general east-west tensions right now and that I would be able to come up with a better statement if I weren't so tired.

So I'll sign off and tell you that Summer is well, the apartment is well, and I am tired.

Peace.