recent tracks:

Good times, sub-par movies, and fun with policy.

So my finals are done, my first year of law school is done, I am up for a raise with my tutoring job, I just had an affordable housing meeting and I feel on top of that, so all in all things are settling down. Still trying to figure out what to do about next weekend: family, be prepared. I might head down, come back for Summer and a Saturday brunch with her new lab, and then head down again for the rest of the weekend. The main problem with that: 1200 miles = some 50 gallons of gas = some $150. I guess that's not too bad (good opportunity for some music-list'nin'), but I need to get some of this $#@!*&% car stuff taken care of once and for all. In the meantime, we'll probably have our last Johnny B's brunch for a good while tomorrow, and go to a plant sale and a book sale too! I don't think I mentioned that I finished my history of the middle east and have moved on to a collection of Gandhi's various writings. I still have something like 8 gazillion books to get through, but now I have significantly less required reading to do, so I'll probably get through a short stack this summer.

A couple days ago, SEA and I went to see Art School Confidential; I don't feel like writing even a capsule review, as the critics are right when they say it's disappointing. I mean, it was ok, but don't bother. I can't recall whether we've watched any other movies lately.

This week my sense of time has been off. I went a day early to both my Civil Procedure final and my affordable housing meeting. It will probably be good to have a little time off. I'll still be doing some writing to try to get on law review (I think it has something to do with FISA...ooo) and also hope to clean up my mess of papers strewn about the apartment, but I get to sleep in!

I also have to inject a wee bit of politics before signing off:
I know some folks aren't big on the UN, but I think it's worth noting that the international community now officially takes issue with GTMO, extraordinary rendition, and prison conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan (read: Abu Ghraib, etc.). A summary article from the BBC, the actual UN report (PDF), and a report (PDF) from HRW that perhaps provides a better legal context for objections to the administration's position on such matters. In the meantime, extraordinary rendition has been ruled unchallengeable in the courts of the United States (which I personally find shocking, even though it probably doesn't matter because the US gov't has argued that a legal loophole renders the process legal where a suspect is collected outside the US). Just for a refresher, extraordinary rendition is the process of abducting a person and moving them to a country with a lax torture policy, generally leaving that person with officials or "civilian contractors" and a list of questions, then re-collecting the person and depositing them somewhere else. In Masri's case, the process was Germany -> Afghanistan -> Albania. Sounds like fun, no? Masri was suing for either $75000 in damages or an apology. Finally, here's an article that's interesting on so many levels: the MPAA censoring a poster for The Road to Guantanamo. For a brief summary of interesting points, (1) the MPAA claims the poster depicts "torture," whereas the government would strongly disagree, (2) have you ever seen a movie poster for, say Saw II or Hostel?, (3) censorship is fun!, and (4) the government and the MPAA do agree that transparency is bad, bad, bad. Ok, that wasn't as wee as I expected, but sometimes the political atmosphere becomes so interesting it simply demands comment.

Peace.