On the heels of Northwestern’s not too impressive victory over Duke, and Cal’s epic stomping of Washington State, I’m heading off to an undisclosed wilderness location for some orientation. So, no blogging till the 16th, at the very earliest.
In the past day, I’ve gone from not having a cell phone for the past six weeks to having a blackberry. Needless to say, it’s been a rather traumatic transition. I can read my email everywhere! It’s cool! It’s also weird!
I was always vaguely aware of Lingua Franca, either as the magazine that exposed the Sokal Hoax or as one of Rick Perlstein’s first employers; but until now, I hadn’t actually gotten around to poking through their archives. Which is really quite unfortunate, because they’re awesome.
I’m sure everyone above the age of 28 already knew this, but Lingua Franca was really, really good. Like, when I imagine the magazine I would start if I married a very rich woman, it would look a lot like Lingua Franca.
But down at #10, we get this: “The world is run by dinosaur-like reptiles.” What the hell kind of conspiracy theory is that? Dick Cheney doesn’t look anything like a dinosaur.
For some reason, my years in policy debate meant I became very well acquainted with the world of conspiracy theories. For all the 2007-2008 debate season, my partner and I said that the US government invented AIDS to target black and homosexual populations and that “to increase public health assistance to sub-saharan Africa” the government should distribute the cure, Tetrasil. But it didn’t stop there, we would also argue that the other team was being controlled by the ELF god through cell phone towers and that they should have specified in their plan text (the short description of the government policy the affirmative team advocates) that they buy orgone blasters to “nullify the ELF harassment and the other mind control weapons and tactics emitting from these towers.”
We also won a round on the basic flat earth argument. The affirmative team wanted to send provide more people to a satellite wing of the DOD, and we argued that because the earth was flat, it meant that there was no “space” and thus no satellite. No satellites, no affirmative plan, negative wins.
The repitilians were another conspiracy theory we threw in on occasion. To give some background, famed conspiracy theorist David Icke has propagated the theory that “repitilian humanoids” - cross bread hyrbids of humans and aliens from the constellation Draco - had infiltrated earth and that most political leaders were nothing more than Reptilians themselves, or slaves to the Reptilians. And if an affirmative plan was in fact being implemented by malovalonet half-breed robots, would it ever work? I don’t think so. This argument was especially deadly on the topic which mandated that the US “increase its support of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations.” Not only were there great articlesclaiming that the UN was a Reptilian ploy, there was this fantastic picture:
Enough said.
PS - I should note that David Icke is also an anti-semtic nutjob. Just putting that out there.
There are a lot of things I like - the Golden State Warriors, video games, comfortable beds - but one of my favorites is good, in-depth writing about social policy. I don’t why, but I’ve grown to prefer articles like Emily Bazelon’s school integration piece or Hanna Rosin’s Atlantic article about Section 8 to my old favorite long magazine piece: crazy shit by Robert Kaplan. In that vein, everyone should read Dana Goldstein’s quick interview with Douglas McGray about the Bush administration’s sucess in reducing homelessness. Apparently, the administration let their homelessnes czar, Phillip Mangano, just do his job without any political interference. And since he was a smart, dedicated guy who applied empirical and tested techniques to reducing homelessness, he seems to have done a good job. You should also check out McGray’s Atlantic profile of Mangano.
Also, if you want budding commentary on social policy, you can read my posts at Pushback about school integration and marriage.
UPDATE: Might as well pimp my stuff on Pushback a bit more. I have posts on why TI concerts won’t increase the youth vote and how eliminating agricultural subsides won’t affect the eating habits of Americans in a meaningful way. I know I’m not the best judge, but I’d say these posts are better than what you’re seeing here. Maybe that’s cause I won’t to uphold the sterling reputation of the Center For American Progress, or something like that…
Sorry for being a bit graphic, but that is the main result of one getting their wisdom teeth removed. The actual surgery was uneventful, except for the hour of laughing gas supplemented by the “Pure 80s” CD I picked out (trust me, it was the best one). Let me say, you haven’t lived until you’ve had a dentist hacking out your tooth while listening to Karma Chameleon, without a care in the world (thanks nitrous oxide!).
Although I haven’t gotten anything up at Pushback today, and am probably too lazy to write something on ACB,I should probably point out that I posted some thoughts on the Lisa Belkin NYTM child care story up at The American Scene. I even made an awesome 2×2 matrix to express my ideas in graphic form. Yeah, because I’m that cool.
Free WiFi! In the terminal! If only I knew about this earlier….
But seriously, props to McCarran, paying for WiFi in airports totally sucks. So yeah, I’m gonna be in Sin City until Wednesday night, so one can guess what will happen to blogging regularity. I’ll still be spitting fire at Pushback all week, however.
So, at 2 PM yesterday, Campus Progress’ new blog, Pushback, finally launched to the public. I’m one of 18 contributors, including blogosphere super star (and editor) Kay Steiger, editors Rob Anderson and Jesse Singal, as well as 14 other young people with resumes and experience far more impressive than mine.
I suggest (neigh, demand!) that yall go read, blogroll it, RSS it, comment on it, link to it etc. Considering that liberals and progressives have been complaining for eons that young people don’t care about politics anymore AND that there aren’t progressive institutions to come up with good ideas and aggressively promote them, it would seem incumbent on them to give Pushback a looksee. Not only does it have young people writing about politics and culture from an explicitly progressive perspective, it’s also part of the Center For American Progress behemoth that is slowly coming to dominate progressive politics, and hopefully one day, the world.
I guess that I should note that some blogging will be moving over there. I haven’t quite figured out what the exact division of labor will be, but I do know that explicit campaign stuff will stay here, as well as posts with a more philosophical or historical bent that tend to meander. Don’t except volume here to fall by too much, and if there’s anything particularly interesting I write for PB, I’ll definitely link to it here. Of course, you should have already read it at Pushback.
And, since it’s so cool, here’s my bio video for the site.
So, during a Democratic debate on January 5th, I wrote a post castigating Barack Obama for complaining about high gas prices. The argument was simply that if we want to actually do anything about AGW, high gas prices are inevitable. I didn’t think much of it, as it was part of a debate liveblog that included more than a dozen posts. Fast forward to June. Fox News’ blog, “Embeds,” which is written by FNC producers, put up a post about Obama and gas prices, and through wordpress’ “possibly related posts” feature, a link to my original post was featured prominently. Well, I had NO IDEA that so many people read Embeds, and more importantly, clicked on the related links. And so, it’s gotten over 1000 views today, which makes it the second most viewed post behind a post Yglesias linked to back in May of 07. So yeah, welcome embed readers! Stay awhile! Comment Away! Visit Pushback.
Sorry for the recent lack of blogging, but the combination of frantically preparing for a debate tournament, the looming reality of AP tests and 2-3 NBA playoff games every night, regular blogging can get lost in the shuffle. And it will remain lost in that same shuffle until Tuesday.
Why, oh why? My dear readers cry! That’s because until then, I’ll be in beautiful Lexington, Kentucky, debating in the Tournament of Champions (yes, it’s really called that). It’s the big, year end debate tournament that’s the closest thing high school debate has to a national championship.
On a slightly more long term note, by the time yall read this, I will have completed my final high school class (AP Physics incidentally). That’s right, on May 2nd, I’ll be done with school. I still have APs to take and graduation early in June, but I’ll never once again actually have to attend a class. So I guess that’s a pretty big deal.
Speaking of big deals, one of the bigger deals is the entire college application process. I’ve tried to avoid writing about it as much as possible - if you want to hear the travails of upper middle class kids trying to get into competitive schools, just read the Times - but considering that there’s only one real bit of news to share, I’ll share it. Assuming no wait-list shenanigans occur, this fall I’ll be enrolling in and attending Northwestern University. I can’t begin to say how excited I am to freeze my ass off for half the year…kidding!…in all seriousness, I’m really thrilled to be going to Stephen Colbert’s alma mater.
Of course, I wouldn’t be a college blogger if I didn’t take some potshots at my school. So here we go. Recently, Northwestern announced that they would be not be giving Jeremiah Wright an honorary degree “in light of the controversy” around the pastor. Now, say what you will about Wright’s recent remakes, but this is a pretty interesting standard Northwestern has set up. Apparently, if you merely say bad things about America, you can’t get an honorary degree there, but if you’re an unrepentant former terrorist, you can be on the law school faculty. Now, those two positions seem like they’re a wee bit in tension with each other, but maybe there’s much about Northwestern I’m still yet to learn.
I don’t know whether to be amazed or horrified by this, but it’s pretty cool either way. As I write this post, I’m actively using three different instant messaging applications: AIM, Google Chat and Facebook Chat. Sure, I could do my AIMing and G-chating both through g chat, but that wouldn’t be very sporting. But I’m still having some trouble sorting out the significance of this. Could it be the first step to everyone merging into the noosphere or could it be - along with the laser-armed Japanese robots - a harbinger of Sky Net seizing power and enslaving us all.
And even if it isn’t representative of some great technological or historical trend, it sure makes doing homework more difficult.
I’m going to be flitting about the country, trying to figure out where to go to school, until Tuesday. Blogging won’t entirely come to a stand still, but it will certainly be more sporadic. So don’t abandon ship entirely, there’s some stuff making fun of Fred Kagan’s reinvention as a demand side Keynesian and some thoughts on shoes forthcoming.
I’ve resisted writing about the never ceasing hell that is the college admissions process for an upper-middle class, ambitious teenager who comes from a family and culture that values education. And while I think that there’s been plenty of interesting stuff I’ve learned along the way and would like to write about, my own general abstinence from such navel-gazing has been part of my own little personal effort to counteract the Sunday Timesification of writing about college admissions, whereby it’s seen as every teen’s great burden to torture themselves to get into an absurdly competitive school. Especially as the pool of college-going teens has hit its demographic peak, making this year the most competitive ever, the competitive college process has come to approximate a crapshoot more than anything else. What makes this so frustrating is that it’s hardly like that for everyone. While plenty of teens are agonizing over how many teachers recs they need for their Northwestern application or whether they should consider Seppuku because they didn’t get into Brown, just as many just go to a public school within 100 miles of where they grew up and go to a public school. Public school applications aren’t the all consuming ordeal that applying to some 14 private schools is. Most public schools want one essay, your grades and your test scores. No teacher recs, no absurd questions about what type of super hero you’d be (Claremont McKenna), no peer recommendations (Dartmouth). And considering that it’s this upper-middle class milieu that is so often portrayed in the media, I didn’t want to add to it.
But alas, I come to you, dear readers, hat in hand. After having done all those applications, I actually managed to get into some schools, it just so happens that the hardest part is making a decision. And so if any of you have good reasons why I should especially prefer Claremont McKenna, Northwestern, USC or Middlebury, please do tell me.
The last semester of high school is a special time. Grades matter a bit less, everyone is excited to leave for college and so people tend to focus on having as much fun as possible. For some, second semester means dumping some 6,000 bouncy balls on unsuspecting students. For others, it entails spending a good portion of the school day like this:
(that’s me on the left, and yes, this picture was taken during school hours. Life is awesome)
February 24th is an important day. In 1803, Marbury v Madison was decided on February 24th, establishing judicial review. The first New Orleans Mardi Gras parade was held in 1868 on Feb 24. NPR was founded in 1970 and Ayatollah Khomeini offered a bounty for Salman Rushdie in 1989. But even more important than all that, I was born on February 24th, 1990. And today, February 24th, 2008, I’m officially an adult. So I’m free to do all sorts of awesome things like buy cigarettes, lottery tickets and porn, register for the draft, not be able to legally drink for three years and sign my own absence slips.
But as far as the blog is concerned, nothing is changing. While my fellow Februarian, Dylan Matthews, changed his nomme de blog on his 18th birthday, I’m sticking with “impetuous young whippersnapper.” Because even at 18, my young age and appearance of preciousness is really all I have going for me in the blogosphere. I think I can ride out this entire whippersnapper thing until I’m at least 21, at which point I’ll reevaluate.
