whim

my parents are infamous for their whims: a trait i have (begrudgingly) inherited. several years ago, my dad assured us that his new pumpkin-orange ford ranger was his "going to jesus truck." four years, eight cars, three recreational vehicles and one house later, my dad is interviewing for his fourth "retirement job" and I am perusing seventeen different types of graduate programs with unabashed abandon. i'm telling you this in part because i believe (hope) verbalizing that i am conscious of my own flightiness will somehow diminish its recklessness. you know, 'a crazy person never thinks she's crazy' logic. at the same time, you will find me more likely to say "fuck it. i'm 23." now, than ever before. and i consider that one of my new favorite personality traits. this evening marked the beginning of a large west-coast retreat i have been preparing for over the past few months. our speaker tonight graduated from yale law school and spent six years writing about his classmates. luckily for him, his classmates were a group of law students who successfully sued presidents ghw bush and clinton, freeing several hundred HIV-positive haitian political refugees from detention at guantanamo in the early 90s. (they were also on npr this morning fyi: http://kuow.org/programs/weekday.asp). the story itself is fascinating, but i was struck most by one of the attorney's comments that the cornerstone of their success as students was the ability to ignore everyone else's conception of "what is possible." wow. i think our conceptions of "what is possible" oftentimes keep us from "what is ACTUALLY possible," and i'm certainly not immune. which explains why many of my whims remain whims. i am now thinking of seriously pursuing a degree in journalism. and will not rest until i've convinced myself that columbia is possible.

round 1

It's going to be a long two years.... Preamble: The amount of money spent on political campaigns in this country anymore is appalling. I remember a recent local campaign in which a candidate had to go into some gross amount of personal debt just to get a spot on the televised debate. The fact that presidential candidates have to pander to Hollywood bigwigs so they can pay their campaign bills makes my blood boil. Lowdown: Barack attended some Hollywood egofest fundraiser hosted by David Geffen and Spielberg and others at which Mr. Geffen took potshots at Bill and Hillary and then handed $1.3 million to Obama's campaign. (''Obama is inspirational, and he's not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family. Americans are dying every day in Iraq. And I'm tired of hearing James Carville on television.'') This happened just a day after Obama spoke to a crowd in Las Vegas about getting away from "slash and burn politics" in Washington. Hill got hot and bothered about all of the above and called for a denunciation of Geffen's comments by the Obama camp: "While Democrats should engage in a vigorous debate on the issues, there is no place in our party or our politics for the kind of personal insults made by Senator Obama's principal fundraiser." (principal fundraiser??) Obama's camp responded: "We aren’t going to get in the middle of a disagreement between the Clintons and someone who was once one of their biggest supporters. It is ironic that the Clintons had no problem with David Geffen when he was raising them $18 million and sleeping at their invitation in the Lincoln bedroom. It is also ironic that Senator Clinton lavished praise on Monday and is fully willing to accept today the support of South Carolina State Sen. Robert Ford, who said if Barack Obama were to win the nomination, he would drag down the rest of the Democratic Party because ’he's black.’" SNAP! I've subscribed to Hillary and Barack's email lists more for entertainment value than anything. After receiving Howard Dean's rabblerousing emails for the past year from the DNC, I figured there would be some gold coming out of the Hillary camp. This morning I open up my gmail to find a heartfelt letter from Bill (picture of him lovingly embracing is wife included). "Thank you so much for your support. Hillary and I couldn't do it without you." One rough weekend and she's already pulled out the Bill card? I'm not going to even get into how insulted I am that less than a month after she's announced her candidacy, she's already whoring out her husband's popularity. Pull up your big girl pants, Hill. I'm against this time-wasting slander as much as the next person. Get on the television and give me your plan to save my country from its current course toward complete ethical, intellectual and physical annihilation; don't waste our time putting out press releases urging your competitor to apologize for some loudmouth in California who doesn't want to have sleepovers at your house anymore. And don't even pretend like if that same loudmouth handed you $1.3 million you wouldn't take it.