Month: August 2004

Congratulations and best wishes to YC and B-!

Well fed enough, FC? 😉

GOP Convention…

Monday: Senator John McCain – thumbs up, even if I don’t agree with everything he says or endorses – good speech. Rudolph Giuliani – well, I don’t know how swing voters or out-of-staters feel about having watched his speech last night. All I can say is that he was my hometown’s mayor and… well, I’ll reserve final judgment on what I really think. I’ll leave it at that (I know, I know – I’m copping out. I have to reserve some privacy, you know? And if you really want to know, well, ask me in a face-to-face conversation, and I might answer…).

Tonight’s GOP schedule: Arnold Shwarzenegger – again, even if I don’t agree with everything he says or endorses – good speech. (and if you want more of my opinion, go ahead; ask me in a face-to-face conversation…) — the Bush girls – Jenna and Barbara – eh… (and, please, no more hamster jokes! I blame it on the Kerrys for having started this in the first place). Laura Bush – again, even if I don’t agree with everything she says or endorses, nice speech. And, please, let’s not compare Laura Bush and Teresa Heinz Kerry – they’re two different women with different styles. I’ll leave it at that.

More harder or harsher criticism can surely be found elsewhere, but me – I’ll keep it clean.

Oh, and thanks to PBS for making a nice coverage; I mean, really, they even showed the Harlem Boys Choir performance (the choir closed out tonight’s session of the convention). Now that’s something no one else would show, Jim Lehrer!

Good night…

So weird to think that the Olympics are over (or, will be, once NBC’s done showing the closing ceremonies). I was getting so used to the non-stop sports (especially watching the interesting obscure sports – triathalon, canoeing, mountain biking, weightlifting, taekwondo, speeding walking (way weird) and more). Weird men’s marathon too – when the wacko came out to stop the lead runner. At least the runner got back in there and won a bronze (the others were already closing in on him before the wacko jumped him). Well, goodbye to all that Zorba-the-Greek music.

Four more years before Beijing 2008.

And, on the eve of the Republican Convention, Slate.com’s Dahlia Lithwick (at the NY Times as a guest editor) is talking about the U.S. Supreme Court justices and what they do during the summer. Lithwick notes:

The Supreme Court is by far the most mysterious branch of government – its members glimpsed only rarely, like Bigfoot, crashing through the forest at twilight. The court is the one branch that operates in near secrecy – no cameras, no tape recorders, no explanations, no press conferences, rare interviews, no review by other branches. The most powerful branch is also the most enigmatic. They love it that way.

So how do the justices spend their summers? Some travel to exotic locales, where they get paid lots of money to teach at fabulous seaside summer law school programs. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg taught at Hofstra University law school’s program in Nice, France, this summer, while Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist taught at Tulane’s program at Cambridge.

What else do they do with their summers? Since all four justices over age 70 are hostages to their mutually-assured-destruction refusal to retire (each unwilling to give an opposing president the chance to fill a seat), they probably do lots of resting. Even one extra day on that court may mean casting the deciding vote in Bush v. Kerry – a case poised to detonate over the legal landscape this winter, the moment the recount starts in Ohio.

Oh, I don’t know. I’m not eager for a Bush v. Kerry, really, I’m not.

Have a good week. Watch out for my political commentary… (and me wanting to avoid the protestors in town…)

The NY Post a couple of days ago had the info on the new “The Apprentice” contestants – and it turns out that one of them is an alumnus of my Alma Maters. I’m especially impressed that she came from the same law school; Donald Trump’s lawyer, George, must have attracted people from our alma mater law school…

Vote for your favorite ad icon and ad slogan at the Advertising Week website. Too cool…

Duke U. giving I-Pods to freshmen at orientation, expecting them to use them for academic reasons. Yeah, right. Guess one is just hoping the kids won’t abuse using I-pods. Couldn’t Duke think of something else to do to promote technology?

Awhile ago, my sister and I were watching “Meet the Press” and Tim Russert interviewed Senator Zell Miller, the conservative Democrat – so conservative that one wonders why he doesn’t just switch parties. Slate.com explains why Miller hasn’t made a switch (and apparently it partly has to do with his disinclination to be just another southern Republican).

And, a legal “Explainer” on Slate.com, wherein we find out “How long do cops keep evidence?”

Oh, and sing along with me, to the tune of “Santa Claus is coming to town” – “The protesters are coming to town…” or “The Republicans are coming to town…” I feel befuddled by all of this either way.

So, YC and FC – any updates on the Asian front? …. 😉

You’d think that because I had a short work week, I’d be more on the ball with work. Eh. Summ-summ-summertime…

And, of course, NY’ers fleeing town because of the upcoming Republican conventions. Eh. Weird photo in today’s Daily News (too bad I have no link for it) – it’s a photo of Victoria’s Secret with two armed male cops (and I mean armed, with their weapons on hand and helmets on their heads) ready and steady at the door; Daily News caption: “Victoria’s Secret at W. 34th St. and Sixth Ave. gets a no-frills security detail as authorities make presence known in midtown in advance of Republican National Convention.” Umm. Right. I’m real worried about the security of Victoria’s Secret. (well, ok, so it is located close to Madison Sq. Garden, but still, the photo looked odd and without the caption, you would think it was any Victoria’s Secret and would end up wondering about that pair of cops).

Sometimes I wonder if the differences between NYC and D.C. can be… exaggerated. Or maybe not. I can’t tell. This NY Times article by David Carr that I’m linking seems to portray the stereotypes – NY’ers as “snarling” boors (as Carr quotes Tucker Carlson, the political talking head on CNN) or sophisticates vs. the D.C.’ers as silly boy scouts or super serious G’men. “‘The contempt is mutual,’” a D.C. journalist says. (actually, I have no contempt for D.C.; there’s no love lost either, frankly, but contempt’s a little strong a word). Then, Carr says that Democratic standby, James Carville, observed “that the version of Washington that will be arriving in New York will hardly need directions. ‘Just about anybody in the Washington contingent is up here 10 or 12 times a year,” [Carville] said. ‘They are on the shuttle all the time. When you’re here, people stay up later, talk louder and eat more. Everybody likes to have fun.’” So glad to know that D.C.’er love the shuttle and can find that they do more in NYC. (well, no, not really; I mean, I feel that they can do as they please, so long as they don’t hurt people; live and let live, you know?).

So weird to think that once the Olympics are over, I can just change channels from NBC to PBS and just watch Convention stuff during the prime time hours. My non-stop (near non-stop anyway, since, again, I lack cable) massive-event tv isn’t going to stop. Gosh, I’m a junkie. I am SSW and I’m a tv marathon junkie. I’ll sit down now.

These NBC commercials for the upcoming “The Apprentice” (season 2) are scary. You get little clips of the latest contestants (West Point graduate; Wharton School grad (trying to impress The Donald, a Wharton alumnus?); nerd; geek; the usual eye candy men and women; argh…), plus everyone’s favorite The Donald, George, and Carolyn. And to think that this was once the network of Must-See-Tv (stuff like “Friends,” “Cheers,” “Seinfeld,” and “Cosby”…). But, I am getting real pumped by the NBC commercials for the new “Medical Investigations” show (it looks like an action-thriller loaded portrayal of the Center for Disease Control (CDC)’s work) – the return of Neal McDonough on tv. Missed him from his “Boomtown” days. Missed his clear blue eyes and wacked out intensity. So he’s playing a raving scientist instead of a lawyer. Ok, I’ll go with it and see what happens.

Etc., etc., etc….

“American Bryan Clay Grabs the Decathlon Silver” – notably, Clay has a Japanese-American mother and an African-American father and hails from Hawaii – an APA who was a good watch. Cool.

American Express is filming an ad on the street outside my apartment. I don’t know what it’s about, and they were doing it at 5 in the morning, so I wasn’t awake for it, but they took the first five parking spaces in front of my door.

So much work to be done at work before I go tomorrow (geez, tomorrow!) I haven’t packed or anything. At least I’ve bought everything though.

Two Asian Americans political pundits made the news this weekend. Francis Fukuyama is a neoconservative that thinks that we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq. Michelle Malkin was on Tucker Carlson this past week talking about her book on how the Japanese Internment was justified. Both nominatively conservative commentators have been blasted by both sides of the aisle for going “the Third Way” (OK, that’s a Clintonism, but it fits). You know, I don’t agree with certain things they have to say, but at least it’s intellegent and well formed, not like the tired buzz word campaigning from Bush and Kerry. (Enough with the Swift Boats already! The damn bullets and grenades don’t care if you’re running towards or away from them. The American people generally prefer our troops to return alive.) I’m all for anything that makes the two party system three dimensional, and I’m all for APA’s actually participating. Wow, what a concept.

Republicans invading the city on Friday. Oh, the traffic! The best thing that can happen is that nobody notices. Hey, if we can have a million Carribean people parade on Labor Day, and the rest of the city doesn’t even realize it’s the northernmost Carribean island, we can deal with this. On the other hand, I’m out of here tomorrow.