Author: ssw15

In honor of the upcoming event at the alma mater law school (and, anyway, some American universities, including my undergraduate alma mater, will be celebrating Asian/Pacific American month in April), I will (try to) be a better Asian-American and thus, consider the following observations for this blog entry:

– So, Michelle Kwan is a bronze medalist at the World Championships in figure skating? Ah, well.

– I so like the diversity and complexity of Asian art – as the NY Times’ art write Holland Carter notes:

“Asia Week is a fast-moving feast, and you have to move fast to keep up with it. Delectable objects, trailing price tags behind them, whiz into town and are gone. The meal itself requires marathon sprints between Manhattan art fairs, auctions and galleries, not to mention Asia-intensive institutions like the Metropolitan Museum, Japan Society and Asia Society, all with new shows this spring. By the end of the week, if you’ve stayed the course, you may or may not have had your fill of art, but you will certainly have touched down in more Asias than you ever knew existed.”

Now, if only I had time to check out all this stuff. Sounds so great.

– NY Times’ article on Japan’s mixed feelings about Asian foreign students, and the Asian foreign students’ mixed feelings about being in Japan – this was an interesting read. Not sure what it necessarily says about intra-Asian relations – yes, Japan knows it needs an influx of new ideas and strengths and labors – but doesn’t necessarily welcome those who aren’t Japanese; yes, others Asians would like to benefit from higher education offered in Japan, but if they’re not welcomed, they’re not inclined to stay in Japan. Hmm.

– I thought that there are some way-too-dedicated NY Yankees fans out there, but apparently the Japanese arguably take baseball more seriously than anyone else – way too seriously.

– I know next to nothing about cricket, that other sport involving a stick and a ball, but apparently it’s real popular in the Asian subcontinent – and maybe it can pave the way to peace in that region. Personally, I think India and Pakistan competing over their cricket is infinitely more preferable to fighting with nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

Enjoy yet-another-work-week and congratulations on getting through yet another Monday.

TGIF.

Brooklyn doesn’t have the same cachet of exciting diversity and synergy that, say, Flushing has. But, today’s NY Times has an interesting article about the ethnic diversity right on Coney Island Avenue. On Coney Island Avenue, you could have a Jewish nursery school near a mosque – but notably, maybe Brooklyn doesn’t have Queens’ famed tolerance – since, as the Jewish woman tells the reporter (I’ll paraphrase) “Being next to a mosque is scary.” Hmm. In my own Brooklyn neighborhood, there is an Islamic center housed in a building that was once a Jewish school (a change that happened the past 15 years – and I remember seeing the little Jewish kids wearing yarmulkas and playing around that school, so think how old I feel) – and, indeed, its cornerstone still has Hebrew etchings on it, but painted over white as if to white-out the past. What does this say about changing demographics in Brooklyn? Hmm.

Slate.com has an interesting assessment on… Scooby Doo. Of all cartoons still capturing kids’ imagination… I confess that I had my own Scooby Doo thing back when I was a kid (and maybe still do? – well, no – I don’t really like the current incarnation of the cartoon on WB). The most amusing thing from this article – the revelation that Casey Kasem is still doing the voice of Shaggy. He retires from taking long distance dedications (handing his radio Top 40 gig to that “great” DJ Ryan Seacrest) and yet still finds time and energy to be Shaggy, even in the current Scooby Doo incarnation on the WB? Wow. Kudos to Kasem’s longevity.

Plus, last night’s local tv news on Channel 4 (WNBC) honored the local anchorman Chuch Scarborough for his 30 years on Channel 4. Salute to Chuck – his longevity on one station is incredibly admirable, especially in an age when just about every local tv news personality has traveled to each station (all these musical chairs thing can be confusing – ex., weather personality Dr. Frank Fields has done all the channels, and a lot of the old timers aren’t even on the air anymore). (Plus, kudos to the others who share the news desk with Chuck at the 11pm time slot – Sue Simmons, co-anchor, and the sports anchor Len Berman, almost rival Chuck in terms of longevity – the familiarity with them and their hijinks makes them a comfort to watch, even if they’re not perfect news folks).

World Championship ice skating threw me off the March Madness last night (not so much fun anyway, when the brackets are ripped up, but I’ll be back to enjoy college b-ball viewing again, I’m sure). Last night’s same-day tape delay on ABC of the men’s final round: Russian man Evgeny Plushenko won the gold medal, considering that he did so many of the quad jumps and bounced back from a fluke of a fall. French man Brian Joubert (whose name sounds like a hockey player, not a figure skater) got silver doing a Matrix (yeah, that Keanu Reeves movie) adaption. German Stefan Lindemann got bronze, a nice prize for a strong performance and home field advantage (i.e., the championships are taking place in Germany). Americans Johnny Weir and Michael Weiss got 5th and 6th places – mostly because they didn’t throw in quads. The Europeans have incredible depth, I must say. Tomorrow, ABC will show the women’s round – will Michelle Kwan do it? Or is it time for the next generation? Hmm.

Enjoy the weekend; the week was long enough.

Today, the weather was decent – it actually felt like spring or something like it. Anyway, beware; long blog ahead, since it’s been awhile and there’s been a crop of interesting news and articles.

NY Times Quotation of the Day:

“‘I want the truth.’ – Bob McIlvaine, who attended a hearing of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.”

We all want the truth; sadly, it doesn’t mean we’ll get it, because (like in historical research) the truth is never so simple, since it depends on who’s telling the story. Watching the news about the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks (a.k.a. the 9/11 Commission)’s public hearings is interesting television, if I can say that; as some of the commissioners pointed out on the Lehrer Newshour on PBS today, the purpose of the public hearings is to make a point to the public. It may be all for the sake of appearance, but the appearance is a powerful one. The intruiging moment for me was seeing former Senator Bob Kerrey make his pointed remarks (to Albright, he says: “I keep hearing the excuse we didn’t have actionable intelligence. Well, what the hell does that say to Al Qaida? Basically, they knew — beginning in 1993 it seems to me — that there was going to be limited, if any, use of military and that they were relatively free to do whatever they wanted.”) [N.B. – I plugged the lines off of NY Times’ transcript, as it obtained from the Feds; it’s fair use, I’m sure….]. Hmm. Kind of weird that this Kerrey isn’t in the political business like he used to be, while we get the other Kerry (and really, I won’t say more than that and will reserve all rights from saying more about Kerrey/Kerry)…

A depressing March Madness storyin the NY Times: “Graduation Is Secondary for Many in Final 16” – only 4 out of the still-remaining-in -play Sweet Sixteen schools have graduation rates of better than 50% among their men’s basketball players – Duke, Kansas, Vanderbilt and Xavier. Sigh; what does this say about the state of undergraduate education and athletes?

Prof. Michael Dorf of Columbia U’s Law School presents “Justice Scalia’s Persuasive But Elitist Response to the Duck Hunting Controversy” – that J. Scalia’s memorandum is striking for showing how America’s government is reliant on elite people. And, considering how the legal profession itself is emphatic about “networking,” Dorf notes that Scalia is right – it’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know – and Dorf thinks that’s a real sad thing, since it shows how alienated the elitists are from them regular folks. I thought Dorf had good points. This NY Times’ op-ed by the Yale professors about Scalia’s remarks in the memorandum about the airline tickets were funny (although my experiences in buying airline tickets isn’t nearly as great as Scalia’s or the professors, so I wonder how “funny” is “funny” here – haha funny or sarcastic funny, or are the profs serious suggesting that Scalia had committed promissory fraud by purchasing round-trip tickets that he didn’t use because he got on the vice president’s plane for the duck hunting??).

Speaking of Scalia, the news about the case where he did recuse himself has been intruiging. Lehrer Newshour reported that Michael Newdow, the doctor-lawyer-atheist who’s against making his daughter say the Pledge of Allegiance “under God,” didn’t do a bad job in representing himself and the Supreme Court treated him professionally and in as civil manner as could be (check out the commentary Marcia Coyle provided to Gwen Ifill on Real Audio on the Lehrer Newshour website) . Law.com noted that Newdow had as much preparation as was possible to aim for some kind of competence, even if he isn’t a practicing lawyer. So, he managed to downplay the kookiness that he had otherwise demonstrated in his prior public appearances and his arguments seem clearer and persuasive – I mean, really – even the conservative William Safire says Newdow isn’t completely wrong. Scary; although, like with the Kerrey/Kerry thing, I’ll reserve my actual opinions about the Pledge (assuming I have made any opinion on it anyway) – except to say that I think I do agree with Safire on his closing comments; Safire says:

“The only thing this time-wasting pest Newdow has going for him is that he’s right. Those of us who believe in God don’t need to inject our faith into a patriotic affirmation and coerce all schoolchildren into going along. The key word in the pledge is the last one.

“The insertion was a mistake then; the trouble is that knocking the words out long afterward, offending the religious majority, would be a slippery-slope mistake now.

“The justices shouldn’t use the issue of standing to punt, thereby letting this divisive ruckus fester. The solution is for the court to require teachers to inform students they have the added right to remain silent for a couple of seconds while others choose to say ‘under God.’”

A fascinating article on grits, that Southern specialty. Not sure that it’s going to make me try the stuff, but at least I have a better sense of what it is.

In a prior blog entry, I noted that the recent NHL incident wherein the Vancouver player smacked an opposing player real hard; as I expected, Findlaw.com has a law student get around to doing the analysis over whether this is a mere tort or something even worse (he argues that it’s a matter of criminal battery, perhaps). The law student here did a nice job, I thought, for a 1L – tight writing, applying black letter law, and arguing policy. Maybe he had a good editor? Nonetheless, I applaud – he’s understandablylaying the groundworks for his legal career. Plus, it makes me smile knowing that this guy is from Alma Mater (and Findlaw.com even notes who his professor is, and the identity of the prof was not a great surprise)…

Let’s hope the nice weather in NYC stays around long enough to be enjoyed.

Good grief — two of my Final Four picks are gone – Gonzaga and Stanford. Worse – I had picked them to be the final two; and Stanford was my ultimate champion. That’s March Madness for you (and proving that I’m no prognosticator). Perhaps it’s no surprise that Stanford would have fallen so soon – it had a great regular season, but had to be ultimately tested. And, Gonzaga – well, it’s not the Cinderella darling it once was, so perhaps it too was bound to drop off in the brackets. Is Alabama, which beat Stanford, on its way to something? Hmm.

The two local schools, Seton Hall and Manhattan, lost to the ACC schools, Duke and Wake Forest – in North Carolina. I didn’t expect Seton Hall to get passed Duke (and didn’t pick Seton Hall in my brackets), but went with my heart in picking Manhattan to be the upset over Wake Forest in my brackets. Of course, that was a Cinderella pick that didn’t work out. In further hindsight, it just seems a little unfair – Duke and Wake Forest were in their home area of Raleigh, NC, so perhaps they had the home field advantage. But, give Seton Hall and Manhattan credit for trying.

Let’s see how Round 2 goes tomorrow.

I’m awake and a game is on tv – Duke v. Seton Hall. In my brackets, I picked Duke, but Seton Hall’s a sort of hometown team – I feel almost torn. CBS has also showed way too much Duke stories on tv – good grief, they’re like the NY Yankees – on all the time.

NY Times has a nice story on the two NY metro area Catholic schools (who are both strangely detached from the urbanities of their connected areas) – Seton Hall (leafy university campus far from Newark, although the law school is still by the PATH station in Newark) and Manhattan College (which is actually in the lovely land of Riverdale, Bronx).

For the record, I’ll let you all know that my final four picks are: Gonzaga, St. Joseph, Duke, and Stanford. Unknown if it’ll happen, but each team is still alive at this hour. The only corner in my bracket where there’s much still standing is the Phoenix (West) region – only one out of 16 picks wrong – not bad. Not an altogether bad bracket this year. But where’s a Cinderella I can be content with?

And, no, I’m not that big NCAA junkie – just a mildly interested one (if I were a real junkie, then I ought to have followed all season, not just in March).

Historiography in action – what is history and what does the history of history reflect, and what does it mean when politics uses history for its own purposes? In an article for the NY Times, Antonio Feros shows how it’s getting messy when Spain’s elections seem to suspiciously recall its civil war of 70 years ago:

“But many historians in Spain are still troubled by the trend toward using history as a weapon in political debates. “The use of the civil war to interpret the present is very dangerous,” [Enrique Moradiellos, a historian at the University of Extremadura, Spain] warns. ‘And I am afraid that if we continue to do this we might provoke a radicalization of the political situation that could bring unwanted results.’”

Interesting point.

Other interesting questions about historical (so to speak) research: more on the Blackmun papers, and wondering whether they really reveal much at all, according to one of his former clerks , (who is very much a direct source as we can probably get for now).

In a NY Times op-ed, William B. Rubenstein, UCLA professor of law, goes into an interesting analysis on politicians’ use of framing arguments along Constitutional lines (i.e., asking how we keep within the governmental structuring), rather than getting to the heart of an issue (i.e., discussing what we want society to be and to do). He notes that maybe this Founding Fathers of the USA made the political system as it is to raise possibilities of compromise (evade the harder discussion of what kind of society we want by making us talk about the “easier” one – how do we stay within the Constitional frame – first; the Founding Fathers’ plans certainly would keep (and already have kept) the country stable before we tumble into disarray over the battle of issues). But, as Rubenstein notes, it is a real odd way to “discuss” politics.

Taiwanese election results just out; curious developments there.

Back to basketball…

And the basketball stuff continues. And my bracket’s not looking too bad right now. Sort of. Depends on the results of the Pittsburgh-Central Florida game.

Developments in the case of James Yee, the Asian-American/Muslim/army chaplain who was in Guatanamo Bay; Army appears to be dropping the espionage charges – but Capt. Yee will still face a (relatively minor) penalty for downloading porn on the government-issued laptop. Oh, and apparently, the adultery charges too. Ah, well.

Friday’s arts: NY Times’ Holland Carter writes on the Asian art exhibit in Washington, D.C. – such nice writing and sounds like a great exhibit.

I’ve been noticing the latest commercials on Mr. Peanut (the Planters mascot), and they never seemed to stir much in me; plus the latest Mr. Peanut appearance during the NCAA games are odd – where Mr. Peanut plays some basketball with the various college mascots – the animation uses too much bold, black lines. Looks too fake-cartoony to me. Personally, I think Mr. Peanut has too much of a shiny sheen that doesn’t look right. NY Times ad man, Stuart Elliot, notes that Mr. Peanut’s transformation is less about his Fred Astaire debonair but more on a slick attitude that goes with the times – and change may not be too good for Mr. Peanut.

The latest Entertainment Weekly’s interesting – Hugh Jackman on the cover and a preview of his upcoming movie – “Van Helsing.” More curiously, EW profiles the tv show “Las Vegas,” which I concede isn’t too bad a show – watchable (although I haven’t watched a full hour of it in awhile – it is admittedly nothing too heavy-weight) – but the article clarified some of the characters who kept confusing me (i.e., James Caan’s character is a higher level executive in that casino after all; and yeah, Nikki Cox’s character was a prostitute in the pilot episode, wasn’t she?). So, maybe “Las Vegas” deserves a second look one of these days.

Back to basketball – get ready for Round 2 of the tournament.

Back to blogging; the hiatus, due to the fact that
(a) been busy – work can be exasperating;
(b) I did do two blogs on 3/15 – and even added that postscript on 3/16, so that wasn’t good enough for you? 😉 Eh;
(c ) did you really want more pointless rambling from my messy mind that soon anyway?; and
(d) spent last night on-line shopping on Barnes and Noble – got to take advantage of the discount that was good until 3/21. I bought yet another Learn-Chinese (Cantonese) item, as part of the neverending-yet-to-be-fulfilled quest to improve my pathetic Chinese language speaking ability.

I was watching first round NCAA basketball tournament, Division I, as we speak – and I was actually (gasp) rooting for Princeton. Yeah, I’d root for the alma mater rival, just to see the not-likely-hope of seeing an Ivy League team progress in the March Madness – but that was just a dumb move on my part, as usual (N.B.: Princeton, seeded 14, lost to Texas, the 3rd seed; fortunately, what I had actually put down on my brackets was Texas, but I was still hoping for Princeton, so that part of my brackets wasn’t completely screwed). But, if you really want to see a school with great academics and athletics, you’re better off rooting for Stanford or Duke, I guess. I’m still waiting to watch some part of my brackets go bust by the end of tonight.

And for timeliness, Slate.com’s Explainer explains “Why is it Called ‘March Madness’?” There are tidbits in that article to amuse trademark law enthusiasts.

Slate.com tends to have moments where there are lacking of articles to note and then strange bursts of great reads. The last couple of days were some of the greater reads days. Among other things, check out Dahlia Lithwick’s “Jurisprudence” articles for yesterday (Lithwick notes how some members of Congress apparently do not understand the concepts of having three branches of government or having checks and balances, as demonstrated by their proposing a bill to “veto the Supreme Court” – or, as the bill is officially called, “The Congressional Accountability for Judicial Activism Act of 2004”) and for today (Lithwick’s comments on Justice Scalia’s memorandum explanation for his refusal to recuse himself in the case against VP Cheney).

Fascinating NY Times article on the whole issue of social promotion of NYC grade school kids (recap for those not in the know: NYC Mayor worked his way to have the Panel on Education (the ex Bd. of Ed.) to vote to approve his end-to-social-promotion policy). For me, the article encapsulates a problem: we debate about “issues” but the reality is that we keep changing how we frame or define the issues anyway and, the bottomline is that, by constantly framing the issues differently, we can’t even abide by our own discussions and thus we have no answers to real, perennial, social problems.

As the article notes, political liberals say that the issue is about “nurturing kids” (ending social promotion = bad; repeating 3rd grade is humiliating) and political conservatives say that the issue is about “mastering basic skills” (ending social promotion = good; get left back and you’ll finally learn how to do math and read). But, real education experts cut through the chase and say that it’s neither/nor – it’s about what services do you provide for kids. This is a question to which the usual partisan politicians have no real, easy answer (after all, they’re thinking that saying “I don’t have one quick solution” is not what they want to tell the voters – and that assumes that they believe the voters are so stupid as to reject the complicated, grayer answer).

Fascinating NY Times article on language and world views: contrasting how China and Japan view their own places in the global neighborhood and noting how such world views are expressed in their respective written languages. The Japanese language apparently distinguishes between who are Japanese and who aren’t (even if one is of Japanese ancestry), while the Chinese language apparently considers overseas Chinese as, well, Chinese (even if one is as incapable of speaking the mother tongue). My conclusion: there’s no such thing as a monolithic “Asian.” China and Japan have their own self-perceptions to deal with.

Food articles!… Ed Levine on Cheesecake! (the debate on what’s the best cheesecake in NYC will never go away), and Nigella Lawson on cooking for one’s own comfort (I’ve read the criticism about Lawson as a foodie writer, but I’ve enjoyed how she really displays the comfort in comfort food).

Now back to the brackets…

I finished reading the latest Star Trek: New Frontier book, “Stone and Anvil” (2003, hardcover edition). I read Star Trek books depending on the plots and characters and writers writing (and how frustrated I am with “Star Trek: Enterprise”). I’ve enjoyed Peter David for his good humor and fascinating characters. They do tend to get cartoonish and outlandish – but if done right, his writing is good reading.

Basically, “New Frontier” follows the adventures of the crew of the USS Excalibur (yeah, there are some blatant allusions to the Arthurian mythos), led by Starfleet Capt. Mackenzie Calhoun – a Capt. Picard protege who was M’k’n’zy of Calhoun on his home planet Xenex. When he was a teenager, M’k’n’zy led his people to overthrow the alien overlords, the Danteri, who were never the nicest of people. Since then, Calhoun, as he is now known to the humans and so on, is barely holding onto the grips of modern civilization and Federation ideals of diversity, democracy, exploration, and so on. Reminding him of those things is his sidekick, Elizabeth Shelby (best known as the tough blonde Starfleet officer of the “Star Trek: the Next Generation” penultimate Borg episode, “Best of Both Worlds” (wherein Picard became a Borg)).

In “Stone and Anvil,” Calhoun is confronted by the sad reality that one of his most loyal officers, Ensign Janos, is a murderer of one of Shelby’s subordinates. But, how did this happen and why; and meanwhile, Peter David (as usual) shifts from the storyline taking place in the present to chapters where we examine Calhoun’s past – how “Mac” got through Starfleet Academy (struggling) and came to accept his destiny as a Starfleet officer (grudgingly, yet loving the idea of command) even if it meant moving away from the love of his life (and, fortunately for him, regaining her later on; but it took about 11 books to get there).

The book is very much about one man’s journey (Calhoun), in parallel to another man’s downfall (Janos). I had quibbles about Peter David’s writing of the “Now” parts (i.e., the Janos storyline, wherein the Excalibur crew try real hard to help him) – the humor got a little overdone (Calhoun, you see, has the strangest crew on this side of the galaxy); but the “Then” parts (i.e., Calhoun’s past) were nicely portrayed – Calhoun was such an imperfect young man and he knew it – sort of, but he learned it the hard way. I still think that Peter David’s portrayal of Shelby tended on the Ally McBealish side, but I liked how she had her more sensible moments (in both the “Then” and “Now” parts). All in all, good subway reading.

Postscript (I thought I’d make this a comment, but, nah…): if you’d like, you can check out my thoughts on the previous New Frontier book, “Gods Above”, wherein Calhoun and Shelby deal with Beings who say they’re gods, but sure are mean about it. Thankfully, “Stone and Anvil” ended without the usual cliffhanger – heartwarming/heartbreaking ending. Peter David really ought to give his New Frontier books endings like these more often.

Bracket time for the NCAA basketball championship, which begins Thursday (or is it Wednesday?) – let the Madness begin!

Some interesting Slate.com reading:

Dahlia Lithwick reviews Ch. Justice Rehnquist’s book on the other closest election in US history (the 1876 one, where Hayes beat Tilden – which led to the end of Reconstruction and somewhere in all that Tilden had his own sex scandal). She posits that Rehnquist’s writing on that subject may actually hint at his thought processes of the Bush v. Gore (S. Ct. 2000) case. She notes:

“And while [Rehnquist] concludes that virtually every time a justice took on some executive function, it proved disastrous—from John Jay’s efforts to negotiate a peace treaty with Great Britain, to Robert Jackson’s yearlong prosecution of the Nuremburg trials, to Earl Warren’s investigation into the Kennedy assassination—he ends, oddly, with a resounding defense of the five justices who took part in the 1876 commission [that gave the presidency to Hayes].”

Hmm. Maybe I ought to read this book – it’s curious that Rehnquist would view the actions of Jay/Jackson/Warren so poorly – each action had such incredible impact on global/American affairs and was only fitting due to each man’s experiences (Jay was a diplomat in an earlier career; Jackson the judge from a country that beat the Germans in WWII; and Warren, a former prosecutor, if memory served me correctly).

“How do you say Pres. Roh’s name?” – Slate.com’s Explainer explains that, despite the Romanization, the impeached South Korean’s president’s name is pronounced “Noh” not “Roh.” No one ever said that transliteration/Romanization of Asian names is easy, I guess.

The latest Bushism gives new meaning to saying “Huh?” toward the things out of the American President’s mouth.

The latest “Ad Report” – Seth Stevenson gives an “A” grade to the Nike ad revolving around an alternate universe where tennis champ Andre Agassi is a Boston Red Sox shortstop (my thought, when I first saw the ad: “What? Andre, how could you?!”); Marion Jones, Olympic track runner, an Olympic gymnast (really odd); Randy Johnson, major league baseball player, a major league bowler (a tall one at that); Serena Williams as a volleyball player (transporting her tennis moves, apparently); and NFL Michael Vick as a NHL hockey player. I’d had to agree with Stevenson – that is an awesome Nike ad (and a scary alternate universe).

NY1.com – cool story about the Second Avenue Deli celebrating its 50th anniversary, with its 1954 prices (for Monday only). That means a $10.00 corned beef sandwich (2004 price) is 50 cents, plus cup of java for a nickel. Hehe.

So it goes…

Spring’s not coming soon enough, and March has too many weird fluctuating temperatures. ‘Nuff said there.

Yesterday’s NY Times’ article, “Brown University to Examine Debt to Slave Trade” was interesting: Brown – being the Ivy League school with an African-American president, a long history and influence in American history, and a liberal institution – might very well be the ideal place to explore the issue of reparations for the descendants of American slaves. Dr. Ruth J. Simmons, president of Brown, is appointing a committee to explore the historical and other relevant issues of Brown’s ties to American slavery and the feasibility of slave reparations (if it is recommended or maybe something else may help reconcile slavery’s effects). I’m always not sure of what to make of slave reparations in the American context and worry about what it really means (yeah, yeah, wishy-washy lawyer talk/political moderate or what have you talking). So, I at least felt relieved to read the following paragraphs on Dr. Simmons’ view and Brown will consider in its impending two-year investigation:

“Dr. Simmons [the great-granddaughter of slaves], one of 12 children of an East Texas tenant farmer and a house cleaner, said she was motivated by a sense that the multifaceted subject of reparations had too often been reduced to simplistic and superficial squabbles.

“‘How does one repair a kind of social breach in human rights so that people are not just coming back to it periodically and demanding apologies,’ she said, ‘so that society learns from it, acknowledges what has taken place and then moves on. What I’m trying to do, you see, in a country that wants to move on, I’m trying to understand as a descendant of slaves how to feel good about moving on.’”

I certainly agree that “reparations” (whatever they may be) do get reduced to simplicity and superficiality. Too many complicated matters get reduced to simplicity: i.e., when society discusses race, the discussion gets reduced to mere “you bad/me good” stuff. But, nothing is that simple (although, hey, I may be wrong about that – maybe something out there is that simple). Personally (and I may be completely wrong on this), there are lots of good questions that need to be addressed: how do you repair the social breach in human rights? Can we look at a combination of options, and not just put the weight of the world on one option or another? Can we do that without condemning one option or another, as if the option selected is still entirely bad? ( – because, it probably isn’t). Part of dealing with race in America (or other similar kinds of dilemmas in the world) is education – litigation and settlements and things like that may not be the best ways to do. We may never be able to grant the promise that was never quite provided to former slaves back in the end of the Civil War (somehow, I figure the mule and 40 acres of land aren’t that useful the 21st century and I don’t think that throwing money at people will work either), but can we try something and at least go with it with the positive view that trying can be considered a good start? Hmm.

NY Times had a nice profile on Al Leiter, NY Mets pitcher, and his renaissance man ways – he’s a Republican with liberal leanings (i.e., he may have a political future, after his pro baseball career end); he likes Bruce Springsteen (umm, I can’t say much about that); he can talk articulately about baseball (i.e., he would make a great commentator); and he cares enough about baseball that maybe he might stick around to help it remain America’s institution. Hmm.

Now, I’m no drinker and I know next to nothing about whisky, so reading this article by Slate.com’s David Edelstein about whisky tasting was intruiging. Not only did I get to learn a heck of a lot about whisky, I thought it was nice, tight writing.

If you like, check out today’s Sunday Doonesbury. Incredibly funny and a nice point, too, about George W. Bush (or, referring him as the way Doonesbury cartoonist Trudeau draws him as “the guy symbolized by an asterisk”) vs. his father, George H.W. Bush (the president who I’d give a lot of credit for taking foreign affairs seriously, even if he seemed too internationalist and chummy with world leaders for his own good to the mind of a lot of people).

And, going for alliteration, today is Selection Sunday – NCAA will announce who’s going to the Championship tournament and what rankings. Time to make one’s brackets ready and by the next Sunday, I and lots of others will rip those brackets in half. And, yeah, it’s not like my alma mater is in the Tournament (like, ever?), but I always have hope that one day that our league (no, we’re not a conference like Pac-10 or ACC or what, and we’ve no Dukes or Stanfords, with the balance of athleticism and intellect) will make a good show at the NCAA (even if it means that the dreaded rival is the one doing the good show).

Yes, yes, I said that I would blog about a book and I will (tonight or tomorrow; I have to get my thoughts collected about that book). Otherwise, have a nice week.