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Friday, April 30, 2004

Just off the AP wire: Message board posts "Dude, read Tuf 2 Blog"* 

The Most troubing trend in journalism has been quoting newsgroups and message boards. I already rage against the "neighbor" interview on TV news. "uh, he didn't seem like the kind of guy that would do that. I never would have guessed he was capable of doing that" (though that did lead to the game where my wife and I pick who we know that we'd have to tell the local news "um, yeah, I'm actually not surprised"). Random witnesses/neighbors/family/someone-who-lives-in-the-same-city do not add anything to my understanding of the story. I could care less. And quoting random people with nothing better to do than post their opinion online is taking that 10 bijillion times too far (can you belive that? people who just post their unsolicited opinion online? ridiculous). I can't believe it even fits within the ethics of being a journalist outside The Enquirer.

*If you couldn't tell, I'm trying to make this "asterisk in the subject" my thang. Unfortanately, I'm starting to discover I'm not creative.**

**This doesn't mean I'm going to stop doing it

Daily Kos: Watch your back, punk* 

My first link! Jim's Polka gets the prize (which will probaly consist of an email from me saying "uh, hey, thanks for linking to me. so, um, cool.") for the first person to show up with a link to me on Technorati. So get on the train fellow bloggers, you wouldn't want to be the last one to link to the brilliance that are my rambings!

*Daily Kos. The "punk" is purely for dramatic effect. He was in the army, he'd kick my ass (that, and I agree with 99% of what he says).

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

This post will test your neck... your back... your...* 

Fitz-Hume at Begging the Question had an interesting analysis of Bush, the perception he's a fool and specifically his troubled speaking (which he, I think correctly, points out often translates to clear, simple, confident speaking for some of the population). Also see the follow-up at the Hobbesian Conservative. As a side note, I find this type of measured and admitted assessment of your own side's weaknesses a pleasant read and, as someone who believes himself to be highly objective (is it subjective to say that?), allows me to take your arguments more seriously. But thats a side note.

It just reminded me of what I used to say about the “Bush is dum” rhetoric (ok, just cuz i'm objective doesn't mean I can't make jokes). While I'm sure family connections helped him get into Ivy League schools (faintly in the background, Jeb’s son George holds his UT Austin diploma wimpering…”grandfather... president. uncle... president. father... governor. what the hell went wrong…"), he did attend top schools. He’s obviously not dumb.

Hobbesian Conservative said "He talks like I talk. He may stammer a bit here and there-- you would too if you knew how many million people were watching you"
I agree. I’m sure I’d probably sound like Bush If I had to speak to America. And I consider myself pretty smart (that's pretty smart not pretty, smart, but objectively that may be true too, objectively). But I'm not sure I'm smart enough to be president (I preemptively redact that comment if I actually run for president). Same with Bush, he’s not really really very smart. And I like my presidents super, top percentile, unquestionably smart. Clinton was definitely there, Bush Sr. was right up there, Carter had it, Scalia is too (ok, so he’s not a president but I was trying to keep it balanced, ya know- being objective and all, and I’m too young to judge the intelligence of any pre-Carter presidents). I feel the same about Bush's work habits. While I think America as a whole should take more time off (Europe-style), I feel pretty ok having a double standard for the work habits of my president. You become head of the free-world (sorry Greenspan) and I think you agree to work late and take less vacation for a few years.

*(reference to highly intelligent, completely non-offensive Khia lyrics. Don't ya wish Dennis Miller provided astericks? Don't ya wish he didn't suddenly get ultra-conservative? Did he unknowningly drink Rush Limbaugh's kool-aid when they crossed paths at their Monday Night Football auditions?)

Friday, April 23, 2004

Caption This! 

Some of my favorite posts to read have become the blog fav of creating captions for news photos. There's some funny folks out there... Want Examples? See Wood Tang's recent CreateACaption or on of the leaders in the CreateACaption community: Norbizness who starts almost every post with a CreateACaption, as well as whole posts dedicated to it. One day, maybe I'll be funny too.

Moi Aussi 

Ah, you can always depend on Seattle companies. The label on their luggage says:
"Nous sommes desoles que notre president soit un idiot. Nous n'avons pas vote pour lui."
Go see Wonkette's post or the Boing Boing post for the excellent translation.

Thursday, April 22, 2004

Crazy but Correct 

UW Law has hosted Dr. Newdow twice, once last May and then in his lead up to the recent USSC argument. I only caught his first visit (I was an ACS intern in DC during the second) but I found Will Baude's analysis of his UChicago visit to be a good summary of Dr. Newdow at UW as well. The guy is smart, really smart (I mean Dr. Newdow, though I'm sure Will is smart too). He knew his arguments and cases front and back as well as anticipating arguments on the other side. And I completely agree with him. Especially that there wouldn't be this uproar if the side arguing "ceremonial diety" really meant that. One of the differences was that he claimed he didn't need his daughter to link him to the case. He thought there was some right of his that was being violated (he suggested when they recite the pledge at school board meetings, I think)

But, the man is wacky and obsessed. After his talk last May, our ACS chapter took him out to dinner. A good portion of that was spent with him debating my wife (a legal aid family law attorney) about the unconstitutionality of our family law system. He's very jaded that he doesn't have custody of his child. Not that I fault a parent for caring that much, but his arguments lose much rationality because of that emotion. He was also unreasonably peeved about the court imputing his income for his child support payments (remember that this is a man who has a MD from UCLA and a JD from UMich and used to be an emergency room doc who is unemployed by his own choice). But then maybe issues like this need focused obsessed people to take up the fight cuz the rest of us aren't going to do so.

A better left-y than I will ever be 

My wife's work is such a good pc left-y office that instead of secretaries day, this week they are celebrating co-worker solidarity day! So go out there and buy a cookie for your co-worker (vegan, non-franchised cookies preferred).

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

106 & Park: the diatribe 

The background music of my life (at least from 4 to 6pm) comes blaring out of my tv as a stream of hip hop videos on BET (Rap City: Tha Basement, 106 & Park, and sometimes, The Countdown). So here's snippits of what went through my head as I watched today...

>>Why is R.Kelly still doing videos? What happened to the good ol' days of shunning pedophiles? On that note, does he (or his label) really think "pied piper of rap" is the best nickname for someone who, well, uh, see the previous sentence. I'm not even going to comment on the mask.

>>Chingy has been on the countdown for 65 days. I repeat, 65 days. aaaaahhhhhhhh! This is the guy that got famous off a song that ripped off the guttural rrrr of a mediocre nelly song? (this spurred my wife and I to count up the number of songs to jack that sound (to my dismay, even Kanye did it, luckily only for a verse).

>>Speaking of originality, R.Kelly is doing another step song. wasn't that his last song? And not that Master P was ever a genius but his new song rips off, like, 3 different recent songs. And one of those songs, Salt Shaker, seems to have stolen its title from Andre's "shake it like a polaroid picture" line.

>>Wait! I'm not ready for the next item, I'm still going off on originality. J-Kwon's Tipsy video seems to be a completely un-ironic, non-homage remake of Gin n Juice. (though its entertaining that BET substituted whatever the dad actual says at the beginning of the video with an overdub saying "teenage drinking is bad").

>>Speaking of J-Kwon.. running the risk of sounding my age, what the hell is a 17 year old singing about getting Tipsy in a club for?

>>So why do I keep watching? Cuz suddenly I'll get surprised by something like Pitch Black. Nice video, good, non-bling song, and good times. nice.

>>Say what you will about him (and I probably already have said it too, the kid got issues), Eminem is funny as hell and works his image well. Whether its raging against it (The Way I Am) or the hilarious new D-12 video (My Band) he has quite an awareness of what he's putting out there.

>>I don't hate on P.Diddy like many (not that I'm a big fan either) but I thought his wave of appearing in every video was over (that torch seems to have been passed to Kanye). And of all the groups that would actually lose cred, I'd think it would be Eightball & MJG who have had a decade long hard southern reputation already in place.

>>Another reason I watch? Miri Ben-Ari playing violin in a video. That kicks ass (and makes me even sadder I missed the Kanye West/Dilated Peoples show which she opened for)

>>The excitement about the mediocracy that is Lil' Flip is everything that is wrong with hip hop.

>>OutKast's Roses: video of the year. Once again bringing something to hip hop no one else would ever have the nerve to. And and I think Farnsworth's reincarnation as an Outkast groupie may win me over to him.

>>Freestyle Fridays. Freestyle Fridays. Freestyle Fridays. (Jin should be all over the radio by now!)

Monday, April 19, 2004

A Little "Who I Am" 

I realized there is no real about me post and since my website (Tuffer.com) is never quite finished, I thought I'd give a quick and dirty (and likely uninteresting) breakdown here:

  • What I Do: Currently, I'm in my last year at University of Washington Law School

  • Post-Grad Plans: I'm still working on that. My interests are mainly in three areas: Technology Law (I was a programmer before law school), Business Transactions (especially small and professional businesses), and a variety of public interest and legislative issues. If you have a job lead, let me know!

  • Where I Blog: Here and at the American Constitution Society blog (I interned at their national office, though the blog is not officially connected to the organization, simply run by one of their members).

  • In the Headphones: While I listen to a wide range of music, at any one time my tastes are usually dominated by a few genres. Right now I'm banging a lot of backpacker rap (Okayplayer.com, Talib Kweli, Kanye West, The Roots, Common, Dialated Peoples, Jurassic 5). Other than that it's club/house (diva house, 80's remakes, pop dance mixes, eurodance), and occasionally some alt-pop (Material Issue, Josh Joplin Group, Julianna Hatfield, Liz Phair) and the new stripped down rock (White Stripes, Jet, The Vines).
  • Big Screen: While I definitely like my share of big budget movies, most my favs are smaller movies with wacky plots or lots of talking: Melvin Goes to Dinner, My Own Private Idaho, Say Anything, Get On the Bus, Punch Drunk Love and, well, Top Gun

  • On the Radio:
  • 90% of the time I listen to one of two stations: C-89.5 (Club music and dance mixes- the best station in the country, and its run by high school students) and KUOW (Seattle's NPR). The other 10% of the time I listen to KUBE (Seattle's hip hop station).
  • On the Tivo: Mostly sit coms and, um, uh, reality shows (ssshhh!). Dave Chappelle Show, Arrested Development, 106 & Park, The Daily Show, Airline, West Wing, Hey Monie, American Idol, Queer Eye, Bernie Mac, Reno 911, Simpsons, Food Network

  • Not Work, Not School: Photography, lots of photography. Also snowboarding, good restaurants, clubs and blogging. too much blogging.


Thursday, April 15, 2004

Nauru: What a wacky island 

I just read this post about Nauru's bankruptcy at Crescat Sententia. Back in December, This American Life had a story on Nauru (it was the same episode that had their most popular story ever on phone company customer service- do a search for Nauru or the Dec. 5, 2003 episode). I'm sure this was blogged on at CS (the archives weren't all available when I looked) but I've got my own story!! So I walked into school the Monday after the TAL episode and found out that my friend had heard the story and decided he wanted to find out how far up the chain of command he could get on an island of only 12,000. So posing as the president of a made up group (I think "Students for Holding the United States Accountable") he emailed the government there and requested an interview with the President (or whatever Nauru has). While it would be a better story if he'd gotten to talk to them, he was quite pleased with getting taken seriously (though eventually brushed off) by the scheduler for the president (or, again, whatever they have).

Wednesday, April 14, 2004

Wait! I have more recommendations... 

I just read a request on Begging to Differ to suggest a CD to be bought and reviewed. I posted the following:

I highly recommend N.E.R.D. If you haven't heard their first one, In Search Of..., check out that one. Its not as laid back as the new one which makes it fun. The lyrics and music are an enjoyable mix of angst and hedonism. But the newest one, Fly or Die, is mellower if you're into that and the lyrics are a bit more interesting.

but that said, you can't go wrong w/ the Kweli recommendation above (I also have a tid bit about the new Kanye West on my site but I think to appreciate it being the album of the year you have to really know hip hop)


But then I realized I had tons of recommendations! Instead of annoying him with multiple comments, I thought I'd fulfill my need to blab here. So here are my "If you're going to buy one album" suggestions (we'll ignore that I suggest lots of albums instead of "one album").

N.E.R.D. {In Search Of...} One of the few albums I can listen to over and over and over. Its catchy but not the least bit pop-y. It thrashes without being hardcore. The lyrics mix the angst of a teenager with the sexual antics of, well, a teenager. You can almost feel Pharrell's cool factor. (side note: don't miss them in concert either. side note II: there new album Fly or Die is mellower but with more interesting lyrics.)

Kanye West {College Dropout} One of the best albums of the year. It may need an appreciation of hip hop to truely feel its greatness. He walks the line between backpack rap (a mix of underground and consciousness rap with an emphasis on skills, lyrics and beats) and the bling bling world of pop rap. He has some of the best lines you wouldn't hear from any other rapper (well, maybe OutKast) and he does it all over interesting yet mainstream beats that have served to get him a lot of airplay. His breakout hit was a song about his near fatal car-accident, which he made while his mouth was still wired shut!

Tricky {Maxinique} He has since verred off coarse but this is his first solo offer after leaving Massive Attack. Deep, eerie, haunting, intense and dark. A mix of electronica and rock with hip hop influence. His remake of Public Enemy's Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos may be one of the best covers ever. The rest of the lyrics are haunting, when you can depict their meaning.

OutKast {Love Below/Speakerboxxx} The winner of Best Album this past year, its an amazing double album. Andre 3000 and Big Boi (the duo who make up OutKast) each went out on their own to make record and this leaves the two albums distinct yet related. Again, like Kanye, the appreciation is even heightened if you know what went before (see Stankonia next). This album, especially Andre's side which contains almost no rap, is at the same time an unguessable departure from their previous stuff yet completely unsurprising coming from them.

OutKast {Stankonia} OutKast started as a respectable sourthern rap group and moved into more complex, unique beats often straying into the avant-guard (at least so far as rap would allow). Over these beats, there lyrics were wide ranging, crazy and hittin'. You won't find another rap album like this (except, perhaps, their own previous effort Aquemini). This should have been the first album to win the Best Album grammy, unfortunately it came a year before the Academy was ready to break that barrier.

Tuesday, April 13, 2004

I'm just a law school embed 

Just to prove how cool blogs can be, a sibling of Begging the Question is an embedded reporter in Afganistan and sent back these photos now posted on the blog.

Tuf 2 Blog needs its own embed! Actually, I really do want to be an embedded photojournalist. Unfortunately, they seem to require you actually work for a news agency and have background credentials. Not just a passion for photography!

UPDATE: Oops, the person who shot the photos is actually a soldier, not an embed, I just missed the inside joke! Thanks to Fitz-Hume at BTQ for setting me straight.

What's wrong with Conservatives: Ed Gillespie is Nice 

I've seen a disturbing trend in conservatives: they're smiling and joking. Now, you're asking yourself "why is that scary?" Because there's no change in policy (was there ever anything compassionate about conservatism?), it's still an unholy mix of go-for-self politics and the religious-right faux-morals. So despite that fact that the right's policies seem to purposely neglect any disenfranchised group, they hide behind grand theories and political beliefs that bind their hands in dealing with policy. Especially in law, where conservative lawyers and judges feign a "need" to sacrifice an individual who has been discriminated against to the greater good of legal theories like "states rights" or "strict construction" (except, of course, when those theories don't work for them and they're thrown by the wayside).

But since the debate has been moved out of the realm of real people dealing with real life, conservatives are able to debate the points with a smile on their face and a chuckle in their voice. After seeing Ed Gillespie, head of the RNC, on several talk shows (including The Daily Show), I've determined he may be one of the most jovial people ever. I mean how could someone that sweet be arguing to implement policies adverse to the poor, minorities, gays and lesbians, women, let alone any country that disagrees with US policy.

I like my conservatives to match their policies: mean-spirited, crazy and a bit off-kilter.

Eerie metaphor usage 

Listening to BBC news on KUOW (Seattle's NPR) this evening, I heard a disturbing metaphor. Actually it was more the context than the metaphor that was eerie. They were talking about the upcoming elections in South Africa and the leader of the right wing Afrikaner's party, Freedom Front, said the country needs to be "a fruit salad instead of an omelet." Ok, even though that sounds like the disturbing part, its not. The idea was that the ingredients in an omelet lose their individuality. Each piece of a fruit salad maintains its own shape while still being a part of the whole.

The weird part? That's nearly the exact same metaphor used in most of my American Ethnic Studies' courses. The difference was the omelet was a "melting pot" and the fruit salad was a regular "salad." The really scary thing? Fruit salad is actually a better metaphor for what the AES professors were trying to symbolize. All pieces of fruit are evenly distributed, where as in a salad (as the profs always pointed out), no matter how individual the ingredients are, its still mostly lettuce.

Of course, there's also this little difference: I'm pretty sure the AES vegetables actually interact with each other and the Freedom Front vegetables don't even like each other.

LOTPeeps: Another law school coincidence 

I've had several seredipitous events in law school that brought the class subject directly into the real world. For example, in copyrights class we were assigned to read the briefs in the Eldred case since it hadn't been decided yet. On the morning we were scheduled to discuss it in class, the decision came down from the Supreme Court. In another instance, my admin law professor extensively used something we had never heard of ("new source review" in the Clean Air Act) as an example in class. Then just this month the New York Times published a story on this exact regulatory change to illustrate the how Bush has created environmental havoc.

Well here's the newest (and may I say most important) coincidental entanglement: As I'm sitting in class listening to a discussion of legal protections for movies/plots/books/etc.(using copyrights, trademark, etc.), my friend (not know thats what we were discussing) IM'ed me this link to a story on Lord of the Peeps, an hilarious pictorial reenactment of LOTR using Peeps. I have a new law career goal: Marshmallow Rabbit Law.

Monday, April 12, 2004

Kanye is a better hypocrite than Macy 

I've been listening to the new Kanye West CD (College Dropout) nearly non-stop for the last month (its one of the best albums of the year). But it shares a strange connection to Macy Gray's first CD (...On How Life Is): both include both a song driven by religion (KW- Jesus Walks, MG- I Can't Wait to Meetchu) and a song detailing the frustrations of low income jobs and shifty managers (KW- Spaceship, MG- I Committed Murder).

The difference? Macy comes off as hypocritical (in the way that boxers seem hypocritcal when they thank god for helping them to beat down their opponent). I've Committed Murder details Macy's imagined tale of killing her boyfriend's scheming retail store manager. By itself, I don't have a lot of problems with exagerated tales to make a societal point or get out one's frustrations (I do own the original Ice-T CD with the infamous Cop Killer song- though Macy seems more righteous and less political in her ramblings). But just two songs before that I was forced to sit through I Can't Wait to Meetchu where Macy nasceaously goes over the top in a gospel-esque song about how she just can't wait to get to heaven so she can meet God. Really Macy? And so the store-manager-murder thang, that was simply a tale of WWJD?

On the other hand, Kanye's whole CD embraces and admits to conflicts like this, making them all more palatable. Admittedly, Kanye doesn't kill anyone on the album which lessen's the hypocracy, but he certainly gets his bling on at several points. But he deals honestly with this dicotomy on the album. His lyrics are so well crafted around his internal conflicts that even I (who most of the time can't stand any God talk in my music) enjoyed Jesus Walks (the phat beat helps too).

Update: I was reminded that the initial annoyance with Macy's hypocracy was brought up by my wife, not me. I simply latched on to it :)

Saturday, April 10, 2004

A Panorama of the Street 

Here's a very cool photography blog, Unibrow, of panoramic street photography by a guy using a toy camera.

Friday, April 09, 2004

Guy Shopping: Lucky Men 

There is finally a men's version of Lucky Magazine (a woman's clothes shopping magazine): Cargo. Unfortunately, they've Maxim'd it up a bit (added cars, electronics, etc to the clothing) but I'm still putting in my order.

Why am I so excited? Here's an insightful anecdote: When Nordstrom's opened its flagship store in Seattle, I went down w/ the rest of the style obsessed masses, excited to check out the new digs. Floor 1- womens accessories, floor 2- womens clothes, floor 3- women's clothes, floor 4, 5, 6- wait, where the hell our the guys clothes? Way down in one corner of the basement level (ok, a little more than a corner but since most of that are boring suits...). Why is this insightful? Cuz I left pissed and cursing out Nordstroms and guys as a whole for not shopping enough to make it economicly feasible to even give me a whole floor of clothes, let alone the 3 floors I deserved!

Thursday, April 08, 2004

Non-Review #1: Trashing movies I haven't seen yet 

So I'd like to see Passions simply to be an "informed criticizer". But two problems:
1) I don't know anyone who shares that "take one for the team" mentality when it comes to watching hypocritical christian gore.
2) I do not want to add my $10 to the economic jaugernaut that the religious right is now using to prove the greatness of their side (which will make me think twice next time I tote the popularity of Will & Grace and Queer Eye to prove the country is moving in the right direction).

So... I let others do the humorous rants for me!
Defective Yeti has a crazy funny version of the Passions promotional poster.
Aaron McGruder' Boondocks spent most of last week skewering Passions as well.
Paraphrasing Jon Stewart on The Daily Show (After Dawn of the Dead knocked Passions out of the number one slot): We now know that people actually just love movies about people rising from the dead. And the more people rising the better, it doesn't really matter if those people heal the sick or eat brains.

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Movie Review #2: The Dude goes bowling 

Ok, point number one: I realize these are crazy boring posts. Nobody cares what movies I've just seen. But then again, nobody is actually reading this yet, so I have sometime to become witty and interesting. (check out The Defective Yeti for a good example of what I'd like my blog to be: personal, witty, liberal, quick, interesting and seattle-based)

Point number two: the actual review- I finally got around to seeing The Big Lebowski. Of course, as everyone else in the world seems to already know, the Coen Brothers banged out another hilarious movie with John Goodman being his usual outstanding self. And thats it, its 12:15am, I've got school tomorrow, i'm off to bed.

Tuesday, April 06, 2004

Movie Review #1: Melvin yaps on and on and on... And its great. 

Ok, here's my first real blog post and hopefully the first in a series of movie reviews (yeah netflix!):
Melvin Goes to Dinner
One of the top three movies I have seen in a long time (though, just like there are 25 Top 10 law schools, this is probably the 10th movie i've given that honor to). The movie focuses on four friends/strangers who meet for dinner as the script jumps between time frames just enough to make you think "oh, that explains it" but not so much that its a gimmick (or a great plot device, i.e. Memento- if you haven't seen it, see it.).

Being someone who gets an absolute adrenaline rush from an evening of wine, food, and conversation that goes on long past anyone would anticipate, Melvin does a great job embodying that feeling on the screen with good dialogue and actors that react reaslistically to each other.

And don't return the dvd w/o watching the Frank's Film Festival segment!

WELCOME! (though I'm not sure why you're here) 

Welcome to Tuf2Chase, the ramblings and musings of me, Tuffer. For more, see my website at Tuffer.com. I also contribute regularly to the ACS blog if you'd like to hear me ramble on about law and politics.