:: p-dog ::

Well, shit. I guess we knew it was coming.

NY Times: "[Judge Alito] has been nicknamed "Scalito" for his ideological similarity to United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia."

The most baffling bit of Alito-trivia from Wikipedia: "Alito also works for the Howard Stern show as the studdering man who asks questions to celebrities. He is most famous for asking about condoms to President Clinton."

Really?

:: Leslie H - 8:05 AM - ::

I have two pictures for you:

Photoshop contest! Put monsters into art. Happy Halloween.



And, possibly my favorite picture ever: The Men of My Sister's Wedding. At a bowling pre-party.



Find Bryan.

:: Leslie H - 7:23 PM - ::

GSPP Halloween party (or "getting trashed in your classroom") last night was a hoot and a half. If you've got a minute to kill, you really should check out all the pictures. I don't think anyone was not in costume. And what started family-friendly (some people brought their kids; there was apple-bobbing and pumpkin-carving) soon took a turn for the raunchy.



Here's my favorite picture: me with the Bria/ens. Their name tags, if you can't read them, say "Don't Ask" and "Don't Tell."

:: Leslie H - 10:43 AM - ::

First rain of the season today. (For those outside the California coast, know that rain is the only weather-change between the seasons.) It's exciting for me: I miss normal weather patterns. I'm looking forward to everything turning green and the excuse the drizzle gives me to stay inside and wear snuggly clothes. I baked pumpkin bread today to celebrate.

For all you foodies, check out #42 on the BBC's list of foods you must eat before you die.

:: Leslie H - 7:16 PM - ::

The greatest title ever of a book about policy implementation (admittedly not a very competitive category):

Implementation
How Great Expectations in Washington are Dashed in Oakland
OR
Why it’s amazing that federal programs work at all
This being a saga of the Economic Development Administration
as told by
Two Sympathetic observers who seek to build morals on a foundation of ruined hopes
(by Jeffrey L. Pressman and Aaron Wildavsky)

Check out the front cover here.

:: Leslie H - 10:43 AM - ::

Bryan and I went to Yosemite this weekend for the first time, totally fulfilling my need for gorgeous fall leaves. I also start to get antsy if I feel like I haven't been properly appreciating the amazing wonderful-ness of where we live. Between last week's pumpkin patch and our Yosemite jaunt, I am content. We even managed to find a hike that didn't bore Bryan, and we missed the theme-park crowds that evidently flood the valley during the summer.

Spectacular weekend reward for my hard work-week. We're already thinking about a return trip in the spring (after the snow starts to melt; before the crowds return).

Check out our pictures at, as usual, gallery. Lots of yellow leaves and big slabs of granite.

:: Leslie H - 10:09 AM - ::

Do you know how to save the world? Is your idea better than planting an Artic Bamboo Forest to soak up the melting ice caps? Well, go tell the world at sinceslicedbread. They're looking for policy proposals in 175-words or less, and they'll give $100 K to to the best one.

Even if you don't have the idea that will save America (or "improve the day-to-day lives of everyday Americans"), it's pretty amusing to read others' about, for instance, outsourcing Congress.

[Papers are finished, by the by, and I didn't even have to stay up late. Please pardon my earlier rants, particularly the "let the children die" nonsense. Just one more reason I could never run for office.]

:: Leslie H - 8:54 AM - ::

Do you know why children get lead poisoning? Because they eat paint. They peel it off the walls, they put it in their mouths, and they swallow it. So I say, so what if they end up retarded; they were pretty dumb to begin with.

That's horrible. Of course it's horrible. And the internet is horrible for letting me say that not only to poor Bryan sitting across the desk just trying to do his homework, but to the world at large. But I'm getting a little frazzled about this paper. And it has crossed my mind that it would be easier to write if I pitched a political strategy advocating not outstanding government measures to reduce lead poisoning, but rather benign indifference. What do we need all those children for anyway?

:: Leslie H - 7:59 PM - ::

Two papers in one day is not cool. I am having serious mental blockage. Where are all of my dorm-mates to distract/inspire me? Where are Allison and Rage Against the Machine? Where are my suspicious late-night chicken-rings? What the hell are chicken rings?

At least it's not 4 am, and 30 degrees in a house with no heat. Right, Clare?

:: Leslie H - 6:45 PM - ::

Where I've been...

This week has been ridiculously busy (too busy even to procrastinate via worthless blogging), and it's felt extra-long since I spent all of Sunday up at school. Highlights include:

1) Writing a statute governing charter school accountability and presenting it to the class (our first group project--exciting stuff)
2) Writing a paper for that same class about gender and the equal protection clause. Basically a legal decision for the hypothetical case of an all-women state college and whether they should be required to admit men.
3) Writing a paper for a different class about lead poisoning. I'd give you more details, but I haven't even done the reading for it yet. It's due tomorrow morning.
4) Taking an economics midterm (this morning), which required some mad studying. Demand elasticity, EITC, equity standards, oh my! It does make me happy that even people who majored in economics struggle in this class.

So that's what I'm up to. Happily, Bryan and I are taking off this weekend to Yosemite, where I've never been. Hopefully the trees will still have a few leaves on them; I'll post pictures when we return. We are very committed to this flexible grad student lifestyle that allows for random weekend jaunts, and we have high hopes for making them international at some point. He's already watching prices on tickets for Japan and Europe.

Yeah, bring on those student loans.

:: Leslie H - 11:31 AM - ::

Finally new pictures on gallery. Including, but not limited to, pumpkin-shopping!



This is, obviously, me with the fat pumpkins. (I'm holding Bert, one we came home with. Of course we named them.)

:: Leslie H - 10:41 PM - ::

This post is for anyone interested in Thai food, but mostly for Catie and Leyla.

In the current New York Times, there's an article about some gourmand who lives in Thailand because, in his words, "I decided I didn't want to live anywhere that didn't have durian" (the remarkably smelly Thai fruit, the Times explains).

I don't think remarkably smelly really does this fruit justice. Intact, durian looks like a Medieval mace. Cut apart, the "edible" parts look like either bloated, pale green maggots, or smooth, pale green dog turds. The consistency is of fibrous pudding. And the smell, well, we're back to dog turd.

Here are Catie and I with a whole durian and the prepared package we bought.



Leyla, who will never hear the end of this, had raved about durian and gone to great lengths to get it frozen in San Jose, and Catie, who I may one day stop harassing about it since it wasn't her idea, was determined to get it for all of us. We paid a whopping 40 baht for this king of fruits--the cost of a full meal--and broke it open in the back of our pick-up. Even bumping along at an alarming pace, the stench was unbearable. Out of dumb curiosity, we all sampled. I think Nansi's reaction captured it best:



Doesn't want to live in a country without durian. Jesus.

:: Leslie H - 9:01 PM - ::

"You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect," Harriet E. Miers wrote to George W. Bush days after his 51st birthday in July 1997. She also found him "cool," said he and his wife, Laura, were "the greatest!" and told him: "Keep up the great work. Texas is blessed." (nytimes)

You know, I was inclined to give Miers a break, but this tears it. I may not know her opinion on abortion, but her judgment is clearly unsound.

:: Leslie H - 7:47 AM - ::

The last line from this week's Harper's Weekly Review: "Americans celebrated Columbus
Day, except in Berkeley, California, where they celebrated Indigenous People's Day."

Oh, Berkeley, your heart is in the right place. The post office, however, was still closed for Columbus.

:: Leslie H - 7:41 AM - ::

I signed on to AIM with my screen name from high school all weekend, just leaving it out like flypaper to see who'd stop by. I have about 50 buddies listed, mostly from high school and early college, and by and large I do remember who they belong to, even when they're crazy ones like "Fun with Marmots" or "GoatRider4."

Conclusions of my experiment: most people either no longer use AIM or, like me, they have changed their screenname since high school. Possibly to avoid having to talk to strangers who used to be friends.

Notable catches (people who IMed me):
my sister, confused at me using the old screenname
an old, semi-out-of-touch friend in New York
my former roommate's former stalker

Notable spots (people who I saw online):
my high school journalism teacher
several very old friends
someone I don't remember whose screenname starts with "spanky"

In other news, does anyone out there remember Keith from Carothers? Bryan, Doug, and I were at this seedy as hell biker bar in San Francisco last night with some other friends, and I swear to god we saw him there. This comes only a few weeks after running into Shannon in a park--she's living in the city and, I believe, studying acupuncture. San Francisco is the place to be.

:: Leslie H - 4:43 PM - ::

Today's Waste of Time for Nerds: The Online Etymology Dictionary.


In personal news, someone backed into the side of my car while I was stopped at a red light yesterday, so I'm getting to experience the magical and exciting world of auto insurance claims. Good times.

Did you know the word insurance originally meant "engagement to marry"?

:: Leslie H - 1:55 PM - ::

Bryan and I played racquetball yesterday on one of Cal's oh-so-ghetto courts, and I'm developing pretty serious bruises from running into the wall. You just lose priorities in a game like that, and suddenly whacking the crap out of a ball becomes more important than preserving your physical wholeness.

Can racquetball courts be ghetto? If they can, these are. The best part is the 1 1/2 inch gap between the beat-up nasty gym floor and the scarred and dented walls. Probably dented from people like me running into them at full tilt.

:: Leslie H - 11:40 AM - ::

Nigerians are as happy as Americans, and I'm moving to Bhutan

There was this article in yesterday's New York Times about a movement to measure the well-being of various countries' citizenry by, not GDP (imagine!), but happiness. An excerpt:

"Around the world, a growing number of economists, social scientists, corporate leaders and bureaucrats are trying to develop measurements that take into account not just the flow of money but also access to health care, free time with family, conservation of natural resources and other noneconomic factors."

What absolute madness!

Bhutan is one of the countries reportedly embracing this crazy, crazy trend. I'd like to state, for the record, that if the head of my country were named King Wangchuck, I'd be freakin' happy, too.

:: Leslie H - 10:03 AM - ::

The semester is definitely picking up, work-wise. I can't imagine how busy I'd be if I was actually doing all the required reading. Today's project has been learning all about the Japanese political system in the mid-90s (seriously, ask me anything) and writing a memo for their monopoly telecom company (Nippon T&T) advising them how to game the system to avoid being broken up like the evil monopolistic corporation they are.

I feel ethically obliged to point out that I could have chosen the other side, the hard-working bureaucracy trying to make the world safe for free competition, but I didn't. Sometimes, just sometimes, I like to win.

Anyhoo, that's what's current in the political science portion of my education. In my law-school-in-one-semester class, we're discussing statutory interpretation and whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects white people from affirmative action policies (conclusion: white people, shut up for one goddamn minute). In economics: welfare policy and why it's fiendishly complicated. In quant, I couldn't tell you as my brain's still fried from Monday's midterm. And tomorrow, I'm driving back to San Jose to see if any of my little newspaper staffers actually interviewed their sources. And also to eat Mexican food with Peanut.

Every time I start to get just little stressed out, I just look at the clock. Chances are, middle school students are in classrooms all over the country, working and learning and growing and ogling each other, but I am not standing in front of them. You can't buy this kind of perspective.

:: Leslie H - 9:04 PM - ::