tuesday museday

Today's edition of Tuesday Museday:

• Truvia update: simply put, so far so good. My coffee has tasted just fine and I don't feel any new cancers sprouting up anywhere, so I would have to say that a week in, the truvia experiment has been a success. My next coffee related decision will be whether to switch from my staple Pilon to an espresso made by Shenandoah Joe. Having the Joe twice this weekend in Charlottesville has really turned me onto this particular brand of bean, but at 3x the cost per pound of the venerable Pilon, I have to wonder if the juice is worth the squeeze. More to come later.

• Don't look now but the Rangers are on a 5 game win streak. So are the Giants! The Jets, not so much. Steve Sommers on the Fan tonight made a good point about the wildcat offense that also made me laugh: the wildcat is nothing more than the running game by a different name. Somehow calling it the wildcat gives defensive coordinators a pass because it makes it seem so much more new, exciting, and dynamic. Way to go, Steve-o!

• Interesting article about Mad Men I read today in the Atlantic. The author makes some good points, especially with regard to the occasional failings of historical accuracy (of special interest to me as a known history man). I do fault the author for using the word verisimilitude TWICE in one piece, which smacks of insufferable douchery.

• Continuing with the Mad Men theme - man, January Jones is really hot.

Thats all for now, I have arguably far more important writing to be doing.

tuesday museday

In what should hopefully be a new weekly feature, I present to you Tuesday Museday. I will present some things that have caught my eye and hopefully provide some witty commentary!

• Today at the grocery store I purchased a new type of sugar, at least new to me. Before I was content with Sugar in the Raw for adding to my coffees and teas, as it is a) tasty and b) pretty natural seeming. The new sweetness in town (or at least my cupboard) is called Truvia, which is made with the plant extracts from the genus Stevia and the sugar alcohol erythritol. A sweetener that isn't totally genotoxic sounds too good to be true, so hopefully it doesn't taste like ass or cause me to grow a third eye. I am sure if it fucks up my daily dose of coffee in any way, though, you will hear about it.

• This completely insane painting has been making its way around the Internet today. Is it just me or do the wingnuts grow more insane by the day? I mean the overall rhetoric of this isn't that wild (there is even a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. in there!), but the overall presentation smacks of crazy. Cowering immigrant? Really?

• In my daily listening to Benigno and Roberts on WFAN today, the topic of the Mets' Citi Field paying too much homage to the Dodgers (and to a lesser extent the Giants). Among their chief complaints was that modeling the stadium after Ebbets Field was a poor start. I couldn't disagree with their position more. Look, the Mets were based as a replacement team for the Dodgers and Giants. In their selection of uniform colors, they specifically chose Dodger Blue and Giants Orange. The "NY" in their official logo comes straight from the Giants. The team was CREATED to pay homage to these two franchises that left New York high and dry (thanks a lot Robert Moses). Ebbets Field is (was?) iconic, and I think modeling the new stadium after another so important to the city's National League history was more than appropriate.

• The Rangers won again yesterday. Yay. Their overall record is now 2-1-0 with a big test coming up on Thursday against the Caps at the Verizon Center. I really hope they can make up for their shameful playoff performance with a win.

• I renamed my fantasy football team to Poo Poo Muldoon H.E.C. (hand egg club) because of their high degree of suckitude. More on this later.

Thats it for Tuesday Museday for this week. Lets see what other rhymed daily themes I can come up with... or not.

oh what a night!

Short, but hopefully sweet, thoughts on the happenings of the night:

1) Not really about tonight, but about this night TEN years ago... it was the release day of the SEGA Dreamcast. I remember this night pretty vividly, actually. I believe it was also the night of the MTV Video Music Awards (as an impressionable 13 year old, of course video games and MTV were important spheres of influence in my world). Its kind of hard to believe that 10 years ago is so fresh in my mind, but I guess that is just a part of getting older...

2) Now, back to the present day. The Fightin' United came out with all three, crucial, golden points against Kansas City. Good to see them score in the run of play, since that hasn't happened in weeks. I can't really comment more on the game, seeing as how I could only follow it on the tweetstream from the DCUnited website. GOOD ON YA UNITED!

3) USMNT with a clutch victory over T&T on a 61st minute golazo from Ricardo Clark. It was a gritty match, with the back line putting in a pretty comical performance in the first half. Howard, as usual, was on point and there to play, although he definitely got bailed out by the crossbar and by T&T lack of cutting edge on a couple of occasions. The result is three critical points, so I am not going to complain one bit more.

4) Obama's speech. I don't really feel like trifling around with a comprehensive review of the speech (especially since it will be done much better on numerous sites around the interwebs), but I do have some quick hits that I would like to share:

+ Overall, I liked the speech. Good show from Obama.

- TERRIBLE from the fucking heckler from the Republican side of the aisle. What the hell was he thinking?!?! He is a federal-level official, not some grab-ass town councilman at a contentious school board meeting. Grow up and find some decorum. Actually, first look up decorum because I am sure you don't know what the word means.

+ Some form of public option, although I am not 100% confident that I fully understand how it would work. I look forward to more detail on this one.

- - Mandate... I am not really into the whole mandate concept, but it seems like it dovetails with the public option component somehow, so again, I look forward to more details.

+ Invoking Kennedy and reminding Republicans like Grassley that they need to grow the fuck up and stop fanning the flames of lies.

+ Rhetoric on the nature of government and what it can, should, and should not do. Very nice.

+ + Putting health care reform in historical perspective, and also comparing how we have gotten to this point with respect to major reforms.

+ + + (and I am paraphrasing here) "not the first president to try to fix this issue, but determined to be the last"... loved it.

Again, overall, I liked the speech a good deal, now its time to see how it travels down the various echo chambers and into the public opinion.

a fucking disgrace

And no, I am not talking about Greg Janicki's performance at the back for D.C. United last night against Marathon in CONCACAF Champions League play, although that could merit a good rant in of itself.

I do make reference to this soccer dude, though:

"It's a fucking disgrace!" (0:40)

Mr. Drogba's indignation at the terrible refereeing in that game mirrors nicely my growing frustration with the tone of the anti-health reform movement and the handling of the situation by the Obama Administation. The Republicans who are intent on keeping the status quo and conning the American people with flat out lies about the proposed changes are making me sick. The possible abandonment of a public option by the President is most discouraging.

Now I am not going to drone on about facts and figures about why reform with a public option is far, far superior to the "fucking disgrace" of a situation we have now - there are other, more informed sources that would do a much better job of that. I also am not interested in going on an impassioned explanation about how a stunning majority of my family falls into that great mass of uninsured Americans and how worry over their well-being comes over me almost every day. No, all I would like to do is probe into some logical fallacies with the Republican argument against reform.

Republican Tenet 1: We need to keep taxes on the super rich low in order to compete with other industrialized nations, to retain talent and to reward the entrepreneurial spirit alive and well.

Republican Tenet 2: We can't afford government-run health care because it would be ruinous to the economy and would be far too socialist of a measure.

Hmm... it would seem that these other industrialized nations HAVE some form of pubic option for health coverage - a socialist measure of course. So... we can't afford something that these "socialists" HAVE in order to keep pace with them? Oh, and relating back to taxes... in order to PAY for this safety net, they have higher taxes than we. Oh...

To summarize in case my questioning tone confused you, dear reader: we can't afford slightly higher taxes on the super wealthy NOR can we afford a public option so we can COMPETE with countries that have one to pay for the other. Maybe we would be more competitive if we had the same system as they? No, no. God forbid we try to emulate these other countries, who are certainly giving us a run for our money (if the Repubs are to be believed) with these socialist shackles. No, no, that would make FAR too much sense for those who would want you to believe that government-administered health care would lead to death panels and rationing (the latter of which we have already, fyir).

President Obama - please do your fucking job and direct the Democratic party in an effective manner. The people who voted for you want a public option. Don't waver. Elections matter. You have the majority, you have (above perhaps any other modern day politician) have the oratorical skill and ability to convince the American people (those among us who are reasonable, at least) of the necessity of change. Millions of lives and hard earned fortunes hang in the balance. End this fucking disgrace of misinformation by the right and abuse of the American people by the health insurance industry. There are times for bipartisanship and there are times for bold leadership in a new direction. Now is the time for the latter.

thoughts on chapel hill

Yes, yes, by "tomorrow" of course I meant two weeks. Really, I will be back on the wagon soon.

The Old Well

For the second straight year, my first week of August was spent in Chapel Hill for a conference. I must say that, just as last year, I come away impressed and intrigued. On my first night in town, I texted to a friend over some late night pizza, "I really, really like bizarro Charlottesville!" I think that fairly epitomizes my opinion of the place. In general I view UNC-CH as a sort of bizarro UVA: two old, southern schools with fine reputations, classy academic programs, and great surrounding cities. Below I offer a subject-based comparison that help frame my understanding of the place.

Bar Scene: Franklin Street is Chapel Hill's answer to both the Corner and Downtown Mall. I really liked how all of the bars were along one axis at the perimeter of campus. Having both sides of the street dedicated to student revelry and gastronomy offers a distinct advantage over the Corner in the sense that it creates a virtual hyphydrome when there are a lot of people out on the town. Or when a national championship is won (not that UVA would know anything about that in a sport that people care about). The tendency of bars to charge a cover most nights was very perplexing to those of us used to bar-hopping on the Corner. The practice effectively locks folks into staying at one or two places for the whole night, but that is not too bad considering that these $3 charges typically give you access to some pretty sweet drink specials. Overall, I would I have to say that I enjoyed myself immensely each and every night I went out and hope to go back and prowl Franklin Street once more.

Campus: I found the architecture of most of the buildings on the main part of campus to be rather attractive, despite the lack of an overall theme. I think being from Virginia has me spoiled: each of the major schools here seem to have a certain look or profile to their buildings; UVA has its red brick, W&M has its pale brick, VT has its trademark Hokie Stone, and JMU has bluestone from a local quarry. I think having buildings with different styles and looks adds to the appeal of a campus and helps to give each building its own identity. Unfortunately, the campus shared something with the aforementioned schools: a smattering of buildings that were clearly designed in the 60s and 70s - completely hideous affairs with thin windows and jarring facades. Bleh. Overall, a rousing thumbs up for the scenery. I found it comparable to the beauty of its bizarro younger sister in Charlottesville.

Student Body: Now I am going to admit straight out that I am basing this judgement solely upon the group of kids I met during this conference and those few others that I knew before that are students/alums. I must say that on the whole I like what I see. The people there seem to be similar to folks you would find at UVA, except without the d-baggery and big-headedness that comes with being labeled the "top public school in the nation." (To their credit, the Berkeley kids were pretty chill about their school's prestige.) They definitely know they are the shit in NC (as far as publics go) and don't let others forget... they avoid being rich about it, though, which I definitely appreciated. I meet some really cool folks, and it kind of makes me wonder what life would have been like had I gone to this school (assuming I got in of course, which is a pretty big assumption considering you have to be a fucking baller to get in out of state).

Overall, I must say that I found Chapel Hill to be a rather charming place. The town, the campus, the people... all fit together to make UNC-CH one of those places I have a "school crush" on. Good on ya, Carolina.

threestripes revival

Last post was over a month ago at this point, but it's not as if I have not been thinking about the blog. I believe that my lack of blogging has been due to the erratic nature of my schedule (touring across the state mixed in with variable, odd, and time-consuming tasks) and the fact that when I have had free time, I have not really felt a huge urge to bloviate on any interesting topics. I have been reading some books, following events in the soccer/political world, and researching law schools, so I think my source material is getting to the tipping point where I will absolutely have to write about something to sort everything out.

Check back for a new, exciting post tomorrow!

three stripes, now with tags

I have taken the liberty to tag almost all of the posts from the past year of blogging. Navigation, ho!