What would the world be, once bereft of wet and wildness?
Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
"I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'I don't like President Bush.' I thought to myself, 'Brother, you have a disconnect -- the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn't be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don't tell the secretary.'
"He didn't get the contract," Jackson continued. "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe."
just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you
I'm not really sure why you might need to be surfing the web anonymously, but this little application called Torpark lets you do it. Torpark is actually a lightweight version of the Firefox browser that you can put on a USB flash drive if you like, and it appears to make your browsing completely hidden (from whom, I'm not sure). I just installed it and checked my IP address here in both Internet Explorer and TorPark and they registered as quite different. This is one of the first proxy-type browsers that seems to really work.
Andrew Sullivan asks an interesting question in a Time magazine editorial:
'Are you a Christian who doesn't feel represented by the religious right? I know the feeling. When the discourse about faith is dominated by political fundamentalists and social conservatives, many others begin to feel as if their religion has been taken away from them . . . the term "people of faith" has been co-opted almost entirely in our discourse by those who see Christianity as compatible with only one political party, the Republicans, and believe that their religious doctrines should determine public policy for everyone. "Sides are being chosen," Tom DeLay recently told his supporters, "and the future of man hangs in the balance! The enemies of virtue may be on the march, but they have not won, and if we put our trust in Christ, they never will." So Christ is a conservative Republican?'
This is an interesting article on the fact that since he's been in office, George Bush has signed "signing statements" in violation of over 750 laws, claiming that his executive power gives him the right to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution. What this means is that we are witnessing an expansion of the executive branch's power that has not happened since the New Deal era. Another article on the topic can be found here, and the Wikipedia entry on signing statements can be found here.
As I write this post, it is 10:39 p.m., Ohio time, on the evening before my last day as a law student. We are chin-deep in exams. Mary Pat and I have been studying for most of the day, until we just couldn’t. Tomorrow we take our Remedies exam which, for me at least, will be my last (MP's last is on Tuesday). It is hard to convey my joy at the prospect that this, this unsavory experience is almost over. Tomorrow morning, at 10:00 a.m., I will enter room 126 in the Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law and take a three-hour final, put my pencil down and walk out of the building in a state of profound glee. On my face will reside the biggest grin allowed by statute. In fact, I will probably be in violation of O.R.C. §1892.09(a)(7). Yet I will not care. As people walk past me on the sidewalk, they may wonder to themselves (or out loud), ‘What’s up with the shit-eating grin, dude?’ But those who really understand, the ones in the know, the observant ones, will see the trail of notebook paper and pens and file folders and outlines that have fallen from my hands in a long, sad wake behind me, and hear my confident, somewhat tired voice inside their heads, whispering ‘You have no idea.’ I will probably drift home and have a beer. Or I may simply sit on the couch, put on the new Paul Simon album and wait for Mary Pat to walk through the door, who will have the same weightlessness inside her, knowing she’s almost done, smiling.
At any rate, I know that at some point after the exam I am heading up to Detroit to go see one of my favorite live bands, Sector Nine in concert at St. Andrews Hall downtown, where I will kick back in the music and let the entire law school experience, all three years of it, loosen and drift away. I might even boogie a little. It will be a nice –what is it?-- denouement.
So folks, I’ll see you on the flipside. In the meantime, I give you quite possibly the most precise statement of how I feel right now, at this most cheerful moment in time. Be sure and turn your speakers up:
Yes, this site has reached stagnation. I know. But I'm in exams and that's just how it's going to be. You'll know when I'm done. Winnie offers her sincerest apologies.
