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 Posted January 25th, 2008 at 3:35AM
Can we not start speculating that the combatants in current global wars struggle less against each other and more with Uncle Vitoria’s legacy; one side needing acknowledgment and tribute for having shouldered the heavy and noble burden of teaching and the other side insisting on co-presence at all costs.
– Naeem Inayatullah, Present Dangers
I re-awoke after little sleep, powered on the laptop and tried to write some fiction. I’ve never seriously attempted fiction, and if I was going to seriously start, I should have done so in college. Courses on writing fiction would only go so far – most successful authors probably never enjoyed such benefit – but it couldn’t have hurt.
After about 500 words, I realized it was drivel and hit the big red button.
Last year I took a course with a professor in the politics department at Ithaca College. He had an unpronounceable foreign name with a reputation of being an oddball. The course was on the global political economy of oil. It was classified as an international relations course, which at the time I thought I needed to fulfill my politics requirement. Within a few weeks he had scorched my initial paper and advised me to drop the class if I had no reason to be there. It was probably the best class I ever took.
Naeem’s web presence is lacking, but I’d recommend reading Present Dangers. I re-read it tonight (this morning) and understood it for the first time. It’s a collection of personal experiences culminating into an understanding of our current global conflicts.
By the end of the course Naeem had given me high praise as a writer and thinker. I don’t know if the praise was earned. I don’t know what I’m doing.
It’s best to hide your intentions and contain your criticism if you value your chances.
Every human interaction is a charade. The reason I can’t find employment is because I’m uninterested in feigning interest in people or work I find uninteresting. I must become a better actor.
Posted July 31st, 2007 at 11:53PM
I recently got an issue of Fuse in the mail. It was the second issue of the glossy colorful publication that’s essentially promotional material for Ithaca College. But who cares considering they offered money to reprint an article I had already written for the IC View (where I interned last spring).
If you get a chance, pick up a copy of the magazine. My article on Second Life was the cover story and the spread is very sharp! Only one mistake on the copy too.
And if you can, check the latest issue and the next two of IC View, for more goodness written by yours truly. (I can’t seem to find a website for the view, since it changed names.)
Posted July 28th, 2007 at 8:31PM
Busy month, this weekend is my first one without a race. Just before the first event, I also picked up a used set of Hankook Ventus RS2s, one of the better autox tires out there. After figuring out tire pressures, these things are a huge improvement on my daily drivers. They should last the rest of the season too. And then it’s on to r-compounds next year.
July 8th I drove down to Connecticut to drive with a local club. Went down primarily to mix it up with some other MINIs, which was a blast comparing times and watching them. Turn out was decent, and in SM I took 4th place out of 8. Another MINI was 2nd. Our times were comparable, neck and neck most of the day, but I was cone happy. At the end of the day, I was 4/10ths of a second off of him. I believe my car is better set up handling-wise, but he has the power. Another day!
July 15th and I was at my home SCCA region, MoHud. Here I eventually placed 5th out of a large class of 14. The cars ahead of me were all regulars, and I solidly beat a few others who are making it to a lot of the events. I feel as if I can gain another position, but then I’m SOL until I get a lot better, give the car some more kick, and buy some r-compounds.
July 22nd was back to Ithaca College! Glen region was hosting an event on-campus and I just had to make it to this one. It was a lot of fun being back in Ithaca. My mother and I made it a weekend, but didn’t get to do a whole lot. Ate some decent food. Brought the dog and he behaved wonderfully. Glen is a small region and not super-competitive, which explains why I placed 1st out of 2 entrees in SM. I beat a Chevy Silverado.  Regardless, I’ll take the win. Looking at raw scores, I was also 5th fastest out of a field of 30 (excluding the karts)! Beating me were two Miatas, a Corrado, and an M3. Not bad company, eh? I felt very good about this event, even though I coned my fastest runs. I’m getting used to the sticky tires and can’t wait till the next round.
Posted March 16th, 2005 at 2:49PM
Pulitzer Prize Winner Seymour Hersh to Visit IC on March 24
Renowned author and journalist Seymour Hersh will be visiting Ithaca College on March 24 as the Park Distinguished Speaker for the 2004-2005 academic year. Hersh is a Pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter and award-winning author, who recently won his fifth George Polk award for his accounts of prisoner abuse in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison; the honor distinguishes Hersh as the most-honored individual in the history of the awards.
Hersh will participate in a “town hall” question-and-answer session from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. in Park Auditorium. This session is open exclusively to Ithaca College faculty, students, and staff.
At 7:30 p.m. in the Ford Hall Auditorium, Hersh will present a public lecture entitled “Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib,” based on his recent reports in The New Yorker magazine and his book on the subject. A reception and book signing will follow the lecture. Books will be available for sale.
I haven’t looked forward to a speaker on-campus this much since Kucinich was slated to speak (he later cancelled). I’ll be in attendance at both events, I recommend anyone else attending to arrive early. Last year when Spike Lee spoke, they booked him at Emerson Suites (capacity of a few hundred people). I arrived nearly an hour early and it was already way too late. The line was enormous and only about half of the people there actually got in. I’ve never been in Ford Auditorium, but believe it’s only marginally bigger than Emerson. Ugh. 
Seymour Hersh is one of America’s premier investigative journalists. He has reported some of the most important news stories of our time, including his 1970 Pulitzer prize-winning stories on the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War. Hersh has published eight books, which have earned him the 1983 National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times award for biography, and a second Sidney Hillman award, for The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House. Hersh has also won two Investigative Reporters and Editors prizes, for the Kissinger book, in 1983, and in 1992 for a study of American foreign policy and the Israeli nuclear bomb program, The Samson Option. In 2004, Hersh won a National Magazine Award for public interest for his three pieces, “Lunch with the Chairman,” “Selective Intelligence,” and “The Stovepipe.”
Seymour Hersh first wrote for The New Yorker in 1971 and has been a regular contributor to the magazine since 1993. His journalism and publishing prizes include the Pulitzer Prize, five George Polk Awards, the National Magazine Award, and more than a dozen other prizes (Sigma Delta Chi, Worth Bingham, Sidney Hillman, etc.) for investigative reporting on My Lai, the CIA’s bombing of Cambodia, Henry Kissinger’s wiretapping, and the CIA’s efforts against Chile’s Salvador Allende. In the 1980′s Hersh revealed the CIA’s illicit sale of U.S. weapons to Libya; the drug-running, vote-stealing, and other criminal activities of Panama’s General Noriega; the CIA’s complicity with South Africa’s spying on the African National Congress; the deceit and incompetence of the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada; and the growth of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
Posted February 8th, 2005 at 4:18PM
We took a quiz in my Race in US Politics class last Thursday. On the previous Tuesday, he told us we were having it, layed out what it would be on (the reading for that day). I made sure to do the reading. However I misread the syllabus, and only read one of the two readings. I realized this just before class, and spent five minutes scanning a thirty or forty page paper. I get to the class, there are four questions, only one on the second reading. Great.
I had no idea how he would grade them. I was pretty careful with the questions I knew, and I did an OK job bullshitting the question on the reading I only scanned. At the end of class today, he handed back the papers. I got a 99, scale of 100.
Each question was worth fifteen points, and if you got at least ten points total, he added fourty points (if you couldn’t pick up ten points, you obviously didn’t read (and don’t have the ability to write anything remotely connected to the class, apparently)).
Totally blows my mind. I got full credit on the last question, missed a point elsewhere. It put me into my first good mood in several days. Wild.
Bad Religion — Materialist
You’re obsesssed and distressed
Cause you can’t make any sense of the ludicrous nonsense
And incipient senescence
That will deem your common sense useless
This ain’t no recess!
Posted January 16th, 2005 at 6:20PM
I’m back in Ithaca, arrived at maybe two thirty. Ate at Taste of Thai. With my mother. Pretty good, I’ve had enough peanut sauce for awhile now though. It’s good, but I could definitely get tired of it, quickly.
Don’t know what to do with myself. Everything’s unpacked. Might read a bit and then call it a super-early night. It’s nice being back.
But since I’m back, expect more regular postings.
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