I’m not attending UCSC any longer, nor is my major going to be Legal Studies.  I am attending University of California, Berkeley in the fall with a major in Political Science and a minor in either Anthropology, Linguistics, or Philosophy.  We’ll see which it ends up being.  I’m really excited.  Cal is the number one public university in the country, and I think a degree from that institution carries more weight in the long-term than one from Santa Cruz.

I got awarded a thousand dollar scholarship from the Kiwanis Club of Fairfield.  To get it, I gathered three letters of recommendation from professors at Solano Community College, wrote an essay that was a lot like the one I wrote for the UC application, and then sat through an interview.  I was supposed to get an e-mail about how to collect it this week.  It didn’t come, though.  I’ll wait another three days, and if it still hasn’t arrived, I’ll contact her.

I’ve been reading comic books a lot lately.  So far, I have read:

Watchmen

Persepolis

Maus

Y: The Last Man

The Walking Dead

The Swamp Thing (book 1)

Hellboy (first 5 volumes)

The Dark Knight Returns

The Killing Joke

Ghost World

The Extraordinary League of Gentleman

Currently reading:

The Sandman by Neil Gaiman

From Hell by Alan Moore

I never gave the medium enough credit.  In a talented writer’s hands, it can be highly literary and even challenging, and I also enjoy the speed at which they can be read.  It allows me to get through more stuff than if I were reading novels.

What else?  I miss having my former girlfriend in my life.  Not as a significant other–as a friend.  She’s someone I care about, but I get the feeling that we’re finished.  It’s a shame.

I feel ready to pursue another relationship.  I’ve learned to set no expectations and to take things as they come.  It’s very easy to fall into the trap of trying to strong arm the relationship into the direction you want.  It only leads to disappointment and hurt feelings.

On that note…

WOOT!  Hard work does pay off.

Two glacial beings, gleaming

In the sunlight, their bodies

Anguishing from the heat.

In the distance, a Ferris

Wheel revolves no more,

Thick ivy falling to the

Ground from one of its

Carts.  Romance is gone

From here, and the man

And woman of ice stare

Levelly at each other.  She

Has three spinning metal

Plates above her head, the

Colors uniform, the sizes

Large to small proceeding

Inward.  Her face long and

Narrow and elegant, and

What seems a tear slides

Down her left cheek.  The

Male is dull and gray, his

Limbs uneven, his face

Caved in like a collapsed

Building.  They are the

Last of their kind.  Yet

That is incidental,

Their backs turning,

Their walk beginning.

Oblivion suits them

Better than heroics.

My judgment on the content of these memos is a matter of record. In one of my very first acts as President, I prohibited the use of these interrogation techniques by the United States because they undermine our moral authority and do not make us safer. Enlisting our values in the protection of our people makes us stronger and more secure. A democracy as resilient as ours must reject the false choice between our security and our ideals, and that is why these methods of interrogation are already a thing of the past.

But that is not what compelled the release of these legal documents today. While I believe strongly in transparency and accountability, I also believe that in a dangerous world, the United States must sometimes carry out intelligence operations and protect information that is classified for purposes of national security. I have already fought for that principle in court and will do so again in the future. However, after consulting with the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, and others, I believe that exceptional circumstances surround these memos and require their release.

First, the interrogation techniques described in these memos have already been widely reported. Second, the previous Administration publicly acknowledged portions of the program – and some of the practices – associated with these memos. Third, I have already ended the techniques described in the memos through an Executive Order. Therefore, withholding these memos would only serve to deny facts that have been in the public domain for some time. This could contribute to an inaccurate accounting of the past, and fuel erroneous and inflammatory assumptions about actions taken by the United States.

In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution. The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world. Their accomplishments are unsung and their names unknown, but because of their sacrifices, every single American is safer. We must protect their identities as vigilantly as they protect our security, and we must provide them with the confidence that they can do their jobs.

Going forward, it is my strong belief that the United States has a solemn duty to vigorously maintain the classified nature of certain activities and information related to national security. This is an extraordinarily important responsibility of the presidency, and it is one that I will carry out assertively irrespective of any political concern. Consequently, the exceptional circumstances surrounding these memos should not be viewed as an erosion of the strong legal basis for maintaining the classified nature of secret activities. I will always do whatever is necessary to protect the national security of the United States.

This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past. Our national greatness is embedded in America’s ability to right its course in concert with our core values, and to move forward with confidence. That is why we must resist the forces that divide us, and instead come together on behalf of our common future.

The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals. That is why we have released these memos, and that is why we have taken steps to ensure that the actions described within them never take place again.

I went to a baseball game–A’s vs. Red Sox–with fourteen other people.  I had a great time and was the loudest I’ve ever been at a sporting event.  Did lots of antagonistic yelling at the Red Sox.  What made it funny is that the seats were too nosebleed for any of the players to hear our heckling.  One of the lines I can remember uttering was after a Red Sox player hit a foul ball: “I hope it hits a Red Sox fan!”  For whatever reason, that got a lot of laughs.  There were only two downsides; the weather, since it was windy and cold for the game’s entirety; and the fact that we had to leave early so one of the people who went could get his kids home to sleep.  He has two sons, and it was their first baseball game.  Both of them are amusing; the older son likes to make jokes and build things out of legos, while the younger is fond of memorizing song lyrics and claiming this machine and that one are secretly transformers.  As the image of the box score I cropped shows, the A’s eventually won in twelfth inning.  Yay for that.

According to Andrew Sullivan, whose blog I’ve made a habit of reading daily (you should too), today is the day in which President Obama decides whether to open to the public the many grotesque memos about torture that the Bush administration wrote, thereby giving the war crimes accountability, or keeping those same memos hidden, thereby condoning the use of torture without making anyone answerable for it.  A part of the blog I especially enjoyed:

He will betray all of us who supported him to restore the rule of law. He will, in fact, merely confirm the worst fears of what was actually done while making himself an accomplice to protecting the war criminals who did it.

Yesterday I attended Spring Spotlight with my friend Sara.  Our reservation was for 9:00 AM, so we had to wake up at five AM to include our morning rituals.  We made good time, and there was surprisingly little traffic for the day after Easter.  We got on campus with time to spare, which was fortunate; there was a decent amount of wandering in search of the right parking lot.  Eventually we found the correct one, bought an all day pass for six dollars, and then parked in the lot closest to the bookstore.  From there, we visited three departments: Art, Legal Studies and Politics, and Anthropology.  After Sara spoke with someone at the Art Department for a bit–an assistant I think–we came upon one of several studios.  She was content to peer in through one of the windows to get a limited view of what was inside.  It was a day of adventure, I felt, and it was in that spirit that I dragged her inside to see what was finished and what was being worked on.  The artwork was gorgeous.  I wish I had taken a few pictures with my cell phone–I would have asked permission first, of course.  After that, we went downtown, ate sushi, walked around, went to two bookstores and a store for beads, and ended the day in Santa Cruz by lying on the beach for about forty minutes (it got windy and cold, and apparently a storm was on the way).  It was one of the best days I’ve had all year long.  I will remember it with a big, ridiculous smile for several months at least.

I also find it particularly beautiful when a snake sheds its skin.  It’s like the motion of the aforementioned concept.

It is the most damning and credible indictment of the American government to appear in years – more damning because it was prepared in the usual secrecy and not intended as a public document; more damning because it comes not from Jane Mayer or Mark Danner or Dana Priest or this blog, but from the most credible and respected human rights watchdog in the world: the International Committee for the Red Cross. It is broad, meticulous evidence of pre-meditated, illegal, and immoral war crimes that were then subject to cover-up and lies at the highest levels. It makes Nixon’s crimes look petty. You no longer have any excuse to look away or move on.

Either America deals with this or it does not. It is a test of character and integrity for the country and for the political elite. It is a test for the new president.

I would add that it is yet another opportunity for the lazy and indifferent to get involved and to create a dialogue with others to broaden public awareness.  A decently informed individual will know about torture, how the definition of what it is and isn’t has been blurred to justify its use, and that sometimes all you need is a name that is similar to a known terrorist’s to be abducted and tortured in another country–ironically, one that is listed for its terrorism.  This reminds me of a recurrent moment in my political science class.  Is it acceptable to say that the United States may be bad, but there are other countries that are much worse, like Iran?  No, it is not.  It’s never okay to torture or to try to inflict Democracy on other territories as if it’s a panacea for its collective woes.  The American ideal, the one alleging that we are better for our freedom and for other qualities inherent to our way of life, is not in effect and needs to be before our credibility and moral legitimacy can be revived.

Mrs. Dalloway
To The Light House
Ulysses
Pale Fire
Lolita