Sasha is my new favorite!

These next couple weeks I'll be posting brainstorms for the new WC Recycling Management Program... if I'm not too busy loitering and yelling at Jeff Van Gundy in Havana House.

And a great piece on the resurgence of the Vlade flop (now the Fisher Flop):
""Flopping is not basketball. Nobody flops in pick-up basketball, because it is the antithesis of competition. Competing means pushing back, not falling down. Competing means focusing your efforts on defeating your man, not playing to an official. And yet the NBA has allowed this spectacle to rob the game of its excitement. [...] It's a disgusting practice, and it has had the same affect on the game as the European introduction of smallpox to Native Americans. Sure, flopping existing before the Euros came over, but it reached new heights under the teachings of Professor Vlade Divac and his bizarrely bearded disciples. Kudos to the NBA for making an effort to put an end to this. If they do nothing else right this off-season, I'll applaud them for this."

I still miss you, you halftime chain-smoking, relentless beard growing Marlboro man.

C'est quoi ce bordel?!

I'm still recovering from the most recent and miserable Lakers' loss in Texas...

It was the announcement that my generation is now known as "The Millennials" that really pushed me over the edge, though.

"Restless" by UNKLE ft. Josh Homme just made Summer kick in

Snippets of my last paper...

Just as our country is divvied up between red and blue states, Buddhist schools are comprised of many angles and perspectives. Not one school or one color is wiser or more compassionate than the next, but simply, different balances of the role of self and understanding of universal suffering.

“Why do so many around the world hate Americans?” Though unhealthy, Americans easily take on international anger of people and try to carry it as individual weights. Orr writes, in his chapter “Walking North on a Southbound Train,” that:
“The assumption is now common that markets are “moral,” but that publicly created solutions are not. The result is a continuation of what a Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, once described as “a riot of individualistic materialism, under which complete freedom for the individual… turned out in practice to mean perfect freedom for the strong to wrong the weak,” (23-24).
Suddenly patriotism is a measure of self-indulgence and greed, as Americans grow more distant from our own impermanence and focus more on maintaining the delusion of the spirit of the “atman.” As patriotism harvests a gap between “self” and strangers, salvation and suffering grow closer to blatantly impersonal ignorance.

The weight of suffering is dealt with in many ways, both in Buddhism and in American politics. Theravada Buddhism, for example, focuses on the misunderstood permanent “self” to end the routine of karma and samsara. Attention to deities and the soul of “atman” are equally wasteful on the route to Nirvana. The cessation of atman and suffering are priorities before embarking on the Eightfold Path lifestyle. Removal of self in the US is considered Mo-Fa for a reason: We dignify everything we do with “the system we have built… based on illusion, greed, and ill will disguised by patriotism, religious doctrine, and individualism,” (26). Americans are prone to construing conservatives and patriots as callous inaccuracies pertaining to those who injure the Earth the most.

Politics aside, American culture infuses our language with selfishness. Higher education, Orr suggests, is a generalization of future capital and test-taking abilities. The purpose of American lives is an empty one, devoid of the imagination necessary to approach ideas, science, and technology to alleviate environmental threats such as “land use, buildings, energy systems, transportation, materials, water, agriculture, forestry, and urban planning” (29). The evolution of our government manifests many symptoms that veer further from environmental and social nirvana.

Sutras have been grafted into different contexts over the course of geographical and historical change. The Buddha is constructed into a deity on a psychological pedestal in more contemporary schools of Buddhism, just as Democrats and Republicans try to emulate esteemed historical figures they have never truly known.

Mahayana is contradictory in its approach towards enlightenment, as it advocates that a Bodhisattva, or those who help others reach salvation, is a self-proclaimed savior. Orr suggests that human reason would reach “enlightenment” per se, once human fallibility is recognized and human “interconnectedness and implicatedness” is discovered. Stability, creativeness shared between government and citizens, improved education, and spiritual renewal, or awareness, will accompany sustainable ideas, (60-63).

The road to enlightenment, both in Buddhism and in US capabilities is paved with a greater understanding of who we are as humans. Humans are not inherently corporate monsters that strive on self-interests and maximization of common resources, but socially and psychologically complex, yet interrelated creatures. Our governing documents, much like sutras, may be guides to enlightenment of reason and a sustainable future ahead, but as Orr explains, “It is a living evolving document. Its great virtue is its ‘extraordinary capacity for self-revision,” (126). America’s potential lies in our opportunities to make over, reinvent, and rediscover our world as world citizens.


Read The Last Refuge: : Patriotism, Politics and the Environment in an Age of Terror by David Orr! America under forcepts and dissection needles...

Iz in Rancho Santa Fe, home of the ninnies

So absolutely thrilled to get my first internship, let alone an on-campus management position that will really test my eco-capabilities.... I couldn't imagine a summer better spent.

I'm pretty much speechless, but I'm in scary North San Diego and conservatives that heavily populate the area are scaring me into learning their lingo. If I can conquer them, what's stopping right wing America from becoming sustainable?

Louisville, KY?

Also, on the newsfront, I'm thinking of investing in a Canon Rebel Eos... so I can photo-journalize betterer.

//and the gulf sign split the screen up//

Autolux is my favorite. They give me free music and write me from England.

Check out Audience No 2?

Yummy.

However drained I was from the visually exhausting Lakers and Dodgers games last night, nothing beats walking around in dressy work attire (and freaking 3 inch heels) in 91 degree heat.

I'm trying to distract myself away from mulling over today's internship interview-- an employment possibility which I am pretty much infatuated with already... true for most jobs that captivate and scare me simultaneously-- and more towards the take home tests and essays that are beckoning my name. So, in the name of productivity, I will solve a local mystery of nature:

Why the hell are stink bugs strewn every which way, all willy nilly over campus, let alone SoCal?

Meg C from Yahoo!Answers shares, "Stink bugs are from Asia originally, were introduced to the US in Allentown, PA of all places, about 10 years ago. since then they have been marching across the states and have been found in the majority of states... basically once they have found your house you're out of luck. they are attracted to the pheremones in the stink so DON'T SMUSH THEM!"

Helpful for the 5 year old in Whittier students... she continues on to say, "...They came out in the fall and spring, as they were hibernating and waking up, but in california they may be more active year long beacause of the weather."

But WHY?

Well, Snow Z explains that:
"The beetles are a wonderful glimpse at how nature works to stay in balance."

Yay!

"For the past several weeks you may have noticed far greater numbers of moths flying around and sipping nectar from blooming plants. They are particularly active just after dark. The moth population exploded in response to well timed winter rains and the October wild fires which pushed them closer to the coast. As you probably know that as the moths lay eggs, a similarly large population of caterpillars will soon follow. We urged people to resist using pesticides to deal with the caterpillar boom which will occur and instead let nature work first.

"The black beetles are nature's answer to the caterpillars. The black beetles look like common stink bugs and in fact do send off a interesting scent when agitated, but they are far different than the stink bugs we typically see around here. They are much quicker and they don't stick their bum in the air to warn off threats. The beetles are in the carabidae family and commonly known as ground beetles and caterpillar hunters. We watched one attack and eat a large fig beetle grub yesterday and it was ugly. These are aggressive little predators that will work hard to keep the caterpillar numbers from exploding. Enjoy them and thank them if you get the chance. They are definitely good guys."

Hyperchouette. I had no idea.

If you haven't been on the What's That Bug site before, check it out. I'll need to figure out what those tantric-sex-ing, wannabe ladybugs are around campus before returning to my silly finals.

Re: mating, wannabe lady bugs:
They're either painted borer beetles or seed bugs ...maybe?
Maybe I could pursue a future in entomology.

Zero attention span

Five more finals to go, and lord knows how many unfinished saved blog drafts in the past week...

Enjoy!

Utah's going DOWN btw

Stayed up all night cranking out an essay on hegemony, contradictory-consciousness, and some religious and cultural syncretism. John R. Bowen's Why the French Don't Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space has had some real gems and gold nuggets to saved, copied, perhaps laminated.

An interview between he and three North African immigrants living in France:

Of the three women, Fariba had talked most frequently with non-Muslims about her own dress. People often asked her why she wore a voile.

Once I asked them: ‘why do you ask that question? Do I ask you why you wear that sweater or those jeans? Why is it I and not you who has to justify my choice?’ They said, ‘well, but jeans are not a religious sign.’ I said: I do not wear it to make evident my religious leanings. If I could wear the voile while hiding it I would do it. Because in religion it is clear that you should do things for God and not for people. It is not to show my affiliation with other people but my affiliation to God. Why does it bother others? That is their problem. They have ideas somewhere that are not the same as mine.

All three women objected to efforts by others to attach objective meanings to the voile.

Souad: The voile is in the heart; faith is in the heart.

Fariba: Yes, faith is in the heart, but I am against the idea that the voile is religious sign, or a sign of religious excellence; it not because I wear the voile that I am a better Muslim than
Maryam or a worst Muslim. It is a personal choice that I take on. And the connotations that is had—‘submissive woman,’ ‘terrorist,’—that is their problem.

Souad: You get the impression that only women with voiles are oppressed in this world. When there are women who die from conjugal violence every day they are not necessarily in veils, but no one talks to them, people only talk about veiled women in certain countries who are struck, burned, but not about others who experience discrimination. The voile is now the symbol of oppression in the world.

Maryam: On the television, it is as if there are only two Muslim countries in the world, Afghanistan and Iran.

Pg. 78-79


Check it OUT.
Kobe's promised us a season til June... I think I might have to stay in Los Angeles to further collect even more great front pages of the LA Times Sports section. Ha.
Like today's "A Victory Full of Value"... thoughts?

Electrosensitivity much?

My bad, but why can't I get excited about Wi-Max? I hope it's not just my blatant neuroses or trust issues.

P.S. MVP MVP MVP until I'm blue in the face. Kobe deserves it.

C'est NUL, ca.

It's so sad to find how and where your conservative ("but not right wing") parents syphon their worldview from... My dad has been talking about Hillary clubbing baby seals, and I finally googled the words verbatim.

Monica Crawley explains:
"Can the junior senator from New York now beat the junior senator from Illinois? Barack Obama's signature campaign line—"Yes, We Can!"—was delivered with a little less gusto last week. Hillary Clinton —aglow with primary wins that gave her candidacy a stay of execution—co-opted it for herself: "Yes, We Will!"
But will she? Can she? First, in order to win, she has to club the baby seal to death. Now that she's got some electoral momentum, she must bring Obama low. She must attack him on every front: preparedness; policy inconsistencies; his association with Tony Rezko and Louis Farrakhan, among others; his commitment to Israel."

How fascinating.

My father has become titillated by a blond bombshell with a conservative dictionary and a sharp-shooter tongue. I'll try to watch my words here, but her biography says:

"Monica holds two Masters degrees and a Ph.D. in international affairs from Columbia University and worked as a Foreign Policy Assistant to former President Richard Nixon from 1990 until his death in 1994. Crowley's experience with Nixon prompted her to write two best-selling books, Nixon off the Record: His Candid Commentary on People and Politics and Nixon in Winter."

Wow... working under Fox News, some plagiarism in her written work, and sexing herself up Ann Coulter style, what's not to love? What's not to take seriously?

Luckily, both my parents brought me up listening to John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou.

Such a bomb-diggity class discussion...

The List of Discursive Self-Policing per our discussion today in Theory of Anth class.

* "wild hair" (ie "I can even handle cutting 'black people' hair.")
* violence in the community (ie Queens' bridegroom & the popo's)
* "illegal aliens" vs. "undocumented immigrants"
* gender=sex (us trying to enter the black box!)
* PCness
* acting as though you deserve being or belong in an airport box, being searched the TSA by the same-sex.
* women and sexual freedom
* de-sexualized senior citizens
* controlled in school/ letting it all hang out on break... American college culture?
* traffic personas-social black box- not fellow human beings
(George Carlin: ...You'll never truly learn to curse until you start driving.)
* that's "gay," reclaiming of terms... where or when you police or don't.

Where are you least self-policed? Where are you most accepting of a social order?

YIKES.
Love this class.

PS Lakers are throwing it DOWN, but who's on the Jazz now anyway?
I wonder how you dub a fear of George Karl as a phobia... since I've had it since I was 3.

riding my will on a three dollar bill in the evening time...

trib·ute (trbyt)

n.

1. A gift, payment, declaration, or other acknowledgment of gratitude, respect, or admiration: put up a plaque as a tribute to his generosity.

2. Evidence attesting to some praiseworthy quality or characteristic: Winning the scholarship was a tribute to her hard work.

3. a. A payment in money or other valuables made by one ruler or nation to another in acknowledgment of submission or as the price of protection or security.

b. A tax imposed for such payment.

4. Any payment exacted for protection.

5. a. A payment or tax given by a feudal vassal to an overlord.

b. The obligation to make such a payment.

I was paid tribute in the best of ways this past weekend, by a family whose greatest skill used to be to instill fear and anxiety in my deepest of depths. Les Fourre's truly wanted to understand my culture and upbringing... highlighted during their visit to San Diego, two great days of tour-guiding, laughter, and joy that I almost lost touch with... without their three children, I would never have become who I am today, nor understood empathy, self-love, and efficacy as I do now.

Highlights:
* Pierre (the eldest son) falling asleep in his beloved, crisp white Converse after a trip to a mall near my high school.
* Iris scrambling to dig and cover a hole with bare hands and slimy seaweed... for the first time in her 8 years.
* Paul shooting invisible Allemands from a toy aircraft in Miramar in 105 degree heat.
* Trying to keep myself from laughing at Paul yelling out "CRETIN IMBECILE" at Pierre in the middle of the San Diego Zoo.
* My au pair mother and I laughing more than we had in the 10 months we had lived together.
* Not seeing my au pair father Jean-Marc in any of his speedos.
* Eating authentic French meals two nights in a row from Trader Joe's in a bungalow on Crystal Pier.
* Drinking wine in the sand with my best friend Jon, while midnight fog rolled in, accompanied by the drunk nudity of two clumsy strangers.


I wish I could think about anything else... ie finals that are actually more captivating than insinuating, a summer without any concrete plans (boy, living in La Brea for 800 a month or earn the trust of my boyfriend's folks in Greenwich, CT... coin toss?), or how creepy Facebook's instant messaging system is.

I miss my French soulmates, and hopefully "a la prochaine" won't be another three years away.
Oh yeah, Joyeux National Day of Prayer... what a beautiful, pays ridicule we live in.