Josh Harnett in "Rain Man"

Liking the hair curl.. Perhaps an attempt to look like Raymond?

I was starting to think the world had forgotten good ol' Josh.. I mean, didn't he do that "Pearl Harbor" movie like a decade ago, and then more or less we haven't seen him?

Looked him up on Google.. recent movies include a French film called "I Come with the Rain" and a 2005 movie called "Mozart and the Whale". Sweet :) He WAS in "Sin City".. actually he's the narrator voice that introduces the whole movie.

Ahh well, old ghosts must resurface every few years or so. To be honest, I didn't even remember who Josh Harnett was until one of my friends told me about him in the context of a drama in Leicester Square's Apollo Theatre: Rain Man starring Josh Harnett!! Can't miss that! This is what London's all about!!

Really? I get to watch one of my favorite movies with some unknown teen heart-throb trying to pretend he's an actor and probably being hopelessly outclassed by the guy playing Raymond?

For 12 pounds, I'm in.

And it was everything I wanted it to be. To be honest, the story of Raymond (the Rain Man) is rather heartwarming and fuzzy inside. Josh Harnett was perfect in the role of Charlie Babbit (Raymond's younger brother who discovers that he has an idiot-savant brother only after his father, who he hasn't spoken to for years, dies). The character Charlie is generally angry, cusses a lot, and stands with his hands against his hips (Peter Pan style) showing off his Armani suit every chance he gets, even when he first discovers that he has a brother... I think somewhere in there poor Josh forgot his lines, and just sat there, looking confused. Thankfully, that was precisely the emotion the moment called for.

Not that Josh is a bad actor.. he's probably perfect for movies, where you get to re-do the 30 second scene over and over until it's perfect. Stage acting is a different kind of high-octane animal though, and it was obvious that Mr. Harnett was up against his own limits in a few scenes. We've gotta give him kudos for trying though-- he's probably already got more money than god, and is definitely trying to become a better actor. I would have been truly impressed, of course, to see him play Raymond.

And of course, whoever it was who did play Raymond (Adam Godley is his name) DID completely outclass poor ol' Josh. I felt a bit savanted by the time I left the play, though it was gratifying to see Mr. Godley come out for the credits walking like a fully-functional human being, and taking a bow..

Mr. Godley behind Mr. Harnett.. 5 stars to the Britt :)

Mr. Godley's best scene: I would have to say the whole play.

Mr. Harnett's: Whenever he's pissed off with his hands on his hips (oh wait.. the whole play) and of course the makeout scene with his hot blonde girlfriend..

The beauty of the whole enterprise is that no matter how poorly or well Mr. Harnett acts, the play will succeed because poor suckers such as myself can't help being curious. I've never seen so many people take pictures of a stage actor as he bowed in my entire life. Also, the director of the enterprise was clever enough to play off Mr. Harnett's star qualities by sliding the sets on and off the stage and using the curtains to create scene cuts very similar to what one would see in an actual movie...

My favorite part: The Haagen Dahz confection stand.. why don't we have Haagen Dahz in the theatres back at home? It makes you feel like you're in your house on the couch watching Pearl Harbor.. especially the part where Mr. Harnett takes his shirt off.

I suppose this is what we all paid to see..

I'm sure Mr. Harnett is gratified to know he gets to take off his

shirt for an audience some 3-5 times a week.

Kudos.

50 Philosophers Converge on Cumberland Lodge: Epistemics, The Vibrator, Cheating, Love and the Queen

The Cumberland Lodge Hiking Group, with something
out of the Lord of The Rings to back us up.

Last weekend saw us philosophical junkies heading off on a dreary (to be nice) Friday afternoon. Imagine a gaggle (we were rather like ducklings) of philosophers, complete with luggage, guitars, and talking incessantly, taking over the sidewalk as we walked from The Strand to Waterloo Station (20 minutes, from one side of the Thames to the other). I believe we were quite an odd scene.. and invariably we all fell into little pockets chatting with one another about whether or not we existed, which created the pragmatic dilemma of looking up 10 minutes later and wondering where the hell everybody else WENT....

Thankfully one of us had been near Waterloo station before. More fun at this juncture: how long does it take 10 philosophy students to piss off the ticket agent as we seek the cheapest group fare for a 45 minute trip to Egham? Not very long..

Monty Python comes to mind: two 'teams' of philosophers on a soccer field. The whistles blow; the game starts, and the philosophers just sit there.. like .. frogs. Eventually one of them shouts EUREKA!, dribbles the ball away from center field, and taps it into the goal.

Rob: "No no no you fool!! FIRST you dribble the ball, then you shoot!"
Saeed: "Ahh, yes, I see.. but then what?"

Ahh, philosophy. So much fun, so completely, hopelessly impractical. And yet so intriguing-- I have been very surprised lately to learn that when you look at almost anything closely enough, it starts to come apart. Jaques Derrida, I tip my beanie to you. More on metaphysics some other time though (and I promise it won't be too boring-- let me say only: money makes absolutely (and pardon the pun) NO CENTS!!).

So what is Cumberland Lodge? Apparently its the royal guest house for Windsor Palace, and it's been converted to a sort of conference center for groups of academics. There are two main buildings, and the rooms are all very interesting- some painted a deep, womb-like shade of pink (somebody else's description), while others are light blue, or perhaps green. I should have taken more pictures of the rooms.

Daniella (one of the 'Pink Room Residents') discovers what will soon be infinity:
Herself discovering herself in a blog discovering herself in a blog discovering.. etc..

We stayed in this philosophical sanctuary for the weekend. Each day there was a series of lectures that we were encouraged to attend. One or two were actually philosophically interesting, and so I will just brush on them- something about trying to define objects (for example, if I keep removing grains of sand from a pile of sand, when does it stop being a pile), and then some really deep epistemology (study of knowledge) and the old matrix question of: How can we know whether or not reality is even there.. what if you're just a brain in a vat, with all the proper electronic nodes connected, and reality is a big illusion?

I've never been a huge fan of this kind of stuff, but it's an agreeable way to pass an hour, inbetween reading massive amounts of sociological text for class next Monday.

What was much more fun was the lecture on the history of the vibrator, a screening of "The Crying Game", and Professor Luke Bovens' slightly hung over Sunday morning lecture on the nature of love. But wait, dear audience, because before this Saturday even spectacle was attended, we found it worthwhile to strap on our boots and take a 4 mile walk to Windsor palace. Pictures follow.

The intrepid philospohers journey toward the monolithic
King George on his horse.

Must.. conquer.. horse statue..


Victory is Mine!! The horse is vanquished. Now.. how to get down?

Once reaching the horse statue, we notice that Winsor is still
a LONG ways off..

But eventually we do find the castle, which is closed because the QUEEN
is currently residing therein.

OK, so the lecture wasn't called the history of the vibrator.. that was only part of its name. The full case was "Pornography, Objectification, and the History of the Vibrator". If you're a bit squeamish at this point, I can assure you the discussion remains PG (but is still fascinating). The lecture focused on contemporary feminist literature, which accuses men of objectifying (treating as objects) women in pornography, and also of personifying (IE treating as a person) the pornography they watch. The discussion was very interesting: at what point can you say you treat an object as a person? Is it because of the function (the end) to which you ascribe the person? I believe all men in the room became more and more uncomfortable as this line of thought went on.. perhaps we really DO objectify women too much.. there is definitely some sort of a link between pornography and focusing only on certain aspects of women in real life...

or is there?

The lecturer proceeded into a discussion of needlepoint magazines from the late 1800s. Why you ask? Because invariably at the back of the needlepoint magazines are MEDICAL advertisements for portable vibrators. These are completely non-pornographic and are socially acceptable in the context of common needlework magazines. Why is this? Apparently back in the 1800s part of the contemporary medical thought was that women can sometime start to get 'hysterical', and part of the solution to this hysteria (and I kid you not) was clinical stimulation of the woman to the point of attaining a 'hysterical paroxysm'.. what we would call an orgasm. This was a MEDICAL treatment for a well-documented and common condition that women often faced. Apparently the doctor (or sometime a spa technician) would administer the treatment, or have some sort of crazy contraption (IE a specialized douche, or a steam-powered vibrator) that would bring on the 'paroxysm'. How fascinating- doctors were, at least through the contemporary lense, a type of prostitute for women.

Of course, nobody really saw (or admitted to seeing) the medical treatment as being, in any way, sexual. I can sort of see this. With the growth of technology, the need for the doctor and his machines led to the creation of more and more portable vibrators. At some point, the vibrator was included in a pornographic film (back in the '20s), at which point people realized that perhaps this 'hysterical paroxysm' procedure need not be a part of the medical profession..

This all led to some very interesting points about vibrators and pornography.. a sort of battle of the sexes ensued over whether women personify their vibrators (treating them, perhaps, as doctors?), and whether men are doing something similar with pornography.

My favorite thought of the evening: A lot (and by this I unfortunately mean most) of pornography portrays no mutual respect between the partners. Women are treated in ways that should not be legitimately portrayed if a society is to remain healthy... I personally feel that people should be very careful as to what sort of images they subject themselves to, and that's all I have to say about that.

This is before the vibrator lecture, but tangentially in context.. Jordi and Hallie
get into the fray regarding the exact limits of a loving, monogamous relationship..
I should have gotten a picture of Saeed here, who ended up in the exact same
position at Jordi, about 2 hours later (puzzled look and all).
Just so nobody thinks we're creepy (or cheating) we ACTUALLY DID have a 3 hour syposium
on what love is... and Saeed got gang-raped trying to defend a conservative version of love.
We're just that dweeby (and apparently just that liberal).

Our evening continued with a viewing of The Crying Game, which, if you have not seen, I highly recommend and will not comment on because I do not want to spoil the ending. I will, however, note that two people manage to fall in love despite some limitations that most would think keep such a love from ocurring. The movie has this one extremely beautiful moment when one of the characters is about to commit suicide, and the other character (the lover) gently takes the gun away.. the scene was one of sweeping beauty.

How goes the philosophy retreat in the moments away from the lectures? Cumberland lodge treats us to amazing food (delicious chicken kiev, I had not had pineapple slices in months, and there was fudge pudding for desert), and of course the bar is almost always open (heaven forbid the bar be closed at noon on a Sunday in England). More importantly, however: The Saturday evening party!!! More dweebish goodness- 50 philosophy students get drunk on wine and coronas (yes, Coronas.. with lime), and then proceed down to the Cumberland lodge basement, where waits a speaker system with the worst selection of music possible (random 80s movies soundtracks, esoteric bands from various countries.. this was rather incomprehendible), as well as two billiards tables. Where do we converge? The billiards table of course. The rest of us go back to the bar, leaving those who want to dance (namely myself, Professor Bovens, and four or five other adventurous souls) to try to make sense of unspeakably weird music. Various comedi moments ensue, the night wears on..

At some point one of us realizes we can hook up an IPOD and listen to our own music (EUREKA!! The philosopher runs to the IPOD, dribbles it to the speaker, taps it in). And at some point, the party becomes a party.. sort of.. Our musical mix upgraded to a selection of '50s swing tunes intermixed with the occasional Gorillas, Micheal Jackson, and Jay-Z. Ahh.. eclectic paradise. I went into a French club last Friday night, and was less lost. So it goes. More on this later.

The high point of the night: at 1 AM the bar closes, people make their way back down for a song or two. 20 philosophers are now in a big circle, watching two or three philosophers dance. One overly-exuberant (and rather bald) philosopher gets into a dance-off with his professor, and the professor not only keeps up, but rather dominates the younger student (myself, if you hadn't guessed) with his suave Belgian toe-pivoting-ballet moves. Ahh yes, a night to remember. I remember watchin Professor Bovens stagger off to his room, completely exhausted from 4 hours of continuous dancing (and maybe one or two too many Coronas). After the old people go to bed, what do all the kiddies do? Well, dance our butts off until 4:00 AM, of course! Best of house parties, and at the end of it, 6 exhausted philosophy students join their peers in the land of eclectic dreams. At some point, the limit is reached-- no more philosophical conversation seems possible.. Half time.

One of the Many random details in Cumberland lodge.. some Prince takes
a 'good old whack' at the ball one dreary morning sometime long ago..

Sunday morning: We drag ourselves out of bed, and half of us dress up to go to Sunday services. Why you ask? Because of the offhand chance that the QUEEN, who regularly stays in Windsor, will be in attendance. The other half go to Bovens' lecture, where we discuss various types of love, and how these types of love (love of certain attributes, or the compete person, or love of love, or love of duty) combine to create certain outcomes, such as that of The Crying Game. Very interesting. Our peers return: The queen was there!! Sarah Beth actually got to talk to her, as a person!! I'm kind of wishing I'd gone to services-- apparently her majesty is a very well put together person, and wears the best of hats.

Later that afternoon, in groups of threes, five, sevens, the philosophers get into taxis and start the journey home. It would seem the game has ended, but wait! A shootout ensues on the train ride home regarding John Stuart Mill, individualism, revolutions, and commodification. Sunday night is yoga, and then 12 hours of slumber.

Ahh Cumberland. I never knew philosophy could be such fun.. neither did I know I could actually tire of it.

Of course, we all wake up on Monday, head over to class, and continue to debate about the Kyoto Protocol and various ethical ramifications of climate change policies on the international spectrum.. 20 philosophers take the field, and sit..

EUREKA!!

Back at the LSE: I hadn't noticed this until now, but here's something random
right out of Dickens.

Understanding Homelessness, Humanity, and the meaning of "Woy-Aye"

Tom and Richard Hanging out in Front of Waterstone's

Growing up in Upper/Middle class suburbia as I have, I've noticed that a lot of us can't really comprehend homeless people as human beings. I can remember spending summers in Ashland and talking to a lot of these nomadic hippie-types. Some of them were very deep, very cool to talk to, and very open about how they saw themselves in the world, what their stories were, etc.. I remember one cool Ashlander who showed me his own 'private' cannibus farm hidden back behind some weeds next to a stream. He picked me off a leaf, which I still have hanging on my wall (not in honor of the cannibus, but in honor of what I take to be the implicit trust and the humanity of the moment). Perhaps before then, perhaps more since then, I've been a lot more aware of the homeless people around me. I'll talk to them if I have a moment, I'll wave. My sister definitely keeps tabs on this whole aspect of my being- I'd imagine if I ever said something negative about the homeless, she'd riddle me with guilt :-P

Perhaps unsurprisingly, because LSE is located in central London, there are homeless fellows on campus after a certain time of day. The homeless are never supposed to be allowed to sleep on campus, but there is one spot where they can- an overhang right in front of the Waterstone's bookshop (just facing the LSE elephant-- see earlier posting: Just What Kind of a Place is LSE Anyways?). They can stay in this location because it's not technically on campus! The space is a comfortable overhang that easily fits two, and because it's technically SURROUNDED by the campus, there are no cars that go by, which is a very important thing if you're a rough sleeper, as they call themselves.

Walking by this spot one evening, I met and greeted Tom and Richard, two really chill blokes who struck up a conversation with me, and before we knew it we were talking current homeless policy in the UK, and why it's so tough to be out on the streets, why it's difficult to get back on your feet, and why there are some people who spend their entire lives homeless.

The rough part is that once you're out on the street, for whatever reason, getting back on your feet is a process of making the first month's deposit on a place (this can take about 3 weeks of continuous labor with nowhere comfortable to sleep and few places to take a shower). This process is about as easy as quitting smoking- not many can go through with it, for whatever reason. While I recognize that a lot of homeless people are probably not quite right in the head, or hopelessly addicted to some substance (well, there's never not home, but that depends on the person, not on me), there are a number who are just depressed, or extremely down on their luck, and the latter seemed to define Tom and Richard perfectly. Richard's a brickayer by trade, but apparently lost all of his tools when he was evicted from his apartment at the fault of a roommate. He's been struggling to get back on his feet, so to speak, ever since. Tom had a story somewhat similar.

I've hung out with Tom and Richard a couple of times now, and because of them ended up signing up to volunteer with Simon Services, a Central London social service group that gives out food (and perhaps a friendly ear) to homeless chaps, but is really cool (Tom and Richard spoke very highly of this) in that the organization doesn't preach anything to the people it helps. Apparently this is a very desirable characteristic for any outreach organization in Simon Service's position: respect the HUMANITY of the people you're trying to help.

Every time I talked to Tom and Richard, we always ended up getting into discussions of how other people perceive homelessness. Perched in front of a doorway with students continuously walking by and often ignoring us, we were in an apt position to discuss what it feels like being ignored, and how important it is, ESPECIALLY for the rough sleeper, to be treated with some dignity. I feel for these guys, and something about joining an organization where I can offer to their fellow rough sleeprs the same sort of friendship that they offered me appeals to me.

Apparently a lot of social services (at least in the UK but I assume in many other places as well) don't treat the homeless very well. Police will wake sleepers up at 3 AM for 'headcounts' and tell them to move from where they're sleeping, and some cities (Westminster in particular) will engage in 'hot washing' which is a practice where they soak the place the sleeper has just been in so that (s)he cannot possibly go back to sleep there. Imagine trying to find a relatively quiet place to drift into an uneasy sleep (always have to watch your stuff on the street) and being woken up at 3 AM. Often when you move to another place, you get woken up again an hour later and told to move on. This sort of hostility is apparently justified because the city has hostels for the homeless, and always suggests that they can stay in the hostels, out of cite, neatly tucked away. The problem is that most rough sleepers are afraid of or uncomfortable in the hostels, for one because the administration forces paternalistic policies on the people in these buildings (too many rules, forced injections (though these probably aren't a terrible idea), forms and surveys to fill out), or because the homeless are afraid of other homeless people, and being cramped up in a room with 20-50 of them isn't really a suitable way to get a good night's rest. Belongings disappear.

Last Wednesday it was that I was heading back from the LSE gym and Tom and Richard called me over with good news: Richard had found a place to stay for the next 6 months, providing him ample opportunity to get back on his feet, and Tom was moving on with an opportunity of his own (a job I believe; I'll have to ask him). Richard say me down and forced a few glasses of beer at me and all of a sudden the three of us were having a party there on the side of the street, laughing, joshing at the people walking by, and talking about how complex of a language is Scottish. Other than my recent trip to Cumberland Lodge (more on this next time) I haven't had so much fun talking to two people in recent memory. Neither have I laughed so much.

Two points:

Homeless people are humans with the same liberal rights that we have. Most of them are as sane as any of us landed gents, and deserve to be treated similarly. They don't want much.. just a wave or a smile is enough.

Secondly:

If you're ever in the Northern regions, greet your fellow man with a "Areet" meaning "How's it gooing", then whenever he asks if you'd like another pint, or if you're cool with the local team (Newcastle is apparently the one to root for), tell 'em "Woy-Aye, man". It's cool, brother. Woy-Aye. Stay warm, sleep well, treat your fellow men with respect, laugh a lot, and always, always remember to say Woy-Aye.

Cheers Bros :) Best of luck in the future to ya Tom and Richard.

When you leave, "Tara" means goodbye.

Cool LSE Lectures

Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter Lectures on just how Badass the USA is.

Part of the cosmopolitan experience of this instution (and really one of the foremost reasons for my attending here) is the series of Public Lectures offered, on an almost daily basis, by the LSE. Often there are 3 or 4 really interesting lectures going on at the same time during an evening, so that students must choose which one is the most interesting to them. Events include, just taking a look at the past week, topics such as:

European Integration of Bosnia-Herzegovina: The Challenges Ahead
Media's Last Diehard?
From War to Peace: Northern Ireland and its Lessons for the 21st Century
The Third Reich at War
SIPRI Yearbook 2008: International Security, Regional Conflict, Armament and Disarmament
Confronting Failure in the War on HIV/AIDS
The Ascent of Money
China, America and India: The Dragon, the Eagle, and The Elephant - or stone, scissors, paper?
Black Panther, the Revolutionary art of Emory Douglas
Where Now for the United States After the Election?
BBC Radio 4's Any Questions? at LSE

This is one week. I usually manage to attend two of these per week, and they're always fascinating-- pages of notes, paradigm-shifting information, etc.. On top of these public lectures, each LSE Department has weekly lectures in Social Science, Internatinal Relations, Philosophy, Law, etc.. The place is always moving, to the extent that one day at the LSE really can change your life, or at least the way you see it.

How unenobling, then, to notice that out of 9000 students on campus, we probably only get about 1000 who attend these lectures on any regular basis (probably less; each event usually sits 200 - 300, and there are most often two events per night). Still to those of us who choose to take advantage of the LSE's strongest asset, my fraternal kudos.

I wish to take a moment to cover a few of the coolest lectures I've attended in the last month. I spent a while discussing Thomas Friedman's amazing lecture, and I will not be able to go into so much detail for any of these other topics, but I wish to share some of the most amazing nuggets of information that I found. A lot of these things are 'Gee I wish I knew that before' or 'Wow!! I've been wondering about that my whole life' kind of things, and I'm fairly certain that others will be enthused to join the LSE network in this watered-down way. By the way if any readers have any questions regarding this stuff, as me and I'll be sure to send whatever relevant information I have. Hence, and without further ado,

Travis' top Lectures for Michelmas (Fall) Term, to date:

Professor Lord Anthony Giddens' Lecture on the Politics of Climate Change

The lecture was particularly intriguing in that the lecturer is a politician himself, and has lived through the reality of the political situation enough to give a strong sense of what's really going on, and what we can actually expect from our governments (US and UK, for example). Giddens soberingly points out that

1) International Collaboration is Ineffective
The agreement is on really low levels, and currently very few countries are on track to meet the Kyoto target (although some cities and/ or states within those countries are, and I optimistically look to my home states of California and Oregon in this regard). Ironically, one of the primary reasons the UK is on tack to hit the Kyoto initiative is because Lady Thatcher went after the coal miners back in the 90s and reduced British dependence on CO2-producing coal.

2) Carbon Emissions Trading May be a Bit of a Pipe Dream
Sorry to say it, but even if the world agrees on setting a carbon cap, which is blerry unlikely, the market will have a limited effect in the next 10 years (Stern seems to disagree with this, suggesting growing the market in stages.. I'm not sure who's correct on this point). Even the EU is having trouble getting the carbon trading going, and Giddens suggests the EU lacks the capacity to influence its member states, as it has strict no fiscal/ welfare policy control. Add in the current credit crunch and things get REALLY interesting.

3) Technology is Going to Take Time, and the Politics Currently Aren't There for it
Oil and natural gas are the DRIVING FORCE of international politics, and will continue to be so for a while. The wind and solar power initiatives were looking solid until oil dropped to $60 a barrel (gee, thanks credit crunch). Giddens suggests that the only solution is the tried and true Nuclear power facility, which is, of course, very risky, and will take years to implement.

After bashing his audience over the head with this sobering information, Giddens goes on to assert that there IS NO POLITICS of Climate Change, as the Green party has historically been a sort of anti-politics. A lot of talk, and no walk, in other words. I'm praying the Obama factor is going to change this a little bit, but that guy has so much on his plate, this environmental stuff might be hard for him to enforce.

Giddens' Paradox: People will do very little when the risk is abstract, and will react when the risk is real, but then it will be too late!

Giddens basically links onto Friedman and suggests that there's a new game in town: ET (Environmental Technology) and that we're going to have to look for a ground-up solution brought on by innovation within the controlled market. Giddens hopes the USA will take a lead in the world community with respect to this topic.

Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter's Lecture on America's Edge

This lecture inspired me, almost as much as Friedman's. Slaughter took a look at some of the things that make America what it is, and concluded that America may not end up succumbing so easily to the Chinese behemoth after all (she actually lived in China for a year, and bases her talk on that year's experiences).

In the future, business will rely on horizontal networks MUCH MORE than typical heirarchical business organizations. The same is actually true in the Public Policy world, although this is a side issue. Pockets of business (nodes if you will) will interact with other nodes in order to bring about a product. The software-engineering business already does this, and I'll take a filial example in noting that my dad, who lives in Oregon, regularly works on projects with high-end Sun and Microsoft clientelle who themselves are nodes of the organizations, usually operating out of Northern California but certainly not restricted to that locale.

Slaughter quips (and I enthusiastically agree) that the world of 'power politics' is really a paradigm of the 20th century. Well, she might be a tad optimistic here, but she is a Harvard Professor and Academic Dean over at Princeton. Slaughter's main point: the US is demographically and geographically primed to operate from the place of power within this network: the center of it. The analogy is somewhat of a feminine/ masculine one. The network (or web) is a feminine power structure, where the individual with the most influence is the one in the center.. hence all those discussions in the bathroom-- sharing information is key. The heirarchy is a male-based pattern of dominance, and while its rigid organization keeps employees from acting knavishly, the entity as a whole moves too slowly to keep pace in the modern world. In other words, businesses are becoming androgenous in nature, allocating resources and personelle in a more horizontal, less vertical orientation.

The updraft of this is, of course, that the Chinese system is extremely heirarchical and in this sense, top-heavy, while the American machine, fuelled on liberal ideology and individualist dogma, is adapting to this new networking process extremely quickly.

Slaughter made another point that China has over 1 billion mouths to feed, and in the future, having a larger population to care for actually makes the country weaker, not stronger. It used to be that having more people created strength in an industrialized nation. Not so anymore. Slaughter mused that Nintendo brought its home operations back to Japan. Why would any company do this? After all, isn't the factory labor extremely expensive? Apparently not when each factory takes only one person to run! QED.

Culturally, Slaugher points out that the USA is the global capitol of innovation. As she and so many others have noted, this is going to be EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, especially with respect to climate change in the future. The USA is a culture of positive conflict (thank you John Stuart Mill). Innovation breeds through positive conflict.

Slaughter noted that culturally, the world is shrinking at incredible speeds. She calls my generation (and by this I include anybody who grew up on Nintendo) The First Globals. Apparently the statistics are out, and 60% of people in my age group have friends or family outside the US. 25% of use will live outside the US for a siginificant amount of time during some period or other of our lives. This information could be taken to show that power is shifting to the East, but this is not the case. The East is still sending its students to us, and those students become nodes in the global network when they go back to their home countries. The US builds connections, and these connections are going to be important.

Dr. Slaughter (what a name) made me proud to be an American. Obama made me prouder still, but some caution to be thrown in with respect to Obama:

Professor Michael Cox, Jessica T. Matthews, and Rob Singh Speak on the United States After the Election

He Did it. Yes, I stayed up till 4 AM to find out, and yes, I waited till 5:30 AM
(my time) to hear his speech, and yes, I definitely had a tear in my eye.

The picture painted was not rosy. Obama looks to the worst inherited situation since the 1950s (Truman). Here's what he's up against (according to Mrs. Matthews, specifically) in the global arena:

1) The Financial Crisis... not every bomb has gone off in this area.
2) The Re-Design of the International Financial Regulatory System. Yup, this has to happen.. we're miles behind the realities that Globalization has created on the ground.
3) 17 Days after inauguration, he has to have a budget (balanced against a deteriorating baseline).
4) Iraq. Violence could and probably will flare here again. What then?
5) Afghanistan. Europe doesn't want in, and the situation is getting worse. The biggest problem is Pakistan, as the Taliban fighters (who have lived and fought in the area for over 300 years.. can we say: Vietnam, anybody?) keep crossing the Afghani border into Pakistan and hiding in the mountains there. They can survive 15 days without food and water in those mountains. Oh and the best thing about Pakistan? Oh why oh why did the US ever create the Taliban? Oh yeah, to fight Russia, which brings me to number 6..

Demonstrators from Kashmir line up in front of the Indian Embassy,
about 1 block away from the LSE.

6) Russia. The US/ Russian relationship is NOTHING right now. The US has tread on the toes of Russia numerous times over the past decade, and guess what? Russia's been lifting weights, and is pissed off, especially with respect to Iran. Russia is ambivalent about Iran.. she doesn't want a nuclear neighbor, but wouldn't mind seeing the US stub her toes a bit either.
7) Iran. The Iranian elections are in June, so Obama can only barely start to lay the groundwork for diplomatic negotiation. Sanctions could be useful in preventing Iranian nuclear development while the price of oil is as low as $60 a barrell. Iran's public funds are drying up. Still, getting Germany, or the rest of the EU to agree to economic sanctions during a credit crunch is highly unlikely.

Moreover (and I'd just like to add) a lot of Americans have the wrong idea about Iran. More on this to come next time.

8) Climate Change. Oh bother.
9) Nuclear Non-Proliferation. I don't think I've heard that term since 1999. That's because the USA, under the Bush administration, has profoundly F-ed this situation up.. hopefully the process can START to be turned around during the Obama presidency.
10) Israel and Palestine. Neither of these looks to be in a position to talk to the other any time soon. This all, of course, ties back into Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and our general inability to see the distinction between Sunni and Shia (Iran is Shia, and Shia is friendly.. Sunni tends to have more of the 'Southern Baptist'-types running around). Like I said, I'll get to this next time.


and that's just what Obama faces on the International scene. Let's add to this the concern about Healthcare in the US, the supposed Protectionism that Obama promised from our neighbors (protectionism that all leading global economists note the US simply cannot afford to enforce, as 23% of the US economy comes from global trade), and whatever other domestic concerns there are that I can't possibly think of right now.

The big message from the lecture: Obama's got a full plate, and while he may seem a little bit like Jesus right now, we need to look at him coolly, rationally. Perhaps we should be a bit like Obama ourselves and stay calmly in the center of things. The world isn't going to change all at once, and there's a LOT to get done.

Bad Picture, but this is 200+ students in the LSE Quad at midnight
on election day, waiting for results. Twas like a giant soccer match:
We cheered every time the results came in favoring Obama.
The place was too packed to even sit down though, so I went back to Rosebery..

And found all of my Rosebery friends crammed around the TV downstairs,
watching the same thing! It was here I remained until very early that morning..

Cool Random Nuggets:

Conscience comes from the latin 'con + science', literally meaning to know together. Thus the term suggests a shared communal understanding operating through the individual (thanks Dr. Waldron :)

Neville Chamberlain, according to modern historian Dr. Zara Steiner was operating in the best interests of his cabinet at the time, although he did make two fundamental errors in thinking Hitler didn't want Czechoslovakia, and in thinking Hitler actually wanted peace with Great Britain. Hitler really wanted a temporary truce so he could fight on the Eastern front. Ooh, and in the summer of 1939, British students actually did exchanges with German students... that's how positive the countries were towards each other, right up to the British declaration of war on Germany.

The actual world GDP output in 2006 was 50 trillion dollars. Tha actual amount traded on bond/ securities/ stock/ insurance markets: 400 trillion dollars. Inevitably, Planet Finance had to come back to Planet Earth.

Money isn't precious metal. It's trust; IE a formalized relationship between a creditor and a debtor. That's why when the Spanish decided to mine silver in Bolivia back in the 1500s (I think), all that the silver caused was inflation of the European price level when it was brought back by the Spanish. Of course, this made the Spanish richer, but not for the reasons they thought it did.

Owning a home became, in the last 30 years or so, a POLITICAL INITIATIVE. Owning a home makes a person less likely to vote for a radical, on either side of the party line. That's why nobody worried when outlandish mortgages were being thrust on uneducated people in Memphis.. we have an obsession with property, but it makes no financial sense to force EVERYBODY to hedge their bet on a single asset, especially one with a known history of cyclical depreciation (can we say teh 1930s, anybody?).

The Last Three come from Professor Niall Ferguson, whose book on "The Ascent of Money" I intend to read, as it thoroughly and sensibly explains the current credit crunch in terms of what insipid excesses we have been driven to as a result of not looking beyond our own personal experience into the obvious fiscal cycles of the past...

Obama was DIRECTLY involved with his campaign, to the level of conference calling 20,000 volunteers simultaneously on Friday night before election day to discuss various tactics on the ground. This style of leadership could and will do big things.

I leave off with pictures from the Obama election. Congratulations, Barack-- I believed in you as soon as I heard about you, and I hope very sincerely that you prove yourself to be who I hope you are.

One More Blue Picture.. Blue was definitely the color of the week.

One small bit of pessimism: Obama smokes. But then again, so does Hillary. Ohhh yeah.


And once again, LSE Rocks.

Catching Up

Some more Amartya Sen? Why thank you!!

Time sure does fly when you're a grad student- much more so than when you're an undergrad, because unlike when you're an undergrad, you actually have to read during your 'free time' here. There are different strategies that students can take when faced with too much reading. Some simply give up, party almost every night, and hope they will be able to pass their exams at the end of the year. These students I will call the blatantly ignorant. Some students skim each article (we usually get 7-10 articles a week, each article on average about 20 pages), paying special attention to the first and last page. This seems an interesting strategy. Let us deliver to these souls the cognomen: partially enlightened. They will, perhaps, survive their exams. Some people hate the reading so much, they change their focus to math. I kid you not- I've already talked to a few freshers who made the switch. The previous three personality types are found in the undergrads. The grad students, of course, have no recourse other than to do the work (after all, we're paying a lot more for the pleasure of having these incredibly difficult reading assignments). Still, I've noticed that even among the grad students, most of us are struggling to keep up.

Why am I talking about all this? Well for one thing I feel a little bad for not being able to take 30 minutes and pound out an update for the last couple of weeks. This really has little to with me not having 30 minutes, and lot more to do with this overwhelming feeling of ALWAYS HAVING SOMETHING TO DO. Even on the kitesurfing trip, I found myself crouched in a bus seat for 6 hours reading ethical arguments on the rights (or lack thereof) of the government's use of CCTV to monitor people.

Still, I've carved out 30 minutes before I have to go through Elizabeth Anderson's analysis of the free market, so let me use this time to relate what my life as a student has been like the past few weeks.

The typical week here goes something like this: Study all weekend so that you're caught up for the first two lectures in your Public Policy and Morality courses. You can mix the gym into this, and we also have a pretty cool discussion group that meets and debates philosophy over a cup of coffee on Sunday afternoon. Monday rolls around, and you're more or less ready for lectures. Lecturing at the LSE is a bit odd, because even though the teachers are walking around in front of you talking, you're not allowed to ask them any questions until the seminars, which are later on in the week. Monday lectures go until 5, at which point some of us philosophy dweebs head to whatever bar or coffee shop or cheap restaurant to eat and talk .. well.. philosophy. The coolest thing about Monday is there's usually an awesome public lecture- there's one on Israel and Palestine this week.. should be really cool. If you can, hit the gym or go breakdancing on Monday as well.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are all basically the same thing as Monday. Tuesday and Wednesday have only one lecture each, but the reading load for those days is mighty high, as Thursday is the Philosophy and Economics course, which, I am finding, is a tad more demanding than the others. Thursday night is the full-on breakdancing class (I'll have to do a piece on breakdancing once I have the opportunity-- suffice to say, it's like skateboarding, parkour, and yoga combined.. I love it), which is more or less marks the end of the week. Friday is the recuperational holiday, and Saturday and Sunday roll around with more reading to do and another week to prepare for.

Annie, Anastasia, and Emilio dominate the Rosebery Kitchen.
We actually spend a lot of time in this little room.. anything to
stay away from the books.

Such is my life, and to be honest, I really like it. This kind of scholarly existence is not something I would necessarily choose to do for the rest of my life, but studying this seriously is having some profound effects. These authors are truly amazing as well- It's really fun to get a bit of metaphysical banter going with Nobel-Prize Winning Amartya Sen, or Lord Stern and all his colleagues (regarding, respectively, measuring freedom and ethical ramifications of climate change modeling parameters). I recently read an amazing piece by Isaiah Berlin regarding how individuals and societies deal with liberty. The article was in some sense a history of some of these ideals, and it was amazing to see how an ideal as 'pure' as the protection of one's positive freedoms (IE- the ability to find myself as a rational creature and through this 'finding' become one with my desires) leads so easily to a Fascist sort of Paternalism. Berlin does a good job of demonstrating some of the weaknesses of Kantianism, or Rosseau's work, or even some of the wonderfully elocuted ideals of Mill and Bentham.

Not much of what I just wrote will make too much sense to the non-philosphers among us, but I hope it is obvious that I'm a fish in water over here, and I'm very much enjoying the swim :)

As far as events go, there are usually one or two cool concerts/ club events a week. I've been avoiding the clubs more and more lately, but the LSE has some very cool live music stuff on Tuesday evenings, and every now and then there's a cool concert. I still haven't been out to the theatres yet, but I suppose I'll have to.. either that or somebody can come visit and force me to go (yeah, you know who you are :-P) .

Music Time in the Underground Bar at LSE.
Holly rocks the mike (we'll all be hearing her in the future).

Two other things: The Rosebery students are amazing when it comes to throwing parties. I think last Sunday it was that I attended my first ever Diwali party (Indian New Year) and last night the whole dorm got dressed up and had a Halloween Ball down in the bar. Even the grad students get into this stuff, helping with costumes, decorations, music, etc.. Very cool :)

Whirling Dervishes at the Rosebery Diwali Celebration

And of course, the Americans had to carve Pumpkins
for the Halloween Party

Lastly, it SNOWED last Tuesday. Apparently it NEVER snows in London (well, I've been told about once a year), but for a few hours snow was falling from the sky, and some of it actually collected on the ground. This ended up being no fun for me at all as I had to bike home through the slush (damn that was a COLD ride), but when I got back to Rosebery, all the students were up on the roof throwing snowballs at one another. We were having a blast trying to snipe random students walking a few floors below when we heard the hall warden was on the way up to stop us. The proper information can lead to instant crowd dispersion.

In better detail-- SNOW!!!!!! :P

So essentially, I would say my life consists of reading, going to rad lectures on the state of the world, and occasionally hitting the gym/ breakdancing. Once in a while I get to see something unusual, like a russian girl dressed up in a red and gold saari to celebrate Diwali, or a Greek masters student pounding whiskey from a plastic water bottle, or even snow on a random Tuesday evening. But always, always, always, there is the reading.

Speaking of which, I have to get going-- 30 minutes are up.

Next time: The raddest Pro-America Lecture I Ever Experienced.

My Halloween Costume.