mr. tarasen has no last words, except to say that he already noted that your personal attacks might lead him to territory we'd all regret.

but on the issue of Sharon and Lieberman:

I don't understand how someone who claims to be a neocon and at one point contemplated voting for bush cna then turn around and embrace Lieberman.

a quick scan of his homepage reveals this fun story:

"Ony May 11, Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) released a white paper arguing that the threat of offshore outsourcing is not just about losing American manufacturing and low-end services jobs to overseas competitors, but about losing America’s ability to create new high-end services and research and development (R&D) jobs."

now, any good conservative--or properly educated university of chicago student--will tell you that opposition to free trade--and especially opposition to the outsourcing of labor--is indefensible. that mr. bush raised steel tariffs was rightfully seen as a blatant, cheap political move, and this should be seen as such as well.

in fact, Liberman seems a moderate of the worst kind. if he were socially liberal and fiscally conservative, that would be one thing. but he's fiscally irresponsible--wanting lower taxes and higher spending--and socially authoritarian. where's the good policy there?

what's to like, again? and, recalling my previous question, does it matter? because even if Lierberman's platform were a shining example of good government policy, one still must deal with the fact that he's boring and unelectable to national office. Lieberman just isn't likeable--he doesn't charm people. Kerry has HUGE issues being likeable to voters...you think he's going to choose a running mate who's full of the same, while at the same time allying himself with someone so closely linked to Gore?

I doubt it. highly.

as for Sharon, I'll admit I admire some of what the man does. he's got a tough job, and I don't know if any of us could do it better--and certainly his position as a hawk lets him get away with a lot on the peace-nik end, which is respectable. nevertheless, I think he needs to recognize that the lack of moral legitimacy of any settlement that he unilaterally imposes will in the long run be crucial. Israel can't rest on military superiority for long. the time is quickly approaching where Israel will be outnumbered, and (see Robert Gilpin), eventually outgunned. a lasting, legitimate peace is really the only tenable solution, lest we find ourselves in fifty years' time with another threat to Israel's security.

now I know you, Mr. Cohen, like to talk about Israel's nuclear deterrent. but here, again, I think this is a dangerous and foolhardy move. Israel's nuclear deterrent encourages other states around it--including the nascent Palestinian state that Sharon seeks to unilaterally create--to wish to balance with their own such deterrents. do we really want Israel-Palestine turning into a nuclearized conflict? I think not.

furthermore, I think it's completely indefensible that Sharon's wall and the border of the unilateral state do not follow either (a) the Green Line or (b) one-for-one swapping along said line. there's no justifiable rationale for that. at all.

might may make right in your eyes, mr. cohen, but only as long as you retain the might. and israel's days in the might--and thus the right--are numbered. the time for a lasting peace is now.

popeman!

(who else has a -mobile? batman! hence, popeman!)

for the record, the pope isn't infallible unless he invokes the doctrine of papal infallibility, claiming he is speaking "ex cathedra" (literally, from the chair). it's only been invoked once since 1870, and on a rather minor point of only theologic import.

the question: who is, nick?

the answer: this member of the cabal will be trying out for Jeopardy! on June 29th.

that's right dear readers, me trying out for jeopardy! mind you, I expect to (a) not pass the test (b) not get selected, but it'll be fun.

that is all.

shouldn't you be looking for more stylish sunglasses or something?

well, well, well, mr. cohen. quite a fine job of backtracking and abandoning almost every assertion you made in your prior post, while attempting to maintain some semblance of self-respect. if I were more capable of sympathy, I'm sure I would feel bad for you. alas, I'm not, and I don't.

---on "george the second"---

mr. cohen, if you've done so much desperate waffling in your time that you can't even remember which opinions you've expounded when, then fine. if there were ever a mark of intellectual torpidity, it would be that. in any case, you shouldn't expect me to have to keep all your various, contradictory opinions straight (heaven knows keeping thrings straight has never been my forte), or remind you of which position you expounded and at what time. that's your problem, not mine.

---on mr. damon---

you know of three people to whom I'm attracted: matt damon, brad pitt, and rufus wainwright, and none of them qualify as chubby. and for the record, I think your post might be rather offensive to all of the (a) intellgient and (b) less than physically fit readers out there.

don't go there. don't make me start critiquing your body. have you seen matt damon in the bourne identity? because he has muscles in places that I'm sure you've never even dreamed of.

---on sororities and fraternities---

for someone who's open to quite a few stereotypes, (ahem, mr. cohen who thinks that being a jew makes any politician immediately a god and whose sexual "identity" is one based on confusion and indecisiveness) you really ought not to say such things. if nothing else, frat parties provide ample space for random hook-ups, thus providing an invaluable service to the university of chicago social scene.

and while the anti-gay hostility and lack of intelligence displayed by some fraternities and sororities on this campus cannot be denied, I will not go so far as to condone your image of pill-popping DG's. not fair, mr. cohen. a low blow, from a desperate person. try to sound intelligent some other way.

---on existential wrongness---

I know fully well that "existential" exists as a word on its own. I was trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, hoping that in some way your comment was an attempt to have some intelligent commentary by allying itself with some philsophical backing. either way, it's still a dumb comment. if I'm wrong all the time, why bother debating with me?

---on my sex life---

you say "you don't have a bf" as if it's something I should be ashamed of.

if I wanted a boyfriend, I could probably have one, mr. cohen. but some of us have standards and don't wish to date just for the sake of dating, as so many of the people on this campus seem wont to do. furthermore, I'm not really sure what business this is of yours or the general public that reads this blog.

on a more basic level, I'll thank you to keep your attacks to the ideas espoused on this blog and not reduce yourself and this blog into the mire of petty, personal attacks. because I'd end up saying something we'd all regret...

let he who is without sin, as it were.

---on agreement of pronoun and antecedent in the english language---

"one" is singular.

"their is plural.

therefore, one should be referred to with the possessive pronouns "his," "her," or "his or her," and certainly not "their." though such usage has unfortunately become accepted in some cases to avoid gender-specificity, when "one" refers to me, it's not necessary to use "their."

---on capitalization---

I maintain that my style is more consistent with the style of this blog in general, a fact you cannot refute. you seem to do rather well at reading my posts and finding extremely petty ways to disagree with them, so I'm inclined to say that they're readable enough.

and, if you haven't figured out already, I don't give much credence to your opinion anyway.

alas, I've got papers to write, so I think I'll stop here. mr. cohen, perhaps we could now return the conversation to something more civil? I'd debate the merits of mr. lieberman if I thought it would actually make a difference, but it doesn't. lieberman is irrelevant and boring, making a debate over his merits as useless as looking for substantive commentary in one of your posts.

Not to interrupt the catfight, I mean debate...

...but I am most excited that my disagreements with Mr. Tarasen over which men are hot have reached the level of notoriety. But really, I tend to agree with him; while Messrs. Pitt and Damon are not gods, they are both undeniably attractive. And as for Rufus, the aforementioned (or, rather, afore-hinted-at) deity, Nick and I are in total agreement.

the personal is NOT political

***WARNING: the following is extremely bitchy. read at your own risk. the author wishes to assure all readers that in publishing this post he wishes to convey no real hostility. arrogance, yes. disdain, no.***

sigh, mr. cohen, just, sigh... inane and petty commentary of the worst sort, resorting to personal and semantic attacks because you have such untenable positions...

---on why it took me so long to respond (at least, as measured in blog time), and why I've not blogged lately---

I apologize, I've been busy the last couple of days and blogging has fallen by the wayside. life seems to be moving very quickly right now, in every aspect. I had class all afternoon, and then I rushed downtown to see Prof. George Chauncey give a lecture on the drag balls of NYC and Chicago at the Chicago Historical Society. afterwards I spent a pleasant evening at Starbucks, reading for one of the four papers I've got due next week. blogging will be light until next wednesday, I'm afraid (and thereafter I hope to be inebriated for at least some time). unless, of course, procrastination kicks in. but with 35 pages and six days to go, that seems a luxury I cannot afford.

---on slander---

as for the charge that I slandered you, I'd like to quote the following from your post on monday, may 17th at 11:55 PM in which you say:

"Random rant for today: I can't believe I'm going to be voting for George W. -- I hate to waste my vote, but the stench emanating from this election is becoming unbearable. Perhaps Kerry will keel over dead and we can have a Democrat who isn't a spineless, pandering, wimpy Arabist bastard. One can always hope -- then again, death doesn't have to stop the man from winning -- at least not in Illinois or Missouri." (emphasis mine)

now I do indeed have plenty of "academic snob" in me, as you suspect, but it doesn't take an academic, or even someone who likes to think of himself as one, to read that statement as a pretty clear indication of your voting preference for herr bush.

given that's no longer your stated preference--a change in position that members a certain "g. o." party might find akin to a certain lack of backbone found in mr. kerry but which I will excuse given the "stench" of the election--it appears that there is no need for us to debate.

---on me being existentially wrong---

for the record, there's no such thing as existential "wrongness." not only becuase existentialism is inherently subjective and really doesn't care or believe in "right" or "wrong" (even in the sense of "true" or "false") when it comes to things like politics and/or brad pitt, but also because you talk about me being "inherently wrong." and any good existentialist will tell you that, as existence precedes the essence, there is really no inherent "wrongness." sorry. maybe you should start asking your gf what she's been learning in class before trying to sound intelligent by using the word "existential"

---on brad pitt---

I'm trying to remember why I should care if you're attracted to brad pitt. lacking such a justification, and any desire to argue about something as utterly subjective as looks (ms. maltz and I usually have notoriously differing opinions on such matters and still manage a rather polite discourse), I'll move on, and hope you will, too.

(for the record, matt damon is cuter, imho)

---on banal, useless, and personal commentary---

I find it hard to believe that as such a self-styled intellect you're so incapable of finding fault with what I say that you're reduced to critiquing (a) my punctuation and (b) my use of abbreviations.

Sartre having established in 1948 in his famous essay, "What is literature" that language in prose is indeed a tool for understanding ideas, I really must say that I'm dismayed at your critiquing my posts on the level of "poetry" and not of "prose" (i.e., you did not read past the words on the page and seek to understand their ideas, taking words designed to be used as tools and making them the subject themselves).

if there was ever an example of "intellectual torpidity" it's the miring of oneself in personal (e.g., "inherent wrongness") and stylistic attacks that don't even rise to the level of engaging in a debate over ideas. your post, petty and semantic waste of server space on blogspot that it is, reflects "intellectual torpidity" of the worst sort, because it pretends not to be intellectually torpid but in fact is, without even realizing it. I might understand if my words had become an impediment to understanding, but I doubt seriously that this is indeed the case.

as for your first "suggestion", I'll say that I think it's simply an indication of the more informal nature of blogging and specifically my writing on this blog. furthermore, on a more poetic level, I appreciate the aesthetic, especially with sans-serif fonts such as the one used on this page. and given that neither the dates nor the title of this blog as it currently appears on this webpage have capitalization consistent with your suggestion, I'm going to have to dismiss it.

as for the second suggestion (my use of abbreviations), I'll say that, blogging and sleeping time being more scare than I'd prefer, and my work load being rather much larger than I'd prefer, they provide a convenient way to express myself quickly and informally. after all, if I had to sit down and write a formal post each time I wanted to say something here, I'd not post nearly as often.

in that vein, it's time for me to stop critiquing senor cohen's misguided attempt at intelligent blogging, and sleep. but, really quickly:

---on hyperlinks in blogging---

do us all a favor (this isn't just monsieur cohen): just after the "href=..." but before the '>' put the following

target="_blank"

so that your link opens up in a new window, which is easier for everyone.

also, be sure that your hyperlink starts with http:// (e.g., http://cabalofstyle.blogspot.com), otherwise the computer will interpret it as a relative hyperlink (which you don't want).

oh, and one last thing:

---it's "tarasen," not "tarsen"---

I realize that doesn't look "past" your words, but when I'm the idea signified by the word, I think I get to object (and, after all, I made a similar mistake and apologized).

good night everybody!

When I get home

Perfection.

"In case you ONLY read Gawker..."

Well, they found me out.

As someone who, as finals are approaching, turns to Gawker before, say, the hard news, I know very little about the latest terror-related news. Which is why it's a relief to know that Gawker has named a "Special Correspondent on Fashion and Terrorism." The terrorists, reports Gawker, are not pretty or stylish, and need their teeth fixed. No wonder they're angry. Now, back to the Lindsey Lohan family feud.

Is Pink good or bad?

The mildly talented yet strangely addictive pop singer is keeping me company in the Harper USITE as I type up notes.

For those doing homework without the benefit of Pink, check out the Times for information on dogs, blogs, and, oh, that thing that's alternately depressing and boring, I think it's called the International section.

A fiftieth-year in the college

Now that Aaron's made all 3 of the Cabal's readers paranoid (though, really, weren't we already?), time for a more uplifting post.

A headline from the NYT: "Many Collegians Do Not Graduate in 6 Years." Some, reports the times, are shooting for the usual four.

Obviously not. Apparently it's now normal to spend like 50 years in college. OK, so maybe this wasn't the most uplifting post after all.

Ebola and Siberia Don't Often Go Together

Does it strike anyone as really really scary that a country and can barely manage its nuclear stockpiles is also the first non-African country to be struck by the ebola virus? According to the New York Times, a Russian scientist working in a Soviet era lab stuck herself with an ebola infected needle and has died. Yikes.

Oh My God

If this doesn't give you pause as you walk across campus, I don't know what will. Remember when you look into those little black squirl eyes that there's a killer lurking in our midst...

Keep on Dreamin'

It just occured to me that if John Kerry is deferring the nomination for a month, that gives us an additional month to figure out how to get John McCain as the democratic nominee. I mean, has anyone ever deferred a nomination for president before? Maybe there's a window where if somebody else were to stand up in front of a crowd of democrats (like, under a dozen) and say "I accept my parties nomination for President of the United States" it'd stick.

Or maybe the first person to turn in their papers to the FEC could get the nomination. Perhaps we could have a race across the country starting in LA or something. Who would your preferred contestant be? Cabalists, I urge you to put one contestant in the running for the cross country race to be the next democratic nominee.

McCain-Kerry? Once you're dreaming...

It has been suggested to me by an unnamed co-blogger (hint: not the same one suggesting McCain-Kerry) that voting for Nader is the way out of the "want to support Bush but can't get myself to vote for the creep" dilemma. But once you've decided to waste your vote, why not write in someone fun, like hot gay singer-songwriters, former New York mayors... the possibilities are endless.

Even Better Than the Real Thing

Hey Phoebe, you know what would be way better than a Kerry-McCain ticket? How about a McCain-Kerry ticket. Just remember that veep means pretty much bupkis. Which is a shame.

By the way, all you Cabalists out there, this is the 100th post in our long and tortured history! Congratulations are in order for each and every person that helped make the Cabal of success. Their listed on the side. You can read them, yourself.

If girls can like Rufus, why not Andrew?

85% of Andrew Sullivan's readers are male!

Senator Clinton embraces the moderate's dream

Thanks, Andrew Sullivan, for this news of Hillary Clinton, my distinguished Senator. Somehow any Clinton-related thoughts remind me of when Dean and Deluca was selling Monica Lewinsky cookies for $10.50...But in any case, it seems Kerry-lite, so to speak, may be an option...

Do you take these people to be your spouses?

Has anyone every considered a Defense of Marriage Act that would define marriage as between two people? Wouldn't this get rid of the whole slippery slope argument against gay marriage, that once gays can marry, you'll find that your sister's married to three guinea pigs, an eight-year-old boy, and your second cousin Steve? I don't have any idea of what the "obvious" legal objections to this would be, but I'm sure there are debater-types out there who'd be happy to shoot this down.

I don't really see why marriage has to be defined by the government at all, but if it is, it may as well be done in as inobtrusive a way as possible. And yes, I realize I'm not thr first person to think this. But it needs to be said, again and again...

Strange happenings in Najaf

According to the scattered reports I've been able to find, a Highland unit (Scots) performed a highly successful bayonet charge against a group of Sadr militia men in Najaf on May 16th.

It's not a huge event in the course of this war, but when's the last time you heard about a bayonet charge? Frankly, I think we need more of this. In fact, let's go back to this style of war-fighting altogether. All we need to do is convince the Baathists and Shiite rebels to stand in long lines while we march toward one another on a field. We could decimate each other with round after round of musket fire and artillery before one line breaks and is cut down by a cavelry charge.

go poke yourself!

I don't understand why people have such a hard time with poking. stop bitching people, and revel in the ambiguity!

the whole point is, it's designed to be ambiguous. sometimes it's just done for no reason at all. it's just a way of saying, "hi, I noticed you, did you notice me?" or "hi" or any number of things. but because it's so vague, it's really safe for people who may be too timid to do things otherwise.

hence, lots of random poking. mind you, it's annoying to get poked by random people--thus, one always has the ability to ignore random pokes. but in the meantime, I think people shouldn't be so afraid of poking.

revel in the ambiguity, people, revel! revel, I say!

Liquid Sunshine!

Nick so described the Bartlett orange juice, causing me to nearly choke on it. Thanks, Nick.

I am distraught, though, over facebook poking. It confuses me to no end. Is there some logic behind it that I'm missing? What exactly is being poked, and with what?

On that note, time to seek diet coke (not liquid sunshine, but wonderful all the same) and perhaps do some work.

film review: troy

for all of the beauty in troy--and by beauty, I mean the landscape, some very nicely done set construction and cinematography, and brad pitt's nicely toned ass--it's just an annoying movie.

it pretended to be all deep, with a whole bunch of meditations on immortality and fate and destiny, and war and soliders and duty, but really, it just cheaply touched the latter themes enough to serve as a commmentary on today's situation in Iraq, and its treatment of the first was fair enough for pop psychology but a huge disservice, imho, to its real themes, about destiny. and I won't even discuss the odd relationship it seemed to have with religion in its continued discussions about the gods...oy. they all seemed very heavy-handed efforts at acheiving depth in a movie that should have just accepted its superficiality and gotten on with it.

other commnets:

1) Patroclus as Achilles' cousin!? sigh. people understand that the greeks had man-on-man action...can't we just get past this and depict it accurately instead of turning the movie into some bad breeder love story?

2) Eric Bana performed excellently as Hektor and Orlando Bloom's turn as the pathetic Paris was pretty good. a huge filming error, though, as in one scence Bloom sprouts some stubble in his big fight scence that wasn't there at the beginning of the scene (and of course I know since I was watching closely). Brad Pitt, though a beauty, sounded completely horrible spouting off about life and death and the gods. sigh...

3) whatever happened to "beware strangers bearing gifts"?!? see above re: religion.

looking forward to The Day After Tomorrow, which will be assuredly atrocious (thus, a critique such as this one will not be necessary as it doesn't pretend to be a good movie) but stars Jake Gyllenhall and thus necessitates viewing. I've heard good things about Shrek 2 as well.

Ryvita Sesame Rye crispbread...

...isn't half bad.

Molly has mixed feelings: "I got it three times at the supermarket and the first time I was like how have I been living my life without Sesame Rye from Ryvita. The second time I'm like, this is pretty good, I'm enjoying it, and the third time... the bag has been in my room for a really long time, and I can't put the last three ones in my mouth."

I'm still in the honeymoon stage with Ryvita Sesame Rye. Would that this were to last forever. Then again, a love affair with crackers whose main claim to fame is that they are a good source of fiber...Discuss.

Hard Times at Stuyvesant High

Aside from the reduction in class size, Stuyvesantians now have to contend with viral meningitis. More on the glamorous institution of abstinence education through excessive college-process-related stress in future Cabal posts.

When your embarrassing conversations make it to the blogosphere

This conversation, which I had the pleasure of reading about over on Diotima, sounded awfully familiar. I soon realized why: Molly and I had gone to see "Arguing the World", and after the movie, we discussed the relative merits of the four New York intellectuals profiled, both their arguments and their, um, other qualities. We had a good argument about this (someone has to "argue the world," right?) on the D bus going back to Broadview. Evidently Sara Butler of Diotima overheard us. Oh well.

Teen Vogue Readers: Small-nosed, self-mutilated, and consumers of whole grains

There's something a bit off about Teen Vogue. (While there may also be something a bit off about me buying Teen Vogue, we will leave that aside for the moment.)

Anyway...the thing that's off about Teen Vogue is not that the models are emaciated underage girls in clothing few people can afford. That's to be expected. I've never had much sympathy for those who claim that skinny models are the cause of all that's wrong with society. Models are supposed to look different from normal people, get over it. I mean, should watching C-Span make me want to kill myself because I'm not in the House of Representatives?

The problem is in the articles, which, I'd imagine, are not actually supposed to be read. But read them I did, only to discover that they are, in fact, instructions for how to be a more screwed-up twelve-year-old than one already is.

First, there's the article about nose jobs, which assumes that the default is to get one, and says, encouragingly, that it's also OK to keep the one you have. It is noted that many people have received "NJs" for their Bat Mitzvahs. So, in case you're reading Teen Vogue somewhere without Jews, now you can have a wonderful idea of what Judaism is all about. Ugh.

Then comes the article about cutting one's self, an epidemic that all the cool people are onto. Such celebrities as Angelina Jolie, Christina Ricci, and Johnny Depp, the magazine reports (complete with pics of the celebs in question) have all indulged. This information is, of course, designed to be of comfort to those girls who already cut themselves, and not to encourage those few left who don't to get with it, already. I have never seen the appeal of self-mutilation (sounds like an even worse version of shaving your legs, unpleasant enough as it is) but after reading the article...Seriously, though, the magazine takes a problem that, while unfortunate, is hardly universal, and turns it into an edgy trend.

And finally, there's the obligatory eat-less-you-fatsos, with the obligatory these-foods-are-ok-while-these-are-not checklist. Turkey comes up again and again as something that will help you lose weight, making one wonder if Teen Vogue has been brought to you by Turkey Farmers of America or some such. Whole grains (a myth, in my opinion...) figure, ahem, heavily as well.

(My own diet, which I have discussed over at the Quill and which has been the subject of much fanfare, is not mentioned even once.)

Returning to a Theater Near You

This might be mainly for Molly, but as I'm sure she already knows, "Donnie Darko" is returning to theaters in an expanded edition with twenty extra minutes of footage! Personally, I liked the origial, but I'm still not exactly sure why. It's very funny in parts, and very ponderous in others. That seems like it would make an odd combination, but somehow it works. Oh well. Here's Jake Gyllenhaal's take on the project.

Tasti and D-liteful

Chicago does not have Tasti-d-Lite, but it does have Treats, a similar fake iced cream emporium. I got "my usual"--a small vanilla with rainbow sprinkles--at the branch in Boystown. I would like Tasti-d-Lite, or something along those lines, to make its way to the C-Shop.

Conversation in the Broadview lab: transportation between campus and downtown, the facebook, the Republican National Convention, craigslist, and the facebook. Now I will return to contemplating the joys of fake iced cream ("only X calories per Y") and will let my distinguished co-bloggers blog on bloggier subjects.

okay fellow bloggers...

we're going to have to learn how to do hyperlinks.

it's really easy.

see that little button with an earth globe and a chain...

i.e., LINKS in a chain?

that's your button!

now, go!

details and gq

**commence dissertation on gq/details**

okay, it's a little known fact among people of our generation that, while gq was ostensibly a "straight" magazine, it was indeed a magazine for gays. they never admitted it (neither did Abercrombie), but everyone knew it. it abandoned that title a coupla years ago, to go more "mainstream."

details thus took over where gq left off. though I read THE ECONOMIST regularly, details is much more fun, and it's the only magazine I subsrcibe to. every month they have a section known as "anthropology" which has a picture of a man and a fun title, such as:

gay or british?
gay or asian?
gay or preppy?
gay or democratic presidential front-runner?
gay or jesus?

and so on. it's the gayest "straight" magazine you'll ever see, and I think it even has lots of straight readers who don't really get it. sigh...breeders. in any case, details is now much more fun, and, to capture their audience, they put very edgy photos on their covers. e.g., nick lachey (although they could've done better) rob lowe (who knew he was still hot), ashton kutcher, etc.

like martha stewart living, details is a good thing we hope never goes away.

**end dissertation**

talk amonst yaselves...

...I'm veklemt after reading Aaron's review of my article.

thanks, Aaron. sorry I was so mean about your BA proposal. really, it does sound interesting, but believe me when I say, a year is a really long time.

and, an apology is indeed in order, as I did notice (even before Phoebe commented on it!) that I had indeed misspelled Mr. Cohen's name. what can I say, I'm pumped up for this debate...but more on that later.

(ps - mr. cohen, while I agree with your argument re: anti-semitism, it is dangerous in that I don't see much space there for a non-"anti-semitic" detest for the state of israel. one can not like israel for any number of very good reasons, and it would be dangerous to equate the two. I'm just making room for that condition of possibility, as it were.)

finally, what I really wanted to blog about:

yesterday was an interesting day for me, actually.

in the morning I volunteered at a function called "Policy Perspectives 2004" which was co-sponsored by the Libertarian thinktank, the Cato Institute, and The Economist magazine. Speakers included Cato muckitymucks, The Economist's Washington Correspondent, and Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve. Overall, an interesting event, esp. in that it seemed to be targeted to a doubting conservative audience. One talk was about how the war in Iraq was something we need to extricate ourselves from, while both the Washington Correspondent and Murray championed conservatism, with the latter talking about how "institutions such as marriage are under attack." I tried not to visibly react, but I think people saw.

I then lounged around downtown for an hour or two before attending a function of the Log Cabin Republicans. Their head honcho, Patrick Guerriero, was in town. It was an interesting event, both politically and anthropologically. No one at the event really is at all in touch with gender studies discourses, and it's dangerous for them, since, being so vulnerable to such discourses, they're really ill-equipped to handle attacks from the likes of Michael Warner and those who believe queers need inherently be leftist. There were a fair number of younger people at the event, which I thought was good for the future of the organization, and it really seems that they want to start raising their profile. Still, the LCR's occupy a difficult place in the debate...it'll be interesting to see how effective they're able to be (GQ says, for what it's worth, that they'll not be effective at all).

so, that was my day amongst the political and intellectual elite of the country, and I was snazzily dressed, to boot! I brought home lots of literature from Cato that might spawn discussion in the coming days, so stay tuned.

back to more pressing matters, however. it's been said that the person who opens a debate gets to set its tone. so I'll give Mr. Cohen (as the challengee) a first strike opportunity, as it were, to set the tone of this debate. bush-voter (in 2004), defend thyself!

Congratulations

Nick, your column in Tuesday's Maroon is really fantastic. I appreciate the concerns of folks who live in Hyde Park and yet have nothing to do with the University. They often feel a great deal of contempt for actions the University chooses to take, claiming that it has no regard for the community in which it resides. I agree with these people that the University should try and be a good neighbor. However, I can't for the life of me figure out how offering this extra service to students affects the community. Certainly the CTA is the problem.

I'm in favor of the student body mixing the community. I think it's healthy. But who in their right mind thinks that the bus is where this sort of thing is going to take place? If I'm a native Hyde Parker, I'd be thrilled to no longer have to listen to loud, obnoxious students talking over the dull roar of the bus about concerns that, outside of our academic bubble, must seem pretty damn trivial. I'm glad we can get out of their hair. If you want an event that involves the community, look to this weekend's Summer Breeze. I may not be going, but a lot of students are. So are many members of the community. This way, people can gather in one spot to celebrate things that they have in common. If these protestors are looking for integration with the community, they should be asking the Univeristy to spend more money on programs like that, rather than trying to take away a much-needed service like the Red Line Shuttle.

Action in the BV lab

The Broadview computer lab is a politically-charged, agitated, festering scene. Actually, it is a place where people gather to commisserate about failures, academic, romantic, and unclassifiable. The computers are sticky, both in that they work slowly and in that the keyboards, like those at Nick's Reg USITE, are kinda dirty. I now need to go move my laundry. (If that's not a blog-worthy random musing, I don't know what is.)

whoa there!

as much as I hate to give into the cliche "I've been there" role, it's (a) way too early to begin reading (b) way too early to think you even have something close to a topic you're going to end up with (c) WOW! that's a huge amount of literature you're going to have to cull, said the person who turned in his intl studies ba second week.

okay, I'll stop being such a bitch now. while it's cool you're excited, just remember, it's a looooooooooooooooooooong-ass haul, so, you know, have fun first.

it is an interesting and timely topic. I know some people have done work on nuclear powers and democracies (i.e., how democracies are less likely to give up their nukes), but proliferation also seems somewhat "out" right now, aside from the axis of evil.

an interesting question would be to look at, for example, state vs. non-state actors in proliferation, with the exceedingly interesting case of that guy in Pakistan, and of course the Russian problem.

the first trick is, find your question. there's a reason john goes to that first. find your question.

alright, enough intl studies bullshit.

what I really want to talk about is that fact that this paper I'm writing isn't due until 1:30 tomorrow, yet I've already (a) done all the reading and (b) started. and it's only 6:07 PM! what can I say, I am a procrastinator extraordinaire, and I can count on one hand the number of times this has happened during my college career. the last paper I turned in was eight days late.

later, egan and I are going to debate why he's wrong about who he wants to vote for. discuss.

Big Day for Aaron

Yowza! I just turned in my BA thesis proposal. It's gonna be a fun year because I just can't wait to sink my teeth into this topic. I'm writing about nuclear proliferation, specifically looking for conditions when states will give/sell their technology. I'm going to look for situations in which this has actually occured, then try and understand why a state would surrender a technological edge to another actor who could potentially resell that technology to the first state's competitor. Now I've got to figure out how to actually research and write the damn thing. John Mearsheimer, my advisor, likes the topic, but is careful to add that I really need to figure out how I'm going to approach this thing. "Yay" and "ouch". I'm just glad I'm officially over the first hump. The itty-bitty hump. Next stop: the stacks/microforms/lexus-nexus/jstor/etc... etc... etc...

Boom.

Existentialism via jackhammer

For those few Cabalists whose interest in French men and the Mideast peace process is limited, a post about the construction in (on?) Broadview, my lovely dorm. At 8:30 every morning, while college students across the nation are sleeping off the previous night's excesses, Broadview residents are forced to actually wake up and get to class, ragardless of their general levels of debauchery. Yes, the construction is really that loud. While the construction is indirectly increasing my productivity, causing me to be early to my 10:30 class on everyone's favorite existentialist, Jean-Paul Sartre, I really wish it wouldn't start till, say, 10...

regenstein-r-us

I'm sitting here at USITE/Regenstien, the ugly--and now thanks to the 24-hour-study space, rediculously filthy--stepchild of USITE/Crerar and USITE/Harper, ostensibly working on a french "journal" I'm supposed to hand in in 2 1/2 hours and/or doing my reading for mearsheimer's class.

...but, of course, I'm not doing either of those things. I'm surfing the web.

they really need to clean these keyboards. they've got more grime on them than the average u of c grad student.

is anyone else distressed by the absurd amount of power that this 9/11 commission thinks it has? going around, messing in everyone's business. don't they get that we already feel bad about the whole thing?

I watched the commission once. lots of partisan rancor. rather like watching some squabbling siblings, except they use more coded language like "distinguished colleague." the british do that awfully well, too, insulting you and then asking you to agree with them.

you're looking a bit toddy today, don't you think?
shouldn't we be wearing a little something more appropriate, hmm!?

I for one prefer the much more direct move of simply pointing at the offensive article of clothing and saying, in a condescending manner:

"what's this!? honey, no!!"

whatever works.

Abstinence makes the TI-83 grow fonder

Thanks, Nick, for reminding everyone how rarely Stuyvesant students get laid. Let me remind everyone (i.e. the 1 1/2 people who read this blog) that Stuyvesant students are, many of them, in the 13-15 age range, and, you know, might be better off abstaining for the time being. Then again, maybe it's my Stuyvesant background talking...

Anyway, something about an impending Zola-related deadline, combined with the thrill of being in a Usite, has forced me to post, even though I admittedly have nothing to say at the moment.

I like the city air, I like the stink of it...

on new york:

what pheobe was trying to say in her last post, by saying that "constant proximity to fellow human beings is the only hope that its nerdy students have of gaining some semblance of social skills" is that really, it's the only way Stuyvesant kids have any chance of getting laid. let's call things what they are, eh?

in any case, one of the weirder things about me is that I LOVE the olympics. I know by heart the location most of the olympics were held at, and I was in Paris when they lost the 2008 olympics to Beijing (more on that eventually...). In any case, the 2012 olympic bid is perhaps the most hotly contested EVER (even more so than Atlanta-Athens), with the shortlist (chosen today) including: Paris, London, New York, Moscow, and Madrid. Axed were Rio (that would've been impressive), Havana (no chance) and Istanbul (hah! join the EU first).

NYC 2012 is a beautiful bid, but it will lose, and it will lose because Vancounver already has the 2010 Olympics, and because of security issues. which is sad because New York would be the best place in the world to have the olympics, and actually I don't know when they'll ever with it. South Africa's 2010 World Cup bid is the next step before them winning the 2016/2020 Olympics, which is a milestone for the Southern Hemisphere and Africa in general.

the other implication of Europe, probably Paris or London, getting the 2012 games is that a 2014 Winter bid I've been following, Annecy (an area in France right outside Geneva, Switzerland) will likely get the axe. sigh...

still, there's always hope. New York's really is an impressive bid. but first it's up to the people of the city not to be stupid shmucks, as they occasionally are, and to let the bid succeed. stay tuned to Singapore in 2005...

back to your more interesting lives.

ps--the title is a reference to cole porter's song, "I happen to like new york"

Free Bagels, Shrunken Stuyvesant

Seems there are a lot of free bagels roaming around campus, that is, unless Nick and Molly have already claimed them all.

I fear that, in discussing such critical issues of domestic policy as where one can find free bagels on the Chicago campus, the Cabal of Style may turn into something of a Midwestern version of the NYT's Metropolitan Diary. Next thing you know we'll be talking about overheard conversations on buses that involve precocious toddlers and their spry grandmothers.

In more serious news, New York's Stuyvesant High School has decided to decrease the size of the student body. Not of the individual students, few of whom exceed standard scrawny nerd proportions, but rather the number of students in each class. Fearing that his school was not being perceived of as sufficiently exclusive and obnoxious, principal Stanley Teitel (who, if I remember correctly, liked to make paranoid announcements over the loudspeaker about how students' misdeeds would appear on their transcripts) seems to have decided to let fewer students into each incoming class. More on that at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/18/nyregion/18stuyvesant.html (Even a Stuyvesant grad can be blog-link-impaired... will fix that soon, hopefully.)

Stuyvesant is a crowded place, but happily crowded, and constant proximity to fellow human beings is the only hope that its nerdy students have of gaining some semblance of social skills.

free bagels

when Einstien Bros. closes, they give away free bagels, about 10:45 or so. The honey wheat ones are the best. eat 'em quickly, though; by morning they're hard as a rock.

more on the election later...

An elegant evening in Broadview

Between picking mushrooms off Bartlett pizza and making my way through a 1 liter bottle of diet Coke here in my dorm room, it's been a full day. I am currently preparing a presentation on Zola. I chose Zola because, in Friendster terms, he is friendsters with Dreyfus who is friendsters with Proust. Zola, it seems, wrote in French, which means slow going for me, but I won't hold it against him.

Nick's right!

The new conservatives will be very well-dressed. We at the Cabal of Style are uniformly well-dressed, if not always conservative.

So...Kerry-McCain, the ticket everyone wants but no one thinks will happen. Who wants it (aside from the seemingly endless supply of U of C neocon-libertarian types who are "everyone" in Cabal jargon) and why? Comments (and postings from co-bloggers) welcome.

Sorry...

I appreciate the compliment, but the site design is merely a template. I will accept any compliments on template selection you'd like to send my way. All gifts of thanks should be made in cash, please. I don't have room for more stuff.

hello, world

this is perhaps extremely self-aggrandizing to actually post here, but for my first post here at the "cabal of style" I'd like to say that this site is very well designed. assuming of course that this wasn't taken from some template, congrats are in order.

in other news, it's actually a pretty interesting day for a monday. gay marriages are alive and well in massachusetts, the leader of the iraqi governing council is not so alive and/or well anymore, it's the 50th anniversary of brown v. board, the Indian stock market took its largest one-day plunge ever with the prospect of communists entering the ruling coalition government, and now transgendereds are allowed to compete in the olympics.

not such a great day, if you're a "true believer" in the conservative cause. and though I doubt communists have the right ideas for India, otherwise, I can't say I mind.

after all, if we can dispense with "old europe," we can dispense with "old conservatism," can't we..? surely the new conservatives will be better-looking...and better dressed?

Crack a Window, Will Ya!

I didn't know how to make a joke about sarin gas, so I resorted to a general gas joke. For that, I'm sorry. Any suggestions on how to make a one-line pun out of "sarin gas" wins the Cabal's coveted "Making light of a deadly situation" award, more well known as "a BOOMie". We'll look high and low and award BOOMies to those comments made in the poorest of taste. So, our first BOOMie goes to whomever can make a timely pun out of sarin gas.

I suppose I just don't know how to approach this lone shell in Iraq. David Kay has said that it probably didn't come from some stockpile, but I can't help but wonder. If one of Saddam's former Generals is still involved in the insurrection, the Iraqi insurgents may have access to God knows what. Plus, now Fox news is saying that a mustard gas round was recently used. Maybe they're experimenting? Or maybe it's dumb luck. I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

Blogging about Blogs

I have several random blog-associated musings. First, I don't have enough random musings to fill a blog. Frequently my musings have some sort of purpose, which I believe the medium does not permit. Second, I must return to AIM...

Back to Blogging

Sometimes, there's nothing better than random musings. Thanks to Aaron, the Cabal of Style is back. There may be more to come, or not.

Changes at the Cabal

We've just added comments and a new template. I think it really jazzes things up around here. Look for more changes in the coming weeks.

Lazy Day

As the Cabal attempts to pick up steam again, I thought I'd blog a little about my homework. It's an exciting topic. Which is why I'm blogging instead of doing it. I'm currently reading A Constructed Peace by Marc Tractenberg and After Victory by G. John Ikenberry. Now, if you're sharp and happen to have an IR background, you may have picked up on the fact that both of these books are about constructing post war orders. It's a fun topic, believe you me. I happen to be really interested in alliance formation, but I haven't gotten to do much with it before. This isn't really that, per se, but it's in that general direction. Maybe I'll get to those books over the summer. Oh well, happy reading.

Once more with feeling

Is it time to try this again? Could be. These new computers in the Reg are wonderful. I feel like they're much less prone to losing my posts before I, you know, post them. Swanky new Dells that are actually running Windows XP. Plus, I need a new distraction. We'll have to see how long this lasts. That and I still love the name "Cabal of Style". We may have to have a new template to celebrate the resurrection. For now, however, I'll just try to put things up.

Prepare yourself...

...for unseasonably warm weather! This link deserves a click. And a shudder. I think this might be a good look for you, Phoebe. Consider it.