Chastised, But Not Beaten

So, the metroblogging people made me feel bad about my utter lack of posts in the last few, er, months. And it is with great humility and much shameful scuffing of my feet that I can say I have again blogged for them. So go there and see. And then do it more often, cause I feel really guilty and want to give them hits.

Happy V-Day

Oh, right, the holiday. I hope everybody thought about vagina in honor of ending violence against women. If not, you better get started, only 100 minutes left...

Utilitarianism

So for class the past two weeks, we've been reading this book (The President of Good and Evil) by Peter Singer. This is the guy who said that morally speaking, humans are no different than animals (to think otherwise is speciesism), and that it is worse to kill an adult than an a baby (babies don't fear death). Compared to that, his take on President W is refreshingly mainstream--Singer doesn't much like the man--although his reasons are considerably different than most peoples'. He thinks that the president is ethically inconsistent and that his moral development is significantly arrested (at the level of a teenage boy, if you're interested).

Anyway, for a Princeton professor (I'm looking at you, Jacob Hacker) his book was pretty lively. A solid read, with an interesting way to look at politics and politicians. Here's an article he wrote for the Times about what you--yes, you--can do to stop world poverty. And here are links to UNICEF and Oxfam America when you need them.

Hilarious Update:
I just found this article about Singer's book about euthanasia that not only references Mein Kampf and Josef Mengele in the same paragraph (gee, I wonder if they got the point across?), but also has a quote from Troy McClure! I was hoping for "Hello, I'm Troy McClure. You might remember me from such self-help videos as Smoke Yourself Thin and Get Confident, Stupid!" but sadly it was some crap about dying. I miss Phil Hartman.

Because I Needed a New Way to Waste Time

For Christmas this year, I got a digital camera and a flickr account--well the account I just signed up for, but the point is that I can now entertain myself by pretending I can take pictures. With that in mind, here are the few I took this month that I think are good enough to show people.

snowy day
34th & 8th

I think it's easiest to start with things like buildings and architecture and geometry, really easy stuff to frame and evoke in a still picture. The rest probably comes with time. Probably.

Anyway, I've got some good political (even polemical) stuff to write about in the next few days, but my weekends are booked and I have tons of reading to do, so it might take a little while.

Things to think about 'til next post:
Extreme Beer Fest is only four days away!
Valentine's Day is only three days after that.
Massachusetts caucuses were last Saturday--did you vote?
If the NSA reads your emails, will they be entertained?