Echinacea Silliness

I feel lame posting the article that's now the top-emailed on NYTimes.com ... But, here it is, the article on the new study saying echinacea does not help at all in preventing colds.

Iraq.

From the front page of Sunday's Week in Review, John Burns on the specter or Iraqi civil war. Do reports like this support arguments of keeping US troops in, or support pulling US troops out? Burns -- a strong supporter of overthrowing Hussein -- ends the piece citing annonymous US commanders: "America, these officers seem to be saying, can do only so much, and if Iraqis are hellbent on settling matters violently - at the worst, by civil war - that, in the end, would be their sovereign choice."

SAMBAHOTS gets mail

A few days ago I got an email from campusfundraiser.com, announcing an "Insane $250 Fundraiser Scheduling Bonus." But the email was mail-merged to "SAMBAHOTS"!

And so it lives on.

watch him dance

For those of us who didn't get to see Bush's primetime nomination of Roberts on TV, apparently we missed quite a show. They were joined by Roberts' wife and two young children -- presumably to create some kind of an image of an average family guy, and not a crazy conservative ideologue. But watch the son dance!

amusing honesty

At a press conference on Tuesday with the Australian prime minister, Bush was asked by a reporter for his feelings on Judge Edith Brown Clement -- who many pundits were saying at that point was the most likely nominee. Bush had also been asked about her at a press conference the previous day. He responded:

"I'm trying to figure out what else I can say that I didn't say yesterday that sounds profound to you without actually answering your question."

foreign aid is like, so last century. (?)

Ok, so I'm a bit behind on the news.. From Saturday's op-ed page, "All Rock, No Action" was pretty damning. Not that Africans saying that the developed world should focus on supporting democracy in Africa, rather than giving aid money, is new by any means, but this was a pretty hot example. Meanwhile, Jeff Sachs's "The End of Poverty" remains in the top 200 books on Amazon. Do check out the Washington Post review of his book on that Amazon site; it's interesting.

I find myself rooting for Sachs to be "right", whatever "right" means. I don't know.

review: Ozo

[[Thursday night
Prospect Park
Ozomatli
$3]]

I thought we had to get there mega-early, but I was wrong. So Artis and I got there mega-early, and played frisbee and cards. That was chill. Then the gate opened maybe 40 minutes before show time. There was this guy passing by the line handing out UFPJ fliers, saying "are you coming on the 24th?". He said it as if everyone was supposed to know that he meant September 24th, when there's the big anti-war dealie in DC.

We grabbed seats right near the front. The opening band, Pacha, was very slow, uninspired, and at times put us to sleep (no, really).

By the time Ozo started, at 9pm or so, all the seats and the lawn area were completely packed, and with a pretty young crowd, although not completely young by any means.

The show itself was excelante. Newer and/or slower songs in the middle of the show were bracketed by a lot of the old crowd-pleasers -- dos cosas ciertas, misma cancion, eva, and later cumbia & como ves. 3rd album hits believe and saturday night were also crucial.

It all seemed rather similar to last time, but that was fine. At the end when they did their thing and played into the crowd, they came two rows behind us and stopped there for a while and it was super chill. Josh, of 49 home, appeared right next to us at that point. We left when it wound down a few minutes later, and the music is all still in my head..

eat your vegetables

Paul Krugram cites The Onion.

live from the 718

bROokLyN! extreme!

Dinner party at la casa aerob and tom. Thanks! Me using aerob's computer because no internet for now at our apartment, ack. Curry and lentils and chicken on the stove..

It's been a really long day, preceded by very little sleep, and I was having trouble not collapsing while I unpacked. But we took a break from the chaos and came here. We don't have a fridge, but it's supposed to be arriving tomorrow. Or so the landlord says.