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Many of you may have already seen this, but I wanted to note an amazing website put up by a Kirkland alum who know works on University Hall on the Curricular Review. It’s chronicles the many phases of his hair, some of which are AMAZING.
My favorite: Phase 14, the Lateral Mohawk.
Enjoy!
An update on the first round of voting in the Los Angeles mayoral election over at Bird’s Eye:
The exit polls turned out to be fairly accurate. Antonio Villagairosa won the first round of voting with 33% of the vote. Current Mayor James Hahn barely defeated Bob Hertzberg (23.6%-22.2%) to make the May 17th runoff a rematch of the 2001 LA Mayor’s race. Villagairosa would become the first Latino Mayor of LA since 1872 should he defeat Hahn in his second attempt.
However, Hahn also finished second in the first round in 2001, and later went on to victory after attacking Villagairosa as a soft-on-crime liberal. Villagairosa did not fire back in the two-person race and lost to Hahn, the then mild-mannered city attorney with the appeal of his well-respected family name (his father marched with Martin Luther King). This time around Hahn has more baggage with his controversial tenure as Mayor. However, this year he has organized labor’s support, which he did not have in ’01 (though Villagairosa appears to have won the rank and file vote in the first round exit polling).
Winning the City’s African American vote will be crucial for Villagairosa. Black voters – who made up about 17% of the electorate Tuesday – voted overwhelming for Parks, the former police chief whom Hahn declined to support for a second term. With Parks now out of the race, Villagairosa needs to win the African American constituency considerably, and he can win the race. I’ll keep you west coasters updated over the next few weeks.
I understand that the mayor of LA may not sound politically sexy, but with the size of the city and the value of its media market, the mayor of LA can become a guerilla in California, and therefore national, politics. Villagairosa is a great guy, here’s to hoping for the first hispanic mayor of LA since 1872!
or so this author claims. While I don’t condone the superficial standards that are obviously a part of this argument, it’s hard to deny they exist. Anyway, a funny rant, check it out (and thanks for pointing it out Christopher).
I wrote yesterday about the first blogger to get a credential for the White House. Here’s a video clip of him on TV talking about his experience.
I apologize for blogging about blogging, I know it’s kind of self-absorbed, but I thought you might be interested, so I’ll occasionally do it anyway.
as I am wrapping up my column for tomorrow (it’s nothing eventful, not that any of them are…) I’ve started to think about what I want to write my next column on. As I have been hearing from many friends and acquantances that problems are arising, and as readers of this blog know that this is one of my primary areas of concern, I’ve been thinking about writing a column on the Harvard Social Forum.
As I understand it, HSF was founded last year as a means to facilitate coalition building and group learning around anti-oppression issues. The group that built it was interested in creating safe space to learn and challenge our assumptions. It’s a pretty great idea and has, for the most part, been a smashing success and an essential leader in the progressive community on campus.
However, as you know, it has as of late developed a very specific set of demands and asked its affiliate groups to sign on to them. The demands apparently came out of a brainstorming session that all affiliate groups were invited to. Even so, I have some serious concerns that are, of course, dependent upon my opinion of what HSF should do. Those who disagree with this opinion will likely disagree with my concerns.
Before I launch into that, however (probably tomorrow), I’m interested in hearing whether or not other people have heard of the Social Forumn and if so what their general impression is. For me, all of these choices need to be tactical with a specific means/ends set of goals. Unless we know what the general view is (all I have is my oft-broken Common Wisdom meter), it will be hard to know how to change/mobilize it for change.
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So, since my parents were here this weekend and wanted to buy me things, we went down to Newbury to find things I wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford. We discovered my new favorite store, American Apparel. I won’t claim that the politics was what first attracted me (they’re cool clothes, sue me), but check out this video from CNN about how the business works. Or, check out their mission statement:
American Apparel is a vertically integrated manufacturer, distributor and retailer of T-shirts and related products. All of our garments are cut and sewn at our 800,000-square-foot facility in downtown Los Angeles.We are trying to rediscover the essence of classic products like the basic T-shirt, once an icon of Western culture and freedom. Our goal is to make garments that people love to wear without having to rely on cheap labor.
…
While apparel is a universal necessity that transcends almost all cultural and socioeconomic boundaries, most garments are made in exploitative settings. We hope to break this paradigm.
It’s kinda goofy, but it’s also pretty cool.
Chairman Dean seems to be doing a good job so far. Cleaned house at the DNC, traveling a lot, toeing the party line, staying out of the fray. Good for him, turns out Dean isn’t a stupid exploding hippie, yeah!
From today’s Note:
You may have wondered why you haven’t seen DNC chair Howard Dean debate RNC chair Ken Mehlman face-to-face yet. Or why Gov. Dean has largely eschewed the national political press corps since becoming chair.Part of it, according to Democrats familiar with the strategy, is that Dean simply doesn’t have the time or inclination to sit for interviews right now. He has a party to build, staff to hire, Red states to visit, and lots of money to raise.
But part of it is a lesson that Republicans taught Dean well: if the national press corps is wedded to a certain view of you, such as your alleged propensity to say things that get you in trouble, simply bypass that filter. Dean has taped at least a half dozen interviews with local television stations in the three weeks he’s been chair and has made himself available to local newspaper reporters and columnists.
And so far, it’s largely worked. The local press has been less aggressive about questioning whether in-state Democrats are rushing to embrace Dean, and Dean has received a trough full of good press clips in Red States.
The local strategy is also designed to make it more difficult for Republicans to bash Democrats in states Dean visits, and by aggressively courting the local press corps, he creates good will that he hopes will help him down the road.
Recent Harvard alum, former Executive Editor of the Harvard Crimson, former Dean staffer, and now super-blogger Garrett Graff is going to be the first blogger to be let into the White House press gaggle. If you see me around, ask me why I think this is especially funny.
For me, this says two things:
1. blogs cannot be stopped, so submit now.
2. having an H on your diploma even fools people in the White House into thinking you’re respectable (kidding, I’m told Graff is a wonderful young man).
I recommend his account of how he got the pass, fairly entertaining.