funnies

I just love Wait Wait Don't Tell Me... here's Bill Clinton playing this week:

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137386121/bill-clinton-plays-not-my-job?ps=cprs

A little PR in ... PR

It's unbelievable to me that Obama is the second president ever to make a trip to Puerto Rico.

Here's NPR's gist on it:

"President Barack Obama made the first official presidential stop in Puerto Rico in a half-century yesterday with a message aimed more at an audience on the U.S. mainland."

Hurried tidbits

I've been wanting to post about a few things. Rather than individual posts, I suppose I'll put them all here. Rushing off for the afternoon to Boulder, so this has to be quick.

RTD Scramble
I saw the best thing when I was riding light rail this week. As I mentioned, I've committed to taking the light rail and bus (public transit and/or walking) as much as possible. It takes more time, but I really want to support and use public transit. Better for me, my community, the environment, etc. Anyway, picture this: three tracks, A - B - C. I'm on train B. Train C is waiting next to me with doors open. Train A pulls up and people rush off to get onto train C. However, my train, B is smack in the way. So, all of a sudden, tons of people scramble up the steps on the left side of B run through my train, scramble down then steps on the right side of B and run straight into train C. The B train shortcut? Tee hee hee. Everyone sort of raised an eyebrow when the stampede passed through our train. The doors closed and we went on our way.

Squeak Carnwath
My new favorite artist. I keep picking up boxes of cards and then realize they are the same artist, Squeak Carnwath. Besides the uber-cool name, she is an America artist (1947), still living, and teaching art in California. Check her out here.



Weather
Crazy Denver -- highs in the 60s today! Are you jealous east coast cold & snow people?

A few other topics that I can't tackle right now... what on earth is going on in the middle east with quasi-soon-to-be-revolution? It's amazing. Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon? Another topic: State of the Union Address. Nerdy me listened to the whole thing. And Paul Ryan's response (baaaaad).

Shabbat Shalom!

New Round-up

Falling... off... the bandwagon... must post immediately!

Seems like the media has been going nuts lately: elections, leaks, holidays, Koreans. I would spend my time reading news reports from all perspectives if I had the time (and internet at home)! My 2 cents --

Elections:
Perhaps not so wise for Egypt to refuse international observers. 80 million people. Tourism the main industry. $1.56 billion in aid each year (from the U.S. alone!). Candidates put in the hospital. Citizens shooting each other. Ran out of ballots.

Haiti's elections? Pretty much a failure before they even took place.

N. Korea bombing S. Korea - showing the new underling how it's done? Exercising a little military might to shake things up a bit? Get a little attention, maybe.

Wiki leaks. I think it's super interesting to compare the British version of the story with the American story. British wouldn't shush up about it. They thought we Americans were conniving for spying on the U.N. They thought the world should know that Saudi Arabia is pressuring the U.S. to attack Iran. Americans, on the other hand, played it down. A lot. Morning news rolled around to the story 20 minutes into the hour. There were maaaaybe a few impolitic things released. No big deal. Some smallish middle eastern countries put a teeny bit of pressure on western countries, perhaps hinting or suggesting the U.S., to maybe stand up to Iran. Right.

I think most of the Wiki leaks, while not wrong were probably released with a tad of malicious revenge in mind. Like a bratty tattle tale who you want to think is annoying, but you have to admit is actually telling the truth. But, there are things in there (of course, it's a quarter of a million correspondences!) that really should be released to the public. I guess, generally, I think Wiki leaks provides a public service, even if they could have a bit more discretion about what's really important for the public to know, not just deliciously entertaining political gossip. The U.S. will play dumb about it for awhile. Countries the already don't like the U.S. will grumble. But structuralists win the day and all will blow over.

The buzz

Check out this really cool website: http://www.buzzchurn.com/

Someone I know in the PhD program at the grad school made it. It checks all the English language newspapers around the world for "state fragility" -- in real time. How cool is that!?

In other news, I signed up for course next semester. My LAST semester. Unbelievable.

Denver Journal of Int'l Law & Policy (2)
International Business Transactions (3)
Evidence (4)
Community Economic Development (3)
Conflict of Laws (3)

I likely will end up dropping one of those classes (Community Economic Development?), but -- unfortunately -- Evidence is required. Silly Lawyer classes. Int'l Business Transactions will be taught by a guy who does Int'l Development and Law stuff. Should be good!

I also will be a Research Assistant for a professor at the grad school. We're going to work on collecting and coding bilateral trade agreements, looking for clustering between OECD countries.