TTATAW

Having just read Truth, Torture, and the American Way, I don't think it was particularly instructive. Most of the material detailed in the book wasn't new to me. In an exceptionally well-taught International Relations class my senior year of high school, I learned all about the Nicaragua-contra affair, the Sandinistas, and involvement in El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Honduras. Although cases of torture weren't on the syllabus, it's logical that extreme violence and heavy crackdowns on the civilian population would involve torture of some sort.

What really strikes me about this book is the lack of information about what really happened in Central America and now, what's happening in Iraq. I couldn't tell you if torture is effective or not, and I doubt that any civilian or most military officials could, either. However, if torture is ineffective, then why bother with the costs and potential social reprecussions? I agree with Harbury that it must lie somewhere between the effective and the ineffective.

I also feel conflicted about the book because I have always been enamored with the governmental agency that Harbury denounces so harshly in her book. It's likely that only a small percentage of its employees were directly involved in the horrors mentioned in the book. Whether more people knew what was really going on is debatable. On the one hand, it's horrible to stand there and know that atrocities are being committed without doing anything. However, most people aren't superheros or passionate enough to risk their jobs and families to expose something that the president and top state officials endorsed.

There are two types of people, leaders and followers. We don't really worry about the independent thinkers because we're talking about large-scale government actions and agencies consisting of tens of thousands of people. It's difficult to decide how much blame to put on people who follow orders. I'm not saying that following orders blindly automatically excuses someone from prosecution, or that leaders are granted automatic carte blanches, but that the situation is more complicated then Harbury outlines in her book. As a human rights activist and the wife of a famous victim of torture, I can see why she wants everyone, from the top of the chain of command to the bottom of the chain of command, to be punished severely.

Harbury notes that the MPs that were punished for the Abu Gharib were simply following orders from the higher-ups and really weren't the officers responsible for creating and masterminding the entire operation. However, she also maintains that the harsh reprecussions meted out to these soldiers were beneficial because more soldiers now questioned their COs. She also claims that the judicial system is best for dealing with individuals and organizations that have violated human rights violations, citing the Nuremburg trials as an effective example. Of course, we now know that most major Nazi leaders had escaped Germany and were not tried at the Nuremburg trials, including the infamous abduction and subsequent trial of Adolf Eichmann.

In a perfect world, I would be inclined to agree with Harbury that the justice system should deal with individuals accused of human rights violations. Given the state of our justice system, the mere time for cases to come to trial, frequent mistrials and other problems, this is not a viable solution. Harbury offers the FBI as a prime example of a well-functioning agency that is humane because its employees are subject to law and can be prosecuted for wrongdoing. While that may be her opinion, the FBI hasn't exactly been hailed as a stellar agency following a reassessment of events in Waco and the failure to process information leading to 9/11.

Nor is it realistic to prosecute everyone from the president downwards, as Harbury is suggesting that we do. Torture has been used for so long that it's not going to disappear, and given current conditions, it's unlikely that anything will change.

interview woes

I want to erase everything that happened this morning...today was a learning experience, and not a good one.

I got to the Sheraton (near the pru) at 11AM, and went up to 7th floor where my interview was supposed to be held. On the 7th floor, I saw standard hotel rooms in every direction. Something told me that my interview wasn't going to be held in a sketchy hotel room. I took the elevator downstairs and questioned the concierge, who told me that my interview was on the 5th floor and not the 7th floor. So much for secretaries and poorly written emails.

At 11:20, I had been sitting in the conference room for a while and wondering if the secretary had also screwed up the time when a large, portly man walked in. He apologized profusely and explained that he had been on a v. v. important conference call with the head of his company. I nodded politely and told him that his secretary had sent me to the wrong floor by mistake. He responded: She's always like that. She never does anything right. Good grief. I could tell that I wasn't going to enjoy the next fifteen minutes.

A half-finished bowl of milk and cheerios lay on the table, as well as the financial paper my interviewer had been perusing between interviews. His opening question was: How many parameters are in the B-S model? My mind just froze, and I stared at him. I started writing them down on the Sheraton pad in front of me. I had gotten past sigma, time, and delta when he became impatient. I guessed 6 or 7. The answer was 5. This was really horrible, considering that I had actually written a paper on B-S last semester.

The next command was for me to write down the pdf of the binomial distribution. By this point, things were floating around in my head, and I must have looked confused. He looked at my resume and commented that I had taken probability, statistics, and econometrics. I agreed but couldn't produce the stupid equation. He told me to write down the pdf of the normal distribution instead. Of course, I forgot a squared term. So far, I was 0/2. I just cringe when I think about this question.

I get a mini-break when he questions me on my knowledge of Excel and I produce the command VLOOKUP correctly. His comment: You got a point. I'm thinking: Holy crap. This is the worst interview I've ever had. I am so unprepared.

The interview was shorter than usual interviews (I think the interviewer was slightly less than happy), and I bungled my way through credit risk derivatives, CDOs, and ABSs. I thought he was going to have a heart attack when I first told him that I had no idea what an ABS was. He looked incredulous, then I realized that he was talking ab0ut asset-backed securities. At this point, nothing on earth could have saved me. When he was walking me out, I heard him sigh audibly, and it would have been comical if he were sighing at someone else. SIGH.

This interview is going to be stamped in my brain forever. First, it was completely my fault. I didn't realize that it was going to be 100% technical. I thought that it was going to be a general interview, like ones I've had in the past. Apparently the facts that I was going to be interviewing for a position in the quant group and my interviewer had a PhD didn't ring a bell. Even if it wasn't technical, I should have been prepared. There is no excuse for me not knowing the binomial or the normal distribution or any of the other questions that he asked. This is the biggest issue that my parents have with me. I do things half-assedly, without really understanding them. I think I've learned my lesson.

Of course, I wandered around the pru for a while, then took the T back home. The pru station stop is really stupid because there isn't a token vendor, and the stupid token machine is finicky as all hell and doesn't take quarters. There were three tourists, and the machines were spitting their dollar bills back out and mine as well. However, it took my five-dollar bill, so I gave them three tokens in exchange for their quarters. They were going to Park Street and confused, so I told them that I was going to Park Street as well, and we got on the train. The next station stop wasn't Copley. It was Symphony.

Crap. In all of my confusion and anger, I had hopped on the train going in the wrong direction, and I had dragged a few innocent tourists with me. I got off at the Symphony, and they did too. I apologized, and they looked pretty unhappy. I decided to screw it and walk back across the river. I felt even worse now because I had defrauded three unhappy tourists of $1.25 each. On my way back, I was expecting a car to hit me or something else to happen, but nothing did. C'est la vie.

Christmas fuzziness, warmth, and acid

J'aime, j'adore, j'aime beaucoup. I love reading the New Yorker. It's so clever, biting, and unsubstantial. Christmas at the New Yorker brought smiles to my face. It's touching and sad without being sappy or stupid.

The funny thing is, I actually got this book for one of my recommenders as a thank-you present. Unknowingly, one my friends got this for me as a Christmas present. Yup, karma works.

People get annoyed at the New Yorker because it's floofy and elitist at times. That's true, but who in their right mind would actually read the New Yorker for the news? That's what the New York Times is for. The style of the New Yorker hasn't changed much since its inception in 1925 because it didn't have to.

The writing is deeply satirical, and the comics are a riot (to me and none of my friends). There's an extra ooomph to the New Yorker that I love.

AHWOSG

This is a terrific, terrific work by 29 year old Dave Eggers. A beautifully written, emotional autobiography/fictitional account of a young man who's a failure in his own way.

What made this book so great was its style and the ease of identifying with the main character, Dave. I think many young people probably feel the same way as Dave does, that they're invincible, wonderful, gorgeous...but immature and stuck in a world that's half their own creation, half reality. Everyone has lofty goals that are almost impossible to achieve, especially given the constraints that we put on ourselves.

The book is sharply satirical, yet never fails to make fun of itself. I loved Dave's cynicism and idenfied with so many of his flawed and hypocritical ideals. So much of what Dave thinks is true. We all probably secretly want to excel at something and be rich and famous. Dave and everyone else in the story have problems, some rising uniquely in the '90s. I wonder if it's possible for everyone to be so screwed up, or whether it's normal.

AHWOSG is so much better than J.D. Salinger's A Catcher in the Rye. Although failure after failure happen in the book, Dave is likeable and the book, for all of its sarcasm and cynicism, is upbeat. My only two comments would be that the dialogue is inconsistent at times (It's sometimes hard to distinuish between Dave and Toph in their philosophical discussions), and the ending is not terribly satisfying. For all that, it's a touching and cleverly written book.

teal doors

Last night, I was finally inspired to finish painting my room (except for a small chunk on the top ledge that I couldn't reach). Five months ago, the walls in my room my room were a disgusting light dirty yellow and non-descript dull blue. For the sake of my sanity, I decided to paint the room in brighter, cheerier colors. I spent two straight days taping and painting, working throughout the days and most of the nights as well. Most of the room is swathed in teal, with chunks of white for relief. Instead of following the ledges and natural corners, I angled and alternated triangles and trapezoids of teal and white. By the end of the second day, I was sick of inhaling paint fumes and was dead tired, so I left my closet door and the inside of my main door and the doorframes their original colors.

At 12:30AM this morning, I was inspired to finish the doorframes and the two doors. Having run out of white paint, I finished my doors and doorframes with teal. It's also easier because I can get away with one coat of teal vs. two coats of white. Painting is therapeutic, and I really like the swishing motions. I wanted to fix the trapezoid of dull blue that's left over near the ceiling, but I'm vertically challenged. Unfortunately, my chair wasn't high enough for me to reach, and I couldn't move my dresser across the room this time. I guess the chunk will stay until the next inhabitant decides to either fix it or paint over the obnoxious teal/white geometry.

My next project will be putting up drapes around my room. I got fantastic material, silvery, turquoise, dark blue, white, and transparent blue for Christmas. I might even put up a swing in the two hooks in my ceiling (left over from the previous inhabitant).

apples and gender

Yesterday, I was sitting in Hayden and browsing in the impulse borrowing display when I came across Same Difference. I got through 150 pages, then decided reading the rest of it was a waste of my time.

It's mindboggling how many books and articles have been written about feminism in the past thirty years. The field is just swamped with ideas, more ideas, regurgitated ideas, and horrendous ideas. Same Difference explores one branch of feminism, that men and women are inherently programmed differently, and mercilessly attacks that theory.

Although I agree with the main principle of Same Difference, the way that Barnett and Rivers chose to illustrate it was less than convincing. Simply disproving someone else's theory does not automatically make yours correct. Of course, it's nearly impossible to come up with hard facts supporting any angle of feminism. The authors ridiculed previous experiments by exposing flaws in both the implementation and the experimentation. However, they themselves use ad-hoc examples of people such as Mary and Bill. I'm not sure what experiments they're carrying out, but they don't seem legit to me either.

One argument that Barnett and Rivers use to support the idea that girls are just as good as boys in math and science is that 45% of MIT's entering class is female. Some arguments that they forgot to include are that male and female applicants to MIT are most probably judged on a different scale and that MIT probably only increased the percentage of females when pressured to do so or when its administrators recognized the benefits of having more females participating in classes. Over the past ten years, notorious weeder classes at the institution have actually gotten easier. It's not clear whether this is because MIT's objectives and philosophy changed, or whether the influx of girls required classes to become easier or whether the general talent pool has shrunk. Like Barnett and Rivers, I'm speculating as well. I realize that the authors have a point to prove, and I don't expect them to cover other angles. It just shows how tenuous their actual proof is.

Barnett and Rivers repeat themselves too much without coming up with anything innovative. Their main point is that there are less differences between men and women than between either gender in positions of more or less power. However, the writing is sub-par and loose. Combined with a lack of innovation, the book wasn't convincing or entertaining.

I've never been a feminist partly because I never grew up thinking that I had less opportunities as a girl and because I disagree with feminism. As a child, I was encouraged to do well in math and science. I was and still am fascinated with firearms, tossing footballs, climbing trees and sculptures, and wearing grungy clothing on a semi-regular basis. The thing is, I don't know the degree to which men and women are inherently different, and I don't really care.

healthy media-less amusements

According to Nielson, the average American watches more than 4 hours of TV per day. That's 28 hours a week, or roughly 2 months per year. It's frightening that 1/6 of someone's life can be spent staring at a large box, immersed in some alternate reality. It's unclear whether the blandness of 21st century life is to blame for this rash of escapism, or vice versa. TV is making people more stupid and less accepting to adversity in real life. TV, video games, media, the Internet... it's getting out of hand.

Thanks to one of my friends, I've rediscovered a perfectly normal, interactive, media-less amusement that makes me much happier than pretending that I'm a member of the local police department: board games. That's right, board games. Over the past few days, I've played Scrabble, Pictionary, and Trivial Pursuit. Rather than a one-way relationship with my TV, I've found that it's infinitely more rewarding to laugh and scream over obscure facts and clever words on the scrabble board. Not only is it more fun to interact with people, my brain is also getting a workout, being forced to think more quickly in pictionary, more thoroughly in scrabble, and more all-around in Trivial Pursuit.

Considering I'm a pretty sore loser, I'm eternally grateful to my friends for being supportive and overlooking my semi-violent rantings, probably stemming from the fact that the average American has seen more than 200,000 violent acts on television by age 18 (Nielsen).

Reading-induced pain

Yesterday, I finally finished A Confederacy of Dunces after frequent starts and stops. This book is 'modern' in its treatment of people and is easy to read. It's one of those books that people either love or hate. I would vote for the latter with my eyes closed.

The antihero of the story, Ignatius J. Reilly, is a corpulent, hypocritical, disgusting creature with a distinctive green hunting cap and lofty moral standards. Other colorful characters include an undercover policeman in ballerina costumes and Hawaiian shirts who is relegated to bathroom duty in a bus stop, a dumb exotic dancer wannabe with a giant bald eagle, and a drunken and slovenly mother who finds new meaning in life by way of the bowling alley. The weird, the ugliness, and the downright crappyness of life can all be found in this melodrama of sorts.

A major problem is that not only is the antihero difficult to identify with, so are the rest of the characters. The least offensive character is a flunky who hates the pants factory that he inherited. I am not against ugliness or uselessness or stupidity, but every page of this book is saturated with the filth of New Orleans and its inhabitants.

Ironically, Toole writes extraordinary well, excelling in providing the reader with vivid descriptions (perhaps another reason why the book is so unsavory). He also ties up loose ends nicely in the last few pages of this drama, though for what purpose, I'm not certain. The writing is excellent, and the scenarios are clever and imaginative, but why use that talent to write a story about utter depravity and squalor?

When numbers don't cut it

To my friends who I ramble incessantly to about NUMB3RS, I'm really sorry but you all knew that this had to happen someday.

I started watching reruns of NUMB3RS this summer. First, the math angle attracted me and not much else. The show wasn't that stellar to begin with, but it really took a turn for the worse this season (I am saying this as a pretty serious NUMB3RS fan).

There are two good characters on the show: Peter MacNicol (Larry Fleinheart) and Judd Hirsch (Alan Eppes). The creators should also be commended for trying to teach the American public some math, but the actual show itself falls dismally flat.

I can see two real problems with the show. The first is the cramming factor. The second is the mundane screenwriting that borders on the horrendous at times.

NUMB3RS is a crime procedural drama, something that CBS does with its eyes closed (It's one of eleven on the Eye). The problem with NUMB3RS is that it takes a three-pronged approach. The show endeavors to show the world of Don Eppes and his warm-hearted but tough FBI colleagues, Charlie Eppes and his world of academia, and the family angle of the the Eppes brothers and their father Alan. Considering that the cast and crew only have approximately forty-five minutes to work in all three angles, it's not surprising that two out of the three crucial environments are minimized. It's endearing that the creators of the show put such a heavy emphasis on the math, but the other components are sadly suffering as a result. Most other CBS crime procedurals focus only on the agents and the job at hand, which provides continuity to the story and fleshes out the characters themselves. This is certainly not the case for NUMB3RS.

The other major complaint would be the screenwriting. Instead of the sharp dialogue found on NCIS, Without a Trace, and other crime procedurals, charcters on NUMB3RS deliver lines that are completely flat. Lines such as "Yeah" and "What've you got, Charlie" are fine examples of everday speak but not something that anyone would turn on the TV for. The goal should not be to imitate bits and pieces of dialogue thrown around in real life but something that is a bit more clever and elegant. Furthermore, the show relies on too much exposition. It seems that half of the forty-five minutes is taken up by Charlie rambling on about this theory or that. The screenwriters should make more of an effort to weave the information in the plot line rather than breaking it abruptly with mini-lectures. Lectures are available on virtually every university's website.

Going back to the point about cramming in too many characters, too much information, and too much plot, NUMB3RS has eight main and important secondary characters. Don Eppes, Charlie Eppes, Alan Eppes, Amita Ramanujan, Larry Fleinheart, Megan Reeves, David Sinclair, and Colby Granger. If this list seems extremely long, it's because it is. Squeezing in eight characters per episode is difficult. One of the problems I have with the second season is that the character of Don Eppes seems like he's being phased out, although Don is undoubtedly one of the two main characters on the show. He's been relegated to the cookie-cutter middle-management role, asking dumb questions to get the ball rolling, then sitting around and watching as his co-workers and genius brother solves the case. We as the audience never really got to know Don very well. Now he's being passed over for major 'minor' characters. Rob Morrow, who plays Don Eppes, has decent range and above-average acting abilities. He should expand his character instead of asking stupid questions and being about as useful as a piece of furniture. It's a waste of talent.

The second season also has a new look which doesn't enhance the storyline at all. The shots of the FBI office are a deep blue, which brings a somber tone to the story. The camera angles are decent but not above-average. There isn't the crispness that distinguishes NCIS or some of the other shows.

For all of its effort, NUMB3RS is lacking in depth and continuity. The acting is not bad, but the story seems extremely rushed except for the long mathematical expositions, which are painstakingly slow. I like the fact that the creators of the show illustrate concepts pictorally, but there is no need to cram in three or four new concepts per episode. Two would probably be sufficient. Also, cramming in concepts that have no relation to each other is distracting and breaks the flow of the storyline. The cases themselves are not original by any stretch of the imagination. That's fine since the focus is really on the mathematics. If each episode had half as much information and was tighter, the overall effect would be much better.

Although the screenwriting is atrocious, the acting is not bad and could be so much better with better lines and better direction. Rob Morrow is underused, David Krumholtz (Charlie Eppes) acts well, if over the top at times, and Diane Farr (Megan Reeves), Alimi Ballard (David Sinclair), and Dylan Bruno (Colby Granger) are slightly above-average actors. As mentioned before, Judd Hirsch and Peter MacNicol are wonderful actors. NUMB3RS needs to show, not tell.

The show's other saving grace is the camaderie between the Eppes boys and their father. The Charlie/Don scenes are always deeper than any of the other scenes, with an unbelievably real amount of brotherly affection and teasing. These moments seem real and well-done.

Although NUMB3RS sweeps the friday night ratings, there are many improvements that could make the show much more enjoyable. Each episode would be better overall if the number of characters were reduced, or if the show didn't try to accomplish too much at once. It would also be pleasant to have a mostly math-free episode one of these fridays. The writers should seriously decide what direction the show is going and steer it that way.

total and utter sexiness

Good God, I never thought that I'd ever fall in love with a tiny piece of white plastic and metal, but I have. I never thought that I'd be gushing over an iPod. I never thought that I was so hopelessly materialistic...but look at it. It is so sleek and sexy and gorgeous. If it were a guy...enough said.

My iPod nano is a Christmas/birthday present from my parents, who are probably more in touch with pop culture than I am at this point (sadly enough).

If nothing else, Apple has geniuses on their advertising staff and brilliant product designers. With its unique look and easy-to-use wheel, iPod virtually leaves its competitors at its starting gate. I have heard from various other owners of the iPod that the product is not as reliable as sony's players or a few other mp3 players on the market. Honestly, I haven't used any of the other players, so I have no idea of the battery life or whether iPods, for their gorgeous design, are really flakier than most.

I found the interface easy to use, and the sound quality is quite good (It is apple) and much better than the sound that I get from the CD players that I've used in the past. I admit that iPods are pretty pricey, but if Apple can get people to pay exorbitant amounts for a tiny piece of metal (myself included), all the better for them.

The iPod is a cultural phenomenon, but it's no different from the time when everyone carried a walkman or CD player on the subway or on the street. The difference now is that Apple has a gargantuan share of the market...I don't think that the iPod is causing social isolation or any of the other things that the media is harping about.

Splash!

Swimming is wonderful. There's something amazing about being completely immersed in cool water. It's a great non-contact support where your body weight is supported by the water.

It's funny how much I enjoy swimming now that I swim neither regularly nor competitively. There's a part of me that really wishes that I had tried harder when I was part of various YMCA teams. The motivation disappeared when I stopped being good at swimming. My competitive swimming career peaked at age 8.

I still remember my first race. It was just 25 yards of freestyle. I jumped in and started swimming. In the middle of the pool, I lost my cap and had no idea what to do. The best option at the time was to go back for it. I turned back in the water to get my cap. My coach screamed at me to keep going forward, and everyone on the bleachers was laughing at the confused little girl. I stopped in the water and finally swam to the side of the pool and climbed out. Needless to say, I got disqualified for not finishing the race.

Today, I treat swimming as mainly therapeutic. When I do swim, it gives me a good workout, and I actually enjoy the smell of chlorine seeping into my pores.

Action and Intrigue

Marathon session of the first season of 24 yesterday. We started at 2pm and ended at 9am this morning. The storyline was brilliant, with twists and turns in nearly every episode. The editing was sharp, and the acting was amazing, with kudos for Kiefer Sutherland (Jack Bauer), Sarah Clarke (Nina Myers), and Leslie Hope (Teri Bauer).

The pilot and first few episodes were well thought out and had the right combination of action and sentimentality. However, by the tenth episode, the story was dragging. By the twelfth episode, I was wondering how long Jack and his family could possibly run through the woods (As it happens, not much longer). By the seventeenth or eighteenth episode, I was ready to kill the writers of the show if anyone was kidnapped again...

The fact that 24 is set in 'real time' is extremely clever, and manages to do so without seeming terribly slow or contrived. Although the events were clearly not realistic, the people seemed very realistic. Character flaws were not covered up, and the lighting and imagery was harsh enough to convey some realism (Unlike CBS's neverending flow of dolled-up crime dramas).

The show could have done without some repetition such as the continuing arguments between Sherry and Palmer. He's an honest, honorable, wonderful politician (a.k.a dinosaur) and she's a conniving bitch who will steamroll over everyone in her way to get power. We get it. It doesn't need to be repeated in nearly every episode.

Also, 24 is amazing in its treatment of twists and turns. People who were originally good turn bad and people who were originally bad stay bad. It's the world against Jack Bauer. Frankly, it was funny how many trials he went through and slightly heartbreaking as well (especially the twist at the end). Although the double agent standpoint is overdone, it was overdone cleverly, which makes it acceptable.

24 wraps up neatly, though not terribly well. The center of 24 revolves around Sutherland's brilliant depiction of Jack Bauer. Against my will, I really sympathized with him. I didn't like him, but I had an immense amount of respect for him. 24 is probably the best TV series I have seen.