war and politics

Politics is simply a less crude and unbastardized cousin of war. In both cases, there are two opposing sides working against each other for the sole aim of power. The difference is merely in the approach. All too often, war is protected under the waving cape of politics. Take suicide bombers. There's a prime example for you. After blowing innocent people to shreds, Hamas and Hezbollah claim that they were freeing their own people from oppression. Immediately, group members begin running for government positions and take the initiative of rebuilding communities that they indirectly destroyed.

Unfortunately, by its very definition, politics breathes legitimacy. Government officials are assumed to be acting in a higher capacity than the everyman. Hence, the suicide bomber supporter turned cabinet member and the militant turned peace corps are given legitimacy, and by natural extension, their actions are given legitimacy as well. As soon as the protective mantle of politics is donned, we cannot help but acknowledge righteousness. Once a kidnapping is proclaimed to be in the service of helping the oppressed masses, the war is already won through politics. By turning the spotlight away from themselves and onto the wronged, the defense has not only been proclaimed innocent, but the prosecution has also been ordered to pay damages to him on top of this.

Illegitimate war is terrible, and politics is as often wrong as it is right. The horrific happens when we put the two together. We are not just unable to respond to illegitimate actions of violence, we are endorsing it through our silence. What can we do? If we do nothing, they win. If we retaliate, then we are clearly the aggressors and their assertion that we are oppressing their population is true. Where is the solution? Where is conscience? Where is morality?

first bank, second bank, first exchange

Today, per my dorkiness, I went to visit the first bank, second bank, and the first exchange of the United States.

The First Bank of the United States.


The Second Bank of the United States, modelled after the Parthenon.

The first Exchange of the United States.

I'm trying to foster a passion for finance that will sustain me for the next five years. I'd be lying if I said that I'm going into my program with perfect confidence and composure. Going into undegrad was so easy because there were no expectations. I was seventeen and stupid. There were good things and there was crap. It's was all fine and dandy because I was enthusiastic. I was cheerful, and I took things in a stride.

Now I feel like I've decided which way my life is going, which is frightening as all hell. There's no more innocence, only the knowledge that I've dedicated myself to this, and this is what I am going to do.

fish eyes

The great thing about having a father who drags you fishing is staring for hours at a time at the boats passing by and the water rippling ever so gently on the surface, while smelling the combination of salt, fish scales, and deep-fried seafood.

During these father-daughter bonding sessions, my job is to fish for small bait fish (baby bluefish), which he then puts on the hook to lure bigger fish. Wonderful concept. My line has five little hooks with pieces of silver plastic, so when I jerk the line, it looks like a minature school of fish is jumping (very clever).

The part that I find most difficult is extracating the hook from the fish. It's easy when the hook is simply caught on the fish's lip and I can just work it out. It's much more difficult and becomes torturous when the fish swallows the the hook entirely (greedy fish) and it gets caught in the gills. Then I'm elevated to the position of a surgeon without skill or anesthetics. There's usually a lot of fishy blood involved, and occaisonally pieces of gills and other parts coming loose. The most memorable incident is a fish who got the hook caught in his (or her) eye. The hook wasn't just caught in one eye. It went through it's skin to loop around the other eye as well. With my non-surgical fingers, I tried to inch the hook out, and the fish was free after one minute, sans one eye. One eyeball, oozing red-black blood, was left on my hook. It was mildly disgusting at the time, and upon reflection a few hours later, it was really gross.

Besides baby bluefish, I've also caught baby barracudas (nasty sharp teeth), sea robins (they actually moan), and shad. My dad mainly catches fluke (A relative of flounder) and occaisonally striped bass (huge monsters). Regulations say that only those above 17.5 and 28 inches, respectively, can be taken home. Out at sea, there's massive bluefish and tuna.

Our fanaticism struck at 5:30AM Saturday morning, when we went to fish in the premordial mist and watched the sun rise. The ocean was teeming with bluefish. There were so many that they could barely swim around each other. I caught ~80 tiny fish that morning and promply broke all of my hooks from the wear. That was fun:) Anyway, back to the poor one-eyed fish. It went half-crazy from the pain and leapt between the boards of the deck to rejoin its family...so every story does have a happy ending, after all.

penn

I'm in Philly for today and part of tomorrow. UPenn is gorgeous, although the rest of the city is questionable. UPenn is just like Harvard but bigger and prettier.

I walked to Chinatown with Adam and had Pho...We walked about 6 miles total. Center City is nice with pretty shops (Ann Taylor, BCBG Max Aria, Arden B...), but far far from campus.

It's back to RI for two weeks, moving my stuff down to UPenn, then starting grad school...

Not that much else to say. School startes after labor day. Nine people total in my class, seven men and two women. Many more than previous years of four or five. I've met seven of the other eight people, and the other girl is also an MIT alum.

If this entry sounds so uninspiring, it's probably because I got up at 5:15AM this morning to get to Philly. My brain is shutting down.