read of the day

this is such an awesome concept. it's two wicked fun things, hip-hop battles and international relations, making sweet sweet geeky love all over the npr website. wheeee!

rock the vote

love in stockholm, the band of a close friend, is in serious contention to make it to the next round of mtv's best boston breakout contest! if you're not from the boston area, you may recognize them as one of the bands i am always surreptitiously trying to slip people on cds of other music. i am utterly unapologetic about this, as everyone could use a serious dose of the funk these guys bring.

register (for free) as a fan, go to mtv best breakout boston, and vote (or "judge") for these guys. get them to #20 (they're at #24), and maybe we can get some decent music on mtv for once. (be patient, the songs come up randomly).

also check out their stuff on myspace and facebook.

blogging FAIL

(maybe if i post this AWESOME video and then start writing prolifically the month-long gap between posts won't be as obvious. ok it's a plan. aaaand break)

grand east coast tour

"i ain't got nothin' 'gainst the east coast/you want some people where they've got the most"

i just thought i'd drop a quick word about where i'll be for the rest of my time in the states. as some of you know, i still don't have my start date, but at this point, i'm planning on an august 1 departure. to make sure i see as many people as possible, and...y'know, not spend an entire month at home, where i'd be sure to start making poor decisions out of sheer boredom...i'm planning a GRAND EAST COAST TOUR in mid-july. right now it's looking (roughly) like this:

7/9-7/11: richmond, VA
7/11-7/13: DC
7/13-7/17: some combo of delaware, philly, and nyc?
7/18-7/19 or 20: new haven

if you're around any of these places, or anywhere en route, let me know!

read of the (three weeks ago) day

my friend dave was guestblogging for a while over at attackerman, before he scored his dream job (congrats!). i just caught up on some of his posts, and this one a) picked up on one of my favorite idle, intellectual equivalents of desk toys, the shifting place of superheroes in the american social imaginary and b) made me giggle.

read of the day

i think this is sort of nicely put. the thrust being:

"In fact – and this is what Sotomayor means when she talks about reaching a better conclusion than a white man who hasn’t lived her life – rather than distorting reality, perspectives illuminate it or at least that part of it they make manifest. It follows that no one perspective suffices to capture all aspects of reality and that, therefore, the presence in the interpretive arena of multiple perspectives is a good thing. In a given instance, the “Latina Judge” might reach a better decision not because she was better in some absolute, racial sense, but because she was better acquainted than her brethren with some aspects of the situation they were considering. (As many have observed in the context of the issue of gender differences, among the current justices, only Ruth Bader Ginsburg knows what it’s like to be a 13-year-old girl and might, by virtue of that knowledge, be better able to assess the impact on such a girl of a strip-search.)...You can call it empathy or (as some in the audience suggested ) you can call it understanding or imagination. I called it hearkening to the spirit rather than the letter. But whatever you call it, everyone present that evening agreed that it was what we wanted."

blogrollcall

kitt's kitchen: finally, a blog from one of my favorite humans: a fabulous writer, teacher, and drinking buddy, and (now!) aspiring chef. show her some love, why dontcha?

nepali molly: i'm going to compartmentalize, and start putting posts about my year in nepal on a new blog. wheeee.