The future

Here's what the weekend holds for me, schoolwork-wise:

1.  Work on a paper about what the hell line of force are, from our readings from Faraday.

2.  Start reading Euler for math.  Pages and pages of text with equations.  Bye, geometry!

3.  Start reading Maxwell for lab.  Pages and pages of text with equations.  Bye, anything remotely fun!

4.  Translate French.  Oh, sweet, sweet French.

5.  Read Kant.  Bang head against wall.

French has become my favorite class by a huge margin for this reason: If I don't understand something, I pull out my dictionary or grammar book and look it up.  Chances are I will find it, understand it, and be able to continue my translation.  That's awfully nice, isn't it?

Blame the Aussies

So it turns out that Matt Drudge got the Prince Harry story from either an Australian or German women's magazine, both of which ran the story as early back as January.  

Thus begins the blame game.  I'm going to sit back with some popcorn and watch it unfold.

Read the first amendment. Learn. Repeat.

Apparently, Prince Harry has been over playing soldier in Afghanistan. Good for him.

He's been there for ten weeks, and the British press decided not to publicize it for "security reasons" - allegedly he'd be a great big target. I doubt it, from what I gather Prince Harry is both as smart and as well-loved as a box of hair, but whatever. That's the British media's decision. Good for them*.

The Drudge Report broke the story today. Good for them. The big networks then picked it up. Good for them.

The MoD now has it's panties in a twist over that:

Chief of the General Staff Sir Richard Dannatt, who is head of the British Army, said he was disappointed the news had leaked.

In a statement, he said: "I am very disappointed that foreign websites have decided to run this story without consulting us.

"This is in stark contrast to the highly responsible attitude that the whole of the UK print and broadcast media, along with a small number overseas, who have entered into an understanding with us over the coverage of Prince Harry on operations."

Oh, come the hell on! A few minor little points:
1. You just referred to the British media as in possession of a responsible attitude. I'll buy that about the BBC, and more or less for both the Times and Guardian. The British media gave us reality TV and The Sun. Think about that, man.
2. American journalists don't answer to the British government. Nor do they answer to the American government, nor any government, nor anyone but the public and maybe whatever corporation they've been acquired by. They report the news, regardless of whether or not any given government wants it reported. That's because America truly does have a free press, and to speak in any way disparagingly of that is disgusting.
3. The media, and thus the public being aware that your little prince is off pretending to be GI Joe is not the danger. The danger comes from the war, what with the bullets and the bombs and such. The danger comes from you sending him there at all. If you're that concerned, you could have not sent him.
4. Monarchy is idiotic and has no place in modern society anyway. I know there was some ridiculous orgy of faux-grief when Princess Diana got in a car with a drunk driver and died, but would anyone actually care if Prince Harry was killed in war, any more than any other soldier? At the very least, Princess Diana had done a token amount of charity work before her death. Prince Harry has...joined the army and drunkenly attempted to punch a photographer. Whoo, a real royal hero there.
5. The monarchy is funded by the people. The army is funded by the people. Therefore, if His Highness leaves his nice comfy palace to go try to feel useful in the Army, the people have a right to know. Don't like it? Tough shit.

6.  He's not even ever going to be king!  If it was his father or his older brother, who both are in line to eventually be the head of state, I could maybe, maybe understand.  But he's not, he's like the understudy for a chorus-line position!

Seriously, aren't the troops over in Afghanistan ostensibly fighting for freedom and liberty and all that jazz? Isn't an absolutely free press one of the absolute cornerstones of a free society? Had the media listened to the government in some places in the late 1700's, America probably wouldn't have happened. People have an absolute right to know what their government is doing, and if you want to have a monarchy, then they're included in that. Don't like the precedent of America's free press? You should've fought harder in 1776, chumps.

*I'm assuming, of course, that it was their choice and not some gag law, which would just piss me off even more.

(Note: I still love you, UK. You're just having a rough day. It's okay, my country has plenty of them too.)

Gasp! No, seriously, this is shocking.

Mark the date on your calenders, folks, because today's something truly special:

I feel an actual - slight, very slight, but real - pride about New Jersey.  It's old news that I missed the first time around, but I can't let it pass without comment. 

Apparently in Rome, lighting up the Colosseum has become something of an anti-death penalty statement.  They did it in protest when Saddam Hussein was executed.  And, more recently, they lit it up in celebration when New Jersey banned the death penalty.  

So there it is.  Some of the international community honored something New Jersey did that promotes human rights.  

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I need to go lie down until this feeling of goodwill towards the state of New Jersey goes away.  It's just too weird for me to deal with.

Slivers

Yesterday afternoon, after lab ended an hour early:

"I could use this hour to review Kant some more.  Or I could take a nap."

"Hmm."

"Yeah, I think I know how that's going to turn out no matter which I decide on."

Overheard immediately before seminar:

"I heard someone refer to it as the 'Kantlet'...like 'guantlet', only with Kant instead."

Book sale!

The library book sale was this weekend.  On Friday, they opened it up for the college community.  Today was bag day, three bucks for a bag.  All told, I got fifteen books for thirteen bucks.  Not a bad deal indeed, though I'm never going to have time to read them.  

One of the books I got was Dune, which I've been meaning to read for years.  It's long, so it'll take me a while to get through on top of Kant, but it so far lives up to the hype.  I think Tolkien and Herbert were kindred spirits, so to speak.  They had entire universes in their head.  

Yesterday afternoon I worked as a cashier.  They had us students working, and also volunteers from the library guild.  I ended up working with an older couple, and they were absolutely lovely.  He apparently had been a journalist by career and had worked in DC during the Vietnam era.  And they'd been to London a number of times, which of course provided a conversation topic.  We had a whole one or two customers, but there was no problem whiling away the time chatting with them.  

Sometimes, it's nice to just sit and talk to the more senior generations.  They've got interesting stories to tell.

I thought I understood...

Apparently, light is magnetic.  Or something.  I'm not really sure.

What I do know is that Faraday used magnets to rotate a beam of light.  And I think we're going to get to do that in class this afternoon.

To repeat: he used magnets to rotate a beam of light.

Sweet baby jesus, electricity and magnetism are wonderfully, awesomely, fascinatingly and jaw-droppingly weird properties.

The sound of students weeping

Dear Mr. Kant,

What?

Sincerely, 

A Reader.

Out with the old, in with the new

Fidel Castro has resigned as the president of Cuba.

In a way, it's not surprising.  He's 81 years old and has been in power for nearly fifty years.  That's a long time.  And hopefully, our president's smarmy-as-hell reaction won't put the Cuban people off from demanding democracy and justice.  In my opinion, the biggest problem with our perpetual embargo against them is not simply that it's absolutely retarded (which it is), but that it prevents us from addressing the serious issues.  Yes, the missile crisis was very scary and sure commies are bad.  Communism is an economic theory, though, and really has nothing to do with their justice system.  The cause for an economic embargo should have been human rights violations all along.  Give me the choice between a nice, shiny, capitalistic nation where journalists are tossed in jail for not censoring themselves, and a grittier, socialist nation that has a truly free press, I'll take the socialism any day.  So hopefully, Castro's resignation may be the catalyst the world needs to tell Cuba to knock it off.

In other news: welcome, Kosovo.  

I'm surprised that the burning and fighting took so long to start, but here it is.  Russia, of course, isn't pleased, but Russia as a general rule isn't a tremendous fan of change to political establishments.  

I'll be the first to admit I'm shamefully ignorant about the situation in that region.  But my point of view is that if you've got a group of people in a given geographic region who don't get along.  You can try to get along under the same rule, and inevitably fight and fight and fight and fight and fight.  Or, at some point you can say, "Look.  This just isn't working out between us.  How about you go your way and we go our way?  It's probably going to be easier to tolerate being neighbors rather than roommates."

Maybe something crazy will happen, the rioting will die down, the situation will stabilize without NATO or the UN stepping in too much, and everyone will be at least not terribly dissatisfied.  That would be a nice change, wouldn't it?

Oh, my aching brain

An hour and a half of Newton.  An hour and a half of translating Racine.  An hour and a half break (review Faraday).  Three hours of Faraday.  A three hour break (review Kant).  Two hours of discussing Kant.  

If you need me, I'll be sitting quietly staring at a wall and possibly rocking back and forth a bit.

Argh.

I finally broke down and saw the nurse, thus ending my many-year streak of not needing to consult a medical professional for illnesses.  I haven't had any sort of illness that lingers for more than a day or three in a long time, which was a record I wanted to keep.

Verdict: It's probably a cold, probably not a sinus infection, and may or may not turn into a sinus infection and/or bronchitis.  

I really really hate being sick, especially when I swallow my pride, see a doctor (well, nurse in this case), only to be told that we can't do anything about it.  

*grump*