Babe of the day: Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, born in 1984, began her acting career as Jessica Bennett on NBC soap opera Passions. Her twitter.


There are several well-maintained on-line galleries of Winstead, like this and this. This pic of Winstead with her husband Riley Stearns appears to be from or close to the time they first met (2002-03, when she was 18 - he looks to be the same age). A youtube video of their wedding photos.

While I haven't read anywhere that she's mixed-race, Winstead has a strikingly Meg Tilly-esque HAPA look. I wouldn't be surprised if I learned she has Chinese blood.



Speaking of HAPAs, I suspect Winstead will age as well as Phoebe Cates.

Eric

Cool website of the day: Cracked.com

Cracked.com is a humor website that, despite some college-snarkish lefty and nihilistic tendencies, is surprisingly educational.

Eric

Babe of the day: Kiira Korpi

Kiira Korpi, born in September 1988, is a Finnish figure skater nicknamed the "Ice Princess" due to her youthful Grace Kelly-like natural beauty. The documentary was filmed in 2006 following the 2005-2006 season, which places her at 18.



See Korpi at 16 (interview Jan 2005), 20 (interview January 2009), and 22 (interview February 2011). The pictures she's chosen for the gallery on her website and her comments in the documentary imply that she prefers the heavily made-up and stylized "dramatic" shots and is less than comfortable with her "princess" image. That's too bad because the "dramatic" pictures tend to obscure her beauty while the staid "princess" imagery better reveals her natural beauty. Stunning transcendent feminine beauty like Korpi owns now is a preciously rare and ephemeral gift. It ought to be celebrated, and drunk deeply when it can be found, while it lasts.

Eric

Cool website of the day: Khan Academy

About Khan Academy:

A free world-class education for anyone anywhere. The Khan Academy is an organization on a mission. We're a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.

All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge.

Looks interesting. I should spend some of the time I usually waste on mindlessly browsing the internet in the Khan Academy instead. Link via Mad Minerva.

Eric

President Obama on Iraq

From Remarks by the President on the Middle East and North Africa on May 19, 2011:

After years of war in Iraq, we’ve removed 100,000 American troops and ended our combat mission there. . . .

As I said when the United States joined an international coalition to intervene, we cannot prevent every injustice perpetrated by a regime against its people, and we have learned from our experience in Iraq just how costly and difficult it is to try to impose regime change by force -– no matter how well-intentioned it may be. . . .

Indeed, one of the broader lessons to be drawn from this period is that sectarian divides need not lead to conflict. In Iraq, we see the promise of a multiethnic, multisectarian democracy. The Iraqi people have rejected the perils of political violence in favor of a democratic process, even as they’ve taken full responsibility for their own security. Of course, like all new democracies, they will face setbacks. But Iraq is poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress. And as they do, we will be proud to stand with them as a steadfast partner.

Thomas Barnett comments on Obama's speech.

Eric

CDC issues zombie apocalypse survival guide

Really (and not really). The serious educational purpose of the CDC's zombie apocalypse survival guide is general emergency preparation advice. No sincere zombie survival guide would be missing guidance on creative zombie killing.

Eric

Cool website of the day: Adweek's Adfreak

Adfreak, on industry website Adweek, features cool and wacky ads. The Halo 3 "Believe" series is pretty awesome. Link from Mad Minerva, who blogged Adfreak's 25 most epic ads list.

Eric

P.S. 500th post!

Fotog FAIL on Taj Gibson put-back dunk

Inside the last minute of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, garbage time of the Bulls 20-point blow-out win over the Heat, Taj Gibson executed a perfect put-back dunk. The Heat left Gibson an open lane from the left side of the paint to move to the perfect position and body orientation in front of the rim. The ball skipped off the rim perfectly from C.J. Watson's 3-point shot from the top of the arc for Gibson to reach back with the full extension of his 7'4" reach to catch the ball with one hand and dunk it in one motion. Really cool.

The funny part of the dunk is the photographer in the gray shirt getting up and leaving while the play is unfolding. He's about even with the 1st row of seats, walking away with his back to the court when Gibson dunks. The replay ends just as the fotog looks over his shoulder in reaction to the crowd erupting. Too late, guy. The fotog sat under the basket presumably the entire game taking photos. His job is to take 100s of pictures at every basketball game in hopes of capturing special shots like the Gibson dunk. He was sitting in the perfect spot to take a head-on shot of Gibson's dunk, too, but decided to leave the game just a few seconds and one play too early. There's a life lesson in there somewhere. I wonder what his boss thinks?



Eric

Cautionary tales from peers for Columbia ROTC

As some Columbia ROTC advocates immediately understood, while the Columbia endorsement of ROTC opened the way for an ROTC program fully based on campus, the Columbia-Navy ROTC agreement announced on April 22, a crosstown agreement for students to participate via SUNY Maritime NROTC in distant Throgs Neck, Bronx, falls short of a Columbia ROTC program fully based on campus.

We are now at the beginning and a critical moment where Columbia NROTC will be designed for the long term. While Columbia and the Navy decide on the actual form of the manifest program at Columbia, Dartmouth AROTC and Princeton AROTC offer Columbia cautionary tales about compromised Ivy ROTC programs that have fallen short of their potential with start-up design flaws. While it's necessary to move from Point A to Point B, also beware of fool's gold and dead-end compromises.

Eric

Thoughts of the day

For future Columbia ROTC cadets and midshipmen, what is the definition of leather? If the fresh skin of an animal, cleaned and divested of all hair, fat, and other extraneous matter, be immersed in a dilute solution of tannic acid, a chemical combination ensues; the gelatinous tissue of the skin is converted into a nonputrescible substance, impervious to and insoluble in water; this is leather.

More about future Columbia midshipmen (and cadets). CNAS's Keeping the Edge: Revitalizing America's Military Officers Corps, AEI's UNDERSERVED A Case Study of ROTC in New York City, and Navy's A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower. Maybe look up this guy, a Columbia grad.

Killing Osama bin Laden and the lawfare of outlaws. Lawfare is an application of Saul Alinsky's guidance to radicals to "make the enemy live up to its own book of rules" with the implicit understanding the enemy's rules don't constrain the radicals. The claim by Omar bin Laden that the U.S. broke international law when we killed his dad, Osama, is an interesting challenge for International Law. Omar advances the frame that his father was an alleged criminal who should have been protected by criminal justice standards, and arrested for trial rather than killed. He calls on the United Nations to hold the United States accountable for murder. The American position is that bin Laden was an illegal combatant who was killed lawfully during a military, not a law enforcement, operation. The fundamental tension in International Law is the exigency of sovereign politics versus the pursuit of a world order where every international legal person (nation, organization, or individual) is subject to international law without exception. National or municipal law is tempered by real considerations whereas international law is theoretical and ideological. Customary international law has steadily encroached on the formerly inviolable ground of sovereignty and I'm sure many international lawyers with dreams of becoming the litigator who definitively established the supremacy of a "just world order" based on international law over national sovereignty are enthusiastically willing to take on bin Laden's case. The bin Laden killing is the ultimate test case to make the ultimate sovereign nation submit to international law for the "extrajudicial" killing of the ultimate person-who-deserved-to-die. I predict this story won't die quietly; in a legal culture that cares more about holding no one above the law than stopping the threats that operate outside the law, the U.S. could lose the case if bin Laden's legal personality is determined to be criminal rather than combatant. My take: As Judge Higgins told us last summer, what is legal doesn't always seem right and what seems right is not always legal. I'm with John Yoo and John Bolton on this issue. If it comes down to it, I would love to volunteer for the legal team that defends the U.S. from the UN's legal myopia and the lawfare of bin Laden's heirs.

Andy Samberg and The Lonely Island of Saturday Night Live fame are pretty good. They're not as funny as short-lived MTV parody hip-hop act Scratch & Burn but are perhaps more technically proficient. Check out "Lazy Sunday" which was partly filmed in my neighborhood.

Recent TV commercials with emasculating portrayals of Asian males. The socially retarded Asian guy treated like an immature child by the hip spokesgirl in the T Mobile 4G commercial and the Asian guy toiling anonymously in the background while a pregnant Asian woman with her white husband speak with Flo in the foreground of the Progressive commercial.

What a stupid trade by Danny Ainge. The trade shocked NBA observers when it happened and the mortal damage Ainge caused to his team was obvious. Bill Simmons explained the harmful effect of the Perkins-Green trade on the Celtics' special team chemistry and post-season chances. Before the trade, the team relied heavily on their continuity. Celtics players and coaches knew exactly who they were, how they fit together, how long this particular team had to compete for the championship, and the meaning of this season. Danny Ainge collapsed the Celtics' 2010-11 season by overthinking himself into a trade that ripped the soul out of the team and proved to be a complete failure in the post-season.

After Dwyane Wade busted Rondo's arm, Rajon Rondo impressed with his toughness like Glen Davis did last year and kept playing, but predictably, the Heat went after Rondo's injured arm and eventually knocked him out of the elimination game. Without Rondo at his best, the Celtics didn't have a chance to beat the Heat. The Heat proved their championship mettle by proving they understand that champions must be able and willing to play dirty when talent, skill, and execution aren't enough to win.

Bill Simmons says good-bye to Phil Jackson with Simmons's typical intuitive insight. Yes, if he had clairvoyant foresight, Phil Jackson could have left coaching last year on the high of winning his 11th championship. But when it comes to doing something you love, I support leaving on the downslide, like Michael Jordan on the Wizards. We only get one life. It's better to leave knowing for sure you're done rather than wonder if you could have squeezed out one more opportunity to do what you love. A second-round series sweep with a 36-point blow-out loss in the elimination game, and two of his players taking cheap shots to finish the game can't tarnish the unequaled legacy Jackson earned in his career as an NBA coach.

Kevin Durant has an offensive game that can lead the NBA in scoring in the regular season, but lacks the power, moves, and toughness needed to reliably lead his team as the alpha dog in the post-season. He doesn't get separation from defenders which results in a lot of foul shots in the regular season, but turn into many rushed off-balance shots against superior defenses and more permissive officiating in the post-season. Durant's offensive game reminds me a lot of a young Dirk Nowitizki - elite mid-range and 3-point shooter, superior off-the-dribble skills for their size, but lack of strength and poor post-up game that allows smaller defenders to take away their shooting space. When the team leader, the player the team is built around and relies upon, can't deliver reliably in the post-season, he caps the competitive potential of the team. Durant is like Vince Carter in that regard. Durant's strong regular season but weak post-season makes Russell Westbrook's job extra difficult. Westbrook is a strong post-season scorer but as the Thunder point guard, he gets blamed for Durant's weak post-season performance. Either Durant needs to figure out how to be a post-season leader or the Thunder need to fully transfer the alpha-dog scorer role to Westbrook in the post-season. If the Thunder can do neither, I'd recommend for Westbrook to leave the team or else he'll continue to take blame for Durant's post-season shortcomings. Another option is to give control of the ball to James Harden, who emerged in these play-offs as the next-generation Manu Ginobili (unlike Ginobili pretenders Rudy Fernandez and Marco Belinelli). The younger Nowitzki improved on the weaknesses that the play-offs exposed - it remains to been whether Durant will follow the same championship path.

Reminiscing blog post by a Stuy 92 grad.

The Village Voice updates the tragic story of a Stuy 98 grad, Eric Bellucci, who killed his parents. It appears that Kendra's Law failed Eric and his family.

I wonder if I should start using the label/tag function to help searches.

Maximalist. Apocalyptic. Millennial. Any others?

El Tango de Roxanne from 2001's Moulin Rouge, featuring Jacek Koman as The Narcoleptic Argentinean. The movie musical really needs to be adapted into a stage musical and performed on Broadway.

Eric

Wesley Yang speaks for Asian American men

Read Wesley Yang's article in New York magazine, "Paper Tigers: What happens to all the Asian-American overachievers when the test-taking ends?".

Yang is not alone. He brings to light discussions we've been having among ourselves for a long time. We both belong to a generation of Asian American men who are dissatisfied with our identity in American society and culture, and resolved to push back and define our own identity. We've played well by the rules and discovered, as Yang explains, the game is stacked against us. So we'll change the game. We've earned the right. Yang falters in his conclusion but that only reflects the lack of conclusion in our discussions. We're identifying the problem, but we haven't solved it yet. We will, though. We're getting our shit together.

Yang is doing his part to move the ball forward and that's good. Good for Asian American men and good for America. When we've claimed our rightful place, we'll save our country. We're coming, America.

Note that I purposely did not hyphenate "Asian American" in this post, though in the past I spelled the term with a hyphen and despite technically correct grammar. I decided Asian-American implies two nouns co-existing as distinct categories. When the hyphen is removed, American becomes the sole noun while Asian becomes an adjective and no longer a qualifier for American. It's a subtle difference but one I think matters when we define our identity and orientation to country and countrymen. While we respect our varied familial Asian heritages, we identify fully as Americans, not 'other' Americans, marginal Americans, partial Americans, conflicted Americans, or divided Americans. Our flag, children's future, and tribal loyalty are planted permanently within our home and country - America. Asian Americans need to internalize and act out the knowledge that we possess the full rights and privileges, and yes, the full duties and responsibilities, of ownership.

Eric

Untwining the threads in Afghanistan

For humanitarian liberals, there is an interesting post at SWJ about the Afghanistan mission from an aid perspective after the death of Osama bin Laden. The aid mission has been intertwined with the hunt for bin Laden along with other threads to compose the entire Afghanistan mission. What happens to the other threads of our mission in Afghanistan when a - perhaps 'the' - major thread is removed? Does the rest of the mission then unravel?

The cost, open-ended uncertainty, and difficulty of our liberal strategy in the War on Terror have come under relentless attack by highly respected foreign policy 'realists' who dismiss the value of the aid mission. Under that kind of sustained pressure, even Bush administration officials have subtly revised their memories. From the Wall Street Journal: "To Mr. Wolfowitz, that is a straw man: "We did not go to war in Afghanistan or in Iraq to, quote, 'impose democracy.' We went to war in both places because we saw those regimes as a threat to the United States." Once they were overthrown, what else were we going to do? "No one argues that we should have imposed a dictatorship in Afghanistan having liberated the country. Similarly, we weren't about to impose a dictatorship in Iraq having liberated the country.""

Mr. Wolfowitz makes an inarguable basic point about the post-war in a regime change. At the same time, while it's true that our baseline impetus for regime change in Afghanistan and Iraq was their threat, not to spread liberal democracy, Wolfowitz also minimizes the liberal perspective designed into the war strategy. From the outset after 9/11, President Bush announced a liberal outlook and global scope and warned of a long war when he officially declared America's entry into the War on Terror on September 20, 2001:

Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. . . . But the only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows. . . . This is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom. This is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom. . . . As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of terror; this will be an age of liberty, here and across the world.

Now that we've killed Osama bin Laden, will the rest of the Afghanistan mission fall apart? It remains to be seen.

Eric

Columbia and Navy agree on Columbia Navy ROTC

Catching many advocates by surprise, Columbia quickly breezed through the outreach and offer/acceptance negotiation stage for an ROTC program. Only three weeks after the University Senate approved ROTC at Columbia, Columbia and Navy announced an agreement for Columbia students to participate in Navy ROTC through SUNY Maritime Navy ROTC. Read the official announcements from Columbia and Navy. According to the Columbia Spectator, Navy reached out to Columbia over a year ago, thus preempting the mystery of whether any branch would be interested in ROTC at Columbia. A crosstown agreement with the nearest NROTC program appears to be the standard package deal that Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has offered to all the Ivy League schools (Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Brown) that have deliberated ROTC since DADT was repealed. I'm grateful to Secretary Mabus for his foresight to resolve my concern last Spring that Columbia and military leaders would each be dissuaded from initiating Columbia ROTC by the other side's disinterest. Someone had to send the first clear signal of interest across the civil-military gap and Mabus did that, thus empowering the Columbia leadership with the crucial assurance that there would be a real reward should they risk pursuing a University Senate endorsement of ROTC. Thank you, Secretary Mabus for fulfilling the prerequirement. Should we ever meet in person, remind me that I owe you a drink.

Skipping ahead doesn't mean the job is finished. Each stage presents distinct challenges. In the current stage, the details of the Columbia program will be decided. It's a daunting task: the devil is in the details. The Columbia committee to implement the Navy ROTC program will be led by Provost Claude Steele, who has a background teaching at state universities and, therefore, should have some familiarity with campus ROTC programs.

The first big question is whether Columbia NROTC will follow the Harvard/MIT NROTC (commuter) model, where the headquarters and majority of NROTC activity for Harvard midshipmen are at MIT, or the Dartmouth/Norwich AROTC (extension) model, where the majority of AROTC activity is at Dartmouth but the program headquarters is at Norwich University. Because SUNY Maritime is much farther from Columbia than MIT is from Harvard, and would require an impractical commute for Columbia midshipmen to a remote location, the most practical way to organize the Columbia NROTC program under the current Columbia-Navy agreement is as an extension program on Columbia's campus.

As advocates, we want NROTC to be integrated on campus as much as possible. Our goal is NROTC activity and cadre located on Columbia's campus for the convenience of our midshipmen, as the necessary base to develop the Columbia military character of and campus-centered support network for the program, and to capture for Columbia the broader interactive and educational functions of ROTC.

Finally, as I stated in the Blueprint for Columbia ROTC ("The devil is in the details" section), I believe the way to build up Columbia ROTC student numbers, the primary metric for program success, is a program manifested on campus, whether as an extension program or a program fully based on campus:

The damaged status of ROTC at Columbia after 1969, alienation from poor exposure, distance and poor access in urban terms, and lack of institutional assistance likely deter most Columbia students from seriously considering ROTC. It’s simply unfair to judge Columbia students for not joining an ROTC program that isn’t there. We first have to plant the seed in order to grow the tree – building up ROTC student numbers at Columbia first requires ROTC on campus. Then, as Columbia ROTC is nurtured into a fully integrated and supported part of the university, Columbia ROTC student numbers will grow over time. That’s just common sense. Roughly one-fourth of the undergraduate population is renewed every year. After ROTC is established on campus and properly advertised, eventually every student applying to Columbia will know about the ROTC program on campus.

Eric

Osama bin Laden killed

President Obama just announced that U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in a firefight in Abbottabad, Pakistan. I envy the American soldiers who killed bin Laden. The controversial intelligence methods allowed by Presidents Bush and Obama were vindicated. As President Obama emphasized tonight, the war goes on. But today is a victory.

9/11 changed my life - I captured my contemporary reaction in an opinion for my school newspaper. The kids attending college now were 9-12 years old when it happened, just old enough to understand the difference between the world on 9/10 and the world after 9/11. 9/11 defined their generation.

P.S. Team America - Fuck Yeah! Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue. Have You Forgotten? (The answer is we didn't forget.)

P.P.S. Professor Nacos reacts to the news.

P.P.P.S. Jon Stewart nails the propriety of celebrating bin Laden's death. My take:

As trite as it sounds to anyone who hasn’t served, our soldiers really do put their lives on the line with the American people and American nation in their hearts. Celebrate our first responders and military. As long as we don’t do any Terry Jones bullshit, I promise you they’ll appreciate it. They deserve to see the American people celebrating.

Let the President be dignified. For the American people, keep it real. Show the world that we the American people are not ashamed nor apologetic of ourselves, our nation, and our place in the world. We are not the meek and chastened people that our nationalistic, chauvinistic competitors and frenemies would prefer to supplant in the world order. Show the world that the American people retain the same competitive fighting spirit, the same fire in the belly, that built our nation by conquering great challenges and celebrating victory over our enemies.

Do it for our soldiers who are ‘over there’ competing for you. Celebrate loud enough for our soldiers to hear us in Afghanistan and everywhere else they’re serving in the world. Many of them are our age. They’ve earned hearing and seeing the members of their generation celebrate them as heroes.

P.P.P.P.S. From the Bush White House's September 2001 archive, remember when President Bush officially declared the War on Terror.

Eric