Slate's ad report card comments on the new Verizon commercials that feature a mixed-race family, with a white mother and a Latino father.

I had seen these ads and was intrigued by the use of a mixed-race family. I would agree that it's used as an attention-getting gimmick, but not because of the fact that "a mixed-race family is still sort of a big deal." I think it grabs the attention because it's something we haven't seen before, from either full television shows or commercials.

The article views the move in the standard, cynical marketing way, but I think the fact that such a huge company can used a mixed-race family in their broad, nation-wide marketing campaign is a wonderful sign of how far we've come as a society. With all the issues of race and diversity we've had to deal with on campus this year, it's comforting and reassuring to see that Verizon, and its market research, feels it can treat the issue as "no big deal at all."

This article on asteroids hitting Earth contained this interesting passage:

An asteroid, or several asteroids, are believed to have kicked up so much dust and set off so much volcanic activity 65 million years ago that the resulting climate change wiped out the dinosaurs.

But scientists believe an event of that size would only occur about every 700,000 years on average.

Every 700,000 years? Now, I'm not the best mathematician, but doesn't that mean we should have had approximately 92 such catesrophic events in the past 65 million years?

Very interesting analysis of the Bush presidency. Confidence Man

Bush calls for ban on same-sex marriages

Seriously, I think this is an election-breaker for me. I support what the President has done in the war on terror, but really, if we can allow something so hateful and bigoted to become part of the Constitution, what are we fighting to protect? I can't even express the outrage I feel at the prospect of this. I can only refer to the Andrew Sullivan and the many who have emailed support to him. As always, most of the blogosphere is more eloquent, though not more passionate, than I.

The Justice, my ever-favorite campus newspaper, seems to have started a series of interviews with recognizable campus staff. Last week was the cute cashier from Usdan and this week's it's the ever-popular singing mailman. I think it's great a great trend. There are a lot of people that work hard to make our campus run smoothly and it's great they're getting some recognition.

So the beginning of classes, the business of my life, and the lack of computer in my room (it crashed right after break, new one should be here next week) have hindered the blogging lately. It took a lot to bring me back from hiatus, but I think this article is worth it.

Inventor of 'Ctrl-Alt-Delete' is retiring.

It is a sad, sad, day.

So just now, as I was sitting in my room talking on AIM and doing some reading for class, I heard shouting out in the hallway. I go outside to investigate and find a group of about 10 Brandeis students marching through my hall chanting, "Oppose Hate, Tolerate!" Now, I was visibly confused as to what was going on, wandering around and saying, "What's this? What's going on?" However, no one even tried to stop and explain to me why they were making this demonstration. Now I, for one, am all about opposing hate, but I do wonder what made them feel that this was an effective way of fostering tolerance. It seems that they are mainly disrespecting their fellow students who are trying to study and wind down from a long day. Instead of a productive exchange of ideas, I was prompted to once again look with disdain on the activists of this campus and share with my fellow bewildered hallmates the sarcastic proclamation," You know, I have always been for hate, but they've really showed me that I should tolerate instead."

The issues of the Justice have been found and are being distributed. I've been asked not to state the name of the person who took them for the moment. The sad thing is, most of the campus still has no idea that the issues were stolen in the first place.

The editors of the Justice have been wandering the dorms looking for the missing papers. 300 copies were found in a black garbage bag in East, one of the main sophomore dorms, and hearsay has it that there are a bunch more in a certain senior suite. Right now it's looking more like a prank than someone upset at the paper, but I can tell you that the Justice editors are livid either way. More updates and I learn them.

Apparently someone has stolen the entire 4000 copy run of this week's Justice. You can still read the issue online here, but I always like having the physical copy in front of me. Not sure if this is some prank or a protest related to the debacle of a few weeks ago. I'll try and update as I learn more.

Another entertainment industry death. Actor Art Carney, Ed Norton on The Honeymooners has died. Apparently his grandson goes to Brandeis and is friends with some people I know, but I've never met him.

Apparently the CNN Rock the Vote debate was pre-scripted Well, yeah. Perhaps I've grown up in too cynical of a world, but I never thought that those questions were spontaneous.

Saw The Matrix Revolutions on Thursday night. Enjoyable enough. Better than the second, not as good as the first, as all the reviews say. I think this article from Slate (warning, minor spoilers) has an interesting view on what went wrong. It really is sad that the greatness of the first movie has been lost a bit in the shattered expectations of the sequels.

While Revolutions has a narrative force that was missing from Reloaded that actually makes you care a bit during the battle scenes (as opposed to the "damn, this is cool, but do you really think anything will happen to Morpheus or Trinity" car chase of the second), the ending claims to wrap up all conflict, when in reality, all the questions of the first movie remain unresolved. **SPOILERS**If the Matrix still exists, isn't humanity still enslaved? And wasn't that the whole point of the war? If the war is over, will the machines release all of the minds from the Matrix? And if so, how will the machines power themselves? If the machines continue to use human energy to power themselves, wouldn't the humans be ideologically bound to still try to free minds that were ready? What exactly has been changed by Neo's martyr death? **SPOILERS**

The Matrix sequels have fallen into the same trap that has engulfed the Star Wars sequels. Too much hype, too little payoff. It's probably true that nothing could have lived up to the expectations of millions of fans, but no matter how bad the reviews, and how disappointed the fans, the movies continue to break box office records. And because of that, we will inevitably continue to see innovative, exciting movies that are ruined in the push for money-making sequels.

While the Justice issue has calmed down a bit on campus, the mainstream media is still talking about it. Today there was another article in the Boston Globe as well as one from the Jewish Telegraph Association. In addition, a friend of mine said her parents heard a piece about it on a talk radio show in Los Angeles.

On campus, there seems to be a sense that the worst is over. We're back to our normal actions of having "forums" and "discussions." The latest being a special workshop led by a "noted diversity workshop leader/facilitator" who "uses poetry as her medium
of choice in her presentations." On Tuesday there was a lecture on "The History of the N-word." These discussions are important, but we've had things like this before and the problem is with attendance. How do you get people to these events and how do you get people to care? For now, all I see is a decrease in the amount of cynical sneers directed towards the forums, but that is not going translate to more people going out and attending these events.

Now I don't have a solution to this. I don't know if anyone does. But unless you really hit people where they live, unless you get at something that affects them, it's very hard to make them care. I wonder how many members of the BBSO were active during the "Men's Room" scandal two years ago when the racial slurs were directed towards Asian women.

For a change of pace:

This essay on the feminization of the American male, which I found via Instpundit and has apparently been making a splash around the blogosphere, doesn't seem all that original to me. I've heard most of it before, in a way less offensive to women. It also has shades of a Fight Club rant.

Campus Press Notes has some interesting updates from a source on the Justice. I think this quote pretty much sums up how I view the situation:

One person's racism is not symbolic of the whole community's thought. By saying that this type of racism is prevalent at Brandeis b/c one person holds views is irrational (and stupid).

Yana Litovsky's (Justice features editor) resignation letter is published in this week's issues, which came out on Friday instead of Tuesday as reguarly scheduled because of more demands from BBSO. It is full of justified frustration and anger, while still being reasonable and logical. I disagreed with some of Litovsky's opinions two years ago during the Men's Room incident, but I must say that I whole-heartedly support this letter.

The Justice apology and defense is equally well-written and logical, while still full of emotion, though I agree with Steve Silver that the defense should not have been placed above the apology. I only hope this misjudgment doesn't bring more heartache to the already drained editors.

I've only gotten through about half of the letters to the editor, but they seem to be pretty varied. A few, I am happy to say, try to address the fact that this campus has a habit of 'protesting for the sake of protesting.' While I don't think this is the case here (protest was warrented, just not to the degree that it happened) it is something that is quite widespread and it's good to know that others on this campus are recognize it.

Thanks to JawsBlog for the link. I think it's my first outside of my sister, so it really means something. Unfortuantely, it had to be on such an upsetting issue.

Campus Press Notes has a great, clear timeline up of everything that's happened. And Steve Silver, former Justice editor, is still going strong. There was a report on the local news last night with student interviews.

I had lunch yesterday with one of my good friends who is the photo editor of the Justice. That's right, people, she is in charge of the pictures. Not words, not content, photographs. She has been acting on minimal sleep for the past week and a half and says she does not feel safe going to her Spanish class because the other students give her hostile looks and refuse to speak to her. This is ridiculous. Nobody should feel unsafe in their classes or anywhere on this campus.

I'd write more, but I have to go give a tour for admissions and try to remember the I love I have for this school.

As life continues to be way too busy (I'm actually skipping class while writing this post; it's the only way I'd have time), I haven't been blogging much lately. In the past week a huge controversy has exploded on campus. You can read great ongoing commentary (much better than I can do) about it at JawsBlog and Steve Silver's blog.

The basic gist: a rascist comment was published in the school newspaper, The Justice. An article was written blaming the Cubs general manager for blowing the NLCS championship and ended with a quote saying "the only thing [he] has a Ph. D. in is a work that starts with 'n' and rhymes with Tigger, the lovable scamp we all fell in love with from Whinne the Pooh." The Black Student Organization (BBSO) presented the Justice with a list of demands. The student who wrote the article resigned from the Justice as well as his position on Student Senate. The sports editor resigned. On Sunday night, the Student Senate met from 7pm until 6am and passed a resolution that called for the resignation of the editor in cheif. This demand has now been met and the editor, who had been in office for one week when this incident occured, agreed to step down.

What was printed in the Justice was inexcusable. The writer rightly was forced to resign as was the sports editor. The issue had to be dealt with, but the way BBSO is reacting is completely unconstructive. They staged a walkout on a forum on Thursday night; a forum designed to have an open dialogue and discuss what should be done. This, to me, shows a distinct lack of willingness to work with others. BBSO was hurt and has been reacting out of anger and without thought ever since. They have continued attacking the Justice editors even when demand after demand has been met. The administration has picked up this issue like no other in my time at Brandeis. The leadership of the Justice has been decimated. And now, the most well-established and basically the only form of communication of news on this campus may well disappear.

The comment made was inexcusable. But so is that action taken by those who, instead of adding constructively to the dialogue on this campus, instead decided to lash out and destroy one of the greatest organizations on this campus. Those students who are being attacked now, the majority of the editorial board, had nothing to do with the article which was printed. We have punished those responsible. We cannot hold the entire organization responsible for the stupidity and mistakes of the few.

EDIT: Oh, and I almost forgot. The story has been picked up by the Boston Globe. This, I think, is the saddest thing.

I love Brandeis. I have gone through four years here and worked damn hard on Orientation, Famly Weekend, and other activities to make this school a better place. We have a great community and incredibly passionate students who care about what they are doing. When an event like this get so blown out of proportion that it is all anyone can talk about, this is the image that the rest of the world sees of us. This is not the face of Brandeis. This is an isolated incident that has caused shuch hurt feelings that people are blinded by their anger. It upsets me greatly when issues like this become what people know of Brandeis. This is not the school I know. This is not the school I love.

What do you use a dictionary for?