We actually have a labor secretary who is on the side of labor.  Oh glorious day.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/02/24/senate-confirms-solis-as-labor-secretary/

yeah! robert reich is blogging at TPM: tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/robert_reich/atom.xml

a nice weekend, a crazy month, and what is shaping up to be a busy year. friday i went for a nice 50 miler in the rain on the cross bike. it was nice until coming down backbone, my brakepads melted and began to destroy my rims. then began the sketchy ride home.






saturday was occupied with a bargaining team meeting up in berkeley which ended pleasantly early so that i was able to make it home in time to make frittata and watch some amazing australian open tennis.
www.latimes.com/sports/tennis/la-sp-australian-open26-2009jan26,0,1362605.story What a champion, though Nadal is looking pretty unstoppable. Yesterday some trail running with the corgis. Still studying for the LSAT. Currently reading Paul Krugman's updated The Return of Depression Economics, some interviews with Rorty charmingly entitled Against Bosses, Against Oligarchies, and Isaiah Berlin's The Proper Study of Mankind as I wade ever deeper into the dissertation research.  We'll see what that brings.  Home sick today with some kind of stomach bug.  So I am on the couch with logical reasoning review.

dinner was a delight as usual, and we racked up a hefty tab even though we had very little alcohol--meaning we ate a lot of fish. since masu is known for his ability to buy the freshest, and since he remembered my style of ordering (omikase sp?) he began putting fish in front of us as soon as we sat down. i think we perhaps requested 3 things all night, and we (i) ate our (my) way through the entire specials menu with gusto. i tried several new fish, which is always a pleasure--after you eat sushi a hundred times or more it gets pretty difficult to order sake or maguro. even the unagi has worn out its welcome on my palate. we ate grunt, black porgy, koguro, flying fish, kohado (both seen below), a different cut of yellowtail than i have ever had before in addition to some very very very good uni, toro, anago, and the special spicy tuna on fried rice that everyone does, but no one does quite like masu.






it also turns out that i am a humbug. after a debate with jazzer over whether the meaning and sentiment behind christmas songs about the baby jesus could be removed from their eschatological context and resolved into a broader spirit of simply giving to those in need (i saying nay, she saying yea), we decided that i was right about the songs, but that she was right about the sentiment. so to say something pretty hackneyed, giving to our neighbors, fellow city dwellers, citizens, and people everywhere is something that should be sung about all year round, not simply because the king of kings has been born and an angel beckons us to bethlehem. we also had a debate about whether joseph was a carpenter and that is why jesus became a carpenter (again, i saying nay, she saying yea). either way, i'm pretty sure jesus would have been in the carpenters' union. he was all about solidarity. and i think that is what the holidays are about too. a solidarity with all.
"While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." --Eugene Debbs

one more thing: all this SNL jizzin in the pants talk made me want to go back and revisit the pet shop boys videos. and they sure are weird. it really wouldn't have been the gay eighties without them. what a commentary on thatcher's england. but still i can't figure out what the other pet shop boy does.

so on my twenty-ninth birthday i have sad news to report. i heard officially that my little tdi golf, affectionately referred to by jazzer at the commie mobile in reference to the numerous leftist causes championed upon its bumpers, is a total loss--thanks to one mr. ervin katz. details of the traumatic turkey day weekend will be posted shortly. i forgive mr. katz his being a discombobulated old man who drove obliviously through a red light at 20 mph. what i have trouble with is his inability to come to terms with his responsibility for the accident and to have the audacity to contest liability. no doubt his insurer pushed him towards this as they certainly don't wish to pay for two totaled vehicles. nevertheless, it leads to a royal pain in my ass and a sour taste in my mouth. he didn't apologize for hurting my dog, who by the way is almost fully recovered. who knew a corgi could get conjunctivitis from airbag discharge? so i will head into the holidays with auto (loans) on the brain. any suggestions? one caveat, it must be made by my brothers and sisters in the UAW. limits my options a bit doesn't it. speaking of my union brothers and sisters, why are our lawmakers to resistant to helping out working folks who's christmases and lives may be ruined if this doesn't happen, but perfectly willing to pull out the doomsday clock to shill for greedy CEOs. oh wait, many of those greedy CEOs are now in the federal government, and many that were in the federal government now lobby on behalf of those same gasbags. i am sorry but a credit default swap doesn't count as something that you made. here's what we've given away so far, with no guarantee that it will even pass (fuck you mitch mcconnell): http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10378

seems i can't write without focusing on the partisan. well, i shall try to wash those bad tastes out with some sweet uni and dry sake tonight at one of our favorite westside holes in the wall, sushi masu. this will be possibly our 4th or 5th birthday celebration beneath the knife of the adorable chef masu (mashiko). from the citysearch eds.: "After 16 years in Little Tokyo, chef Mashiko moved into this narrow Westside slot. Hidden in plain sight on a busy commercial strip with an unremarkable exterior, it's sought out by sushi die-hards. The sashimi is arranged with flourish, and the nigiri presentations are technically precise--the chef will provide background on the finite details of shaping rice and draping the fish for interested parties."
always fun.

sorry for the huge gap, lexi. i will try to be better in the future.

i am really trying to post, but i have just been exhausted lately (not that blogging requires a great expenditure of time, effort, or, in most cases, thought). if not at LSAT course on tues. and thurs. then i am cuddled w/ jasmine in the comforting, work-day glow of keith, rachel and chris. i have even missed the last two weeks of wolfpack (http://www.wolfpackhustle.com) due to general malaise and laze. but this is the off-season and with all of the campaign work (this weekend my brothers and sisters from our local are headed to nevada for las vegas suburban precinct walking) and test prep, cycling can take a rest for the month--though i did have a peaceful solo ride this sunday after class up sepulveda, over mulholland, into the valley and up the back side of mt hollywood on the litespeed, which i am loving. i am also a bit ashamed, but actually mostly super-excited to have added another steed to the stable. the steel single-speed mtn bike: http://i7.ebayimg.com/02/i/001/0f/cc/ffb3_3.JPG
i'll test ride it tomorrow on a night ride out in riverside in my old mtb stomping grounds in sycamore canyon. alright i have to go hit the ground to collect some postdoc bargaining surveys. but i shall leave you with this: forwarded today from an IBEW brother--

Here is a great posting I found on the internet. I never ask anyone to forward, but this one is worthy.
KN
I Didn't Vote For Obama
by kentuckyscott
Mon Oct 20, 2008 at 01:24:08 PM PDT
I'm a middle-class white guy living in Jacksonville, Florida. I've got a wife and two kids. Because the kids had no school today, I took a vacation day from work, and took the kids downtown to vote early. Fifty-nine minutes later, two smiling children and I proudly sported "I Voted" stickers.
But I didn't vote for Obama.


I voted for my ancestors, who believed in the promise of this country and came with with nothing as immigrants.
I voted for my parents, who taught in the public schools for decades.
I voted for Steve, an acquaintance of mine from Kentucky. (Killed by an IED two years ago in Iraq).
I voted for Shawn, another who's been to Iraq twice, and Afghanistan once, and who'll be going back to Afghanistan again soon -- and whose family earned eleven bucks a month too much to qualify for food stamps when the war started.
I voted for April, the only African-American girl in my high school -- it was years before it occurred to me how different her experience of our school must have been.
I voted for my college friends who are Christian, Jewish, Mormon, and yes -- Muslim.
I voted for my grandfathers, who worked hard in factories and died too young.
I voted for the plumber who worked on my house, because I want him to get a REAL tax break.
I voted for four little angels from Birmingham.
I voted for a bunch of dead white men who, although personally flawed, were willing to pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, and used a time of great crisis to expand freedom rather than suspend it.
I voted for all those people and more, and I voted for all of you, too. But mostly, I voted selfishly. I vote for two little kids, one who has ballet in an hour, and once who has baseball practice at the same time. I voted for a world where they can be confident that their government will represent the best that is in this country, and that will in turn demand the best of them. I voted for a government that will be respected in the world. I voted for an economy that will reward work above guile. I voted for everything I believe in.
Sure, I filled in the circle next to the name Obama, but it wasn't him I was voting for -- it was every single one of us, and those I love most of all.
Who else is there to vote for?

now i have contemplated putting off writing in this space until after the election, but it has now so consumed my mental activities that i am in need of discarding some of this political detritus in order to make space for the LSAT, which i will be taking on dec. 6th.
on that note, i believe that thomas frank has his premise completely right here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122342526024513543.html. this is summarized by the slogan i have been touting for the GOP since the primaries began, "Government doesn't work. Elect us and we'll prove it." everyone i have spoken with, elitists all of them, has been extremely disappointed by the recent race-baiting in the stump speeches. and john mcsame's claims to run a clean campaign
have been shown him to be either extremely hypocritical or lacking control over his campaign managers or both.

now it seems to me that they are playing all of this up to maximize the bradley effect, which reports say could punish obama by as much as six percentage points. the question everyone is asking is whether or not the country is mature enough, in debt enough, tired enough to look past these pathetic demonstrations of lack of substance and moral turpitude. the literal metaphor of mudslinging comes up continually. "can mccain get something to stick?" "he's just throwing everything at the wall and hoping that something will stick." this of course depends upon two interrelated factors: do they have anything new on obama that is worth looking at (in the same sense that the swift-boat veterans were worth looking at--wtf are these guys doing?) and will the news cycle pick it up. obama's connections to wright, ayers and rezko were all pretty well vetted in the primaries, particularly in responding to attacks by clinton. Especially in the case of rev. wright, obama's ripostes have actually made him look stronger, more thoughtful, more competent, and possessed of great integrity. of course sean hannity has no business telling rev. wright how he should feel about america, but then again, as jazzyp pointed out, palin may not even disagree with plessy. mccain, it now seems, can't even question obama's judgment as he once wanted to do. perhaps this was because his response to the paulson plan and his analysis of the economic situation have undermined any of his claims to superiority in this arena. we now, as rick davis claimed would happen, have an election about character. at least that is the election that mcbush, palin, and their rovian minions are participating in. the rest of us (i.e. not the republican base--and a fine lot they continue to be: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/06/mccain-does-nothing-as-cr_n_132366.html) are actually paying attention to what is happening in the world and how the candidates respond. this may be the reason that according to focus groups of independent voters the palin/mclame ticket has lost every single debate. so as we slouch towards the bethlehem of nov. 4th and jazzy continues to have mild panic attacks every time she hears palin's fake alaskan ak-scent, here are some things to keep in mind courtesy of chris bowers at open left: http://openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8934
and something to spend your money on now that you've decided to sock it under your mattress rather than invest it: http://www.cafepress.com/that1 or http://www.crasscommerce.com/product_info.php?products_id=390

i feel that some words of instantiation are obligatory, but for now i will allow that consideration to substitute for a treatise on abandoned journals and forgotten expository projects of years past. though i do feel that it was to my good fortune, in the form of a rather fetching excuse (the westward-drifting disciples of mao zedong censored my ability to blog), that i was not able to blog my most recent trip. firstly, we lacked the access: while adam assured me that there were internet cafes everywhere, they were not visible in the way that they are in se asia--then again, I can't speak or read chinese. secondly, and more importantly, we lacked any genuine desire to have contact with the world outside china. now, i am stuck with a livejournal account but little on which to novel-ly comment. however, after the appreciation i have heard for jasmine's (or in the blogosphere, simply J's) documentation of our quotidian events, i have no qualms to overcome. so while there shall be no regaling of tales of banana boat floats down the amazon, or of the sharing the beauty of angkor wat with a close comrade, or of sharing the beauty of the most delicious hunan pork ribs in shanghai with two close friends (actually i will show you a picture of those)--








(sorry Adam is sidewayzz, but it makes for an interesting landscape, no?),

i shall attempt to weave some tales of thehereandnow of the slightlybetterthanaverage in losangelescalifornia. For example, the fact that I am 350pp. deep in Midnight's Children, my first Rushdie experience--and quite an impressive one at that. Until its completion, I shall confine myself to remark that it is not overrated.