blog.marcwiesner.com

What a great time last few nights. After spending so much time this last week at home struggling to keep my ADD under control long enough to make a signifigent dent in my home work, I’ve finially had some R&R time. On Wednesday night I hosted a card game with some good friends. Thanksgiving night, after a bitchin Tofurkey dinner with CL, we watched the Back to the Future Trilogy (still great after 20-some years). And last night I got together with some friends from Foothill (humuriously, all linked through the ASFC or friends therin) for a Korean dinner and a couple drinks afterwords.

It was really good to hang out with some of my peeps. Plus I got to meet Tristen, the ASFC VP of Senate two terms before myself. Good guy, bought a round.

Now: off to work on my Japanese history paper.

Any body who knows that I’m a vegan should not be surprised if I go off on an offended rant of the merits of setting one day of the year aside to ritualized the slaughter of those poor birds, the turkeys. The USA already has one of the most meat intensive diets in the world (According to 2002 social statistics, North America consumes about twice as much meat as Europe, per capita, and about as much as Europe, Asia, and Africa Combined), must we continue to pile on sins with our endless gorging on Turkeys, an animal who’s value has been popularly reduced to the once-a-year Thanksgiving Day meal? I was in line at Albertsons and they had girl scouts on the store PA singing, urging customers to buy and donate Turkeys for the needy. For crying out loud? Is it proper to abate suffering with suffering??? No! That’s just shifting-the-buck. Tomorrow I’ll be enjoying a wholly vegan Thanksgiving. Tofurkey is delicious and fulfilling and easy to bake. Try one…please.

By the way, the gap between posts is due to the increasingly oppressive workload at Santa Clara. I hope to be back on the ball shortly but quality over quantity, you know.

How would you like it if you worked for years on that law degree, landed a big-name client, and were then gunned down on your way to work to defend him. Gunned down by a car full of gunmen who may never see justice. Now how about if you were the second one to be killed because of this client in a month. Now…how would you feel if you were the one called in to replace this murdered lawyer? Saddam Hussein’s defense team is just in this situation after the latest murder of a lawyer defending the former dictator.

I find it amazing that after spending so much money to bring this criminal to justice, as Bush and his cadres claimed they were doing when they thought he was hiding weapons of mass destruction the USA has let his trial become such a spectacle while it’s held in a foreign country; like many detainees that are being secretly held, any rights that he would have had can be comfortably ignored. What intimidation do the killers of his lawyers hope to achieve I wonder? Shouldn’t it be clear that the intimidation of the USA would already guarantee that Saddam will be spending a very long time is a very dark hole?

Is any body surprised that the oil companies have posted record profits? Any excuse that prices at the pump are proportional to oil cost may now take a flying leap out the window. The business practices of these companies is clearly a case of price gouging; taking advantage of the limited supply and increased demand to disproportionately drive up prices.

Real blame, however, should fall on two places; the government and the citizenry. The government should have long ago realized the dangers of becoming so dependent on a commodity and yet oil remains a key component in energy production and transportation. Had the government crafted policy to reflect the advice of environmental scientists the ecological and economical impact of our current situation could have been avoided. America also has one of the worst public transit systems of any of the developed nations. This is largely due to the lobbying power of the automobile and oil producing companies who have long been responsible for the replacement of rail lines with roads to encourage consumption. If the government had structured tax incentives to encourage the purchasing of alternative energy or more fuel efficient vehicles as opposed to offering huge incentives to people buying SUVs the demand among the general population could have been curtailed.

The people, for their part, should not have to wait for government to take initiative (that’s one of the things our government is worst at). If people are so sick of paying so much for gas they should take it on themselves to buy alternative energy vehicles and demand better public transportation. They should hold elected officials to energy promises.

Personally, I would much father see my money at the pump going back into initiatives that help the environment and the energy situation. There are many countries that deter excessive fuel consumption by increasing taxes on fuel and automobiles; thereby keeping the people who use roads paying for them, making available funds to maintain and enhance the public transit system, and ensuring that the environmental impact of the auto industry can be kept in check. I’d much rather have the tax on gas raised to help public transportation than the public transit fares raised to support roads for for drivers.