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21/07/02- Welcome...
  
21/07/02(1050pm)-well im gonna make a long story short and back track to last sunday. we didnt do much sunday night in montreal except that i had a hoegaarden beer cause dave was raving about it at his place on thursday night. went to the expos game, didnt get the tim raines bobblehead dolls cause there were 5000 and over 20000 attendance. expos were losing, so we left in the middle of the 7th. from there, i did a little more shopping, headed back to the apartment, and then met up with seth, david, and kristen. so we all went to dinner at dundees on crescent. that was about it. and then another day of driving on monday, getting back to ct around 6ish. havent really talked to anyone much this week. talked to andrew briefly on wed. got amelie on dvd on tuesday. thursday i opened at 715 and got home from work at 615. friday i went in at 830 and got home at 730. long hours this week that i worked. guess it made up for not being there on monday. and then last night i went with scott and angela to jazzfest. it was... interesting... to say the least. met angelas dad for real (introduced, since hes often in the bank but didnt know who i was). but i had to make an early evening because today i went to the yankees-red sox game at yankee stadium.
this is correct, ive always been a yankees fan first, before i became an expos fan. actually i became an expos fan in 1994 when we went to montreal and since i didnt have a national league team, i picked them. but im a yankees fan first and it was good to go to my first yankees game since 1991. back then, i was 9 years old and also, the yankees sucked a lot. but todays game was a great game and giambi and williams' home runs were sweet. and of course seeing the winning run walked in? what a beaut. so anyways, it was a great father-son bonding day and im sorta pooped since we went to the bridgeport track early before the 1pm game. let me say, some of the people at the kennels were interesting. anyways, to bed i head, heres to a great yankees victory....
...wait wait, dont think you got off easy. you may notice the picture above... that is the cover of this weeks hartford advocate. the advocate is the free arts and entertainment newspaper of the region. yes, so that is rane on the cover. after playing together for 6 years, getting nominated for 6 years, and winning for 6 years, the advocate decided to put rane on the cover since they won both best groove rock and best drummer (kurt rinaldi). anyways, such an honour also got them to be able to headline the coach's outdoor stage at the grand band slam, august 1. unlike last years cheesy "beer garden in front of the stage" fuckup, they're going back to how they used to have the GBS so everyone could watch. that means that im hoping some of my friends will come with me to the show. GBS is a lot of fun- its all the top bands in the hartford area playing for free for everyone to check out. renata's playing, missing joe's playing, adios pantalones takes the coach's stage just before rane... so come on down august 1. and congrats to the guys for a job well done.
13/07/02(150pm)-yesterday was another interesting day- after trying to park the car at 730am, i thought i did it right. damn confusing street signs. after going back to bed for a long while, i find that ive got a ticket. dumb ass montreal cops have nothing better to do than give out parking violations. seriously, i think that if i contest the ticket, i would win because the cop wouldnt show up because its more cost effective to have him out on the street ticketing for 2 hours...
anyways... now that ive gotta deal with that... so me and seth went walking around the city and hit up my favourite place ever, hmv. they were my favourite place until i found out that they dont deal with warner bros, who released the vida blue and red hot chilli peppers cds i was looking for. walked around the underground a bunch. was also looking for the hockey sweater in french but it was apparently out of print. so we went to DQ/orange julius, then went to music world by place des arts. there, i got my rhcp and vida blue cds. short music reviews since im gonna wait to update my cd list:
vida blue (vida blue)- this is paige mcconnell from phish's side project. definitely, i like it a lot better than trey's oysterhead project. paige plays keyboards with oteil burbridge of the allman brothers band and the drummer, baxter russell played for the meters. its very soothing and jazzy, like the new deal only turned down 10 notches. the first song is definitely one of my favourites and although the jams are a little longer than perhaps necessary on a studio album, its worth a listen ***1/2. by the way (red hot chili peppers)- i like this album, its the first rhcp album ive bought. the lyrics are well written and even the faster and harder songs are more mature than earlier stuff. the first song (and first single) is really melodic and my favourite song is probably "can't stop" because its got awesome lyrics, a great bassline, and nice backing vocals. personally, i think theres a lot of great basslines all over the album and theres a few guitar riffs by john fruisciante that definitely make his sobering experience worth listening to. ****1/2
after shopping, we came back and chilled here a bit before kristin came over and then we went to eduardo's for dinner. the roof at eduardo's was leaking. ha! so we had to get moved. that was about it. went back to kristins to find a movie and went to see road to perdition at 1215am at paramount. heres my short review of that. it was directed by the guy from american beauty. i give it ***1/2 stars. it was a weird movie in the sense that it was an excellently done movie, but that was it. basically, its about an irish mobman (tom hanks) who settles some scores and his son accidently becomes a witness. so basically tom hanks has to protect his son and expose the "mob boss" (played excellently by paul newman). oh, and this takes place in 1931. theres the story, heres the rest. the cinematography was excellent. will get nominated for an oscar and will win. i loved it. score was well done. editing was good, story ended up being mediocre. tom hanks will get nominated, i do not believe he deserves to win. his character was created where you cant tell if hes the bad guy or the good father. and my belief is it didnt work. he should have tried to stuck to one personality and maybe the rest of the acting wouldnt have seen so forced. and overall, the cinematography left me with more of a feeling around this movie than the story. which is why i think the movie was decent: the movie was well made, but the acting/story was somewhat mediocre.
got in around 3am, fell asleep around 4. woke up around 930. out the door to quebec city at 1040. in around 110. basically i showed the guys all the main sights- plains of abraham, parliament, citadel, chateau frontanec, we ate at a cafe type restaurant, and then walked around a lot more. was near the end of le féstival d'été de québec so there were a lot of tourists, but i got to use my french more. definitely i need to do immersion. we went into a bookstore and i got the hockey sweater story, no problem. anyways, walked around a lot more, watched a little music, absorbed culture, and hit the road around 7. stopped for food/gas in trois rivières and then got into about 1 hr downtown montreal traffic around 10. by the time we got (legally) parked, it was 1115ish. kristin was supposed to come over, but she was tired and left a message on the machine. i dunno, i drove 5 hrs today so im a little tired and havent been sleeping all that much here. but definitely it was a vacation i needed. although now i dont wanna go back to the bank. anyways, tomorrow is the expos game, maybe just for laughs, and then who knows what. today was a good day, yesterday was a good day. and other than the parking ticket, this has been a somewhat relaxing trip. more later...
12/07/02(115am)-greetings from montreal. i lied about updating more before I went to montreal. im getting back into my july-august rut of not doing well on my updates. so ill just leave a brief posting mentioning salient points. 1. im in montreal now til monday july 15. seth and i decided to take a vacation up here to the apt for a weekend during the comedy festival. the weather is gorgeous and that damn ponytail lady is still asking for cash... 3 months after ive been gone!! last night we got in around 10. when we left the drs in enfield, seth said he didnt have his passport, he wasnt kidding, so we went about 4-5 hours out of our way to go back to NYC to get it to go back to montreal. with my luck of getting searched at customs, neither of us wanted to risk it. so once we got in, we headed to daves place for a bit, then went to the fairmont queen elizabeth to get lisa, who was in montreal til today with her family. so from there we went to katherines to see her and then to frappe for some drinks. it was pretty chill there, had a couple beers, shot some pool, and somehow lived til this am :-P after frappe, we dropped off lisa, headed home and crashed after a long drive and several drinks. frappe has a new bouncer. apparently the old one, kirby, was gonna start a bar next door, left frappe, the bar went bust and frappe wouldnt give him back his job. so now weve got a new bouncer. oh, and i settled my bet with catherine the bartender that detroit wouldnt beat the avs. but im a man of my word (i think? :-?) it should be a good weekend. somehow, ive got a lot more to talk about here than when im at home.
other things- seth slept over my place wed night so we went to dennys with scott and angela to show him SW living (as opposed to NYC living). yeah. the building of a new applebees didnt help my case. i did have my july 4 bbq. went well and i did a good job grilling. then we went to friendlys for sundaes. july 6 was riverfest and we went to the CT river to see fireworks. was a pretty good show but i started to get a lot on my mind and then i was thinking about the US and patriotism blah blah. i wrote a letter to the editor of the courant on the pledge of allegiance ruling and why i agreed with it. i hope my letter gets published. other than that, not much went on during the week otherwise. the family room is being completely redone. when i left SW, the only things in it were grover and the computer. looks like we were looted, but hopefully stuff will be pretty good for when i come back. oh and my laptop's not dead with internet connection- i brought it up here hoping that if i plugged in here, it might reset and then i can work with it down in ct. we'll see. i think i had a bunch of other stuff to say, but i cant remember any of it so i guess i gotta drop it and we'll see when the next update is. seeing as to how stuff gets interesting here, it'll probably be in the near future.
03/07/02(1116pm)-not gonna spend much time updating. not much has happened in the last week out of the ordinary. atleast not that i remember. and if it was worth noting, i guess i would do so. only thing i can think of was doing a rane double header with julian on friday and saturday. friday night was at the iron horse. relatively weak show- small and rather unenthusiastic crowd in comparison to other horse shows. madison arts barn on saturday was much better. the crowd was younger and almost the same size, but more enthused and dancing. much fun and always good to hang around julian since we dont see each other during the year and hes gonna be in europe til november. after saturdays show we went to dennys- dennys being the only thing to do anywhere in this state after 10pm. i calculated that im at approximately 39 rane shows thus far. i might be off, but i think the next show is 40. rane's done 559 gigs in 6 years and 3 months (if i got that right). i attribute my lack of shows to 3 factors. 1. being at school for most of the last two years. i did 8 shows last summer alone, which was 20% of my total thus far. 2. that year gap between my first and second shows. had i been allowed/knew dates for more shows, i probably would have gone. 3. the fact that i was under 18. meant that i couldnt go to a lot of shows just because of being underage. i can say the same for under 21. theres shows in downtown hartford that i would go to if i was 21.
i guess thats really all thats been happening the last week. montreal one week from tomorrow, here i come. right now its just me and seth again. we might meet up with lisa there and go out with her, have her by the apt cause shes there the same time we are. tomorrow, im gonna have a 4th of july bbq here around 3. swimming, etc... and then we might try for some fireworks if we can find any...in the meantime, as we celebrate 226 years of american independence, ill just leave an editorial by the Dean Emeritus of UConn Law School from this past sunday's hartford courant (link). its on the pledge of allegiance and how the purpose of the courts is enforcing constitutionality and not politics. its like a page right out of last years us govt class. as we gear up for one of the most patriotic days of the year in america, i urge you to read on...
Sanctimonious Posturing On Pledge
June 30, 2002
By HUGH C. MACGILL
Reason and patience are in shortest supply when disputes touch, however lightly, upon the outward forms of religion. If the flag is involved as well, a mob mentality can develop rapidly.
This past week, two members of a panel of three judges on a federal court of appeals held that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment bars the use in public schools of the Pledge of Allegiance. The ruling is unlikely to have a long shelf life, but it created a golden moment for political grandstanding.
The Senate voted 99-0 to condemn the decision; members of the House recited the pledge on the steps of the Capitol. Well before sunset, every politician who could find a camera to jump in front of was happily praising God and denouncing the judges, without having read the opinion.
Is the world really coming to an end? All three judges agreed that the First Amendment requires the government to be neutral not only among religious beliefs but also between belief and unbelief. That is a settled principle of constitutional law. It may be politically unpalatable, but it is not news.
Applying that principle to the use of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools, the majority found that the phrase "under God," added in 1954 to modify "one nation," constituted an impermissible endorsement of religion. The third judge said that the impact of the pledge on the religious freedom of dissenters was "picayune" and not worth judicial consideration.
Critics ask, reasonably enough, that if "under God" violates the Constitution, what of our motto "In God We Trust," which appears on all our money? Or of the prayers that open the day in both houses of Congress? Or of the "God save the United States and this honorable court" that opens sessions of the Supreme Court?
The 9th Circuit panel, noting that the pledge is set out in a federal statute and that the teacher-led recital of the pledge in schools is intended to inculcate in students respect for the ideals it expresses, held that those ideals include a position "with respect to the purely religious question of the existence and identity of God." Students who do not share this belief need not participate in the pledge, but they nonetheless receive the message that, because of their religious beliefs, "they are outsiders, not full members of the political community." This, said the court, is a message the state may not send.
The entire Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, its judges sitting en banc, may give a different opinion. If the full court reverses the panel, the case will probably end there. But what if the panel's decision is affirmed?
The Supreme Court has shown little recent interest in novel claims under the Establishment Clause, and the justices have intimated that the pledge, with the 1954 amendment, does not raise a constitutional problem.
The 9th Circuit is regarded by some - including, it often appears, members of the Supreme Court - as the problem circuit in the federal system. Its judges, scattered across its eight Western states, including Alaska and Hawaii, tend to be more sympathetic than the Supreme Court to claims of civil liberties. The Supreme Court takes a disproportionate number of cases from the 9th Circuit for review, and reversals are not unusual. The likelihood that Wednesday's decision will ultimately become the law of the land is not great.
None of this ought to be very exciting. We have a written Constitution that defines and limits the powers of our government, and we have a judiciary charged with enforcing the limitations. Doing so, however, necessarily subordinates the will of a transient political majority to the enduring command of the people expressed in the Constitution itself. If judges rendered only popular decisions, there would be little need for courts, or for constitutions. Since political majorities do not care to be thwarted, the framers gave life tenure to federal judges precisely to preserve them from reprisal.
The judges in the pledge case performed their constitutional duty, and the next set of judges will do theirs. This is garden-variety constitutional litigation, at an intermediate stage.
What is newsworthy is the character of the outrage that greeted the decision. Sanctimonious posturing, especially in an election year, is a routine feature of our political system. But there is a manic edge to this round that is unusual and alarming.
Robert Bork, the unsuccessful Supreme Court nominee, once remarked that politicians generally know little of the Constitution. "They know what they like and think that is the Constitution." So it has seemed since Wednesday. "Out of step with the Constitution and the founding principles of this nation ... disgusting," said a senator from Kansas. A colleague added that the Senate "should throw this decision back in the face of these stupid judges." Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott promised to reverse the decision by legislation, which of course Congress cannot do. President Bush, with evident sincerity, declared that it made little sense to uphold a constitutional right by removing "under God" from the pledge because "all rights come from God." That's one thing as a matter of personal belief, but as a constitutional proposition, it is stunningly, breathtakingly wrong.
Ironically, the very intensity of the criticism tends to support the judges' conclusion that the pledge does impose a religious qualification for membership in the political community. If "under God" is such a hot button, maybe the judges got it right.
For purposes of constitutional analysis, though, none of the opinions is worth the hot air that wafted them to the microphone. Judges will pay no attention to them at all.
Why should we? There are two reasons:
First, the country faces political and economic problems of enormous difficulty and complexity, including a federal deficit of well over $100 billion, the impact of corporate accounting fraud and declining levels of foreign capital investment, not to mention a war and the perennial problems of Social Security, health care and the environment. When both houses of Congress neglect the problems they were elected to address to rant about a matter they have neither power nor competence to affect, we may wonder if they are really up to the serious business of government.
Second, the war on terrorism requires us to come to terms with the challenges a democracy must face in defending itself. Where is the balance to be struck between the security we must have and the freedoms that define us? We have never confronted this problem in so difficult a form, and history will judge us as a society by the answer we make to it.
If we do not exert ourselves to understand the character of our liberties and the means that we have developed to protect them, we have little hope as a free nation. Genuine political leadership consists in raising the level of public discourse, not in debasing it, and in clarifying the gains and costs of each choice we face, not in obscuring them. In condemning the constitutional officers of a coordinate branch of government for the performance of their duty, our political "leaders" foul the constitutional well from which we all draw water - and from which they draw their own legitimacy.
This is pandering, not leadership.
The excesses of the past few days should make it clear that it is our own politics that threaten to bring us down, not the opinion of two judges about two words in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Hugh C. Macgill, dean emeritus of the University of Connecticut School of Law, is a specialist in constitutional law and federal courts.
01/07/02(1215am)-perhaps ill update during the day about the last week. in the meantime. today is canada day. celebrating 135 years of confederation. for you americans, its like the 4th of July, only for canada. big celebrations all over the country celebrating canadian history and heritage. in its honour: O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. Happy Canada Day!
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