From my very first visit onward, I remained fairly consistent in the plates I order from you. The country scramble—eggs and sausage atop a biscuit, smothered in gravy with a side of hash brown—although very beige looking, not once did me wrong. The omelets were a joy each and every time I ordered them. Up until recently my experience with you, Santa Cruz Diner, had been just this, these wonderful breakfasts, with an occasional milkshake. But I grew bored of these item and I began to feed my late-night cravings with items from parts of the menu beyond the breakfast section.

When I ordered the clam chowder and it turned out to be a bowl of bland, I let it go. I figured perhaps the vast amounts of amazing clam chowder I’ve tasted had spoiled me. Then I gave your fettucini alfredo a try, and I began to lose faith in you. Alfredo and parmesan cheese on top of noodles is rather difficult to make bland. Once again, I kept the faith. Lunch and dinner are not, at least in my opinion, the strong suit of a diner. The strength of any decent 24 hour diner is, of course, its breakfast and appetizers. Breakfast because, after all, it is a diner and appetizers because as a 24 hour establishment you are making a play for the late night snack market.

With this in mind, and not being nearly hungry enough to eat a breakfast plate, in my most recent culinary adventure with you I ordered a diner appetizer classic—the hot wings. Now, I must admit my expectations were somewhat high because I thought I was playing to your strength, but I could not have been more wrong. For the wing novices out there I should point out that what distinguishes a hot wing from a buffalo wing is spiciness. These wings were not spicy. No spice at all. None. At all. And to add insult to this egregious injury, the outer layer of the wing was, in addition to being bland, of the most unpleasant semi-crunchy texture. These hot wings, if the must be called that, sat atop under-cooked fries, which had an odd watered-down beer taste.

A culinary sin of this magnitude cannot be overlooked. As I leave Santa Cruz for my new job in Las Vegas, I leave disappointed in you. I’m sorry, Santa Cruz Diner. And I say this with a heavy heart, but when I am asked where to eat in Santa Cruz, no longer can I feel confident in recommending you for a late-night bite. I just thought you’d want to hear it from me instead of some UC Santa Cruz freshman.

• About to see David Horowitz speak. He thinks UCSC is the worst school in America. I disagree.
• We were forced to leave so that they can secure the room. Someone thinks he’s more important than he is.
• One attendee has modified an Obama sign to read Horowitz, with one O being the Obama logo.
• Horowitz: I’m not anti-gay¹.
• Horowitz: UCSC students are only exposed to the left. Can’t see the truth if you don’t hear from both sides.
• Protesters outside are crowded around the windows.
• A man claiming to be Liberal Bias interrupted the talk and called Horowitz evil.
• He’s giving the basic separation of opinion and fact, indoctrination and study lecture.
• Horowitz: There’s a difference between academic freedom and free speech.
• Protesters outside are loudly booing his criticism of the Feminist Studies department.
• Horowitz: I interviewed 5 Politics students before writing my article. I never claimed to take a scientific survey of the school.
• The label of worst school is because of the prevalence of indoctrinating/opinion oriented classes.
• Horowitz: Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory and not be taught as one.
• Pounding on the windows still persists. It’s rather pointless and annoying.
• Horowitz: If you think people are good, you’re a Liberal. If you think people are the problem you’re a Conservative.

• He left in a hurry after the moderated Q&A. Guess he didn’t want to talk one on one with people.

  Since I am a student of the Politics department I can relay my own experience with academic bias. While I will most certainly admit that most of professors are left-leaning and on occasion let if be known that they do not approve of the policies of the Bush Administration, I have in my Politics education been presented with ideas ranging from Karl Marx, Communism and the Communist Manifesto to Neoconservatism to Realistic Wilsonianism².

  Ironically the most biased class I have ever taken at UCSC was Politics of Advanced Industrialized Societies with Samuel DeCanio, whose extreme conservative bias is made quite clear in a interview he gave to the campus newspaper, City on a Hill Press:

  In general, minimum wage hikes are among the most counterproductive policies that are used to try to combat poverty. Considerable research has documented that minimum wage regulations actually increase levels of unemployment.

  There is no doubt that bias exists in academics and that this bias is passed to students³, however the bias, at least in the Politics department, is not limited to the left and certainly is not as rampant as Horowitz would have people believe. His admission that he only interviewed 5 students from the Politics department and his rather shallow investigation into biased courses in the Politics department speaks of someone who seeks to garner attention for his own political ends, not of someone who wishes to encourage academic freedom and integrity.

  Most disconcerting of all is Horowitz’s underlying assumption that students are simple-minded drones incapable of spotting bias, who instead of challenging bias can only swallow the pill that the professors feed them. It is because of this egregious assumption and his vast ignorance of what is actually taught to UCSC students—at the very least in the Politics department—that we must suffer through interviews in which the quality of out education is called into question. Thus, not only does Horowitz misrepresent bias at UCSC he misses his target of professors and instead injures the very people he claims to be seeking to help, the students.

  ¹ This comment he made in response to a flyer that was being circulated by the protest groups, which claim that Horowitz is a homophobe.

  ² Realistic Wilsonianism is from Francis Fukuyama’s America at the Crossroads in which he discusses his disillusionment with Neoconservatism and forges his own path for a conservative future.

  ³ Some argue, however that it is not the role of a Professor to remain an objective observer of the system, but to teach as a subjective participant.

  ]]> Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:00 PDT http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/617/ http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/616/ In the first election I was old enough to vote in, I, like many Democrats, unenthusiastically cast my ballot for John Kerry. This seemed to set the tone for voting career. Since then I have gone to the polls a small handful of other times, each time carrying with the the lack of enthusiasm that I had for John Kerry. It was, in fact, quite the chore to go out to the polls to vote for candidates who have gotten obliterated by the Republican opposition due to their mediocrity.

  My enthusiasm picked up, however, as the current Democratic Primary made its way to California, thanks to Barack Obama¹. It was absolutely delightful to be presented with a candidate who I wanted to vote for, as opposed to being forced to vote against the opposition. But, in order to get out my vote I had to re-register to vote as a result of my bi-yearly address change. Being a California citizen I had three options for voter registration:

  1. Print a voter registration form, fill it out and mail it in.
  2. Fill out a voter registration form online, which will be mailed to you for a signature. Once you receive it, sign it and mail it in.
  1. Pick up a voter registration form at a county elections office, library or U.S. Post Office, fill it out, mail it in.

     I chose option number 2, simply because it seemed to be the easiest for me. I filled out the form and within a few weeks received my nearly completed voter registration form in the mail. This is when I discovered the State of California’s peculiar typographical choice for voter registration forms.

     

     Of all the possibilities, Comic Sans. You’d think a state that places such an emphasis on aesthetics could do better.

     ¹ I will withhold the detailed list of reasons why I support Obama for the time being as it is only tangentially related to the topic at hand.

     ]]> Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 PDT http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/616/ http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/614/ As of late much of my time and energy has been spent on a seemingly never-ending hunt for a full-time job after I graduate. Phone interviews lead to more phone interviews, forever inching closer and closer to a job offer. With each round the questions become more difficult and, at times, odder. It starts with something like “What is quirks mode?” – a rather simple question – which somehow eventually segues into an all out coding test, sometimes even with the added pressure of a time limit. Add in, of course, my impending graduation, the repayment of $12,000 of debt looming in the not to distant future and the ever-present fear that I may end up jobless with bills up to my ears and a seemingly useless degree. As you may have guessed, the process gets a bit stressful.

     Resulting from this personal chaos is a lack of free time. However, when free time is found it is only minimally cherished, because my tendency towards persistent worrying forces my mind to play out every possible future scenario over and over again. On this particular day, I was discussing the possibility of a light at the end of the tunnel with the girlfriend. Over cheap pseudo-chinese food I hashed out with every aspect of my current job hunt, concluding that although I may not have been offered a position yet, it seems as if my future employment is eminent. Still, I am hesitant. Nothing is a sure thing until the offer is made and documents are signed. Commenting that I absolutely will not eat this establishment’s disgusting fortune cookies, I crack it open to, at the very least, enjoy its prediction.

     A good position and comfortable salary will be yours.

     Perhaps I can stop worrying now.

     ]]> Sun, 11 May 2008 00:00:00 PDT http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/614/ http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/613/ As a web designer and all around webphile I spend quite a bit of time in a broad range of web browsers—surfing, testing, reading. Of course this frequent use of browsers allows me to become quite familiar with their user interfaces and with that their small user interface inconveniences are multiplied into infuriating annoyances. John Gruber recently did a rundown of Firefox 3 vs. Safari 3, which I more or less agree with. However, I have a few annoyances with Firefox, which I’d like to add and some annoyances with Safari I’d like to throw out there as well.

     Firefox 3

     • I have found Firefox 3 to be rather unstable. I realize that this is beta software, which will of course have bugs. However, I don’t expect beta software to crash while running in the background. There have been times where I have been chatting on iChat and am suddenly presented with Firefox’s oops!-please-report-this-crash dialog box.
     • The startup time is atrocious. On my 2.2 Ghz, 2GB RAM MacBook Pro it takes a good 15 – 20 seconds for Firefox to start up and ask me if I want a new session or continue my old session.
     • Recently the back button changed¹. The previous behavior was single-click takes you to the previous page, click and hold presented a drop-down list of the last ten pages or so. Now single-click presents the drop-down list, giving the user no interface element for quickly going back one page in one click, which is exactly what I want to do a good 95% of the time.

       Safari 3

     • Tabs don’t display the favicons like they do in Firefox. Some may say this is nit-picky, but I would firmly disagree. It is much easier to scan for an icon than to read the page titles on the tabs. This is one of the fundamental concepts behind the desktop metaphor interface.
     • Safari doesn’t restore or prompt you to restore your previous session by default. Instead you have to go into the History item on the menu bar and select “Reopen All Windows From Last Session”
     • There is no syntax highlighting on View Source. This, combined with a lack of extensions (Firefox’s big plus) and, as a result, lack of developer tools, makes developing on Safari a horrible experience.

       On a Windows machine the choice seems pretty clear to me. In my opinion, Firefox is simply the way to go. However, on the Mac the choice is a bit harder to make and it seems to come down to which browser’s inconveniences, when magnified into large irritations, can you deal with better? For me, the slow startup time and the semi-frequent crashing were annoying, but it was the Firefox back button was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I simply could not deal with the back button producing an undesired behavior 95% of the time. However, what I find exciting is that browsers on the Mac are making vast improvements and with any new release I could be swayed to change my default browser.

       ¹ I realize that there is probably a setting in about:config that can revert Firefox back to its previous behavior, but I don’t think the unintuitive behavior should be the default behavior or be hard to change.

       ]]> Tue, 06 May 2008 00:00:00 PDT http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/613/ http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/611/ This election season the Presidential candidates within either party more or less espouse the the same core beliefs, with one notable exception — Ron Paul. Paul has created an enormous buzz around himself by setting himself apart from the rest of the Republican field with his opposition to the Patriot Act, among many other things. In the ABC/Facebook New Hampshire debates he set himself apart once again, this time on the subject of terrorism, where he broke from the traditional Republican rhetoric of “the terrorists hate our freedoms.”

       I’m as concerned about the nature of the threat of terrorism as anybody, if not more so. But they don’t attack us because we’re free and prosperous. And there all radicals in all elements, in all religions that will resort to violence. But if we don’t understand that the reaction is, is because we invade their countries and occupy their countries, we have bases in their country — and we haven’t done it just since 9/11, but we have done that a long time.

       No matter how benign our intentions in the region, people resent our far reaching hand, guiding them toward the way of life we value, imposing our will. Paul has hit the nail on the head and this is the first time I’ve ever heard a politician make such a statement. The fact that he understands this gives me hope that we may be able to repair our relationship with the Middle East. However, while such an understanding of the roots of terrorism and his stances on several other issues excite me, Paul inevitably frustrates me by getting so many other things absolutely wrong.

       As a firm non-interventionist, Paul opposed from the beginning and continues to oppose the war in Iraq, which I find quite refreshing in a field of Republicans who insist that the invasion was and continues to be a good idea. However, Paul takes this non-intervention to far. He spoke out against declaring genocide in Darfur and intervening to stop it. Paul asks, “Can anyone tell me how sending thousands of American soldiers into harm’s way in Sudan is by any stretch of the imagination in the US national interest…?” My answer is that preventing the destruction of an entire ethnic group is, in addition to being a moral imperative, fosters positive perceptions of the United States, which is something we’ve been lacking in recent years.

       While I find myself in absolute agreement with Paul on the overreaching power of the Patriot Act, the need to balance the budget and the idea that wars must be declared to be legal, I also find myself in staunch disagreement him on his pro-life stance, his favoring of free trade and laissez-faire economics and his push for withdrawing from the United Nations. Because of his stances on the Patriot Act, the war in Iraq, the IMF and the World Bank, Paul has drawn a lot of liberal support. I fear that in finding the messages they wanted to hear on Iraq, the IMF and the World Bank, many of these liberals, don’t know, don’t understand or ignore the fact that many of Paul’s other views are rather harmful.

       And so my frustration becomes twofold. Not only do his ideas hit right on or miss by a mile, but the ideas he does get right happen to be the issues that will entice the causal liberal voter into supporting him. It appears, however, from the results in Iowa and the polling in New Hampshire that I will not be frustrated for much longer.

       ]]> Tue, 08 Jan 2008 00:00:00 PST http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/611/ http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/610/ You may be at this very moment be writing it or perhaps it is only a pea-sized concept hammering upon the walls of your brain, begging to be freed. Whatever stage you may be at in creating Your Next Smash Hit Song I have a favor to ask you. Although I am considerably less experienced in the music industry and am, admittedly, rather musically feeble, I do believe that as a pseudo-writer that I can be of assistance on the lyrical side of Your Next Smash Hit Song. You see, there are some trends I’ve noticed in recent Smash Hit Songs that are, well, really quite troubling.

       So, I humbly ask that you there, writing Your Next Smash Hit Song please,

       • Don’t refer to your song’s structure. There really is no need to tell us that the chorus is about to come or that you’re about to take me to the verse. Honestly, if your song is successful, it should be clear where exactly we are at in the song without you announcing it.
       • Refrain from asking that your headphones be turned up. We really can’t hear the difference in your headphone volume and could care less whether your headphones even existed.
       • Stop talking about bleeding out or stabbing your heart or slashing your wrists. I understand this helps you sell records to angsty teenagers, but considering how old most of you Smash Hit Writers are, I think you should move on to topics beyond the scope of a 15 year-old’s poetry journal.

         I think that if you follows these suggestions that Your Next Smash Hit Song might appeal to a wider audience and will definitely be remotely less annoying to me.

         ]]> Mon, 06 Aug 2007 00:00:00 PDT http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/610/ http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/609/ We tend to create images of people in our heads; not just of appearance, but also of personality. However, it is common knowledge that all people change – to some degree at the very least – over time and thus when we create images of people in our head we factor in a degree of elasticity in this image. The images that we create while interacting with people on a day to day basis tend to be fairly good, however when it comes to factoring in the elasticity we fail miserably. People more often than not will grossly overestimate or underestimate others’ capacity for fundamental change.

         While I cannot offer any answer to the obvious question of why this happens, I can offer a bit of insight into how I believe this happens. While there are obviously a wide range of types of people, let us focus in on two types on people toward either extreme: shy, quiet, timid people and outgoing, dramatic people. The former type is one that people often see as unchanging. Because they are often reserved and disconnected, their actions are often calculated and fall with a small spectrum, which is relatively predictable. The outgoing, dramatic type are often unpredictable in their dramatic actions and are thus often seen as changing greatly.

         However, I believe the tendencies are exactly the opposite of how they first appear. Outgoing, dramatic people often are so because they are stubborn in their convictions and sure of themselves. Their extreme actions are not an indication of their extreme ability to change, but instead their desire to defend the ideologies, beliefs, opinions, etc. that they are sure of and set it. Quiet, timid people however, are often unsure of themselves. They recognize many more places for improvement of themselves and thus are far more open to suggestion.

         One can immediately see this, to some extent, in abusive relationships. Perhaps one of the many reasons battered wives return to their husbands is because they mistakenly believe their husband’s extreme actions indicate an large capacity for change. And again and again people who are quiet and timid surprise us with where they end up. The function of estimating others’ capacity for change is necessary in our everyday lives to aid us in matters of trust and evaluating romantic relationships. Thus, the solution to this problem is not to do away with estimating people’s capacity to change. Instead, perhaps the simple recognition that this function of the human mind is deeply flawed is enough to help it perform its function better.

         ]]> Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:00:00 PDT http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/609/ http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/605/ The President and his administration often use a rhetoric of belief when addressing issues:

         “I believe Saddam Hussein is a threat to the American people. I believe he’s a threat to the neighborhood in which he lives.”
         George W. Bush, March 6, 2003

         “I believe that when we see totalitarianism, that we must deal with it.”
         George W. Bush, March 6, 2003

         “I strongly believe he was trying to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program.”
         George W. Bush, July 17, 2003

         “We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”
         Dick Cheney, March 16, 2003

         “I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman, and I think we ought to codify that one way or the other.”
         George W. Bush, July 30, 2003

         “I fully believe it was the right decision to remove Saddam Hussein, and I fully believe the world is better off without him.”
         George W. Bush, August 21, 2006

         “I believe that Plan B ought to be – ought to require a prescription for minors, is what I believe.”
         George W. Bush, August 21, 2006

         This type of rhetoric though it may not seem like it, is very anti-political. Politics in our nation our supposed to be about debating the issues concerning us and coming to a conclusion on them. It is this debate that is supposed to keep our nation moving forward and ensure that we do not become stuck in any one idea.

         We have a tendency to view beliefs as something that is personal to each and every one of us, which each and every one of us are entitled to – it is not something that can be debated. Thus, by making these statements to the nation in terms of belief the President takes the debate off the table for these issues. The President may believe that Plan B should be available only by prescription for minors, but that issue is something that should be debated in terms of facts instead of belief, so that we may come to a conclusion that is based on information instead of personal opinion.

         We’ve seen the fallout from acting upon what the President believes when it comes to Iraq. Perhaps if we had debated the merits of going into Iraq and looked for facts instead of beliefs about weapons of mass destruction we wouldn’t be at war right now. Perhaps if we act of facts and spend more time debating instead of acting on belief we’ll find a way out of Iraq that is quicker than the long haul the President has us in for.

         ]]> Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:00:00 PDT http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/605/ http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/604/ In every society there are conservatives and there are progressives – those who like things the way they are or were and those who would rather see a change. Usually, conservatives are those who benefit from the current system, while progressives feel the system should benefit them more. This is quite clearly demonstrated by the stances taken on current United States tax law. Conservatives oppose the Inheritance Tax because it taxes the large inheritances received by the wealthiest 2% of the nation. Progressives approve of the tax because the revenue generated from it can be used to fund programs for poorer families. However, this simple system of people advocating what will benefit themselves falls apart when religion is factored in.

         Religious people are, for the most part, conservatives, yet many of the conservative stances they take rarely, if ever, benefit them. The Inheritance Tax is one example of this; welfare is another. This is strikingly odd since many of the poorest people in the United States are also the most religious and the most conservative. Religious conservatives also oppose abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, all of which do not necessarily have any direct impact on any one religious individual. In other words an abortion being performed on a 18 year-old girl in New York does not have a direct impact on any given religious individual. Yet, religious conservatives oppose it.

         This is, of course, because over 90% of the religious people in the United Stated draw their knowledge of what is right and good in the world from a revelatory text. The nature of revelation is such that it is incomplete until the time ends and it has been hundreds of years since the last revelations were bestowed upon humanity. This slow, incomplete process of revelation has yet to address several issues that we are now confronting. God has not said explicitly whether life begins at conception, or at the formation of brain waves, or at the presence of a heartbeat. God has not said whether it is OK to destroy an embryo, which as stated before may or may not be a human life, in order to harvest stem-cells for medical treatments.

         Non-religious individuals are free to assess the right or wrong of an issue as it arises; religious people must wait for revelation to tell them what is right and what is wrong. Thus, it is not religion itself, but the nature of revelation, that breeds a conservative outlook on current issues in those who are religious.

         Traditionally, in the United States at least, the justification for the separation of church and state has been to ensure the freedom of religious belief. This, however, has decidedly not halted the influence of religion on the state, which is why same-sex marriage is not legal. Perhaps it is on the grounds of the nature of religious revelation that we should be arguing not only for the separation of church and state, but also for the extraction of religious influence on the state, because whether we like it or not solutions to political issues need to be addressed faster than revelation is being bestowed upon the religious masses.

         ]]> Sun, 11 Mar 2007 00:00:00 PST http://www.revolutiondove.com/article/604/