That fucking Ken guy from Jeopardy lost. Finally.

"Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shit out through wholesome
American guts.

"Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.

"Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

"Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

"Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

"Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

"Thanks for the KKK.

"For nigger-killin' lawmen,
feelin' their notches.

"For decent church-goin' women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

"Thanks for 'Kill a Queer for
Christ' stickers.

"Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

"Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

"Thanks for a country where
nobody's allowed to mind his
own business.

"Thanks for a nation of finks.

"Yes, thanks for all the
memories-- all right let's see
your arms!

"You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

"Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams."

Thanksgiving prayer
William S. Burroughs

"This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
T. S. Eliot

The end of the semester is rolling in, I can feel its descent with quiet anxiety. Two papers to write (both currently stand in page length over the required limit, but still too vague and unfocused). I have a French exam and translation due next Thursday.

I spent all yesterday reading. It was nice. This French class has sucked my will to research in topics pertinent to the dissertation.

I start my grading soon. I'll see you all on the other side . . .

"Grace before Glutton. For what we are, gifs a gross if we are, about to believe. So pool the begg and pass the kish for crawsake. Omen. So sigh us. Grampupus is fallen down but grinny sprids the boord. Whase on the joint of a desh? Finfoefom the Fush. Whase be his baken head? A loaf of Singpantry's Kennedy bread. And whase hitched to the hop in his tayle? A glass of Danu U'Dunnell's foamous olde Dobbelin ayle."

-James Joyce

I'm writing a short paper on Derrida. This is made awkward by his recent passing. As a historian of philosophy (in training), I want to say such great things about his importance, when in fact he just confuses me more than anything else.

I was really inspired yesterday, and today I cannot bear to add anything new to the paper. Ah! How things change in a day.

I think I'll work on this French translation due Thursday.

I've got a long week this week, but next week I have a two day week. Plenty of time to catch up on the work I haven't caught up to yet.

New books:

1. Ryle, The Concept of Mind
   
2. Sosa, Blackwell Companion to Epistemology
   

I've got too much to read, not much time to get there.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Arafat has died. He was a man of uncompromising principle, and of steadfast resolve. If he were running for President in the US, he would most likely have used the same arguments that Bush has used to win. There are rather uncanny similarities that exist here: neither think peace is a good reason not to take what one wants, both believe in preemptive war, and both have been roundly criticized as creating more problems by their own constituents. And, of course, both believe that they know what the Middle East would be a better place if their plan was law.

I have finshed all of the major tweaks on the new site. It is time for me to "unleash" it.

I began building my first web site in 1994. I had been already familiar with some programming and UNIX, and had been picking up HTML. When completed, the "website," very primitive at the time (no backgrounds, no fancy fonts) and was hosted by the University of New Hampshire; Although it was nothing more than a simple one window page with very little content, I had a website, so I was an Uber-nerd. This was version 0.x.