okay, so I am officially really homesick. I have not been in buffalo since december 26th. And I have not been home for more than 2 weeks since dec 2003. I really need to get home. And all the banners with pics of buffalo make me want to be home even more. I do really like them. I just bought an old postcard on ebay of city hall at night. It is one of those drawing postcards that they used to do. It looks really cool. It was such a homesick impulse buy though. Oh well.

I will be home in less than 2 weeks. The only bad part about that is that because I am so homesick, I might not appreciate hanging out with my friends as much and that is bad cause I will miss my friends dearly. They have been such an integral part of my life. It will not be the same without just being able to hang out with them at will. I will especially miss my Indian. What will I do without him sleeping in the bed next to me? I really lucked out getting him as a roommate freshman year. There have been moments this year where I wanted to strangle him, but he is my right hand man. I will also miss the people that I like and am friends with, but I know that we will never talk to each other again cause we are not that close.The people that you pass in the hall, say hi to and occasionaly hang out with them at a party. I know people say, "well just become better freinds with them and stay in touch," but we all know that won't happen cause you weren't close now so why would you when you are so far away.

This brings me to my next topic, people I won't miss. I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about a mutual friend that neither of us have been fond of as of late (for different reasons). My friend had said something about not wanting to do something because it would annoy the mutual friend. My response was fuck them. I don't really care what they think. To which my friend replied, well I want to leave on good terms with everyone. Which is the better way to approach it? To me, I know that I will never have any type of relationship with this mutual friend once I leave, why should I worry about offending her when she has done a lot of bs that I don't care for. I have been like this with a lot of people lately. I have just been speaking my mind, not caring what people think. I guess it is good in someways but at the same time, am I too quick to burn bridges? I just don't think it is worth faking it for someone I don't particularly care for anymore. Should I tone it down or say fuck it?

I really should be doing work, hence the long entry. I only have one take home final, one 5 page paper and one real final left in my undergraduate career. I just can't seem to make myself do them. Oh well. I should give it a try.

Talk to you all later and hopefully I will see you soon.
-Jesse

I was watching a program on the history channel the other day about the Russian tsars, and it got me to thinking about how some monarchs had an adjective added to their name, such as Cathering the Great, Ivan the Terrible, etc. I then wondered what would my name be. Would I be remembered as great, as an asshole, as nice, what? This all ties in with my last week as Student Director for the Leadership Program. One of the people in the program approached me with a problem with next year's student director and how they approached people and it made me wonder what people will think of me and what I did with the Program while I was there. Will I be Jesse the Sufficient? Jesse the Replacement? Jesse the Person who was available? I don't know. I am just starting to think about my days ending here at AU and I hope that I made it a better place than it was before.

Sorry about that rambling. I'm sure it sounds very pompous and masterbatory, but I am pompous and masterbate a lot so deal with it.

On to other exciting news, my desktop is finally working again after a nine month hiatus. It makes me very happy, not because I didn't have access to my papers, I had them all backed up on my laptop, but because I have all the music videos I downloaded freshman year back. I can't wait to watch them and the few episodes of pete and pete I have saved on there.

Well I have to go read for class. Talk to you later.

-Jesse

Hello All,
It has been a long time since I posted. I have been working on my senior thesis and in the interest of getting it done, I had a self-imposed exile from AIM, elmwoodstrip, etc. But my thesis is now drafted YAY!!! I just have to go through and make the edits my thesis advisor tells me to. IT should be a pain but I am ok with it because I have something down and that is what matters because I only need to get a B in order for me to get credit for it and graduate with University Honors in Political Science.

On to other news, I just got back from FLorida for my cousin's wedding. I was there for a weekend with all my family on my dad's side. It was great to see everyone. ALl but 2 of my cousins on that side were there, which is pretty impressive, my dad has 3 brothers and 3 sisters and many of them had multiple offspring and now they are starting to get married and have kids. Two of my cousins are pregnant. It is craziness. But the wedding was really nice. Rather than throwing rice, they had live butterflies in these envelope things and you let them go. It was wierd but ok.

When we were in Florida, it was also my Grandfather's 80th birthday. I can't believe he is 80. He is so active and energetic. It is great. He is constantly running around keeping himself busy doing stuff. If I could have half of the energy he has when I am 80, I will be set. At the wedding, he was supposed to say grace before the meal, but when he went up there, he felt that he should sing a song (my grandfather is not a singer). It was a song that his mother use to sing to sing to him when he was younger. It was really sweet and genuine. My grandpa is a great guy.

On to other things. Did you ever know someone that you really wanted to get to know better? Like a friend of a friend or something like that. You know them casually but you feel like you would be great friends if you hung out regularly. But at the same time you know you never could. Hmmm. That is all on that. Hopefully I will post more regularly.

Peace out,
-Jesse

As of late I have really enjoyed the Pretenders' song "My City Was Gone." I watched them play it on their induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I looked up the lyrics, and as I read them, I almost laughed/cried at how applicable they were to Buffalo. I decided to make a few changes and make the song about Buffalo. Here is my adapted version followed by the original:

Buffalo Version:
I went back to Buffalo
But my city was gone
There was no train station
There was no downtown
The zoo had disappeared
All my favorite places
My city had been pulled down
Reduced to parking spaces
A, o, way to go Buffalo

Well I went back to Buffalo
But my family was gone
I stood on the back porch
There was nobody home
I was stunned and amazed
My childhood memories
Slowly swirled past
Like the wind through the trees
A, o, oh way to go Buffalo

I went back to Buffalo
But my pretty countryside
Had been paved down the middle
By a government that had no pride
The parks of Buffalo
Had been replaced by shopping malls
And muzak filled the air
From West Seneca to Niagara Falls
Said, a, o, oh way to go Buffalo


Original Version:
I went back to ohio
But my city was gone
There was no train station
There was no downtown
South howard had disappeared
All my favorite places
My city had been pulled down
Reduced to parking spaces
A, o, way to go ohio

Well I went back to ohio
But my family was gone
I stood on the back porch
There was nobody home
I was stunned and amazed
My childhood memories
Slowly swirled past
Like the wind through the trees
A, o, oh way to go ohio

I went back to ohio
But my pretty countryside
Had been paved down the middle
By a government that had no pride
The farms of ohio
Had been replaced by shopping malls
And muzak filled the air
From seneca to cuyahoga falls
Said, a, o, oh way to go ohio

Here is an article from the March 7th issue of time. I could not agree more with the author. I believe (and have for a while) that the abortion debate is ridiculous. Noone is proabortion. Rather than fight to make abortion legal or illegal, why don't both sides fight to make it unneccessary.

-Jesse

Time Magazine
March 7, 2005

The Case for Compromise on Abortion;
How the pro-choice side is wielding a new principle that's tough to argue with

Andrew Sullivan

Something very unusual is happening to some Democrats and pro-choice abortion activists. They're getting smarter about their strategy. For years, they've harped on and on about a woman's right to choose, while failing to capture in any meaningful way the moral qualms so many of us have about abortion itself. So they often seemed strident, ideological and morally obtuse. They talked about abortion as if it were as morally trivial as a tooth extraction--not a profound moral choice that no woman would ever want to make if she could avoid it.

But that obtuseness seems--finally and mercifully--to be changing. Senator Hillary Clinton led the way in a recent speech to abortion-rights activists. She said something so obvious and so right it's amazing it has taken this long for it to be uttered: whatever side you're on in the pro-choice vs. pro-life debate, we surely all want to lower the number of abortions. Whether you believe that an abortion is a difficult medical procedure for a woman or whether, like me, you believe that all abortions are an immoral taking of human life, we can all agree on a third principle: we would be better off with fewer of them. And the happy truth is, abortions have been declining in numbers. According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control, since 1990 the number of reported legal abortions dropped from 1.4 million a year to 853,000 in 2001. The number of abortions for every 1,000 live births dropped from 344 to 246.

How did this happen? No one is quite sure. It could be related to less access to abortion providers, but more likely it is a function of declining teenage pregnancies, more widespread use of contraception, abstinence programs and cultural shifts toward sexual restraint among young women. None of these strategies separately is a panacea, but each has a part to play. So what's the new pro-choice line? Let's keep up the progress. Let's defend the right to an abortion while doing all we can to ensure that fewer and fewer women exercise it. Leave the contentious issue of Roe v. Wade for one minute, quit the ideological bickering about when life begins for a while, take down the barricades, and craft a strategy that assumes abortion will be legal for the foreseeable future, but try to reduce it.

Both sides have something to contribute. Sure, we should fund abstinence programs, as many pro-lifers argue. They can work for some women. But so too does expanded access to contraception. The pro-life Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, has a bill called the Prevention First Act that would expand access to birth control. Or you can focus on expanding adoption as an alternative to abortion (which means adoption by gays as well as straights). NARAL Pro-Choice America, formerly known as the National Abortion Rights Action League, actually took out an ad in the conservative Weekly Standard last month, appealing to pro-life groups to join in the antiabortion crusade--not by making it illegal but by increasing access to contraception.

What's the downside? I cannot see any. Both sides can still fight to keep abortion legal or illegal. But both can also work hard to reduce the moral and human toll of abortion itself. Why shouldn't a future Democratic candidate commit to an actual goal of reducing abortions nationally by, say, one-fifth in a four-year term? Alas, the pro-life side is leery. A key part of their coalition is made up of conservative Catholics who oppose any kind of birth-control devices; others are hostile to any adoption rights for gay couples. Still others may fear that if the number of abortions drops significantly, their argument for making it completely illegal may become less salient.

But none of those arguments makes sense on its own terms. If abortion really is the evil that pro-lifers believe it is, they should stop at nothing to reduce its prevalence--now. Is it really better that someone should have an abortion rather than be on the pill? Is it really preferable for an unborn life to be snuffed out than to allow him to have loving gay parents? Those are the questions that pro-choicers should be posing to pro-lifers. Saving human life is the priority. Why are you so reluctant to do it? Call this position the pro-choice, pro-life compromise. If Democrats want to regain credibility on moral issues, it's a great way to start. And if Republicans want to prevent abortions rather than use the issue as a political tool, they can get on board. We have nothing to lose but trauma and pain and politics and death. And we have something far more precious to gain: life itself.

The truth comes out. I am apparently not really a Republican.

On Non-Fiscal Issues, you rank as a Moderate Liberal (23).
On Fiscal Issues, you rank as a Centrist (45)

Damn you Sam Hoyt!!!

[inlink]mike,317[/inlink]
Mike,
When I come home in may we can awkwardly hang out at spot with Yosepha everyday, if that works for you, and a good time will be had by all.
-Jesse

Ok, so I know I should be doing research and stop slacking but I had to post this.

The other week was the election for our student government. As a big nerd, I am involved in student government so I pay attention to these types of things. After the regular election for president, we have a runoff if no one candidate can get 40% of the vote. I made this post on who I am supporting in the runoff and why on a website www.nakedvoting.com devoted to our student government's elections (I'm not the only nerd at my school). Here is the post and the link to it

"Coming into this election, I thought I knew who I was going to vote for for president. I had worked with one of the candidates before and I found him to be someone who was a good person and cared about the students of AU. He had my vote in the bag.

"Unfortunately, as the campaign progressed, his campaign kept doing things that left a bad taste in my mouth. He kept coming out with statements that seemed like pandering. He would bash the administration in order to get votes without examining the issue and not realizing that if he was elected, he would have to work with them. His statements trashing of the administration could severly handicap him when he actually had to sit down with them and advocate for the students. He was quick to blame Ben Ladner [our University's President] for anything and everything, even if he had little actual influence over the decision.

"He also sought to take political advantage of the elimination of the tennis and golf teams. While I do strongly believe that all of the presidential candidates should follow Polson's [our current student government president] lead and fight for a student voice on the issue, he was trying to use it for political gain. This is a big issue and should not be used to play political games.

"The final straw for me was at the GA [our student legislative body of which I am a part] meeting on Sunday. During the discussion of tennis and golf, everyone was allow to go around and say their piece, which he did. But as the Speaker called for the Assembly to stand at ease to allow the tennis and golf teams and their supporters to leave, he insisted on standing up to showboat. He went on a tirade against Ladner in which he insisted on marching down to the President's office from which he would not leave until he "got an audience" with Ladner. Never mind the fact that it was Sunday and Ladner was not in his office and would not be until at least until monday. That didn't matter. He saw potential voters and said what they wanted to hear even though it was just talk. I do not know if he ever even went down to Ladner's office (I had to stay at the meeting). But it wasn't even about that, it was about showing off and talking big even though it meant nothing.

"I have no doubt in my mind that this candidate is a good person at heart. But his willingness to pander and listen to political handlers, even though it may hurt his administration, makes me question what kind of president he would be.

"In the regular election, I voted for James Gardner. In the runoff, I will be supporting Kyle Taylor and I encourage you to do the same."

Our student paper did not mention any of the showboating in their next issue (Mon), though they reported extensively on the GA meeting and the tennis and golf team elimination. I made that post the day after the Monday issue came out, and in the next issue (Thursday), they made the following endorsement on their editorial page

"In last week's Student Government presidential election, Joe Gallina and Kyle Taylor both won about 30 percent of the vote, necessitating a run-off election between the two for Thursday. Though our endorsed candidate, James Gardner, did not earn enough votes to be part of the run-off, we will follow Gardner's lead and pass on our endorsement to Taylor in the run-off.

"As noted in our Feb. 24 endorsement editorial, Taylor very nearly won our endorsement outright. As we said then, we feel Taylor is enthusiastic and organized, and has done a stellar job in his previous Student Confederation roles of vice president and Eagle Nights director. Taylor has great ideas on improving basic campus services. He is capable and well-prepared to be SG president.

"Though Gallina has a strong personality and a willingness to fight for students, we fear he may be too antagonistic and confrontational toward AU administration to be productive. Just as important, we feel Gallina does not have nearly as clear a plan for the office as Taylor does.

" Gallina has been running posters referencing AU's decision to cut the tennis and golf programs, with an implication that he could or will do something about it. This ad campaign seems almost exploitative of current campus sentiment against the cuts. Even if he were SG president when the decision came down, there's precious little he could have actually done about the cuts. At Sunday's General Assembly meeting, Gallina's grandstanding about marching to President Benjamin Ladner's office came across as the political rhetoric devoid of any real answers. (Ladner in office on a Sunday? Please.)

"Students must remember that even if they voted in this past week's elections, their votes for president won't count in the run-off. Both candidates start with zero votes. Regardless of whom you supported in last week's election, or even if you didn't vote, Thursday's election is a chance to use your voice on how you want to be represented. Voting runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday in Mary Graydon Center 120."
When I read that I started cracking up. I wonder if they read the message boards on the election. I just wish they would have cited me. :-p Either way my candidate won handily.

Ok, I will stop slacking.
-Jesse

Hey (e:MK) Hope your recital went well. Back to my spring break o' thesis work.
-Jesse

I'm at my office hours right now listening to 102.1 the edge on the internet and putting off doing what I should be.

Spring Break starts thursday for me but I won't be coming home cause i have to work on my senior thesis. I don't know how this is going to come together. We shall see.

As far as grad school goes, I've gotten into Albany and Syracuse and am still waiting on NYU and American. I am sooooo excited though because Syracuse was my first choice by far. They also have the specialization I want (state and local government financial management). At other places I would either have to choose between government financial management or urban policy or I would have to make my own major. This has it all in one. That makes me happy and I will probably go to Syracuse pending some type of decent financial aid.

Also more exciting stuff, Citizens Against Government Waste, where I interned last spring and the spring before that, finally released the report on waste in the Capitol Visitor Center that I wrote (it is even under my name, I didn't just ghost write). Read it here and let me know what you think.

That is all. Talk to you later

-Jesse