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I've moved over to a Wordpress blog, and will be updating there instead of here from now on.

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McCain to speak at Creationist Institute on Feb. 23. I just threw up in my mouth a little.

On February 23, 2007, the "maverick" John McCain will address the Discovery Institute, the privately funded vehicle for Intelligent Design nonsense.


For a really good response to this creationist drivel, the following link is great:


Scientific American: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense.

For the record, I mean no disrespect to whose who choose not to accept the scientific reality of evolution by natural selection on religious grounds; you have a right to do so, and I respect that. However, please do not try and wedge faith conclusions into scientific discussion. My morality is not based on scientific proof that human beings should be good to one another; likewise, my rational interpretation of facts should not include, in its calculus, faith-driven thought.

A transcript of emails sent from me to my mom.

Hi Ma -
Thanks for the message. I haven't had a chance to call you back because I'm really busy. How's Pa?
- Mark

***

Hi Ma -
No, I AM paying the bill. I just don't clean out my voice mail very often. I promise I am being responsible with my money, ok? As responsible as anyone who is over $150,000 in debt can be, anyway.
School is fine; my professors have stopped writing my name on the board when I turn assignments in on time, so clearly my lawsuit had an effect.
- Mark

***

Ma,
For Pete's sake it was a joke. I don't even HAVE assignments in my classes! How can I turn them in late when they don't exist? You know, I told you a long time ago I'm not going to actually tell you anything substantive that is going on, either at school or with my girlfriend (she says "hi," by the way.)
- Mark

***

Ma,
Christine was the girl I dated at the end of college. That was seven years and FOUR girlfriends ago. Remember? That was the one who was a vegetarian, and got into an argument with Pa? I know you remember, because that's what got Pa started on his whole "chicken is a vegetable" thing.
Oh, how is Uncle Ernesto?
- Mark

***

Hi Ma,
She still won't take him back, huh? Its probably for the best. How did Aunt Nilda even find out about MySpace? She can barely operate her car radio.
On a related note, I saved the actual webpage as a PDF if you ever want to see it.
- Mark

***

Hi Ma,
A PDF is a file format that records the way the webpage looks at the time you save it.
Please tell Pa to stop sending me the email jokes. I've heard them all, and none of his friends ever delete the headings. I'm getting sixteen page emails for the sake of a one-line joke.
- Mark
P.S. I do like the new drapes.

***

Ma,
Great. Now he's emailing me video clips. Tell Pa next time to just put the LINK to the video in the email, not to send the actual video file.
To answer your second question, I already told you, several times, that DC is really, really far from Baltimore. Also, "The Wire" is fictional, and so is "24", so don't believe everything you see on TV, ok? Its really safe where I am. Plus I own a gun.
- Mark

***

MA
I AM KIDDING. Sheesh. I don't own a gun; just a really, really big knife.
- Mark

***

Dear Pa,
I'm sorry for upsetting Ma. I know she's just worried, but does she have to freak out everytime they raise the terror alert from fuchia to teal, or whatever? If someone wanted to hit DC, I promise they will not attack Adams Morgan or Dupont Circle.
- Mark

***

Hi Ma,
Firstly, I am sorry for being so flippant about the fact that you worry about me; I really appreciate it. Secondly, I PROMISE no one will attack my neighborhood with a bomb. Thirdly, there's no such thing as a "Dirrty Bomb." I think you are mixing "dirty bomb," which is an actual weapon, with "Dirrty," which is a song by Christina Aguilera. Please stop watching VH1, ok? I hate explaining cultural terms to you.
- Mark

***

Ma,
I don't really care where you heard the term; if anything, E! is an even worse channel than VH1. You definitely shouldn't be getting your information on current events from there.
"Crunk" means, basically, to have a lot of fun with your friends, but it's not the proper term for your ladies group.
- Mark

***

Ma,
I am *not* explaining that to you. Look it up on urban dictionary if you must.
- Mark

***

Dear Pa,
I never actually meant for Ma to look that up. Really, I didn't. I was just trying to avoid one of those discussions where she asks me what something means, I tell her, and then she gets mad at me for knowing the term in the first place. Remember what happened when I explained to her why everyone in high school called me "Bong?"
- Mark

***

Hi Ma!
Thanks for sending me that link! I AM excited about Obama running! Woo hoo!
- Mark
P.S. He didn't grow up in Chicago; he grew up in Hawaii.

***

Ma,
Yes, I'm sure that means he had lots of Filipino friends growing up.
- Mark

***

Dear Pa,
Well, people other than Hawaiians eat Spam, too; I doubt he eats much Spam in DC. Hell, sometimes I think I'm the only one in the city who cooks it regularly.
- Mark

***

Ma,
I don't care what Pa says, I do NOT cook Spam, ok? I only eat vegetables and chicken stock.
- Mark

To the memory of Professor Robert Drinan, S.J.

This column first appeared in the Georgetown Law Weekly on January 30, 2007.

Normally, this column is dedicated to complaints or bragadoccio about my lack of work ethic, the proper way to trick a GULC pop machine into accepting money from a MetroCard, cheese, etc., etc. Right now, I'd like to depart from the low-brow gallows humor to write a few words about Robert Drinan.

I first met Professor Drinan my 1L year, at a reception for the Jesuits from main campus hosted by the law center faculty. Someone foolishly informed me that there would be free food (thanks for the heads-up, Sister!), so I signed up to attend as a student representative. I was seated at a table with Professor Schrag, Professor Drinan, and several visiting scholars and priests whose names have permenantly escaped me. Fr. Drinan had the unpleasant task of being seated next to me, and had the unfortunate luck to do so on a night where the wait staff was especially diligent in refilling my glass of Jamesons-on-the-rocks. We spoke at length throughout the evening, about my time in law school, my background, my career goals, etc. We also spoke about what he was planning to do in the future, and that is what stuck me the most. Every obituary about him that you've read or will read will emphasize his time on Capitol Hill as a congressman, every blurb will mention his dual role as priest and legislator in the 1970's. To hell with those obits. Fr. Drinan was passionate about the state of the world, today. At an age and time of his life where most of us with as many accomplishments as him would have been content to relax, Fr. Drinan continued to put himself out, politically and morally. The attempt by Congressional Republicans to remove the filibuster last year was met with angry scorn by Fr. Drinan, and he opened the Georgetown rally against it with speech that was less polished and yet more honest than most of the speeches of the day, heavy and wet with rhetoric.


He spoke out, repeatedly in print and in person, against human rights abuses and what he felt was the willingness by many, Democrat and Republican alike, to sanction torture, the suspension of habeus corpus, and other abuses for political expediency. I should add a caveat here: I took his human rights class primarily because I heard there was a lenient grade curve. That idea failed, as I managed to pull a B- in a class where the questions on the final were distributed ahead of time. Unlike the other classes I've taken where my incompetance has shone through, his actually taught me a few things. First, violating a person's physical sanctity is demeaning to those who do it, individual and government alike. Second, good and evil are real concepts, but the world does not paint them for us in black in and white; even priests see grey, and the greatest see the most grey.

There are those who would demean his intellectual stature by pointing out that his classes have not been the most... linear in their progression. This is not a fluff piece; I will not disagree with the criticism that his lectures were not terribly organized. To those who had him for professional responsibility or human rights who felt that (actual quote) "his classes were a waste of time," I wish you could have had a chance to speak to him in person. He was as observant as ever, and still able to be riled. I did not take professional responsibility with him, but I learned about ethics from him, informally yet concretely. One of the questions I've often asked myself is in the form of a thought experiment: "What side would I have taken in the Spanish Civil War?" As a Catholic (if an especially faulty one), I sometimes fear that I would have sided with the Fascists, due to Franco's professed piety and defense of the Church. After speaking from Robert Drinan, S.J., I have no doubt in my mind that he would have opposed them.

His two recent books, Can God & Ceasar coexist? and The Mobilization of Shame were about the state of the world, today. The former (and more recent) book was about the interaction between religion and government, a subject of which his viewpoint will be simplified or assumed ad nauseum, but was very nuanced and complex. The latter book was about the international human rights movement, his most passionate cause. To all the ink spilled on the Catholic viewpoint regarding the headline-grabbing topics of birth control, abortion, sex, and homosexuality, Fr. Drinan reminded us that being a Catholic means caring about human dignity in general, opposing even politically-expedient torure, fighting for the freedom of conscience for people of ALL religions, and the importance of dialogue.

Fr. Drinan, it must be said, was persona non grata to many conservative Catholics. He was an unabashed liberal, was against the Vietnam War, was the first congressman to call for Nixon's resignation, and opposed governmental bans on abortion. The website of the Cardinal Newman Society, a conservative Catholic organization, linked to a story that mentioned none of his human rights work, and none of his international accolades; to them, he was merely the "partisan" Jesuit who "defied Rome." Thank God that sometimes defiance is obedience.

I was privileged to be present at Fr. Drinan's last mass as celebrant here at the Law Center. I was privileged to be a student of his. I am privileged to have him as an example to follow. I hope I have the courage to be defiant.

RIP Robert Drinan, S.J.

Father Drinan passed away on Sunday, Jan 28, 2007. I was privilaged to have been present at the last mass he presided over as celebrant, and to have taken his human rights class.

Here's the obituary at CNN.com.

R.I.P, Fr. Drinan.