1. Gothamist might not be doing anything other than wanting very badly to be Gawker, but they’re definitely not testing for Mozilla.

2. Maybe the only thing better than Vice City is backwards wall-projected Vice City after a great deal of vodka and lemonade. Although non-backwards wall-projected post-vodka Vice City is pretty fun, too.

3. Spring break is over, and I didn’t finish cleaning out my inbox (shock), but I did get it down from 2348 messages to 316 (awe), so if you didn’t get any mail from me: you might yet. Maybe. If you’re good.

4. I’m re-reading Infinite Jest. No good can come of this.

5. There’s going to be a reader’s guide for Infinite Jest? I mean, what?

6. I watched an episode of Nature about sharks tonight, which included suckerfish attached to sharks, which reminded me of that time Hunter S Thompson called a group of several hundred people (that included myself) a pack of drunken suckerfish.

There’s nothing wrong with a little escapism, so for these last precious few days of Spring Break, I’m not only catching up on all the work that needs to be done by the day after tomorrow (!) but also savoring some not-even-a-little-related-to-Iraq gaming. I still haven’t gotten bored with SSX Tricky, of course, but Chris and I finally returned last night to the game of MGS2 we started in late November. This morning was more nostalgic: we dusted off my trusty Dreamcast for a little Crazy Taxi, after which we kicked some mutual ass in Soul Calibur, before heading all the way back to 1997 for some Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

Incidentally, it has been decided that Ivy is my video game alter ego. She’s even got my hair - I just wish I had her whip thing. Also, I need to pick up Soul Calibur 2 and Crazy Taxi 2 (since CT3 is only for the dreaded XBox).

My own mum, veteran herself of the kind of informed action I admire most of all, points out a great letter from the Boston Globe: It might seem hard to be on the wrong side of a war against Saddam, but through arrogance, intolerance, and clumsy diplomacy President Bush has managed exactly this: to start a war that is unjust, illegal, and immoral. If we do not speak out, we will share the responsibility and it will be impossible to stop this president from going on to start yet another war. The rest of the article is here

I’ve gotten a lot of mail about my Obligatory War Opinion, and all of it has been articulate and insightful. I appreciate that. I may post some of varying responses that have been offered up later today, but I promise this isn’t going to turn into a war blog: there are enough people doing that already, and doing it better than I could. Plus also when all the available media is saturated with frustrating, ineffectual war commentary already, I know I need a break from thinking and talking and reading about it, and I suspect you probably do too. But before I shut up about current events and go back to talking about dirty snow sculptures and video games, I just want to point out this list of weblogs by journalists in Iraq and express my appreciation for the aptness with which Tom Coates has altered the sentiment of Niels Bohr as quoted by Stephen Fry: In fact, my only piece of advice to people on both sides of this issue is an analogue to Bohr’s comments - anyone who is 100% sure of the morality of their position with regard to the war in Iraq probably hasn’t understood the issues involved. Be prepared to have your mind changed.

I haven’t been talking about the war here, and there’s a couple of reasons for that: you don’t come here to read about it, and I know I’m not alone in needing to have something else to read when I’m surrounded by the incredible frustration of other people’s uninformed opinions. And that’s another reason: despite all my classes in ethical theory and despite listening to the news every day, I don’t consider myself all that well-informed about it, because it’s tremendously hard to find a reputable source right now. The mainstream media are just cheerleaders for Bush, but most of the anti-war groups are no better: college students and twentysomethings protesting for the sake of protesting, unable (for the most part) to give a coherent account of their arguments against the war. The war rubs me the wrong way, too, but I haven’t been out protesting because I haven’t felt comfortable waving signs about something I didn’t have all the information about.

That said, I have after all studied all that ethical theory, so I may as well put it to work. I’ve been following the news and talking things over with friends whose input I value, and over the past week or so I suppose I’ve started to put my finger on exactly why I’ve felt uncomfortable about all of this: I feel like regardless of whether or not the war is just, the US isn’t going about things for the right reasons. What’s bothered me the most has been the fact that while it may be true that Hussein ought to be removed from power, and I think that it probably is true, the “freedom of the Iraqi people” has nothing to do with why Bush has chosen to fight this war. The American government doesn’t just step in whenever human rights are being violated or people are suffering: I’ve studied enough about Tibet to realize that, and Tibet is one representative example from countless similar situations. I’m not saying the Iraq situation is as simple as the oil war many protesters are portraying it as - but whatever it is, it’s not about the welfare and happiness of the Iraqis.

Given that, then (although I’m sure many of you wouldn’t grant me that so easily), this war is at best the right action for the wrong reasons, and there are many ethical theorists who would argue that intention is such an essential part of ethics that there cannot even be a right action for the wrong reasons: without the right intention, you cannot have a right action. (There are notable exceptions to this, of course; utilitarians would disagree.) I’m not a through-and-through Kantian, but I’ve always found something appealing about the practical formulation of the categorical imperative, which states that an action is right or good if it treats the people involved as ends in themselves, rather than means to an end. I think this is where my intuition about the wrongness of the war has its origin: the Iraqis are not, whatever claims our government might be making, being treated as ends in themselves, but rather means to American ends, whatever those might be. Money, oil, power, whatever - we aren’t fighting out of the noble altruism espoused by Bush’s speechwriters, and that’s what bothers me.

Of course, that isn’t all that bothers me. I have an intense dislike of our President - I find him an entirely uninspiring leader, and it’s depressing that we’re led by someone so lacking in charm or intelligence. But pointing out these things, as many anti-war protesters are wont to do, does not in itself constitute an argument against the war, and that’s why I’m not out in Times Square today. Slogans and signs without informed opinions to back them up are little better than the President’s Axis of Evil, and I find them nearly as distasteful. Nearly, because protesters don’t have the power to start an unjust war - but they might contribute to the downfall of the person who does.

I’m not saying I think all anti-war protests are wrong, or that I think all anti-war protesters are uninformed. On the contrary, I think it’s important for there to be a visible body of dissenting opinion - I just wish more of the dissenters would make sure they understand exactly what they’re arguing for or against, rather than participating in rebellion for its own sake. If you think the war is wrong, and you’re prepared to take to the streets and shout about it, don’t you think you’d better be able to explain why it’s wrong? And again, I understand that many people can explain exactly that, and I commend them; I’m just reacting against the assumption that any protest must be worth participating - an assumption made too frequently, I think, by my peers.

NYU publications have been gloating about it for the past week or so already, but now the Observer notes that Stanford and NYU toppled the Ivies in a recent Princeton Review poll about applicants’ ideal schools. Stanford came in first, followed by NYU, and then Harvard (which was my own top choice, waitlisting bastards that they are). Of course, this sort of thing is generally meaningless: selecting a school should have very little to do with what everyone else considers ideal, and the quality of education you’ll receive depends on many things, but not whether or not you attend an Ivy. But Stanford and NYU folk can perhaps be forgiven for a slight degree of smugness.

I don’t know why it’s assumed that over spring break everyone wants to go to the Bahamas or somewhere equally hot and packed with drunken college kids. I like spending my vacation right here.

1. Yoshinoya Beef Bowl on 42nd St is a wonderful thing. There are hundreds of them in Japan, but only one in New York. I like sitting at a booth in the back with my vegetable bowl and novel and watching the tourists peer cautiously in at the menu before giving up and going to the awe-inspiringly gaudy McDonald’s across the street.

2. This week has crept up into the high 60s at times: t-shirt weather. Now is the time to go scampering around the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in bare feet. You’re not supposed to do your scampering in bare feet, but the security people don’t make a big deal about it unless you’re also lying on the grass reading in a non-lying-and-reading area. Of the grass.

3. Book hunting at the Strand is an experience made infinitely more pleasurable if you have the opportunity (say, when you’re on vacation) to go during the middle of a normal work day, as opposed to a weekend afternoon when everyone in the Village spontaneously decides to go book hunting at the Strand.

4. Yes, I read a lot when I’m on vacation.

5. I rarely watch tv, but there’s something terribly vacationy about soaking up movies (and Dune) at other people’s houses, especially if they’re the kind of other people who have digital cable, when maybe you yourself don’t.

This kind of thing just depresses me. With kids getting fed crap every day at their schools, is it any wonder that they’re learning to think of fast food as normal, the default diet? How is anyone surprised that the number of obese children in the US keeps growing as quickly as it does? Another article in the same vein at Idle Words, in which representative menus from French and American schools are compared. School lunches don’t have to be so vile in this country, and yet.

And speaking of depressing, it looks like it’s not so great to be in another American institution at the moment, either: my brother tells tales of military toilet paper woes.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go give my four-pack of Scott Tissue a big hug, and eat a salad.

For those of you in and around New York, definitely go see the Thomas Struth retrospective at the Met right now. His large format photography is amazing; I wish I could cover the walls of my apartment in his Tokyo photos, or prints from the Paradise series.

There’s also a great da Vinci exhibit showing there through the 30th, but be warned - it takes a good half hour to get through the line into the gallery, and once you’re in, it’s so crowded that it’s difficult to even see the drawings, much less appreciate them. If you’ve got time and patience in abundance, though, it’s well worth it. His anatomical and mechanical drawings are all pretty familiar, but the originals are amazing.

Many thanks to Rob, who sent the Lain boxed set I’ve been lusting after for months. I happened to meet the UPS man on my way out the door this afternoon, with the telltale Amazon-logo’d box. I know what I’m doing tonight!

It’s been a rather sci-fi weekend all around, actually. As I mentioned, I reread Neuromancer just for the hell of it, and then yesterday Crispy and I watched a truly astounding amount of Dune. SciFi aired the original Dune miniseries, all six hours of it, directly preceding the two-hour premiere of Children Of Dune (the second part of which airs tonight). Eight hours of Dune is a lot of Dune, but with help from couscous and some of those crazy-ass new mint Oreos, we managed it. I’d seen the Lynch version of Dune before, thanks to Colin (who gave me his VHS copy when he got it on DVD), but the miniseries was lots of fun, and Children of Dune promises to be more of the same. I’ve also finally borrowed the first of the books, which I’ve meant to read for years and years.