a physics professor at the university of central florida used a simple mathematical proof specifically to spoil our fun on the greatest holiday of the year:

(professor costas) efthimiou's debunking logic: on jan 1, 1600, the human population was 536,870,911. if the first vampire came into existence that day and bit one person a month, there would have been two vampires by feb. 1, 1600. a month later there would have been four, and so on. in just two-and-a-half years the original human population would all have become vampires with nobody left to feed on.

what professor fun-trampler hasn't considered is that we are all vampires that have evolved past the necessity for ingestion of human blood. mr. smarty pants doesn't look so smart now, does he?

here is the story: vampires a mathematical impossibility, scientist says
and here's a link to a pdf file that efthimiou wrote: ghosts, vampires and zombies (read this one! it's awesome.)

according to the second one, it looks like zombification may have actually occurred in haiti.

happy halloween everyone!

*EDIT: also, if you consider yourself a baseball fann at all, you need to see the video my roommate recently posted on his blog. it's excellent. titled on another red sox related note.

seriously. watch.

listen, i refuse to believe any of these lies. vampires are real.

tonight, as i was thumbing through a gre practice test, I stumbled across the word "fallacy."

for some reason, certain words trigger certain memories or remind me of specific things - often music. this word, in particular, reminded me of a song that i haven't heard in what feels like a year or two. it also reminded me just how much ass the video kicks.

if you have four and a half minutes to spare and some sort of audio output, please enjoy this song and video with me. it's up there among my favorite animated music videos (radiohead's "paranoid android" reigns, but that might be influenced by how much i absolutely love that song), and likely one of my favorite videos period.

"rhythm, you have it or you don't..."

technology may be making me dumber.

my favorite newspaper offers all of its stories and editorials in audio format. it's free. it's quick. it's easy. in fact, i'm listening to a story about darfur as i type. i don't have to read it at all.

it sounds as though all words are pre-recorded and arranged in the order of the article. so it's a little impersonal and free from human emotion (sort of). i suppose that's good, as it's not the standard anchor's voice and style. still, it loses something in the translation.

i still like reading the iht. i wish more of its stories had the old reading format with the "prev" and "next" options rather than the long-form presentations, but the content is consistently impressive.

in any case, listen to some of the best international reporting you'll find anywhere: international herald tribune audionews


p.s.: i had a column run today that i'm proud of and that, evidently, people liked. it was a top-five viewed story on dailynebraskan.com for quite some time today (beaten out by letters to the editor! damn you, discourse!).

it was also picked up by u-wire, the university wire service akin to the associated press. that means it ran nationally and other newspapers can pick it up and print it. it was even linked at u-wire's front page.

here it is:
(at the daily nebraskan)
(at u-wire)

i'm a political science major. i'm taking a class called "democracy and citizenship," it's the capstone for my field of study. i believe that participation in government - essentially, democracy - is a fundamental human right.

and i won't be voting in november.

i called my board of canvassers today. i asked about obtaining an absentee ballot. the deadline to apply for mail-in ballots passed on tuesday, but would i be in town before the election? the woman asked me. i wouldn't, i'm an out-of-state student and won't be home before november 7th. she was sorry, she told me, there was nothing she could do for me. the state won't even look at applications received now, and it's illegal for someone to go in to get my ballot for me.

i thanked her and hung up the phone. maybe i'm a nerd, maybe my priorities are misplaced, but my eyes welled up.

i'll admit that i don't know much about the races in my state. the geographical distance between my representatives and i is gratuitous, and the issues they're voting on affect me little here in nebraska. hell, my roommate, a nebraska native but one who had an internship in a senator's d.c. office this summer, knows more about sheldon whitehouse and lincoln chafee than i do. he even knows how close the race is. and i'm not even planning to live in rhode island very long after graduation (boston's calling). this was my last chance to vote in a rhode island election for quite a while.

i've let my life get ahead of me. i've floundered in the work that i need to be doing and forgotten about important, non-academic priorities. i haven't spoken with my sister, who is due in less than two months now, in weeks. i haven't told my parents about anything that's going on in my life (which is a lot).

and now i've shirked my right - and my responsibility - as a person who demands voice in his government.

maybe i'm playing this up too much. it's just a midterm election right? a turnout election? really, what's the difference between whitehouse and chafee, anyway? they're both going to be a moderate-liberal senator, i'd imagine, and both have deep political histories in my home state. so what's one more vote anyway?

one more vote is my own sense of legitimacy and participation. how can i honestly advocate for a principle when i don't even make time to ensure that i can put it into practice?

i hope america, and anyone who believes in democratic governance, accepts my apologies. i won't be voting this year.

i participated in the women's center's week without violence today. the event was the speak out, where students and community members are invited (anyone can participate) to give a speech, read a poem or prose, sing a song or otherwise verbally convey an anti-violence message.

the following is what i said.



"Conventional wisdom tells us that a person’s fist is about the size of her or his heart. Kind of a weird comparison. When we think of a fist – all balled up, dense, solid, angry, unforgiving – we think of something forceful, something immediate, something reactionary. The strength we think of is brutal and painful.

When we think of a heart, though, none of those things come to mind. We think of vitality, integrity, love and warmth. The heart represents emotion and sentiment, caring, understanding and concern. Our hearts keep us living, pumping through our veins the very blood that sustains us. It’s arguably the most important organ in the human body – but it’s so much more than that.

It’s because of our heart that we know that fists could never solve anything. In our hearts we recognize that being a domineering boyfriend or starting a pigheaded barfight are little more than pathetic attempts to establish power roles, ways to use physical strength as an immediate means to make up for a lack of something else – whether that’s character, integrity, valiance, courage, whatever.

A fist can’t make up for any of this. The bloodied hand is no comparison to the open heart, and we’ve seen open hearts solve plenty of problems. Look at Gandhi. Look at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Who says nonviolence has to be passive? Who says pacifism only demonstrates weakness?

Ironically enough, a fist isn’t entirely useless. So long as it’s not used as simply a blunt weapon, it can actually aid in the cause of nonviolence. It can be used to demonstrate clear opposition in the very face of violence.

Like this. (*raise fist.)

This says we’re not going to be quiet anymore. This says we’re going to stand up for our right to be free from violent coercion and intimidation. This says we will fight back, but that won’t include a black eye or a trip to Intensive Care. This says we have purpose, we have dignity, we have strength and we have love, for ourselves and for anyone who has ever fallen victim to violence’s simplistic ways.

This fist can be used for good. But only if there’s a good heart behind it. Thank you."

-------Email Message-------
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 12:28 AM

39 08.060 N, 77 19.270 W



-------Email Message-------
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 1:21 PM
Subject: sunday secrets

+40° 11' 28.32", -74° 10' 01.28"

i love you.

rebel soldiers in darfur nearly four months after the peace agreement was signed.

i worked at recycled sounds today, doing my usual saturday cataloging. i picked up a weeks-old copy of rolling stone magazine - the one declaring justin timberlake "the new king of sex" on its cover - and began thumbing through it.

page 58 brought me a feature that surprised me. it wasn't about the greatness of mick jagger and keith richards, nor about john mayer as 'rock's hot soul man,' nor about "how bush fumbled the war on terror." it wasn't even about the best fall tv, though all of these stories were teased on the cover.

the title of the story on page 58 read, "the tragedy of darfur," and contained the following byline:

fighting in sudan has killed at least 200,000. and now the man who was the best hope for peace has unleashed a new wave of violence.

the full-page image accompanying the story (unfortunately one i cannot find online) was one of two young rebel fighters - one holding a shiny firearm, perhaps an ak-47 - crouched before the camera's lens, much of their faces obscured by the cloth wrapped around their heads. behind them, a bright, barren desert, and what appears to be a man getting a haircut. just another day in darfur.

i kept reading, and the lede caught me.

there is generally only one reason anyone goes into a refugee camp to conduct interviews. at farchana, a united nations facility overflowing with more than 17,000 villagers from sudan, i imagine that reason hangs over me as clearly as if i were wearing a sign around my neck that read tell me about the worst possible moment in your life.

when i left work, i took the issue with me.

and i'm glad i did. the story covered points about the developments in the raging conflict in darfur - the genocide there - that other stories either unintentionally neglect or flat-out ignore.

dinaw mengestu's piece (his first for rolling stone, and an impressive one), a nearly-6,000-word feature on the humanitarian crisis, the political developments, the role of the u.s. and the international community as a whole and the breakdown of the peace agreement, as well as a detailed profile of minni arkou minnawi, the leader of the largest faction of the largest rebel movement in sudan, the sudanese liberation army (sla).

i've been reading - and, consequently, writing - about sudan for at least the past two years. search "sullivan" and "sudan" or "darfur" at dailynebraskan.com and you'll likely find a good number of columns addressing the issue, or at least using it to frame a relevant argument.

i also wrote a long comparative analysis of the foreign policies china, russia, algeria, france and the united states with regard to referring the sudanese case to the international criminal court. needless to say, i've followed this case. i've found it enraging, impossible. the manner in which the international community has approached this is akin to an auto crash on the highway. i simply can't avert my eyes.

but i never knew much about the sla. most accounts suggest that the civil war in southern sudan is entirely separate from the ethnic cleansing in the western darfur region. the conventional wisdom is that the janjaweed (loosely affiliated coalition of arab militias) were armed by the sudanese government to put down a different rebellion in darfur, and that these militias grew in number and mission to such a degree that the government could no longer control them (now that the janjaweed wear military uniforms, it's exceedingly clear that they haven't just run out of control - it's abundantly clear where their loyalties lie).

but this story puts a twist on that, and argues it well. the peace agreements, brokered by the united states and intended to bring stability to the region and end the killings, only included one faction of the sla. this meant a schism within the rebel group, and infighting that led to thousands of deaths.

the fractious nature of the new sla means less of a focus on fighting the janjaweed and more emphasis on regaining control of the rebel movement itself. this has brought the rebels to pillaging and destroying villages with potentially sympathetic residents, conscripting the young and convincing them to fight (a la uganda) and committing acts of murder and torture against civilians.

the burning irony: the peace agreement has further destabilized the country, breaking apart the very coalition that the united states was hoping would lead the country toward calm.

aside from the victims' stories, mengestu intereviewed some of the rebel soldiers, and, given a choice between the two, well, i don't know which is more upsetting.

"we've all been revolutionaries from the beginning," declares abubakar adam, who wears his short hair twisted into tiny locks. "all the civilians are revolutionaries. we don't have armies like you do." i ask them what they will do if peace ever comes to darfur. all but one say the same thing, without the slightest hesitation: school. they will all go back to school.

read the story. it includes powerful first-hand accounts of personal loss and paralyzing fear. it successfully juxtaposes the way the conflict has developed politically with the affects these changes (or stagnations) have had on real, live people, ones who have lost sisters and nephews.

it rounds out very cynically, almost hopelessly, by looking at minnawi and his new hypocritical role in sudan. mengestu gets his point across, and it's clear as a bell. in place of my ruining the story any more than i already have... read.

story: the tragedy of darfur
photos: eight reasons bush should drop everything and save darfur

Bush drop everything? No. WE-THE-CITIZENS DROP EVERYTHING. There is no other way.

Bless you for your concern for Darfur.
Several of us have decided to begin a RESCUE DARFUR FAST. One of us began 5 days ago, and several others today. Links below for the details.
Nothing less than a worldwide fast-until-the-genocide-stops will be enough to stop it.
Nothing less will be a sufficient moral response.
Nothing less will preserve our humanity, yours and mine.
Please consider linking (below) to increase the visibility of this effort.
Jay McGinley jymcginley@cs.com
Day 134 Darfur Vigil at White House; Day 68 Rescue Darfur Fast (since July 4, 2006)
DARFUR Dying for Heroes (you would find this a helpful resource)
Stand With Darfur-White House II
Please consider linking here to increase the visibility of this effort.
http://darfurdyingforheroes.blogspot.com
http://darfurdyingforheroes.blogspot.com/2007/09/join-rescue-darfur-fast-till-it-stops.html

i saw this tonight - free of charge, as it turned out. this was the culmination of an entire week of events put on at the university by the lied center.

it was called the crimethink symposium, and this afternoon i moderated a debate about privacy and the internet, focusing mainly on facebook and myspace and the amount of information available to the average person - not to mention the government. all in all, i think it went well.

and tonight i was reminded why i like this book so much. it's about power gone horribly wrong. it's about people blind to their own chains. it's about systematic justification for injustice. it includes a fiery romance - one of the great romances, i'd say: pure and animalistic, impulsive, devoid of structure, rebellious, forbidden, its immediacy and superficiality giving it its depth - and just a creative society.

from the language (newspeak) and the motivation behind it (by eliminating vocabulary one can eliminate thought) to the structure of the government to the three slogans and their justifications - all of it's great, so thorough.

i could go into the parallels between big brother and the united states, but i won't. what i will do is direct you to a staff editorial that ran this week. i've been looking forward to writing this one for a few weeks, and the few people that i've talked to about it (particularly those who know and enjoy the book) seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.

it's here: staff editorial: big brother a reality in our government's actions

i thought the adaptation of the play tonight was interesting, albeit unexpected. it was done through two scenes, really. maybe three. but all were using the one set, the cold empty room insided which winston smith is imprisoned. he's being questioned by an unseeable person and there are four party members reenacting his recount of his recent life.

some of it took away from the tension, and there was a bit of comedic relief to lighten things up here and there (not overdone, thankfully), but sometimes the party members' own concerns really detracted from the focus on winston. why are we worried whether they think their assignment to reenact winston's diary is but a test from big brother? extraneous, i say.

this is really my only criticism. the acting was well and the adaptation was strong. as we were discussing the play afterward, we decided that it touched on all the important aspects present in the book. it didn't skip any major developments or ideas, didn't drastically change any specifics for artistic purposes, didn't get preachy about parallels between oceania/airstrip one and the u.s.

bottom line, it was done well. and there were cool black, grey and red american flags in the lobby, as well as people in berets and uniform standing on ladders, watching the crowd in the lobbies and taking notes. they looked really ominous and one guy totally kept looking at me and scribbling something. for real, dude. let's see the notebook (i don't even have dreads anymore!).

on the way out i perused the merch table. t-shirts and posters for sale. i didn't have $10 on me, but was interested in the posters. they depicted the slogans from the book - WAR IS PEACE. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. - and had an image of an administration official on it (guess who was on 'ignorance is strength.' and now guess who's on 'war is peace.')



it was quite the experience, quite the friday night. it reminded me exactly what i like about good literature. it penetrates the consciousness. if anything, orwell did that.

because of the faux controversy about the cartoon referenced below, we have an extra opinion page running tomorrow. more than 50 inches of letters. a staff editorial. a column from the editor in chief. another cartoon.

guns blazin', my friends.

the letters.
the staff editorial. (i wrote much of this.)
the editor's column.
the response cartoon. (the cartoon published small - we'll fix that as soon as we can.)

for good measure, check out the discussion on this cartoon: kusports.com and ketv.com

you know, sometimes i really love my job.

*UPDATE, oct. 6:
below are the pages themselves. these are jpeg images that link to .pdf copies of the double opinion page as it printed. i think the artwork, design and overall presentation looked pretty damn good.

well, i suppose if you wait long enough, it's gotta hit the fan sometime.

this has been a ridiculous week, beginning monday. i was planning on posting photos from the awesome game on saturday (i really wish it weren't so awesome - it went into overtime. against kansas! it should have been 42-10, as i had predicted). and i have said photos. but that's not for tonight.

no, tonight is for a video explanation of exactly what's been going on in my life for the last two days. it all started with a cartoon.

(this cartoon.)

(link to a larger version)

and just you wait... it's coming.

playing devil's advocate a bit.

for a story that ketv generated on their own, essentially a nothing story, doesn't it add a bit of credence to the newsworthiness when there's a response cartoon, editorial and 30-inch column from the editor about a story that you guys argue amounts to nothing? that's a lot of newsprint to use on something that you don't think should be a story in the first place.

that said, i do think the ketv report was biased, and agree with everything said in the columns.