Berkeley Blog: Raining Bird-Ladies
Annie Lennox.
Berekely was damp & slippery today. Most everything was wet due to rain yesterday and last night. When it rains I sometimes think of the Eurythmics song: "Here Comes the Rain Again." I'm facinated by Annie Lennox's very fierce and odd look, and such an amazing voice. When I was a kid the video scared me. It was dark and she was walking around lots of water alone in her jammies while a dude in the distance filmed her. Also, there is no rain in the video. I always thought that was weird. When I hear it today, I just analyze the lyrics. Like "Walk with me, like lovers do." I like that line. It allows the listener to apply their own meaning to "how lovers walk." Hand-in-hand, arms-around-shoulders, or in pockets, etc. When I write music I tend to be really specific. I would probably write: "Walk with me, hand in hand, like lovers do." Which would totally mess up the song. I need to learn to "let go" and be a little more poetic I think.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzFnYcIqj6I[/youtube]
A nightingale sang in U.C. Berkeley square.
Anyways, even though everything was wet, I still sat outside. I like the breeze, it felt nice on my skin. The birds were especially loud. Maybe since the humans were hunkering down indoors, they now had free environmental reign to fly around, be loud and shit all over the place. I'm sure the rain brought the birds some new playmates or new food that had been washed up and mixed around. However, maybe they were loud because they were frustrated at all the work to be done. Kinda like when we have to grab sandbags and close windows to keep the rain out, the birds were flying around looking for ways to plug leaks and shore up the foundation. I asked a fellow student what his rain strategy was. Once it started raining, it seemed everyone had a jacket handy or an umbrella ready to go. I was curious if Berkeley regulars always bring an umbrella or jacket with them everywhere they go. He chuckled and was like: "rain strategy? Well, I've got this portable umbrella." He pulled it out and showed it to me. It looked small, so I was curious if it was big enough to do anything useful and he said he didn't tried it out yet. I said, "You should go in your back yard and turn the hose on and try it out..." He and others laughed because they thought I was kidding.
Book Learnin': Saira Mohamed, smart lady.
In my Human Rights class, we had a guest lecturer, Saira Mohamed, a professor from the Berkeley School of Law. She was so smart. I feel like a little child while I listened to her: "What does jurisprudence mean, nice lady!" She was speaking about the history and practice of International Law and International Courts, her specialty. I could not follow along with everything, but some things popped out. The Nazi atrocities during WW2 were the genesis of a whole new host of international laws. Crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes became international laws shortly after the Nuremberg trials. In fact, during the trials, Germany was only prosecuted for starting an "illegal war", the holocaust and similar events could only be mentioned in a court of law if they were linked to a war. Today, thanks to these new international bodies and laws, those types of humanitarian crimes are illegal no matter when they occur: read: Darfur, Yugoslavia - It seems the U.S. has some exemptions though, due to our "mighty" political power of the world. When pressed on this issue by a fellow student, Saira simply said "It's this way, because no one tends to challenge America on the issue." So, waterboarding is legal only for the United States, for example. The U.S. also has not signed many of these international humanitarian treaties and largely regards international law as "secondary" to American law.
The other issue brought up was if these war crime trials produce justice, or are they just propaganda show trials like Nuremberg was in order to educate the world on international "norms." Saira Mohamed claimed a little of both, on one hand the victims of these atrocities finally have a voice and an international narrativefor their struggles, but it also serves as a history lesson and a deterrent. She suggested there is a lot of debate in the international community about whether these trials can actually deter others from doing these things in the future. Sadaam Hussein's execution did not deter Al Qaeda, for example, and whether it was fair to only try one or two people for the crimes of an entire state, like in Darfur, where the entire government took part in genocide. I couldn't help to think why all these lawyers are sitting around debating things in which psychologists have already researched. Death penalty deterrents, victim retribution/revenge trials, etc have all been widely studied. Crack open a psychology text book and start readin' smart lady!
Berekely was damp & slippery today. Most everything was wet due to rain yesterday and last night. When it rains I sometimes think of the Eurythmics song: "Here Comes the Rain Again." I'm facinated by Annie Lennox's very fierce and odd look, and such an amazing voice. When I was a kid the video scared me. It was dark and she was walking around lots of water alone in her jammies while a dude in the distance filmed her. Also, there is no rain in the video. I always thought that was weird. When I hear it today, I just analyze the lyrics. Like "Walk with me, like lovers do." I like that line. It allows the listener to apply their own meaning to "how lovers walk." Hand-in-hand, arms-around-shoulders, or in pockets, etc. When I write music I tend to be really specific. I would probably write: "Walk with me, hand in hand, like lovers do." Which would totally mess up the song. I need to learn to "let go" and be a little more poetic I think.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzFnYcIqj6I[/youtube]
A nightingale sang in U.C. Berkeley square.
Anyways, even though everything was wet, I still sat outside. I like the breeze, it felt nice on my skin. The birds were especially loud. Maybe since the humans were hunkering down indoors, they now had free environmental reign to fly around, be loud and shit all over the place. I'm sure the rain brought the birds some new playmates or new food that had been washed up and mixed around. However, maybe they were loud because they were frustrated at all the work to be done. Kinda like when we have to grab sandbags and close windows to keep the rain out, the birds were flying around looking for ways to plug leaks and shore up the foundation. I asked a fellow student what his rain strategy was. Once it started raining, it seemed everyone had a jacket handy or an umbrella ready to go. I was curious if Berkeley regulars always bring an umbrella or jacket with them everywhere they go. He chuckled and was like: "rain strategy? Well, I've got this portable umbrella." He pulled it out and showed it to me. It looked small, so I was curious if it was big enough to do anything useful and he said he didn't tried it out yet. I said, "You should go in your back yard and turn the hose on and try it out..." He and others laughed because they thought I was kidding.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNHDKxjZBiQ[/youtube]
Book Learnin': Saira Mohamed, smart lady.
In my Human Rights class, we had a guest lecturer, Saira Mohamed, a professor from the Berkeley School of Law. She was so smart. I feel like a little child while I listened to her: "What does jurisprudence mean, nice lady!" She was speaking about the history and practice of International Law and International Courts, her specialty. I could not follow along with everything, but some things popped out. The Nazi atrocities during WW2 were the genesis of a whole new host of international laws. Crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes became international laws shortly after the Nuremberg trials. In fact, during the trials, Germany was only prosecuted for starting an "illegal war", the holocaust and similar events could only be mentioned in a court of law if they were linked to a war. Today, thanks to these new international bodies and laws, those types of humanitarian crimes are illegal no matter when they occur: read: Darfur, Yugoslavia - It seems the U.S. has some exemptions though, due to our "mighty" political power of the world. When pressed on this issue by a fellow student, Saira simply said "It's this way, because no one tends to challenge America on the issue." So, waterboarding is legal only for the United States, for example. The U.S. also has not signed many of these international humanitarian treaties and largely regards international law as "secondary" to American law.
The other issue brought up was if these war crime trials produce justice, or are they just propaganda show trials like Nuremberg was in order to educate the world on international "norms." Saira Mohamed claimed a little of both, on one hand the victims of these atrocities finally have a voice and an international narrativefor their struggles, but it also serves as a history lesson and a deterrent. She suggested there is a lot of debate in the international community about whether these trials can actually deter others from doing these things in the future. Sadaam Hussein's execution did not deter Al Qaeda, for example, and whether it was fair to only try one or two people for the crimes of an entire state, like in Darfur, where the entire government took part in genocide. I couldn't help to think why all these lawyers are sitting around debating things in which psychologists have already researched. Death penalty deterrents, victim retribution/revenge trials, etc have all been widely studied. Crack open a psychology text book and start readin' smart lady!
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