Hope you all had a righteous 420. Yeah, you know what I’m talking ’bout. You don’t? Well, just do a Google search. Hell, they talked about it on Morning Edition today. How underground can it really be?
I had a really weird dream last night. I was at some kind of awards dinner with the rest of the Humphrey Fellows. It felt like the Golden Globes or something. We had apparently made a movie that was getting all kinds of awards, but I have no idea what the movie was about. But I’m pretty sure Julia Roberts was at my table. I guess you had to be there. The dream had this weird internal logic that most dreams have while you’re experiencing them. This was such a weird and quirky dream that I felt compelled to mention it. So there you go. Let the psychoanalysis begin.

Ann Coulter was down in Northfield yesterday, trading insults with the students at St. Olaf College. And she’s on the cover of this week’s Time. Why the media still pays attention to this woman is beyond me. She’s not particularly clever or insightful. She’s about as unfunny as some of those Borscht-Belt comedians from back in the day. But I guess she does sort of embody the Republican feminine mystique, if there is such a thing. She’s white. She’s blonde. She’s thin almost to the point of being anorexic. She’s Protestant. And she wears really short skirts. And she pretty much finds people who aren’t white and Protestant kinda icky. In some conservative circles, this constitutes being a hottie. Personally, she strikes me as someone who is desperately trying to hide how boring and unoriginal she
really is.
It’s like summer here in the Twin Cities! I wore shorts the other day! The brilliant whiteness of my legs almost blinded me, but damnit, I wore shorts! And other people are wearing shorts! Beautiful people! Life is beautiful! I’m so giddy I’m going to end this sentence with two exclamation points!!

George Will had a provoking op-ed piece in the Washington Post a couple days ago that touched upon the concepts of genetic perfection, disability, and freedom of choice. He pointed out that 80% of fetuses that test positive for the genetic markers for Down’s Syndrome are aborted in the US. This, of course, has some disability rights groups concerned that expectant parents are being pressured into choosing abortion rather than attempting to raise a child with a disability. I’ll admit this is a sticky topic for me. I’m not prepared to condemn parents who choose not to have a child with a disability. At the same, I do think the much of the medical establishment tends to portray life with a disability in an exceedingly negative light. That’s why I could probably go along with something like Senator Brownback’s proposed Prenatally Diagnosed Condition Awareness Act. The bill, as Will describes it, would “increase the provision of scientifically sound information and support services to patients who receive positive test diagnoses for Down syndrome, spina bifida and other conditions.” Assuming that “scientifically sound information” also means politically unbiased information, I don’t have a problem with giving parents a complete picture of their child’s disability. If this bill threw up roadblocks to abortion like a forced waiting period, I’d have more reservations. But I do think there’s a certain amount of inevitability to this sort of thing. You can’t provide genetic testing and not expect parents to make decisions based on the results of those tests. Twenty years from now, I’d be very surprised if children are still born with SMA, at least in the developed world. I’m not saying that’s good or bad. It’s simply history at work.

The City of Minneapolis is going ahead with plans to solicit bids to install and maintain a citywide WiFi network. Not wanting to aggravate its inferiority complex, the City of St. Paul is developing its own plans for a wireless network. The Minneapolis won’t mirror other citywide public networks like the one planned for Philadelphia. This one will be privately owned. Residents will pay about twenty bucks for month for access speeds of 1-3mbps. I’ll probably stick with my faster wired connection, but this will be great for people who don’t want to pay for cable or DSL. I’d like to see the subscription fee closer to ten or fifteen bucks, but this is a good start. This also coincides nicely with a project I’m working on with other Humphrey Fellows on the “Creative Class.” Investments like this attract and retain professionals and entrepreneurs that are vital to a city’s future, or so says Dr. Florida. Despite my misgivings about the hype he imbues in his theory, I think he actually has a point about the payoffs of technology improvements.
Because I just know you’re curious, here are some of the latest additions to my iTunes playlist: “Beating Heart Baby” by Head Automatica; “Galang” by M.I.A.., “Don’t Stop” by Brazilian Girls; and “Anything” by Styrofoam. M.I.A. and the lead singer of Brazilian Girls are competing for the title of Mark’s Next Pop Culture Crush. I’ll let you know who wins.

I realize the death of a Pope is a big deal, but does it really deserve the cover of a magazine for two consecutive weeks? I’m looking at you, Newsweek. And you’re not much better, Time. Over the last few months, you’ve been phoning it in with cover stories on Mary, Jesus, God and medicine, and probably a few others I’m not remembering. I understand you’re trying to boost circulation in the red states, but how about tossing in some real news once in a while? I’m not saying you have to do it every issue. But every once in a while you might want to remind people about more earthly concerns, like the aftermath of the tsunami (remember the tsunami?) or the progress being made by the newly elected Iraqi government. Just a suggestion.