Having perhaps finally recognized the futility of their antiwar arguments, campus liberals are now taking on a more important target: Taco Bell.

Okay, so perhaps they haven’t give up the ghost on Iraq. But still. The Taco Bell thing was intense.

I was heading back to Becky’s apartment after class when I heard distant chanting. It sounded like a protest, so I walked toward the sound. I called the Daily Trojan office on my cell phone and told the City Editor, Sophia, that “some kind of a protest or something” was apparently going on. She informed me that the DT was already covering it, and that it was the “Taco Bell protest.” Sure enough, moments later, I could hear the marchers chanting “Yo no quiero Taco Bell! Yo no quiero Taco Bell!”

It’s apparently some sort of labor dispute. Frankly, I don’t know the details, but the protest itself seemed a bit lame. The two dozen or so participants were pretty loud, but their chants were a bit too typical. For example, they said:

What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now!

To which I mentally replied:

What do we want? New chants!! When do we want them? Now!!

The protesters snaked their way from Leavey Library to near the intersection of Hoover and Jefferson, then began marching down Jefferson toward Figueroa. Presumably, they were going to turn left on Figueroa and march to Taco Bell itself. But I abandoned the march and headed home after a few minutes. I’m feeling a bit too under the weather for much protest marching (or protest photography). Presumably there will be an article in the DT tomorrow, and I’ll link to it here when it’s put online.

Anyway, here are a couple more pictures:

UPDATE, 2/25/03, 10:00 AM: Here’s the Daily Trojan article about the protest. The DT says there were about 75 marchers, which is roughly three times my estimate of “two dozen.” The truth, I suspect, lies somewhere in the middle.

UPDATE, 2/25/03, 10:36 PM: A USC student named Ana Morales signed my guestbook this evening and criticized this post, asking, “why are you being so negative towards a taco bell protest when you don’t even know what the issues are? maybe you should do some research first before you make offensive remarks about people demanding some human justice. just a suggestion.”

Well, I don’t really think I made too many “negative” or “offensive” remarks (my only explicitly negative comment was criticizing the lack of creativity in the protesters’ chants), but I’ll admit that I was making light of the protest in such a way that it may have seemed I was criticizing the protesters’ goals. The fact of the matter is, I’m all for “human justice” — living wage and all that sort of thing. I can’t say I know enough about the protest to absolutely agree with it, but I’m definitely inclined to agree with it, unless someone convinces me otherwise.

So, there. I’m not a Republican bastard. Ok? :)

I just e-mailed my editor the column I’ve been working on for days. It’s a critique of the antiwar left — hence “anti-antiwar.” (And yes, I know that’s a double-negative. But, see, it’s not pro-war, per se. It’s just saying that the anti-war crowd is being profoundly dumb.)

When it’s published in the Daily Trojan, hopefully later this week, I’ll post it here in its entirety — plus several hundred words of, uh, deleted scenes. For now, here’s a sample. It’s not really a representative sample, so to speak, since it so happens that this part is rather silly, and the rest of the article is serious… but whatever, this is my favorite part anyway. :)

If sanctions are bad and war is off-limits, exactly what kind of “containment” do anti-war folks have in mind?

Hopefully, Saddam Hussein won’t unleash poison gas or biological agents against them. But if he does, no doubt they will spend their final moments contemplating how their deaths were brought about by the evils of American imperialism.

I can see why New Yorkers were freaked out by yesterday’s Staten Island oil-refinery fire:

Wow. An eerie scene, to be sure.

Here are some of yesterday’s newspaper front pages from around New England:

The Providence Journal, Providence, RI (sorry, no larger version available)

The Concord Monitor, Concord, NH

Here are yesterday’s front pages from New York, also featuring news of the Staten Island fire:

The New York Times, New York, NY

The New York Daily News, New York, NY

Here are the two Chicago papers, interesting because of the nightclub tragedy that happened there just a few days ago:

The Chicago Tribune, Chicago, IL

The Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago, IL

Here are a couple of prominent national papers:

The Washington Post, Washington, DC

The Los Angeles Times (national edition), Los Angeles, CA

And here is a random Arizona paper, included for its rather odd and poetic headline:

The Arizona Daily Star, Tuscon, AZ

Webmaster’s note: My sources for these newspaper front pages are the Newseum and individual newspaper websites. These graphics have been posted here for educational and informative purposes only, and are not intended for any commercial or other copyright-infringing use. If you are a copyright owner of a graphic on this page and wish it to be removed, please e-mail me.

A great satire:

MINAS TIRITH (Gondor News Network) - Thousands of peace activists took to the streets of Minas Tirith and other cities of Middle Earth today to protest what they termed a rush to war with Mordor. …

(Another protester said), “It’s understandable (Mordor’s soldiers) are angry with Gondor. We haven’t done nearly as much for the Orcs and Goblins and Easterlings as the Nazgul and Sauron have. It’s understandable they throw their support to them. It’s our own fault really.”

I don’t know what to say about this awful Rhode Island club fire, other than, may the victims rest in peace.

Meanwhile, an oil refinery in Staten Island is burning.

USC’s rather dismal men’s basketball season continued Thursday with a 73-67 home loss to #21 Stanford. Not that the unranked Trojans were expected to win — but they should have. USC had plenty of chances down the stretch, but kept missing critical shots, taking stupid shots at key moments, and basically just failing to capitalize on their opportunities. Becky and I were there, and saw the miserable scene unfold before our eyes.

Of course, it didn’t help that the refereeing was horrible. USC got called for several ridiculous fouls late in the first half and early in the second half that resulted in Stanford getting points that would later prove crucial. And the Cardinal got away with a number of blatant fouls near the basket that prevented USC from scoring. And one point, I yelled out in the referees’ direction, “How much is Stanford paying you?” Becky later stated, “You are the worst referees in America! We should drop you on Iraq!”

My first Daily Trojan column in ages was published today, a rather silly rant about campaign signs at USC and elsewhere. A sample:

Undoubtedly, each of these candidates has a thorough, well-thought-out vision for the future of Student Senate, which is probably explicated in detail on a Web site or something. But who actually researches Student Senate candidates?

Most students pretty much just look at the signs — which is probably a good thing for Mann and Lammon, who score creativity points for using diagrams of a man and a lemon on theirs. (Seltzer and Toole could rebut this strategy with signs proclaiming “Matt and Erin Go Bragh 2003,” though they should probably steer clear of “Seltzer is a Toole 2003.” Eunice and Susan might consider signs proclaiming that “Eu and Sue will work for You.” Anderson and Johns could include on their signs a picture of 1980 independent presidential candidate John Anderson, but this probably wouldn’t get many laughs outside of the political science department; everybody else would just wonder why a gray-haired man with large glasses is running for USC Student Senate.)

It’s not the greatest thing I’ve ever written, but it’s at least somewhat funny, I think. Unfortunately, my editor took out my little piece of irrelevant Bush-bashing. The paragraph that ended up saying this…

Uninformative as they are, USC’s Student Senate signs are, incredibly, actually more useful than your average campaign lawn sign in America. Thinking back to the 2000 presidential election, an equivalent USC sign for Al Gore might have been “Gore/Lieberman: experience, economy, lockbox.” For Bush, something like “George W. Bush: compassionate conservatism, Texan charm” might have fit the bill.

…was supposed to say this…

Uninformative as they are, USC’s Student Senate signs are, incredibly, actually more useful than your average campaign lawn sign in America. Thinking back to the 2000 presidential election, an equivalent USC sign for Al Gore might have been “Gore/Lieberman: experience, economy, lockbox.” For Bush, something like “George W. Bush: compassionate conservatism, Texan charm” might have fit the bill. Or maybe: “A vote for Bush is a vote for Colin Powell.” Or, “Bush/Cheney: don’t worry, nothing important will happen in the next four years.” (Alas.)

But whatever. Unlike some Daily Trojan columnists I could mention, I don’t feel censored by this reasonable bit of editing. My editor probably needed to cut something for space, and anyway, the Bush references weren’t relevant to my topic.

The only real problem with the column is one that’s my own damn fault: I mixed up my corporate slogans. At the beginning of the article, I referenced Staples and its back-to-school “most wonderful time of the year” ads. So, I concluded the article with the sentence, “Unlike the guy at Staples, I don’t have answers to all your questions.” The only problem: “You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers” is Radio Shack’s slogan. Staples’s slogan is “Yeah, we’ve got that.” Oh, well.

I’m working on another, somewhat more meaty column, about the war in Iraq. It will be a critique of the anti-war movement’s numerous fallacies, using today’s Daily Trojan editorial as a jumping-off point. The editorial stated that USC’s Student Senate should pass an anti-war resolution, and asserted that such a resolution could be “easily passed without much debate” because it would “not say much other than a collective stand for peace.” My point will be, that’s precisely the problem with anti-war activists these days: they don’t feel they have to say anything other than calling vaguely for peace. So, no alternatives are discussed, no new ideas proposed, and “peace” becomes an utterly empty rallying cry.

It wasn’t exactly a high-scoring game, but the Newington High girls basketball team defeated its traditional archrival, Southington, in a 38-29 road upset Tuesday, a triumphant end to the Indians’ most successful regular season since my junior year in high school.

Newington — a once-mighty state powerhouse that has suffered through several difficult years since losing stars Ela Lapciuk and Leslie Carlson to graduation in 1997 — finished its regular season with 9 wins and 11 losses, and will advance to the state tournament for the first time since 1999, my senior year. (I was a student manager for the girls basketball team when I was in high school.)

Southington, once the state’s greatest girls basketball dynasty, has also fallen from grace in recent years. But the Knights are 10-9 this year with one game left, and, like Newington, will qualify for the state tournament.

I’m not 100 percent certain, but I think this may be Newington’s first victory on Southington’s home floor in many years — possibly since 1993. They certainly never won there while I was in high school. I can’t recall for sure, however, whether Newington might have notched a road win against the struggling Blue Knights in the years after I graduated, in 2000 or 2001.

Throughout the 1990’s, Newington and Southington had the greatest girls basketball rivalry in Connecticut. In 1993, Newington swept Southington in the regular season, only to lose to the Blue Knights in the state championship game — the Indians’ only title-game appearance ever. The two teams were often ranked in the state’s Top 5, and they routinely slugged it out for dominance in the CCC South conference (though Southington usually had the upper hand).

This year, Newington finished 7-7 in the conference. Southington is 6-7 with one game left.

UPDATE, 2/19/03: The New Britain Herald published an article about the game, and it refers prominently to the old-time rivalry. Newington’s sophomore star, Kelly McVey, who had 17 points, six rebounds, two blocked shots and two assists Tuesday, said, “I used to come to the games when I was little and Southington’s always been our rival. I’ve been here for two years and this is the first time we’ve beaten them.”

The article states that Newington last qualified for the state tournament in 2000, which contradicts my memory that their last berth was in 1999, my senior year. I know the article’s author, Ken Lipshez; he’s been covering this stuff since before I was there, and thus he generally knows what he’s talking about. So he may be right; I’ll have to look into it further. Anyway, the Indians are definitely in this year. The tournament info will be online here when it’s unveiled — either this Friday or next Friday, I think. (The tournament itself starts next Saturday, March 1.)

UPDATE, 2/20/03: I e-mailed Lipshez, and he confirmed that Newington last made the state tournament in 2000, my freshman year in college, with a 9-11 record in the regular season — same as this year. The Indians in 2000 then lost in the first round of the tournament to Bristol Central. So, in order to finish 2003 with its best record since 1998, Newington would need to win its first-round tournament game. Otherwise, the Indians will merely equal their final 2000 record of 9-12. This year’s tournament pairings will be announced next Friday, Feb. 28.

The 2000 season was Kathleen Burdelski’s senior year, and she was really good, so of course I should have known the Indians made the tournament that year. Silly me, I just forgot.

Speaking of Kathleen, she is now a junior — and a team captain and star player — on Eastern Connecticut State University’s nationally ranked Division III women’s basketball squad, which defeated Western Connecticut State University on Tuesday, 78-52. Kathleen played a team-high 31 minutes and had nine points and six rebounds. My mom, who works at Eastern, attended the game and sent along this photo of Kathleen and her dad after the game:

My world is approaching a two-day total of 500 hits — 197 yesterday, 287 and counting today — and it’s all (or mostly) thanks to Reverse Cowgirl Susannah Breslin and her blog post insulting me last night.

With enemies like this, who needs friends? Susannah’s derisive commentary on my blogosphere-event post has produced my site’s second-biggest hit bonanza ever — surpassed, of course, only by my InstaBoost earlier this month.

My top ten list of daily “unique hit” totals now looks something like this:

1. Feb. 3, 2003 - 3,326 (InstaPundit, Slate, MSNBC links)
2. Feb. 2, 2003 - 1,586 (InstaPundit link)
3. Feb. 4, 2003 - 1,094 (InstaPundit, Slate, MSNBC links)
4. Feb. 18, 2003 - 287* (Reverse Cowgirl link)
5. Feb. 5, 2003 - 259 (InstaPundit, Slate, MSNBC links)
6. Feb. 17, 2003 - 197 (Reverse Cowgirl link)
7. Feb. 6, 2003 - 162 (InstaPundit, Slate, MSNBC links)
8. Dec. 17, 2002 - 139 (random Google hits)
9. Feb. 7, 2003 - 136 (InstaPundit, Slate, MSNBC links)
10. Jan. 5, 2003 - 123 (random Google hits)
*and counting

The unofficial death toll in the South Korea subway attack is 134 and rising. This is already getting into Oklahoma City-range numbers. What is the alternative explanation, if not terrorism? Who sets a subway on fire, and kills scores of people, for fun?

I’m reminded of my dad’s longstanding theory that Osama bin Laden has fooled everyone, and is hiding out in Pyongyang, North Korea. But “terrorism,” of course, does not necessarily mean Islamic terrorism. North Korean terrorism is another thought. So is domestic (South Korean) terrorism. My conspiracy theory aside, it will be interesting to see how this investigation develops.

May God bless the innocent victims of this terrible tragedy, whatever its cause.

UPDATE, 3:05 AM: All right, so mental illness is another possibility, and that’s what the latest reports are suggesting. UPI says a police spokesman “refused to say if the man was linked to any terrorist organization or was acting alone, however another officer said Kim was suffering mental disease.”

The New York Times reports that Korean all-news TV network “said Kim, reportedly a truck driver, had threatened previously to burn down a hospital after complaining that he had not been treated properly there. … The mayor of Taegu, Cho Hae Hyong…said…[the suspect] had been found ‘to have a history of mental illness.’ ”

Maybe. I remain curious. Here’s an updated list of articles found through Google News featuring the terms “korea,” “subway,” and “terrorist.” Let’s see if the list expands.

I found a transcript of the Aaron Brown interview with anti-war activist Ron Kovic that I referenced in my blog on Friday. It’s even worse than I remembered. The highlight:

KOVIC: Tomorrow, en masse, citizens all over this world are going to say, we feel there must be a better way. There’s got to be a better way. There has got to be a better way than all of this devastation and brutality and violence. And we are going to begin, with dignity, to move our country and our world in a different direction in behalf of peace and not war and violence. We’re tired of the violence. It can only hurt our nation…

KOVIC: If we attack Iraq, Aaron, if our government uses its shock-and-awe tactics, two days of intensive bombing, tens of thousands of innocent civilians will be killed.

Read that again.

…[In] two days of intensive bombing, tens of thousands of innocent civilians will be killed.

He is actually predicting, with a straight face, that America will kill tens of thousands of civilians. In two days. For fun, presumably.

What is this guy smoking?

(Then again, protesting war while high on drugs is a grand American tradition, I suppose.)

For the record, the Human Rights Watch says that the “upper limit” for the number of civilians who may have been killed by American forces in the Gulf War — the whole, entire war — was between 2,500 and 3,000. So, tens of thousands in two days of bombing this time around doesn’t just sound ridiculous. It is ridiculous.

The whole transcript is priceless. Kovic never gets beyond saying simply that “war is bad,” despite Brown’s (tragically weak) efforts to get him to answer the tough questions. Another example:

BROWN: Ron, let me try and get one more question in here. … If the United Nations, the international community, were to sanction this war, would you feel differently?

KOVIC: I am going to — I think what’s happening right now, Aaron, is something — as I said, something quite extraordinary in the world. I think people should watch tomorrow and they should realize what’s going on. Millions of citizens are going into the streets, nonviolently…

Blah, blah, blah. No accountability, no creativity, no new ideas. Not even enough decency to answer the question. Just a lot of complaining and griping and self-aggrandizing.

And this is why I become more pro-war with each passing moment.

My dad, above, and my mom, below, stand in the snow during the Blizzard of 2003, a.k.a. Blizzard Daniel, in our Newington, Connecticut front yard on Feb. 17. Both photos were taken with my mom’s new digital camera, which I bought her for her birthday. Click here for more storm photos.

Seen on a street corner in downtown L.A. this evening:

Hehe.

Watching Dr. Phil on David Letterman’s show just now, I was inspired to visit Letterman’s website, where I discovered this Top Ten list from last Wednesday’s Late Show:

Top Ten Things Saddam Hussein Wants To Get Off His Chest

10. “I don’t have links to Al Qaeda, but the same guy does our taxes”
9. “Of my 24 palaces, 19 are just timeshares”
8. “Kim Jong-Il cheats at Scrabble”
7. “I bought most of my medals on eBay”
6. “You know what I use to liven up leftovers? Anthrax”
5. “Sometimes even I confuse Iran and Iraq”
4. “Is it just me, or does it seem like Michael Jackson is weird?”
3. “Christiane Amanpour — call me”
2. “Try to find a parking space in downtown Baghdad, now that’s torture — am I right, people?”
1. “I can’t prove it, but I think Hans Blix took a leak in my pool”