Becky and I went to the San Diego Zoo on Saturday, and I took a bunch of pictures with my new camera. Check out the monkeys!!

There was also an incredibly cute group of koala bears lying all over each other:

And here’s Hua Mei, the giant panda who was supposed to be sent back to China several months ago. Apparently the delay has something to do with SARS. Dunno if pandas can get it, or what, but yeah.

The verdict is still out on the camera, by the way. It performed great at the zoo, but still seem to be having a bit of trouble in less-than-ideal lighting situations. I’m continuing to test it out… I can return it up until next Tuesday, if I want.

Click here for a full gallery of zoo photos!

UPDATE: My dad comments that the SARS delay is due to concern for the panda’s human handlers. He’s right, according to this article, which also reports that this is only the latest in a series of delays: “The panda, born at the zoo Aug. 21, 1999, was scheduled to leave San Diego last September, shortly after her 3rd birthday. Her departure has been pushed back several times. … Paperwork problems in Washington delayed her departure, and then officials in China decided it was too cold there to move her during the winter. A planned May departure was pushed back to June so officials could properly plan a celebration for the arrival of the first giant panda born outside of China to come to the land of her origin.” Now, “neither Chinese nor zoo officials wanted to put at risk [of SARS] the humans who would need to travel with her. Now it’s anyone’s guess when she will leave. Hua Mei’s health is not the issue, said Donald F. Lindburg, head of the zoo’s giant panda team, because it is very unlikely a panda would be susceptible to the SARS virus.”

If this is true… wow.

Today is the 16th birthday of my “honorary sister,” Kimberly Stone!

Kim (or as I generally call her, “Kimber”) is a Newington High School sophomore and the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Stone, the Newington school system’s dynamic computer duo. (The pictures above and below were taken on Kim’s middle-school graduation day in June 2001, when she was 14.)

When I was at the high school, Mrs. Stone was the faculty advisor to the school newspaper, Scribe, and Mr. Stone was our technical advisor. Because I was Scribe’s editor-in-chief from the midpoint of my sophomore year until the end of my senior year, I spent a lot of time (and ate many a Subway tuna-fish sandwich) with the Stones.

During that time, I watched Kimber grow up from a fourth-grader into a sixth-grader, and by the time I graduated, we considered each other “honorary siblings.” (Each of us is, biologically, an only child.) Now she’s a high-school sophomore… which makes me feel very old!

Anyway, yeah, my little sister is turning Sweet Sixteen today. Sniff, sniff. Happy Birthday, Kim!

“Helen of Troy is brought to you by Ex-Lax Milk of Magnesia.”

Becky and I are going to the San Diego Zoo, and I haven’t gotten the “post from cell phone” feature working on the new site yet, so I won’t be updating my website much today.

The NFL Draft doesn’t start for more than 90 minutes, but Carson Palmer is already the #1 pick. He signed with the Bengals on Wednesday. Hooray for Carson!

I’ve gotten a lot of hits from people searching on Google for “carson palmer pics” and other search terms related to Carson, and I suspect many more will come today. Unfortunately, some of these people aren’t finding what they’re looking for. So, here’s a handy guide to the Carson Palmer content on my website:

• Everything Carson-related in my blog is in my USC Football & BCS category. But, maybe you don’t want to wait for the whole category to load, so…
• Here’s Carson winning the Heisman in New York City, with photos.
• Here’s my reaction to Carson winning the Heisman.
• Here’s more on Carson’s Heisman win.
• Here’s Carson and USC winning the Orange Bowl.
• Here’s Carson unveiling his Heisman on campus.

Well, I got the camera yesterday evening. Bought it at Wolf Camera (same company as Ritz) in Beverly Hills, 90210.

Ritz/Wolf offers a really great warranty, including protection for accidental damage — e.g., if I drop the camera and it breaks. So I bought that for $46. Unfortunately, they only have a 10-day return policy… but I couldn’t find anywhere with anything better than that. Well, except WalMart, but they don’t offer extended warranties, which, in the long run, is more important.

The jury is still out on whether I’ll be using that 10-day return policy. So far, I’m very impressed with the camera’s range of features, but somewhat less than impressed with the image quality it seems to deliver. I’ve gotten a lot of pictures that seem like they should be sharp and fully in focus, but aren’t.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that I’m doing something wrong. I will be poring over the instruction manual in the car today on the way to the San Diego Zoo, and I’ll definitely be testing the camera out at the zoo. By the end of the day, I should have a clearer idea of whether I like the camera or not.

Speaking of clearer ideas, here’s a clearer, sharper image:

Stay tuned.

Went camera shopping at Best Buy this afternoon; played with my desired camera a little; didn’t buy it. Not because I don’t like the camera, but because I don’t like Best Buy’s return policy, which isn’t as generous as Circuit City’s, as it turns out. They only give you 14 days to return a camera, and they charge a 15% restocking fee.

I like to keep my options open, so while I’m 90-95% sure I’ll want to keep this camera, I’d prefer a more lenient return policy. Unfortunately, Circuit City (which gives you 30 days, asks no questions, and charges nothing) doesn’t sell this particular camera. I’m now considering buying it from Ritz Camera, which, according to its website, allows 30 days and has no restocking fee.

I’m going to jump on the bus to a Ritz Camera in Beverly Hills — zip code 90210 — shortly.

Glenn Reynolds has some interesting thoughts about what we can learn from Star Trek as we try to win the war on terrorism:

Will Star Trek bring peace to the Middle East? Probably not, but it couldn’t hurt. Our enemy in the Middle East is fanaticism, and…a narrow sense of what’s possible. Star Trek, and the worldview that Eugene Roddenberry championed, stand squarely against both.

Hmm… not quite the same Trek analogy that my wacky liberal/radical/socialist/anarchist political-science professor, Dr. Wallis, was driving at when he compared the United States to the Borg a few weeks ago. (Heh. “We are the Marines… you will be assimilated…”)

Parental advisory: explicit lyrics! This post, although purely political in nature, nevertheless might offend some people who are squeemish about sexual issues. It is therefore not intended for readers under the age of 18!

In the context of a conversation about Rick Santorum and the potential ramifications of the Supreme Court sodomy case, I wrote the following in an e-mail to Andrew:

I would rather live in an America without laws against bestiality and incest than in an America with laws against consensual sex between two gay people.

Now, there’s a thought experiment I never expected to be engaging in.

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I didn’t end up going camera shopping yesterday after all. Instead, Becky and I went to see the comedy show “Reno: Rebel Without a Pause — Unrestrained Reflections on September 11th,” as Reno (the performer) had a one-night engagement at a small on-campus theater. Her act was quite funny (if radically liberal).

Anyway, I’m going camera shopping now. :)

I neglected to link to Becky’s DT column yesterday about Rick Santorum’s horrible anti-gay remarks.

Personally, I would love to see some mainstream Republicans (by which I mean pretty much anyone other than the Northeastern Republicans, or as they call them in Texas, “Democrats”) condemn Santorum’s comments, just as so many did — to their great credit — after Trent Lott’s remarks implying he liked segregation.

Only time will tell if this will happen, I suppose. But it isn’t looking good, judging by yesterday’s White House press conference:

QUESTION: Does the President know more about what Senator Santorum said? Does he have any feelings about his comments? Do they think they were inappropriate or appropriate?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, I’ve expressed it as we see it.

Well, that speaks volumes, doesn’t it?

Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine (one of those Northeastern Republicans I mentioned) said, “Discrimination and bigotry have no place in our society, and I believe Senator Santorum’s unfortunate remarks undermine Republican principles of inclusion and opportunity.” Well said, well said — but you gotta wonder, if Republicans believe so strongly in those principles of inclusion and opportunity, why is Sen. Snowe practically the only one sticking up for them now?

Of course, I understand that it would be incredibly unpopular with an enormously huge bloc of conservative voters, especially in the “red states,” to shout Santorum down for something like this… but I don’t care. This is a matter of principle, one of those situations where inaction is a form of action — if you fail to act against bigotry, you perpetuate it.

Just as with race relations a few decades ago, society will never change — the “red states,” in particular, will never change — until the Bill Frists and Mitch McConnells of the world have the courage to stand on a mountaintop and denounce anti-gay bigotry. Why them, why now? Because the battle for the hearts and minds of the American Street has to begin somewhere. It’s going to have to be courageous conservatives who lead it, and now seems as good a time as any.

As far as I’m concerned, anyone who stays purposefully silent on Santorum’s statements for political reasons is complicit in his bigotry, and deserves to be called out on it. And any Republican who condemns Santorum on principle, especially if they do so despite likely political fallout, is a hero, just as heroic as the Supreme Court that decided Brown vs. Board of Education, and deserves to be treated as such.

It probably won’t happen. But if it does, Andrew, I might just become a Republican after all.

Jay Leno, for his part, has a couple of good comments:

“Sen. Rick Santorum is causing a lot of controversy this week with remarks he made about gays. He said, ‘I have no problem with homosexuals, I have a problem with homosexual acts.’ Well, maybe he’s doing it wrong.”

“Gay rights groups are calling for Santorum’s resignation because he compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, adultery and incest. It’s not just the gay groups who are insulted. The Mormons are insulted because he included polygamy, Congress was insulted because he included adultery, and Arkansas was insulted because he included incest.”

Heh heh.

On a totally unrelated note, Leno also had a great comment on those wacky Shiites:

“Did you see those Iraqis making that pilgrimage, slashing their foreheads with knives and whipping their backs with chains? See, when Saddam Hussein was around, they weren’t allowed to make that pilgrimage. If they tried that with Saddam Hussein, he would have slashed their foreheads with knives and whipped their backs with chains.”

More funny jokes here…

UPDATE: More on sodomy laws here.

It’s a beautiful day at USC, with crystal-clear skies and temperatures in the upper 60s. A bunch of trees with purple flowers are in bloom on campus, and lots of other flowers are popping up as well, as the university’s groundskeepers get the campus ready for graduation.

The only thing disrupting the beauty is the persistent smell of fertilizer, which is also part and parcel of the graduation preparations. (USC was in the midst of one of its occasional fertilizing sprees during the week when Becky and I first got together, so we sometimes joke that nothing makes us more nostalgic for those bygone days than the smell of sh*t.)

Visually, though, it’s simply gorgeous. I would take some pictures, as Glenn Reynolds sometimes does when his U. of Tennessee campus is looking particularly pretty… but unfortunately, my digital camera is missing. Or, perhaps I should say, at this point, lost.

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Becky’s and my friend Adrienne Graves turns 21 today! Happy birthday, Adrienne!

Sorry for the lack of updates in recent days. I’ve been busy with school work and such. But, I’m almost done now; three weeks and a day until graduation, and I only really have two things left to do in school: one journalism paper and one political-science final exam. After that, I’m outta here. Real world (or law school), here I come!

Today is my friend Jen Persaud’s 23rd birthday!

Er, I’m sorry, Jen is turning 21 for the third time. (I thought women didn’t start lying about their ages until at least 30…)

Happy Birthday, Jen!