Currently 4:30am now and the RAM, video card (now SLI’d), DVD burners and SATA HD are in computer #2, thankfully running smoothly.

Time to buy a new power supply. Maybe replace those parts in computer #1 along with a new mobo/processor and leave computer #2 a relatively uber machine.

Work tomorrow’s gonna be hell.

Tuesday had the incredible idea to relate HTML coding with written Chinese language as compared to plain English. Some students seemed to take to that more than just straight rote or trial and error. Getting a succession of subs to “co-teach” as my regular Walking Teacher’s License seems to be on an extended leave. The subs are more proactive anyway.

Romanian guy, really nice. Wife was a teacher back home, tried it out here; left after two weeks. Doesn’t understand our aversion to corporal punishment (and really, neither do I) or the seemingly universal disrespect to education in general and educators in specific.

We talked about traffic and outer-borough types, and it came that I studied urban planning on the topic of empty pied-a-terre condos. Turns out he does a bang-up business in November/December ferrying wealthy Europeans and Asians from JFK to their hotels with empty suitcases and from their hotels back to JFK with full ones, and how NYC basically went from being the third most expensive place to live to “not even in the top ten!” Moscow’s now more expensive. Moscow.

Considering that I can’t imagine any other place to live, I’m shocked. NYC: Filene’s Basement of the world. The bargain capital. We really are, as the epithet goes, a third rate Babylon.

By the way: Gowanus? Red Hook? Get some darker brews. Your effete drinks need weight to them!

Speaking of gaffes, what happened while we were talking about Obama’s bowling game, Clinton’s beer chaser, their Colbert appearances et al? The President admitted to approving the meetings where his cabinet green-lighted all the torture methods we said we never did or will do (while simultaneously arguing how it’s not actually torture).

The time the political fallout should have occurred, the news media was tied up with the Dems and the pope, which Bush waited on the tarmac the Tuesday after his Friday admission to receive, and lead him to the largest White House event in the history of the term.

What leader of the free world waits in the airport? That should have been a clue.

Clinton, people believe your Pennsylvania story about as much as they believe your Bosnia story.

Honestly, both of you need to devote more time talking about McCain’s ridiculous plans for the economy or the war and less time shooting yourselves in the foot. For fuck’s sake.

Thursday - Discovered secret of previous installation of wireless access points, which only required calls to three separate offices, calls back to all three separate offices but this time asking for their names, providing proof of identity twice, and finally a visit to the dean and custodian’s office for a little more insight on who’s been tampering with the system since. Became increasingly convinced there is no official oversight to the system as is and proceeded to turn six classrooms back online instantaneously.

Friday - Good Friday. Especially good when drunk.

Monday - Asked to demonstrate how to open locked wrought-iron laptop security cart without key. All it takes, apparently, is a little spit and a total lack of proper decorum. Students walked out with peripherals for a classroom computer under the nose of a teacher who, natch, can’t identify them. A student previously kicked out for threatening to assault a teacher and possible gang activity returns, skips all classes and wanders the halls. Class is, again, a total wash. Co-teacher gave friendly advice, nodded off. A student dropped a laptop, prompting frantic inquiries as to whether the school is still under warranty.

Tuesday - Indoor swimming pool piping overflowed. Light fixtures doubled as faucets. Asked to fix nine year old math program database under license of a school that no longer exists, without documentation, software or support. Calls to company provided contacts for professional development sessions that cost more than actually upgrading the software.

Wednesday - Students on fifth floor discovered that ripping out the wiring from aging light fixtures can cause short-circuits that black out half the building. Disassembled and reassembled a laptop under cover of darkness, without internet lookup because the hub rooms were out of power. Class much more amiable when laptops are placed in front of them and asked to do something creative. Can’t even remember what the co-teacher was doing. Asked for raise.

- William Fallon, Admiral of the US Navy and leader in charge of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars resigned on March 11th, in a controversy over differences between policy choices between himself and his subordinate, General David Petraeus. Fallon preferred a quicker US withdrawal. Fallon had a reputation of being rather outside the White House and the Department of Defense’s choices in the wars as well as their military policy in relation to Iran (reportedly, he was the sole voice against taking military action against Iran), and while Defense Secretary Robert Gates explicitly denied it, he also categorically denied any other significant reason as to why the leader should leave now.

- Iraq Veterans Against the War recount excesses and atrocities in Winter Soldier 2008 from March 13th through the 16th, inspired by the 1971 Winter Soldier Investigation of the Vietnam War. Of major daily print newspapers, only the Boston Globe, Herald and the Washington Post reported on it - none on the front page. There are videos on Democracy Now.

- Dick Cheney, when asked by an ABC reporter on the Sultan of Oman’s luxury yacht on March 24th to explain how he believed the War on Iraq was a success when two thirds of Americans were against it, cut her off to reply, “So?”

No, really.

The issue, to me, is that his anger is being construed as outrageous in its vitriol. Preaching to the choir? Perhaps. Counter-productive? Arguably. Outrageous? Not in this America. The rhetoric coming back that this is consummate hatred as compared to righteous indignation is bordering on reprehensible. It’s as if the commentators are howling, ‘How dare Blacks be angry about their lot?’

Obama did much to point out on the national level what I had assumed was obvious: Black anger, while not politically correct, is not unwarranted, and while the issue is at best on pins and needles, to demand penalty by association (Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Black Nationalist movement?) and, by some circles, a public apology (and even comparisons to Don Imus) is adding insult to injury to what is clearly an open wound in American society.

The Youtube videos and network coverage of Wright finally allowed race to come to the fore in the election instead of sliding around the periphery, alluded to but not directly discussed, and Obama’s speech opened up a constructive, intelligent dialogue on the subject. To prematurely close that debate because Rev. Wright’s rhetoric was too harsh on some pundits’ ears is, to me, the real outrage.

The things that don’t fucking matter: x) Paterson’s sexual history.

Today’s NY dailies front pages:

New York Post: George Paterson’s history of sexual trysts. 0/3, x

New York Daily News: George Paterson’s former illicit lover. 0/3, x

AM New York: Piece on a former soldier in Iraq, Paterson. 1/3, x

New York Newsday: Full color spread on Obama, blurb on Paterson. 1/3, x

New York Metro: Picture of Obama supporter tearing up. 1/3

Wall Street Journal: Blurb on Obama’s speech, economy. 2/3

New York Times: Economy, color spread of Iraq, blurb on speech. 3/3

I can see why the electorate’s so goddamn uninformed. According to press time, a governor’s marital infidelities are just as important as the next president’s views on race and indeed more important than the largest recession since the Great Depression and the second coming of Vietnam. What the fuck.