Mac owners and users of most Apple products like to think of themselves as “special.” They’ve not been sucked into the use of the evil PC which is dominated by intergalactic dictator Microsoft, no way. They’ve stuck by the rebellious Apple, they and Apple have a “special” relationship and they damn well want that relationship recognized!

So when the iPhone came out many Apple users expected that relationship to be honored. They weren’t happy when they had to stand in lines to get the device and when it turned out to be, well, a phone they were disappointed - they expected better from Apple!

Then came the news that Apple was slashing the price of the phone from $599 to $399, scandalous! The waaaaaa-ambulance went into overdrive until Steve Jobs said Apple would give everyone who paid the original price a $100 credit - after all, none of the chosen few could be expected to think that Apple would actually want to sell more of these devices because Apple isn’t like the galactic dictator Microsoft - no way. Apple is “special.”

Next these “special” users cried and complained when the device was locked to one phone company. They began calling upon their collective genius while conjuring the spirit of the Rebellion and they devised a sneaky little program to unlock their iPhones and use the GSM network of their choice. Score one for the Rebellion!!!

Not.

It turns out their little software program does a lot more than just unlock iPhones. When the new iPhone update is installed on a device which has been unlocked using unauthorized software the phone becomes disabled and Apple has said it will refuse to return these units. You see - unlocking a phone using unauthorized software voids the warranty so Apple is under no obligation to take any of the unlocked devices back. So all the new, proud iPhone users who unlocked their devices got approximately 2 months of usage out of them. At the original price of $599 minus the $100 credit that means the iPhone has cost them around $8.31 a day - what a bargain!!!

Fools. Let’s see how long it is until they’re screaming and crying about how their “special” relationship with Apple should take precedence over Apple’s right to use proprietary software on its devices. I expect it won’t be too long.

Memo to the “special” : Apple is a corporation - not a family. Get used to it.

I recently read in our campus newspaper that of the 70 top-ranked universities in the United States NYU ranks last in student satisfaction with financial aid.

NYU is a top-ranked university but it doesn’t have an endowment that matches its reputation. Thanks to mismanagement earlier in the university’s history the NYU endowment is barely $1.5 billion. Compare that to Yale’s endowment which this year topped $22 billion, and NYU is a far larger university than Yale.

Endowment matters. NYU doesn’t have the extra cash to ease the onerous debt burden its graduates take on. This results in a vicious cycle where graduates can’t afford to contribute back to the university, resulting in a lower rate of giving than many other similarly-ranked schools, resulting in a lower endowment and on and on and on.

I’m luckier than most. I received a scholarship and a fellowship but I’ll still graduate from NYU heavily in debt. I’ll probably contribute to the school when I can, but until NYU breaks this cycle its going to continue to receive low rankings on financial aid as well as an anemic endowment.

The Burmese junta has reached the end of its rope. Killing Buddhist monks and nuns is unacceptable, intolerable and absolutely horrible.

Is there no regime China will not support if it feeds the Chinese desire for raw materials? Let’s see - Zimbabwe, Sudan… nope, seems like there is no limit to what China will allow as long as it gets its oil, timber, coal or nickel needs met.

There will come a time, and soon, when China will pay a price for its sanctioning of the execution of peaceful protesters in Burma.

Again - don’t think the waves of violence, rage and pain which emanate off the oppression of the Burmese people will not echo in the surrounding nations and the world. Just as the cries of rage and pain echoed off the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and which wreaked a destructive path across Africa, now responsible for more than 3,000,000 deaths. Death, pain and rage just don’t go away - the enormous energy released in the process of these crimes transfers itself far and wide,

Finally I’ve got a break from class and studying to reprise my deleted entry from over the weekend.

I went out to dinner Friday night with a friend for her birthday. She took me to La Esquina - the secret downstairs part - where I had an amazing salad and soft chicken and beef tacos. I have to say it was the best Mexican food I’ve had so far in new York - but still not as good as we have in California ;-0 The most important thing to me was getting to spend a little one-on-one time with her and we had a fun dinner.

Afterwards we went to Bungalow 8. I had a good time, my friend’s friends are all great people who were quite friendly to me. At one I point was dancing on one of the ottomans before I nearly fell off and decided it was time to step down. I went to an after-hours after B8 but because of a miscommunication with my friend left shortly thereafter.

There - reprised.

Oh - my hosting company told me it was basically my fault that I hadn’t backed-up my blog code so they were compensating me only for 1 month of service rather than the year I demanded. This after my site was down twice, once for almost 24 hours, and it took them days to get back to me. In the end all of my graphics prior to Monday have been stripped and the background changed. What a bunch of asswipes - this isn’t the first snafu with them. I think its time to find a new hosting company.

Wonkette had it right when they called Giuliani “a venal rat-faced creep” but little did anyone know he was also a necrophiliac vampire, simultaneously sucking on and fucking the memories of our September 11 dead.

Giuliani’s campaign supporters came up with the bright idea of asking donors to send contributions to his campaign in the symbolic amount of $9.11 in order to “show support for America’s mayor.” If this doesn’t prove the Republican party will stoop to absolutely anything, anything to politicize 9/11 then I don’t know what will.

Let’s see how long the media picks up on this. After all - they’re still harping on MoveOn’s factually correct ad asking if General Patreus would “betray us.” I guess a general is so sensitive he must be protected at all costs but the memories of the dead of September 11th are open to misuse and exploitation - as long as it’s being done by the Republican party.

Two good pieces of news today:

1. My boyfriend, the Good Doc, is once again under consideration for publishment in a prestigious cancer journal. The title of this manuscript is (redacted to due legal and IP considerations.)

2. I received a fellowship in law from NYU today. This requires my attendance at a number of study courses with preemminent scholars like Alan Dershowitz, a number of research papers and attendance at retreats where we study Jewish legal theory. It’s an honor and it’s paid - so it’s doubly nice.

I am not a Columbia student, I’m a student at NYU but I’ve felt a sense of solidarity with beleaguered Columbia these past couple of days.

Politicians and members of political advocacy groups have no place inserting themselves into the academic arena and “demanding” Columbia cancel the visit of the Iranian President. Yes Ahmadinejad is a disgusting tyrant who hates Israel, restricts women’s rights and advocates for the death penalty for homosexuals. All of these are positions I abhor but all are positions Ahmadinejad should be questioned on, in public, by progressive members of the Columbia community.

If there is one thing we should have learned over the past 7 years is that ignoring and ostracizing a regime because you don’t agree with its statements or policies is foolhardy, destructive and dangerous to this country’s moral and strategic position in the world. Worse yet is the meddling in the affairs of a private university. Conservatives love to talk about how the government should stay out of the private sector - until it comes to a situation like this one and then they feel government should be able to meddle all it wants. Combine that with the shameful role of Jewish organizations in this debate and you have a real mess.

Academia is about intellectual freedom. I know that means little-to-nothing to this administration which has made great sport out of trashing intellectual opposition to its incompetency in foreign statecraft, but despite 7 years of increasingly heavyhanded attempts to meddle in the right of universities to police themselves they’ve still not managed to exert the same control over academia they they have over the media. And thank G-d for that.

The other part of that statement was “freedom.” While the past 7 years have seen a draconian limit on our freedom to speak out against the destructive path this nation is on we still have the right in a private university to invite whomever we want and to listen to their views, no matter how repugnant they are.

The media, starting with Scott Pelly’s disgustingly abhorrent and aggressive interview with Ahmadinejad last night on 60 Minutes, is once again swallowing the lies of this administration hook, line and sinker. The drumbeats of war grow louder and instead of a little skeptical questioning we get a whole lot of rhetoric and pressure on Columbia to dis-invite a President it has every right to invite in the first place!

Back off Columbia and take a stand for academic freedom.

Chile’s Supreme Court has ruled that former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori can be extradited back to Peru to face human rights and corruption charges related to his 10-year reign in the 1990’s.

Combine this ruling with recent rulings extraditing former Liberian president Charles Taylor back to Liberia, Slobodan Milosevic to the Hague and Augusto Pinochet to Spain (which wasn’t carried out due to his ill health) and one could state that there now exists in customary international law a case for the removal of any sovereign immunity attached to former heads of state. While I haven’t read the Chilean Supreme Court’s ruling (it’s now only available in Spanish) I eagerly await a translation to see what the reasoning was behind ordering Fujimori’s extradition.

Each of these cases is different but all of them rest on the defendant being accused of violating human rights law or UN sanctions. In Fujimori’s case he was extradited from Chile to face a Peruvian court and not, as in the other cases, an international tribunal.

I’m curious as to what defense Fujimori is going to use? It’s obvious he had de jure policy and strategic Command Responsibility as he was both head of state and the armed forces of Peru, so an “out-of-the-loop” defense is just not going to work.

I’m watching the reaction to the changes in international law wrought by these cases with interest. All world leaders must now know that any action they carry out in the capacity of their official duties of office which contravenes international law will be punished. The days of rapacious dictators robbing, raping and plundering at will with no regard to the consequences, while not finished entirely, are coming to an end.

I’ve had a lot of issues with my blog recently. First the site was down for more than a day, then back up, then a new blog entry was deleted and finally the site is now stripped of all the images and using an old font. I’ve contacted my hosting domain for support and they’ve said it’s definitely related to their “upgrade” which at this point feels more like a downgrade.

Had a great, great time last night at my friend Nick’s new bar on the Lower East Side. For the first time in a long time in NY I’ve actually seen people working the dancefloor like it was a runway - so cool. Walked home 20 blocks through the humid, warm NY air - felt good.

New York is awash with Eurotrash. One can’t take a step without bumping into French-speaking tourists wandering aimlessly while gazing at their guidebooks. Alternatively you have to dodge young Germans wearing dark socks and shorts and asking plaintive questions like “Do you know where I can get some drugs?” Ha! “Not likely,” I tell them, glad to have a “talk to the hand!” moment at the expense of my people’s Deutsch oppressors. What kind of place do they think this city is - Amsterdam? Or worse - one of their own brothel-filled municipalities? Not likely.

The decline of the dollar has led to New York teetering dangerously on the edge of slipping back into the role it played in the 80’s, when the dollar was weak, the market was high and cocaine was cheap and plentiful. One again the dollar is weak, hedge funds are rocking and cocaine is cheap and plentiful (one imported commodity that hasn’t increased in price).

All of these circumstances combine to create a perfect storm wherein Europeans flock to our shores and use their absurdly overvalued Euros and Pounds to try to buy their way into our most exclusive palaces - which doesn’t work. If New York knows anything it knows money and waving a fitful of Euros at the doorman at Cipriani while screaming “zer ees more where zees comes from” isn’t going to gain you admission, it’s going to gain you a cracked skull.

It’s funny - the more things change the more the stay the same. I hate trite expressions like that one but in this case it’s true. Same scenario, different cast of players.