Michael Braun's Blog

Today was the first day of classes. First impressions are very important, so I dressed in a nice grey shirt and a tie. I wore jeans, but only because I am fashion conscious (i.e. I don’t want to look like a jerk). My shoes were nice, but not super nice. And I wore my grey “Coldplay” jacket, as it has been dubbed by my roommates. I had four power lectures in a row. That was a little rough, but because it was the first day of class, I didn’t worry too much. I will be dropping one of those classes, hopefully the class I had right away at 9:30. It seems interesting, but 4 lit. classes is too much. I will only drop it, however, assuming that I can get into this other class. The prof. loves me, and I am number one on the waiting list, so I am not worried. I am so not worried that I went and bought the books for that class and not for the class I am planning to drop. Anyway, my dress today was all about politics. I was there dressed that way for a reason – to make a good first impression.

Some minor Apple drama is going to unfold, I predict. Bob wants us all to participate in a bi-weekly conference call lasting around an hour. This seems reasonable. The trouble is that the system works by having all participants call into a central location which then facilitates the call. The number to call in is toll-free, but when you use a cell phone it still charges you. Because Laduma, Jeremy, and myself only have cell phones and indeed do not even know anyone with a landline, we would be forced to pay for this call. I raised this issue with Bob, who had no solutions, and to Jason, a guy who works for Apple in Chicago, who suggested I look into expensing the minutes. Business phone calls are covered as an expense, so I e-mailed the coordinator of the campus rep. program to ask her about expensing it, and so far she hasn’t gotten back to me. The way I figure it, if I go over my minutes, it costs $.25 a minute. That seems to be what the cell phone company values per minute. They only cut me a discount rate because I buy in bulk. So I think that I should get $15 for an hour long call. They are my damn minutes and I am not giving them up to Apple for free. I get free incoming calls so I give out my number freely for business purposes, which is a lot more than other reps do. If I get that much money, one hour on the phone will net me $25! Pretty awesome, but I suspect this plan is going to meet with some flack.

But we are very good at playing politics over here in Madison, and I sent out an e-mail detailing the problem of not having a landline. Jeremy responded soon after that he also needed a solution to this problem because he didn’t have access to a landline either. This perfect political play means Bob is about to have a full-scale revolution on his hands, and we are sure to win. Way to go, Jeremy! It was a brilliant move.

Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, said yesterday that New Orleans will once again be a “chocolate city.” What he meant of course is that those residents with skin color darker than pale will be given help to rebuild their lives in the city and that they should not be afraid to return. New Orleans, after all, pre-Hurricane Katrina was 67% African American. He also made some references to the will of god, which were neglectible. But a lot of people are in an uproar now about what he said. I think he could have made his point with more tact, but god damn it, haven’t those people suffered enough? George Bush does hate black people, and brown people, and yellow and red people, purple and green people – if you ain’t pale, he’s got no time for you. So isn’t it about time that we see some more statements like that from powerful people like Mr. Nagin? I think so. I stand behind him, even though I think his points could have been made in a way that represented what he meant so he didn’t have to go around explaining it to everyone. But I feel him and support him.

Hilary Clinton made the news too for a statement she made on Monday in which she compared the House of Representatives to a plantation. People are upset by this, probably because she is a woman and her comments make sense. Think about it – the House is run by a bunch of rich, white, land-owning, Southerners. The difficulty in her statement comes in when you try to fully carry our the analogy – who are the slaves? But even with this difficulty, I still stand by her statement. I appreciate what she had to say.

Of course, both these figures were put on the political chopping block for making statements that seem to imply we do not live in a society completely devoid of racial prejudices. Well, what do you know, as much as Republicans and other idiots would like to deny that racism is not institutionalized and is still a problem in the world, THEY ARE WRONG! So thanks to you, Mr. Nagin and Ms. Clinton, for bringing up some of these problems. And for giving me the opportunity to talk about politics in this post.