Birthday Weekend Photos

Happy Birthday to Me!

Mets over Marlins, 7-2.

Meet Your 2008 National League MVP

David Wright:


It's Opening Day! All is (W)right in the world.

My Law School Application Personal Statement

Nobody's interested, most likely - but just in case:

Politics, while not the family business, is certainly the family passion. From an early age, I remember discussions of politics and public policy at the dinner table – discussions which would later shape my life’s journey from the classroom to the campaign trail, and contribute to my lifelong love for the madness of Election Day.

In my life, I’ve been fortunate enough to have so many great mentors but none has been more influential on my personal political beliefs than my mom. When I was in fifth grade, I wrote a report on censorship in libraries in which I proposed that parental sign-off should be required for those books which were found questionable. When my mom read my first draft, it was quickly explained to me that what I suggested was still censorship. Before I knew it, I was on the phone with my Mom's cousin Art, who at the time was President of People for the American Way, and a few days later I was reading reports he sent to me outlining censorship attempts around the country.

From that day forward, I was an ardent defender of the First Amendment. In high school, this would cause me to butt heads with my school district's administration. On more than one occasion I spoke at school board meetings as the editor of the school newspaper to protest censorship by the principal. It was always pointed out that the law was not on my side as the U.S. Supreme Court's 1988 Hazelwood decision gave the administration the right to exercise editorial control over student publications. Regardless, I still felt the need to plead our case and work to change the policy.

Despite my strong interest in politics throughout high school, I went into my freshman year at Harvard as a Physics major with dreams of one day becoming an astronaut. However, by the time I reached sophomore year, I was considering switching my focus from a life among the stars to a life devoted to politics and public service. While I continued to work hard in my scientific studies, more and more of my free time was filled with extracurriculars focused on public service and student government.

It wasn't an easy decision – to leave physics behind and pick up an entirely new major after years of focusing on the sciences. It required me to imagine a new future for myself where I wasn't riding in the space shuttle but working to get strong leaders elected and progressive laws passed.

Eight years later, I am preparing to once again make a big leap, this time trading in the campaign trail for law school. While the differences between the legal realm and the political arena are not as great as those between physics and politics, it still requires me to re-imagine my future. I will have to trade in press releases for court briefs and case studies and law books will fill the space on my desk where districts maps and call lists currently reside. Fortunately, my time working in the New Jersey Senate has opened my eyes to the true power of the law and the ways in which a law degree can help have a greater impact in promoting progressive policies in my community.

I see law school as an opportunity to expand my ability to bring about the changes needed in New Jersey and across the country. My interests definitely lie in public interest law, particularly civil rights and constitutional law. For me, law school is not a means to get a well-paying job in a big law firm, but rather a way to be more effective in giving a voice to the voiceless and empowering those who don't think they have much power.

Temple’s Beasley School of Law appeals to me because of its focus on teaching its students to use to the law to serve those in need and its strong reputation for preparing students for public interest careers. The LEAP program looks particularly interesting to me as schools too often neglect civics and legal education.

In short, law school is the next step in a natural progression that began during my childhood as I learned from my family the importance of the First Amendment and civil rights, developed during my college years when I felt the call to a life of public service and now continues in my early career as I realize the true impact that the law has on our lives every day. I'm now ready to take the next step and become a lawyer so that I can do even more to serve my community.

The Fat Envelop Arrived

Unfortunately, given last week's e-mail, this was rather anti-climatic, but still exciting nonetheless. You open the 8.5x11 envelope to find the following:


Then there's the actual acceptance letter:

It brings back all of the good memories of getting my Harvard acceptance letter some 11+ years ago.

Birthday Week 2008 Looks to Be a Good One

This year's week-long celebration of the anniversary of the birth of yours truly looks to be an above average one. Let's take a look:

• March 29: First, we have the admitted students open house at Temple, where I actually tour the campus for the first time. I'm getting real excited about it all. Then the Birthday Party kicks off the week, with festivities moving to Dave & Busters after enjoying three straight years at the Cheesecake Factory. Many video games will be played, many drinks will be drunk and many jokes will be made at Scrappy's expense.
• March 31: The big day! I get the day off from work and might be going to see Obama speak at Muhlenberg with Maggie. Can we celebrate? YES WE CAN!
• April 1: Dentist. Okay, this isn't that great, but it does mean that I'm finally taking care of my teeth.
  
• April 2: Pub Trivia at Fado. I fear I might be addicted. Good thing that I rock the trivia hard core.
• April 4: Off again from work to evaluate the FPS State Bowl. How many hopes can I crush this year? Hopefully all of them.
• April 5 (Bonus Day): Mom and Dad come down to Philly.

That's a nice week to look forward to. Plus hopefully I'll put in my first deposit for Temple and be on my way to becoming a lawyer.

R.E.M. Week Continues

And our wall-to-wall coverage of R.E.M. continues on the Big D as we approach the one week mark in the countdown to Accelerate (R.E.M. gives me a birthday present a day late).

Today we offer audio of R.E.M.'s recent show at South by Southwest at Stubbs via NPR:

Click to listen

Also, when are they going to get around to announcing when tickets are going on sale? June 18 with be here before you know it.

UPDATE: At around the 52 minute mark, Michael Stipe spreads some Obama love. Nice!

Driving in Cars

I can't wait - 8 more days!

h/t Todd.

A Very Special Announcement

Courtesy of R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe:



Only 8 days until Accelerate!

Senate Ball 2008

Pictures from the Senate Ball. See my bow tie? I tied it myself. Hot!

We Get Letters

Great news today:

Dear James,

I am delighted to inform you that you have been accepted to Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law for the Day Division of the fall 2008 semester. An acceptance packet with additional information for admitted students was recently mailed to you and you should receive it shortly.

We do not usually notify students of their acceptance to the law school via email. However, we will be holding our annual Open House for admitted students next Saturday, March 29, 2008 and I wanted to let you know as soon as possible that you have been admitted and invite you to the Open House. If you would like to attend, please reply directly to this email and let me know if you will be bringing any guests with you.

I encourage you to visit our Admitted Student Website. You can access the site by clicking Admitted Students under Quick Links on the home page of the law school website, www.law.temple.edu. The username is ****** and the password is ******.

There is a wealth of information on the site including everything from applying for financial aid, the first year curriculum and a list of suggested readings from our faculty. We have also posted information on the Open House along with directions and parking information.

On behalf of the staff of the Admissions and Financial Aid Office, congratulations on your acceptance to Temple Law and we look forward to meeting you soon. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or need any information. We can be reached at 800-560-1428 or 215-204-8943 (direct to the Financial Aid Office).

Sincerely,

Johanne L. Johnston
Assistant Dean for Admissions & Financial Aid

I'm gonna be an owl!

I want a more perfect union

I really have nothing insightful to say about Obama's historic speech yesterday. It's one of those rare speeches that keeps you thinking for days afterwards. Words mean a lot to me - they are what separate us from animals and allow us to work together towards a common goal - and Obama's speech yesterday was exceptional not because of its eloquence and inspirational tones, but because of it's bare honesty and desire for us to do better.

This is a speech that everyone needs to take the time and watch entirely:

Google gives us more awesomeness

In fact, they gave us the universe.

Rock the O'bama

From yesterday, including a random black and white I baked:

My St. Patrick's Day 2008 Shirt

It is teh awesome:

http://store.barackobama.com/product_p/ts26946.htm

199.8

Today's weigh in. I'm totally smacking Jay around in our weight-loss competition. Only six more weeks to go...

All hail King James, Beneviolent Ruler of Donutland

If it's March Madness, it's time for Todd's Donutland Pool. Will this be the year that I return to the throne for the third time and take my rightful place as the King of Donutland? Time will only tell. Though I do have to choose a method of picking my brackets - at random? By feel? Or maybe something more arbitrary, like picking teams from "states that don't matter" over teams from "big, important states"?

Happy St. Patrick's Day

A little Irish punk for you all on this most important day (and only two weeks until opening day!):

This is what happens when you diss the caucus states

If you're not a political super-junkie, you might not realize that when Iowa held its caucuses on January 3, that was only the first step in a four step process. The delegates selected on that day were for the county caucuses that happened yesterday. The county caucuses do the exact same thing that they did at the precinct caucuses, with the possibility of people shifting their votes to other candidates. The delegates selected at the county conventions then go on to the district and state conventions, where the actual delegates are selected.

In years past, the county conventions really didn't mean much, since the candidate had pretty much been decided by the time they roll around. In fact, the county convention is usually the step in the process where the presumptive nominee gains all of the Iowa delegates. But this year is anything but ordinary, and a funny thing happened today in Iowa - Barack Obama picked up 9 delegates over Hillary.

From the AP:

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama expanded his fragile lead in delegates over rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday, picking up at least seven delegates as Iowa activists took the next step in picking delegates to the national convention.

Half the 14 delegates allocated to John Edwards on the basis of caucus night projections switched Saturday and Obama got most, if not all, of them.

Iowa Democratic Party officials said that with more than 86 percent of the delegates picked, Obama claimed 52 percent of the delegates elected at county conventions on Saturday, compared to 32 percent for Clinton. About 16 percent of the delegates picked at Saturday's conventions were sticking with Edwards, even though he's dropped from the race since Iowa held its caucuses in January.

Democratic Party projections said the results mean Obama increased by seven the number of delegates he collects from the state, getting a total of 23 compared to 14 for Clinton and seven for Edwards, with one to be decided.

I guess saying that a state doesn't count isn't a winning strategy for picking up delegates when every single one matters. Go figure!

Also, a note to the AP - let's not let the Clinton campaign edit your articles anymore, m'kay?

Twelve automatic delegates bring the state's total to 57. Obama has been endorsed by four of those and Clinton three, with the remainder uncommitted.

No matter how many times Mark Penn & Co say it, they are not "automatic delegates," they are "superdelegates," and undemocratic.

Gruyere

Gruyere is now my new favorite cheese. It used to be a toss-up between smoked gouda and harvarti with dill, but I had a sample of some amazing Gruyere on Thursday while gathering some dinner ingredients at Whole Foods and my entire cheese-worldview changed in an instant.

The Griffin Plan for Municipal Consolidation

I think that Governor Corzine is on the right track when it comes to using the stick to force small municipalities to consolidate. It makes little sense to have 3 towns of 4,000 people, each with it's own tax collectors and police department and mayor, when you can have one town of 12,000 with a single system of taxes, police coverage and local politicians - a much more cost efficient system. The State's budget problems are not at the State level - it's getting really hard to find anything else to cut in State services given that it's only about 1/6 of the entire budget. The problems lie in the gross inefficiencies brought about by home rule. Given that, I think we need a fair, balanced system for deciding which towns get to stay and which ones have to merge.

Five simple rules:

1. No towns with less than 10,000 people. If you don't get merged because of one of the other rules of this system, you're going to have to either join a bigger town or find a neighbor in the same boat to merge with.
2. Every county is limited to 15 municipalities. Therefore we will have at most 315 municipalities after the merge.
3. Every town must have a unique name. All of those Washingtons and Franklins - this one's meant for you. This is more of a means to ending the confusion when telling someone to meet you in Washington and then having to specify a county.
4. Neighboring towns sharing a core place in their names must combine. North Brunswick, South Brunswick, East Brunswick and New Brunswick - congratulations, you are now the City of Brunswick! Same goes for all of the Seasides, Cape Mays, and Oranges.
5. Adios, Bogota. Originally, I thought of this to prevent Steve Lonegan from being a Mayor anymore. Now it's just punishment for having elected him Mayor in the first place.

Eventually I'll get around to applying these rules and seeing how many towns we actually would have afterwards.

And while we're at it, let's merge the school districts into 21 county districts.

Why "Stovetop Diplomacy"?

"Stovetop Diplomacy" is the name I've given to my theory that one of the best ways to get other people to like you, particularly co-workers, neighbors and members of the same sexual preference, is to bring in baked goods from home and shared them. It's a bit of a corollary to the idea that the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

I have a great deal of anecdotal evidence supporting my theory. During my summer at PFAW, people fell in love with my black and white cookies so much that I became the designated baker for all of the birthday/farewell parties for that summer. At the Senate Democrats, my carrot cakes and apple pies have become legendary. And every month I bake something for Colleen to bring to the hospital to bribe the nurses with.

The bottom line is, to succeed in the world office politics (or love), it doesn't hurt to be known as the guy or gall who pleases the sweet tooth on a regular basis. Heck, even if it's the only thing you know how to cook, that one decent recipe could be the biggest gun in your arsenal.

Food Recipe Friday

Spinach Salad with Garlic Lemon Shrimp

2 packed cups baby spinach
3/4 cups sliced baby bella mushrooms
1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
6 slices thick cut bacon
1/4 cup light honey mustard dressing (I like Newman's Own)
8 oz shrimp, peeled and deveined
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp lemon pepper
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp dried cilantro or 1 tbsp fresh cilantro

1. Place bacon slices on a wire rack on top of a rimmed cookie sheet and bake at 425 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes until crispy.
2. Combine spinach and mushrooms in a large bowl and set aside.
3. Combine shrimp, lemon pepper and garlic salt is a small bowl and allow to sit while bacon cooks.
4. After bacon is out of the oven, melt butter in a saute pan over medium-high heat. Add garlic to butter and saute for a minute. Add shrimp and cook until pink, about 4-5 minutes.
5. Remove shrimp from pan. Add onions and allow to sweat for a few minutes until slightly limp. Add bacon, crumbled or cut into pieces, and dressing. Allow to warm through.
6. Toss warm dressing with spinach/mushroom mixture. Serve salad on plate topped with shrimp.

Serves 2.

We're open for business

To be honest, I've tried to get a blog up and running a few times in the past five years or so, but my most successful attempt was during college, before blogs were in fashion. The killer of that site was that I didn't even use any software or content management system to post my diaries - I did it the hard core way, by hand coding the thing (or maybe I had Dreamweaver 2 or Frontpage back then).

Anyhoo, I figured it was time to get back in the saddle and do a blog up right. I've had plans to start Stovetop Diplomacy for a few months, but kept pushing it off because I wanted to learn how to design with WordPress first. Well, I'm finding it hard to make the time to learn it, so I just broke down and decided to use blogger until more free time becomes available.

In the meantime, this blog will focus on politics, both national and in New Jersey. But expect a fair amount of posts on cooking, technology, pop culture and the next World Series Champions - your New York Metropolitans.