I love oil paints. They're marvelous: I, the naive colored-pencil user, never realized until now that colors could be mixed and smudged so brilliantly, though they make a mess of my hands.

I don't mind scrubbing up afterwards: these days I'm always looking for excuses to soak my hands in the soothing warmth of hot water.

I went for a walk in Rock Creek Park as snow fell. It was silent, except for the sound of the water rushing in torrents, and white but for black trees and black rocks, and I think I understand why Robert Frost, with miles to go before he sleeps, took a moment to stop and wonder.

However, I had not, on going there, taken into account that even though this current snow shower had only produced a slight dusting so far, like six inches of snow were already on the ground from the Blizzard. People had already tramped through it over and over, making the trail look like rutted cobblestones. The snow had then refroze again, basically leaving a cemented trail of crisscrossing pits and gashes of varying depths (six inches or more), leaving me stumbling around, and unable to simultaneously admire the scenery as I walked. I did, upon stopping every once in a while to look around, notice a bunch of rabbit tracks, and deer tracks which looked like they'd been created by a psycho on a pogo stick (I don't know, maybe they had). It was much easier to just stay in someone's ski tracks, or run across the top the virgin snow off-trail like Legolas, which was possible because the upper crust was frozen solid. Sometimes, if I stood in one place too long, the crust would crack and I'd sink calf-deep in snow and it'd get all in my boots. Quite a mess, really. Other times, the icy crust would hold, but I'd slip on it and leave Angie-shaped craters in the snow.

This is the most profound thing I've seen in a long time.

Ah, lots of playing of Super Smash Brothers with Malex during the Blizzard of '03. And frying dumplings, but mostly, lots of playing of Super Smash Brothers. I tried it out again, by myself.

Apparently, I can unlock Falco as a bonus character if I beat the game with all the normal characters. Hurrah! More mindless video gaming soon to come!

Happy unstressed post-IA period... and our orals are cancelled! Whoopie!

New York trip on the March 6-7. Niiiice. Rob and Malex are going, as far as I know, but I don't know who I'm rooming with because I have no female friends in Econ who're going. I just signed up randomly.

I think it's quite possible to fight for peace and fuck for chastity, as the saying goes.

It's certainly been done: I was reading an article about crimes committed against civilians during World War II. Women in Berlin (towards the end of WWII) would prostitute themselves to one Russian soldier so that he would protect her from being gang-raped by a group of them. People call "peacekeeping" soldiers hypocritical for fighting to prevent more intense and extended periods of violence, but would people tell these women who have suffered so much the same thing?

I saw Mimi in stat wearing a pin that said this: "War doesn't determine who's right, but who's left."

I have something of a problem with this line of logic, which is as follows:

1) The winner of a war is the group that is best at making war, not the group that is morally superior.
2) The outcome of a war does not determine moral superiority.
3) Therefore, we should not go to war to show that we are morally superior.
4) War is never morally justified.

My logic is as follows.

1) The winner of a war is the group that is best at making war, not the group that is morally superior.
2) The statement above can be applied to any other contest of skills. The winner of a pie eating contest is the group that is best at eating pie, not the group that is morally superior.
3) The outcome of a pie eating contest/war does not determine moral superiority.
4) Therefore, we should not enter a pie eating contest/war to show that we are morally superior.
5) However, many other reasons besides demonstrating moral superiority justify entering a pie eating contest. ("I was hungry, I wanted to see if I could do it, pie contests are my hobby, etc.")
6) Many other reasons besides demonstrating moral superiority justify entering a war.
7) Ex: "I am entering this war to stop the advance of Nazism and the murder of thousands of people." In this case, someone is going to war to prevent the fulfillment of something he/she considers immoral.
8) Entering a war for this reason is the equivalent to: "I am attacking this man because he is mugging an old lady and I want to stop this."
9) It is not the equivalent to: "I am attacking this man because my mighty fist will show him that mugging old ladies is wrong."
10) Therefore, entering a war to stop or prevent immoral actions is not the same as entering a war to prove moral superiority.
11) While war does not prove moral superiority, people can still wage war for other moral reasons.

I realize that of course there are many other issues such as: Is a war morally justified? Is it morally justified to send other people? Is it morally justified despite the civilian casualties? If we're so concerned about morality how come we're only dealing with the issue right now?

So it isn't black and white by any means. I still have no opinions about Iraq except that if we do go to war I would support it. I don't know the politics or economics of it. But ideologically, I think in general that saying "War is never justified" through said reasoning is flawed.