MarcFriedenberg.com

The STLR team strikes again!

I helped write this blog post. It’s a side project of the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review. You should read it and tell me what you think.

Although the idea isn’t exactly new, I was nevertheless extremely surprised and impressed with my college newspaper, The Daily Collegian for putting together this Google Maps mashup of police and fire incidents in the State College area. Well done!

My weekend was awesome. If you can provide evidence that your weekend was more awesome, well, congratulations. Let me tell you about mine.

Friday we saw our friend Marnie perform in the musical, The Yellow Wood. She was excellent, as was the rest of the cast - you should go. I love legitimate theater.

On Saturday Becky and I again ventured onto the island to see the documentary, In the Shadow of the Moon. Needless to say, I eat all this space stuff up. I didn’t really learn any new facts per se, but there was plenty of footage I hadn’t seen before, and hearing about Apollo from the astronauts’ points of view was fascinating. I was struck by how understated many of them were. Becky was so excited that she avoided falling asleep. A few notes:

• Becky excoriated me for giving up my childhood (and teenage) dream of becoming an astronaut. I replied by saying that, in a strange way, being a lawyer is perhaps a direct route, insofar as the easiest way to become an astronaut in the coming years will be to pay as a tourist.
• Watching Kennedy’s speech where he sets the famous goal of putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth before the end of the decade, I got really pissed off at President Bush. After September 11, he had a golden opportunity to push this country to do great things. Kennedy understood that America excels at solving big problems that other countries can not, or will not. He could have challenged us to become energy independent, to build universities throughout the world, to put New Orleans up on stilts - whatever. We know what happened. He’s a greedy, intellectual lazy man who will eventually have to face up to what he’s done.

Then on Sunday I went to the Mets game. It’s fun to be able to take a subway to a baseball game, at least if you hate paying for parking as much as I do. The game was a joke, Glavine didn’t escape the first inning, and I was able to go home to follow the Phillies game (sadly, I had to keep clicking “Refresh” over at Yahoo! Sports because the game wasn’t on TV). I can’t really communicate how special the Phillies’ winning the NL East is. I’m still worried I’m going to wake up.

Anyway, I’ll be done with my callback interviews on Friday. The whole process has been pretty painless, actually. I hope to say the same of the rest of this semester.