Seems like everyone’s celebrating birthdays lately. Why fete the aging process (to be emo in only the second sentence)? I guess everyone loves to party, and at some point people said, OK, birthdays are a good time to do that. I wonder sometimes why it’s not alright to party on Arbor Day, the best day of the year, but I don’t worry too much about it and go back to my Arbor Day revelry. It’s pretty much the biggest time of the year for me and a much-needed counterpoint to the solemn pagan rites I practice at the change of each season. (None of the above was true. [But I am now a vegetarian.])

Anyway, birthdays are a good excuse to party—I went to a half-birthday party earlier this month and a friend’s celebrating being 21 and three-quarters next week. But when you get to college, who needs an excuse? It’s Tuesday? Have a party! Midterms over? Time to throw down! GUSA fails again? Get stupid! Despite our party-heartiness, birthdays are a bigger deal now than they were in pre-adolescence. Maybe because you have all your friends close at hand and readily available alcohol… or maybe it’s something else entirely!

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Tasha Manoranjan, a 2008 graduate of Georgetown, organized the recent People for Equality and Relief in Lanka (PEARL) fast for peace in Sri Lanka. After completing the fast with a rally at the White House last Friday, Tasha and I talked over email about her work on the fast:

How many people fasted?
8 people were fasting; we fasted continually for 19 days. We successfully achieved our goal of 10,000 meals fasted.

How many meals did you personally give up?
I personally gave up 45 meals — it sounds a lot scarier added up than it did on a day-to-day basis!

Out of the many worthy causes in the world right now, what about the situation in Sri Lanka has made you so compelled to take drastic action?
I was born in America, but I heard from my parents throughout my childhood why they were forced to flee Sri Lanka. I heard about the discrimination by the Sri Lankan government, that meant my parents couldn’t study what they wanted to study, or even study in their own language. I heard about the peaceful protests that they participated in, that the government violently put down. I heard about the attacks of 1983, known as Black July, in which over 3,000 Tamil civilians were massacred in 10 days of violence that the government sponsored and supported. I felt a connection to the people there, whose lives I could be leading, if my family wasn’t lucky enough to escape to America. So I returned to the island in 2004, to volunteer in a girls’ orphanage and teach English. I spent time at the Sencholai Girls’ Home, getting to know the girls there and the tragic lives they led. I befriended one girl, whose parents had been killed in the government’s aerial bombing campaigns in the 1990s. Talking to her and seeing how few opportunities she had to look forward to in her life inculcated a sense of responsibility in me, to all the people I left behind there.

I took a year off from Georgetown in May 2006, and I spent it volunteering in the northern region of Sri Lanka. In August of 2006, while I was working in a nearby community center, the grounds of Sencholai was bombed. The government dropped 16 bombs on this area, delivering waves of fear and destruction. A first aid and leadership camp was going on at the time, and 61 schoolsgirls were killed. I knew I had to do everything I can to bring an end to this suffering.

Why did you decide to show support with a hunger strike?
We felt the suffering in Sri Lanka was so desperate, that we needed to do something similarly desperate. Sacrificing food is something whose impact is felt within a day, which shows the urgency we felt in providing relief to Tamil civilians under attack in Vanni. We have done regular rallies, protests and marches in the past, and while they too are effective tools in raising awareness about neglected crises, we felt we needed to do something more unique and compelling to convey the imminent danger Tamil civilians were in.

What were the ultimate goals of the strike?
The goal of the strike was to ask President Obama to call for an immediate ceasefire, and to allow international aid, journalists and human rights monitors into the region. Only then will Tamil civilians have some respite from the hell they have been experiencing.

Is there any way we at your alma mater can help? Why do you believe this is an important cause for Georgetown students to pay attention to?
Absolutely! Georgetown students have a unique sense of awareness of the world around them, and their role in improving humanity. PEARL relies on people like that, to participate in our campaigns and educate their Congressional offices about Sri Lanka’s continuing crisis. Please visit our website at www.pearlaction.org to see our most recent letter to Members of Congress, and take 2 minutes to send it to them. Sending a letter takes less time than it does to go through the line for lunch at Leo’s, but it makes a world of difference.

Were you active in humanitarian work or social activism during your time at Georgetown?
I was active with our Amnesty group, and participated in other human rights campaigns. We organized a campaign with STAND to stop the genocide in Darfur, and another campaign to stop sexual violence against women in Juarez, Mexico. I also worked with UNICEF to organize a fundraiser for tsunami relief to refugees in Sri Lanka.

How did you become involved with PEARL?
Myself and a group of college students went to Sri Lanka in the summer of 2005, and we all volunteered in different fields: some of us taught English, others worked in hospitals, others worked with IT students. But when we came back to the United States, we found a disturbing similarity throughout our experiences: everyone realized how little awareness and education there is surrounding Sri Lanka’s conflict. We decided to form PEARL in 2005, to educate others about Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict and to promote a sustainable resolution that respects the rights of all communities on the island.

What was it like, to fast for so long?
It was definitely difficult the first few days, and I could slowly feel my body rebelling against me, demanding food. But as I read the news and saw how the situation for Tamils in Vanni continued to worsen, I felt the least I could do was stand in solidarity with them and urge the U.S. government to get involved.

Anything else you would like to add?
Often times with massive man-made crises such as what is enfolding in northern Sri Lanka, and what has been unfolding in Darfur and other troubled regions in the world, the international community focuses on what label best applies to the situation. In my opinion and in the opinion of our organization, what is happening in Sri Lanka is genocide. Utilizing the definition of genocide in international law, which defines genocide by the intent of the attacking party, Sri Lanka’s crisis demonstrates the intent of the government to systematically attack Tamil civilians: from herding Tamils into a “safe zone” and then continuously bombing this area, to ordering medical personnel to leave this region, to shelling the one main hospital 10 times, finally destroying it completely and killing 61 patients in the process. This tragic narrative reflects the intent of the Sri Lankan government to kill off a substantial part of the Tamil ethnicity in Sri Lanka — and if the international community maintains its silence, the government will succeed.

Thanks, Tasha! Read more about the Sri Lanka crisis here, and read more about the Pearl project here.

Aw, look at the sad cat. Too bad he’s just another member of a very dumb species. On that note, let’s hit the week’s links before they go stale on us:

• Have your parents recently joined Facebook? Commiserate with others and contemplate your sorry fate.

• I’ve been saving this game for a rainy day, but I couldn’t hold back any longer: Rose & Camellia is a game that illustrates the illustrates “the elegant art of feminine conflict.” In other words, it’s Japanese noblewomen slapping each other silly. Enjoy!

• Ever wonder what Russian LOLcats are actually saying? Turns out it is hilarious and sad.

Hit the jump for Skittles vodka, neat t-shirts and some naughty synonyms.

UPDATE: Now with Hugh Jackman giving Barbara Walters a lapdance!

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After a long weekend of Mardi-Gras-celebrations-itis, it’s good to be back here at Indy central (hold on–turning down $1 mixed drinks, jambalaya and free shit? Who am I kidding?). Anyway, let’s get to this week’s tunes.

As Greg so kindly posted last week, tracks from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ upcoming album are leaking all over like a bad diaper. Get the newest one, “Heads Will Roll,” here. This is a pretty glammed-out single, a far cry from grungy tracks like “Black Tongue” or anything on their last release, Show Your Bones. Frankly, I’m more into “Zero,” with its fuzzy guitars and New Order-y synth.If these tracks are indicative of the rest of the album, the YYYs are definitely getting in touch with their New Wave selves. This could be disaster for many bands, but I’ll put any genre into this one’s capable hands. Look for It’s Blitz! on April 14 (and more leaks in the coming weeks, I’m sure). Read Full Post

What is the first word that comes out when you stub your toe or start banging your head against the desk after six hours of nonstop studying? Is it “ow,” “ouch,” “ay,” or something else?

According to the Online Etymology dictionary, “ouch” derives from the German cry of pain, “autsch.” Since the earliest examples of “ouch” have been found in the U.S., it is likely that the German word was transmitted into English via Pennsylvania German version of “autsch,” which was “outch.” In any case, it is not clear where “autsch” came from—it is a relatively rare word in German—and the OED simply suggests it is “probably imitative” of the sounds that occur naturally when we experience pain.

Steven T. Byington, writing in the Dec. 1942 issue of American Speech, recalls that in his childhood, “the interjection of sudden pain was [aʊ], which we assumed to be merely the sound that the human voice spontaneously produces under the stimulus of sudden pain, but it is…coincident with the German ‘au.’”

Is there a consensus among languages as to what is the “natural, spontaneous sound” that emerges when one hurts oneself? In Japanese, the interjection expressing pain is “itai”; in Spanish it is “ay” (”although in Spanish it is oftener lamentation than pain,” according to Byington) and French has the similar “aïe”; meanwhile, the Russian interjection expressing pain is “Ой.” As for the ancient world, Greeks would use “ah” for sharp sudden pain, the Romans would exclaim “au,” “hau,” or “vau,” and in Hebrew the interjection was “oi.”

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You may remember Junior Jack from Jess’ Hump Day Music post on crazy house music videos, but the man deserves more than an honorable mention within a larger column. He deserves his own damn week of music, and that’s what he’s going to get. Mr. Jack, otherwise known as Vito Lucente, is an Italian who has produced music under many different pseudonyms, including Room 5 and Don Vito. His music videos have come from the Junior Jack and Room 5 sides of his personality, so let’s take a closer look at this baron of bootyshakers.

Oh, and this first video is NSFW, so don’t show your boss, unless they’re into that sort of thing.

  

That was ‘See You Dancin’,’ Junior’s most recent new single and his most recent video. The bouncy, uplifting melody and vocals are typical of his oeuvre, although that Corvette/horse chase is just plain silly. Also, the protagonist of the video is Mr. Jack himself.

Next up is ‘Music and You,’ a 2003 collaboration between Room 5 and Oliver Cheatham, he of the silky voice. This video manages to turn you on and showcase the importance of a dirty rat to the proceedings. I feel like some very weird mental associations are being formed here (this one is really NSFW, though nudity is strangely absent):
 

Hit the jump for 5 (that’s right, five-oh) more videos from JJ.

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Last week both PBS and CNBC aired financial-crisis specials. Both pieces are entertaining – maybe I’m biased – but above all they leave the viewer with an impression of the complexity of the modern financial system. The interconnectedness of disparate parts of that system contributed to its near-total implosion. But we can’t do anything about complexity – it’s built into the financial system. We can look back fondly at simpler times, but complicated-ness is today’s reality.

Complexity in the financial industry should be viewed as a given: no amount of regulatory oversight will change it. What is the point of increased regulation, then (I’m increasingly asking myself)? It’s all well and good to suggest that more oversight is needed, but how would that work in practice, and what difference would it really make? I’m sure the House Banking Committee had fun chastising the CEOs of the eight biggest Wall Street banks, but doing so was hardly productive. Increased “regulation” in the future would probably look like that: people in charge would take a tongue-lashing on the Hill and possibly pay fines as penance. What good does that do anyone?

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There are times when an artist hasn’t produced a body of music videos large enough to merit an entire Techno Tuesday column and the valuable real-estate of this blog. This doesn’t mean that they deserve no notice, however. Solution: the Techno Tuesday Amuse-Bouche, designed to whet your musical palate and get you dancing on your lazy Sunday.

Today, David Morales graces us with ‘Needin’ U II,’ the 2001 rework of his seminal 1998 smash, ‘Needin’ U.’ Mr. Morales is currently mired in the schmaltzy world of cheesy dance-pop, but this goes a long way towards making those memories disappear (slightly NSFW):

  

If that piano doesn’t bring at least a little smile to your face, then we should probably never meet, since I would not want to be your friend. Happy Sunday, and see you in 48 hours.

So if you remember all the way back to the December 2008 issue, you may recall that Scott Oranburg wrote an interesting and slightly intoxicated commentary on the issue of Georgetown as a drinking school.

His inspiration for the article, as he discussed in a staff meeting, was the idea that there were so many brilliant writers who could only write while intoxicated, and he wanted to see if the approach had any merit.

I was immediately taken back to that staff meeting discussion this morning when I read an article in the New York Times, in their rotating Editorial column called “Proof.” The column has interesting perspectives on the role of drinking in American life, and today’s column was about– you guessed it –drunken writers. The article itself was pretty intoxicating; I finished reading the whole thing before I even realized it. Enjoy!

In my town, dirty snow sits in piles on sidewalks and front lawns. The sky is the color of gunmetal; the cold reaches up to it and seeps indoors at the windows, whose glass rattles against the wind. In the morning the windshield wipers are frozen to the bottom of the windshield, unless we remember to raise them the night before. Our cat sleeps more than normal.

Where I’m from – Massachusetts – winter stretches on interminably. Back in Georgetown, daffodils are nosing upward and spring seems ready to take its first breath. Here it’s cold, cold: next week will be and next month will be, too. Where I’m from people deal with it. You only see countdowns to March 21 on roadside signs at nurseries, whose business will be slow until the earth softens again.

Massachusetts has four months of warm and eight of cold – I never tire of D.C.’s spring beginning in late February. Spring is a time to be giddy, a time to be young and enjoy being young; it can’t come soon enough. Last week I suggested that we Georgetowners need to mellow out a little – to stop and smell the proverbial roses. Spring is the embodiment of that attitude. When the weather warms it gets a lot harder to focus on school and a lot easier to loll about outside.

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Since this is a music column, it's more like Free Robot SAX, amirite?

Jess is out this week with a severe case of going-to-New-Orleans-for-Mardi-Gras, so I’ll be handling your Music du Jour du Hump today (assuming ‘hump’ is masculine, of course). I will try to emulate her music savvy, but if you find my treatment lacking, well, your mom. There’s a lot of music news out there to tackle, so let’s get to it.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are about to come out with a new album, entitled “It’s Blitz.” The first single, ‘Zero,’ leaked down the internet tubes recently. Have a listen, I’ll wait…
For those of you who stopped checking out the band after the emo-rific success of ‘Maps,’ this may sound a bit strange. It’s catchy, though, and the electro-rock thing is pretty well done. For a peek at the album’s tracklist and the mindf#%king cover art for ‘Zero’ check out Rolling Stone’s coverage.

It's like this, but sexier.

Next up are some old friends of ours, Royksopp. The Norwegian house producers have come out with a new single, entitled ‘Happy Up Here.’ It’s got a bouncy rhythm, and a melody reminiscent of ‘Eple,’ except this time there are words to go along with it. The track manages to preserve the light-but-epic (yeah, I know it’s confusing) style of the group, complete with breathy and ostentatious lyrics. Good stuff.

Our last new music release comes from Sonic Youth, who are supposed to finish “The Eternal” sometime before June. I’m not a big fan of their stuff in general — Anoraak is scratching my angsty itch with their smooth jams at the moment — but they’ve been around for a minute, and are wicked important. The album art, tracklist and some explanation can be found here.

Pitchfork takes a fair amount of of crap for managing to publish intellectual masturbation on a regular basis, and getting other people to read it just as regularly. Their review of “Incredibad,” the comedy album from the Lonely Island, managed to complement the “stickiness” of the group’s online videos. Eww (unless this is supposed to be some sort of literary term, in which case — blarggh). On a related note, Overheard Music recently dissected a Pitchfork review, and she really lets ‘em have it. Worth a long weekend read.

And finally, those of you wondering who is behind Hipster Runoff, the Village Voice comes just a little bit closer to uncovering the truth. Black leather semi-robot suits FTW.

That’s all this week. Jess will be dishing out your music next Wednesday. It was nice meeting you all in this context, but let’s not do it again, mkay?

I don’t remember where I found this (I think it was 4chan, so I won’t link there for your sanity), but it always makes me smile. Meta-jokes for the win, I say. With that out of the way, here are your links:

• This may be the best Barack Obama toy ever. Lightsabers and microphones in the hands of the POTUS can only lead to good things.

• This game draws a line in various directions based on the noise you make. Try playing a song to see what it ‘draws,’ it’s oodles of fun.

• ZOMG THAT BIRD COMES OUT OF NOWHERE. 

• If you like Paul Rudd, you’ll love this: a blonde Rudd in a very bad Hong Kong action movie. Never forget the robot, man.

Hit the jump for a raunchy song by Flight of the Conchords, another crazy Obama toy and the continuation of the series by the dude who hates nature.

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There has been a distinct lack of American representation in recent editions of this column, but I am going to rectify that in a big way today. Armand Van Helden is a Boston-born DJ who made his name and an assload of awesome house in New York City. Beginning in 1999, this Dutch-Indonesian dude started making some of the best house music videos out there. Let’s kick things off with a sexy, dorky look at beach life in ‘My My My,’ released in 2006. If only this were the big Georgetown anthem of my sophomore year, instead of Kelly Clarkson (NSFW).

 

Next up is ‘Full Moon,’ a collaboration with Common (before he was wicked popular, natch) released way back in 2000. We get a glimpse of the brash NYC club scene at the turn of the millenium. Also, boobs. NSFW (this might be a theme):

 

Hit the jump for FIVE more videos from this maestro of making you shake it.

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Today’s NYT business section – which I feel obligated to read as an MSB student, even if I prefer “House & Home” and “Thursday Styles” – had a brief piece on a Playmobil airport security set. The toy has garnered criticism online, largely from parents who see little need for a plaything that encourages acceptance of the so-called “State Security Apparatus.” The company, based in Germany, countered with the claim that it presents real-life situations to children through its toys. Leaving aside the fact that an airport security Playmobil is boring, the situation raises questions about toys’ role in our culture and toy companies’ responsibilities to its main customers.

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So I was sitting in the Indy office, minding my own business, when a box of pizza caught my eye. Lo and behold, the “Real California Cheese” logo was on the box…..and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had seen that rising sun over verdurous rolling plains before. (Nevermind that I grew up in California, where they (the man? the media?) threw that logo at us like an extra Pop-Tart they had opened but couldn’t finish).

It is rather interesting that a symbol many would recognize as representative of Hope, Change, etc., is actually drawing on the same principal elements of advertising that have been in use for a long time. The dawn over hilly land: reminiscent of “simpler times,” “hardworking folk,” and that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when “greeting a new day” (a day that doesn’t involve studying for a midterm). It’s funny, really, that a beacon of Change for America was formulated (intentionally or not) using some of the most basic tools for emotional appeal. It’s even funnier that the “Real California Cheese” logo was developed in 1984. Well, maybe it’s not funny, depending on whether you consider yourself a part of the Obama revolution or not. But, the material point still stands.

I didn’t include the updated Pepsi logo here because it explicitly draws on the popularity of the Obama logo (as opposed to demonstrating less conspicuous underlying patterns). Rather, I just wanted to point out that subconsciously, as much as we may desire this “new age” under President Obama’s leadership, we are still a collective populus that thinks very similarly. I could go on about whether this is good or bad, or actually not true at all and simply the rantings of a sleep-deprived Georgetown student, but I won’t. I’m not that invested in the “Real California Cheese” logo…and I should probably do all of the homework I neglected during the long weekend. Oy vey.

Thoughts? I’d love to hear them. Other similar logos? I’d love to see them. Procrastination? I’m there.