I blame my subscription to Mother Jones. It’s a kick-ass investigative journalism magazine, but let’s face it: the subscriber demographics skew liberal.

Therefore I occasionally get political mail. Sometimes it’s kind of hilarious. That’s the nature of political mail—it’s old fashioned propaganda designed to get you to donate money to a candidate. Much like the fake telephone surveys where political campaigns will ask you “How would you feel if Senator So-and-So was a serial rapist?” The Senator isn’t actually a serial rapist, but the questioning is designed to put that idea into your head.

The cynic in me loves the political scheming. Adores it. Wants to take it behind the elementary school and get it pregnant.

Cut to today’s mail: a letter from “James Carville” via the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. I’m not sure if Carville did indeed write this letter. Probably someone on his payroll.

The envelope reads: “It’s Sarah Palin’s Tea Party NOW … DETAILS INSIDE.” There’s also a picture of Palin growling in Mama Grizzly fashion.

This Mama Grizzly knows how to growl.

Some choice tidbits of the letter (will provide full text upon request, if you’re really that interested):

• “I’ve been in politics for a long time, and here’s what I know about 2010: Sarah Palin’s summer of lies road trip is in full swing.” [Ed. note: Bold is original to letter]
• “Sarah’s already campaigned for more than a dozen tea party lunatics…”
• “She’s [Sarah Palin] doing a bang-up job of stirring up the crazy.”
• “You can stop this radical threat…”

Also included is “Sarah Palin’s Tea Party Primer,” which includes five of her Democratic targets (Photos in the gallery).

The overall message: Crazy Sarah Palin wants to make all of Congress crazy. She’s out to get you sensible and intelligent Democrats! DONATE NOW OR WE ALL SHALL PERISH!

Ok, so perhaps it’s not that histrionic. There’s nothing related to Armageddon.

Although if you ask me, that would make for a much more effective mailer.

The first painting to get loaned to SMU from the Prado.

I used to round up links for my EIC blog (before I apparently forgot how to post to it). I figure this could be a good thing to do on this blog, since I’m still getting Google Alerts about SMU. I can’t wait for graduation and the day I can turn them off. So without further ado, here’s what you should know in recent SMU news:

Donald Andrew Bess is on trial for the murder of an SMU student in 1984:

• Dallas County death penalty trial delayed after defendant accused of killing SMU student has massive heart attack [Dallas Morning News]
• Defendant’s heart attack delays SMU murder trial [Associated Press]
• Rapist was also SMU student’s killer in ’84 slaying, two testify [Dallas Morning News]
• Dallas County prosecution rests in trial over killing of SMU student in ’84 [Dallas Morning News]

SMU Research is trying to help women practice assertiveness skills with virtual reality so that they can prevent rape (Editor’s note: But what we really need to be doing is teaching people to not rape other people. I mean, that’s the problem with our rape culture. But I digress.): Practicing assertiveness skills on virtual-reality “dates” may help women prevent sexual victimization [SMU Research]

The Meadows Museum announced a three-year partnership with the Prado Museum, which further cements the Meadows Museum’s association with Spanish Art:

• Meadows ties the knot with the Prado [Daily Campus]
• Prado and Meadows Museum announce three-year partnership [SMU Public Affairs]
• Prado and Meadows Museum Announce Three-Year Partnership [Dallas Art News]
• Prado has U.S. alliance [New York Times]

Summer Senate doled out approximately $5,400 to various organizations at their first Summer Senate meeting.

Sports News:

Conference realignment could mean a big shakeup for SMU Athletics. Right now, all we’ve got is speculation.

• How does conference movement affect SMU?_updated with Orsini statement [Dallas Morning News]
• C-USA hires consultant to assist as conference realignment unfolds [Dallas Morning News]

The NCAA sanctioned USC for a host of violations, bringing up memories of the Death Penalty and the death of SMU Football. Naturally. Sometimes I think SMU is the Jennifer Anniston to the NCAA’s sanctions’ Brad Pitt. No matter what the story, we’re going to be brought up:

• NCAA Slaps U. of Southern California With Stiff Penalties in Closely Watched Case [Chronicle of Higher Education]
• USC Football: Sanctions Worst Since SMU Death Penalty? [Bleacher Report]
• USC Trojans: They’re Different From 1980s SMU How, Exactly? [Houston Press]

Former SMU Director of Athletics Jim Copeland dies at the age of 65 from cancer: [SMU Public Affairs]

Having been raised in East Texas, I can tell you that there are some people whose accent is thick enough to make "owl" sound like "I'll."

It’s three o’ clock in the morning (approximately), and I’m staring at the glow of my laptop’s monitor. The only sounds I hear are the gently clacking of my keyboard and the humming of the window A/C unit. I can’t hear the usual chaos of the busy street below—mostly because it’s quite empty.

I do this a lot.

The Big Guy Upstairs Does Not Apparently Want to Grant My Wishes

If I could change one thing about myself, it would probably be my night-owl tendencies. I’ve always wanted to be one of those morning people who can wake up at the crack of dawn, sit at the breakfast table and read the morning paper. Morning people always seem to be more productive than normal. Perhaps it’s because when I wake up, I spend the first five minutes trying to figure out how much longer I can sleep without being late to whatever I’m waking up for. I seem to always be staying up later than I probably should, doing mindless activities to forestall going to sleep. My brain acts like a stubborn six-year-old. And the worst part of it all is the fact that I actually love sleeping. Sleeping is God’s gift to mankind, rivaled only by sliced bread and a Christopher Buckley novel.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP… (Or, a Typical Day)

6 a.m.: The alarm goes off three hours before whatever it is I’m waking up for (class, meeting, work, etc.). The alarm clock is designed after the old wind-up alarm clocks that reigned before the advent of the clock radio. The ringing is loud enough to roust a corpse from its eternal slumber.

6:01 a.m.: The ding-donger between the two bells must be stopped before the alarm is turned off because otherwise it will keep ringing as I fumble around for the off switch. The small hammer is contained. The switch is flipped.

6:02 a.m.: It’s 6. That means… I can sleep for another hour at least. Wait—I showered last night. That means another thirty minutes. Right? Right.

6:02 and 1/2 a.m.: Reset alarm for 7:30 a.m. Go back to sleep.

7:30 a.m.: Alarm jolts to life. Hammer must be stopped. Alarm switched off.

7:31 a.m.: I really don’t have to leave until 8:30. And it’ll take less than half-an-hour to get ready. I can sleep some more. Huzzah!

7:31 a.m.: Reset alarm for 8 a.m. Go back to sleep.

8 a.m.: Alarm. Off. Up. Day Begins. Unless, of course, I don’t set my alarm at 7:31, figuring I’ll rest my eyes for 10 minutes or so. Murphy’s Law states that I’ll then accidentally fall asleep and wake up with the minimum time needed to get going or worse.

Meanwhile, across town some girl named Margaret did indeed wake up at 6 when her alarm first went off (in fact, she woke up before it went off and waited to get out of bed until she heard it ringing). Margaret managed to scrounge up a delicious breakfast meal while I was busy sleeping in. She caught up on news and did some laundry in the process. She’s a pretty productive person who keeps a garden out back and a Julia Child cookbook on the kitchen counter.

Sometimes I hate Margaret. Then I feel bad about hating her. It’s not her fault I’m not a morning person.

The reason I’m not Margaret is because my night-owl tendencies are exaggerated by a) my job and b) my being a college student. Invariably I would always end up staying up late to put the print product to bed. All the while stupidly signing up for morning classes (but then again, why is it that the one class you need is always at the one time you don’t want it to be?).

My schedule is completely out of whack. If I could normalize my sleeping patterns, my inner Margaret could come out. But it only takes one night to throw everything off-kilter again. Inner Margaret sure is a petulant kid.

Any advice? I’d love to hear it. How do all of you night owls deal with morning? And morning people, what’s the deal? How can I join your super-awesome club?

This is somewhat depressing because unless I either a) become a famous author (my journalism career having gone to pot and all) who doesn’t have a set work schedule or b) marry an uber-rich European monarch (or equally-rich software/computer tycoon) and officially start using the word “summer” as a verb, this is the last time before retirement that I’ll ever be able to laze about.

The worst part is that I’m not lazing about at all for most of it. I’ll be taking a few summer classes and probably getting a job to earn a little extra money. That epic roadtrip across America will have to wait until I’m 89 and can finally afford that Winnebago (I’ll nickname it “Ralph”).

But I’m also a little excited, because this means soon I won’t be in school anymore. Sure, there’s going to be a lot more responsibility… and loans that need paying. But I like the idea of a world where I don’t have to constantly take tests and keep up with grades. That gets tiring.

Said bookmark. On a side note, isn't the new theme just exquisitely designed?

Five days ago, you could say I committed the gravest of social media sins by deleting my Facebook account.

I have yet to fully acclimate to my new, non-Facebook life.

For instance, if my Google Reader should run dry and my Twitter feed update slowly, I’m tempted to click on that Facebook bookmark. I want to click on it. The mouse goes to it, like a ship’s crew to the sound of a siren’s song.

Then I remember I deleted my account, and it all comes back to me.

Even though my use had decreased considerably, Facebook was a great way to pass the time. Facebook’s Statistics provide a staggering glimpse of the truly horrendous time suck that it actually is: “People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook.” I believe that’s all 400 million users. Divide out that number and you get a lot of time spent on one website.

Bored and nothing to read? Go read random Facebook status updates. Of course, most of the updates were mundane items that really didn’t add anything to my life. Instead of catching up on world affairs, I was reading passive-aggressive song lyrics and “Johnny likes rubber duckies, Madonna and Sports Illustrated.” This is one of the reasons I enjoy Twitter—many of the people I follow tweet interesting links to news and random tidbits of information that I would otherwise not find.

So far, I have received one email asking me what happened to my Facebook. The sender is not on Twitter, so they wouldn’t have known. Otherwise, not much activity on that front.

Not having an account has also made it difficult to look at specific pages on Facebook. This is what I fear will draw me to create a dummy account to view these pages. It’s why I haven’t deleted that bookmark. And it’s precisely because I haven’t deleted that bookmark that I keep gravitating to click on the link. In terms of my eye movements, it always goes first to my SMU email and then to Facebook. It’s a habit.

I need to rearrange my bookmarks. Or just delete the one in question. Because I know I made the right decision in deleting my Facebook.

Although perhaps going cold turkey wasn’t the best idea.

College Media Matters | Student journalist? Casual observer of student media? Then this blog is worth a look. Recently they examined SCOTUS nominee Elena Kagan’s stint at her college newspaper.

Dallas Dirt | Perhaps you don’t live in Dallas at all. Perhaps you do. But this blog is great at featuring historic homes and other architectural porn. Just ignore the realtor-esque sales pitches.

Frontburner | Another blog from D Magazine. This one’s great for Dallas news. If you live in Dallas, then you should be reading it.

Hipster Puppies | A novel and hilarious concept.

Hyperbole and a Half | A very witty blog featuring hand-drawn images created by using the Mac equivalent of MS Paint. If you’re not laughing up a gut while reading the fish story, then I really don’t see how you could ever have a sense of humor.

Letterheady | I love stationery. Therefore all of this letterhead fascinates me. Want to see what Harry Houdini used as his letterhead? It’s on there. So is Tesla’s. And DC Comics. And a host of others.

Unfair Park | Another fantastic Dallas news blog.

Overheard in the Newsroom | Quote-worthy moments from newsrooms across the country. My favorite? “Editor: “Multiple exclamation points are a sign of a diseased mind.”

In the Pink | Funny. Snarky. Liberal. Newsy. Blog. About. Everything.

Facebook was the new social media wunderkind on the Internet playground. I wasn’t that impressed.

What am I supposed to do with this thing, anyways?

Facebook was similar to MySpace, but truthfully, I didn’t really see a point in joining either. Eventually, I would have both (And I can’t remember which I joined first because I once joined Facebook then promptly left and then later joined again). But things were different back then, sometime between 2006 and 2007: The biggest change was that it was a closed network that required a college or high school email. I clearly remember this fact because I had to use my newly acquired Carthage HS email account (Thank you, Mr. Worley) the first time I registered.

Facebook didn’t really take off until I came to college. After all, college was where it had been birthed. In college, I learned to love Facebook and it’s spying capabilities. I mean friend-keeping-up-with. That’s what I used it for (*cough, cough*) In fact, I was the one trying to actively recruit my friends from high school onto the network. They were stuck in MySpace, languishing amid the personalized-to-the-point-that-made-you-want-to-gag profiles.

But yesterday I deleted my account.

I had been considering doing so for a couple of months. I wasn’t really using it all that much. Besides which, Facebook’s many privacy snafus (although great for spying) irked my sensibilities. I didn’t sign up for Facebook when everything was public. I signed up when it was a closed network. Now it has the gall to decide for me what I should make public? That’s just not kosher.

The catalyst was a Wired article (which you should go read now). Basically, it listed everything that Facebook had changed:

• Taking private information and setting it to public by default: city, name, photo, friend list, fan pages
• Fill-in-the-blank likes on your Info page? Now public and linked to profile pages OTHERWISE you don’t get anything—”though Facebook nicely hangs onto them in its database in order to let advertisers target you.”
• Sending my profile information to other sites such as Pandora, Microsoft and Yelp.
• Making all status updates public and search-engine-findable
• Making all status updates appear on relevant fan pages
• The Facebook “Like” button (and mandatory public setting)
• Going after third-party sites
• Censoring emails
• Giving my information to third-party applications because someone else took a “What Gilligan’s Island Character Are You?” quiz (and letting applications store your information indefinitely)

Other irritations that the article left out: Beacon, the many, many site changes (why does Facebook feel like it has to become Twitter?!) and FarmVille. Oh, how I hate FarmVille.

After considering all that has transpired and all that I’ve put up with over the past few years, I decided to leave.

The most annoying part of all? To actually delete your account, you’ve got to search for “delete my facebook” to find the link that will actually erase your profile from the site forever (within 14 days, mind you). “Deactivating” your account simply renders it invisible. That way, should you feel the need to come back, you’ll have an easy time (simply log-in!). Facebook still stores all of your information.

Of course, they make sure to pile on the guilt when you deactivate, showing you pictures of your friends and captions that read “So-and-so will miss you!”

Deletion? Just a simple message saying Are you sure you want to delete/It will take up to 14 days. But I suspect that’s only because they don’t expect you to ever find it in the first place. No sense going all out if no one can find it.

It’s been a day since deletion. I feel just fine.

I keep getting emails from the Galveston Historical Society, I get emails about webinars, and then there’s the occasional PR pitch. But today’s email takes the cake.

Entitled “the estate tax,” it’s from a guy in Frisco who rails against the weathly:

These inheritance rich families, and their bankers, lawyers, and money managers are what is wrong with our government, economy, legal system, health care system, and environment today. They have used their wealth and power to buy our politicians and together they are getting away with murder, theft, and environmental destruction on a scale that threatens all of humanity. The $1 trillion dollar Saving & Loan Crisis bubble of the 80’s, the multi-trillion dollar tech bubble of the 90’s, the Enron bubble, Bush’s trillion dollar tax cuts for the rich, the multi-trillion dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the current multi-trillion dollar financial bailout were all designed to transfer and concentrate wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people. These trillion dollar scams have left the American people picking up the bills and scratching their heads wondering what the hell happened.

He goes on to say that our only option may be a French-type revolution, but even that probably wouldn’t work.

But the absolute best part was the ending:

Therefore, get ready to bend over and take it up your collective asses because it looks like we are going to let a few inheritance rich assholes and their stooges fuck us into an early grave so that they can have more wealth for themselves. But don’t worry, because we all get cake and ice cream afterwards.

Cake and ice cream? Yes please. Ok, maybe he was being sarcastic…

But how many of you will remember his email now? That’s effective (if slightly offensive to some) writing. The full email is after the jump, although I’ve omitted his last name.

Dear Meredith Shamburger,

The estate tax will go from 45% this year to 0% next year. Bush and the Republicans did this and Obama and the Democrats could fix it, but the silence from this administration is deafening. As a result, the potential exists for the transfers of trillions of dollars in tax-free wealth to a few inheritance rich unproductive people down in Texas and across the country in 2010. But don’t worry, there will be new jobs polishing the brass on these rich prick’s yachts.

The Forbes list of the richest Americans is bullshit. I know for a fact that one the richest families in America is not even on the list, any longer, when they should be at or near the top of the list. This family hides their enormous wealth from the public’s eyes because they know if the American people ever found out how much wealth they own, how they got their wealth, and the steps they have taken to protect and expand their wealth there would be major pubic outrage. This information could even inspire a French Revolution type public reaction, and it would certainly inspire voters to vote for a total change in our government’s leadership.

I personally know some of these inheritance rich people and I can tell you unequivocally they do not deserve to be handed all this wealth and power. In fact, they deserve to have most of their existing wealth and power taken away from them. Partly because of the decisions that have been made in their names, but mainly because of the fact that it is bad for the other 99.9% of the American people, bad for our economy, bad for our system of government, and bad for the environment.

These inheritance rich families, and their bankers, lawyers, and money managers are what is wrong with our government, economy, legal system, health care system, and environment today. They have used their wealth and power to buy our politicians and together they are getting away with murder, theft, and environmental destruction on a scale that threatens all of humanity. The $1 trillion dollar Saving & Loan Crisis bubble of the 80’s, the multi-trillion dollar tech bubble of the 90’s, the Enron bubble, Bush’s trillion dollar tax cuts for the rich, the multi-trillion dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the current multi-trillion dollar financial bailout were all designed to transfer and concentrate wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people. These trillion dollar scams have left the American people picking up the bills and scratching their heads wondering what the hell happened.

What happened, and what is continuing to happen, is the robbing of America and the murder of our constitutional democracy. The middle class is being squeezed down and the vast assets owned by the federal government — our collectively owned assets — are being looted. The kings have retaken control over our lives and they did so with the help of the money corrupted Republican and Democratic parties, in that order. We no longer live in democracy we live in an fascist oligarchy where the super rich along with our government leaders have conspired to gain more wealth and more power for themselves at our expense. They own you and they own your future because they own most of the $14 trillion in federal government debt. The American people are going to be expected to pay back this debt in full along with interest, and trust me when I tell you that these rich people know how to collect on a debt.

I wish I could give you some helpful advice on how to take back your government by voting, but I can’t. The new paperless voting computers and the rigged two party media debating system have me wondering if real change is even possible. Our only hope may be a French type revolution where we go around killing all the super rich people. But even the threat of that possibility is slim because the American people have been so weakened, dumbed down, and manipulated by the corporate owned media, bad diets, lying politicians, and absurd fantasies about life and death.

Therefore, get ready to bend over and take it up your collective asses because it looks like we are going to let a few inheritance rich assholes and their stooges fuck us into an early grave so that they can have more wealth for themselves. But don’t worry, because we all get cake and ice cream afterwards.

Sincerely,

Chris [last name omitted]

Ok, ok. You’ve got me cornered.

I’ve been neglecting my blog. But it’s because I’ve been working for The Daily Campus, writing stories, blogging and working on the Web site.

And tweeting. But you guys should know that I’m pretty dedicated to Twitter (much more than this blog, apparently).