From the bookshelf

A few minutes ago, in relation to a short paper I am working on, I pulled out a copy of Charter of the United Nations that I received when I first started working at the UN in 2000. As I was flipping through the document I came across a few items that I obviously inserted at the time, but have not likely seen since the dying days of 2000.

The first thing that I found was my take on in vitro fertilization.



How ingenious, a old man transitions into a test-tube, or vice-versa. Now that I am reminded of this image I wonder why I didn't opt for a career in art or editorial cartooning.

A few pages later I came across my "Labor for Nader" sticker, which, not surprisingly, was from the 2000 presidential election campaign. Now that I think about it, I have no idea how I ended up with this sticker (I wasn't a Nader supporter at the time), though I imagine it has something to do with my former co-worker Aurora, who was a big Nader supporter during that election. I am now starting to wonder if this was my first piece election swag from the 2000 election, or if I might have had my NRA pro-Bush bumper sticker beforehand (at some point I also snagged a Rick Lazio poster, unfortunately I didn't manage to get any Gore or Hilary swag).



When I have looked for such items more recently (meaning the 2008 presidential election campaign) it seemed that they were available for purchase (but not for free). I remember finding this funny as I thought that most campaigns would have liked to have more supporters wearing pins and buttons that showed support for their candidates (but maybe they realized that they could get people to pay for the privilege).