Wednesday April 15

I managed to finish the bulk of my public finance paper today, but boy, it ended up a hec of a lot shorter than I thought it would. I haven't done much editing to it yet, so it could potentially get longer, but my editing process tends to make things shorter and crisper, not longer. Page requirements have never had much sway with me anyway, so I'm hoping he won't be too strict on it. My results largely came out how I expected, however. But since I tend to do my papers in a very non-linear manner, the most important part of my editing process is tying everything together and having all the ideas mesh together and make sure the paper at the end is the same as it was at the beginning. That can be a pretty big job.

I also had an interesting idea for a movie today. Or, better yet, a tv series. After John Wilkes Booth killed Lincoln, he was eventually found in a barn that was set on fire and was killed. Some theories, however, suggest that he actually escaped that barn and either went to Japan or the western United States (or both). I think it would be interesting to have a movie (or show) discuss his life in hiding after he killed Lincoln (had he survived); the jobs he did, his politics, the people who helped him, etc. Of course it would be entierly fictional, as I don't believe it actually happened, but it would also be pretty edgy considering how popular Lincoln is now. To say the least, the politics of the show would certainly be interesting.