With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
I enjoy paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.
2002-02-07 - 2:58 a.m.
I got out of the house a little later than I thought I would this morning. I had to talk a friend through a rough spot. How come the best people so often can't see their own merit?
My class started by thanking me for not giving them homework on Monday. By the end of the class they realized why I apologized for it. We covered lots of ground and they had a lot of homework for tomorrow. We actually got to real calculus today, the definition of the derivative. I even had them calculate some simple derivatives from the definition. The people who know the tricks don't like that but even in a class where I don't do proofs I expect them to be able to do this. I keep warning them that this is the hardest course they ever took and I mean it. Today was the first time I found some of their weaknesses in the material from previous courses. I knew it would happen and it is good to catch it early. I was actually quite impressed with their attitude. When I gave them a hard problem they asked me not to give them the answer but to let them work on it. There is a big difference between these students and the remedial classes. Most of these kids want to be there.
I'm getting good at making the quick getaways on Mondays and Wednesdays when I want to make the 3:49 train so I can pick my father up on time. Given that the class ends at 3:25 and I have to walk to the other building to put my book away before I leave and that school is a mile and a half from Penn Station, that isn't easy.
I had a pleasant train ride home today because I was entertained by a young woman in the row in front of me. She and her friends were all students at Stuyvesant HS I believe, Gella's alma mater. There were 3 or 4 of them but this one girl dominated the conversation. (Remind you of anyone you know?) The thing that caught my attention was when she was getting nostalgic for an old math teacher who would just give them the basic principals and expect the students to be able to apply them. She said, "I really knew calculus, I miss knowing calculus." My kind of girl. She later talked about having to do a collage based on one my favorite poems that I actually quoted here, Kubla Khan. When she started talking about the kinds of images she should include I resisted mentioning the caves of ice or quoting the poem.
I watched last night's Buffy tonight. The show is turning darker but it still seems so unmotivated and unfocused.
I might not update again till Sunday night. I am going to the Knick game after school tomorrow and not coming home. In between I'll have to do the shopping I meant to do today. I might still have time to update from my office. On Friday I have to be at FUV at 6 AM so I'm going to sleep as soon as I get home on Thursday. Then it's off to exotic Randallstown for the weekend.
Yes it is time for the 4th Batnose Brigade Convention. I was thinking about us, Carey, Shelly, and myself. The three of us have been friends for almost two years now. Here is the first time all three of us were on the Wall. That was March 4th 2000. Since then it's been "All for one, and one for all. That is our motto."
I had a friend who was telling me then that my online friendships weren't real. I'm still friends with them and not with her. FHDC has been berry berry good to me.
A little closing item. Today, (OK it is really yesterday) was Bob Marley's birthday. I wrote an entry about him on the anniversary of his death. I heard a great new version of Redemption Song today. Ziggy Marley, his son, sings it but it is going to be on a forthcoming Chieftains CD. I never knew till now that the uileann pipes were a reggae instrument. I am going to have to buy that CD. Talk about fusion.
The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy - October 07, 2008
On the Road to Westchester County - October 06, 2008
Inside the Madison Square Studio - October 05, 2008
I'm a Bosniac and I'm debating like I've never debated before - October 03, 2008
Islands in the Stream of Consciousness - October 02, 2008
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile 2002-02-07
