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.
2002-05-03 - 11:33 a.m.
Dateline Baltimore: I better update now because I won't get a chance to again till Sunday night and probably even Monday morning. I'm at Carey's apartment now and we will be incommunicado till Sunday night. We are going to the First Annual Susquehanna Music and Arts Festival. We'll be getting some Vance, Sonia, and Kennedys goodness.
I've continued getting things done the last couple of days. I actually graded the test that night and returned it to them the next day. It was easy because it was a short test and they did well. The average grade was 70.5 but there were a number of students who are totally clueless and don't do any work that got less than a 30. Those who are actually making an effort did well.
As I've mentioned before when I give a test I let them correct their mistakes and they get 50% of the points back if they get it right the second time. Eight people didn't show up on Thursday so they won't get the chance. It's late in the game but I there is no time left in the semester so I'm playing hardball. About half the class came late Thursday another pet peeve of mine. One student came in then as I was trying to teach he started going through the test papers looking for his and disrupting the class. He was totally oblivious. Also not to swift as the tests were in alphabetical order and she should have been able to find his quickly.
I drove to school for the first time yesterday. I usually think it's idiotic to drive into Manhattan during the day; the railroad is so easy for me. I did yesterday because I went straight from school down to Carey's and that saved me at least an hour and a half. I took advantage of the lot the school has a deal with and it "only" cost me $11.
I finish class at 3:25 and by the time I got my car it was 3:50. That's cutting things a bit close, rush hour starts around 4. My big worry was The Merge. The mere mention of The Merge will strike fear in the hearts of frequent travelers of the Northeast Corridor. Between exits 8A and 8 the 6 lanes of the southbound Jersey Turnpike go into 3 lanes. This is accomplished as easily as Roseanne squeezing into Britney Spear's dress, and is just about as scary to see.
The Merge is never fun but during rush hour it becomes a nightmare. To make it worse you can never really be sure when rush hour will reach it. It usually hits around 5 and ends after 7 but some days it can last forever. There are stories of people going down to DC for a weekend but still being caught in The Merge traffic on Sunday night. Of all the fabled travelers hazards; Scylla and Charybdis, the Maelstrom, the Sirens, The Merge is the most fearsome of all.
I new that if I wanted to get there before I would have to push it. I won't dart in and out the lanes but I made sure to always travel in the fastest lane and to go as fast as possible at all times. At times that meant 40 mph at other as fast as 85 mph. I kept checking my watch and knew it was going to be close. I finally hit the merge at 4:45 and the buildup was just about to start, but I got through with only a slight delay. You can now add me to the list of great travelers, Marco Polo, Columbus, Lewis and Clark, Shackleton; I had beaten The Merge.
I got to Carey's at 7:30 just as I had planned on it. When I got there I found out that Carey's day, which had started bad, had continued to be a disaster. Let me backtrack a bit. I got a call from Carey at 8 AM Thursday morning. Her car had been towed. Her apartment building started enforcing their parking rules on Wednesday when Carey was home sick. Most of the spots are now reserved for residents with the parking sticker in their window. It seems they got so enthusiastic over the new rule that the started towing cars with stickers too. Carey was nervous that they she would have to pay to get her car back and wouldn't be able to afford the festival this weekend. I was sure they wouldn't make her pay but she couldn't find out till after 9 when the supervisor got in. I had to comfort and reassure her till then. Of course things did work out. They saw her sticker and said she didn't have to pay. She did have to pay for a cab to get there though; I think they should have towed the car back to her. That really wasn't fair of them.
When I got to Carey's apartment I found out that she had to leave work early and have someone drive her home because she felt sick. She was feeling better by the time I got there though and we drove back to work and she picked up her car.
Carey told me how sweet Neal and I are for listening to her when she has problems. I don't think it's a sacrifice at all. I love that someone actually comes to me for comfort. It's a gift twice blessed. The whole story of the car being towed fits in with my worldview. The Second Law of Thermodynamics led to the car being towed. The people who did it weren't malicious they just weren't conscientious. One the mistake was caught they were nice enough about it though they wouldn't put themselves out to actually make things right. No one was evil, but people are people and mistakes are made. People also did act nice though and everything worked out in the end.
When I'm finished writing this I'll have lunch then drive up to the campgrounds and try to set up our tent. We are going to use Carey's huge complicated 250-room mansion tent. If I can't figure out how to set it up I'll use my two-person tent. If they let me I'm going to put my tarp down so we will have a place right by the stage. After that I'll drive back here then pick up Carey after work and we are off to see festival.
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 2002-05-03
