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.
October 01, 2004 - 1:34 a.m.
I’m not feeling inspired tonight. I’ll write about my day and see if that helps.
I tried to leave a bit earlier for school today so I could stop off at the cleaner and pick up my shirts and go to the library. Yes the library, I usually read books I own but that last Hornblower novel I read ended with a cliffhanger, I realized it wasn’t just a series of separate books but rather one book in several volumes. So now I want to catch up and read book I, read book II, then find out what happens in book III. I left early enough but the library doesn’t open on Thursdays till 1 and I was taking the 12:55 train, not good timing.
When I got to school I decided to try the school’s library. I never used it before. It isn’t exactly comprehensive or user friendly. There is no computer dedicated for use as a catalogue and all the other computers were being used by students. They let me use the staff computer so I didn’t have to wait. A perk of being on the faculty. Unfortunately they didn’t have the books in the library. I then went to see if they had the classic calculus book Tom Apostal’s. They didn’t. The school’s library is sadly lacking. When I told Pedro about it he told me the story of when he asked the librarian to order the online compilation of math journals and they said they wouldn’t because “math wasn’t important in the school.” Yes this is New York Institute of Technology and math isn’t valued. Pedro and I often talk about it. The math faculty has a total of 4 desks between us. The English faculty has 15. Many profs have two to themselves while math profs have to share.
I tried to finesse the school in getting a key to my office. I borrowed Pedro’s and went to the hardware store. The plan didn’t work though, they didn’t carry the correct blank key. I’m still left keyless.
After I started the lesson I decided to actually prove that the derivative of sin x is cos x. I didn’t think it would be a problem, I don’t usually teach it but I can usually prove things in my sleep. I totally froze and had to tell them I’d get back to them. When class was over I sat down and proved it with no trouble. That scares me. I don’t usually wilt under pressure. Hell, I don’t usually consider doing a proof cold while teaching pressure. I hope it was just brain freeze and won’t happen again.
I gave the quiz again in the calculus class. One of the reasons I gave it was that two people came late the first time and missed it. The rule is if you come late you get a zero. So now they had a second chance. One of the students came late again today then had the nerve to ask me after class if he could make it up. He didn’t have a real excuse, he was just in a rush today. I am thinking of doing something that is probably too lenient. Letting them take all the quizzes over at the end of the semester and using whatever grade is better, the original or the retest. That would at least take care of all the people that missed quizzes. I’m not sure if I’ll do it and I know I wont’ tell them about it in any event. If they think they’ll have another chance then they’ll slack off.
I should have rushed home tonight to see the debate. I saw the beginning while waiting in Penn Station and saw the end when I got home. Kerry did a very good job on the parts I saw. He hammered home how Bush talks about being tough on terrorism but let Osama Bin Laden get away while he attacked Iraq. He looked far more comfortable than Bush which is important. I’m hoping that the press sees it the same way. The “gotcha” moment was when Bush defended the war in Iraq by saying “we were attacked” and Kerry immediately responded by saying “by Al Quaeda, not Iraq.” Bush tries to tell that same lie over and over again then denies he is lying. I want someone to ask Bush why if Saddam’s wanting nuclear weapons with no hope of getting them for years is enough of a reason to attack we aren’t now invading Korea, part of Bush’s “axis of evil” which has nuclear weapons. The reason of course is that the administration has been obsessed with Iraq since day one It is like Ahab and the whale. Now it is the albatross around our neck.
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 October 01, 2004
