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.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
November 04, 2009 - 7:12 p.m.
Whew, I just finished my first load of procrastinating. I have more to do so I better not spend too much time writing this.
I had another culinary adventure. Of course most of you probably think of it as something from day one of home economics. I made mashed potatoes. It's odd that I never tried that before. I somehow thought it was more time consuming that it is. When I checked to see if I had a potato masher I discovered that I had not one but two of them. Yet somehow my apple corer did no survive the move. I was vacillating on peeling the potatoes then decided to peel them as I did find my peeler. Too bad that I forgot that 20 seconds later. It is really hard not having a brain. Not that I really mind the peel. I used red potatoes and the peels added color. They also added nutrition. I can add mashed potatoes to the list of things I make better than my mother. I think the reason is that I used half and half instead of milk. Every recipe I saw recommended that and on a lark I bought it last time went shopping.
I always wonder at how people react to my pride in cooking the simplest things. I know they are simple but I also know they come out great. That's all that I care about. I have no idea why of course. I think it might be because most things I cook are forgiving so if I make a mistake it doesn't ruin it.
I think they need to add a new course to my school's curriculum, elevators, doors, and, stairways. Every day it strikes me how people don't know how to use these simple things in ways that don't impede other people. I say people not students because some of the faculty members have as much trouble as the students.
Have you ever noticed that elevators have instructions in them?
Press the button for your floor, walk to the back of the elevator, and turn around and face the front.
I always thought it was idiotic to post those directions till I noticed how many people can't follow them. Today a student walked in the elevator I was in. As usual it was crowded. He was wearing a large back pack. He didn't turn around. The door wouldn't close but it never occurred to him that his backpack was blocking the door. Finally everyone told him to move and he did. I don't think he would have ever thought of moving. It's funny that everyone chimed him for him to move at the same time. You don't want to say it too fast because it feels insulting to imply that someone is too stupid to realize he or she is blocking the door.
There are swinging doors between the elevator lobby and the rooms on every floor. Students will stand blocking the door so that to open it you have to hit them. There are glass windows so you can see someone is there so when that happens I knock. It is never a matter of there being no place else to stand. It just doesn't occur to them or bother them that they are blocking the door. The other day it wasn't a student, it was a teacher. He was the only person around. He could have stood anywhere but he chose to block the door. What's worse is that after I knocked and he moved he moved right back to blocking the door after I went through it.
Leaving my school and going to the subway I found a clutch of students standing on the steps of the entrance totally blocking them. They could have stood anywhere but they chose to stand where they'd get in the way.
I've seen students press the door close button as they saw someone coming to get in the elevator and grin widely or laugh when the door shut in the person's face. That's just being mean. I'm not sure if a class would help that.
So often I'll get in the elevator and there is plenty of room in the back that people don't move to and others are left not able to get into the elevator. I try and move into the vacant spot when I can but if I'm already in the back there is nothing I can do.
On a related note. I voted yesterday. My candidate for mayor, Thompson lost. There was no doubt that my candidate for Comptroller, Liu would win. I didn't check but I'm sure my candidate for City Council lost. The incumbent democrat was running unopposed and I always write someone in, in those situations as a protest. My write-ins have a theme, this year it was New York folk musicians. Why do they have to live in New York? Hey these are municipal offices so I want someone that lives in the City they serve. So who did I vote for? Meg Braun. When the results are tabulated I'll check and see if her vote was tabulated. There was something wrong with my voting machine. When you write in a vote it blocks you from pulling the lever for a candidate for that office. When you have a lever pulled it blocks you from opening the door to where you write in the names. The block out system was screwed up and the wrong levers and doors were blocked. After I voted for Meg I went to pull the lever for Helen Marshall for Borough President and it wouldn't let me. I ended up writing her name in.
I have a door and stairway story about voting too. When I voted in the primary I took the elevator up to vote as I was told but saw the stairs and took them down. I felt so silly walking down one flight. This time I walked up the stairs. When I went to walk down one of the people there to guide the voters told me that I can't go that way. I pointed out that it was a public stair and of course I could take it. She said it was locked and I told her it wasn't as I came up that way. She kept arguing with me that I can't go that way but I just did. Of course there was no problem getting out. They don't get the best people to work the polls.
OK I've done enough procrastinating. I'm going to have a visitor. Lena is coming back to the US and as always she is flying into JFK and staying with me before she goes back to the Deep South (Virginia). I have to do my laundry and get some cleaning done before she arrives tomorrow afternoon.
Lead Us Not Into Penn Station - November 09, 2009
It's All Happening at the Zoo - November 09, 2009
It's the latest it's the greatest it's the library - November 08, 2009
Art, a Picasso or a Garfunkel - November 06, 2009
Run With It - November 05, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile November 04, 2009
