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.
July 15, 2009 - 1:52 a.m.
I cut my last entry short because my arm hurt. That might have led some of you into thinking that it was getting worse. It isn't, it's improving. I should have pointed out that I spent a lot of time writing emails before I wrote my entry so my arm was already stressed. The same goes for today. I did a warm soak before writing so perhaps I can last a little longer.
I left my apartment only once today and only walked a few blocks but ran into four solipsistic people. It started with simply crossing the street. The light turned red shortly before I reached the corner. There were a lot of cars waiting to get through the light. Right behind me were two men. They didn't care that there was a red light or that there were cars trying to move through the intersection. They only knew that they wanted to cross the street. They walked right into the street and got so close the traffic flow that a car stopped. They took the opportunity to cross the street. The driver that stopped gave me a puzzled look and I waved him on. Some of the cars had to wait for the next green light to get through. That didn't matter to them of course. They saved 20 seconds for themselves.
Then right at the same intersection when the light changed an SUV made a left turn and blocked traffic coming in the opposite direction. He was moving very slowly and didn't make the turn tight enough to make the intersection. I thought the guy was nuts then someone pointed out that his driver side front wheel was at a 45° angle, not vertical. When he made it through the intersection, after holding up traffic, we figured he was going to park his car in the spot that was right there. We were wrong. He kept on driving even though he didn't have full control of his car, was holding up traffic, and was endangering himself and those around him. Everyone walking was shocked and shook their heads in disbelief.
I picked up a few things at the supermarket and came home. When I got in the elevator I met the fourth solipsist. She got in the elevator first and pressed her floor. She was standing in front of the buttons so I said, "six please." She glared at me and said; "I'm carrying more things than you are." I just waved my arm in the sling and she said, "OK but you shouldn't expect it." I shouldn't? I've been riding in elevators my entire life and when I stood in front of the buttons I pressed them for others and when others stood in front I asked them to press my floor for me. I have never once even thought about it. It's automatic. Now if she had stepped away from the buttons I could have pressed them myself and I would have. In an uncrowded elevator that's what usually happens. She didn't so my choices were asking her to move or asking her to press my button. She couldn't see that. Even though I said, "please" I was imposing on her. Does this happen every time she rides an elevator?
It was a weird outing.
When I got home I watched the All-Star game. For the 577th year in a row the American League won. I of course root for the National league. President Obama through out the first ball and spent an inning in he broadcast booth. This was he most likable I ever saw him. He was a little kid excited about being around the all-stars. I was happy to see that he proudly wore his colors, a Chicago White Sox uniform.
I've already written more than yesterday and my elbow is doing fine. Some of my muscles are having issues. Thinking about it makes it worse. Now my right arm feels funny too.
With all the Mark Sandford circus I didn't hear anyone ask him an obvious question. He demanded that Clinton resign because of the Monica Lewinski affair. Sanford has said that he isn't going to resign. Shouldn't someone have asked him how he reconciles that? Does he now regret the way he treated Clinton?
I'm guessing that he would say that Clinton's crime was lying under oath. Somehow he would think that was worse than abandoning his responsibilities and leaving his state with no one in charge.
So here is what I'd like to ask Ken Starr; "Why did you ask Clinton about what he did with Monica Lewinski?" Infidelity is not a crime. It is not something a prosecutor should be concerning himself with. It was a total abuse of power. He was creating a situation where Clinton would have to either lie or create huge personal and political problems. What Starr tried to do was undermine American Democracy. I'm sure he wouldn't put it that way but it was his objective. He was trying to destroy a democratically elected president. In doing so he weakened the president and that weakened the country.
Tomorrow I have to move the car so I am going to go shopping. I might even cook tomorrow night. I haven't done that since I hurt myself. Now I'm going to ice down my elbow then go to bed.
I just realized that the solipsist should not have a plural as each one doesn't acknowledge anyone else's existence.
Fralcon Ridge Bound - July 22, 2009
The Iliad & the Odyssey - July 20, 2009
It's not a tax, it's a user fee. - July 19, 2009
We Now Return to My Regularly Scheduled Life - July 17, 2009
Brought Forth on This Continent a New Nation ... - July 16, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile July 15, 2009
