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.
September 12, 2006 - 11:38 a.m.
This is a tough entry to write. I can go in so many different directions. I bet I end up choosing a bland one. I’m going to let my fingers decide.
Yesterday, what did I do yesterday? School went pretty well. There is to much talking in class and I have one student with a “This is all beneath me” attitude. I am trying to not let that slide. When I have them work on a problem, everyone has to actually work on it.
I have one student that is having problems with the simplest thing we do all semester, significant digits. I usually just give the two rules and everyone gets it right away. I think the problem is that she learned this before in another country and she is mixing up terminology she first learned in another language.
My visit with my mother was depressing. Once again she was far too out of it to interact with me. She has those good days and I get hopeful then there is a run of days like that.
Last night was “treat myself to a nice dinner night.” I went back to the Ground Round and took advantage of the 25% off coupon they gave me. They even broke their rule and put the Met game on the TV for me. Mondays is supposed to be only football. That is really stupid as the game didn’t start to 9 and I was there at 7. I’m sorry a football pre-game show should not be shown in lieu of a local baseball team’s game. Not even the Yankees.
Last night I wanted to talk to Keli on the phone but she wasn’t home. The Mets were wiped out so I didn’t watch the game. I managed to get quite a bit of reading done. That’s good. I am finding books my best escape.
I decided to donate my mother’s car to WFUV. It just isn’t worth paying the insurance on it in the hope that she’ll be coming home again. If she does she’ll just have to ride in my car. The Car Talk has a vehicle donation page. It lists lots of public stations but not FUV. I had to give them a call and they handled it over the phone and emailed me the forms I need.
I got some good news. I thought that David Massengill was performing 15 minutes from my house the day I was going to see Patty Larkin with Chris. It is actually the day before so I can go see him.
Yesterday WFUV played listeners requests in memory of the fifth anniversary of 9/11. I couldn’t decide what song to request so I didn’t send one in. When I was sitting with my mother I was listening closely and I actually had tears well up. I didn’t expect that. Before that happened I had the idea that next year on the anniversary they should play songs that celebrate life. I could use a day like that.
Oh, I found another lie my teacher told me. I always suspected it. In college music I heard Smetana’s Moldau for the first time. As soon as I heard it I said, “That’s the same melody as Hatikvah!,” the Israeli national anthem. My teacher said that it was similar but not the same and shrugged it off. I was in my Hebrew School Choir and sang it countless times. I know Hatikvah and I knew I was right. I knew that Smetana incorporated local folk tunes in the piece and I figured that they were both based on the same folk song. I checked and I’m right. They were both based on a Rumanian-Bohemian folk tune, Carul cu Boi (Cart and Oxen). Here is a good History of Hatikvah.
I want to write about my relationships with people but the English language fails me. Translated from Gordonese it comes out like this:
I have friends and friends but I don’t have friends or friends. There are people that love me and love me but nobody that loves me or even loves me.
Raise your hand if you know why I titled this entry Hope. Not you Gella, I know you know it. And not you others that obviously know it either. Well you can raise your hands but don’t tell everybody.
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 September 12, 2006
