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.
September 16, 2009 - 12:07 p.m.
I voted for the first time in two years yesterday. Yes I did not vote in the presidential election, I was not allowed to. I had moved too soon before Election Day and New York does not have same day registration. I was still a good citizen. I went down to Upper Darby PA and handed out literature for Obama and Congressman Joe Sestak on Election Day. That was the first election I missed. I plan on never missing another one.
They did make it easy to register to vote. It was done when I got my new driver's license. I got a card telling me my new polling place and districts. I vote at the Good Samaritan. I'm not sure what it is, it seems to have something to do with health care. It is a few blocks from my house. I have never voted anyplace but it school, this was quite different.
When I arrived there were no signs in the lobby telling voters where to go. Instead a woman came up to me and asked if I were there to vote. She then walked me over to the elevator and pushed the button for me. I thought she was going to come up with me and guide me. She didn't. She just told me it was on the second floor. If I had known that I would have just walked. She was helpful but had an unpleasant personality. My attempts at be sociable were rebuffed.
When I went upstairs a woman asked for my address. I gave it then I said, "Can I vote now?" She said, "Stop I have to see where you vote." I already knew. She should have asked if that was what she was getting at. I'm in the 27th AD/52nd ED. AD is Assembly District and ED is election district. That's how we assign voting machines here. Most districts get one machine, some large ones get two. I have a feeling mine is small.
When I got to the booth the people at the table first asked if I was sure if I was at the right place. I was of course, then I signed the voting card. So far they had treated me like I had no idea what was going on. Then she pointed at the machine and said, "You know what to do." That's the part that people often have trouble with. First you pull the big lever to the right. Then you vote with the little levers, then you pull the big lever to the left when you are done. Every year people pull the big lever before they have voted and that locks them out of voting. That is the one thing they are supposed to tell everyone.
This was the democratic primary. Except for mayor whoever wins will win the general election. In two races nobody one the required 40% so there will be a runoff in two weeks. My favorite candidate, Norman Siegel who was running for Public Advocate did not make the runoff. He only got 14% of the vote. That's too bad. He used to be the head of the ACLU and I worked with him when was the head of the NYCLU. He's is brilliant, incorruptible, and dedicated. I don't feel too bad as one of the people in the runoff is Mark Green who is also brilliant, incorruptible and dedicated. His only issue is not working or playing well with others. He doesn't play politics and makes enemies. That's actually a virtue in Public Advocate. The job is to be a gadfly and keep the rest of the City's government in line.
I need to get off my duff and start working for William Thompson in the general mayoral election. He defeated my old City Councilman Tony Avila in the primary. I voted for Thompson, I was never that impressed by Avila.
Bloomberg is a rarity, a politician that I have never voted for but think has done a lot of good things. If he hadn't sold his soul to the devil to run as a Republican he'd have been someone I might vote for. But he did. It isn't that he ran as a Republican, it was the price he paid to do so that bothers me. He supported Bush, repressed protests at the Republican National Convention, and helped the State Republicans effort to retain control of the State Senate. They failed but they kept enough seats to throw the entire state government into disarray.
The last straw was when he pushed through a change in the City's laws to allow himself to run for a third term. I am against term limits. I think we should be allowed to elect who we want. That being said what he did was just wrong. A law was passed to allow anyone first elected to City office in 2001 to run for a third term. It was a specific exemption for himself and the members of the Council whose votes he needed to pass it. The term limits were established by a ballot measure and that is how it should have been repealed. It should have been repealed in general not as a special exemptions. This is the sort of thing that third world strongmen due to keep in power. We decry it when it happens there and we should decry it when it happens here.
I have to grade a quiz so I better just stop writing and post this.
O Solo Maura - September 21, 2009
Love and Death - September 20, 2009
Lawrence of Arabia Virginia - September 19, 2009
Whether Vain. - September 18, 2009
Daydream Nonbeliever - September 17, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile September 16, 2009
