I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
December 08, 2010 - 12:29 p.m.
I like to have an hour to write this. I always end up having just a little less than that when I write between classes. I have a hour and a half break but I eat my lunch and check email and Facebook and blogs and that always takes more than half an hour.
I just got distracted so now I'm down to having 40 minutes and that includes the mechanics of posting this and the links to it.
I'll start with a literary update. I finished High Heat: The Secret History of the Fastball and the Improbably Search for the Fastest Pitcher of All Time. This was worth reading for the story of Steve Dalkowsi alone. If you are close to my age and a hard core fan you have heard of Dalkowski. He is mentioned in any discussion of fastest pitcher. Why do only hard core fans know him? He never made the major leagues. That moves him into the realm of legend. Why didn't he make the majors? He had no control. One minor league season in 170 innings he struck out 262 and walked 262. Do those numbers sound familiar? They are used in the film Bull Durham as Nuke Laroush's stats. I just knew him as a story about the importance of control. That here was a guy with a magic arm that never made it. I now know what's behind it. He was an alcoholic. His score on an IQ test was 65. This was a guy with major problems. And with all that the reason he never made the majors wasn't his control. As often happens he finally found his control in the second half of 1962 when he was just 23 and slated to pitch on the Orioles the next season. He was a major prospect. Things looked good. Then as happens all too often he hurt his arm. That's why he never made the majors. He never had the magic fastball after that.
I decided that I need to read a classic so now I'm reading Nathaniel Hawthorne's. The House of the Seven Gables. It's one of those books that I'm enjoying, that I don't find difficult to read, yet somehow find that I'm getting through very slowly. The last two days I ended up sleeping on the subway instead of reading. I'll try and see if I can pick up the pace. I went to Nathaniel Hawthorne Intermediate School so I feel a certain loyalty to him.
So do you know what a gable is? I thought I did but looked it up to make sure. I did. My old house had four gables. Click on the photo for the definition.
I was very good at school yesterday. When I was working in the Math Lab nobody came for help, as usual. I used the time to write a test for Friday, make up a practice final, and got halfway through making up the actual final. Not bad. I was just good now and got blue books for my exam on Friday. The admin usually isn't in before my class so I have to borrow them from the English department.
I got a dirty look from a woman on the walk home yesterday. I have no idea why. I was lost in thought then noticed her giving me the look. I wonder if it looked like I was staring at her. Maybe I was muttering. I was totally unaware of my surroundings till I snapped out of it. I was thinking about rationalizing as opposed to being rational. In one of his books Heinlein says, "Man is a rationalizing animal, not a rational one. Not quite true of course but a lot of intellectual activity is rationalizing. It is the essence of competitive debate. You are expected to come up with arguments supporting either side of an issue. They can't both be right yet you are prepared to argue for either one. It isn't reasoning to come up with the right answer. It is reasoning to come up with the answer you want. It is also the essence of much law. Lawyers are often prepared to take clients on either side of an issue. At the level of the Supreme Court the judges rationalize. They argue to justify the result they want. A good judge knows that to some degree this happens. As if often the case the ones to worry the most about are the ones that don't admit that it goes on. They can't try to balance their prejudices because they won't acknowledge the need to.
The entire original intent movement is rationalizing. Just think about it for a second. To go by the original intent is an inherently reactionary position. It means that the prejudices of the 18th century are embodied in the constitution. The framers well understood this which is why they left no record of the debates over writing the constitution because they didn't want that to be the basis for decisions. The original intent of the framers was to not use original intent. But it is used to rationalize reactionary positions. It is of course ignored when it goes against the result the judges want, like deciding the 2000 election in Bush's favor.
Most of us rationalize less formally. We know what we want to be true and look for evidence that it is and ignore evidence that it isn't. Usually it is not intentional. It is just the path of least resistance.
I was thinking about the legal issues when the woman gave me the dirty look. Maybe I was channeling Clarence Thomas and thinking the woman was Anita Hill. I sort of doubt that.
I got four minutes to go. I'll get one quick thing off my chest. In the beginning of The Third Man Greene says something to the effect of, "We never really adjust to the idea that we aren't as important to someone else as that person is to us."
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
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The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018
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Horvendile December 08, 2010
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