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.
October 03, 2006 - 11:46 a.m.
I hardly slept last night but before I try and nap I’ll update. Yesterday was an uneventful day. School went well. I let both classes out a bit early because things went quickly and I didn’t want to get too far ahead on Yom Kippur when my Jewish students weren’t there. This is the first semester I’ve had many of them. I am not sure if I ever had more than one before. I have at least three in one class.
It is funny the things that make me think of my mother. After school I walked down to Penn Station. I have not been able to do that since she got sick since I was always hurrying home. At the Christine Lavin concert I got choked up when Chris did her ode to whipped cream. I have a can in the house because before my mother stopped eating she loved it and ate it every day.
On the walk down to Penn station I stopped at Town Hall to buy tickets to see Madeleine Peyroux. They are far pricier than I usually go for but I can’t resist Madeleine and she performs so rarely.
Last night I finally got to speak with Gella; we’ve been playing phone tag for days. Her cell phone still didn’t want to talk to me. We had to talk on her land line.
I was thinking about how often I give advice here. I come very close to writing sermons. So where do I come off doing that? Who am I to tell people how to live? It isn’t like I do such a great job living my own life. The answer is easy. I don’t really tell people anything new. Most of the time I simply exhort people to do what they already know is right. Thinks like “Be just and good;” To follow the golden rule; To do not accept evils just because that is how the world is but to try and make the world a better place; To make yourself a better person; to help others to become better people. Perhaps my only common theme of mine that many of you don’t believe is that happiness is a virtue. Like sermons I often base them on a selection of Holy Scripture, except in my case that might mean Cabell or Tolkien or the Beatles or the Marx Brothers.
So in any event I don’t think I’m going to stop writing my sermons. So here is today’s sermon.
I was thinking about one of the greatest films of all time, Network. If it won the award for best screenplay of all time I wouldn’t object. The most famous scene in it is a rant by Howard Beale (Peter Finch), network anchorman turned “Mad Prophet of the Airways.” He exhorts his viewers:
I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:"I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
Wow I get inspired just copying and pasting that. The great cathartic scene in American film. The things is as much as I love it I’ve come to disagree with it on one point; Getting mad. Getting mad doesn’t help. It makes you irrational, it makes you rant not argue. It doesn’t convince people who don’t agree with you. The trick is to not get mad but to get energized; to get passionate; to care so much that you do something. The “I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!” is the important part. Every time I read about a new horror the government does I think of that sequence.
If you haven’t seen the film you must. There has never been a more biting or funnier satire written. You’ll be outraged and rolling in the aisles laughing at the same time.
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 October 03, 2006
