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 06, 2006 - 2:45 p.m.
Is today really Monday? I think it is, forget the calendar. I declare today officially Monday.
Last night I treated myself to a nice dinner then took care of a few things that I needed to do. I got gas. I'm going through New Jersey tomorrow so I only got a few gallons so I could fill up once I'm in the land of cheap gas. With a week to go in the semester I ran out of chalk so I had stopped at Staples to pick up a few boxes. Chalk is 89¢s; a box. Guess how much I spent; $99. There were a few more things I realized I needed once I was in the store to prepare for Festivus. I bought an color ink cartridge for my printer so I can make my cards. I bought 75 blank card. I bought blank CDs and CD labels for this year's edition of A Batnose Festival. Now I have all the materials I have to get to work burning CDS and designing my card.
This morning on the train to school I realized that I forgot to bring the chalk I bought. So I had to stop at Staples in Penn Station and buy more. I also left my walkman in my car. I hate when I do that. I love listening to WFUV in the morning and Al Franken on the way home. This might be Al Franken's last week on the air. He is leaving for Iraq after Friday and won't be back to next year. With Air America's financial problems he might never return. I hope he does. His show has become part of my routine.
I've been complaining about my students recently but I forgot to mention a different kind of incident. On Monday I taught them how to solve quadratic equations by the method of completing the square. I then showed them how to use that to derive he quadratic formula [if you follow that link you'll find a nice animation of the derivation]. I explained that we never actually solve quadratic equations by that method that I taught it so that we could derive the formula and that it has other applications they will need in other classes. At the end of class a student asked, "Why did we have to go through all that if we could just solve the equations with the formula." I explained once again the reason emphasizing that we needed it to derive the quadratic formula. To which she said, "But it has already been done, why do we have to do it?" I don't expect her to get as excited as I did when I learned it but to at least appreciate that it is something worth doing.
I usually write my entry during the break and I started this one then but couldn't finish. So now I'm back after my class. I wanted to come back here anyway so I could listen to the end of the Al Franken show.
Oh yes some more reasons today is really a Monday. When I got in this morning there were about a dozen windows of MSIE open and I couldn't close them. Somebody messed the computer up and just left it that way. I couldn't close things with the task manager. I ended up pushing the reset button. When I came back after class I was logged off of FHDC. I had trouble logging back on. I never use the password and I forgot which one I use. I thought I had changed it but it was still my original password.
Oh yes when I got back here after class somebody else was using the computer. I asked him if he'd be long and he said no. I waited around for him to finish so I could finish writing this and listen to Al Franken. When he was done he turned the computer off. I was standing right next to him, he knew I wanted to use it but he still turned it off so I had to wait for the computer to boot up. It is the kind of thing I just can't understand. Was he trying to be mean? I hardly know him. It isn't like there are hard feelings between us.
I'm going to be pretty busy the next few days. Tonight I'm going to the Met Knick game with Alan and Larry. Tomorrow I'm driving down to Philly to see LORi and see Mad Agnes. On Friday I'm seeing Joe Hurley with Rosie.
I can't finish without mentioning the latest idiotic right wing cause. In January Keith Ellison is going to be the first Muslim member of congress. As you would expect he is going to take his oath on the Koran. People are attacking him for this. Dennis Prager is making it into a cause celebre. He says that the bible is The book this country is founded on so it is subversive to use anything else. So much for separation of church and state. Sean Hannity said it is a victory for the Islamic Terrorists, part of their scheme to turn the United States Muslim. Can you believe this open bigotry by people of public prominence? Why aren't people on the right condemning them? I'll leave those questions as exercises for the reader.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
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Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
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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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Horvendile December 06, 2006
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