Market

Morals

What's good is good

What's good for more people is better

And it's all good

A short list

Things I like paying for:

• mass transit
• postage
  
• souvenirs for friends
  
• park passes, memberships
  
• pins, lapels
  
• haircuts from good barbers
  
• coffee
• good advice
• sports tickets

Things I don't like paying for:

• chips and salsa
• books (I like libraries)
  
• tips
  
• garbage bags
• furniture
• flowers
• airline tickets
• soup at restaurants
• newspapers
• and taxis

Summer School

Is nearing completion. There are two weeks before I leave for Los Angeles, then barring military takeover, Honduras. Organic Chemistry has been hard but not half as challenging as it was for me at Michigan State last summer. Humanities 324 isn't hard, but is a great deal more interesting than any class I've had in my memory, perhaps since U.S. History five years ago in high school.

Life is good.

Summer School

It is really hard!

The most important thing in the world

I think that the most important thing in the world is to organize life according to principles. If you organize your principles based on your current situation, everything is always in flux, it feels "out of control" whatever that means. Principles save lives! (so do seatbelts)

Cha-Cha-Cha Changes

The amazing David Brooks on Iran in the New York Times today.

The fate of nations is determined by glances and chance encounters: by the looks policemen give one another as a protesting crowd approaches down a boulevard; by the presence of a spontaneous leader who sets off a chant or a song and with it an emotional contagion; by a captain who either decides to kill his countrymen or not; by a shy woman who emerges from a throng to throw herself on the thugs who are pummeling a kid prone on the sidewalk. The most important changes happen invisibly inside peoples’ heads. A nation that had seemed apathetic suddenly mobilizes. People lost in private life suddenly feel their public dignity has been grievously insulted. Webs of authority that had gone unquestioned instantly dissolve, or do not. New social customs spontaneously emerge, like the citizens of Tehran shouting hauntingly from their rooftops at night. Small gestures unify a crowd and symbolize a different future, like the moment when Mir Hussein Moussavi held hands with his wife in public.

Summer

Life feels right

Success

Sucesss is mostly in showing up.

Showing up means numerous preconditions like dressing and planning appropriately are also done. But just showing up seems to be about 80% of being successful in life. I like to show up! Then I can go crazy.

Cities

I love cities. I've been to many this most recent semester:

Raleigh
Washington D.C.
Greensboro
Durham
Richmond
Naples, FL
Boston
Hendersonville
Detroit
Atlanta

as well as New York City, San Francisco, Miami, Savannah, Birmingham, and Tel Aviv and Jerusalem within the last three years.

I see so many lifestyles, all the lives that converge to live together, a cohesive functional or not unit; I love cities.

The Spring 2009 Semester Concludes

The Summer 2009 Shenanigans begin!

Like this quote: from nytimes #1 e-mailed article

Going Dutch, by Russell Shorto

A nearby movie house sells not popcorn but demitasses of espresso and glasses of Dutch gin from behind a wood-paneled bar, which somehow makes you feel sane and adult and enfolded in civilization.