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Okay, so I'll *attempt* to write every day for the sake of Kymm's soul. Perhaps I'll endeavor to write every weekday??
High: My cold day's appetite will be satisfied by Minestrone Stew.
Low: Not looking forward to this next week at work.
Getting beyond this seemingly unending Philosophy class.
Listening to Marie "eeew!"-ing over cleaning up the back yard of landmines.
Video killed the radio star!
Looks like nothing was going on.
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Dramatis Personnae
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March 3, 2002
Nuggets
I'd commented previously that my Philosophy class wasn't going so well. It's not that I'm not doing well in it, it's that it's an absolutely painful class to sit through. My notes consist of cryptic nuggets of information that may or may not come in useful for the final - I can only hope my professor writes tests in the same fashion as he lectures.
I went to class at 8:00 on Saturday morning. I left class at 11:00. In the three hours that went by, this is what I learned:
- There's always two ways of looking at things, it's just a matter of making a choice at the beginning of the argument.
- Ideas are communicated in pictures, words, numbers, and music.
- Patterns represent experience. For example, the sequence of events that caused WWI were previously experienced in history a total of five other times.
- The Ancient Greeks believed that Knowledge = True, and Opinion = False.
- There is no such thing as good, right, or absolute.
- Teleological arguments are Aristotelian - they allow for non-examples to exist, or "exceptions to the rule".
- A system of representation is not a system of truth.
- John Stewart Mill believed "The pursuit of pleasure is the greatest good."
- Murder is the only "self evident" wrong that the class could think of.
- What we should desire that will create the ultimate good, is to desire what is good for us.
In Monday's class, we're watching "The Neverending Story". I'm all shivered in anticipation of how he's going to relate that to our philosophy class.
I read an article in today's newspaper about how the city of Tucson is launching a program to give homeless people shelter in inclement weather. Specifically, this shelter will open and provide homeless people a warm meal and a place to sleep for the night when the temperature is below 35 degrees in clear weather, or below 40 degrees in rainy weather.
First, let me say that I'm glad they're doing something. Every little bit helps. With that said, though, who the heck dreamed up those parameters?? So if it's 36 degrees the place won't open? If it's 41 degrees and pouring the homeless folks have to suffer? Whether or not these people are cared for is dependent on the dubious skills of the weather man??? What a crock.
They need more programs so these poor folks can get back on their feet. There's no way to get ahead when you're homeless - you can't get a job if you have no skills, you can't obtain skills if someone won't teach you, you can't get hired if you don't have a residence, you can't get a residence if you don't have income. Band-aids in the form of the "inclement weather shelter" barely do anything to ease the symptoms, to say nothing of doing something to fix the problem itself.
There. I'm off my soap box now.
Huh. What an odd entry. I didn't really have much to say, if you couldn't already tell - I was just grasping for a topic to keep up with Kymm's soul-saving. The weekend has consisted of mindless blathering in class, housework, grocery shopping, reading (David and Leigh Eddings' "The Redemption of Althalus", which is amazingly just like every other book they've ever written), and watching movies (Shrek and Tomb Raider and O and The Musketeer and Don't Say A Word). I'm gearing up for a ridiculously yucky week at work (two more weeks to go and both of my projects are deployed, thank God) and really wish to use my brain as little as possible.
Which isn't compatible with interesting entry writing. Sorry about that.