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Tuesday, 11 November 2008

  • Happy Veterans Day

    Today the trend is to be increasingly selfish... the goal is to minimize inconvenience to yourself... the morality is 'if it feels good, do it.' 

    Which is one of the reasons that now, more than ever, an individual willing to sacrifice for his or her country is that much rarer, that much braver, that much more to be thanked.  To everyone who served, everyone who gave of themselves for their country -- thank you.   

     

Sunday, 09 November 2008

  • Turning Over a New Leaf

    It's interesting how life works. So, I last posted - almost a year ago.
    I never wanted to blog because I thought -- who cares about my life? I do nothing interesting, I was just a little college student, and I was not particularly enchanted with the idea of an online, public diary. Then I decided to go to law school.
    That was when I started this. I thought maybe law school would give me interesting things to talk about, I thought maybe people would be interested in what law school was like. What I didn't realize was that law school teaches you to be more than a little circumspect. It teaches you to watch every word out of your mouth - ESPECIALLY in public. It makes you positively O.C.D. about what you WRITE DOWN. And writing in public? Publishing in a blog? Holy cow -- forget that. You become indoctrinated with the idea that everything you say may someday be dug up and used against you.... and, well, I stopped blogging.

    Until now.
    More precisely, until 10 pm. on November 4, which is when I decided to start blogging again.

    Don't get me wrong -- I wasn't too surprised. In fact I called it. I called it last spring, when I watched Mr. Obama mesmerize crowds. I also happen to be a student of history, and I know that Americans LOVE to switch parties every eight years. Don't really know why -- but for some reason, 'we' tend to elect our presidents to two terms, and then switch parties. I credit it to a philosophy of "I'm not perfectly happy and rich right now, so maybe if I try the other party, they'll fix all my problems." Makes sense.
    (by the way, that's not always the case with Senators and Congressmen).
    No, I wasn't too terribly surprised. Disappointed, yes. Surprised, no. But as a result of the elections I do find that I can no longer stay quiet. Here's the thing, I have this fundamental problem with killing babies. It really disturbs me, in fact, that we as a nation are so 'ok' with it, it's even impolite to bring it up, and certainly to call it what it is. I have a problem with that. I'd like to think I'd have a problem with any form of legalized murder.
    I also have a problem with Socialism. You see, I know it sounds really great -- really utopian, really everyone-can-hold-hands-and-sing, but it just doesn't work. Ok, I'm trying to live like a Christian and part of that is giving to others, particularly those less fortunate than me. I'm all about private charities. But not socialism. Like I said -- it's been tried. A lot. By a lot of different people. The Russians had a version, the Chinese had a version, most of Western Europe currently has a version..... and it hasn't yet worked out. Why? The same reason kids don't learn when you don't grade them. No incentives. No reason to work hard, no reason to better yourself. "Redistribution of Wealth" caters to manipulation of the system, and results in the wrong people getting the money, the actually needy remaining needy, billions of dollars just falling through the cracks or going to support the bureaucracy, and the one-time-hard-working-entrepreneurs being afraid to succeed because they'll get the life taxed out of them. This is bad.

    So, because I have these two problems, I am going to have to start blogging again -- and do my small part to convince a couple more of you to vote differently next time, before we end up like France. (don't get me wrong, I do love their food!) Or if nothing else...I'll just blow off steam and feel better.

Thursday, 28 February 2008

  • hmmm....where do I start?  After a three-month-long break from xanga, I'm almost embarrassed to post again

    There's just been too much.  I keep putting off this "I'm back" post because there is too darn much to talk about it.  Surviving my first semester at law school...finals....that whole insanity.  My trip to Egypt (I STILL have to get my pictures off my phone, if I ever do, I will post them all! )....the birth of my completely-perfect-brilliant-beautiful new cousin, Irene....and now, just back to the grindstone again. 

    So, this is short, I know but it's just to say I'm still alive and I'll start writing again, one of these days.  I also still have to finish conceptualizing what I want this blog to be....I don't know if I want it to be a 'legal blog' (or the beginnings of a legal blog from a lowly law student who has no knowledge yet!), a political blog, a philosophical blog, or just a fun creative outlet for my down time.  Then again, knowing me, it probably won't ever get a theme, it'll just be a random collection of all of the above and whatever else pops into my mind.

Sunday, 16 December 2007

  • One of the reasons I love Christmas...


    Because sooooo many people celebrate it.
    People who would never, in a million years, admit that there is a God, nevertheless celebrate His birth regularly.

    It's really kind of mind-boggling how widespread it is, how far across the world it reaches.  Especially if you stop and try to think of which other religion's major holidays are almost universally celebrated....wait....?
    Even in this politically correct era of "Happy Holidays" and "Family Trees," the truth of the matter is, the vast vast vast majority celebrate Christmas.

    Santa Clause himself, for all his flaws, flies in the face of atheism.  As do all the other Hallmark-esqu trappings...I mean sure, "we" are more interested in the lights, the tree, the mistletoe and the presents then we are in the Nativity.  BUT....even those trappings nonetheless pay some of their tribute all the way back to a Birthday. 

    And I love that.  I love that, as secular as we've made the holiday, as careful as we are not to mention the word "God," the bottom line is that in the name of tradition, Christmas carols with words like this get sung by people who wouldn't touch a hymnal:

        "Long lay the world in sin and error pining
        'til He appeared, and the soul felt its worth.
        A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices
        For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn."

    "The soul felt its worth"  "A thrill of hope"  .....

    No, this is not me trying to be some sort of superior 'Christian'  -- no competitiveness, not trying to 'put down' other religions.  That's not the point of Christianity.  The moment someone thinks they're 'better' because they're saved -- well, they should probably double-check whether or not they are actually saved.  We are to be the most humble, because we know how much we've been forgiven.

    I'm just excited to see my God praised so extensively, even by a world that's forgotten Him, even when they don't know they're doing it.   


Thursday, 29 November 2007

  • "The Famous Trolley Case"

    Our exams begin on December 11 and go through December 18. 
    In one class, there is no final exam.  There's a paper instead.  You guessed it...the paper is 100% of the grade.

    The paper is due December 7.

    No really, this is not me making up excuses for ONCE AGAIN going over a week without blogging.    Clearly I would never do such a thing!  In fact, how dare you think it? 

    Yesterday, in Criminal Law (fast shaping up to be my favorite class...who would have guessed it?)  Professor Berman posed the following hypos:

    The famous "trolley case"
    There's a train coming.  Five unconscious people lay on the track.  You notice a switch that, if pulled, will redirect the train to a spur, sparing the five.  One person is asleep on the spur.  What do you do?

    Now, say a doctor has five patients who need various organ transplants, all about to die.  A complete stranger walks by who happens (bizarrely) to be a perfect blood and tissue match for all five.  Should the doctor kill the stranger in order to harvest his organs and save the other five?

    Were your two answers different? 

    If they were, why?  Can you justify it? 

    The class discussion wasn't resolved, we're going to finish it on Monday.  But this is why I love Criminal Law: because as a Christian, I approach the two hypos above from a gut-reaction that is presumably the Holy Spirit prompting me as to the correct course.  We have The Law, spelled out pretty clearly in the 10 Commandments, we have Biblical principles to live by woven through the Bible, and we have the Holy Spirit prompting us.  What's beautiful about Christianity, though, is that if you have to argue without using those three authorities, you can.  It's a joy to reach Christian conclusions to moral dilemmas by just thinking it through one step at a time.  Because it just makes so much sense.  Now of course what's illogical is that it is premised on the ideas that self should not be priority and that death is not the greatest evil, and in my experience outside of Christianity it is generally accepted that you should put yourself first and that if you have do something (anything) to prevent your own death it is permissible.  Apart from that, though, a joy of Christianity is the sheer logic of it all.  That as a system it works within itself completely, no holes, no problems.  That as a moral philosophy it has an answer for every possibility without requiring exceptions to the rules.

    So this little game for your minds was just to illustrate a tiny bit of what my classes are like.  Enjoy...

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  • thequiddityoflife
    i just wrote you a comment! how sad am i... that i would be posting a comment here about a comment i posted you... i disgust myself.