another summer shot
It's a busy time...forty-five hours a week teaching/grading/preparing (I actually do one for one) leaves almost none for pursuits like CESL Today, cleaning up the web, marketing, or the essence of language. My writing class is in Hawaii...my intermediate class is doing crime (Al Capone, Jesse James, DNA testing, file-sharing, etc.)- come check out our weblogs. These folks are all learning to be webloggers and are actually (for the most part) doing their homework.On the subject of crime, though, I was watching some Hitchcock movies with my boys and we decided to write our own murder mysteries...however, a murder came to Carbondale, struck the boyfriend of my stepdaughter's friend, and took the wind out of my sails. Don't know how much of this to share with the students. Makes me wonder how much a fascination with this stuff is really helping the world. And whether a person can really affect the crime rate.
War is a tragedy, anywhere...but, here's something about the jerusalecentrism of the media...(my term- you heard it first here)...I am referring to the unfortunate obsession with the eternal conflict- one needs, after a while, to take one's boot out of the muck, if not one's mind. And remember that many people are dying all over the place- let's have a little perspective.
And if life weren't busy enough, it now appears we're moving...from west park lane on the south side to south lark lane on the west side...a momentous change for a family of ten (not to mention the animals)...but one which will make for a safer bike ride.
And, going into a twelfth year here, a full round on the zodiac calendar. Peace to all,
posted by tom @ 9:12 PM
2 Comments:
It’s really a busy time considering that it’s summer, since everything supposes to be done in a short time. I think a forty-fife hour is a long time. Is it always like that or just in summer? I’m interested in what you said about war, but I’m not sure if I completely understand what you mean.
Dear Raeed,
Thank you for your comment. I am happy to clarify this.
About being so busy, all I can say is, yes, it's too long and too hard, and, no, we've been too busy a lot, all year long.
About the war, I'll say this. I'm against the war in Iraq; I don't think we should be there. But I am also against US involvement in the Israel-Hezbollah war. The US has funded Israel, given them bombs, etc. By not demanding peace we are basically saying, go ahead, take our bombs, blow up little children, etc. I'm against it; I demand peace. I think people can work this stuff out, and they should.
What I was saying was that over the years we have been way too invested in the Middle East. Maybe we should back up a little and say, if we believe in democracy, let everyone have democracy, and if that means Hezbollah rules Lebanon, or Hamas rules Palestine, or whatever, let people have autonomy like we said we would. Then, if we believe people should not go around butchering each other, let's stick to that principle in Africa, and Lebanon, and Iraq too. Let's put it in perspective. I think the US is very wrong here (in Lebanon) - & it will hurt us for many years. And if we really cared about those principles, maybe we wouldn't have acted this way.
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