in the tongue of assholes
2001-08-18 - 12:01 p.m.
And when my college roommates inquire of me why I have taped a pair of skivvies on the ceiling of the shower, I shall respond thusly...'Consider the fortunate circumstance that I am in the with a girlfriend thing, and at one moment there are clothes enough for thirty Ethiopians, and the next, there is a great deal lacking in clothes between the two of us. And in the moment that follows that, god willing, there is much physical commotion about �yes� and �oh god�, and other such tightly ambiguous statements besides. And let us suspose, that after the liquid messiness of such a situation, we go to the shower to have at more of a similar (and yet slightly less messy) situation. And let us rightly suspose that in our eagerness to race to the showering room, we completely forget to invite any of our clothes along. So, things in the shower are being had, when *gasp!* some lowly and evil-spirited passer-by should happen to stop by for a visit (let us further suppose that it may be the parents of said girlfriend). At any rate, the only plausible argument to give that might avoid a beating is that she has stopped by my room to involve herself in strictly solitary showering activities, and I am simply using the nearby porcelain bowl for my own (also strictly solitary) activities. But this story would not go over well if I were to be wearing a towel when I exited the bathroom, nor would it go over any better if I showed up in the next room completely nude and dripping wet, with the excuse that I had fallen in the bowl, and some type of interstellar gnome had stolen my clothes (which, quite possibly, are still in plain sight of the receptionary room). But in examining the bathroom, all that is to be found is a washcloth and a fuzzy toilet-seat cover (neither of which could scarcely cover my excitement in said situation!). And so, woe-is-me, I am caught between a dry and a wet place, neither of which involves clothing (as we know it) in any way. So it is with great reluctance that I proceed with plan the second, which is firstly to dry myself off and then secondly to crawl out the window and enter through the window of a nearby friendly and understanding neighbour, by which I can borrow some clothes and pretend that I was never in the shower in the first place. What however, my luck being what it is, should happen if I slipp on the sill of the bathroom window and fall onto the ground beyond, becoming completely unconscious from my greeting with a fellow grasshopper, sitting peacefully on a rock? I should think that said parents might be quite perturbed to find (upon touring the college later) that the naked mass of human on the lawn who quite looks like a demented manikin is actually the boyfriend of their daughter! Obviously, the whole situation could have been easily avoided by keeping a spare pair of skivvies in the bathroom, preferably within reach of the shower.'
Sidenote: I never really did get that omelet, but I still say little sisters can be really sweet.
This seemed to me a lovely illustration of what can be said about the uncertainty of colour: �Suppose (b) that there is a fish which looks vividly multicolored, slightly glowing perhaps, at a depth of a thousand feet. I ask you what real color it is. So you catch a specimen and lay it out on deck, making sure that the condition of the light is just about normal, and you find that is looks a muddy sort of grayish white...� (from The Word �Real�, by J L Austin) Although the author of this example continues to presume that nothing can be said of the exact colour of things, I take the colour of a thing to be stemmed from reactions in the eyes, and therefore from perception itself. For example, the colour of the sky could be said to be the result of the eyes reaction to the perception of the reaction between the sun�s rays and the properties of the O3 itself, combined with all the accidental objects in the space between. And as for the �the sky� I would take it to be more of a location. The sky is...up.
�You can�t avoid doing something just because you are afraid of the consequences. If you allow yourself to be limited by only good ends, than you might as well not be born because you�re afraid of death, or not fall because you�re afraid of the sudden stop at the end.� -Nemo
Sister was informing me about the stupidity of her school, having only gone three times this year so far. Evidently, the local high school does not permit students to carry their backpacks between classes. Of course, one would wonder why any student would bother to bring their books home, avoiding bringing a backpack at all, but that would cause the student to do less homework than the minimal amount they already do. But really, this is not a problem for most students. Nearly all of the students, I have been told, bring a backpack with them to school, unlock and lock all their books and backpack into a tiny locker, and use the locker between every class to switch books. This, of course, provides quite a security hazard, with the whole student body packed orgy-tight in only a long hallway (perfect for a high school shooting range) of lockers stacked, one row on top of the other (so while you�re trying to get into your locker, someone is either trying to hit you in the head or shins with theirs). Not to mention the fire hazard and trampling factor of such a cramped place (especially for a claustrophobic child, who�s just gonna get irritated and snap someday, gunning everyone down within sight, just to get to their locker in peace). Several students have already expressed a feeling of unsafety or �nakedness�, simply because they don�t have their backpacks. What if you accidentally break your pencil during a test, and don�t have an extra? You might have to interrupt the whole class just to waste time so that you can get a new pencil from your locker, but then you have to spend the extra time to unlock the locker when you get to it, because you�re afraid of other students stealing your...textbooks. They says that a life lived in fear is no life at all. Although this may be a little extreme of a statement, I�m sure that we can all agree that a life lived in fear is very stressful and, at best, not necessary at all.
�It�s easier to believe in justice than live your life by it. It�s easier to believe in God than live with God. It�s easier to believe in murder than to live through it.� -Nemo
It would be interesting, just once, to have the entire population of America vote on a bill, just to see what kind of people we are. A bill that would be enacted by a majority rule, and, if passed, would require all of the people who voted �no� to send five dollars to their local post office, where the money would be redistributed to the people who voted �yes� on the bill. It might be interesting to see just how many people would be scared into conforming to �aye� for the safe bet against losing five bucks.
Jessica (my beloved trenchcoat) and I went to the Shakespeare Festival yesterday, and got back early this morning. She got one compliment, and I got none. The number of compliments that she gets has greatly diminished from my junior year (when I bought her), but I still have yet to beat her at a contest of Stranger�s Compliments.
On the way back from the Shakespeare Festival, Step-mother did an unusual thing...she asked for my opinion. Rather, she asked the opinion of everyone in the car, but must have been pointing the question at me, being the only real Thinker in the family other than her. And it may have been that she only asked the question because her most recent paper for her doctorate in theology was late, but the fact remains that she asked my opinion. Her question was one of the definition of the term �Justice� (and how it is applied to racism, sexism, baldism, and other -isms besides). At first, I was thinking of Justice as it pertains to criminal/unjust behaviour. The theory was that justice is doing what the majority decides; just as the majority of people wanted McVeigh dead. This theory is obviously debunked by the needs of minorities, who could be easily manipulated by the majority into doing whatever. But then again, maybe his death was not justified by his actions, and it seems that people are always trying to target some idea or lifestyle that clashes with their own. But if criminals are the persons of our society who have non-popular ideas, they are also the persons who open up our eyes to what we�d been afraid to see. I think Rose said it best, �Sorry, offtopic. Although, if nobody ever wandered offtopic or changed the subject, we'd all be talking about the same thing, over and over...� And so, my first assumption was that Justice is a pipe-mind, able to think and Be only what it was the year, the day, the minute before. My second idea, and somewhat more off-the wall, was that Justice is a constitutional rule. Theoretically, everyone lives under the same rules; rules that are ideally decided through the unanimous decisions of a whole society. This secures the interests of minorities while keeping the �red tape� factor thick, and ensures that everyone is more or less pleased with the rules of the society in which they live. Or does it? It follows that the only way to dump an older rule would be to vote unanimously for it�s removal...in effect making a new rule exactly contrary to the first. But if half of the population changed it�s mind a generation down the road, then nothing short of chaos would result. Each side of the argument might even try to exterminate the other, in an effort to make a unanimous rule from the people that are left standing. In short, Justice is a pipe bomb...strapped to someone�s chest and waiting to explode in some downtown pizzeria. Finally, I came up with the idea that justice is a result from giving every person what they Need. What they need to be successful, to appreciate themselves and other, to start out on a level playing field in the area of economics, education, and (in general) their perceived �value� as a human being. But after thinking on this a while, I realized that it doesn�t even sound like a good dream. Are we to say that poverty cannot exist, just because it makes the upper class feel uncomfortable? Or that children cannot tease another child because they talk funny, or that girls cannot make fun of boys because have cooties (and likewise boys cannot make fun of girls because they have cooties)? Redheads just wouldn�t be redheads unless they were proud of being teased about being a redhead. I do believe that teasing and insulting are healthy, if not necessary for a culture, for otherwise we�re just characters in some Shakespearean play, killing someone because they were biting their thumbnail while they walked passed you, and you didn�t know how to properly cope with the insult. Or mayhaps justice is just a pipe, a limitation that prevents us from doing anything that we think we can�t. And true Justice is doing that which we Should, regardless of what we think of it at the time.
Post Sanctum: One of my cousins was in a single-car accident and she�s in a coma now. For the record, I�m not going down to see her in the hospital, although I had previously visited another cousin who had gotten into much the same situation, not too long ago. It wasn�t a big thing, I don�t think I even mentioned it *here*.
