It just dawned on me that summer is slowly ending. It is September, which means Autumn. In a way, I’m glad to know we don’t have much more scorching heat, but it is a little saddening.
At any rate, I was very good this morning to get up early and start working on my projects, so I can afford to take time to blog. It is very cool outside right now, a little foggy, and the sun is just barely shining through the clouds. It is beautiful.
So what has kept me so long from my site? Well…I’ve got a speech tomorrow in Chicago at the Seminar on Government Fiscal Responsibility (or lack thereof). I had to teach an economics class on Tuesday, and history yesterday. These classes aren’t like most. I don’t get my directions from a book and just say what has already been written. No, I do my own research, create my own powerpoints (yes, my lucky students get a powerpoint presentation), and write my own tests and research assignments. It is more work, but I learn more from it, and so do the students. I can tailor each class to my students and what their interests are. So it takes more time to prepare each class…on top of preparing for the speech tomorrow, and then another one next week for the Daughters of the American Revolution on free trade (or lack thereof) before the American Revolution and how that influenced the Revolution. It was very interesting information for me to find, I enjoyed doing my research.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed hearing bits and pieces about this hostage affair at the Discovery Center, only because of the person who took the hostages…a radical far-far-left-wing anti-human environmentalist. This must not have been planned. If it had, they would have picked, as Butler Shaffer said, “a cousin of the treasurer of the Mud Flats, Kansas, Tea Party” and that would have been the world’s biggest crisis since…oh, maybe the oil spill. So I like to think that this man, through his evil intentions, upset the plans of the State…perhaps just for a few hours.
I can’t think of much else…oh yes…last week they were commemorating the 5 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. That just broke my heart, to hear stories of all that those people in New Orleans suffered. Yes, the hurricane was a tragedy, but no one could control that, it is to be expected that there will be natural disasters in this world. But the way they were treated after the hurricane was appalling. I have heard snippets of it here and there, about the stadium they were locked in, etc…but to hear how they were treated, the horrific conditions they suffered through…not because it was necessary but because it was a such a top-down response, at least that’s my theory. I suspect that if private charities had been allowed to do more, if the government had stayed out altogether, it would not have been necessary for these people to endure the inhumane treatment. So that makes it doubly tragic…not only was this a powerful hurricane on a city that was already at a disadvantage, a city full of people who probably couldn’t afford to evacuate…and then the government steps in and dramatically exacerbates the problem. It is the same everywhere the government intervenes, but perhaps not as poignantly as in New Orleans.
