[It'll be a few days before I know anything about our home.  I'm hopeful, since the pictures I've seen of Lake Charles don't seem too bad.  Many downed trees and power lines, flooding near bodies of water, aluminum buildiings destroyed--but most buildings seem on the whole intact and there doesn't seem to be widespread flooding.  But then again, these are just a few sporadic pictures I've seen.  And then there's the possibility of tornadoes...

My parents and Christopher and my grandparents are in Shreveport with an aunt and uncle.  They will probably be there until power returns, which will be a week or more.  My dad will go back on Monday to check things out and to lend a hand to cleaning up.  Christopher wants to go with him.  I'd like to go down soon, but don't know when I'll be able to.  Anyway, it wouldn't/won't be for long, so I won't be of much help.  It's hard being far away--both because I can't help (which I suppose no one really can right now) and because it makes it less real, and I feel bad about that.

Meanwhile, my geometry students turned in essays on Friday for their first major grade, so I need to read those tomorrow.  Classes are coming along well, and my middle school soccer team won their first game on Thursday, 1-0.  They did it pretty much on their own, as Coach Lanier was busy trying to get all 22 of his players into the game, and for approximately the same amounts of time, and keeping control of the players on the bench, and so on.  Away game on Monday in Annapolis.

Here's a short quotation to reflect on.  The last one didn't seem to popular.  Maybe it was too long.]

Maqein paqein.

[Sounds like mah-thain pah-thain.  Which could be variously translated as:]

To learn is to suffer.

To suffer is to learn.

Learning comes by way of suffering.

[This was an ancient Greek epigram, and variations on it can be found in Aeschylus and Aristotle.  And now for a bit of etymology fun: the root of paqein gives us words like pathology and passion (like the Passion of the Christ) and maqein was the root for maqhmatikoV which gives us mathematics (literally, "the learnable things").

We've had our fair share of learning lately.  Let me know how y'all are.   ~Lenny]

[Hey y'all, and greetings from Maryland.  A few updates about me: my math classes are really starting to take off.  In my algebra class, we've begun a daily tradition of everyone going to the board to write the biggest number they can in thirty seconds.  The current champion number is a googleplex^googleplex^googleplex...and so on for thirteen sets of powers.  We'll see if any new strategies emerge tomorrow.  In geometry, we're taking a day to look at some artwork to study their composition and how lines and shapes are used for different effects.  Then we're going to do (hopefully attractive) drawings of our own using straightedges and compasses--to get used to these tools.  Life otherwise is going well.  I get to see some of my Johnnie cohorts this weekend, as we're driving down to Virginia for another friend's birthday celebration.

But now to the reading.  This passage from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is not the one I was looking for, but is probably a better first exposure to Smith's thought.  Plus, he discourses on our old friend, human nature.  I'll find the other passage eventually.  Enjoy this for now!

Hope you are well,  ~Lenny]

Division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another.

Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature of which no further account can be given; or whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our present subject to inquire. It is common to all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to know neither this nor any other species of contracts. Two greyhounds, in running down the same hare, have sometimes the appearance of acting in some sort of concert. Each turns her towards his companion, or endeavours to intercept her when his companion turns her towards himself. This, however, is not the effect of any contract, but of the accidental concurrence of their passions in the same object at that particular time. Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that. When an animal wants to obtain something either of a man or of another animal, it has no other means of persuasion but to gain the favour of those whose service it requires. A puppy fawns upon its dam, and a spaniel endeavours by a thousand attractions to engage the attention of its master who is at dinner, when it wants to be fed by him. Man sometimes uses the same arts with his brethren, and when he has no other means of engaging them to act according to his inclinations, endeavours by every servile and fawning attention to obtain their good will. He has not time, however, to do this upon every occasion. In civilised society he stands at all times in need of the cooperation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons. In almost every other race of animals each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely independent, and in its natural state has occasion for the assistance of no other living creature. But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food. The old clothes which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other old clothes which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money, with which he can buy either food, clothes, or lodging, as he has occasion.

--Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter 2

[It's not much at a time like this, but here's a few words and an (I think) inspiring passage.  I hope you are all okay.  In some sense, I know you are all okay, because no hurricane can take away who and what all of you are--which, by the way, is truly fantastic.  Also, no hurricane can take away standing on stage with your friends and singing "Impossible Dream."  Remember that feeling?  That feeling is yours and yours always.  What would you trade it for?  Houses and cities and lifesyles and livelihoods can be washed away, but lives can't be.  You are your own scrapbook.  If Katrina didn't kill you, don't let her run you into the ground with your own sorrow.  There is too much to be done to dwell upon loss.

This passage is about becoming mature.  Crisis can bring out different things in us; one pair is maturity and immaturity.  If it's not too pedagogical of me to say so--because I know it hurts right now, it hurts me too--but growth can come out of this catastrophe.  Let's try to be a little more grown-up, a little more self-reliant as we forge ahead into the future.  My thoughts and prayers are with you all.  Let me hear from you.  ~Justin]

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! [dare to know] "Have courage to use your own understanding!"--that is the motto of enlightenment.

Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance (natura-liter maiorennes), nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians. It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me. The guardians who have so benevolently taken over the supervision of men have carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard taking the step to maturity as very dangerous, not to mention difficult. Having first made their domestic livestock dumb, and having carefully made sure that these docile creatures will not take a single step without the go-cart to which they are harnessed, these guardians then show them the danger that threatens them, should they attempt to walk alone. Now this danger is not actually so great, for after falling a few times they would in the end certainly learn to walk; but an example of this kind makes men timid and usually frightens them out of all further attempts.

Thus, it is difficult for any individual man to work himself out of the immaturity that has all but become his nature. He has even become fond of this state and for the time being is actually incapable of using his own understanding, for no one has ever allowed him to attempt it. Rules and formulas, those mechanical aids to the rational use, or rather misuse, of his natural gifts, are the shackles of a permanent immaturity. Whoever threw them off would still make only an uncertain leap over the smallest ditch, since he is unaccustomed to this kind of free movement. Consequently, only a few have succeeded, by cultivating their own minds, in freeing themselves from immaturity and pursuing a secure course.

--Immanuel Kant, "What is Enlightenment?"

Hey guys, don't be shy about commenting.  What you say here doesn't have to be long or profound, it just has to be what the reading makes you think of--it can even be a question.  A conversation's got to start somewhere...give it a shot! 

And I'll get those icons together as soon as I can.

(If you have any questions or confusions about what's going on here, shoot me an email, or comment to this post.  Thanks again for coming!)

[Here's a couple of paragraphs from the first article of Thomas Paine's The Crisis.  It was printed on December 23, 1776--just as the Revolutionary War was setting fire to the new nation.  Paine's writings inspired many during the war, including George Washington, who had this article read to his troops during his dismal winter at Valley Forge.  The complete article (which is only four pages long) can be found at http://www.ushistory.org/paine/crisis/c-01.htm]

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God. ...

I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the Tories [Americans loyal to the king]: a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, "Well! give me peace in my day." Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty. Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them. A man can distinguish himself between temper and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God governs the world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.

--Thomas Paine, The Crisis