Open Courses

The best thing thing in the internet besides Wikipedia, is the increasingly common practice of putting the content of classes for free in the internet. At the forefront of this effort is MIT. They have been putting a lot of material out there, and not just their world-famous engineering courses. Check it out for your self. ocw.mit.edu


Yale University's Open Courses, while not offering as many classes as MIT, does offer one unique advantage, the course transcripts are provided, so I don't have to watch the lecture, I can just read it, this offers multiple advantages, for once, I can read it a lot faster than I can watch it. It's better for my embarrassingly-short attention span. And I can read it pretty much from anywhere, my phone, laptop, without having to wear headphones or anything like that.

I started out with the New Testament and Old Testament classes, I struggled a bit with the Old Testament stuff, some of it was kind of boring for me. But the New Testament course was fascinating, there are so many things in the New Testament's text that reveals so much about the history of Christianity, and I never noticed it. It's there, in plain sight, you just have to open your Bible and read it. Text Criticism was something new, I just never studied the Bible that way before.

But the class that compels me to write about this is the new course I am looking at, it is called Introduction of Political Philosophy, and it just hit my brain's sweet spot. It deals with the idea of the "Ideal Regime" the questions that are extremely relevant today have been asked for a long time by some great thinkers of the human race, learning about it is an awesome experience. I think that's what learning is supposed to be about. I think this is one of those course that will shape the way I think about politics for the rest of my life.

Well, that's all for now, I am sitting next to a fireplace in a Panera in Schaumburg, it's 6:30 AM, and I am headed for the office, long day of work ahead of me.

Be Good to each other.

J.V.

SHIT

Venezuela is going to be the next Cuba. It's really upsetting. Well, they chose that path, let's see where it leads them. Oh well. I am glad our family is here.

J.V.

Tomorrow

Good Bye President Bush

I am sad to see him go. Well, not really. A lot of my friends think I hate him. I don't.
Being president is a tough job, It is something I wouldn't want to do. It's too much stress to have so much power and be under scrutiny all the time.

There are many things that he did wrong. But he also did some good things in Africa, I've heard.

I think the economist did a good job of analyzing the Bush years.

The thing with me, is that when he said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, I believed him, when he said that we were going to find Osama Bin Laden, I thought that would be our top priority.

 When I was sent to Iraq, I thought we had a plan. I had a hard time in Iraq because I thought we were doing the Iraqi people a service by getting rid of a terrible dictator. But when I see that we are not welcome there, I have a hard time thinking that we are the good guys in that story. Of course I know things are more complicated than that., I understand. Bottomline I was lied to. I went to war for the wrong reasons.

 I hope Iraq turns itself around, with or without our help. Bush seems to think that in long run he will be recognized as the president that did the right thing. We will see about that. I don't blame him for the economy, or the gas prices, but I can't forgive how his leadership tarnished the image of American servicemen. Once that happened, I became more and more critical of his rhetoric and I stopped supporting him. 

 There are so many things that can be said about him, but I will let the historians and the press do that. I try to be objective when forming my opinions, I don't think he's a bad person or that he's as dumb as he sounds. I wonder about his character, but that's not for me to judge. I hope the Republican Party changes direction, the neoconservatives have self-destructed. A little advice: Palin is not the answer.

Oh well, what really matters is that things will change now with this new president. Right?....Right?

An unanswered important question

So the Middle East is in turmoil. Surprise! Who would have thought! I have a hard time deciding who I dislike the most. A terrorist organization that kills innocent civilians, or Hamas. I really can't side with an organization that has no respect for human lives. I understand the reality and the complexity of the situation, I just can't sympathize with any side. I am really divided over this. Deep down, I think Hamas is wrong, but Israel can't win my affection for this.

Now, while I was trying to argue this issue with a friend, an important question came up. How should a Country deal with terrorism? What is a State supposed to do when a non-government group decides to launch un-conventional warfare on its citizens? Peru dealt with Sendero Luminoso by crushing them like cockroaches, they caught his leader, and displayed him in a cage like an animal. But that brings other issues, I can't get to deep into it right now, but my point is that I don't think the means justifies the end. But I can't think of a way to solve this. What would be the best remedy?