Those beliefs

Since someone asked, I'm trotting out a list of beliefs which define me a bit more closely and clearly than the terms "liberal" or "conservative". These are in no particular order--just as they come to mind during a rather exhausted slice of free time before work :P

I think the government should act to preserve individual freedoms and avoid infringing on peoples' privacy unless acts committed in privacy infringe on or harm the rights of others.

I believe in freedoms being extended to everyone to the extent that they don't restrict or inhibit others and their freedoms.

I believe that people, including myself, should take responsibility for their thinking by doing appropriate research and by exercising logic in working out their course of action, their thinking, and their opinions (aside from the kind of opinion like "I prefer chocolate ice cream").

I am a supporter of Democratic party for my entire politically viable life.

I believe that homosexuality is natural among humans and maybe animals too, and therefore should not be legislated against, nor restricted by churches who (in my opinion) misread the Bible in saying that homosexuality is unnatural.

I believe that abortion is not a right but a practice which should be exercised by women for reasons of health, and not for reasons of "oops, I was too careless to avoid getting pregnant."

I believe that government should not favor, in its actions, certain particular parties by giving them lucrative jobs or by slyly and covertly twisting public policy in order to enrich said parties. I think this is an abuse of power, committed by the people in the White House, and unfortunately committed in the past by people of both parties.

I do not believe that the ends justify the means, in general.

I believe in God.

I believe in respect, as opposed to bigotry, unfairness, narrow-mindedness, and penalizing others just because they disagree with you or are different from you. However I also believe in arguing with those with whom I disagree. I wish to avoid being venomous in my arguments, however.

I believe in the right to privacy but I am skeptical of the paranoid; for example, I often suspect that those who have Friends Only MySpaces are paranoid. Or else they are displaying nude photos that they don't want anyone but friends to see.

And that will do to be going on with--but I will answer anyone's questions or probings of my thought-process (expect same in return).

Remembering You

You can only see what happens when I close
my eyes,
to think about you and remember those times
when we were together,
and when we were close friends,
those beautiful times which now hurt to think of.

All those long talks we had together,
I liked the way you made me feel happy,
you made my heart as weak as a feather.

You introduced me to the beautiful world of friendship,
Something I haven't felt for a while.

Now you are gone, I'm just alone,
I cry myself to sleep every night,
I can't get a drop worth of rest.

I used to wonder,
if my heart was worth being broken,
Now I know, if I could ever go back,
I'd do it all over again.

What fills my days and consumes my vast energies

Recently someone made it clear that he doesn't know how busy I am. In a conversation, he gave me the sense that he has no idea what fills my life. And I never think about who knows what is going on in my life. It never occurs to me that anyone would think about my life, from the outside, and decide something about my life, form a viewpoint as it were, based on no information. Yet this happens, all the time. So now I'm taking ten minutes before I go to bed, to craft this note. Perhaps craft is too strong a word.

My days are full of teaching and learning; on some days I teach eight hours, on other days less, and in the non-teaching hours I do my mba presentations, glance over any reading due, research anything I don't know (thank God for the Internet!!). Sometimes students interrupt all this to meet with me and talk, vent, cry, dither or exult about something. I am responsible for answering every phone call and email in a timely fashion, usually defined as one to two days. I extend the same courtesy to my friends.

Then, in addition to all this, I have friends, and I have to fight for time to spend with them because I have quite a few, thank God. Then too, there are family meetings every so often. But! I am not finished describing my work: I have to prep for MBA classes. And then there is awesome planning, which takes from a few minutes to a few hours, with preparing financials, grocery shopping, cleaning, assignment completion, researching (fortunately I like to do this and am fairly proficient which might explain why researching invests nearly all of my life). Then too, there's spiritual life and personal life.

And now my minutes are up, so I might flesh this note out further at a later date describing my hours of learning piano, workshops, taking photographs, and reading at least one-two hours per day, and often writing in a blog as well. But now, must fly--