For a cuture who knows more than we ever have, we still know nothing worth knowing. What will all of this knowing benefit us later on? How will knowing all of this benefit us if we will eventually forget?

Students learn information Monday through Thursday and test on Friday. That information may or may not be used again until the final. If our memories work on a weekly basis then we are in trouble. Eventually they’ll decide “Look, the test scores are down twelve overall points. We need to simplify the college admittance tests and to switch the testing days to every other day.” Many people say that we’re getting smarter and smarter. They are incorect, we are learning more and more but we’re not getting smarter. Way back when the schools had only one classroom and one teacher the seniors faced tests more difficult and shorter than the dreaded SAT and ACT. Did anything that they ever learn benefit them even now? My point is too many people are focused on getting more and more information while they disreguard the Bible as truth. Students are told get good grades, do sports, band, clubs, arts, other extracurricular activities, pass the ACT/SAT or both, get into college, don’t fail, join a fraternity or sorrority, get an associates, go back, get a masters, get a job, get raises, after fourty years pay off your debts, work twenty more years, retire, be healthy and die at a ripe old age of a hundred and five. Since tomorrow isn’t promised there is no guarantee that anbody today can realistically carry out this american dream while pursuing houses, cars, a family and bettering society in general. I look through the obituraries from time to time and see that most people who are listed were in their sixties. Peoples lives are far too hurried. People get so busy with the living that they forget that they have always been dying – tomorrow isn’t promised and some get a real rude awakening of that fact. Being a good person isn’t going to save you if you don’t know Jesus. Following the law isn’t going to save you if you don’t know Jesus. Knowing Jesus personally, like/as a brother, a friend, a savior, a counselor is the one and only way. This is what we teach and believe.

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Today’s insight will be posted tomorrow.

Click. Click. Hm? A jazz song? Chips Ahoy! commerical? Its one of the most mysterious questions – second only to “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop?” but I asked it. “What is the name of the song in the Chips Ahoy! commercial?” I asked Jeeves. Eventually I found it. “Sing, S(w)ing, Sing” by Benny Goodman. I went to an archive to sample the song to verify if it was indeed the song. There it was, older but still the same. I look around and found it. Close to the song in the commerical. All of that work for one song.

And now for today’s news – nothing new is news. No news may or may not be good news. Know any new news? I knew new news just last week. I forgot new news just around then but I’m not sure.

Dreary day today. Here and all over the nation. It is the weather’s fault. Hurricanes causing death and destruction and despairing people who will most likely be shipped north to avoid hurricane prone areas where there is the off-chance of a major blizzard and snow which will make the holiday season a better time to ask for donations to help them get help. Mark my words, it will be a holiday season to remember.

Think of the last time that you were genuiennely happy and keep that thought available because soon it might come in handy. Maybe you won’t soar through the clouds like Peter Pan, but in these times and at this age people don’t really know what happiness is. A rousing rendition of “Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy” isn’t going to do it. Rowdy parties just bring people down. Have your ever held a newborn? Helped somebody up? Made something for others? Being happy, really happy takes work. Trying to do something for yourself alone serving your needs and wants might work a little but it isn’t enough. Actions speak louder than words. Actions don’t need words. Words need to be translated so others can understand but not so with actions. God loves a cheerful giver, but giving doesn’t have to be that 10% tithe, why not 10% time? 10% food? 10% toys? Does it have to even be ten percent? why not twelve or fifteen percent? The  best way to answer a question is with another questions and here’s a good one: why not? That is the reason that Milo used to enter Dictionopolis and you might find it useful if not overused when seeking that warm, fuzzy feeling. Happiness. Don’t choose the kind with consequences.

I-45 extends north from Texas all the way up there to North Dakota. I know some of the territory in between there. The situation brings a new deffinition to the word(s) “traffic jam”. Gas prices are usually a little cheaper in oil producing states, but when one of the major active producers of oil is shut down or interrupted it becomes another story. It is deffinately not good. Needless to say, since the obvious saying is about to be said, but if you so choose to skip the obvious saying, stop reading at this point and begin reading the next paragraph. Oil prices will shoot up probably at about three fifteen or so depending who stands to profit, should you be wondering if it is the people with mineral rights – their compensation is shrinking or so I’ve heard.

So this winter the sport of choice is inner tubing down hills with or without drop-offs into weeds assuming that the next inner tube doesn’t mysteriously dissapear as did the last because it took a half-hour to blow that thing up because only I had the lung capacity to do so. If the hill still has the drop off then I can perfect timing to jump off of it just in time otherwise there’ll be a distance and speed tourney just for the fun of it. All other sports are not considered viable options due to the fact ski-ing is impractical and snow-boarding is unenjoyable for such hill as I overlook this moment. No specifics because it is among the few in this state. Oddly enough locals are convinced my former state is flatter because they read that one required book or something like that trashing my noble state.

Soon they’ll send astronauts to the moon again. A company wants to build on mars. That’s nice for the future, but things in the here and now are becoming like a fiction novel with a twist: it’s all fact. That one guy who doesn’t like the phrase “under God” in the pledge of alliegance is trying to take the case to the surpreme court. If it makes it up there that’ll be something to see. We’re blaming everybody for everything – where in history does that end on a high note? It’s a disaster waiting to happen. There was a teacher who divided the classroom into halves. During this project one half was treated as if it was superior while the other was inferior. The better of the two started picking on the others and it was allowed. They didn’t do homework and still recieved good grades. They could break any rules and were not punished. The lesser were subjected to twice the punishment – deserved or not. By the end of the project, after a few broken bones, bruises, cuts, a fired teacher and a lot of thereapy it was found that those who had been superior believed they had done nothing wrong. In the end it was a total mess. Genocide, the Holocaust, slavery, and segregation were created under the belief that somebody was inferior and they must be treated as such. In the history books that don’t water-down the incidents there is nothing but the reign of tyrants and mass murder. This pattern is seen throughout history. They say if you don’t learn history you are doomed to repeat it, but I find the reverse is true: if you learn history you can be doomed to repeat it, too. Nothing is new under the sun, we’ll eventually find out wheather it is the hard way or not isn’t my concern.

Being well read has its advantages. Some time ago, I found a fairly old book called “Lovely is the Lee”. Inside it had the detailed journey about a man traveling in Ireland. It included a riddle and its no so obvious solution. I’ve recently discovered that the name of it is the Josephus Problem or Survivor Problem [which for some reason has a couple of tales that explained the need to divide people such usually survival, but there are the others…that you can look up if you so choose but neither are kind for they end in death]. I decided to post it because it makes little sense but is similar to casting out certain numbers from a crowd in this case nine:

Should an argument arise amongst a great many people, calm the quarrelsome crowd by separating them thus; “From numbers’ aid and art, Never will fame depart” > {set out the vowels}o,u,e,a,i,a,a,e,e,i,a,e,e,a >{Assign these values to the letters A=1,E=2,I=3,O=4,U=5}45213112231221>{Alternate B/W according to the numbers}bbbbwwwwwbbwbbbwbwwbbwwwbwwbbw>arrange your party in that order count out every ninth man or woman and there’ll be no more trouble.

What is it about being number nine that makes such a person so unlucky? Fortunately, discrete mathimatics taught me about recursive problems which this is. While looking up more information I discovered a program that did most of the hard work somewhere. Casting out 9s is a math problem which I learned in Comp Prog, so maybe they should teach these things in maybe a math class. I heard that Comp Sci includes Comp Math which is, in fact, useful because a computer does the harder work for you. This particular problem is called a recurrence problem which I learned other recurrence problems in discrete math class.

Read more, learn more, and make s’mores. I should check into that bold …