On Being Proudest of America 'In This Moment'

I was listening to KFOG as I drove in to work the day after the election. They were reading letters from listeners. A man who is half Mexican, half German, a lawyer by trade, wrote of his pride at the results of the presidential race. He recounted a childhood memory of traveling with his family in Arizona, and the fierce angry man who pointed at a sign of a restaurant they attempted to enter. No Mexicans Allowed.

Another listener wrote, in part, to lament the reference to being proudest of America at this moment or that moment, insisting that if one doesn't love the country, one should leave.

I think she is forgetting that there is a difference between being proud of one's country, and loving one's country.

Americans have always, by and large, loved the US of A. Those of us whose ancestry goes back 5+ generations, those of us who are brand spanking new. We love our country. We will always be proud to be Americans.

But some of us have not always been proud of America. Some of us have experienced our mother land calling us to great sacrifice, but treating us worse than vomit from a dog. And some of us have inherited the pain, expectations and outlook that experience ingrains into a person or a people.

When someone says that they're proud due to this moment or that moment, they are speaking of the country moving closer to what it claims to be. A place where all are created equal. A place where we can honestly say – and demonstrate – that the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness are available to everyone.

It's sort of like watching a child raise himself to his feet for the first time. You did not love the child less when he was crawling. Your love for him did not change at all. But you are so very proud of the moment when he pulls himself up to stand.

Integration – The Anti-Derivative

Thursday's class began with the discovery that our math lab assignment was identical to 10 derivative questions which were on the test.

Thankfully, I got a 91, understood what I did wrong, and was able to complete half of the assignment during the break, using my test to check the answers.

We began learning the second part of calculus. He first discussed the calculation of area for different geometric figures-squares, triangles, trapezoids. Pi was found by inscribing and circumscribing circles by hexagons, and taking their area. I really do not like geometry.

Turns out that integration (i.e., finding the area under the curve) is the anti-derivative. Easy peasy. Two unrelated concepts turned out to be the inverse of each other. Who knew?

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I spent Halloween afternoon in the doctor's office. An hour and fifteen minutes for a doctor (who was not my regular doctor) to tell me that the pain I feel when I get up after sitting for a while-the sharp pain at the back of the knee, sometimes at that ball & socket joint in my hip-is nothing. Not that I don't feel pain, but that all I can do is exercise and take some ibuprofren. I spent all that time for what?