Up from Slavery

            On Monday I made some progress on my philosophy essay. There’s no real thesis for me to formulate since I’m just outlining Augustine’s arguments against the skeptical assertion that one can’t really know anything and maybe offering a few brief opinions near the end. I have about half the word-count but I still don’t have a first draft. There’s a week before I have to hand it in though.

            I finished reading Booker T. Washington’s “Up from Slavery”. Man, was that ever a different time. At the end of the 19^th Century he was telling his fellow African Americans that they shouldn’t protest the fact that they weren’t politically and economically equal to the White man. He asserted that if Black people were simply to prove what good and hard working people they were while doing the most menial jobs then White people would recognize that and just give them equal rights. Hoo boy! A lot of Black people at that time thought that was a great idea.

            Because of all the homework I didn’t bother with the Thanksgiving stuff, like the time-consuming turkey preparation. I had planned on baking a potato and to do it properly takes about an hour in a medium heated oven but I forgot to start it sixty minutes before dinner, so I turned the heat full blast to try to get it done in thirty minutes. In fifteen minutes the skin of the raw potato started to burn and smoke so I had to open all of the windows and turned the heat to medium. It was not the best baked potato I’ve ever made.

            I finished watching the fourth season of Maverick and for me that will be the last. I won’t bother with the fifth and final season. I only really consistently enjoyed the episodes featuring James Garner and the best season for those was the second. After the third season they eliminated the interesting character trait that the Maverick brothers didn’t drink and I thought that took away some of the charm of the series. Their only vices were supposed to be poker, women, smoking and being lazy.