Late Monday night.
Posted by John on 07/07/2003 22:25:55

Hi, Eddie and Rob. While Summer Vacation seems to have spontaneously
taken shape here in Classroom Talk, I've been huffing and puffing through
many hard days' work in the country—temperatures in the high hundreds,
and much smoke from the spectacular mountain fires still burning all
around, although from miles away, making the air quite hard to breathe.

Although seemingly too tired and lazy at the end of every day to work
here in class, I have been looking in every night just to see if
anything's going on. Good to hear from you, Eddie. Congratulations on
your new shop. I didn't know you'd decided to go that route, and I'm
proud of you for making that work. Remember, making things work is a
hallmark of mastery. Thanks, too, for posting that Nicoll URL for Rob.
(Rakesh, that looks like a good one to add to the "Gurdjieff" section in
the Library, if you have time.)

Rob, I've been postponing getting that Nicoll chapter in Volume IV that I
mentioned mailed to you, because the only way I can do that is to type it
out by hand. I'll have to do that anyway in order to write my commentary
around it, so it's no extra work for me . . . . . but I've been putting
that off until I get some days off from my other job, which will be the
beginning of next week. I can still send you that then, even if you
decide to order the book through Eddie's referral. For anyone interested
in Gurdjieff's approach, that set of Nicoll commentaries is certainly a
worthwhile purchase at any price, in my estimation.

As to that hearing on Thursday, Rob . . . I'm not a lawyer, of course, so
I can't give you legal "advice," as you put it. Do the College by-laws
state *specifically* that a teacher has to appear for a given number of
classes in order to be paid? Or is that just a logical conclusion of the
President? If so, that may not cut any ice in Court.

As to the "moral issue," I'm not sure what to say. The mere fact that
the President appears to have Dictator and Judge in her make-up doesn't,
in itself, mean she doesn't have a right to expect you to carry the ball
in behalf of the College at that hearing. You hired this man, and
perhaps she is asking you to do that to "punish you," so to speak, or try
to make you "take responsibility" for what's happened.

Nevertheless! . . . . . in a practical and can-do sense, what can you
testify to in this case, after all? You can't give "hearsay" on what
other people have witnessed, and it sounds like what you know about the
matter has come to you indirectly through other people's witnessing and
opinions. You, yourself, don't actually *know* directly that he missed
classes, or how many classes he missed, do you—except for what other
people have told you? (I don't know if Student John would feel
comfortable to comment in a more professional way on this as a legal
matter, or not.)

From your comments here, it sounds like you would make a better witness
for the faculty member (i.e. that no one in the class complained about
the grades they were given, so no provable damage may have come from it).
If he found out that you could testify to that, he might even subpoena
you to testify for him. I'll bet your President would "love" that! Heh-
heh.

From a purely "strategic" point of view, I'd suggest that instead of
arguing with the President about it from a moral standpoint (moral
standpoints don't count for that much when people are pissed off, after
all), ask her who the lawyer is that's representing the College, call him
or her up, and explain that you are not really a direct witness to
anything that would support the College's defense, and mention that the
faculty member's lawyer might accidentally turn you into a hostile
witness for the plaintiff's case if they happened to ask you the right
questions. Perhaps the College's lawyer would rather have some other
witnesses to what happened, after all. Hee-hee.

As for the Class Writings department, I'd like to have the link for that
department at the top of Classroom Talk. I'm not sure exactly how Brent
would set this up, but maybe he could give you a "mini-bulletin board"
for your "desk," so others of us could post any comments we have to it
directly there, and you could then post comments or questions on our
comments if you'd like, and subsequently add in a revised draft if you
wish to after hearing our feedback, and then drafts of new chapters as
you proceed along. Figure out what would seem to *serve you the best* in
this endeavor.

Would you then work out the best way to accomplish this with Brent,
please? I'm looking forward to seeing this experiment proceed, and, as I
promised, I'll add in a desk of my own with that Nicoll article when I
see that this project is actually going forth. Maybe at the top of your
"desk" it could state the working title, mention it is "a non-fiction
book in progress," state the author's name(s), and give a very brief
explanation of the topic.

You can email Brent at:
Brent Pearson <tucsonet@Opus1.COM>

Eddie, don't know if you have time now, but I'd sure like to see you have
a desk in that department. Rakesh, too. In fact, any of you here in
this class might avail yourselves of participation in this project. It
could be an excellent way of getting informed feedback on any writing
projects that any of you in this class might try, and could be as simple
as a single poem, or, Pauline, an enlightening joke or two. Might be
inspiring to do some writing that way, as well as helpful. Well . . .
we'll see what it's like when/if it starts happening.

Rakesh, can you get permission to post the URL of that Buddhist site
you've been working on in our Library? I'd love to see it. Sure would
be interesting to see some of Jack Kornfield's guru's work! He's been
one of my favorites. Then the translation work you've been putting in
for them could serve two good purposes at once—surely a good move for a
mindful warrior.

I'm also thinking of adding a new section at the top of the Library for
Magazines, Journals, and Collections of Teachings. I'll talk to you
about this week after next. Then we could put in our own Jeff's website,
and Perk's—if they'll give us an okay—as well as Mindful Awareness
Magazine, and transfer a couple of our other Library listings for
journals there. Anyway . . . one step at a time.

Love y'all. Keep cool . . . or as in Pauline's case, in Australia, keep
warm!

Coach

Archived 09/22/2003