The Old Prof

At easter time the early christians seemed obsessed with bees. Sermons were delivered on the subject. That never made the slightest sense to me. What in the world could bees have to do with Easter?

However, Dante in his divine Comedy utilizes the symbolism of bees coming and going to the heart of the rose to depict the angels coming and going to God. Is it posible that Dante had access to some quiet oral transmission passed on from the earliest christian times in a sub rosa way? I believe its possible. Ok, I’d like to believe it. Back and forth go the angels, connecting God to man.

Its tempting to manufacture some sort of latter-day sermon utilizing all the elements of bee and flower. Tempting but I’m not crass enough or dumb enough to do it.

It’s a near thing though.

And I do wonder.

Posted by Old Prof at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Watching a student walking along chatting on her phone I wondered, not for the first time, what kind of silly stuff takes up so much of their time. I’m hardly ever on the phone myself. What could she really have to say at that length and intensity? I kind of had to smile. Then she drew nearer and I heard her say, “well, you have to understand that life it hard and you are just going to have to learn to work hard.”

So that’s the kind of silly stuff that takes up so much of their time.

“Judgment is mine sayeth the Lord”, and not without reason.

Posted by Old Prof at 09:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My wife was sitting there doing a crossword puzzle and sipping a cup of Pepsi when she said to me, “my ice are getting bad”. Laying aside the bad grammar, I don’t have much use for bad ice either. When that stuff melts its darn near useless.

Posted by Old Prof at 04:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Like a bell… or something

I was walking in to Hometown Buffet my home away from home ever since I commented one time too much on my wifes cooking and she said “Homey don’t cook.”

I had just read a blog, http://www.granteeny.blogspot.com/ where Joe in reviewing the art work of his three year old son had used the metaphore of Platos Cave.

“A dark shadow falls to the lower left. We are gazing out of Plato’s Cave towards the sun in our climb towards enlightenment.”

As I walked in from the far end of the parking lot (I have a new car and park lonely) I was thinking “wouldn’t it be remarkable, wondrous, to read these great things, the words of Plato, and all those other wonderful “cliches”, when the words were still ‘new coined’ and ‘glittered’.

At the time I was carrying under my arm my reading material for my lunch break, The Shakespeare Wars by Ron Rosenbaum. On page 11, in the midst of a forkful of unusually good boiled cabbage, I read incredulously his commentary on the moment when at Stratford On Avon he saw Brook’s production of Shakespeare’s Dream which he said

“…seemed to capture what one imagines was the excitement of the moment the play was first produced four centuries ago. The moment when its lines were first uttered, when its language burst from the lips of its actors in a kind of spontaneous combustion, as if the words were not recited so much as thought up and uttered, freshly minted, for the first time.”

I read with amazement. “Why”, I thought, “that’s just what I said.”

More or less.

It was, by the way, really excellent cabbage.

Posted by Old Prof at 03:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My wife just told me we ought to have our spiders sprayed. We do have a lot of them lately but its like I told her, I think they are too small for an operation of that sort; though I guess it works on feral cats and it would take care of the problem. Still, I’m willing to think about it. In fact, I’m having a hard time thinking about anything else and keep making those snerking noises when I do.

Posted by Old Prof at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Damn

There must be people who want to do this stuff. Why can’t they do it?

I mean there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of people who actually want to be Principals, Deans, Superintendents, and such, and to actually be on or head committees. Why can’t they be on perpetual jury duty and excuse the rest of the sane population from what can’t be much different from all the things they seem to be lining up and competing to be on or do? Food could be brought to them. They could send pictures to their families. They’re never home now anyway.

I’m just asking.

Posted by Old Prof at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dang. I wish a couple of my friends weren’t Libertarians. Well, not because it embarasses me particularly. But … well, because I want to mock the party without hurting their feelings or getting hurt myself. It’s probably ok though cause I dont think they know where I Blog.

I was thinking that of all the parties, if you can call it that, the Libertarian does the worst job of letting anyone know what “It” believes. Not since John quincy Adams tried to excpain to voters that the bill he was sponsoring to help small farmers keep their land when they unavoidably went into debt and said that it was “a bill for the amelioration of the often oppressive codes leading to insolvency” has any one done such a bad job of communicating. (Or so I thought) Then I was handed handed a paper entitled

WHAT’S A LIBERTARIAN? AM I A LIBERTARIAN?

I read it! Oh my Gosh. Now I get it. No wonder they don’t advertise what they believe. If I were they I would not only not tell any one but I would change my name and call the party something like THE LIBERTY PARTY and hope no one remembered me or it.

Any one who says he or she supports the:

“free flow of foreign labor across borders” but also supports “border protections” or

“Borders & Ports that are secured against terrorist weapons and violent attacks”

needs John Quincy Adams to obsfucate what they just said. I can see the implimentation of this program right now “in the minds eye”. Obviouly for protection of our borders while allowing the free flow of foreign labor across those same borders we are going to need troops standing shoulder to shoulder all along that meaningless line on the map on all borders and up both coasts. I imagine it would go like this: “Good day sir or madam, are you a terrorist? No! Oh goody. Proceed to the bus where light refreshments will be served.” I suppose though the army and apparantly the navy will have to be privatized , outsourced and competative and the refreshments and buses will be supplied by the buseness that are to be benefited by the almost free labor.

Adams would have loved these guys. They are so educated that they are incomprehensable by lesser human beings. I think that is a positive. Listen to this.

Libertarians SUPPORT the “democratic” issues of

notice the use of upper case for support? Thats obviouly so the unwashed masses will not think Libertarians oppose the following things as might be the case if one just left the word in lower case.

and The “Democratic” Is put in quotation marks! I can’t quite figure out why “democratic” is placed in quotation marks. It must mean something; i don’t know what but I bet they know. Wait. I get it. They may not be, and sure are not “Democrats” but they do SUPPORT some of the issues that the “Democratic Party” does as they also SUPPORT some of the issues the “Republicans” SUPPORT while abominatng the actual parties that hold those SPECIAL beliefs..

number two of what they support is :

Women’s rights to exclusive control of their own bodies & exposures to risk

And exposures to risk?They support exposures to risk? What? Why would you supoort that? What does that mean. do they mean that in some sort of tough minded frontier way that it”s “Hey go ahead, you could get hurt but its up to you?”

then, they also believe in

“Protection of individual health & private proverty from pollution & other hazards.”

Ok. But how do you square that with wanting :

“the Gradual elimination of state programs that have nothing to do with the essential functions of a government.”

They apparantly want government to deal only with

“courts, police & and fire fighter services, and roads/highways”

Which of those four functions of government will be taking care of the :”Protection of individual health & private proverty from pollution & other hazards.” None that I can see or even imagine. perhaps they only Beleive in that protection. Or do they think something non governmental will arise extemporaniously to deal with such subjects? And wouldn’t that lead to and even be the growth of Big Government?

There are obvioulsy implications that I am missing because the Libertarians that I know are highly competent, intelligent and educated.

But

WHAT’S A LIBERTARIAN? AM I A LIBERTARIAN?

Oh I hope not. But I do have that rash on my ankle and….

Posted by Old Prof at 09:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)