Wit & Whim

This is the first time since my last post that I have had time to think about writing something for pleasure. And while I would much prefer to bore you all to tears with my latest discoveries in the dusty tomes of dead white dudes, there are matters of real life to be addressed. As you may know, Evan--that's right, the one with the beard--has recently proposed to my darling sister. If this came as a great surprise, then allow me to express my fervent desire to study you, that I may figure out how you managed to survive to this point in life. We are all extraordinarily thrilled that Bethany had the good sense to fall for someone of his quality. The same need not be said of him; the good taste inherent in his character as an educated and intelligent man necessarily dictates that he notice hers. Evan is a man whom I feel, not only good, but relieved to see with my sister. One wants the best for their siblings, especially for the Shewoof, and I think she found it in Evan. I mean, serio...

We are all Hobbesian. I just finished Leviathan this afternoon, and the shift in thought is pretty obvious. People speak of Machiavelli as a philosopher of evil, which I have already challenged. If asked to finger such a one, my first glance would not fall on Machiavelli. I assert that Hobbes is a philosopher of evil. In Hobbes all things have liberty, and that liberty resides in unrestricted action. Liberty and license are the same thing. By nature, man has the right to do as he will, but this is a state of war with all other men, and they are likewise free to do with him as they will. The highest goal of man being the maintenance of his life, he may join himself to other men and surrender a measure of his freedom in order to form a collective will, or commonwealth, to protect his life. The highest good is the preservation of life, property, and public order. What is Liberty in Machiavelli? Liberty is an inherently political quality; it is the attribute bestowed by participation in th...

I had visions for this morning, most of them included me sitting and drinking coffee in a comfy chair and collecting much needed adipose tissue. But, to paraphrase the good people at Despair, There is nothing the world likes so well as the taste of really sweet dreams. At first the ungodly "waw waw waw" was either an alarm clock, or perhaps some variety of wounded poultry. I had no such luck. It was Janeane, who is infinitely harder to silence than an alarm clock, or--Iimagine--any specimen of wounded poultry. After my ears adjusted enough to resolve the squawking into a message, I realized that she expected me to get up. Alright, it could be worse...a lot worse. She started telling me something about our mission, a narrow and rapidly closing window of opportunity, of which we needed to take advantage. There was to be no time for showers or coffee. I grabbed the first three clothing items that came to hand, and also the first hat that was not a baseball cap. Upon Janeane see...

Imagine you walk into a room. Imagine that, having walked into this room, your first thought is "where was the net?" That is right, you just found yourself in the middle of the 1990s...but wait; that cannot be right. The young gentleman over there looks just like one of the people from class...history class!!! As I am walking over to see why wardrobe sent him in skinny jeans, I see a group of individuals that I know to be incapable of comprehending history, and who would have no hope of navigating it. I breathed a minor sigh of relief. Something weird was going on, but at least I was in the right time. The room was crowded and more people pressed in with every second. Tempers were already flaring at the lack of seating, which made me glad to find a comfortable seated in the second row. Still trying to understand what was going on, I turned to the wise old crones next to me to see if they had any valuable information. They chatted with me rather amiably and explained that teac...

I'm posting a brief, informal, report that was commissioned by my mostest favouritest professor, Elliot Bartky, who I found out today is also revered by the staff at the Barnes & Noble at the mall. Anyway. Here are my thoughts on the proceedings, and the ideas--and lack thereof--bandied about. On Wednesday I had my first experience with a town hall meeting. The primary topic of this meeting, as my reader knows, was education; more specifically, it was about a bill that is being introduced in the Indiana House of Representatives that is aimed at the promotion of charter schools and alternatives to the public schools. Brian Bosma, the Speaker of the Indiana house, had the daunting task of the apology of said bill before a passel of agitated school teachers. His opening remarks were an attempt to lend some perspective to the debate. We are in the midst of a fiscal crisis and there will be no increases in spending. The challenge is to improve education without spending mo...

Our house has ghosts. This is the only possible explanation for the many odd noises that pervade our house at night. At least once a week I wake to the sound of shouts and other loud semi-human noises, when I raise myself up on my elbows, the voices fall silent. But, clever ghosts that they are, they use the voice--and at times the body--of my beloved brother Jonathan to convey their messages from the beyond. Being wide awake at this point, I start to make my way to the stairs...but wait, what was that?! "Aha," I say to myself, "a Sus Scrofa Domestica has found its way into my beloved sister's room!" I haste me down the hall to make bacon of the interloper before it has time to begin gobbling fripperies. But what is this? It has escaped somehow! I crane my head around the door, but there is none but the sister to be found. At this point I know something is amuck. I am about to turn to go back to the stairs, when such ferocious snarling as no man has ever heard b...

My beloved and unceasingly pestilential readers have clearly noticed that my proofreading habits have been pretty abysmal of late. It was with that in mind that I picked up Fumble Rules by William Safire. While normally I would have carried this book around for awhile only to deposit it someplace obscure, today I was actually moved to read this ugly little book. I was not disappointed. "Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague." The fatal flaw of most books concerned with grammar is that they tend to be incredibly wordy, even to the point of sending one into a coma, which can be extraordinarily dangerous if one is poised on the railing between the family room and the kitchen; this book exposes one to none of that danger. Safire offers fifty rules to promote good grammar and usage, and does so using right and wrong examples. The examples he uses are not, however, of a purely abstract nature, but using examples that are recognizable or satirical. The book is succinc...