Yankee Go Home
I hate to say it, but updating this sucker has become something of a chore these past weeks. Before you recoil in spite and 'x' out this window let me put that statement into context. Alas, the wireless internet card on my computer is broken which means in order to update this weblog I have to leave the comfort of my bed and accompanying scotch for the cold hard wastelands of an ethernet connection. Suffice it to say it has not occurred to me to write the update offline and post it later, as I am currently doing in bed with attendant scotch.
One result of this lapse of intellect on my part has been the disjointed nature of this weblog of late. Certain things are promised for follow-up, but indeed the up doesn't follow. That being said, please permit me this one final disconnect.
Despite what I may have said in my last post (your guess is better than mine), I have what is surely a new topic for discussion. Just today I finished reading "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" by the venerable American satirist, Mark Twain. One passage therein stuck in my brain, and though I cannot recall it verbatim nor recall the exact page of the text itself, i relate to you here the gist.
The basic story is that a "Connecticut Yankee", a well educated late 19th Century man of some small to-do, is beaten about the head with a crowbar in a fight with one so dubbed "hercules". When he regains his wits he finds himself in 6th Century England, ruled by King Arthur and the Knights of the Round. Being of quite superior intellect he quickly assumes a position of some influence and sets about establishing a republican civilization (note the small 'r').
The novel is a social commentary on slavery and the condition of the working class in 19th century America viewed through a satirical lens of 6th century England. In one such moments when the social commentary aspect comes to light, our narrator is in the midst of discussing wages with tradesmen and telling them how much the wages of their profession would grow over the next 13 centuries. They marveled at the several hundred fold increases. Their awe struck disposition caused the narrator to remark how much more people in 'intellectual' professions would remark on how much they were paid in relation to these industrial positions given that they did the same work.
In truth though, people in these intellectual professions (artists, professors, authors, doctors, lawyers and essentially anything requiring advanced education) usually make more money and, above all else, derive more enjoyment from the work it is they do in the first place. Thus one is left observing a class of people who not only enjoy what it is they do (for they are able to choose it), but also make more money at doing it.
...Certainly puts the complaints of "too much homework" and "mid-term papers" uttered by every college student into perspective.
One result of this lapse of intellect on my part has been the disjointed nature of this weblog of late. Certain things are promised for follow-up, but indeed the up doesn't follow. That being said, please permit me this one final disconnect.
Despite what I may have said in my last post (your guess is better than mine), I have what is surely a new topic for discussion. Just today I finished reading "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" by the venerable American satirist, Mark Twain. One passage therein stuck in my brain, and though I cannot recall it verbatim nor recall the exact page of the text itself, i relate to you here the gist.
The basic story is that a "Connecticut Yankee", a well educated late 19th Century man of some small to-do, is beaten about the head with a crowbar in a fight with one so dubbed "hercules". When he regains his wits he finds himself in 6th Century England, ruled by King Arthur and the Knights of the Round. Being of quite superior intellect he quickly assumes a position of some influence and sets about establishing a republican civilization (note the small 'r').
The novel is a social commentary on slavery and the condition of the working class in 19th century America viewed through a satirical lens of 6th century England. In one such moments when the social commentary aspect comes to light, our narrator is in the midst of discussing wages with tradesmen and telling them how much the wages of their profession would grow over the next 13 centuries. They marveled at the several hundred fold increases. Their awe struck disposition caused the narrator to remark how much more people in 'intellectual' professions would remark on how much they were paid in relation to these industrial positions given that they did the same work.
In truth though, people in these intellectual professions (artists, professors, authors, doctors, lawyers and essentially anything requiring advanced education) usually make more money and, above all else, derive more enjoyment from the work it is they do in the first place. Thus one is left observing a class of people who not only enjoy what it is they do (for they are able to choose it), but also make more money at doing it.
...Certainly puts the complaints of "too much homework" and "mid-term papers" uttered by every college student into perspective.
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