March 23, 2005

So, I've decided the real name of this course should be Humanities Survey: Dangerous Minds. . .and I will leave it up to my adoring public to decide which minds the title refers to--the cool dead guys or y'all.

Kern's top ten list of great ideas and ideamakers:

10) whoever decided to eat the olive that soaked in the firepit all winter

9) that nameless person who realized how to leaven bread with wild yeast

8) the first people who figured out that if they both kept a promise, there could be peace, and the babies could live to make more

7) Margaret Mead

6) Michaelangelo Buonarotti

5) the woman who decided to teach her daughters how to survive childbirth--and inspired the rest of the tribe to pass on the knowledge

4) Irving Stone, who wrote great books about great minds--how cool is that!

3) the inventor of the bicycle--and the folks who figured out how to harness people power in other great fashions. . .like foot-operated well pumps and things which make us happier on a daily basis even though we don't always know it

2) the person who invented (discovered??) the pigment which became cobalt blue glass because it makes me happy

1) all of those people who perpetuate language, because it is what I do. . .and it makes me happy.

So, as to avoid pseudo-intellectualism, here's your shot to say something real--but no pseudo-rebellion or anger just to follow the flock.

March 11, 2005

Here I am, an English teacher trying to think of fascinating subjects to get you folks started on. . .and all I can think of is literature. (No real shock there!) Voltaire's Candide spends a life in search of the best of all possible worlds. . . I wonder what that would really be, and could we agree on one version? Even more interesting--if our little tiny group could agree, could a larger group? I guess this comes back around to the idea of what is civilization, and is there a universal definition? (And, of course, for Aaron and Miroslav--could it survive first contact?)