vae ignoratis!

This article just came out in today’s issue of Time Magazine. I won’t bicker with absolutely everything the author has to say, although I probably could. Instead, I’d just like to point out that Ramesh Ponnuru seems to censure the value placed on education beyond the arguably flawed K-12 system, and the various ensuing payoffs, much more than the often astronomical prices of higher education in this country. (Make what you will of the fact that we hold very different opinions, despite having graduated from the same university with the same honors in similar fields.)

It may be true that 40% of those who matriculate do not graduate from college within six years, but there are many varied factors that contribute to this statistic: some spend their nights partying and their days hungover, which happens at institutions of all tiers; others may actually not be “cut out” for the experience of post-secondary education; but the majority probably just can’t handle more debt than they already have. And while the author acknowledges that the purpose of higher education is not to secure jobs for its students, though any decent institution prepares them to find such work as is available upon graduation, “traditional college” is still blamed here for producing not much more than debt.

diligentia grammaticae

Last week an “author/neuroscientist” by the name of Dan Agin had this to say in The Huffington Post. All in all, it’s an interesting comment on the changing place of books and print materials in an increasingly digital world.

My quibble is not with the gist of the article, nor indeed any part of his argument. Perhaps even worse, it comes at the concluding moment. In order to give his ending a punch, Agin decides to use a witty phrase in Latin: “Requiescant in pace, big print publishing. The run is finished.” After all, big words in a foreign language - better yet, in a ‘dead’ foreign language - are highly impressive, and most people know what RIP means even if they can’t tell you what it stands for. Dan Agin has dug up the Latin, but he still doesn’t know what it says. It’s like resurrection gone wrong.

fur fulminis

The Lightning Thief

I freely admit that I spent far more time laughing at this movie than laughing with what few laugh-out-loud moments it had. With that said, if you’re a fan of the movie, you might want to stop reading now. I also admit that I haven’t read the (whole) book; it turned me off like a faucet before the end of the first chapter. As a result, I’m not quite sure which of the things I discuss here are found only in the movie and which are more or less faithfully adapted from the book. I also don’t particularly care, since I think my comments should stand regardless.

Warning: contains spoilers.