has anyone ever heard the paul simon song 'gumboots?' it is #4 on the album graceland, one of my favorite...anyway, the title of the blog is a line from that song. i was humming it silently to myself and thought about the presentations today-actually, to be honest i was pondering my very own presentation. i participated in group#2's rendition of some of the stichomythias in the plays we've studied this semester. although the modern day actings of these lines were loosely based on actual events, they were fictional and came from our heads. dr. sexson asked us how hard it was to relate g.w.b to these stories, and the truth was-it was extremely easy and almost fun. so to the internet i went in search of some concrete connections between greek comedy/tragedy and our awesome president, and just what did i find? a lot, but an article in arab news struck my fancy in particular. M.J Akbar states his opinion quite boldly: "There is an incidental, but entertaining, connection between Greece and the George Bush presidency." he found it rather humorous that the intellectual group responible for helping Bush into power refered to themselves as "The Vulcans," whom we all know as Hephaestus-who was a cuckold..."The Odyssey narrates the story of how Hephaestus (Vulcan) trapped his wife, Aphrodite (Venus), when she was making love to Ares (Mars) by ensnaring them in his net."
doesn't bush know his classical greek literature?? doesn't bush know that all that is past possesses the present??? mr. Akbar blames this blunder in name choice to many of the contraversial issues in bush's administration: "Why on earth did George Bush’s intellectual mentors name their group after a cuckold? And what happens when a Vulcan tries to emulate his wife’s lover, Mars? Is this an explanation for the misadventure known as the Iraq war?"
he also mentions lysistrata with some interesting comments-this one i really enjoyed: "Lysistrata won the day by shutting down the night. Anyone, incidentally, who thinks boyfriends are a modern idea should read the ancient Greeks." just another one of the numerous connections from classic literature to modern day. perhaps george should read up on this material to get some ideas for his infamous "plan B, " as dr. sexson says, every story is just another retelling of past stories. we all know that george has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth, in fact sometimes it seems as though he puts them both in there at the same time, shoes and all...but as we saw today, george has the right to articulte his thoughts and "he is the decider." just as paul simon does in 'gumboots,' george knows what he knows and he says what he says. the only difference is he doesn't have as nice a voice as paul and soemtimes he doesn't know very much-so what he says sounds really dumb, as we all say today with the many bush quotes sprinkled into our dialogue...if you're interested in reading more of the articule, which i highly recommend, here is the web address: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=66318&d=3&m=7&y=2005
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