Rumor has it

such an interesting task to select one story from an entire book of stories-it's almost daunting. there are so many strange, twisted, and intriguing stories to choose from, but i found one that struck my fancy immediately-well not quick immediately, as it is on pages 398-399. several hundred of pages of reading and i found the short story of Rumor...rumor has it she lives atop a mountain gathering the world's secrets and sharing them with the swarms of people "forever coming, going-fills the; mingling with the true, the false reports." perhaps my favorite line is "no quiet and no silence can be found; and yet there is no clamor-just the soft murmur of voices, as of rolling waves when heard from far away." i tried to desparately to find a painting or some kind of artistic representation of this beautiful image, but alas, no luck. instead a scanned a picture of a child i nanny for-she is at the top of a slide-it is difficult to see-not a quality scan, but you can still get the idea that rumor's house "is built of sounding brass, each word that's spoken in the world rebounds; the brass vibrates, repeating every sound." such a silly concept but it struck my interest because it is such a pretty allusion and an interesting way to view rumors...

oldies but goodies...

after reading lysistrata, i have been quite intrigued about the whole concept of women out-smarting the men by using the power they have to get what they want. the women want peace, and peace they shall get when they combine power numbers and ideals. i was conversing with a fellow student about the idea and he mentioned to me that he heard of some nowaday parallels to the play. i did some research and the best example i found was recently in Brazil. nearly 30000 lives have been cut short in Brazil from urban violence and gang trends. in 2001, on Mother's day, how apporpriate, Viva Rio, an organization not associated with the government, decided to launch a campaign to combat the violence and called on the women of Brazil to step it up by using this slogan "Choose gun-free! It's your weapon or me!"
I also stumbled upon this site: http://www.lysistrataproject.org/aboutus.htm it is a great website-very interesting, informative, and even hopeful. the project began just after 9/11 and is going strong, please check it out, i think you'll enjoy it. it just goes to show the impact of such an amazing concept. yes-it's a comedy, but the idea is serious and people are applying it to serious current events and making changes.

wheat!

well i happened to look at the television last night, it was completely by accident...anyway-to the point. i caught sight of a movie preview for a film called 300. this film is about the Battle of Thermopylae and follows the struggles of the lowly 300 spartans-i haven't seen it yet, but this is what i got from the trailer. the point is, in the trailer there were many images flashed quickly past the screen that included a women, the mother, and her child, the maiden, in a field of brightly lit wheat grain. then i recalled the film 'the gladiator' and it struck me that the gladiator's memories of his wife and child are always set in a brightly lit field of grain-well needless to say...i put the two together and dememter just popped her grainly little head right into mine...all that is past emcompasses the present-well even though the films are sent in antient greece, they aren't about demeter, yet she somehow is all tied up within them and now within me. perhaps ill watch the film 300, although most likely not, as i'm not the biggest fan of extreme violence. okay that's all

Phenomenology

Can you pronounce this word? Hegel and Steiner can...How does Sophocles' Antigone and Hegel's Phenomenology of the Mind connect to one another-Perhaps Steiner can answer that question for us. Upon opening Antigones to a very random page and proceeding to read it, I have learned quite a bit about Hegel's most philophosical piece. Steiner deams that although references to Antigone in Hegel's Phenomenology have "not been studied in detail," he points out that it is the strengh behind Hegel's dramactically constructed first six sections: "it has a great drama as its core of reference." After reading (and re-reading, of course) I felt in order to do this page justice, I needed to understand what Hegel's Phenomenology of the Mind acutally is. Phenomenology has been studied by several different people, but Hegel was one of the first. Here is what Wiki has to say about it: "he(Hegel) maintains, we must examine actual knowing as it occurs in real knowledge processes. This is why Hegel uses the term "phenomenology". "Phenomenology" comes from the Greek word for "to appear", and the phenomenology of mind is thus the study of how consciousness or mind appears to itself. In Hegel's dynamic system, it is the study of the successive appearances of the mind to itself, because on examination each one dissolves into a later, more comprehensive and integrated form or structure of mind."
Interesting...by the way, if you are interested in this material, check out page 28

Too many distractions

As I sit here to write this, a terrible noise is traveling to my ear and disturbing my brain. It is the sound of a basketball game on television-how awful that I am stuck here listening to this as I am trying to expand my knowledge and complete my homework. Two minutes ago I sat in silence working diligently on my blog, and now I am accompanied by the terrible, evil black box that most of America is completely glued to. Dr. Sexson is very right-no one reads anymore. Most of my friends stare at the billions of blinking lights flashing sumbliminal messages with pleasure-they are more than content not thinking for themselves to expand their mind. I feel like I read for most of my day-of course I am in school and an English Literature student, but nonetheless...Why is society today okay with letting others think for them? Why is it so difficult to pick up and book and let the eye move from left to write over a series of words that create a sentence, a paragraph, a page, a chapter, and finally a book. Any comments...

new blog

hello classical foundationers-this here is my new blog, i am sorry to disturb all the lists you have made, but please edit your link with this new address. my old blog address was giving me lots of trouble-i couldn't access it for some reason. thank you