MLA, Lunch Money, Liberals, Larceny

My professional association, largely consisting of English professors and those who would be English professors, is meeting here in Chicago this weekend. I attended yesterday and found myself looking around and thinking that these were the people who had their lunch money taken from them. Like me, they are largely liberal or lefties. But as I looked at them some more I decided that I wanted to take their lunch money, too.

Her Heart Will Go On

Celine Dion is ending her five-year run at Caesar's Palace. She has obviously reached the point of diminishing "go ons."

Jesus and His Brother, Satan

Mike Huckabee has (somewhat disingenuously, one suspects) suggested that Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers. While the idea seems only perhaps a shade more original than the idea that Jesus was sired by a god and born of a virgin, it was clearly an attempt to discredit Mitt Romney with Republican Christian evangelicals.

I think Jesus and his brother Satan laugh when they hear the word Republican. And they weep when they hear the word Democrat. On the other hand, there is no reason to believe that Jesus and his brother Satan even care about what an atheist like me thinks.

Or his sister Salome.

Self-mutilation and the Language

As a new descriptor for all the cutters out there--self-cutters, that is--I would like to suggest an old word put to new use: cicatrix. It follows the logic of words like dominatrix, and hence it is self-explanatory. An essay or article might begin with somethng like, "Noted cicatrix and petulance expert Suzie Cutler, late of Ashcania, Ohio, has endorsed a new..." For her male counterpart, "cicator" seems logical, as well.

Why is it that I have not seen anything about Plato's cyber cave (cybercave?)? Plato's cave's wall's shadow-play is still going on, but now it has transcended itself, eh? The images are on the screen, broadcast as on televsion, but often presenting themselves as the real rather than the symbolic. Plato's theory was wrong for centuries, but maybe he's coming into his own at last. Images of images of....