More Herodotus

The end of book III is the gift that keeps on giving. First I was wrong the part with the people copulating in the open is in book III and not book I. Here is is;

All the Indian tribes ... copulate in the open like cattle; there skins are all of the same colour, much like the Ethiopias'. Their semen is not white like other peoples', but black like there own skins; the same is to be found in the Ethiopians.
Book III 101.

The editor of the volume I have says that Aristotle corrects Herodotus on this point in Hist. Anim. III 22.

If you enjoyed that one, then I got more for you.

It is clear that it is the northern part of Europe which are the richest in gold, but how it is procured I cannot say exactly. The story goes that the one-eyes Arimaspians steal it from the griffins who gaurd it; personally, however, I refuse to believe in one-eyed men who in other respects are like the rest of men.
Book III 116.

And my favorite:

Another tribe ... known as the Pardaei. ... Among their coustoms, it is said that when a man falls sick, his closest companions kill him, because, as they put it, their meat would be spoilt if he were allowed to wast away with disease. The invalid, in these circumstances, protests that there is nothing the matter with him - but to no purpose. His friends refuse to acccept his protestations, kill him and hold a banquet. ... If anyone is lucky enough to live to an advanced age, he is offered in sacrifice before a banquet - this, however, rearely happens, because most of them will have had some deisease or other before they get old, and will consequently have been killed by their friends.
Book III 99.

Who Wants to be a Teacher?

I ran across this, which is both funny and worrisome. Its about the intense competition in hiring for humanities departments. The author tells the story off one nervous philosophy applicant who tries to explain logic.

All men are mortal.

Socrates is mortal.

Therefore, Socrates is a man.

I raised my hand. "Birds are mortal too, aren't they?" I asked, hoping he would correct his error.

"Yes," our teacher agreed.

"So Socrates could be a bird?"

He smiled benignly. "No. Socrates doesn't have feathers."

Herodotus, again

Another Classic from the master historian:

[Pharaoh] was blind for ten years, and in the eleventh he received an oracle ... to the effect that ... he would recover his sight, if he washed his eyes with the urine of a woman who had never lain with any man except her husband. [Pharaoh] tried his wife first, but without success.
Book II, 111.

Herodotus

With little gems like this, it's no wonder Herodotus is the greatest historian ever:

"In the old days the Telmassians had pronounced that Sardis would never be taken if Meles, who was king at the time, carried round the walls the lion which his concubine had borne him. "

Man, That's Weird!

Wavelet has tagged me so I guess I’ll give you my five weirdest habits. Well ok, most of you already know them, like things I do when I get drunk and nervous, and so on. In that case I’ll give you my five weirdest habits that no-one or almost no-one knows about.

1. Canned tuna. Yes I did just write ‘canned tuna’. When I was in High School I moved into a small apartment with my father when my parent’s marriage was in its death throes. Since my father was out of town for three days a week, it was like living on my own without paying rent. I had a lot of fun, but I also had to buy my own groceries. I quickly found out that canned tuna was a cheap and delicious meal. It could make melts, casseroles (or my abortive attempts at casseroles), salads, wraps, even a gumbo with rice and pinto beans (which I think stands out as the worst meal I have ever had). While at college I never really ate it, but once I moved out and had to start cooking again, canned tuna has again taken its rightful place in my diet.

2. Humor at the expense of my deeply held beliefs. Some of you might know I do this. When I’m around people who vaguely know my religious and political beliefs but are not the closest of old friends I will often mock my beliefs. To do this I collect many Catholic jokes. I have meet few people who know as many priest and alter boy jokes as me. Or Sectarian jokes that always come out worse for the Catholics. Likewise with politics I make fun of being a conservative republican all the time. “Sure I voted for Bush” I’ll say “But only because I want him to invade Azerbaijan.” Needless to say I love jokes about Dick Cheney, Condi, and Rumsfield.

3. Sweeney Todd lyrics. I never go more than two or three days without running through a large chunk of the lyrics in Sweeney Todd. I do it when I’m walking. I’ll just be thinking about whatever, than I’ll start humming a song from the musical. Then I’ll jump from song to song going through the lyrics and melodies in no particular order. I sometimes shift over into a Little Night Music too: Humming Send in the Clowns, or Now/Later/Soon. This might sound crazier than it is. After all Sondheim is one of the greatest English language word smiths and so you can play around with his double and triple entendres for a long time. My favorite song being They all Deserve to Die.

4. Buying CDs like reference books. Often I’ll by CDs but just to have around for reference, even though I know I won’t listen to that often. Things like ancient Greek chant, Renaissance Spanish pilgrim ballads, sung Russian Orthodox liturgies, early Louis Armstrong recordings, recordings of early 20th Century musicians playing classical repertoire pieces (of which I can get much better new recordings), and contemporary eastern European composers. Mostly these just sit around and collect dust, but I love them, and if any one ever needs to compare Homeric odes with Russian chant I’m the guy to talk to.

5. I save articles from major on-line reference sites. After I check something on the on-line Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy or the Dictionary of National Biography I always save the article to my hard drive. I have no idea why. These sites will be around longer than I will, its not like I need to save them from disappearing. Most of them are also free and require no registration. Granted you have to be at a school with a subscription to the Dictionary of National Biography to access it, but still why bother saving the articles? I now have a large collection of these sites’ articles for no real reason. This is combined with my habit of saving news reports, commentary pieces, and journal articles about major world events. I has very upset when I had to re-format my hard drive and I lost my collection of articles about Iran’s nuclear program, and Ukraine’s orange revolution and ever thing else. Again I have no idea why I do this. All I know is, I don’t want to live in a world where I don’t have a large library of saved articles, historical and contemporary, on my computer.

Being opinionated at Berkeley

This might be considered political, again I'm tying to stop but old habits die hard; it really has more to do with the state of public debate in America. Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd stroking their egos at Berkeley. Yes you read that right! The two biggest egos in the country can get bigger if there is a whole room full of adoring Berkeley journalism students. Friedman, who is the better writer and thinker, of course sounds better. MoDo, however, is so fun because she is always incredibly self-centered. The event claims to be about being an opinion columnist in America, but it is really about why Friedman and Dowd are wonderful people. In other words it has more to do with what is wrong with public debate in America. All that is left in public debate is intellectual masturbation.

Teddy, You Are an Idiot!

Ok, I don't like to do political blog post anymore, but I have to do it today. What is wrong with the Alito hearings? The dems are acting like a bunch of Zombies. Their going "brains!" but moving too slow to to catch up with Alito and eat his yummy grey stuff. This is a real sleeper. At least Roberts was cute and cuddly with body poster that said "you hate me, but you can't do anything about me running the SCOTUS for the next thirty years". After today though I like Alito more than before, and more bleh about the Dems. I mean even Teddy and Feiny aren't being fun.

On another note, I have my finals on Friday and Monday. I get to spend the next 36 hours learning every thing done in the last forty years of epistemology and the philosophy of mind.

"I Find the Most Erotic Part of a Woman is the" ... Ah, Forget It!!!

No one else has said it so I will. This whole blog thing is getting old. Face it when those old foggies over at First Things have a blog you know its not cool any more. I mean it was one thing when it was this gay guy and don't forget this gay guy, but now strait people and democrats have blogs. Not to mention a quite lucrative porn blogging group. What has driven me to this rant is that my a fellow graduate student here has linked to me on his blog. My problem is that his blog is good. Its about philosophy, logic, and stuff that will help him get a job. My blog is mostly jokes. So I have come to a cross roads, and I was wondering if any one cares. In general most of the TAC grad blogs are dying. Sean, Koobs, Feil, Emma have not bloged in a long while. Emma has not blogged since summer, and let us not forget Marian's abandonment of us. On top of that the comments have gone away too. I mean its only so long you can write without some feedback. I am not saying that what I write is all worth commenting on, but when it isn't tell me. I try to tell Danny every time he is full of it. (Like when he started making metaethical points and tried to pass them off as ethical points, I mean the nerve of it!) If you don't give a rat's ass about what is in this month's issue of the New York Communist tell me (good magazine by the way, I suggest April 04). So I have one idea to save my blog. Going high brow, i.e. blogging so that I can contribute to my chosen career. Does any one want my blog to become a clearing house for my random philosophy papers? The problem is, I can't justify a blog as a message board, (and this works just as well) and I have no idea what the hell this damn blog is about now. I mean do I want it to be a fine arts thing, a philosophy thing, a religion thing, a political thing, or a sick joke thing. All I know is that this one's for the Gipper.

Am I the Last One to Hear About This?

But Big John Almeida and Mollie Coughron are, finally, engaged. Wedding in late August: Kansas City. Which is great, because I'll be back in time to go. See you all there. Let's teach those Coughron girls how to drink like Scotsmen.