I ran across this in my internet wanderings today, and thought those of you who teach lit, or philosophy, or classics would appreciate it!
Said by an Englishman in his sleep:
"If you make me read Plato, I'm gonna punch you in the penis."
Recording available at the link!
Nothing to do with cock-slapping the Classics, but Moammar Khadaffi, dictator-pimp of Libya, may have fled the country this Sunday. Or not. What is known is that the eastern half of the country has liberated itself and the Libyan military is fractured. Truly interesting stuff is happening, and I wish I were there.
ReplyDeleteIt always gets me how the admin wants us to teach with student-centered, active learning, like Socrates! Never mind that the Athenians poisoned Socrates.
ReplyDeleteI routinely force my students to read Plato. Good thing I am penis-free.
ReplyDeleteFrodo - we're just not supposed to do it as WELL as Socrates.
Strel - now that is so not my reaction. "Interesting things are happening in that country" means "cross off my vacation list until it stops being interesting".
@Merely: I rarely if ever teach Plato, but my reaction was somewhat similar to yours: "well, at least that's one student threat I don't need to worry about" -- at least as long as he realizes I don't have a penis; I'd rather he not go for the general region where I would keep one if I had one, or for whatever figurative phallus I may possess by virtue of my [extremely limited] authority. Heaven knows where that's located, but if it's somewhere on my body, I'd still rather he not punch it.
ReplyDeleteIs there some committee, like the ones that choose fashionable colors seasons in advance, that decides how we're spelling places and people of the Middle East? I thought I was with it because I noticed the Q became a G. When did it go to a K? I mean that makes the most sense and all, but when did that happen?
ReplyDeleteContingent Cassandra made me laugh out loud! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteCassandra's a peach. She makes me laugh on a daily basis.
ReplyDeleteWombat, there are a number of different ways to transliterate Arabic words and there is no authority on which one is "correct." Thus we have people spelling it "Moamar al-Qadhafi" or "Mu'ammar Kazzafi", or like the way I spelt it. The Libyan government has spelled it "Moammar El-Gadhafi." The website globalsecurity.org has a list of 12-15 variants and Mo's bio over at:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/libya/qadhafi.html
an intertwined thread on world politics and phallus abuse... I love CM!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Wombat and noriver. This is quite a fun place. On further contemplation of my figurative phallus, I fear that it is very small indeed (which probably explains why I prefer to be addressed by students as "Dr." or "Prof." -- compensation, you know).
ReplyDeleteThe Arab transliteration issue has been around for awhile. In the early 1980s, I knew a refugee from Lebanon who was quite irate that the American immigration authorities had transliterated the beginning of her last name as "El" rather than "Ad," which she felt came closer to the way it was actually pronounced.
And Strelnikov, I have it on reliable authority that, during the 1970s, the children of the then-Crown Prince of Jordan (not the current king; there was some sort of change in plans shortly before King Hussein died) had a pet donkey their father referred to as "the voice of Khadaffi." I'm not sure how they would have spelled that in English.
I could believe that.... Qadhafi is not loved by the kings of the Gulf States and distrusted by the Syrian Ba'athist Party. This is why Mo' is fighting like a madman to keep his power; he has nowhere to go that is palatible to his politics (supposedly Leftist; but more like Hussein's Iraq in practice.) He could flee to Silvio's Italy (he is friends with Berlusconi), but that would be protested by the Italian people and the future provisional Libyan government. He might try Venezuela (he also gets along with Hugo Chavez.) In any case, Saudi Arabia will not take him as they did Idi Amin and Ben Ali of Tunisia.
ReplyDelete@Merely Academic
ReplyDeleteI wasn't talking about "warfare tourism"*; I'd love to do journalism from either a revolution or a war and this seems to be shaping into a little of both. Because Libya is more authoritarian than Egypt, right now there are few or no Western journalists in the country.
_______________________________________
* People have been expressly wandering through embattled nations and battlefields since the Civil War; it fell out of favor in WWI-WWII-Korea, but it came back in Vietnam, Algers, and the Yugoslav Wars.
Huh. I always felt that way about having to read Kant.
ReplyDelete