Re: Plato To: David

So long have I been without a passion that I have begun to believe that my muse has forgotten where to drink from the abundant Pierian Spring. However, I stress the However, I will, Dear David, answer your request.
You asked me the other day what I wished wouldn’t be and you asked me what styles of thought should be cast aside.
Well, Dear David, Plato is Dead.
He has been dropped into the ground and his grave is no longer marked. He is Dead David. The moss even has abandoned him.
We no longer have to ignore the sensational. We no longer have to be bound to the newly coined Realistic. We no longer have to come home from Realism and sit down and soak our thoughts in another world that is no other world and it is much like the humdrum world that we have just spent our long-lived day in.
Plato is Dead.
We need possibilities David. We need to have that realm where a horse can have a spire and mammals can communicate through reasonable language and not through the squeaks of a prime time idol.
This realm promotes hope and it lets that flashing Doom’s Day Button chill for a while longer. This is the only thing that is saving us from the shaky hand of the man that sits in that silo and wonders if he would be doing us all a favor by blessing us with a new holocaust.
Because we have a mind and minds around us, we can settle in our Lay-Z-Boy and not tear our hair out. We can sit and dream and not be bopped by a French Ambassador.
Plato is Dead and gone and we can breathe and settle and sit and dream and live where we want to and away from what we want and we can have the possibility to ride bare-back on the sway of a white spired horse and not worry about how the mind is rotting under the strain of a musty-idea world.
Through brevity I hope that this answers your question my Dear, Darling, Deregulated David.
The intrepid sailor sails into the sunset, steps off his schooner, looks behind him and looks to his sides, and he breathes a breath of life where a poet can be a part of the eternal and not another cog the machine that side-steps humanity. (Justin Weber)

Local Latin Student Thinks He’s Cato

Lower Augsburg—At the recent presidential forum, various resident senators and club representatives were stirred into a patriotic zeal by the moving speech of a student calling himself Cato. This led to confronting the president with various concerns regarding his ultimate plan for our defeating the ancient football rival as well as besieging and decimating the Kenosha campus and plowing its soil with salt.
Various friends who claim to have known Cato in his former days as Johnus McGovernus (Latin minor extraordinaire) have indicated that the seed of this powerful movement was first sired when said student ceased attending his Latin III class. “Well, he stopped going to class. And then he had this big midterm. So, he crammed like crazy,” states an anonymous friend.
After four consecutive days without food or sleep nor respite from the Latin language, Johnus emerged from his room triumphantly babbling in Latin. After several days, he was able to relearn English, though he continued insisting that he was Carthage would have to fall; this seems to have caused his appearance at the forum, as well as the accumulation of a vast following.
Cato passed the Latin III midterm with a C+, and now devotes most of his time to encouraging the demise of the southern campus. Carthage campus is a liberal arts education, providing a broad range of majors as well as significant financial aid. Cartago Delenda Est! (David Reher)

Why do people incessantly put words and pictures on walls in the form of posters

Posters not only proudly display passions and tastes, but also serve as means escape from the real. Often people are dissatisfied, and so they use what means they can to escape from the “desert of the real.” In the middle ages, children had only daydreams, imaginations, and what stories they were told. Then came books and they learned to read. Then came the picture books, and even just pictures, which showed children different places, different worlds, and provided the stages and even the actors for their dreams.

In these more modern times, we are immersed in created worlds. Now these fantasies are virtually inescapable. Listen to the commercials on the radio, or watch anything on the TV for five minutes. We are so used to it that we do not even realize that we are losing ourselves to realities that are merely projected into our minds through the senses. It used to be an occasional trip to the symphony, opera, or stage production. Now it is available everywhere, often for no cost. And as people are subjected to these things at an earlier age, they loose their ability to imagine. They become addicted, and as they grow older, it becomes more difficult to develop imagination; thus, making them more addicted and dependant upon others creations. Since they are no longer children without responsibilities, they cannot be constantly watching TV (though many still do anyway). Therefore, they must find new ways: they post pictures, listen constantly to the radio, watch the TV like it were as necessary as eating or breathing air.

People, through loss of imagination, also lost creativity; they now post clever words from others to amuse them. It is more difficult to amuse themselves, and they are addicted to amusement. They post words and pictures, since they can no longer come up with their own.

(William Starbuck)

Note from the Editor

In the title of his masterpiece, post-impressionist painter Paul Gauguin poses three questions vital to establishing identity: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

It is a fitting introduction to this publication to answer these questions. These pages come from the passion for learning that makes us not only students here and now, but also life-long students; it is a desire to grow in knowledge as well as share it with others. We are a publication for all studies and in all modes: thoughtful, yet concise; witty yet stimulating; stylish, yet not bombastic; we are not the Aerie, or the Beacon or the Shadow, and our writing will reflect this. We are striving toward the purpose of enabling those who love learning to have a voice, to meet others who share their interests and to provide direction for their own continued intellectual advance.

Eric Zimmerman's submission

Here's Eric's presentation of our mission statement! Pretty neat, eh?

Welcome Everyone!

Thanks for visiting! The theme for our first issue is our mission statement. This will inform the public of who we are and what we're doing. I look forward to your submissions!