sylvar

Beloit College has released its Mindset List for the incoming class, which (for those who finish, and take only four years to do it) will be the Class of 2012. Here it is, with my comments.


Students entering college for the first time this fall were generally born in 1990.

For these students, Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson, Ryan White, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Freddy Krueger have always been dead.

1. Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.

More interesting: they might actually have a Quidditch team.

2. Since they were in diapers, karaoke machines have been annoying people at parties.

What's more annoying, a karaoke machine in a diaper or a misplaced modifier in a college's press release?

3. They have always been looking for Carmen Sandiego.

I've been doing that since 1985. Get with the times!

( They have always put long lists behind an LJ-cut... )

“When [Alcibiades] was past his childhood, he went once to a grammar-school, and asked the master for one of Homer's books; and he making answer that he had nothing of Homer's, Alcibiades gave him a blow with his fist and went away.” — Alcibiades, in Plutarch's Lives

That's so similar to my experience in elementary school that I just have to smile. I'm not sure whether or not I ever hit a teacher because they wanted me to put down the dictionary (or encyclopedia) and come join the rest of the class, but I'm sure I would have if that situation actually arose.

I've kept my fondness for book-learnin', and so it amazes me that this is the first Plutarch I've ever read, and that it's taken me so long to discover it. I'm glad I noticed the "five-foot wall" of Harvard Classics at the library.

During the drive home from a doctor's appointment (about which I'll write more later), I listened to the podcast of a BBC In Our Time show about 17th-century print culture in England and how the rise of literacy and printed material affected the (English) Civil War. segnbora will probably enjoy listening to the show, which is available here in mp3 format. (A complete podcast feed of In Our Time is here.)

I realized that, since European history was optional in high school, I am ignorant of some pretty basic facts about the period. While I'm sure I could look up individual facts, I'd like a recommendation from anyone who knows of a lively, readable book that would explain things like these:
( Questions )
If anyone feels like explaining this stuff, that's cool too, but I assume it will be most expedient to give me the title of a book.