New View Askew

Skip Raking, Go Golfing! I was well along in writing a new post that was a look at why humans tend to move to and live in places that are not really meant for humans. You know, places that are built in a swamp and regularly battered by hurricanes like, say, Ft Myers, FL. Or in a desert, for example, like Las Vegas or Phoenix. Included were thoughts on our selfish destruction of the environment for our fellow creatures like butterflies. But something much more serious and important has come up that I had to acknowledge and write about. The end of the golf season. I know what you’re thinking. “What?! Golf is more important and serious than hurricanes and deserts and stuff?” Sorry, that is a question only a Minnesota non-golfer could ask and the answer, of course, is yes.  Anyway. The season is winding down as it always must up here on the tundra. Oh, there will still be some days where you will see silly golfers out there in 40 degree weather in shorts and windbreaker pretending ...

  . . . Not to Praise Them A recent letter to the editor in the Strib regarding the looming - and apparently, welcome - decline of the liberal arts education  (You know, the education most of us got when we went to colleges like the Harvard of the North, UMD!)  struck a chord with me.  It reminded me that I had been thinking about the passing of the good old BA and the Humanities some time ago. Allow me to meander to my point. I started college back when dinosaurs roamed the earth - 1966. Like most wide-eyed freshman, i.e. without a clue, I took all the required liberal arts undergrad courses while assiduously (a word I must have learned in one of those classes) avoiding math and science to the greatest extent possible. (Thankfully, one geology and one biology class filled the requirement.) I admit that when I took classes like World Lit, Intro to Art and Philosophy 101 I simply suffered through them as the price I had to pay to get to declare a major. No change ...