Filiopietistic

After reading popularized cosmological theories stating that the universe is really information on some kind of weird surface - a kind of hologram if you will - I've decided that all existence has been evolving to create episodes of the Big Bang Theory which will gradually become the only thing on broadcast TV, and then eventually, the only thing period.

My theory was perversely proven by my stumbling on the word filiopietistic in a Chronicle of Higher Education piece by Thomas A. Underwood about Harvard University.  The word means an excessive regard for ancestors and tradition.

Some days, I'm a practicing filiopietist grump as well as a contemporary one.

Seriously, I'm still thinking about my professor of literary criticism, an astonishing man who managed to display contempt for everything and convince everyone that it was an act of love and encouragement.  We were all smarter in his classroom.  

He said, casually, "the word is not the thing.  No matter how many words are written or spoken, they cannot be the thing."   Filiopietistic is striking, poweful proof of those words.  It's a good word.  Maybe not so useful for Words With Friends, but useful for green velvet, leather chairs, pipe smoke, and ideas as pleasure.

The universe as hologram?  I'll believe that when the Large Hadron Collider spits out a really good episode of the Big Bang Theory.


Addison Steele

PS - It's all Chuck Lorre's fault.  I blame the day I found ALL of his postscripts online.

Compelled to Blog

One reason to vote absentee is to expunge the feeling that the systematic propaganda being funded by sinister forces includes information that one know.  I believe there are some simple facts that aren't open to debate, at least in a civil society.

Taxes are part of the price we pay to enjoy the benefits of a society.  If you feel that you shouldn't pay taxes, move someplace where there are no services.

The fact that we want stuff we won't pay for shouldn't surprise anyone.  More importantly, it's idiotic to blame anyone for that fact.  That's why we have the rule of law and representative government, or at least we're supposed to be represented by people who can assume responsibility for the health of our democracy.

I don't think either of those things are true anymore.

Addison Steele