Be as Philip cutting through The Forest of Thorns and heal the pains of thought!
Our native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with a pale cast of professors. Your state’s universities lead the nation in ruddy red-blooded, black coal’d, athleticism. As it is said:
Among the top seeds in the March Madness NCAA men’s basketball tournament is the University of Louisville. The public university is known nationally for almost nothing except its ability to translate its success on the basketball court into money.
As it is said:
Ladies and gentlemen, sports fans of all demographic ages, Nike jersey and sneaker sizes, your University of Kentucky Wildcats!
Finally, a team without false collegiate pretense, a team that plays on courts stripped of scholastic varnish. Finally, a team fronted by a major university that knows we know that this team now annually has the same relationship to college as pigeons do to stone soldiers standing in town squares.
No team, as politicians vowing partial truths say, is “more transparent.” No team has made it so clear that its full scholarship recruits aren’t “student-athletes,” but assembled to spend seven months using Kentucky as a luxurious basketball facility.
Kentucky, your universities are luxurious basketball facilities. They are almost nothing but sports-revenue generators. You waste barely a spikelet of bluegrass, barely a burp of bourbon, on the weariness, the fever, and the fret, of consciousness. You are the nation’s true Sleeping Beauty.
**********************
UD thanks John.
March 21st, 2015 at 10:28AM
“this team now annually has the same relationship to college as pigeons do to stone soldiers standing in town squares”
bravissimo
March 21st, 2015 at 11:43AM
dmf: Best sentence in the piece.
March 21st, 2015 at 1:44PM
Seems as if Kentucky has a problem counting high school dropouts.
http://www.freedomkentucky.org/index.php?title=Graduation_rates
According to the article, an audit discovered KY dropout rates were 30% greater than what state functionaries claimed. I have to think those functionaries graduated from college. No wonder KY public unis are known nationally for almost nothing except their basketball teams…
March 22nd, 2015 at 12:06AM
I do have to point out that the University of Kentucky is also home to one of the most esoteric of intellectual subcultures – spoken Latin. This isn’t just a summer camp (though they offer one of those, too). The regular graduate program spreads the word. They more or less require their graduate students to learn to speak Latin (and use it in the classroom).
The things one learns on search committees.
The curriculum not only involves extensive reading in Latin, but also requires those taking part in it to develop, and to constantly practice fluency in writing and speaking in Latin. The curriculum is founded on the conviction that a person’s assiduous use of any language in many modes, including writing, listening and speaking (not merely reading and translating), will enhance that person’s comprehension of the language and appreciation of its nuances. The use of Active Latin is not merely a matter of pedagogy: it is a matter of forming and maintaining a close relationship with the Latin language. Helping our students to develop this relationship is our preoccupation in the Institute.
http://mcl.as.uky.edu/latin-institute
March 22nd, 2015 at 7:22AM
Thanks for the link, Michael. I read their page, and the program looks wonderful. Having studied Latin, I can’t imagine having the guts to try to speak it out loud (unless I’m reading from a text).
March 24th, 2015 at 9:02PM
I’d also like to say that the University Press of Kentucky does fine work. I’m biased, as they published one of my books, but they really do have an excellent list.
December 3rd, 2015 at 7:43AM
Although it’s legal for a doctor to prescribe drugs for off-label purposes, it’s illegal for a drug manufacturer to actively promote any off-label use.
December 17th, 2015 at 10:57AM
[…] with a lovely and historic academic building, but with a logo from Nike. (And I have no doubt that University Diaries will have an “I told you so” response as […]