Prologue:
Two words - that is all I have for you. I am surprised I can manage even those after all that has happened. Not that I blame you but you should have known how it would hurt me. And it did hurt a lot. At least initially when I was still blind. I mean blind to the things of the world. Anyway it is all in the past now. The present is all I have. And the two words that I have for you.
The Argument:
The hippo lives in bloats. It spans a few decades and weighs a few tonnes metric. Though ponderous heavy, it runs fast on land, floating or propelling on water faster than man can. It uses blood sweat for protection against the sun and was mistaken for the horse by the Greeks. Later it was found to be kin of the pig whereas recent studies make a whale of it. Wars threaten extinction of the hippo but conservationists have found hippos that bond well with 100 year-old tortoises.
The Fable:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a Wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great Fall
And all the King's Horses
And all the King's Men
Did not look Humpty Dumpty in the eye again.
Epilogue:
I switched on the TV at the right moment. There was this piece about Jay Bennish, a Colorado high school social studies teacher. He had been discussing Bush's State of the Union address in class and had claimed that America was the most violent nation on earth. He had also likened Bush's statements to some of Adolf Hitler's. A student in the class Sean, clandestinely taped 20 minutes of what he calls 'all this rant' on his MP3 player and released it to authorities through his father. School authorities moved in swiftly and are now investigating if Bennish actually crossed the 'line' in the lecture. The incident has sparked a furious debate over academic freedom and differences between conservatives and liberals is beginning to show markedly. People claim it is just one of many incidents that have been sparked by the Bush administration's fear-and-alarm tactics post-9/11. Academics are afraid the overarching fear for security is cutting into First Amendment rights as much as it is placing curbs on the providing of any meaningful education to children. There seems to be no clear decision possible in the current scenario where terror attacks seem to have subsided but fear of more such attacks has increased beyond all reasonable proportions. I, for one, do not intend to fly just before Christmas out of JFK or OHare.
Questions:
Q. What are the two words?
Q. What is a hippo? How much does it weigh?
Q. Why and how did Humpty Dumpty climb the wall?
Q. When did Bush give the Union address? What MP3 player did Sean use to tape Bennish's lecture?
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4 comments:
actually, none of them were right :).. My idea was to make something meaningless as a child's rhyme or Page3 gossip and hide meaning inside. imo, that is the direction we are taking: keep it simple on the outside and let ppl decide what they want to do with it-layers of consciousness. since the post is highly hermetic, i add an annotation section here:
Annotation:
hippo ~ hypocrite. (this is a very fluid replacement. i am very reluctant to make meanings 'hard'. a symbol is mostly this but stands for many others as well.
The Argument:
all the facts about the hippo are true, for eg., it moves around in 'herds' or 'bloats', secretes something called 'blood-sweat' to use as sunscreen etc. and they all of course are true of the other 'hippo' metaphorically. language style has been adapted and a harder rhetoric is often interlinked with a softer, merrier one here. but of course the question is what is the hippo or who is the hypocrite,something we cannot precisely define because of his very nature.
The Fable:
So The King's Horses and Men hypocritically do not see HD in the eye again but who is the hypocrite? HD who expected to go up and be seen by all and had a fall or the rest who did not see him after his 'Fall'
Epilogue:
Who, Bush, Bennish or Sean is the hypocrite? Or I who do not want to travel Christmas and New Year's time.
Questions:
Do any of the questions really matter? They all ask about things that are not in the post.
Prologue:
Why was I cheated when i was still blind? if i have only the present to look forward to why the two words? Who is the hypocrite?
The Land of the Hippo is the world maybe, where facts are known, fables told and knowledge spread by many means. the emotions often come first and the two words must be hidden and depends on each person's experience.
This whole post is a reminder of formal school texts which tried to 'educate' us and the informal 'education' we got in the form of fables and rhymes and encyclopedias, overheard conversations, news snippets etc.
Erm let me try..I know those questions were not written for answers..still what the heck!
i) Get lost!
ii) A hippo is a hypocrite..it weighs as much as it lies.
iii) Somebody raised him up on a ladder, flattered and flattered and got him there.
iv) Bush himself has no address. :p
What MP3 Player? An illegally-imported-hidden-hypocritic-unauthorized in school premises-MP3 player.
lioness,
hypocrisy is in fact the theme so full marks :).. but MP3 players are not unauthorized in classrooms in the USofA :P
I came here in a very angry mood..(Proof:comment in the Juvenilia post) Your reply brought a tiny smile! :)
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