On Seeing the Stars

I took the job as editor of the Vintage for several reasons, and I’ve kept it for a couple of years for reasons other than why I took it, and I’ve loved it for reasons other than why I kept it. There is, however, one thing about the job that no other job can match: seeing the stars.

Everybody knows that the stars seem to move in the heavens above as the earth rotates, but few have actually taken the time to see it for themselves. I walk to work every night at 11:00 p.m., and when I walk back at 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m or 4:00 a.m., the stars have traversed the sky. That’s part of the wonder of living in a universe that appears to be geocentric. Then too, few people see the stars because they’re blinded by all the street lights and house lights and car lights and other sorts of nasty artificial lights that pollute the sky. At 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m or 4:00 a.m., there are no lights except those lesser lights ordained to rule the night, and in the coldness of the night they shine as they were intended. And then there’s the silence. Walk outside sometime during the night before everyone goes to bed and listen, really listen, to man’s cacophony profaning the night. At 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m or 4:00 a.m., I get to hear the stars making the music of the spheres: silence.

And so, tonight, I emerge again to see the stars.

Gotta Love John

One of the Vintage staff’s very own, John Barnett, brought pie into work tonight. May a benison be upon his head.

Read a past post about pie, and expect similar posts in the future.

Demand that Scott Post

I think Audrey had the right idea when she commented on StarkW that Scott hasn’t posted to his blog in a while. Please go to his blog and leave a comment demanding that he post immediately. Scott needs a community intervention immediately to keep his blog from going defunct. I’m doing my part by sending this post via trackback to his comments. Let’s help our friend out!

The Epistemology of St. Thomas Aquinas

Below is a paper that I wrote last semester for the class History of the Middle Ages about a part of St. Thomas Aquinas’s epistemology. Dr. Hayner has suggested that I submit it for publication, so I’m mailing it to the South Carolina Historical Association tomorrow morning. I also just joined that association. (Please don’t be too terribly impressed. Membership is open to anyone, and anyone is allowed to submit papers.)

PDF icon “The Interrelationship of Reason, Faith, and Revelation in St. Thomas Aquinas”

Scott and Lincoln Get High Culture

Tonight our heroes polish their shoes, don their suits, and make a bid for those high class ladies. This is the next part in the ever-popular series The Continuing Adventures of Scott and Lincoln.

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Knowledge Unified (But Not by Rhetoric)

This is the best précis that I have written for “Ancient through Contemporary Rhetorical Theory.” Of course, the other ones were pretty bad. You might not agree that this is the best; more importantly, Dr. Lewis may not agree that this is the best. It is an attempt to (briefly) refute Giambattista Vico’s attempt to set up rhetoric as the unifier of knowledge in his On the Study Methods of Our Time. For my arguments on what would better serve to unify knowledge, come to class tomorrow morning at 9:35 a.m. in Fine Arts 221.

PDF icon “Knowledge Unified”