Oh, Mama, can this really be the end....

Had a flat the other day, my first in my "new" car. (My "new" car is seven years old, bought three years ago, as distinct from my pickup truck, who could buy legally buy his own beer if he were a person.) I was tooling along a back road on the way to work, and by the time I felt that something was wrong (it was a rear tire) and found a place to get off the road, the tire was pretty chewed up. As I told my car guys when I called to order a new one, it was "plumb rurnt."

I had found the requisite tools, gotten the little weenie spare out of its covering, and was consulting the owner's manual to doublecheck where to put the jack     when -- ta daa -- a car stopped and the driver offered to help. Ah, the south. Turns out he is a community college student; his girlfriend, riding shotgun, attends my university; and he works on cars for a living. It would have been cruel not to accept his offer. He saved me time and aggravation, and I gave him ten bucks. Well worth it to shorten the time I spent sweating in a church parking lot.

In parting, he said "If I end up in your class, I hope you'll pass me."  Who knows?

Umm, Bacon

So if May snuck by, I guess June did so even more. Uh, 'nuff said. So I wasn't writing much, but I made up for it by lounging by the pool. 

The point of education is  .... Well, here's a more fun way to say most of the stuff I wanted to say about that idea:  There was a great article on Salon today about the lurid but undeniable appeal of bacon. (Cue Homer Simpson: "Bacon, ahgglle, ahggle, ahggle.") The article is tons o' fun and includes links to other bacon-related sites (also lurid but fascinating in a train-wreck sort of way), but what makes it useful is its internal allusions that you just wouldn't GET if you were not a reasonably well-educated person. Phrases like "vast flyover" and "gateway protein," vocabulary like "aphrodisiac," "hedonism" and "herbivore," plus cultural referents from Betty v Veronica to Paula Deen -- yes, anyone could read this piece if reading is simply decoding, but if "read" means something more, if it means making connections and constructing meaning, then you need a lot of background info to read this relatively fluffy piece on pork. 

Imagine how much more cultural / historical / literary savvy you need to read hard news or deconstruct campaign promises. It's not about getting a job; it's about understanding the world and being able to act in the world.