Monday, August 28, 2006

Strib Gone Wilde

Hi All!

The editorialists at the Red Star newspaper offered up a double shot of Oscar Wilde today.

In a piece about how we will come to appreciate the new Twins stadium, they pulled out a pretty good one -- one of my favorites, actually.

They skewed the intent of the quote just a bit by paraphrasing it to suit their need to make a point:

"On this issue we hold to a version of Oscar Wilde's observation that people know the price of everything and the value of nothing until the gates open. Then they'll deny ever being against it."

I actually agree. I have always gone against the conservative tide as far as public funding for pro sports teams go. If you want the game, you gotta pay for the ticket. Bad on principal, acceptable as pragmatic.

The real quote is thus:

"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing."

What a great quote.

On the other page, a cartoon drags the old Victorian dandy to make a point about education.

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."

How true -- how very, very true.

Sequeway to the delivery of the last urchin to the first day at CDH. My Scorpio's gas gauge doesn't work, nor does the tach or speedometer or odometer or trip computer, but knowing the car so intimately, I do
n't need to know such things that are measured by such instruments.

When I fill the tank I know I have about 300 miles until the next fill, but I play it safe when I estimate I have gone 200. I make a mental note of how much I have driven at the end of every errand. Thus, the last thing I expected was to run out of gas when we were running late for the first day of High School with a nervous 13-year-old girl. But that is just what happened.

Fortunately, we were only a few blocks from home and a quick call to Laura got us a backup vehicle to complete the trip without further stress.

I had neglected to account for the fact that my middle child made frequent use of the car during the past few days. Ah well. He didn't appreciate being roused with an edgy phone call recounting his sins and demanding he bring the lawn mower gas to the Scorpio in order to get it to the nearby "most expensive SuperAmerica in the Twin Cities."

The call ended rather, er, shall I say, abruptly?

Thankfully, my return home found the Scorp in the driveway, so middle child came through. He is back abed now and I am assuming he didn't return home via SA, but that's cool. We have been having a running confrontation over his "messing wif my stuff" but I must keep reminding myself not to act like a 16-year-old when dealing with a 16-year-old.

Cheers!

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