dumbo smacks America

I'm sure Socrates was a pain in the ass, all philosophers are pains in the ass, and Socrates, with the vaunted, Socratic method, sounds like more of a pain in the ass than the others.  Instead of just giving you his latest book, which you could accept with a smile and say you'll bet around to reading it right away, and tossing it into a corner, he kept hounding you, asking you question after question until you said, alright Socrates whatever you say.

But he wasn't really all that gay, not compared to his fellow Greeks at the time.  They had a kind of system where men fooled around with young boys who they were mentoring.  They also had wives and that's where more Greeks came fro,m.  I am sure they also had men who were out and out gay, and I think they frowned mildly on that.  It was okay back then to be a pain in the ass, but having pain in your ass, not so much.

I haven't read that play.  I did internet research on Socrate's gayness because I hadn't heard that said of him in particular, but I don't think I want to do anymore this morning so I'll take Beagles' word on this trial of Socrates, though a play is a work of fiction and I'm sure the author reworked some of the details to make his point,

The charge may have been something like blasphemy, but I think the real reason was enemy of the state, and probably a bit of being a pain in the ass.  It doesn't seem likely that he would have been a Spartan sympathizer, Spartans were kind of thugs, but in time of war there is a tendency to accuse people you don't like of being in league with the enemy.

I think his friends were urging him to leave, but he was well, being a pain in the ass, of course if he hadn't drank the hemlock he could have continued to be a pain in the ass which is what makes me think he should have slipped away.

I wonder how much of this is true.  The only reason that we know anything about  Socrates is that Plato told us, and like the guy writing the play he probably altered a few facts to make whatever point he was making.

You know Plato had that thing where all things on earth were like shadows of the perfect object which dwelt somewhere, I don't think he ever specified, he had us all in a dark cave scarce able to glimpse what was really going on, so that sounds a little weak on Objective Reality, still he thought the ideal objects had  a solid reality, so I don't know.  I hate to have to go to wiki to find out what perzackly he believed, or even worse to have to read one of his books,  I have one of them buried somewhere in my bookcases.  I got it cheap at a book sale thinking well I really ought to read this sometime, but when the excitement over the bargain faded I thought, yeah right.


Up to now Dumbo has been something of a clown.  What he said was repellent, but it was all hot air,  This Muslim ban though is just so clearly unAmerican, and this Bannon guy on the National Security Council.  Old Dog brought up the subject of impeachment at the last seminar, or more accurately high repubs examining charges of non compos mentis that could be applied,.

Two thirds of the house, that's a lot.  I think we can assume all the dems would go along, but we'd still need forty percent of the repubs, that's an awful lot.

Looking back it's hard to remember how they got two thirds of the house against Bill,  Just over that comparatively trivial affair, oh and the lying under oath, but hey, that's Bill.