Is a college degree required for success?

The 19th century (Age of Enlightenment/Romanticism) and the early 20th century (Progressive Era) saw the ascendancy of the academy, colleges, universities, higher education. With the academy came its attendant associations where the intellectual class, especially since the 1950s and 1960s, increasingly sought to cement its newly exalted position as the controller of society and dictator of culture. Solidifying its education monopoly, the academic class over time would control the very gates of higher education, admissions, course requirements, degree offerings, graduation, licensing, college accreditation, degree certification, tenure – the very access to success in this life. Many people believe that to be "successful" in today's society, one must have a degree. Yet, did you know, dear reader, that long before the academic bureaucracy became entrenched in society ordinary people did extraordinary things without degrees? For example, as late as 1954 there was a man that sat on the Supreme Court of the United States that not only never graduated from a prestigious law school, he only had one year of law school under his belt. He had no judicial experience, yet his legal mind was so superior to his contemporaries, FDR tapped him to become a justice on the Supreme Court (1941), and Truman four years later appointed him to be chief prosecutor for the U.S. at the Nuremberg Trials (1945-46). That man was Robert H. Jackson. Other justices of the Supreme Court were appointed without graduating from law school or taking the bar exam (Benjamin Cardozo) or who lacked impressive judicial experience (Frank Murphy), the latter a lowly circuit court judge from Michigan before he was appointed to the high court by FDR. But how can this be? In art, the correlation between a college degree and artistic genius are nil. As a matter of fact, there appears to be a reverse correlation between not going to art school or getting an art degree with artistic excellence. None of the greatest artists, sculptors or architects whose works we revere today had a "degree" – not Galileo, Rembrandt, Rodin, Bonticelli, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Goya, Picasso, etc. None went to what we today call "art school" or received a degree in "art studies," yet they were able to exercise their gifts without paying homage to some irrelevant, bureaucratic association or certification board that incidentally knows absolutely nothing about who or what makes transcendent art. In classical music, the same is true all of the greatest composers and musicians whose music transcends art, including Josquin, Palestrina, Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Brahms, Schumann, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Chopin, Wagner, Richard Strauss, Schoenberg and Berg. None graduated from a "school of music" or received a degree in composition, music performance, music education or music business, yet they ascended the very steps of Parnassus in music, and they were able to exercise their gifts without paying homage to some self-aggrandizing, bureaucratic association or certification board who with Pharisee-like fanaticism guard the portals of the academy, to graduate schools and thus to prestigious universities, well heeled positions in society and economic success, affluence and notoriety. This monopoly over the mind of We the People by the academy through higher education must be deconstructed. When an honorary Ph.D. degree was granted to Benjamin Franklin (one of the greatest inventors of the 18th century and a high school dropout), he later wrote in his autobiography that he was loath to publicly acknowledge that honor despite the fact he did path-breaking work in physics and invented bifocals, the odometer, the lighting rod, electricity and many other great innovations we still use today. Franklin also helped write the Constitution, was ambassador to France, founded the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania and the American Philosophical Society. Other geniuses of humanity that did not have the Ph.D. or in some cases no degree at all include: Noah (no college, saved all humanity, for 4,000 years had built largest boat until the Queen Mary) Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (no college) Jesus Christ St. Augustine St. Thomas Aquinas George Washington (no college, commander in chief, president) Alexander Hamilton (our first and greatest secretary of treasury, taught himself law by reading law books) Napoleon Abraham Lincoln (no college, no law school but a lawyer and our greatest U.S. president) Frederick Douglass (ex-slave, abolitionist) Booker T. Washington (ex-slave, college builder) Albert Einstein (had trouble finishing high school) Alexander Graham Bell (college dropout) Thomas Edison (no college) Harry Truman (no college, judge and president) Sam Walton (no college, founder of Wal-Mart) Mother Teresa (no college) Bill Gates (richest man ever, dropped out of Harvard as a junior) Rush Limbaugh (college dropout, media genius)

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The story of the 256 old year man | InterestingFacts.org

The story of the 256 old year man | InterestingFacts.org

In our today world it is impossible for one to believe that a man can live up to the age of 150 years let alone 256 years. According to Time magazine and the New York Times that were published in the year 1933, there died a man whose age was 256 years. I am not sure if he was lucky to have lived up to this age or not.

He went by the name of Li Ching-Yun. In his lifetime he was able to bury 23 wives. He was able to get 180 descendants by the time of his death. If he were in Africa he would have been the role model of many men as the worth of a man was measured by the number of wives and children one had.

J'ai décidé d'être triste

J’ai décidé d’être triste !



Que de souvenirs , que de moments mouillés
Ayant un cœur assez lourd pour une seule âme
Ayant un cœur rempli, un cœur brouillé
Je n'ai jamais eu les yeux calmes
Mais des yeux trempés …
J’ai vu beaucoup de chasseurs tirer avec leurs armes
Des soldats qui laissaient dans mon cœur, leurs épées

Est-ce ma volonté ? Est-ce la qualité du café..
Qui au lieu de me réveiller, m’aidait à dormir
Ce sont mes actions, ou c’était déjà décidé…
Les circonstances, l’ennui, et le fait de mourir

Je ne pense pas souligner mon inquiétude intense
Je suis habitué à mes chagrins
Mais je suis perturbé par ces hommes qui dansent
dans mes larmes froides, et qui nagent le matin
Je n’ai pas eu le temps pour m’en plaindre chez le Roi
et je n’ai jamais eu le temps de lever un doigt
Pour essuyer ces étranges marins !

26-28 Aout 2011



J’étais un être liquide
Je coulais sur les trottoirs
Je me promenais dans le vide
Ils voulaient se laver, ils voulaient boire…

J’étais un être liquide, fait par ses douleurs
Un jour le soleil se leva, étala ses bras dorés
Et On sentait partout ma vapeur
…J’ai décidé de m’évaporer
13 sept. 11

“I wouldn’t feel upset if humanity came to an end.”

“I wouldn’t feel upset if humanity came to an end.” APRIL 7, 2011 AT 7:14 PM by noah cicero (We who Are About To Die) An interesting Article if you really know how to read... I read The Self-Esteem Holocaust Comes Home and felt extreme anxiety for three days. The anxiety was very bad. I kept watching that Johnny Cash video for the song Hurt. I sat for hours staring at the screen like a zombie watching the sad Johnny Cash get older and die. Sam Pink is making a statement on the last man. According to Wikipedia the last man is, “a weak-willed individual, one who is tired of life, takes no risks, seeks only comfort and security.” With The Self-Esteem Holocaust Comes Home and Person, Sam Pink is showing what it is like to be the last man, to be futile, to have no power, to be adrift in the ocean of self-serving humans. Because that is what it is like now, with so many humans alive and ever-increasing, an ocean, we are all drowning each other, holding each other under the water, no man, woman or child escapes. We seek comfort not happiness. When an American says, “I want to be happy,” the definition of the word “happiness” is “comfort.” There is no risk, no struggle anymore in the American spirit. It has all died. The characters in Self-Esteem are cheap; they have been cheapened by the world and have no desire to become expensive and rare. Supply and demand works with humans just as with shoes and apples, the more humans there are, the cheaper each one becomes. Tocqueville and Nietzsche thought it was democracy that cheapened and leveled the human spirit, but it is just population size, the more humans there are, the cheaper everything gets, people are cheap in America and people are even cheaper in China. Self-Esteem doesn’t contain any names, no first or last names, only the positions of the people in the story. The group of plays sets up a world where everyone is not a name, not even a number, but a temporary title.

The plays could be defined as tragicomedy but it doesn’t resemble any past works by Beckett or Ionesco. It is a completely different creature. I believe tragicomedy is a manifestation of a culture suffering from mendacity. Sam Pink is not afraid of mendacity, he knows it well, and it shows in his writing. Noah Cicero: I don’t know if I love humanity. I don’t think I do. Sometimes I think, “I feel bad for humanity,” but then I think, “How can I feel bad for humanity, I have no money and I’m not very good myself.” Then I think, “I’m surrounded by humans, some of them I like being around.” A lot of humans I do not like being around though. There are some people I would beat with a baseball bat if I could. I do not know if I could shoot them dead. But I could beat them. I don’t know if I have “compassion” for my characters, I like to think about people. It is what I’ve done since I was little. Instead of thinking about sports or music I would think about people. I remember playing football when I was little and trying to understand the relationship of the football team, and oftentimes dads would coach their sons. And I enjoyed watching their interpersonal relationships and going home and thinking about them. I don’t know if I want to save humanity. I don’t even know what I’d be saving them from. One time I was talking to a political science professor and I said, “The majority always wins, not people like me. If the majority wants to destroy themselves, let ‘em.” Sam Pink: yeah i don’t want to save humanity or anything. i wouldn’t feel upset if humanity came to an end.... To read more please Visit http://wewhoareabouttodie.com/2011/04/07/i-wouldn%E2%80%99t-feel-upset-if-humanity-came-to-an-end/

I wish I loved the Human Race

"I wish I loved the Human Race I wish I loved the Human Race; I wish I loved its silly face; I wish I liked the way it walks; I wish I liked the way it talks; And when I'm introduced to one, I wish I thought "What Jolly Fun!" Sir Walter A Raleigh"(1552 - 1618) What would he says if he saw the Human race today?

… deux fois plus lourd

Si c’est la terre de Dieu
J’ai le droit de garer ma voiture où je veux
De donner aux quartiers mon nom
De bâtir n’importe où ma maison

De dormir dans n’importe quel pays
Dans n’importe quel continent
J’ai le droit d’ouvrir en été ma parapluie
Et d’ordonner au ciel de changer la saison

D’annoncer n’importe quel terrain mon royaume
De dessiner sur la carte mes horizons
J’ai le droit comme n’importe quel Homme
De dormir n’importe où le soleil étale ses rayons

Si c’est la terre de Dieu
J’ai le droit de dormir sous ses cieux
Comme n’importe quel papillon
Mourir sous la lumière, parmi les passants
12 août 2011

Charles Baudelaire - Bénédiction

Bénédiction

Lorsque, par un décret des puissances suprêmes,
Le Poète apparaît en ce monde ennuyé,
Sa mère épouvantée et pleine de blasphèmes
Crispe ses poings vers Dieu, qui la prend en pitié :
– « Ah ! que n’ai-je mis bas tout un noeud de vipères,
Plutôt que de nourrir cette dérision !
Maudite soit la nuit aux plaisirs éphémères
Où mon ventre a conçu mon expiation !
Puisque tu m’as choisie entre toutes les femmes
Pour être le dégoût de mon triste mari,
Et que je ne puis pas rejeter dans les flammes,
Comme un billet d’amour, ce monstre rabougri,
Je ferai rejaillir ta haine qui m’accable
Sur l’instrument maudit de tes méchancetés,
Et je tordrai si bien cet arbre misérable,
Qu’il ne pourra pousser ses boutons empestés ! »
Elle ravale ainsi l’écume de sa haine,
Et, ne comprenant pas les desseins éternels,
Elle-même prépare au fond de la Géhenne
Les bûchers consacrés aux crimes maternels.
Pourtant, sous la tutelle invisible d’un Ange,
L’Enfant déshérité s’enivre de soleil,
Et dans tout ce qu’il boit et dans tout ce qu’il mange
Retrouve l’ambroisie et le nectar vermeil.
Il joue avec le vent, cause avec le nuage,
Et s’enivre en chantant du chemin de la croix ;
Et l’Esprit qui le suit dans son pèlerinage
Pleure de le voir gai comme un oiseau des bois.
Tous ceux qu’il veut aimer l’observent avec crainte,
Ou bien, s’enhardissant de sa tranquillité,
Cherchent à qui saura lui tirer une plainte,
Et font sur lui l’essai de leur férocité.
Dans le pain et le vin destinés à sa bouche


Ils mêlent de la cendre avec d’impurs crachats ;
Avec hypocrisie ils jettent ce qu’il touche,
Et s’accusent d’avoir mis leurs pieds dans ses pas.
Sa femme va criant sur les places publiques :
« Puisqu’il me trouve assez belle pour m’adorer,
Je ferai le métier des idoles antiques,
Et comme elles je veux me faire redorer ;
Et je me soûlerai de nard, d’encens, de myrrhe,
De génuflexions, de viandes et de vins,
Pour savoir si je puis dans un coeur qui m’admire
Usurper en riant les hommages divins !
Et, quand je m’ennuierai de ces farces impies,
Je poserai sur lui ma frêle et forte main ;
Et mes ongles, pareils aux ongles des harpies,
Sauront jusqu’à son coeur se frayer un chemin.
Comme un tout jeune oiseau qui tremble et qui palpite,
J’arracherai ce coeur tout rouge de son sein,
Et, pour rassasier ma bête favorite,
Je le lui jetterai par terre avec dédain ! »
Vers le Ciel, où son oeil voit un trône splendide,
Le Poète serein lève ses bras pieux,
Et les vastes éclairs de son esprit lucide
Lui dérobent l’aspect des peuples furieux :
– « Soyez béni, mon Dieu, qui donnez la souffrance
Comme un divin remède à nos impuretés
Et comme la meilleure et la plus pure essence
Qui prépare les forts aux saintes voluptés !
Je sais que vous gardez une place au Poète
Dans les rangs bienheureux des saintes Légions,
Et que vous l’invitez à l’éternelle fête
Des Trônes, des Vertus, des Dominations.
Je sais que la douleur est la noblesse unique
Où ne mordront jamais la terre et les enfers,
Et qu’il faut pour tresser ma couronne mystique
Imposer tous les temps et tous les univers.
Mais les bijoux perdus de l’antique Palmyre,



Les métaux inconnus, les perles de la mer,
Par votre main montés, ne pourraient pas suffire
À ce beau diadème éblouissant et clair ;
Car il ne sera fait que de pure lumière,
Puisée au foyer saint des rayons primitifs,
Et dont les yeux mortels, dans leur splendeur entière,
Ne sont que des miroirs obscurcis et plaintifs ! »


"Les fleurs Du Mal" Charles Baudelaire