It’s Sic Semper Tyrannus day!

Hmmm… I was just about to post the exact same thing I posted last year. I missed it completely in 2005, what with the chaos of closing on two houses approaching on April first.

I always think of Professor Caton on Sic Semper Tyrannus day. And so, even though I have posted this quote many times in the past, I give you what we RWC students referred to as “Caton’s Creed:”

Thinking cannot be carried on without the materials of thought. And the materials of thought are facts, or else assertions that are presented as facts. A mass of details stored up in the mind does not in itself make a thinker. But on the other hand, thinking is absolutely impossible without that mass of details. And it is just this latter impossible operation of thinking without the materials of thought which is being advocated by modern pedagogy, and is being put into practice, only too well, by modern students. In the presence of this tendency, we believe that facts and hard work ought again to be allowed to come to their rights. It is impossible to think with an empty mind.

Thank you, Professor Caton, for making me memorize a bunch of stuff, giving me a slightly less empty mind!

You crazy kids be careful today: the Ides of March.

wRitErsbLock