Oh, you probably think I am kidding.
Tell that to the admin who just got my $75.00 expense report for the rental of a groundhog suit,
Tell that to all the boys and girls who are about to find out that, yes, Carolina, there is a Great Groundhog, and he's all about the arts and sciences. :)
In the Beginning....
There was Ground...and Hog, and from thence came a mating of the twine, and from that union brought forth the Groundhog...
No, no, no, NO, NO, NO!!!
That's not it.
I was drafted to be part of my company's Arts & Sciences Council fundraiser, on account I am (in)famous companywide for being creative in about fifty different ways. Some of you have seen my portfolio of cartoons.
My colleagues suffer these and many more such toons every day.
And every other place that I have worked has endured the same curse.
So, my boss decided to harness my powers for...let's not say evil or good. Let's say: for non-profit. :)
So, tomorrow, I shall be decked out in a giant groundhog costume, collecting pledge cards from my co-workers.
And next week, I shall be assisting in the rounding up and incarceration of company executives for the big fundraiser: the 'jail'.
You should see my 'Wanted: Re-Ward!' posters. They are most exquisite. :)
So...
What are you going to do for the one true Groundhog Day? :)
On the more serious prose
There is nothing made by the hands of man, or of woman, of the hands of man and woman together, that is not made more lasting, more beautiful, more beneficent and more valuable with the arts and sciences than without it.
It is one thing to live, to preserve life. It is another to scale up what it means to be alive altogether.
Consider what art means, over all things: judgment, discretion, appreciation of values and the ability to envision something new, something ideal, something better than what is right before us.
Consider what sciences means, in the same fashion: an ever-expanding arsenal by which we judge, discern, evaluate, enjoy and realize the ideal into the real.
And redefine what is real by doing so.
There is nothing in your lives, in the range of your senses, not even outside the range of your wildest notions that is not amplified and enhanced and glorified by the improvement of the arts and sciences. The first to dream. The second to make fertile seed of those dreams.
Not even thanksgiving to the sources of inspiration, empirical or spiritual, are lessened by the advancement of the craft of imagination, or of realization.
There are places of veneration across the human universe, some are called libraries, some are called temples, some are called museums, some are called mosques, some are called colleges, and some are called cathedrals.
But even churches have children, and electric bills, and DVDs for the computers, and music, and parking lots full of cars capable of taking entire families to and fro at high velocity, in aesthetically pleasing and (far more often than not) physically safe condition.
And with the arts and sciences, not of that is possible, save for children, and then with little or no reliability.
And little or no joy.
Suffice to say I think the arts and sciences are worth striving for.
They do not only define what is good in life.
They define life.
And they are worth living and if need be dying for, in a way that so few causes deserve such honors.
For your children, and my children and (whoever they may be) their children always benefit from something new and beautiful and practical.