I've been busy (to say the least) over the past few days. My travels are not quite over yet as I still have to return from seeing my brother graduate in Thousand Oaks. In the meantime I've been to Thousand Oaks, Santa Barbara, Fresno, Yosemite, La Mirada and back to Thousand Oaks again. Hopefully, as my travels wind up I will be able to go back to regular posting. I hope you have been able to enjoy the posts that are already up there over the past few days while I've been away. In the future, I may be putting up more devotional thoughts if it interests you all. In the meantime, the Platypus knows what the travel is all about, but he's keeping quiet. Good Platypus, nice Platypus...
Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...
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