The Ancient Modern
Abbreviated / Joshua Alan Sturgill
It has allowed us to turn so much of the Earth
into cars and cell phones. This is what I said
when asked what I thought about democracy.
You’re confusing democracy with capitalism,
I was told. Very likely. In twelve years of public
ed., I had just one semester of Am. Gov., so I
don’t know much about history. Wait—that
was a Sam Cooke reference. Pop culture is
easier than anything in my Wld. Hist. course,
which jumped from ancients to Augustine to
automobiles. Florida, of course. We wouldn’t
have studied Saints, since Relg. is obviously
not part of Hist. or Lit. or Govt. Relg. happened
before democracy, back when there were plagues
and things, before we knew how to turn Earth
into cell phones. My cell phone (I’ve just learned
from Google) is made largely of aluminum alloys
with trace amounts of praseodymium. Such a
long word. Chemists likely have an abbreviation
for it. It occurs to me that so many elements go
into my phone, it’s almost like an abbr. for all of
Earth. So my abbr. ed. is no problem. I have it all,
here, in my hand. I like democracy; I can follow
election results with my praseodymium phone.
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