9 Point Homework

'Sup Y'all. Pretty crazy stuff going on tonight, huh?

"Nowhere, they said, north or south between the two seas or under the tall 
sky on the broad earth was there anyone better to raise a shield or to rule 
a kingdom."

Now, to clear up any confusion, I'm not trying to get overly deep into the 
passage, because it's way past my bedtime, but I know I'll get carried away. 
Oh yeah, Beowulf is my dawg. (sorry Jer)

What I'm seeing here is a little philosophical into how we treat our heroes. 
Generally speaking, great war generals come back to great fanfare and 
accolades. Through the years, the U.S. has had many presidents who got 
elected simply because of their military prowess (see Washington, Grant, 
Eisenhower.) Now, not to bash any of these guys, because frankly, G.W. and 
Ike were pretty damn good presidents, but I must ask if they got elected for 
any reason other than the fact that they killed a bunch of bad guys.

While Eisenhower was storming through Europe, papers back home were 
certainly keeping close tabs on things. The general of the most powerful 
army in the greatest war ever comes home. Think he might get a good welcome? 
Um, yeah, that's what I thought. Then, he makes the all-so-smooth transition 
to politics. In an effort to get a little more shut eye, we won't get into 
G.W. and Ulysses' stories, but we know them anyways, don't we?

Now, back to Beowulf. Now, I was a little confused in the relative "Who's 
Who In British Folklore" of the first few hundred lines, but once Beowulf 
came along and started kicking ass, it didn't really matter to me. I know 
this. Beowulf whooped Grendel. He actually amputated the monster's arm with 
his bare hands. (Not shabby for a honkey ass white boy, huh?) After sending 
the little monster running away with his tail between his legs, Beowulf is 
an immediate hero. People love him, women want him, etc. And all of the 
sudden, his reputation precedes him. Before, people needed to ask twice who 
this fellow was. No longer. Beowulf is an immediate success and people are 
calling for him to be King, General, Prime Minister, Pope, and Kwik-Mart 
manager all in one. Nobody could possibly be better than this behemoth who 
slayed the dragon. Well, I think we all learned our lesson with Grant. Great 
guy, great general, great ideas, shitty president. You can't assume because 
someone achieves great success in one area that they are well-fitted to 
another. (See Michael Jordan, Dennis Rodman, Shaquille O'Neal- stick to the 
hoops fellas) Be patriotic, most definitely. We need more patriotism as it 
is. However, be careful not to choose leaders blindly because of what they 
once might have been or once might have done.
________________________________________________