I'm back and some sort of treatise is in order.

So, I survived a grueling semester of Hell on Earth. The longer I stay in school the more I think that its purpose is to serve as society's weed wacker and to relegate the masses into packaged classes. Oh, and it is also to give jobs to the otherwise useless, mainly professors.

Most of you know that I am a History Education major at Utah Valley State College. All of the live long day I've been attending education courses and listening to my peers. They say cute little things like, "Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." That is the famous line by George Santayana, and those of us in the history profession like to chant it like cult members.

If you believe this you are naive.

For the common man this idea has no bearing on reality. Let's face it, we won' t grow up to be rock stars, el presidente, a CEO, a congressman, or anything like that. Even if you were one of these stellars folks, you would be surrounded by people whose job would be to know and advise you about history. As for you and I and all the good proletariats out there......well history can be entertaining. Like Pearl Harbor the movie.

The reason history is so very important is because it is all about critically thinking! It is about the ebbs and flows of cultures and especially migrations (versus conquerage). A great deal of history is about flooding yourself with different points of view. It is about studying details and making some sort of educated statement. It is most definitely not about the History Channel or Saving Private Ryan. Those things are entertainment based upon history. History is not facts and dates. It is about ideas and eras and how they connect.

So, I guess that one could say that history has a cycle and I would say that it does and it will never be broken....... Even by cute sayings.

If you disagree with me, that's OK. But, I invite you to check your premises.