A Gymnosophist's life in review

Two articles I have read recently, published only a couple of days apart and in two journals I wouldn't normally admit to reading except in a passing hollow comedic reference, seem to have put the whole year into context for me and perhaps even provided me a guide map with which to approach the unflattering future - that unwelcoming prospect which we find ourselves increasingly addled with. There is no doubt in my mind that we will eventually have to account for these times, and it seems to me that there is really no better time than the present to begin to pose to ourselves the difficult questions that do emerge from our inevitable culpability for the state we find ourselves in today, firstly as members of the world community circa 2010, and finally, as pitiful present-day custodians of the seminal heritage collectively bequeathed to us and what we call civilization and progress.

I am not going to indulge in a detailed soliloquy of my immediate reactions to the encounter with the rather forceful ideas put forth (and implied) in the body of these articles in question. But I would, desperately, like to put this year behind me with something more than a great sigh of passionate longing for that mythic reality filled with vigour and purpose, and the sure sense that something better is on its way.

First, on the current state of affairs in a nondescript village extant somewhere in the vastness of the not-so-mythical-anymore Gangetic Plain.

And second, about the idea that ethical instruction is as much a requisite as detached guidance in a university education in the Humanities.

Merry Christmas & a Great New Year!

He says... She says...

Official Version:
A brief summary of the incident:
Student A had just finished attending a rather hard class where he was repeatedly subjected to pointed questioning by the Math teacher involved, regarding a differential equation that was displayed on the board and that he could not solve. It is surmised that the events so reported left him feeling humiliated in front of his classmates and that he was harboring a certain amount of resentment towards authority figures in general when he began his walk to the cafeteria after the above mentioned class ended.
Teacher B, meanwhile, had just finished a cigarette on the balcony of the staff room located on the same floor as the cafeteria to which student A was headed, and was on her way to the gymnasium on the ground floor for a previously arranged appointment with the gym instructor when the events alluded to in the hearing at the principal's office so transpired.
After recording the statements of eye-witnesses present in the lobby and on the walkway leading to the cafeteria at the time, and after interviewing both student A and teacher B, it is concluded that at 1310 hours on ___,  Dec 2010, student A brushed past teacher B who was walking past him without acknowledging him, and attempted to pat her around her rump area after she had passed him on the walkway. Teacher B then stopped, turned around and looked back at the figure of student A continuing to walk toward the cafeteria without turning around to look at her, before reporting the incident to the principal at 1320 hours on ___, Dec 2010 in a recorded statement.

Alternate Media version:
Meanwhile, from eye-witnesses whose statements were not recorded at the hearing and who also happened to be present in the corridor at the same time the incident between A and B was alleged to have taken place:
'Did you see what just happened?'
'Yeah, I can't believe it!?'
'She does look pretty hot, though, no?'
'Fucking hell, dude... She always looks hot. Wouldn't mind getting me some of that puntang meself, if I had half-a-chance.'
'Shhh... Look, she looks like she's gonna start crying...'
'Nah... She's gonna get mad about this and get back at him hard, you wait and see...'

Moral of the story:
Everyone wants the goss, and Julian Assange is only the man with the hidden microphone.