bumbling amateurs and buzzing insects

[Laurel Godley]

Charles,

What a nice summary from The Last Unicorn.  I'd never picked up on that 
before.  We are all a little crazy aren't we, puntuated by moments of 
lucidity?!?  Well I speak for myself of coarse.  But are we really so 
much above the bees and butterflies?  I often feel they serve more 
function in the scheme of thing, whatever that maybe, than we humans do.  
Perhaps someday we will evolve enough as a species to stop being so 
anthropocentric, perhaps not.

As for bumbling amateurs... Rick can vouch for that fact that a little 
over a year ago, I was just such a person myself.  Well I still am in 
many ways.  I knew little or nothing about lepidoptera outside my 
college biology TA's research on insect/plant pollination and 
adaptation.  I even think her research was mostly on adaptive orchid 
morphology and bees.  

Rick, I think your work with butterflies, educating children, working 
with "special" needs groups and adults alike qualifies you for patron 
sainthood (in whatever religious practice or non practice you follow!)  
I, for one, am delighted to know you, and thrilled by the interest 
you've sparked.  I thoroughly enjoy the world of lepidoptera you've 
opened to me and am seriously considering graduate studies in the field, 
right after I finish my MBA...  Maybe that undergrad degree in agi 
science will finally do me some good. 

Anyway, try not to worry about the flaming, you'll always have my 
thanks.  Don't forget to visit next time you come to San Francisco!

Best Wishes...  Laurel 

  
>Rick, I can't believe that you are apologizing. For what? Bumbling 
amateurs
>exist. Anemic cloistered dons of academia, scared to death that someone 
else
>may find out the truth about plagiarism, exist We are going too far 
overboard in calling such things
>a flame, when we should be laughing at ourselves much much more!. We 
are
>above the bees and butterflies in many ways. This Fool's Scepter, 
there's
>even a butterfly in the essay I mentioned earlier:
>
>     "Interestingly, the one immediately recognizable fooling heroic 
fantasy
>appears in The Last Unicorn only briefly and is a slightly mad 
butterfly
>(The Many Worlds...32-34). This delightfully blithe figure identifies
>himself as a roving gambler and brings laughter to the Unicorn for the 
first
>time in her arduous quest. He misdirects, rhymes, riddles, puns, and 
sings,
>all motion, whim and impulse, before his madness suddenly vanishes for 
a
>moment, and he warns the Unicorn of the dread forces that await."

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