Pax Arcana
On the hierarchy of honors of academic distinction, the Rhodes Scholarship falls just below entry into the Grand Council of Great and Serious Men of Science — an honor I have received twice, in fact, thanks to my unjust temporary expulsion for destroying half the robots at MIT.
I was provoked.
Anyway, the Rhodes Scholarship is not something given to anyone. In fact, just qualifying for consideration is an achievement of almost mind-boggling difficulty.
And while this year’s crop of contenders includes the usual uncoordinated geeks and spastic android-coddling shut-ins, we were surprised to learn that a Florida State University football player was among those under consideration.
Meet Myron Rolle, one of the top college safeties in the country and Rhodes Scholar finalist:
Rolle graduated from Florida State, after only 2 and a half years, with a 3.75 GPA in pre-med. If selected for the Rhodes Scholarship, he plans to study the anthropology of medicine in third-world countries. Also, he has to miss an upcoming game against Maryland to interview. Also, he may have to choose between the Rhodes Scholarship and the NFL.
In short, he is much awesomer than you. And younger. And better.
The songs:
I Summon You — Spoon
Cupid’s Trick — Elliott Smith
Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time — Jarvis Cocker
Let it Loose — The Rolling Stones
The First Incident — Frightened Rabbit
Marla — Grizzly Bear
Among the Pines — A.A. Bondy
The Four of Us Are Dying — Nine Inch Nails
All Our Weekends — The French Kicks
When You Wake Up Feeling Old — Wilco
Bonus Video:
Got to Give it Up — Marvin Gaye (Live in Montreaux, 1980)
The Rules: The Friday Random 10 is exactly that — random. We open up our iTunes, set the thing on shuffle, and listen to 10 songs. We are not permitted to skip any out of embarrassment or fear of redundancy. Commenters are encouraged to post their own.
