Posts by Dr. Boli
DR. BOLI’S COMPREHENSIVE HERBAL.
No. 18 in a Series of 253,486.
GROUND IVY (Glechoma hederacea).—The terror of every suburban homeowner, Ground Ivy is Satan’s own creeper, a plant of such infinite wickedness that it can only be described as demonic. It sneaks into a lawn with stealth and subtlety, so that at first it attracts no attention. Then it begins its sinister machinations. It spreads by creeping stems that never rise above the level of a lawn-mower blade, so that it can continue its conquests even in the best-maintained lawns. Those few stems that are cut give forth a characteristic pleasant minty odor, which is in itself almost enough to cause the unwary to think pleasant thoughts about the dastardly invader. In early spring it begins to produce myriad beautiful mid-blue flowers, each of which produces a number of seeds, thus spreading the plague even further.
Eventually, if it is not checked, Ground Ivy can take over a patch of lawn entirely. It is hardly necessary to point out the tragic and lamentable result: a patch of grass that requires weekly mowing and regular fertilizer merely to stay green is replaced by a carpet of uniform green leaves, never rising above a few inches in height, that is covered with blue flowers in spring and again in autumn and gives off a pleasant odor when trod on, and that requires no maintenance whatsoever. If Ground Ivy were allowed to continue its conquests unimpeded, the effect on the lawn-care industry would be devastating. For that reason it is the duty of every right-thinking homeowner to eradicate this pest wherever it grows, for which purpose your county extension agency recommends constant vigilance and the placement of explosive charges wherever a Ground Ivy seedling appears.
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CASSIODORUS IN HIS GARDEN.
THESE BRIGHT AND precious remnants soon must wither.
They bloom beyond their time—and so do I.
Dry winter comes; there will be no more flowers,
and I—I cannot live to see the spring.
Yet still I water them. My feeble strength
Can barely lift the jar filled just halfway;
The thirsty earth drinks down, absorbs, and mocks
The paltry moisture that I dribble out,
And winter laughs at me and marches closer,
Casting his shadow darker every day.
But I must labor, putting off the hour
When the last blossom drops, and no more bloom;
Though no one else will do it, I must tend
This useless acre, full of useless things
We cannot eat or burn, or build or kill with,
Only because there once was beauty here;
And though I shall not live beyond the winter,
Yet still I know by faith there will be spring.
NOW AT YOUR BOOK DEALER OR FEED STORE.
ASK DR. BOLI.
Dear Dr. Boli: How do intellectual giants like you go about earning their doctorates? —Sincerely, An Ambitious High-School Graduate.
Dear Sir or Madam: Dr. Boli has long been a keen observer of the academic world: first from the inside, at his beloved alma mater, the School for Unusual Boys; and then, for the past 213 years, from the outside, as an interested spectator with strong opinions on the course of American education. In that time, he has noted that there are generally two ways of earning a doctoral degree.
The first is by laborious study, which usually terminates in some sort of thesis or dissertation. In theory, this dissertation advances the cause of learning by proposing and defending some original idea. The flaw in this theory is that the supply of original ideas is considerably smaller than the demand for dissertations; and, at any rate, most of the original ideas of the past two hundred years have been bad ones—always excepting, of course, the ideas advanced by Dr. Boli himself.
The second method is by what one might call notoriety. Institutions of higher learning are always ready to confer honorary doctorates on anyone who has proved by his accomplishments that he has no need of a degree. Dr. Boli prefers this latter method as more reliably reflecting the truth of a person’s accomplishments.
There is, however, a third way, which is perhaps more consonant with the individualism that has always marked the American character. Having taken an objective and realistic survey of his own abilities, Dr. Boli determined that they surpassed those of most literary figures who had earned their doctorates by either of the two common methods. He therefore founded the Boli Institute for Advanced Studies to award himself the degrees of Doctor of Laws, Doctor of Letters, &c., &c., based on this candid assessment; and he recommends his method to all honest and intelligent men and women as the least laborious means of earning a doctorate.
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WRAPPING UP WORLD HOMEOPATHY AWARENESS WEEK.
Dr. Samuel Hahnemann thinking a mischievous thought.
DR. BOLI WAS delighted to discover that a number of homeopaths were attracted to his articles for World Homeopathy Awareness Week, and that some of them left comments that can only be described as original treatises on the subject. This is flattering in the extreme.
Some of these essayists took the opportunity to correct certain popular misconceptions about their science. For example, Dr. M. Rizwan Ali writes:
In homeopathy as i mentioned before there is no specific medicine for a given pathological condition so a homeopath each time has to select a appropriate,unique drug for each & every pt based upon his unique symptomatology(its like discovering a new drug for a given pt suitable to his unique constitution)…
This, incidentally, is why, if you walk into a natural-foods store and purchase a homeopathic cold remedy, the box, when you open it up at home, will be found to contain a tiny, highly miniaturized homeopath.
Sarah Walder of “The Truth About Homeopathy” believes that we should all play nicely together, which is a sentiment with which Dr. Boli heartily agrees. She points out an unassailable fact:
People who visit homeopaths are getting better. We can see this through the many case studies.
This is indisputably true. Dr. Boli would like to point out that, in addition, there have been times when he sat in a comfortable armchair drinking Yunnan tea and got better, and he believes he may have hit upon a useful and profitable complementary therapy.
For the last word, we return to Dr. Ali, who reveals the important connection between homeopathy and Albert Einstein.
Albert Einstein, who less than a century ago completely shook the foundations of the vision of the universe, the concepts of gravity, space and time, concepts which were strongly rooted in the scientific world, since the time of Euclid and Newton. Yet, as always happens in these cases, he was not believed by the scientific community of his time. similarly homeopathy which contradict some of the scientific concepts of present generations is not believed by present scientific community.
Dr. Boli would add that, since Einstein lived to see himself widely regarded as the preeminent scientific mind of the age, whereas Dr. Hahnemann (the discoverer of homeopathy) is still awaiting that honor more than a century and a half after his death, the injustice is even more monstrous.
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TONIGHT AT EIGHT.
Dumont Network: Giggles and Sins (crime drama). The new Dumont drama that pairs a by-the-book cop with an architectural-historian clown. Tonight: When a bank robbery goes wrong, Bozar is sent to negotiate for the hostages. But will he lose his grip when he’s trapped in a bank building designed by Mies van der Rohe?
The Brimstone Channel: The Jesus Show, with the Reverend Bob-Bob Lee (religion). Tonight: Rev. Bob-Bob shows you how to exorcise a deviled egg in three easy steps.
Northern Broadcasting System: Quirkville, PA (comedy-drama). The quirky comedy-drama about a quirky small town and the quirky people who live there. Tonight: Mayor Quentin Q. Quentin faces off against the Baker’s Dozen bakery when he tries to ban eating cupcakes while driving.
Metromedia: Al ’n’ Me (comedy). The wacky adventures of best buddies Alexander and Hephaestion as they look for new worlds to conquer. Tonight: Al and Hephaestion want to go to the lodge convention, but their wives won’t let them! Will they sneak out, or will Al just have the girls beheaded?
Golf Network: The Golf Show (golf). Tonight: Six warning signs that you might be playing baseball instead of golf.
Baldwin Borough Community TV: Baldwin Borough Council Meeting (public affairs). Tonight: Council orders pizza.
Wolf Broadcasting Corporation: Fries with That (reality). The hot reality show that takes ten new college graduates, puts them in dead-end jobs, and leaves them there forever. Tonight: When Ashley forgets to give a receipt to a customer who bought two ballpoint pens, her manager makes her write out the rest of the day’s receipts by hand, including the coupons.
The Lawnmower Channel: My Lawnmower, My Love (movie). The Lawnmower Channel’s first made-for-cable movie tells the heartrending tale of a man forced to choose between his wife and his Snapper LT130 AWS riding mower.
Science Central: Ghost Investigators (documentary). Tonight: The team is shocked to discover that their own headquarters is haunted by a team of “normal investigators,” paranormal beings determined to prove that there is life on the other side.