Plato in prison

A Maryland university organized a philosophy course - taught at a local prison.

It's a really interesting idea, and I applaud the effort. One of my favorite bits:

"For me, education is, like, transcendent," said John Woodland, 55, of Baltimore, who is serving a life term for murder. "Whenever I'm in a class or reading a book, it's like I'm out of prison."

All I could think on reading that was, word. It's practically Platonic.

Two gripes, though:

1. Plato, taught by an English teacher? And Buddha by the philosophy guy? Maybe that worked, but as a philosopher I was a bit upset that *we* didn't get to talk about our representative.

2. That last line about uni members needing to venture into the real world? That assumes the university *isn't* the real world. And it's not the whole real world, but it is *definitely* part. It's made up of real people dealing with real situations. Too often we treat the university like it's some fairy-kingdom in the clouds. I don't buy that.

But basically, I love the idea and wish I had the challenge available to me.

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ETA: Or maybe not, on the second point. Between beginning and finishing this post, I read the header on a RSS post - basically the title and first however-many characters of a post made to some website, in this case a Beliefnet blog. The header said "Biola University prof: 9/11 attacks are a depressing indictment of humani". And my mind immediately filled it in as humanities (you know, what I do). A lot of academic blogs tie everything from a drop in the Dow to the release of Justin Bieber's latest video to why we do or don't need to teach the humanities. Maybe us academics are on a different planet, or maybe I'm just self-absorbed like that. *g*

my second-ever lolcat

Based off of a captionable photo at ICHC. I couldn't quite resist.

(no subject)

This is ridiculous:

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I mean, I know that sex sells and clothing ads in particular often objectify women, but this ad is basically softcore porn. I guess they deserve three cheers for not having stick figures as models (though it is a plus-size company), but still there's something I find repulsive about it.

It's not just the shirtless aspect of it, btw, though that doesn't help. It's the way they look directly at us as if beckoning us to come be as close to them as the other models. This may make me sound prudish, and I guess I can be. But the whole point of modesty and clothes generally for me is that you don't emphasize the physical. With only so much on display, it should prod other people to see me as more than just a physical being. Would it have killed them to throw on a shirt and show these women actually doing something in the clothes?