Quirkademics

Here's a list of the strangest college courses in America. I don't know how thoroughly researched or scientifically valid the list is, but it does offer some courses that veer far off the beaten path.

The biggest surprise: Underwater Basket Weaving is real! I always thought it had to be an urban legend, but it's offered at both UC-San Diego and Reed College in Oregon. As it turns out, however, the "underwater" part simply refers to submerging the reeds in water so as to make them more pliable. Still...you get as much credit for it as you would for physics, history, or calculus.

I don't know what to think of the fact that several of the courses are offered by philosophy departments. I suppose it's not too surprising, since philosophy departments are often desperate to attract students to the most arcane of academic disciplines. And there has been a rash of books released recently about philosophy and popular culture. It started (I think) with The Simpsons and Philosophy, and now there are forthcoming titles such as The Red Sox and Philosophy and Christmas and Philosophy. I wish I was joking about those last ones.

But using film or television shows can be helpful in illustrating and conceptualizing philosophical issues. One of my good friends has routinely used science fiction in his classes, and he's no slouch as a philosopher or a teacher.

The strangest course on the list is "The Art of Walking." At first, it sounds like the only thing less academically challenging would be courses like "Inhaling and Exhaling" and "Practicum: Sitting in a Classroom Three Times a Week." On closer inspection, however, it turns out the class is actually devoted to Kant's Critique of Judgment, and so it sounds like an interesting way of bringing that text (and it is a killer) to life.

The worst idea has to be "Arguing with Judge Judy: Popular 'Logic' on TV Judge Shows." The course uses such shows to illustrate logical fallacies, and such programs do offer rich source material for that topic. But still, you'd have to sit through half-hour after endless half-hour finding these fallacies. I'd rather read Kant's Critique of Judgment cover-to-cover. In German. In a dimly-lit room. While having my knuckles rapped with Kant's walking cane wielded by a stout Teutonic woman named "Helga" whenever my mind wandered.

From the Truly Bad to the Sublime

I just finished P. G. Wodehouse's Quick Service, and it is now one of my favorites. As usual, there are plenty of brilliant comparisons, like these:

"An instant before, she could have been mistaken for a rattlesnake about to strike. Her air now became that of a rattlesnake which is prepared to reserve its judgment till it has heard all the facts."

A page later, he describes the same character: "If she still bore any resemblance to a rattlesnake, it was one which has heard the voice of conscience and decided to simmer down and spend a quiet evening with the boys."

Here's one more: "'Yes, it's beautiful,' she said, panting a little, like a girl who has discovered a dismembered corpse in the attic. 'Lovely. Well, I must be shoving along. Ta for the tea.'"

Oh, to able to write like that!

If you like star-crossed young lovers, mistaken identities, petty theft, love, spite, and false moustaches, then this is the book for you.

A Lesson for the Kids Out There

If you're writing a paper, never--never ever--use the phrase "since the dawn of time" or some similar nonsense. It's the fastest way to tell your prof, "I absolutely refuse to give this assignment an ounce of original thought, and furthermore I would like to take the first sentence of this essay to insult not only your intelligence, but my own as well."

After reading this phrase for the third (!) time in a single batch of essays, I googled it and quickly stumbled upon an oasis of sarcastic greatness: Kem's Utterly Merciless Guide to Essay Writing. She tells it exactly like it is, which is to say, she says exactly what I'd love to tell students myself if I was willing to risk bad course evaluations.

For example, in reference to the phrase mentioned above, she kindly informs us: "If you start at the [expletive] dawn of time, how the hell are you going to narrow down your topic in time to write anything on it? If you were writing on the joys of peanut-butter sandwiches, would you begin with a history of food? No? Then keep your hands off the dawn of time. It is not relevant to your essay unless you are Stephen Hawking, and somehow, I don't think you are."

Balm for the soul.

Similarly, in reference to the use of commas: "Commas are not the chocolate sprinkles of written language."

Finally, she lays into one of my pet peeves: the use of "they" and "them" as singular gender-neutral pronouns. This usage leads to absurdities like "When making a decision, someone should make up their own mind." As I point out to my class, there are a few philosophers who believe that mind is singular and we all simply partake in it rather than having our own individual minds, but no student of mine even understands that claim, let alone believes it. This mistake also leads to atrocious pseudowords like "themself." Ugh.

Kem's take on this irritant: "'They is not a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun.' If I could make this sentence flash on and off in different colours, then leap from the screen and inscribe itself upon your eyeballs in letters of fiery death, I would be hunting up the necessary code right now."

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Forget U2

Just heard a track ("Stand Up Comedy") from the new U2 album, No Line on the Horizon. It's probably the worst thing I've heard from them since...well, ever. As a thirty-something white guy, I'm probably still obligated to at least give grudging respect to U2 (how is that not featured on Stuff White People Like?!), but I just can't do it. This stuff sounds like the lame, mid-tempo, monotonous guitar riffs I used to come up with in my sleep.

In other words, it sounds like the stuff that bored me so much when I played it myself that it pretty much led me to give up the guitar altogether. Now the Edge will make cash by the truckload for this swill.

"Get on your Boots" is hardly better.

You can hear the whole album here, if you can stand it.

Weather Report

It's snowing. Hard. And sideways.

The weatherman says it could turn out to be the biggest snow storm of the season.

Classes were canceled today, which means thus far this semester there has been maybe one or two weeks at most in which we had class every day. I wonder if my students will even remember me after next week, which is "Spring" Break.