Can't You Guys Read? Cartoons on Academia

Harris has a unique knack for planting the barbs where they'll do the most good. Other collections of his cartoons have addressed science and the professions with understanding and humor. This time he turns his eye on the ivory tower, with delightful effect. Sometimes he addresses public education: "Compulsory education is a myth. We may be compelled to teach, but very few of them are compelled to learn." Oh, how disturblingly true. A building labelled "Lincoln Standardized Test Center, formerly Lincoln High School" has special meaning in debates about teaching as test preparation instead of teaching as education. The senior college professors get their share of attention too, like the one telling his friend, "After being here for more than forty years - as undergraduate, graduate student, instructor, professor - what saddens me most is that this was not the college of my choice." This book was published by the Rutgers University Press - clearly, they consider Harris's jibes as basically friendly to educators and education, even if there's plenty to laugh about. What really impresses me, though, is that all of these cartoons are to the point and topical, even though they're all more than fifteen years old at this writing. Humor about current events usually ages fast. Harris's jokes about events of that time are still current today; a few may be even more poignant now that when they were first published. -- wiredweird