'Who asked YOU?'

As I get older, I regret all the things I never learned in school. I always wanted to take philosophy classes, but all you can do with that is think and teach. Steve Martin once said that you can take a course and you forget about in shoon thereafter, but taking one philosophy course is enough to screw you up for the rest of your life.

So thanks to the folks at Open Court Books, for their "Popular Culture and Philsophy" series that puts this deep subject into chunks a philistine like myself can deal with.

Among the company's booklist:

• James Bond and Philosophy: Questions are
• The Beatles and Philosophy: Nothing You Can Think That Can't be Thunk
• Monty Python and Philosophy: Nudge Nudge, Think Think
• The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Souless
• The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D'Oh of Homer
• The Sopranos and Philosophy: I Kill, Therfore I Am
• Superheroes and Philosophy: Truth, Justice, and the Sorcactic Way

The list goes on, including my personal favorite, Baseball and Philosophy: Thinking Outside the Batter's Box.

One will take not that most of the titles deal either with movies or television shows, submitting that those are the stores where we buy our culture. Granted, none of these should be taken too seriously, and no doubt the "serious" philosophers and educators are just shaking their heads sadly at the prospect, but, darn it, they are fun. So what's wrong with that?