Monday, September 26, 2005

prima facie problem

I'm reading a book, Ethical Dilemmas in Social Service, for one of my classes. Fortunately, I find the book to be interesting, engaging, and challenging. Unfortunately, it is one of the few required texts that inspire these feelings in me. Most of the time I find myself skimming poor writing of redundant, and often obvious, ideas. This book that I am so far enjoying stumped me, though, with strange usage of a word. It reads, "Decisions about the use of secure detention must ultimately rest on beliefs we have about the sanctity of values such as freedom, justice, and desert."

The sanctity of desert? If anyone can explain what definition the author is using I'd love to know.

4 comments:

cyathula said...

comments deleted? what foul language has been going around...?

yeah, i really can't figure out what the desert could be, there should only be so many words that go with freedom and justice...

jennifer said...

hmm, thanks for the blogger tip. it was icky ad spam.

But "just deserts" is really "just desserts" like frozen yogurt or tirimasu. I still don't think this word usage makes sense. Tirimasu is some good eating though.

david said...

jennifer, you're lucky to even get spam. i only have one reader/responder to my blog. concerning the post, i think they mean desert, like the right for someone to set up there and eek out their existence if the cities don't suit them. don't you find that completely germaine to your field of study? i wonder if the safety of over-intellectualizing doesn't fuel over-written and un-inspired texts, or is it the assumption that those coming into the field have little to no direct service with clients? i hope you find those inspired and passionate professors amongst those dusty bookshelves..

jennifer said...

One of my professors is a well-regarded leader in his field of study. He is well published and has years of direct service experience. And yet his teaching style bores many of us students to tears. One of my classmates really had to fight back the urge to cry after a three-hour-long class. Ah, it will get better. It will get better.