Those darn Midwesterners and their Midwestern sentiments!

Apparently a professor at Michigan State, which last time I checked was in Michigan which is solidly in the Midwest, is far too sophisticated for the people who actually live in the Midwest and send their kids to a university in the Midwest. The Detroit News reports that one Danny Guthrie, an associate professor of some sort, is in a bit of hot water because he likes to take pictures of himself and some students. Without clothes. Hey, it's art!

Some regard Michigan State University associate professor Danny Guthrie as an artist doing what others have done for centuries: creating beautiful images that include nudity.

But others think Guthrie is pushing the bounds of creativity too far by making art photographs with himself and students, especially young women exposing their breasts and most of their body.

On the MSU faculty for 13 years, Guthrie and his images are well-known among students and MSU officials, who have determined there's a protocol in place so students do not feel pressured to participate. But Guthrie's work recently caught the attention of the student newspaper and parents, leading to a debate about the line between art and ethics.

What is the problem?! Surely some 65 year old guy posing nekkid with co-ed students in their late teens or early twenties is not creepy at all! Never fear though, another one of the academic elites at Michigan State will explain it all to us provincial types...

But those who are raising questions don't understand what a serious artist Guthrie is and are expressing puritanical, Midwestern sentiments, said Henry Brimmer, an assistant professor in MSU's Department of Advertising, Public Relations and Retailing.

"His work is gorgeous, it is beautiful, it is well done, it has significance," said Brimmer. "I am not trying to be a snob. But if you come from any of the coasts or if you have an education in art … you wouldn't even think twice about it."

Quick rule of thumb. When someone starts a sentence with "I am not trying to be a snob", there is a 100% chance that the next sentence is going to be something horribly snobbish. I love that he is aghast at people in the Midwest expressing "Midwestern sentiments". What sort of sentiments are we supposed to express? Apparently an old guy taking pictures of himself naked with college aged girls is perfectly normal "on any of the coasts". If that is true, and it is not, that is all the more reason to live in the Midwest!

Ah, our academic elites. This is the sort of quality education the Occupy Wall Street kids borrowed tens of thousands of dollars for and now don't think they need to pay back. Actually, when you look at it that way they should be protesting at the universities that suckered them into paying for this drivel, not the banks that loaned them the money.