Existential Ennui

~ Searching for Meaning Amid the Chaos

Existential Ennui

Category Archives: Education

Well, You Can Always Think About Sex Instead

22 Thursday May 2014

Posted by Sherry in American History, An Island in the Storm, Editorials, Education, Humor, Psychology, Satire, Sociology

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

critical thinking, democracy, economic systems, opinions, political systems, reading

burning_planetSee? I’m learning. Wanna get somebody’s attention? Mention sex in the title. Works every time. Just what does that crazy lady have to say about sex? Let’s see.

Nothing.

This is not about sex.

It’s about dumbing down the conversation in the hopes that a certain bunch of yahoos might actually recognize that that thing attached to their shoulders actually can be used for deciding more than whether to have the spaghetti Lean Cuisine for dinner or the Salisbury steak.

Okay, so I said that wrong, and all the knuckledraggers I got to read at the mention of sex, now vaguely think they’ve been insulted and have clicked this off.

No matter, what follows is way over their comprehension level anyway. Only the bright bulbs will continue.

There’s a conversation that seem to be in the offing here, yet it’s not a good idea to say it too loud. The conversation revolves around the question: Is democracy the best choice in a modern world?

It’s a hard question, since there is pretty good evidence that we don’t have anything remotely like democracy, have never had anything remotely like it, and probably won’t have anything like it, so how to compare? Let’s not forget that at the beginning of this great adventure, the real argument was between state’s rights and the central government, and that in most places religion was state ordained, and the people who voted were property holders. Women? They voted only by the power of persuasion.

Basically power in a democracy is wielded by the “eligible” voter (who is eligible becomes rather significant wouldn’t you say?), either directly or through elected representatives who enact laws that are applicable to everyone in a just, fair, and equal way. Greece started the whole thing in Athens, but of course women and slaves were not part of that “eligibility” requirement there either.

So how democratic one is starts with who gets to be part of “the people”. Thus my statement that we have never remotely been  a democracy from the start.

People of course, (mostly the one’s who have already dropped out of this conversation) get democracy all confused with socialism, and all confused on top of that with communism, and theocratic states, and oligarchies, and monarchies, to name the most prominent of the “forms of government”. But not all these are actually forms of government. Socialism and communism are more properly economic systems, akin to capitalism or free market economies.

That’s the problem in a nutshell. We claim that communism is “bad”, but communism as practiced by Lenin and Stalin the late ungreat Soviet Union had little to do with Marx and Engel’s ideal which was a marriage of a communist economic system married to a democratic political system. Similarly, American Democracy joins capitalism with a representative “democracy”. For a good while France and England and others married a theocratic/monarchical political system to a feudal system of economics.

Today, in the US we have an acknowledged mess. Our economic system seems to have led us to a new animal called a corptocracy for want of a better word. An increasingly smaller and smaller number of corporations “owned” by a very few men and even fewer women, control larger and larger portions of the national and increasingly international economies. They “buy” politicians and direct them as to what legislation they wish, and how to vote. They often, through groups like ALEC, even write the legislation themselves. By controlling economies they effectively control politics, and thus are the heads of the political system.

Although the trappings of “democracy” remain, through elections, more and more those votes don’t really count. The corporate interests choose the candidates, and fund their campaigns. As studies show, they have the greatest of influence on the introduction and passage of laws.

Perhaps it is time to at least begin the conversation as to whether or not capitalism or free markets are at all compatible with democracy as we might wish it to be? This is the question asked in This is Not What Democracy Looks Like: The Long Slow Death of Jefferson’s Dream.

The problem with posing the problem, is that it presupposes that the average American can (1) recognize the importance of the question, and (2) critically discern the arguments to be made and choose one that is both logical and right.

And there is much that suggests that this is not possible. In an seemingly endless list of studies done at different universities by respected scholars, the answer remains the same:  If your belief is a necessary part of the your world view, then NO evidence no matter how stellar, no matter how obvious, no matter how unchallenged by any contrary fact, is going to change your mind. You will continue to believe as you always have, because it’s necessary to your psychological well-being. Actual facts to the contrary become merely “conspiratorial” insertions. You don’t have to prove them to be a lie, (because of course you could not), but you can dismiss them out of hand.

This is sad news indeed. It means that much of what I do, is wasted. The people I can convince are already convinced more than likely. Those I need to convince will never be, no matter what proofs I bring to the table.

It seems the new studies need to focus on how one convinces a stone that is about to get crushed by the boulder, that it should roll on down out of the way.

Which all leads to another piece of sad news I’ve come across lately.

I’m reading a book entitled “How to Read a Book“. Now before you laugh and say, oh, for starters, take the cover and bend it to the left, and then look for words, continue to move pages to the left until you find some, then read them. Before you do that, listen a bit.

This book was written by a college professor in the early 1940’s and he updated it in the early mid-70’s, and he now dead. I heard about it in another very modern book I read, whose author suggested that it had impacted him like no other he has read since. It changed how he read. On that note, I purchased it.

So far it’s proving to be both provocative and enlightening. It’s could well be titled today, “How to Read a Book Critically” for that’s what it mostly is designed to do. The author, Mortimer Adler announces that there are four levels of reading. The first, is what passes for competence upon finishing high school. It is akin to being able to read the words and get a basic understanding from the sentences in fairly simple things, like a job application, or reading traffic signs.

Yes folks, that is the level of reading you acquired in high school. You were not taught to read anything beyond the level of basic comprehension. You were not taught to understand the deeper meaning of an author’s arguments, see their flaws or their merits. You were not taught anything about judging the value of what you have read. You read simply for information and not for understanding.

And the sad thing, is that the levels 2 and 3 and 4 are not mastered simply by attending college. Adler posits that some graduate students are still struggling after two years with mastering level four reading, the ability to properly analyze and compare works on the same topic with each other.

Critical thinking is still by and large not taught anywhere.

But you can learn.

If you buy the book and read it.

And it is hopeless to conclude that much will ever change in America until enough of our people can read and think critically. Certainly they cannot now, for if they could, there would not be a Tea Party, there would be no creationists, and there would be no climate deniers. Such people as these would remain hidden in their closets with their goofy ideas. They would certainly not have media access to spew their garbled thoughts across America.

So, you might as well think about sex instead.

 

 

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It’s Not Left vs Right, It’s Right vs Wrong

23 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by Sherry in Corporate America, Crap I Learned, Economy, Editorials, Education, fundamentalism, Gay Rights, Health care, Immigration, Individual Rights, poverty, racism, Satire, teabaggers

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

economy, editorial, GOP, poor, race, rant, teaparty

MoralMondayA movement is arising.

It began with Occupy Wall  Street.

It arose with Moral Mondays in North Carolina.

It’s spreading.

Throughout the South.

It’s moving to Wisconsin, and there are murmurings in Missouri.

People are getting tired of being tired.

And it’s not Democrats although no doubt most are. It includes Republicans and Independents and people who have little to do with politics. It includes some business folk, but probably not so many as people who are working stiffs. And poor. Lots of the poor.

And they come to state legislatures and stand in silent witness that these bodies of Republican control are unjust and immoral.

Yes immoral.

Republican extremism known by the name of Tea Party, is an immoral wound in America and people are not going to take it any more.

Let us be clear. Like it or not, believe it or not, (and the extremists are very good at refusing to accept reality), big business (aka Koch brothers) organized and funded the Tea Party movement. Their intentions were not made known of course but their intentions are clear: reduce taxes on the rich, reduce corporate taxes, reduce regulation on business, and continue to subsidize business so we can continue to laud “free market economies” (which of course given all this are not even close to being free, but are protected by government itself) as the best thing on earth.

To the Tea Party they formed, the message went: your taxes are going to takers not makers. You have worked hard and deserve that money yourselves. All you need do is fund the military so we can continue to enforce our will of “right” on the world. We can create the jobs if you just do your part and give us a free hand. That’s what democracy is all about, that is capitalism. It’s the government and its incessant socialistic welfare mentality that is destroying this country.

Now some of the Tea Party are well-educated business types. They are tiny business operations for the most part, but they like to think of themselves as “entrepreneurs” which makes them sound like the Kochs, and Trumps and those kind. But most of the Tea Party consists of not very well-educated white aging men and their overly made up and coiffed wives who like that idea that more money should be in their hands and not going to “those” people. You know “those” people, the ones are required to called “black” now, when in the day it was fine to call them “N*****”? And all those Mexicans, which are still just Mexicans, even though plenty of “them” actually come from Guatemala and Nicaragua and other places called Latin America. And then there are those “Orientals” from the “Orient” since Asian is still not de rigueur in this culture, and it’s all one big country isn’t it? After all, Sarah thought Africa might be a country, right?

Then in the ultimate hypocrisy of all hypocrisies, there in a dose of “Christianity” to hide that racism/downright hatred underneath. “See, it’s not me, it’s God who has a problem with fags!” And if that makes them feel vulnerable, well, throw in a dose of the 2nd Amendment was made for you and me, and voila, we have a mess of a human being filled with self-righteous hate, little actual knowledge of the world, but a gun-defended arrogance to do everything but call it publicly what they call it privately.

But ordinary folks are getting tired. Ordinary decent people who don’t have to wave a bible around to know what is right and what is wrong. And they are tired of watching years of work being undone by barely literate Republican senate and house members who pass insane laws one after another, making it safe and right for white America to live in their fantasy of the “good ole days”.

So people are marching. And more of them march every week.

NAACP ProtestsIN NORTH CAROLINA THE GOP HAS SINCE 2010:

  1. Raised taxes on the lowest 80% of it’s citizens
  2. Removed a tax credit on 900,000 working families
  3. Enforced restrictive voter laws
  4. Blocked increased Medicaid coverage for the poor
  5. Cut Pre-Kindergarten funding
  6. Cut unemployment benefits
  7. Voted itself a right to intervene in abortion lawsuits
  8. Repealed a law that allowed death row inmates to challenge their convictions on racial grounds
  9. Increased the standards at abortion clinics to that of surgical centers and made it illegal to offer abortion coverage if you are a public health insurance company.
  10. Offered no increase in base salary to school teachers even though they are paid at the lowest rate in the country.
  11. Tenure is to be phased out and no salary increases are to be given for master’s degrees. Teachers aides are severely cut.

IN GEORGIA, THE GOP HAS:

  1. Refused to grant increase in Medicaid coverage affecting some 600,000 Georgians and made it a crime to assist someone who is seeking ACA coverage.
  2. Cut more than 7.6 BILLION dollars to public education over the last 10 years.
  3. Restricted workers rights and benefits
  4. Promoted more stand your ground and like gun legislation.
  5. Cut unemployment benefits
  6. Promoting enforcement of voter suppression laws.

When you go nation wide, the results are the same. GOP-led legislatures are doing the Koch’s bidding everywhere, often with bills written by the KOCH legislative arm, ALEC. Everywhere the tune is the same–lower taxes on the rich, cut out programs for the poor, all with the promise to Mr. and Mrs. White OLD people–this will all benefit you, we promise. Just wait for it.

Let me repeat. There is nothing Christian in any of this. People who are TEA PARTY adherents and claim they are Christian are lying. They are at best Christianists, people who use the bible and their own personal interpretation of it to hide behind while they endorse and argue for a denial of health care for the poor (they can use the emergency ward if they need to — duh who pays for that stupid?), a denial public education to the poor (let’s have vouchers, and the poor will end up with the poorest of poor systems but they had their “choice”), a denial of food, unemployment insurance (that breeds dependence and doesn’t teach work ethic–yeah hungry babies are eager to work), a denial of voting rights (everybody can get a voter ID–yeah except for the cost and the travel to a distance center, and oh yeah, lots of people can’t get a birth certificate any more because records are lost, but a gun permit is okay, but  student ID is not), a denial of basic rights to undocumented workers (since they steal our jobs–yeah we were wondering where you were in the bean fields yesterday and even the little one’s can pick can’t they?), a denial of fair wage (business can pay whatever it wants to, that’s the American way–along with child labor, and unsafe working conditions right?), and on and on…

They say all this and have the temerity, the audacity, the chutzpah, to suggest that Jesus would approve! Jesus hated government they say, and Jesus hated the minimum wage. Jesus loved guns and self-defense. Jesus is nothing more than a malleable dummy used while these vile gutless wonders shrink in horror at their own diseased and flesh eaten faces staring out from the dead sockets from which they look upon a world they hate as it slips from their nail-torn fingers.

Lord save me from the Christianists and though I don’t believe in Hell, but God, sometimes I wish there was one, for these puke excuses of humanity.

Other than that, I’m having a great Sunday.

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Putting “Bob” in a Search Engine

06 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by Sherry in An Island in the Storm, Education, GOP, Health care, Humor, Media, Medicine, Satire, teabaggers, The Wackos, Women's issues

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

critical reading, critical thinking, Louis Gohmert, Media, PPH, right wing extremists, sex education, Texas

Robert Melendez 1You know, everybody says they “don’t believe everything” they hear. Everybody likes to think of themselves as discerning individuals who eyes can’t be covered with wool. But the truth is, most people aren’t educated, or have not taken the time to really work at what can only be termed a skill set.

Being a critical reader doesn’t come naturally. A Facebook friend of mine is busy trying to educate a few people about how to tell the questionable from the reliable. He makes a good point. You might want to ignore a source that gives you salacious or wild headlines without a corresponding story. In other words, if the headlines don’t turn out to match the actual verifiable facts in the story, well, you might want to look elsewhere.

A case in point was a recent Rachel Maddow show wherein Ms. Maddow referred to the town hall meeting that John McCain had. A woman referred to her son as having been the victim of gun violence. She wanted to know about what laws Congress might pass. McCain first expressed his condolences for the loss of the woman’s son, and then remarked that “Congress was not going to ban assault weapons.”

Now Rachel indicated that the tape of this had been edited by a local news operation, and that “it might unfairly portray Senator McCain as lacking in compassion. (the tape omitted the sentence regarding McCain’s sympathies). The tape was offered for the news that McCain was saying that the GOP was not going for any ban on assault weapons and this was before there had even been any hearings on Feinstein’s bill.

Yet, the headline from a right-wing shrill machine was something like “Rachel Maddow gleefully admits she edited tape to make GOP look bad.”

I assume you get the point.

The Daily Caller has been pushing the Melendez story. You have obviously heard about it. Melendez is accused of cavorting with paid prostitutes at a friend’s home in the Dominican Republic. The story was apparently “leaked” by GOP operatives and offered to ABC news. They declined.

The right-wingers would say, “see, the MSM is in the pocket of the Democrats. They don’t report on misconduct of one of their own.” Is that what happened? No. Not at all.

The fact is that ABC interviewed one of the “prostitutes”. When asked how she knew that the man she had only known as “Bob” was a US senator, she replied that “I put his name in a search engine and Melendez’ picture came up.”

Why, I invite you to try that and see what you get.

ABC news declined the offer as “unreliable”, which of course The Daily Caller jumped all over it. Which one do you want to use as a source of information? (And I’m not pushing ABC news since I don’t find them all that good either.)

Which brings me full circle, since yesterday I unfairly maligned a nurse quite possibly, for failing to render CPR assistance to an elderly assisted-living woman. Apparently the woman had signed a DNR and I can presume that the nurse was aware of it. Or I would expect that was possible. In any case, I admittedly relied on only what I heard on news broadcasts from MSM and failed to delve any deeper into better sources. Mea Culpa. Live and learn. Hoisted on my own petard. (please insert any another euphemism that seems appropriate)

†

I’m inclined at this point to urge the government to just put a big ole fence around the state of Texas. Now granted, they are a big state, and they have a big population, but for Jimminy Cricket’s sake, they can’t have THAT many idiots can they?

Louis the Loon Gohmert is wasting your tax dollars once again with his amendment rider to a budget bill that would prevent any “federal funds” being used to transport the President to any golf outing until “White House tours are resumed”. Louis woke up from a drug-induced dream and thought he was in Lilliputian land again. The White House suspended tours to save money ala the sequester. Louis takes up space on the planet. I vote to suspend him from a hot air balloon, attached to the capital dome.

Another dim bulb in the state Senate wants to suspend operations like Planned Parenthood from submitted sex education materials to schools that teach sex education. Although all such materials are already subject to public availability and parental veto, Ken Paxton thinks (I know, a crazy word to apply to many in Texas), that present law doesn’t go far enough.

Places like PPH should not be allowed to offer health care information because of course they have a “conflict” of interests. Being that they provide abortions, they most surely would be promoting sex by unmarried teens as a way to, you know, keep business up.  While no example of any information that does that was offered as proof, insiders believe that if you put the brochures in water with a teaspoon of sugar, the words “HAVE SEX NOW!” will appear across the top of each page.

Okay, I added that last part.

And people talk about the misuse of taxes.

Related articles

  • Daily Caller sticks with Menendez claims; ABC News discredits them (dailykos.com)
  • MSNBC Uses Selectively Edited Video to Smear McCain (freebeacon.com)

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Pinch Yourself–Did You Burst?

07 Tuesday Aug 2012

Posted by Sherry in Astronomy, Editorials, Education, Election 2012, GOP, History, Humor, Individual Rights, Mitt Romney, religion, Satire, science, Voting, What's Up?

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

astronomy, Mars, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Mormonism, science, taxes, voting rights, welfare reform

 

 

This is one of the first shots taken by Curiosity of its new home in a crater, looking out on a mountain that is in that same crater.

No word yet whether Curiosity can see Russia from her porch.

Yeah, I know, she’s a non sequitur now, no need to beat a dead horse.

Å

Given that Willard tends to avoid like the plague any discussion regarding his faith, you might be interested in a New Yorker piece about four new histories of the movement. I am not a person who makes fun of what anyone chooses to believe as long as it doesn’t include harm to others, but after attempting to read the book of Mormon, simply as an exercise in being “informed” I gave up, finding it to unalterably boring to push through.

But the story of Joseph Smith and his magic tablets is fascinating, so you might decide, after reading the New Yorker review to pick up one and have a go.

Å

Willard must have the shortest memory in the history of homo sapien sapien. I swear he must. Again, he is vilifying the president for something he (you got it) supported himself. The President would allow states to opt out of certain welfare work requirements upon proof that they had come up with a more innovative (lest costly and workable) alternative. Now Willard says that amounts to just sending people a welfare check. Of course he said the opposite when he was governor of Massachusetts, when he praised and pushed for such a waiver system. Click on the link and you can see his fat signature on the letter.

Å

I almost hate to post this as a joke, since frankly, you and I both know, it’s all too possibly true.

From the Onion:

H/T to Joe.My.God.

Å

We have been a waiting for weeks now Willard’s tax returns. Willard says he ain’t a gonna give ’em up, since the mean old Democrats will only twist them, and ya know, ask for more.

Well, I have moved that “answer” around in my mouth for a good while now, and it’s time to spit out the truth. Whatever the tax returns say are FACTS. They are what they are. Perhaps they can be twisted but they can’t be made into some awful lie because facts are facts. Unless of course you are of the Romney mind: then facts are irrelevant and you can just say they mean the opposite of what they commonly mean. Is that what he is afraid of? That the Obama folks will invent new meanings like he does?

The burden is on Willard. As everyone says, he can clear this up in a heartbeat. Release them, and fair-minded people will read the truth.

But Willard can’t stand the truth. And that must mean that there is something gawd-awful in them.

As Hunter at Daily Kos says:

Whatever’s in Mitt Romney’s old taxes, whether it be zero-tax years or Swiss tax amnesties or non-tithing or that he made several million dollars on a new product called Fetus Chow, it’s apparently so bad that America wouldn’t vote for the rich business guy if they saw it.

It ain’t goin’ away Willard. You can refuse, deny, and look the other way, but we can smell a rat.

Å

Editorial alert:

As a law student, I heard this phrase a dozen or more times: We believe it is better than a 100 guilty go free rather than one innocent be wrongly convicted. Indeed nothing can be more shameful than the periodic release of yet another innocent who has been imprisoned for years for a crime he did not commit. (The phrase goes back at least as far as Blackstone and English law, but has been attributed to many others, including several justices down through the years.)

What this speaks to is our special commitment to justice.

If there is a hallmark to a democratic state it must be the right to vote. I can think of no other more important right than the ability of one to cast their vote for a candidate of their choice. Indeed, one wonders why the far right which is always a titter about “our freedoms” isn’t more vocal on this most important freedom of all.

Yet, clearly the GOP is trying mightily to inhibit the right to vote for literally millions of Americans across the country–and doing so quite openly, all under the guise of “stopping voter fraud”. This voter fraud of course proves to be non-existent when looked at, averaging less than one possible case PER state, per year. In NO CASE has there been any fraud that changed an election of threatened to do so.

Is is not better that 100 potentially fraudulent votes be cast rather than one rightful voter be denied the vote? I would think so.

You?

Related articles

  • Tax Returns Smoke Hides a Blazing Inferno of Romney Lies (politicususa.com)
  • Something Fishy Mr. Willard Mitt Romney? (4youmyviews.wordpress.com)
  • Mormonism And Racism: Why Is This Being Ignored? (theobamacrat.com)
  • Republican Congressman: Romney Tax Return Issue Not Going Away (redsfan.newsvine.com)
  • Welcome to Mars, Curiosity! (pbs.org)
  • On Mormonism (wnyc.org)
  • NASA hopes Curiosity landing site is a Grand Canyon of Mars (latimes.com)

 

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Yes, Well Don’t We All?

06 Friday Jul 2012

Posted by Sherry in Education, Election 2012, GOP, Health care, Humor, Islamophobia, Mitt Romney, Satire, What's Up?

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Politics, Republicans

Congratulate me!

This is my first uploaded picture from my phone. Ain’t I just a terrific photographer?

Thanks, I knew you would agree.

This was taken this morning at 7 am and is the Doña Aña’s. I’m facing fairly south, the Organs are at my back. The sky was fairly cloudy to the East and the sun finally peeked through and threw some nice shadows. The foreground is of course the foothills. If you can see a string of brown housing about 1/3 of the way down and across, that would be the neighborhood I come from and was heading back to.

I did see, moments after I took this shot, an animal skedaddling along across the dirt road ahead of me. He was not a rabbit, (bigger) and not a deer, (smaller). I have no idea what he was but he was in a hurry.

I do want you to know that I was rather chagrined and frankly shocked that the political world continued in my absence. I was sure that I would get e-mails from the likes of Ezra Klein, Chris Hayes, and all the political pundits telling me that it just wasn’t any fun without my rapier wit. But apparently that must violate some pundit-oath taking or something, because nary a word.

So, I thought I would pontificate on a few of the things I’ve witnessed lately.

There are lots of candidates for turd of the week.

  • Rush Limbaugh said that the worst thing that has happened in America since sliced bread is women being given the right to vote. Without them, men would have elected sensible men based on, you know, important and rational reasoning, and not the emotional, equality stuff that women are prone to use.  He later said he was kidding, but that was only after his (oh I f**ked up ‘dar kicked in).
  • Joe Walsh who is a dead beat dad and likes to tell the President what he is doing wrong, seems unable to keep his sewer mouth closed as he continues to vilify a multiple-amputee veteran running against him–Tammy Duckworth. Wanna bet how long he will continue to be a congressman?
  • Willard continues to demand that his side explain to him whether refusal to purchase health care insurance is a penalty or a tax. He’s claimed everything under the sun lately and just wants everyone to know that it’s whatever will make the most voters happy to believe. In fact word is he is sending out a poll to have America determine what his views on everything will be. Until of course, America changes it mind and then he will too. Do you think he has stock in flip-flops?
  • Republicans in general are just dumb and dull. Cases in point: Louisiana State Rep Valerie Hodge who thought it just grand to have a voucher system that allowed people to choose a Christian or public school for their kids. Until of course she found out that the vouchers would be good at Muslim schools too. Then she was decidedly less happy. New York Senator Marty Golden decided perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to invite women to a seminar where he could teach them posture, deportment and feminine deportment. Duh, yeah Marty, rethink that one.
  • Rick Scott and Bobby Jindal continue to claim they will opt out of increased Medicaid coverage under the affordable health care act. Pity since the Feds pick up the entire bill for the increase and the states only pick up 10% after 2020. Something about cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face probably applies here.
  • Speaking of which, we hear that Willard is begging all those swing Republican governors with lower than national unemployment to shut the f**k up in their crowing that their policies are responsible. Romney wants the economy to be BAD you dummies. Don’t tout success! It’s unREStooplican.
  • Never say die. Some people are too dumb to exist. A Oklahoman representative is trying to revive the ancient practice of “nullification” to invalidate the mandate of the AHCA. Why if John Calhoun can try it, why can’t he? Lobotomy anyone?

And that’s that.

Adios.

Related articles
  • Rep. Joe Walsh Doubles Down on Tammy Duckworth Attacks (crooksandliars.com)
  • Tammy Duckworth, American hero, has her heroism attacked by Joe Walsh, Tea Party bum (thehill.com)
  • Limbaugh: ‘When Women Got The Right To Vote Is When It All Went Down Hill’ (thinkprogress.org)
  • Rush Limbaugh says Mitt Romney isn’t ready for ‘prime time’ (irishcentral.com)
  • Does It Matter If The Mandate Is Called A “Penalty” Or A “Tax”? (outsidethebeltway.com)

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The Future of Education: From Elitist to Essential

17 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by Sherry in Editorials, Education

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

college costs, education, education costs, US

Beaumont Tower MSU

As most of you know, we are getting ready to move to Las Cruces, New Mexico. The pod was delivered yesterday so we are starting the final push to pack and make final arrangements. Blogging will become sporadic and then I’ll be on hiatus for as long as need be. Hotels with Internet access determine how often I can post of course.

Meanwhile, I and you are lucky to have a guest writer for today.

Her article is on education in the US and I hope you found it as enlightening as I did.

The photo is of a landmark at MSU in East Lansing, Michigan, which is my alma mater and my prerogative to include with the article as the chief of the chiefs here.

So without further ado, I give you Sofia Rasmussen and her article:

We’ve all heard it: “Why should I spend tens of thousands of dollars for a piece of paper?”

Far too many young people are convinced that the cost of higher education, both in terms of money and commitment, exceeds its value. For many, the desire to make money, no matter the wage, is more appealing an option after high school than enrolling in college. Many figure that they can do distance learning, maybe someday earning a top online PhD and earning all the prestige for less money. For families to whom university tuition is financially prohibitive, two-year community colleges offer lower expenditures at the cost of a stronger curriculum.

The decrease in university enrollment for high school graduates is somewhat analogous to the rise of college tuition over the past decade. That the annual increase in tuition has exceeded the rate of inflation in recent years is a legitimate concern for would-be undergrads. But the problem, which is partially addressed by funding for grants in President Obama’s budget, is merely the final straw for students and families already heeding negative portrayals of American universities and the educational loan system.

Right-wing factions that portray education as an elite rite of passage for the rich and powerful have waged war on higher education in the media with accusations of bad science, particularly in the realm of global warming, and a focus on potential corruption in education lending. For people who entertain such rhetoric, the crisis of American education is a battle of perception rather than facts.

Perhaps most importantly, students coming from families where college education is not honored simply don’t understand the positive outcome of committing to university. These issues must be the foundation of a discourse on education in America today—one that engages young people and their families.

The National Center for Education Statistics establishes significant gains in earnings for college graduates over high school grads. In 2009, those aged 25 to 35 with a four-year college degree earned an average of $40,100 per year. High school graduates in the same age range earned an average of just $25,000. The gap is exacerbated later in life, when those whose education is limited to a high school diploma are looked over for promotion opportunities in favor of candidates that hold degrees.

Wage versus salary isn’t the only argument for attaining a college education. High school graduates who fail to matriculate at a university have a much more difficult time finding any work at all. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 9.2% of high school grads with no college credits were unemployed in February of 2012. Comparatively, 4.3% of those holding bachelor’s degrees or higher were unemployed in the same month.

Aside from the measurable, practical benefits of a college education, studying at a university exposes young adults to experiences, people and concepts they might not otherwise encounter. This often results in an expanded worldview, a sense of personal fulfillment and even a happier marriage.

A 2011 study by the Pew Research Center confirms the widespread sentiment that American college education costs more than it’s worth, with 57% agreeing to that statement. According to 75%, tuition is too expensive for most Americans to afford. However, 86% of college graduates reported that higher education was a good investment for them, personally. That is definitely a statistic worth noting – those who have actually gone through the system see its value.

America’s fastest growing job markets—computer science, medicine, engineering, and biological science—demand higher education. At the present time, America’s best PhD candidates in these fields often come from other countries. For the benefit of America’s future, we need to stress the importance of education for our own. We need to make scientists, software developers and engineers the rock stars of the 21st century. To do that, the price of education must come down.

***

“Sofia Rasmussen is a freelance writer and aspiring graduate student looking to study education and communications. Feel free to drop her a line if you ever have a question about an article or think she said something silly.”

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Go On, Read About it!

08 Monday Aug 2011

Posted by Sherry in Barack Obama, Budget, Corporate America, Economy, Education, Herman Cain, Humor, Islamophobia, Michelle Backmann, Mike Huckabee, Muslim, Satire, teabaggers, terrorism, What's Up?

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Books, debt crisis, Donald Trump, education, GOP, Herman Cain, Humor, Michele Bachmann, Mike Huckabee, Muslims, Obama, reading, Standard & Poors, teabaggers

Or don’t. As it turns out you really can’t teach a love of reading. It seems something that you either do or don’t. And it has little to do with opportunity either. Over time, the number of “readers” hasn’t changed a great deal. And readers lament the same problem (so much to read, so little time) over the centuries. A great little read over at The Chronicle, called “We can’t teach students to love reading.” Go see where you fall.

♦

 

All roads seem to lead to the financial crisis these days. With Standard & Poors lowering the rating of the US, everybody is wondering what ensue.

Whatever you position (and plenty of folks don’t credit S&P with much savvy), their report was pretty clear in laying the blame. Although they spoke about the gridlock in Washington in general, their greatest finger-pointing went to the GOP’s delinquency-prone child–the TeaNutz®. While the National Journal report didn’t explicitly say Republicans, there was little doubt that they felt that the political brinksmanship of holding the country hostage and failure to consider revenue increases as “possible” were largely to blame. This link has a link to the full S&P report as well as some other good links.

♦

Meanwhile Michele (I make it up as I go along) Bachmann was at it again. She just days ago, was a no vote on the debt ceiling bill. She of course went much further, claiming that the threats of the credit agencies to downgrade the US’s  rating were nonsense and of no consequence. Now that that has happened, she spins on the proverbial GOP plug nickel and screams that Obama is responsible, and he must return to Washington “immediately” and address the American people with a plan to pay down our debt by “trillions”, and this too immediately. Oh if wishes could come true, Ms. Idiothead will be the candidate and as Governor Rendell suggested, the “no slaughter” rule would be invoked at the Obama-Bachmann debate ten minutes in.

♦

Speakin’ of the Palin replacement, there is a great article at the New Yorker Magazine written by Ryan Lizza called Leap of Faith. Lizza traveled with Bachmann for some time as she moved between Iowa and New Hampshire and has done a good job of peeling off the whitewash that masks a lot of uncomfortable truths. Bachmann’s background is just chock full of extremists whom she has embraced and taken as her personal gurus. Her dominionist beliefs cause her to take extremist views on subjects such as gay, abortion, and even slavery. She’s going to have a very difficult time distancing herself from all this now. And it’s full of more of her twisting and contorting facts and outright lying to present herself as something she very much is not. Do read it.

♦

Drew Weston has written an important opinion piece in the NYTimes. It blasts Obama pretty badly frankly. I tend to feel like a pinball when it comes to the President. I am constantly disappointed and hopeful, careening between those two points. He’s more conservative in reality that I want, and less a master of the message that I expected. Weston points out how he failed miserably in this debt ceiling crisis, and frankly, I can’t disagree. “What Happened to Obama?”

Weston calls it ” his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics — in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time. . . .” It’s hard to not agree.

♦

Don’t forget your late night humor from Political Irony. Always a lovely way to relax and enjoy some political truths tongue-in-cheek. And if you humor runs religious, here’s a mighty cute little story that we found from our new friend, LOLgod.

♦

When will it get through the American psyche that the debt is only a symptom of the problem and not the problem itself as the ignorant TeaNutz® erroneously believe? Robert Reich once again tries in very plain English to straighten out the issues. Reich always is clear. We are heading toward another recession. Will we act in time? Bets are definitely divided.

♦

Oh and did ya hear this one? Mikey (I like money more than my country) Huckabee has called for the appointment of Donald Trump as a new Secretary of the Treasury. I guess this should come as no surprise. If you’ve seen Huck’s shameless lying and misleading innuendo commercial about “Obamacare” then you know this dude is simply another huckster ala Newt “how long will you support me” Gingrich. Just another grifter. Huck has pretty much given up any pretense of being a “Christian” leader. Any idea Mikey how many times the Trumpster has declared bankruptcy?  . . .I thought not.

♦

Herman Cain is getting more lessons on how to be a good house Negro. The teaNutz® have made it clear that Cain will be back to being “part of the problem” along with all other darker than lily-white citizens, if he keeps going around apologizing to Muslims for his racist remarks about them. After posting his apology on Facebook, he got some really unfriendly responses from his “peeps”: (H/T to The Grio for the link)

“it’s all or nothing with the muslim religion…no means no…please stand firm Mr Cain please or run on the democrat ticket”

“what in heaven’s name are you doing? Don’t you know you can’t trust ONE WORD that comes from their mouth? they’re lying to get on your good side, Mr. Cain! :/”

So, listen up Mr. Cain. Ain’t it nice being owned, Sir?

 

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