A Kolidge Edukashin
One of the greatest cons ever perpetrated on the American public has been carried out through the collusion of academics working in concert with far too many employers.
One of the greatest cons ever perpetrated on the American public has been carried out through the collusion of academics working in concert with far too many employers.
The way it works is that colleges and universities pretend that they’re in the business of educating the young when, in fact, they’re in the business of convincing parents that they’ll be guilty of child abuse if they don’t spring for a few hundred thousand dollars to ensure that their offspring get through four years of left-wing indoctrination.
It’s only then that the youngsters can actively begin pursuing their careers in medicine, the law, architecture, etc. It’s also the time when the colleges get one more chance to vacuum up any additional dollars you might have lying around.
All of this would be bad enough, but companies play their part by making it essential that potential employees all be college graduates, even though most jobs that don’t require the equivalent of an engineering degree can generally be mastered in about two weeks.
Just what is it that these 19- and 20-year-olds are studying, anyway? If I said, “The Culture of Miley Cyrus,” you’d think I was making it up. I’m not. “Alien Sex” is a course taught at the University of Rochester and “Invented Languages: Klingon & Beyond” is available at the University of Texas, Austin. But the beat goes on: “The Joy of Garbage” (UC Berkeley), “Introduction to Turntablism,” which prepares students for a career as a DJ (Oberlin), “Underwater Basket Weaving” (Reed), “The Simpsons & Philosophy” (UC Berkeley), “The Art of Walking” (Centre College), “Tree Climbing” (Cornell), “How to Watch TV” (Montclair), “Goldberg’s Canon: Makin’ Whoopi” (Bates), “American Pro Wrestling” (MIT), “Getting Dressed” (Princeton), “Maple Syrup: The Real Thing” (Alfred U) and “Nothin’ but a ‘G’ Thang,” an introduction to gangsta rap (Oberlin).
Far be it from me to sneer at college courses that promise to belatedly teach people to walk, climb trees, watch TV or weave baskets in their swimming pools, but surely there must be cheaper ways to get the job done.
When I recently brought up Dr. Dao’s checkered past, it wasn’t my intention to make light of the way that United treated a paying customer. After all, that could have been you who was roughed up by a couple of Chicago’s airport security thugs, or, worse yet, me.
My point was only to suggest that because Dr. Dao had apparently done his part to turn otherwise innocent, pain-riddled, people into opioid addicts, it may have been one of those rare instances when we all got a close-up view of karma in action.
The thing I can’t get my head around is why it is that airlines are permitted to overbook their flights. I understand that they want to ensure that every seat has someone’s rump in it just in case a few people have to cancel at the last minute, but why are they allowed as a matter of policy to sell more tickets than they have seats? What if movie theaters did it? Would I have to try to see the screen over the head of the stranger sitting in my lap?
Considering what the incident is likely to cost United in the long run, they may find it more prudent to fly with a couple of empty seats in the future.
I no longer subscribe to a newspaper, but because my next-door neighbor knows I like to do the Sunday crossword puzzle, and because he prefers to get his news from an Armenian weekly, he sticks his Sunday L.A. Times on my windshield. So it is that once a week, while leafing through the paper in search of the puzzle, I often catch a glimpse of what I’m otherwise missing.
This past Sunday, for instance, I was stopped in my tracks while flipping through the Sports section by a photo of an L.A. Angel swinging at a pitch, and a caption that read: Albert Pujols breaks his back on an RBI groundout.
It turns out it was only his bat that was broken.
If I spot a few more of those kneeslappers, I just might start subscribing again.
I must confess I also checked the Best Seller list in the Arts & Leisure secton, just to make sure that neither “Angels on Tap” nor “The Story of My Life” has yet taken its rightful place in the hearts of my fellow Americans. No such luck. But I did notice that Bill O'Reilly and Bruce Feirstein were holding down third place with “Old School.”
I got a little chuckle out of the blurb which summed up the best seller as “Views on traditional values from the Fox News host.” Considering that Fox just settled $13 million worth of sexual harassment lawsuits with five women on O'Reilly’s behalf, it makes me wonder just how traditional his values really are.
As it happens, Bill will now have a lot of extra time to devote to boning up on those values he claims to prize so much.
Speaking of books, another one that is out-selling mine is “Communism for Kids,” written by Elizabeth Harrington, published by MIT Press.
A synopsis for the book reads: “Once upon a time, people yearned to be free of the misery of capitalism. How could their dreams come true? This little book proposes a different kind of communism, one that is true to its ideals and free from authoritarianism.” It’s even illustrated with cartoon drawings of loveable little revolutionaries.
Is it any wonder I can’t crack the best seller lists when I’m competing with a lusty TV host and a German communist who has the power to make children’s dreams come true?
While some people are up in arms over Trump’s sending signals both in Syria and Afghanistan that America has a new sheriff and that he’s wearing his big boy pants, I’m reminded that the milquetoast he replaced once said “U.S. strength comes from our humility and our restraint.” The tragedy of Obama’s eight-year reign is that the putz was being serious. He actually believed that in the war rooms of Tehran, Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang, the world’s most evil despots were sitting around arguing over which aspect of our foreign policy they admired the most — our humility or our restraint.
Speaking of Pyongyang: I found myself wondering which creature has the shorter life span — the common fruit fly or the physicist responsible for the North Korean missile that exploded seconds after its recent launching.
One never expects the media to be honest in their political analysis, but surely there must be a few people working at CNN and the NY Times who has had occasion to ask himself why it’s such a big flip-flopping deal when Donald Trump changes his mind about the proper way to deal with Syria after Assad sarin-gassed his foes, but when Barack Obama went from opposing same-sex marriages to championing them, it was regarded as a thoughtful evolution.
I made an analogy in a recent piece, suggesting that too many Republican politicians place so much emphasis on playing defense that if they were a football team that lost every game 14-0, I could imagine them boasting week after week that they had given up only two touchdowns to the Democrats, ignoring the fact that they hadn’t scored any themselves.
One of my subscribers wrote to say: “Wouldn’t it be nice if some Republican officeholder would read your analogy and reflect on it?”
I replied: “I think it would be very nice, but highly unlikely. As someone once said, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him think.”
I recently read about a political banquet years ago when the busboy was delivering the standard roll and pat of butter to the guests. When he got to Bill Bradley, the senator was reported to have said: “Excuse me, son, but could I have a few more pats of butter?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I was told to give everyone just one pat.”
“Do you know who I am?” Bradley asked. “I’m Bill Bradley, All-American forward for Princeton, All-Star forward for the New York Knicks, and a U.S. Senator from the state of New Jersey.”
“Really? Well, do you know who I am?” the lad replied.
Surprised, Bradley said: “No, who are you?”
“I’m the guy with the butter,” the kid said, moving on.
It strikes me that a lot more of us American taxpayers should keep in mind that we’re the guys with the butter.
