Maggie's Farm

The sanctimonious kids who do not want to pursue profit, and desire to be pure in some puritanical way (but not sexually), often are too economically ignorant to realize that they only wish to survive on the exertions, risks, and profit of others.

Do they really aspire to be helpless parasites like the Occupiers?

Here's the article: Don't Be Ashamed College Students, Profit Is Not A Dirty Word

For $57,232 per year you get what at Brown University?

The post speaks for itself.

From Leef: The Spirit of Adam Smith Returns - At one time, professors were independent contractors paid by students; that relationship may return:

It is a bad habit Americans have gotten into that we often look askance
at learning opportunities unless they’re “for credit.” The return of the
free market in higher education will help break that habit, as people
again learn for the sake of learning (as Adam Smith’s students did) and
stop taking courses just because they need some credits.

Perhaps the new competition will end up determining who wants to learn things, and  who just wants the credential.

Related: MOOCs, MOCCs, and HarvardX

"Everybody has won, and all must have prizes, the Dodo said."

Student Gets Low Grade, Sues University for $1.3 Million

Related, Wesleyan University panders to grievance-seeking manipulators and grudge-filled neurotics: Speech Code of the Month: Wesleyan University

The world has gone insane.

Students Push Diversity Mandate at Cornell.

I'll say it again: America is the most tolerant place on earth, even to a fault. We even tolerate totally ignorant, highly annoying bs.

A survey: What Do Professors Really Think? One example:

36.7 percent agreed "strongly" or
"somewhat" with the statement, "Most of the students I teach lack the
basic skills for college level work"

A wonderful read. From Bird Language:

...even after almost half a century, somewhere inside I’m still eighteen and scratching a living on horseback in chaps, helping push a dusty, cranky herd of cattle to the upper range, with the brim of my cowboy hat shading a blinding bright summer view that stretches out well beyond next payday and leapfrogs my petty cares, a view from where we stood on the high summer range, overlooking the winter pastures far below, and on beyond the cities known and unknown, my young heart sailing away past the verdant, distant hills, careening towards an unknown brilliant future … and now, like the old cowboy with his idiot grin, I find myself wandering that same path still, with that same young heart and those same illusions and foolish dreams.

It's the end of hunting season, and I have not killed enough stuff this year to satisfy the hunter in me. I have a doe in the freezer, countless pheasants and chukars, a few Canada Geese and a bunch of ducks of several species. A couple of grouse, but we have eaten most of them and all of the woodcock. (Ask me how to make woodcock ravioli with jus de gibier and black truffle - I will tell you.)

There is a feeling of regret. How many hunting seasons does a man have in one lifetime? And work, family, and obligations intrude, as they should and must. Carpe diem, if you can. It's been a terrible winter for ducks - weather too pleasant.

The only consolation is that it is now time to really get cooking all of the good game in the freezer. For starters, we're doing a large-scale venison bourguignon for a get-together next weekend. The following week, will do the venison filets for some lucky guests. With the Canada geese, I will have a small party and sautee the breasts rare with some mushrooms and celery root puree, with gibier sauce, etc. For the ducks - oh, man. Very special recipes for those precious wild spirits, which I may write about sometime. For the Snow Geese, a nice cassoulet with some other mixed game. For all the bones, wings, carcasses, etc., including the carcass of the Thanksgiving turkey and the bone of the Christmas ham, we'll make a gallon or two of Uncle Bill's jus de gibier, to use with everything, saving some of it for a special, once a year consomme de gibier for Valentine's Day.

Despite all of these delights, I'd rather be in the woods and swamps with the dogs and a gun.

A Costly STEM Mistake in Connecticut:

There are many more pressing considerations such as taxes and regulations, and Connecticut is not
exactly a magnet for any kind of business.

In
this 2011 survey by the Mercatus Center, Connecticut ranked 38^th in economic freedom.
The Tax Foundation puts Connecticut 40^th with regard to its tax climate
for business. A marginal increase in the number of state residents who have studied
in STEM fields is not likely to tip the scales when there are many others
states where business is more welcome.

For another, labor is mobile...

At College Fix

Related, from Mead: When MOOCs Go Bad

Things are changing quickly in the Higher Ed world. It will be interesting to see what works.

That's a quote from Insty. Does Insty have any kids? I don't think so, but I don't know for sure. If he does not, then he does not appreciate the essential baby-sitting and child-care function of public education.

Home schooling is a fine alternative to government schools (designed for the poor), private schools (designed for the upper middle classes, and for parents desiring a religious education) and home teaching and tutoring (for the wealthy).

Somewhat related, I am re-posting  Abolish Social Studies - Born a century ago, the pseudo-discipline has outlived its uselessness.

The invention of social studies is quite a story. Government psycho-social engineering of the masses. Brave New World. Did it work? Private schools rarely had such a thing, but they have History and Geography.

From Michelle Rhee: My Break With the Democrats - As a lifelong Democrat, controversial education reformer Michelle Rhee never thought she’d support school vouchers. Until she did. In Radical, she details her transformation:

Here’s the question we Democrats need to ask ourselves: Are we beholden to the public school system at any cost, or are we beholden to the public school child at any cost? My loyalty and my duty will always be to the children.

Not everyone bought it. In fact, most of my Democrat friends remained adamantly opposed to vouchers. It was interesting, though: they were always opposed to the broad policy, but they could never reconcile their logic when thinking at the individual-kid level.

Americans Rip Up Retirement Plans - Nearly Two-Thirds of Those Between 45 and 60 Plan Delays, a Steep Rise From Two Years Ago.

Long-time readers know that my experience teaches me that retirement is often a poor state of affairs for the average American male. Many deteriorate physically and mentally. I have one 92 year-old client who goes to the office every day after swimming a half-mile at the Y. Work keeps him young. He does indulge in 4 weeks of vacation travel each year, however, and has great-grandkids around the house all the time. Nice, balanced life. First wife died, now on his second but she is not doing too well now.

A beautiful life, really, although he is not wealthy. He still has a mortgage, which I think is a smart thing to have. Bought his current home for $37,000, now has a $200,000 mortgage on it and it is worth around $700,000. today.

I have been updating his will and trusts for over 25 years, when he first thought he was getting old.

I am re-linking Prof. Glenn Reynold's Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything is a Crime. The pdf article is via that link.

It's a major issue. Everybody is a criminal. I am willing to guarantee it. Nobody has read the million pages of federal regs and codes, and no citizen can understand them. A defendant is anybody the feds or the DA want to be one. Nobody is innocent, no matter how hard they try to be.

I stumbled into this interesting, somewhat scholarly essay: WHAT IS RELIGION? by Prof. Thomas A. Idinopulos. A quote:

...take the case of Theravada Buddhism. Here is a something called "religion" which is not a religion. Although Theravada Buddhism is usually included in any book on the world's religions, it is not theistic, recognizes no sacred being or beings, and does not officially encourage worship of Buddha or any "higher being" (despite popular veneration of the Buddha-ideal). Theravada Buddhism appears to be a technique or program for human self-purification or self-fulfillment or self-negation. If the word religion is attached to Theravada Buddhism, it must be done so loosely as to allow the differences from other religions to prevail.

What then are we to do about the books like those of the late Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley, and more recently Huston Smith, that stress the similarities of religion? Such works will always be in demand because human beings want to believe that there is an inner core of common religious meaning that provides an intelligible unifying structure of meaning to the bewildering multiplicity of world religions. No matter how much we stress the differences among religions, the public desire for assurance about religious unity will inspire authors to continue to invent overarching pseudo-philosophical categories like "Eternal Wisdom," "Universal Spirit," or "Cosmic Soul," and promote them as the "truth" to which the various religions point. Perhaps there is a universal religious truth and perhaps there is not. If there is, however, I believe we should look for it not in what a religion asserts as truth but in how it asserts its truth. As we shall see in discussing W. C. Smith's ideas, it is form not content that religions have in common.

There are other problems in comparing religions...

At Minding the Campus, Why Do Education Schools Have Such Low Standards?

I have mixed feelings about the author's prescriptions, and doubts about "education" education in general. If schools of education are so worthwhile, why is it that expensive private schools avoid hiring their graduates?

He begins:

In 1997, at the age of 27, I washed up at my parents’ house, done with school, and out of money. All I had to my name was and three humanities degrees, (B.A. Rhetoric, M.A. Literature, M.F.A Creative Writing) and a dog.

It was a dark time, both figuratively and literally because my parents had downsized since I’d first gone away for college and the only room for me in the new house was the basement. When I snapped the lights off at night, the blackness was total, roughly reflective of both my spirit and my prospects. In bed, I would wave my hand in front of my face, unable to make out even the faintest image. If you want to take that as a metaphor for my employment prospects, so be it.

I am confused today by all I have been reading about illegal immigration. Being somewhat Yankee-biased, I tend to feel that the US needs no immigrants from anywhere anymore. Just spend a weekend in NYC and then tell me we need more foreigners around. Half the people you see were born elsewhere, and have no clue what America is all about. They are just using us, trying to get on one gravy train or another. Call me a xenophobe. I don't mind, because I like foreigners - in their own countries and in their own cultures. I do not want my culture changed, or to feel like a stranger in my own country. It's mine, and it is not open to the general global public.

All the Russians too. Sheesh. Unpleasant, loud people without manners and Soviet-style (ie, no) morals. Legal too, I assume, which means they went through the process. They may have to take a test, but there is no civility test. Those lovely Russki girls are silky sociopaths, well-trained in the Soviet system to ignore law and civilization and to follow the money. The turbaned Sikh cab drivers from Whereizitstan are far more pleasant and dignified, but what the heck? We have unemployed college grads who could drive cabs and could probably figure out how to find JFK airport from the Plaza Hotel.

Most nations do not permit any. Just try emigrating to Japan, France, Britain, Sweden, Russia, or Mexico from the US. Can't be done. As we say here, "Don't be lazy, people. Fix your own darn homeland."

I read this one this afternoon: Did The President Make Sense Today For Some Reason?

From The Customer Is Always Right?:

"One important implication of our analysis is that for many institutions, demand-side market pressure may not compel investment in academic quality, but rather in consumption amenities," write the authors, three University of Michigan scholars.

Thousands of Events Planned for National School Choice Week. Count me in.

In arguments about government intervention and control, it is usual for the Leftists and statists to produce straw men with whom to debate. There is a lot of space between government intrusion and life in the jungle. Lots of space. None of us Libertarian/Conservatives want no elected government, but we do want to be left alone. We have morals and we have brains. I always thought that a function of government was to provide the basic conditions (eg protection from foreign invasions, etc) so that we can go it alone in life. Americans are not raised to be Euroweenies, but we gather plenty of resources to help us get along in life, and give us avenues in which to do good deeds, which have nothing to do with government: friends, family, neighborhoods, churches, organizations, business affiliations, etc. All the things which so impressed de Toqueville about the American spirit.

From The "acting alone" fallacy:

The private sector isn't just a bunch of people "acting alone." As Matt Welch pointed out in his critique of the speech, making and selling an object as basic as a pencil is such a complex endeavor that it takes lots of different specialists. No one person has the knowledge to accomplish that seemingly simple task; that's how decentralized knowledge is in society. And with a truly complex product, like a computer or movie, the need for people to work together is even greater still. The private sector isn't fundamentally about everyone being secluded and isolated from each other; it typically involves many people working together. Government regulation often rules out the options people would otherwise want to pursue that would let them work together more. The idea that you're "alone" unless you're being directed by the government strikes me as dehumanizing and almost abusive. So I resist this scare tactic of presenting the government as the alternative to being "alone."

Ed Glaeser has a fine essay up, The GOP and the City - Conservative policies have greatly benefited urbanites. Why won’t Republicans seek their votes?

I doubt that even Rudy Giuliani, to whom a generation of New Yorkers owe gratitude, could have won NYC in a national election. As Glaeser notes,

The Republicans’ abandonment of the city is good neither for their party nor for urban America. The GOP clearly needs a heftier percentage of the urban vote, but winning it by means of fiscal pandering or redistribution isn’t the way to go—partly because such a strategy would cost rural and suburban votes and partly because it would be wrong. A better approach is to offer the good ideas that cities desperately need. Republicans have plenty.

Why is that, when Republicans have demonstrated effective answers to urban issues in the cities in which they have had influence while most deep blue cities are either dying or drowning in red ink?

Females today are "overrepresented" on almost every educational metric. 

I propose affirmative action for boys to compensate for adverse impact.