Maggie's Farm

Yesterday we had a post by Bulldog about colleges as teen fun 'n sex resorts. By coincidence, this morning I chatted with a dad whose daughter is applying to college. She only willing to consider a college with a major football or basketball team, modern dorms with pool,  sauna, and work-out room, and which offers a major in pre-school education. Plus she wants to go out of state to "be independent."

Would "the college experience" cost any more or less without the "education"?

She has high grades but mediocre SAT scores. Clearly the slick college marketing has captured her attention. She wants to try out for cheerleader.

I've been reading Edmund Wilson's A Prelude: Landscapes, Characters & Conversations from the Earlier Years of My Life. Wilson had the real, old-time "college experience," investing himself in a rigorous and vigorous life of the mind at prep school and at Princeton (advanced math, Greek, Latin, French, and his own literary and intellectual pursuits and interests on the side) while inhabiting spartan quarters and making many lifelong relationships.

He writes with such relaxed clarity and innocence that even his musings about aunts and uncles are a delight.

"The world has been captivated by the discovery of more than 1,400 works of art in a Munich apartment, among them many lost masterpieces stolen by the Nazis. The mystery surrounding the paintings reveals much about the great tragedies of the 20th century -- and Germany's attempt to grapple with its past."

It's a heck of a story.

Bogus apologies. I can't recall who linked to this. Eight sneaky ways to talk about your errors and wrongdoing: Ethics, Critical Thinking, & Language: Using Words to Deceive

Keep the article handy for the times you screw something up and decide to finesse the problem in a sneaky way. You will screw up, because we all do.

Over the years, higher ed has morphed into a job credential. Whites are more dubious than minorities that a college degree puts graduates on the path to success.

 "The job market is so awful now, and people don't take you seriously with anything less," said Linda Ahlskog, a part-Hispanic graphic-design student in Natchitoches, La. Jordan Machado, a Hispanic from Cypress, Calif., who runs his own business, said he would "support" his daughter if she decided to join the military or learn a trade, but "especially nowadays … in order to get that middle-class money, you need to have that degree." Even Parkinson, the Ohio electrician, although skeptical of the four-year commitment, is working to complete a two-year degree. "I'm more than halfway there, I might as well get it. It never hurts to get an education or degree, but as far as going to a four-year college and taking on major debt, you might not have a job when you get done. I wouldn't do it."

Few of our readers will recall Mario Savio and the (brief) Free Speech Movement at Berkeley. Savio was a Lefty of sorts, but he thought people ought to express their opinions.

In these times, higher ed (and lower ed) reveal ongoing discomfort with dissent and dissenting expression from the bien pensant party line:

The slow death of free speech at Harvard

Even Savio would hate this trend:  Brown U. Students Can’t Handle Free Speech

What is the matter with these people?

Look at this kerfuffle, as Althouse would term it: "The Badger Herald printed a letter from a political science junior titled, 'Rape Culture Does Not Exist.'"

A "rape culture" in America? I don't think so. For starters, it's a felony and I'd guess 100% of Americans think it should be. The letter-writer is right, of course.

Stop Subsidizing Colleges’ 100-Year Debt Binge:

The Barack Obama administration and Congress purport to care about the rising costs of college. Yet the government’s policies are only fueling the higher-education arms race.

What does a "degree" mean nowadays? Nothing.

That is why we do multiple tough, searching interviews of job applicants. We want to know what they know, what they can do, and we want to know whether we would enjoy and be stimulated by their company around ye olde shoppe.

If you can't discuss Plato, Michelangelo, de Toqueville, and Statistics, and display some witty sense of humor and perfect manners, we lose interest fast unless it's a drudgery job.

A reader reminded me about the Kettle Fallacy (aka Kettle Logic) in a comment about the contradictory defenses of Obamacare. It is a so-called informal fallacy - flawed premises rather than logical errors - whose name derives from, of all people, Sigmund Freud.

It would term this fallacious effort as a sub-category of the "baffle them with bullshit" informal fallacies. Via Wiki:

Freud relates the story of a man who was accused by his neighbor of having returned a kettle in a damaged condition and the three arguments he offers.

    That he had returned the kettle undamaged;
    That it was already damaged when he borrowed it;
    That he had never borrowed it in the first place.

The three arguments are inconsistent, and Freud notes that it would have been better if he had only used one.

Blame the insurance companies: Obama blames ‘bad apple insurers’ for canceled insurance plans

Excuse me, but they are trying to follow your law, Mr. President. This is like blaming the banks for giving the high-risk mortgages that the government forced them to offer.

And yet, from another member of the administration, A canceled health plan is a good thing

I think I would term this the "baffle them with bullshit" defense as here: Obamacare team offers multiple self-contradictory explanations for coverage cancellations

In my case, I do not want the government standard insurance. I want my cheap, old-fashioned major medical with a high deductible. It makes sense to me, and I like to pay my doctors.

Some good news, for once: College President Defends Free Speech

People have to draw a line against PC academic bullying. Sometimes it sounds just like the Inquisition. 

Is this the new new math?

‘Reform math’ (aka ‘rainforest math’): Replacing what has worked for centuries with what sounds good to bureaucrats?

but I will, anyway. Very busy today.

60 Minutes: Benghazi

Who cares? She is the new next old thing!

The sorry state of Hamilton College

Read it and weep.

A detailed post about Marty Sullivan of Tax Notes, with the best discussion of the politics and policy of corporate taxation that I've read: Marty Sullivan figured out how the world’s biggest companies avoided billions in taxes. Here’s how he wants to stop them.

My preference would be a 0% corporate tax rate, but it would put a heck of a lot of tax lawyers and accountants out on the street.

This winter series is re-posted from last year -

A friend did the research on this topic for me, because we were both looking for something good, and we have tons of wood and hate paying our heating bills (I have oil heat and propane stoves).

My friend concluded that Harman makes the best products in that area: furnaces, fireplace inserts, free-standing, etc. I like the idea of something that works for wood, pellets, or coal. The "green" aspect has no importance to me, but I do like to have flames to look at to warm my spirit.

To warm a house and for cooking, there's still nothing better that a wood-burning cook stove to turn a house into a home. Here's a modern version that the Amish make:

The good idea behind Obamacare was the idea of a national marketplace for medical insurance. Of course, an insurance consortium could have done it too, but the complication in that is that insurance is controlled and regulated state by state.

A deregulated, nationwide marketplace for every kind and flavor of medical insurance with wide competition for coverage format, would have been a good thing for everybody - and put a lot of brokers out of business. Probably most people would opt for cheap high-deductible insurance (Major Medical, aka Catastrophic) as protection against bankruptcy. Brokers have easy access to all available deals within a given state, but it's not national and not available to consumers, and now the ACA has strictly limited peoples' choices.

Instead, we have an illusory marketplace selling government-designed product at government-determined prices, and they'll fine you if you don't buy it. Doesn't sound like America to me.

Requiring marketplace insurance companies to cover the highest-risk patients is a challenge with many possible solutions. Coverage for kids to age 26 is insane and infantilizing. Adulthood is 21, at the latest. However, "adulthood" keeps creeping upwards, doesn't it?

The other useful reform would have entailed tort reform. I have read varying estimates about how many medical costs are lawsuit-avoidance, but it is substantial.

I use adverbs mainly because my verb vocab is weak. Colorful verbs elude me. This short post is about "statistically significant," which does not mean "significant."

‘Statistically significant’ is a tremendously ugly phrase but unfortunately that is the least of its shortcomings. What is far worse is that it is misleading.

Property rights are a foundation stone of a free society, but government relentlessly chips away at them regardless of the nature of the property. 

Here's a rebel:  Virginia Farmer Starts Property Rights Legal Revolution

From Conrad Black's interesting commentary on the Pope's recent speeches:

What the pope was really saying was that the Roman Catholic Church must not allow its critics to continue to portray it successfully and falsely as obsessed with the vagaries of people’s sex lives, and as fanatically and principally preoccupied with such matters; that it must be clear that all human life is sacred, that all people are souls to be cared for and respected, and that it is a reasonable surmise that any plausible characterization of God would not be a deity who approved the creation of life that was condemned to be irredeemably evil from the start and would not be deserving of any consideration. At the same time, the Church must be seen by all, despite these efforts to smear it as a neurotic gaggle of prurient scolds and hypocrites, as really in the business of caring for and about everybody. This is not a new interpretation: It is a new counterattack on those who have said or implied that Roman Catholicism was incompatible with anything except the personal life of eunuchs, and eunuchs who kept their hands to themselves.

I sympathize with the Pope's traditional attitude of "love the sinner, not the sin," but the idea that all souls should get my care and love is utterly beyond my capacity. I steer clear of malignant things in the same way that I avoid rocks on a boat.

Despite the promises, you can't keep it because it doesn't pay for your birth control pills, sniffles, hangnails, chiropractor - or your aromatherapy. Here's Why So Many Americans Are Getting Letters Saying Their Health Insurance Is Canceled.

Coyote has this:  So Much For Being Able to Keep My Health Insurance

Via Samizdata:

Politicians never accuse you of ‘greed’ for wanting other people’s money, only for wanting to keep your own money.

- Joseph Sobran

Dr. Ben Carson on government and medical care:

 “This nation was founded on the principle that it would be a new type of nation, that was ‘for, of and by the people.’ A Constitution was put in place that would assure that the people would remain at the pinnacle of power and that the central government would never reach the point that it had control of the people. This fundamentally changes the relationship. It places the government at the pinnacle now that it is placed on a road that will give it control of everyone’s health.”

From Higher Education: The Conventional Wisdom Is Wrong:

 Individuals with a lot of intelligence and drive are, overwhelmingly, drawn to college, but it is their intelligence and drive that brings about their later success, not the fact that they passed enough courses to get the credits necessary for a degree. John Mackey of Whole Foods, for example, took a number of college courses before dropping out to concentrate on his business. He would be no more successful if he had earned his degree, or less successful if he hadn’t ever taken a single course.

On the other hand, we lure great numbers of young Americans into college these days with the idea that by getting their degree, they’ll enjoy a large earnings boost. A figure that is often, carelessly thrown around is the million dollar earnings premium for college grads.\

The problem is that, increasingly, high school graduates do not have even the most basic academic tools – they don’t read well, don’t write well, and can’t do basic math – and also expect that college will be like high school, only more fun. Any increase in college enrollment will overwhelmingly come from such academically marginal students. Going to college rarely transforms those disengaged kids into highly productive adults.

The Student Solution to Affirmative Action:

What would happen if all those white students who assert that racism is still a “major problem” and who approve of affirmative action as one remedy followed their beliefs and did not apply to selective colleges such as Williams, Wesleyan, Boulder and U.Va.?  How would that alter the demographics of elite campuses?

The admissions offices at those schools would face a less-competitive white applicant pool and could boost minority acceptances. Thousands of white students with eight AP courses, a 4.0+ GPA, and 95th-percentile SAT scores would not join the mix and raise the averages.