Archive for 2014

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: A Startling Number Of Millennials Are Overqualified For Their Jobs. ” A college degree used to be a near guarantee you’d be able to secure a good-paying job that made use of your education. No longer. The after effects of the recession and mounting student loan debt, in addition to longer-term changes in the labor market, have forced many of today’s graduates to take the first decent offer they receive — even if they’re overqualified for the position.”

Who could have seen this coming?

RAPPER ICE T: “I think right now you’re dealing with the pussyfication of the male sex. Men are just being so passive, not standing for something; they’re very politically correct.”

Plus, love for Jethro Tull: “Aqualung is probably one of the best records ever. Just the whole shit with Ian Anderson playing a flute, looking like a damn wild man; that shit was dope.” He’s also a fan of Traffic’s The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys. Which, amusingly, provides the soundtrack to this video featuring Joe Biden, Harry Reid, et al. We were children once, playing with toys.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: The United States: Becoming The Surrogacy Capital Of the World. “In an era of globalization, the market for children crosses national borders; witness the longtime flow of Americans who have gone overseas to adopt babies from South Korea, China, Russia and Guatemala. Other than the United States, only a few countries — among them India, Thailand, Ukraine and Mexico — allow paid surrogacy. As a result, there is an increasing flow in the opposite direction, with the United States drawing affluent couples from Europe, Asia and Australia. Indeed, many large surrogacy agencies in the United States say international clients — gay, straight, married or single — provide the bulk of their business.”

So we’re basically the Jackson’s Whole of the 21st Century? Actually, that sounds about right. . . .

Meanwhile, I note this photo caption: “They developed such a close relationship with the woman that she is now pregnant with their twins.” But in a 21st Century kind of way.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Academia And The People Without Jobs. “Me, and thousands of others learned that lesson the hard way. We spent about a decade learning how to become academics, only to realize the dream has already passed. We’re all trained for positions that don’t exist. We’ve been prepared for a way of life that is rapidly vanishing before our eyes (the secure, tenured academic). We go into debt because of a strange ‘loyalty oath to an imagined employer’ (as Sarah Kendzior recently put it) that certainly doesn’t come knocking the day you graduate. We’ve been had. And we walked right into it.”

VARIOUS WAYS to adjust your workout. I was pleased to see that I already employ some of these.

OTHER THAN THAT, THE STORY WAS ACCURATE: Correction Of The Week:

“Big Little Man”: A review in the June 29 Arts & Books section of the book “Big Little Man” said that author Alex Tizon is in his 60s. He is 54. Also, the review described Tizon as an avid consumer of porn, but the book says the viewing was for research. It also described Tizon’s friend’s embarrassment about the size of his endowment, whereas the book states that “he liked being average.”

Good grief.

UNDER PRESSURE, HILLARY IS DONATING ALL HER (UNIVERSITY) SPEAKING FEES TO HER OWN FOUNDATION. But Ann Althouse has questions:

What is her salary from the foundation? How much of her expenses are covered by family foundation money? How many members of her family make salaries from that foundation? To what extent is the foundation an income tax dodge? And didn’t Hillary Clinton recently portray herself as not truly rich because she and Bill pay income tax on their money?

Taking from your foundation and putting it in my foundation… what a lovely, arrogant metaphor for a liberal’s view of government! I can spend your money better than you can. The universities have money that they might spend to improve education for their students and to advance scholarship, but it could be shifted into the Clinton Foundation which does whatever it does, some charitable things that maintain and advance the Clintons’ political fortunes.

One New Class hand washes the other. And is Hillary channeling George Costanza?