Financial or Personal Investment?

Rich Karlgaard writes for Forbes, the finance magazine. The basics of this article he's written is that a degree is not necessarily a good investment, unless it's acquired from a TOP TEN university. I've been hearing this for years, that you can go to school for years and then "end up" working a Joe Job anyway. I have a couple of colleagues and friends in possession of degrees who aren't working in fields in any way related to their studies. Nor does it appear that they are financially better off, because in the case of at least two that come to mind, I make more money than they do and I always have.

I find this article interesting, because as an older student, I am constantly queried as to why I would go to school NOW, like my life is almost over or something, and what kind of nerve do I think I have, getting out of the pasture in the first place? And they want to know WHAT I WILL BE when I am done. I always answer, "Smarter, and with a degree." Let me tell you, that answer does not satisfy anyone but me.

Reading this article sort of reminded me of Christopher Lasch's "Revolt of the Elites" in a way. Obviously education is viewed only in terms of money for this Karlgaard guy and he mainly is concerned with medical, finance and business degrees, not "pissant" degrees in the Humanities. I suspect that certain trustees of certain trust funds feel the same way and work feverishly to exclude certain people from certain trust funds. That's all I'm gonna say on that. Oh, okay, maybe one more thing - that a certain trust fund recipient is gonna suck up as much cash and spend on Humanities as she can.

I do not think a degree is a waste of time for anyone. I wish I had done it sooner but I am grateful to be doing it now. I think assuming that a degree is going to automatically pave your way in the working world would be a mistake. You are still going to have to work, and impress your boss, and deal with lazy or crazy coworkers and deal with shitty clients. Unless you're a princess or something. I think that you can also have a vision and pursue it, rather than finish school and flounder around asking desperately, "Now what do I do?"

I also think that Karlgaard is more right in the US than he is in Canada. We really are facing a crisis up here when the Almighty Boomers go home from work for the last time. If you have a degree you could at least end up managing their finances and their children, rather than changing their diapers. Trust me on this, you really don't want that.

PPOPP

Party Pooping Ontario Provincial Police. I have mixed feelings about this debacle. On the one hand, the internet is not private, it is a public sphere unlike any other the world has ever had. You can have your say and you can have it immediately but you will not have it anonymously, even if your username is 1100111. So posting pictures of the new tattoo on your tush or advertising your amazing bush party on the net may not be the smartest thing to do. The internet is not anonymous. Employers look at it. I know this because I found out this week that a colleague got busted for posting something on Facebook that she had no business doing and someone was looking. Now all her internet business is being analyzed and all her emails are being read. I put a tracker on my blog because I'm nerdy but I am getting hits from Italy, Venezuela, Mexico City and Atlanta. I am watching them watching me.

On the other hand, I am wondering why the police are not using the internet to track down the weirdos who are stalking the kids online. Maybe they are and we just don't know about it, because our knowing about it would impede the investigation's progress. And, hell, who hasn't gone to a bush party? Is high school really high school if you haven't spent a Friday night rubbing your friends back while she pukes up 2 litres of Purple Jesus, or didn't wake up the next day with mosquito bites all over your unmentionables? In my day, the police had to hike through the bushes to find us and usually they were too lazy to get out of the car. They'd just shine the light on us and we'd run like cockroaches, further into the bush. The internet makes surveillance easier and it really isn't fair. However, putting a bunch of laws and moderating the internet like China does isn't going to help the situation any. Appealing to the police to just let the kids be kids is an appeal that would fall on deaf ears. Besides, those kids are dumb. Even I figured out how to hide groups and events on Facebook that I didn't want other people to know about.

Collision Course

Sam Harris of the LA Times kind of bugs me with this article. I take into perspective the fact that he is an American journalist who writes for the LA Times, which in the US is probably considered a Communist manifesto by the Republithugs. He's watched the State and the Church get married (and still gay people can't!) for the last few years, with the Bush administration racketing up the Christian vote with Christian governors and other politicians. So, okay, I sympathize with the guy.

But still, it sounds so whiny!

"Moderate christians are ruining everything!" I didn't really see much of an explanation in there, and for the most part, I think Harris sells people short, or he is at least preaching to the choir. Heh.

The problem is that wherever one stands on this continuum, one inadvertently shelters those who are more fanatical than oneself from criticism

Apparently, all these moderate and luke-warm catholics are protecting the really crazy godbags from a "collision with scientific rationality" or at least, scorn and derision from the likes of people like me. I beg to differ. Lots of people make fun of the fundamentalists! That's all Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart do, and people eat it up. Maybe Harris has a point though. None of the really crazy godbags are reading his article or watching The Daily Show and it's just no fun if the butt of the joke doesn't know he's a butt.

I think it's a bit different in the US than it is up here. I remember when Stockwell Day said something in the press about the earth only being 6000 years old. He had a collision with derision, nevermind that scientific rationality business.