Category Archives: Uncategorized

Fear and Loathing of Public Policy: Shrinking Access Post Secondary Education = Permanent Underclass 7

by • Media, Philosophy, Politics, Uncategorized • Tags: , , , ,

What are we going to do since the cost of education is skyrocketing? Students these days graduate with enormous debt or they don’t get the opportunity to attend post secondary training.

Long ago when I started college it was an inexpensive 1200.00 a year that included books. I didn’t really have debt when I graduated from college. That isn’t the case for students today, and with the cost of tuition rising as much as 20% in one year at some state colleges, soon enough the middle and lower classes will be unable to afford post-secondary education. And the thing is, we’d become a thriving first world nation in part because we expanded access to education to almost everyone.

Let’s look at some numbers:

So my numbers are personal numbers, and at the time, it was not difficult to afford a college education, I could even hold down a part-time job, go to school and not really worry tons about tuition, it just wasn’t that expensive.  Let’s look at the rising cost of post secondary education with information obtained from the US Census bureau.  The data I am going to share with you is also an example of the tiny policy things Democrats do in Office juxtaposed with how Republicans treat government function. First and foremost, the data I found spans the years 1991 – 2001, the 2001 data wasn’t published until 2006. This information is published in table form, as excel worksheets, but without an explanation of that data, that could be distributed to the general public. As usual, Republicans take the function of government for granted, but as you will see during the Clinton era, government produced much demographic information from years of data collection and comprehensive analysis. I digress, but if you follow my links you will see evidence of my statement.

It isn’t unknown to anyone that tuition at public universities, colleges and technical schools has been on the rise since the anti-pay for anything crowd solidified their choke hold on government functions. In the 1970’s prior to Prop 13, post-secondary education was free in California and in doing that they created one of the best post secondary systems in the country at that time from Riverside CC to UC Berkeley.

I digress, since 1990 college tuition has had steep increases according to the census studies.

1990-91

1993-94

1996-97

2000-2001 the data used is from Table 5b

In 1991, the total average tuition cost for a student was $2653.00 per year. At the same time students receiving financial assistance were receiving on average $2919.00. The cost of education has obviously risen, however, it is still affordable for students and there is still ample financial aid to cover the cost of education. These numbers will be used as a baseline for comparison.

In the 1993 -94 years, on average students were paying $3905.00 per year. In just two years the cost of education had risen 47%. At the same time students were receiving on average $4,486.00 in financial aid, which was up 43% from just the two years prior. A 47% increase is pretty big, and one has to wonder how many students at this time are beginning to be priced out of education. Well times began to boom even more, and people forgot about funding post-secondary education, and all over the country Tax-cutting fever began to hit every county in America. The result of course was less state funding for post-secondary education, and more burdens on students and their families. Well they were voting for that stuff, so I guess they couldn’t see plainly what could be the unintended consequences of the republican meme of “we don’t need to pay no stinkin’ taxes”.

Well the results from the 1996-97 study are even more stunning; by 1996-97 the average cost of post-secondary education had risen to a stunning $8,667.00 on average per year. In less than 10 years tuition had risen 292%, and in 3 year tuition had risen 122%, these numbers are stunning. And you begin to see a pattern developing, one that will eventually price lower and middle class kids from ever obtaining a college education, it will simply be too expensive.   Well that aside, the average financial aid package was worth about 6,022.00, and as you can see it failed to cover the entire educational needs of the student, and I believe this began a rise in private lenders who would take advantage of unsuspecting college students, in order to meet the rising cost of their education.

The 2001-2002 years are even more shocking. On average students tuition is $10,560.00 per year on post secondary education. This represents an increase of 398% from 90-91, of 170% from 93-94, and 21.8% from 96-97, which the financial aid package on average rose to $6,291.00 per year.

As you observe the stark differences in how the two administrations presented the data they gathered from Universities around the county, be reminded, this is the difference in how Republicans and Democrats view government. Demographic information is important; we use it to justify funding programs around the country. We make better decisions when analysts present the data in an understandable way, with a narrative attached as opposed to just throwing a bunch of spread sheets. It is an example of how little Republicans care about government in general; they don’t see it as useful to the nation.

It is now real news in every state in the nation that tuition costs are rising yet again, in my own state tuition costs have risen 20% this year, that is huge, and in many cases it is becoming unaffordable for many students to obtain post-secondary education. As a society we are supposed to be more conscious of funding education from k-16, because it is education that will help us prepare for our next steps economically. If we do not find a way to help students get educated without being buried in debt when they graduate, our society will be worse off for it, and we will create a permanent underclass, which will grow. As a nation, we have to ask ourselves if this is the direction we really want to take.

CrossPosted at DAGBlog

We Live in a Society, Not an Economy 2

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This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this:  most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time.  Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy. 

–Douglas Adams

 

We have a problem, and calling Houston won’t help.

Everywhere today we hear all manner of talk about what we must do for the sake of the economy.

With fingers left over to make change, I can count how many times I hear what we must do for the sake of our society.

Now, in the bloggular equivalent of a TV series “clip show”, let’s look at something I wrote a while ago…

We live in a society.  An economy is just a component of that society, and those who confuse the two shortchange not only this society, they also shortchange themselves.

Our fundamental mistake is that we confuse the part with the whole.

Not even close.

How can we justify starving children?  How can we rationalize someone, even Ron Paul’s 2008 campaign adviser, dying of a lack of health care?  How can we excuse, even briefly, the notion that in a country that is so wealthy, we must maltreat and marginalize some people so that the most well-off can have even more?

In that same essay, I put it thus:

Or we can set about reclaiming the concept of a public good, redefining ourselves in terms of a society rather than simply an economy, and relegating all religious discussion to its rightful place in the private sphere. 

Something to work for, don’t you think? 

What if that goal was even such a simple notion as that there is no good reason for anyone to have to go to bed hungry, or to not have a bed to go hungry to, or even a roof overhead?  That there is no good reason for a child to grow to adulthood unschooled?  That everyone having basic health care is a huge social positive in many more ways than there are room to list here? 

Note here, and note well, readers, that I am not for one moment claiming that everyone has the same innate abilities and that there is some moral failing at the root of the shortfalls in the lives of the less fortunate.  I do claim that wisdom and true self-interest (as opposed to the Ayn Rand counterfeit so many “Libertarians” claim) brings with it the realization that we all benefit when no one among us is hungry, or uneducated, or ill, or unhoused.

Anything else is immoral.

So, what are we to do about this?

I’ll explore these questions at my usual slow-writing pace.  For now, it’s time to leave you with one more quote from that earlier piece:

There are two main possible directions for the future.  One is to continue along the increasing corporatization of America, until we begin to resemble something akin to an electronicized feudal state, where ownership of most of the economy is concentrated in the hands of a very few, with the great numbers of people having almost no say or stake in anything.  This is the Libertarians’ ideal, of course, though many of their adherents are foolish enough to believe that they’ll be on the ownership side of the fence.

That won’t happen, of course.  Cannon fodder remains outside.  Always has, always will.

Zombie Sunday (on Thursday night) 3

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Originally posted at TPM-aholics:

 

Good morning, children.  Today we’re going to talk about one of our favorite topics: The zombie-ridden post-apocalypse.

 

zombies

 

We’re not talking the classic Haitian voudou zombi here, as described by Harvard researcher Wade Davis in “The Serpent and The Rainbow” as an individual placed in a pharmacologically induced catatonic state.

 

We’re talking about the shuffling undead brain-eaters characterized in pop culture, beginning with George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” and leading all the way to the recent mashup novel “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”.

 

We’re looking at the post-apocalypse of Russell Hoban’s “Riddley Walker” (a favorite for many years, and the novel I’d most like to make into a feature film) and Walter Miller’s “A Canticle for Leibowitz” (another great work of speculative post-apocalyptic dystopia) as our setting.

 

OK, OK, so I can see it as you read this: “Why?”  Or more likely, “For the love of God, why this?”

 

It’s because I read stuff.  And this morning, I was reading an article from the excellent Canadian aggregator The Mark: How to Thrive in Our Zombie World.

 

Mark Kuznicki makes an interesting argument therein.  He begins with a citation of William Gibson’s quote: “The future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed.”

 

His argument begins thus:

 

In places around the world, normal life and the institutions that support it have already collapsed. And we’re not just talking about Africa or the Middle East. We’re also talking about the developed North. Within the evacuation zone of the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan, recovery is probably a generation away. In Detroit, a 25 per cent population decline over the past decade calls for the city to shrink. There are some bold ideas circulating about returning parts of the city to wilderness or farmland. This is post-apocalypse in the heartland of the American industrial age.

 

We’re seeing drastic dislocation, massive disruption, failures of industries, institutions, and infrastructures, and a general sense that the ground has shifted and things are no longer as we thought they were.

 

It’s all true.  And I’ll let you muse on that in your own time.

 

Done?  Good, let’s move on.

 

Kuznicki does, as part of his article, make a couple very good points about post-apocalyptic zombie-world life, excerpted here:

 

Those from the fundamentalist tradition of apocalyptic Christian belief warn us to “repent, for the end is nigh,” but they are missing the point. The world as we know it has already ended. We’re past the point of no return, and look around: I don’t see any evidence of the Rapture anywhere.

 

…and:

 

Once we realize that the world has ended but that life continues, we will adapt, and we will rebuild. Belief that the end is nigh, or that the world can be restored so that it once again exists as it did before, are ideas that disable action because they make our desired goals seem impossible, and our actions futile. Humans have always found ways to adapt to changing environments, but we cannot do this if our mental models are out of touch with the realities of our environment.

 

(…)

 

So, in order for life and civilization to thrive again, do we first need to understand that we’re already beyond the apocalypse? Maybe the revolution we need is first and foremost a revolution of thought – a new way of making sense of our world, and of accepting the true nature of 21st-century life.

 

Clearly, what we’re most in need of is first, the realization that things are not as they (never really) were, and next, that we do have the chance, if we’re propelled by the right sort of vision, to remake things in better ways.  Our opponents are not the Republicans, not the teabaggers, not the fundamentalists, at least not entirely.  Our real opposition is the idea of restoration, of return, of having reached limits – the defeatist mentality that tries to tell us that the only thing left is to extract what remaining wealth there is and squander it on our few remaining moments, in order to go out with a bang and leave behind monuments to our former power far more massive than those of ancient Rome.

 

That’s bullshit.

 

That’s Shelley’s Ozymandias:

 

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

And on the pedestal these words appear:

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away”.

 

We’re better than that, or at least we can be.  I don’t have the answers, or even some of the questions, all I know is that what we’ve done so far shows promise but is not, in the parlance of that wretched TV show, a “final answer” to anything.

 

 

 

Heavy Hangs the Head the Wears the Bag of Tea 5

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He sighed softly to himself, he couldn’t believe how horribly things have gone, just 8 months ago he was at the top of the world, he was sworn in as Speaker of the House and he had power. It made him weep, he wasn’t just weeping for himself, he was weeping for America, he was weeping for all he had attained in this world and for everything that seemed to be sliding right through his finger tips. He felt things slipping away. He couldn’t keep these recalcitrant freshman in line, they seemed to think they could crash the economy and come out looking like hero’s! He knew better, but had no idea what he could do to get these folks in line.

He was looking down while walking back to the ranch and muttering about “that fucking Jim Jordan (R) Ohio, who the fuck does he think he is anyway?” He was whispering loudly to himself and didn’t seem to care if anyone heard him. He was clearly angry and clearly he wanted some sort of revenge. He quickly grabbed the pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket, he had that smokers habit of beating the end of the package against his hand before grabbing one and lighting up. He lit up and took a long hard first drag, as though he were sucking in all his problems and releasing them in several circles of smoke. He liked to play with his cigarette that way, it calmed him, until now. He simply didn’t know what he would do to get these folks in line, clearly they were ready to crash the economy and seemed not to comprehend on any level the complexity of the crisis that faced the United States. “Do they even care if we are ever elected again?” He was now talking loudly to himself as he entered his favorite pub the 19th Hole.

“Hey John”, yelled the bartender, he could clearly see the speaker needed a drink and he needed on badly.  He was rushing to get the mans favorite drink ready, the Bellini, he was pretty sure tonight the man was going to need more than one.

John of Orange drank all night long, he knew things were never going to get any better. He knew deep down inside the first two years of his speakership might be his last two years in congress.

Crossposted at DAGBlog

The Spike Seen Round the World Reply

by • Media, News, Politics, Uncategorized • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

On snap, Wendy Deng has some great reflexes! She spikes a shaving cream pie, intended for her husband back into the attackers face! I mean this is actually some pretty good stuff! Who knew there was something to be admired about Murdoch… that is right, his wife. This happened about 10 minutes ago.

I thought today would be a good day to record some hearings! However I didn’t realize I would get to see this:

Unknown Object

I can’t add anything more.

Crossposted at DAGBlog

For the fun of it… 3

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I referred to this in an earlier post.

There is something in the psyche of those who either willingly inflict, or allow others to inflict, suffering on others.

They enjoy it. What other possible explanation can there be? The people who demand that what little still remains of the “safety net” be shredded and burned simply have to enjoy the misery of others.

We see more of this with the apologists for torture. Here it is complicated by the apparent willingness to enjoy it at a distance, though I suspect most who champion the practice would never stoop to dirtying their own hands with the blood of others, never assault their own eardrums with the pained screams of their victims, never want to bear the memories of having done any of it themselves, they merely want the feeling of superiority that arises from being able to inflict the carefully metered doses of suffering, rationalizing it all the while in the name of their shibboleth of the moment.

As an aside, one of the more horrifying moments I’ve experienced came one morning on the road, acting as a location guide for a feature film. We were in a small city in Middle America, having breakfast after getting our sunrise beauty shots, and as we awaited our eggs we were treated to the revolting sounds of someone at a nearby table going into a sociopathic level of detail about the physical damage he’d like to inflict on the children of suspects, in their presence.

There was little if any point to commenting, nothing was going to change the mind of this character – a typical Midwestern nobody, of course, who would never get close enough to the situation to do any such thing, and knew it all along. Most likely it was something said to build up his status in the minds of his companions.

As we left, I asked the rest of our small crew about their reactions. We were all dumbfounded. Nothing in any of our minds could have brought any of us to the point where we’d consider anything of the sort.

Now, to return to the original point…

It’s a common enough thing to read, in the comments section of a news story on any social program, posts left by the self-styled “fiscally responsible” sorts who are willing to do just about anything to anyone (short of themselves, of course!) to shave a few bucks off any relevant budget. Most of them fulminate about “handouts” and “layabouts” while going into mind-numbing detail about the imagined transgressions of those who, in most cases, are simply less fortunate, and genuinely in need of some sorts of assistance.

It’s all nonsense.

The true nature of the supposed Libertarian is that of the sociopath. No one else matters. So it’s easy, even enjoyable, to deprive others, in order to accrue more wealth.

The part I genuinely don’t get is the people who will never achieve anything remotely resembling wealth in their own lives taking similar positions, even as they themselves get skinned by those they support.

That’s why all I’m left with at the end of it is the feeling that it’s pure sadism.

Travels with the I-Pad — Port Gamble Trails 1

by • Environment, Life, Outdoors, Uncategorized • Tags: , , , ,

I like to take the IPad preloaded with trail maps to go hiking, that way, you probably can’t get lost. Well I probably could get lost, but the I-Pad is truly and awesome thing, So I had this map loaded onto my IPad before I left home. Port Gamble Trail Map.

It was so incredible today. It was windy and not too warm 63 degrees, and cloudy of course. It’s been this way all year-long so far, cloudy and cool. I understand we have not warmed to even to 80 degrees! I don’t have much to complain about, it never gets to hot to ride or to hike or to be outside.

The walk to the trail head. Port Gamble is quite a little town of historic buildings. We do the Tour d’ Kitsap almost every year and we do ride through Port Gamble every year. This was the first time going to Port Gamble to hike.

This is a church right in the town and the entire town is made of historic buildings.  The town was originally constructed in 1853. The entire town is a national historic site. Port Gamble was the longest continuously operating mill town in North America.  Pope Resources restored and operated the town until 1995 when as the only remaining company owned mill town in Puget Sound, it was closed down.  Port Gamble is now a tourist attraction drawing people from all over. There are unique shops and markets and hiking trails. The turn of the century buildings are pretty cool, they even bookstore than rents out bicycles to explore the many trails around Port Gamble. It’s pretty cool it’s called The Dauntless Bookstore.

We covered 11 miles in the park, there are lots of trails and ground to cover, we didn’t do all of it that is for sure and we did it all on foot, not on bicycles or horseback.

Salmonberries.. yummy. Their space is often overtaken by blackberries. Salmonberries are obviously lighter in color and very sweet, it is a native plant of the Pacific Northwest.

They can be as dark as the meat from a copper river salmon. Quite beautiful and the bears love them.

The remnants of old growth cedar trees.

A Doug Fir Root Wad.

Root wads are pretty incredible, and useful in salmonid restoration programs. There were several marked streams in the area.

Bear den.

There has been a juvenile Black bear loose in a one of the surrounding areas. I guess they need a place to crash. But this is actually an example of a bear den and not an active bear den, because this is an interpretive forest area, which is used to teach people about the environment of the Pacific Northwest. I know at times a local tree expert will take people on tours through the forest. I missed that day, but when they have one again, I think I will join them.

Oh and I did not once get lost, I had the IPad with me.

Crossposted at DAGblog

Von Mises and Bachmann on a Beach 5

by • Economy, News, Politics, Uncategorized • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

And no, von Mises and Bachmann on a Beach is not a hot new cocktail down at your corner bar, but it could be, maybe Rachel Maddow will work one up just to enjoy this 18 month-long election season.  Stephen Moore, Wall Street Journal douchebag writer sycophant, asked some questions of Michelle Bachmann  in his latest column.  Yes I reluctantly read the WSJ’s opinion guys to punish myself I think, but also to read about these characters from folks who love them, not just from folks like me who wonder WTF? Who elects these lunatics?  Von Mises is a star amongst Paultard libertarians, because they hate, hate, hate government and truly believe there should be no government. I find that ironic, given Ron Paul doesn’t believe in government yet has been in government since the 1850’s or something. So Bachmann is crazy like a fox when mentioning she reads von Mises, whenever his name is mentioned she gets 1,000 more rabid fans, all male, all frustrated by the serious Republicans running to win the Republican primaries, and no Tim Pawlenty is not one of them.

The article isn’t as enlightening so much as it is evidence of a woman preparing to run for the Presidency and is pulling out all the stops to attract every conservative vote out there, including the Libertairn vote. Although I think Paul and Johnson have that vote sewn up, but then again maybe they don’t and maybe Bachamann can use that dog whistle to attract those voters to her side.

According to Bachmann, when she goes to the beach, she brings with her works by Ludwig von Mises, especially the book on Socialism I am sure, but she mentions the book Human Action, too, yikes, really???  As a beach goer myself, even though sometimes it is just the Frenchtown pond I bring towels, sunscreen, and books by John Waters, Norah Ephron and Wil Wheaton and my IPod. Okay that is just me, but von Mises, really, it doesn’t seem like beach reading material, it seems like sleeping material, and sleeping on the beach can get you burned. But I guess reading and following von Mises can get you burned as well.  I think people should pay close attention to Michelle Bachmann as she  begins her campaign for the Presidency tonight in the first Republican Presidential primary debate.

I’ve done a little research on von Mises, although it ended up being pointless research since these are economic theories never used by any nation except maybe Somalia.  Von Mises is the leader of what libertarians and CATO intelligentsia call the Austrian school of Economics. Bachmann claims she loves von Mises. So she is saying she doesn’t believe in the central bank, she doesn’t believe in the government stimulus and most of all taxes are not needed!

Michelle Bachmann is gearing up for her run for the Presidency, and while people are obsessed with Sarah Palin, Bachmann skirts just under the radar, almost unnoticed, but saying all the right things to the Club for Growth crowd. Reading the Moore article gives one the impression that she is telling those hardcore libertarians she is going to dismantle the government if she gets control, she will put the Ryan plan on the table, Medicare, Social Security are ills of socialist Marxism. She will be debating tonight as well, while Gary Johnson another Republican Libertarian candidate was not invited to debate.

Those who follow von Mises are a strident bunch, they believe civilization will not survive unless this untried economic system is followed. They obsess non-stop about the Marxist take over of the US government. So now I understand why end-timers like Bachmann would read von Mises on the beach, they believe the end of the world is near unless we take serious action like no-government or something like that, but I wonder if they’ve been to Somalia?

I have decided I should record the Republican debate tonight even though it risks my sanity, and if Bachmann says anything crazy, and you know she will, this post will be updated with video.

Cross posted at The Angriest Liberal