“I simply want to celebrate the fact that right near your home, year in and year out, a community college is quietly — and with very little financial encouragement — saving lives and minds. I can’t think of a more efficient, hopeful or egalitarian machine, except perhaps the bicycle.” Kay Ryan, U.S. Poet Laureate, quoted in Boneshaker, Issue 42-400.
Consider this an open thread.
(via)
Todd
holy crap kay ryan ftw
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=146705
Linda Featheringill
Community colleges are great.
I heartily recommend them for folks to want to be all they can be, to flesh out a part of their intellectual life.
Even if you don’t wind up making more money because of your time spent in classes there, it will enrich your life and increase the satisfaction you get out of each ordinary day.
Hurray for community colleges.
batgirl
Double hooray for community colleges.
I’m a public librarian and I can’t tell you how many times people come in who want to go back to school and have been lured in by those for-profit “universities” by their ads and I gently point them toward the local community college.
Just the other week I had a skeptical patron so I did a tuition calculation — the local community college vs. Kaplan University. That did the trick.
jeffreyw
Ahem…
burnspbesq
Can someone explain why, after the UBS fiasco and the refusal to extradite Polanski, we still have diplomatic relations with Switzerland?
PurpleGirl
@jeffreyw: Congrats to Mrs. J. They look delicious.
Scott
As long as we’re open-threading… Harvey Pekar has died. :(
cleek
@Scott:
bad weekend for Cleveland.
Nellcote
Somewhat related, StimFunds via the USDA bought our rural county a new bookmobile! Currently our old bookmobile travels 1,500 miles and checks our 4,000 items per week. The new bookmobile will be more energy efficient and also have “broadband capability”. It’s a BFD. The bookmobile performs a huge service here in the country.
Michael Reese
If we really did have that Socialist society that the Right is always yelling about, community colleges would be completely
free for anybody willing to do the work. And our society would be far better off…
Zifnab
Part of me saw community colleges as nothing more than low cost diploma mills. The classes I took there right after high school and during summers off in college were mediocre and the professors were hit or miss.
That said, community college is a low cost diploma mill, by comparison to some state colleges which are nothing more than high cost diploma mills. If you want to kill off a few college credits without going into massive debt, or pick up some introductory classes for your own good, community colleges are fantastic.
I’d like to see CCs have some higher standards in terms of the difficulty of the work and the quality of the teaching, but they are a great foundation to build on.
On a side note, the worst CC professor I ever had was a transplant from the University of Phoenix. If you want to talk about useless diploma mill…
Athenae
I fucking love Kay Ryan. She wrote one of my very favorite poems on earth, Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/books/17poet-extra.html
Scroll down a bit.
A.
wonkie
I went to a local community college for awhile (until I had to drop out and have surgery).
I remember sitting on a bench watching the students flow by between classes. There were Malaysian immigrant girls with their hair covered, old USSR students speaking with accents, Hispanic, black, white, Asian…in mixed groups. I started feeling all sentimental and patriotic.
And the classes were good. Better, really, than the introductory university classes with hundreds of students in an auditorium and a professor so far away I could barely see or hear him.
Alan in SF
Community colleges here in California are being massively defunded, part of the Republican Party’s “disinvest in the future” strategy. Please don’t identify any other useful contributors to our society or we’ll lose those, too.
Punchy
@burnspbesq: Cheese, chocolate, ducats.
SATSQ
Maude
@burnspbesq:
I just read that on AP news and hit the roof. You got it right. The Swiss are getting the US back for the tax cheat accounts it had to turn over.
So, now Roman, I like me some underage girls, is free.
It stinks.
Ash Can
I confess that, in my young and foolish days, I was an education snob. I went to a couple of big-name Eastern universities, and there was no way the little local community college could measure up to them, right? What I didn’t understand then, but do now, is that 1) it didn’t have to “measure up;” that wasn’t its true purpose, and 2) “measuring up” is in the eye of the beholder anyway. Shame on me for looking down my nose at these schools and the people who went to them.
For much the same reason, I have mixed feelings about schools that are football and basketball factories. Sure, it’s a joke to have a bunch of muscleheads and roundball bums trying to maintain a C average in phys ed and interview-granting. On the other hand, though, they’re getting exposure to higher learning in general that they may not have gotten otherwise. And maybe this exposure encourages them to sign up for a few continuing ed/community college courses after their playing days are over, and they end up in the long run with a better job and higher pay than they would otherwise.
Tony Alva
My life was indeed saved by the community college system. No way I could’ve posted an SAT score to get into ANY college, nor was I ready for it. I was a wayward 19 year thug, borderline drug addict, who just barely got out of HS when my folks begged me to do something with my life. I listened to them for once, and with the help of my brother, found my way to a local community college. It was there that I learned how to learn after fucking off in school for a decade prior. I quickly discovered I enjoyed it, even did a summer semester abroad, and wound up at a big university via transfer.
My brother and father both teach at community colleges (math for both) and they both are very good at what they do partly because they understand the “Ministering” part of the job. My father will often say, “I don’t care what grades my students get, my job is to get them to KNOW college algebra…”.
Your tribute is a most worthy one. Without an ounce of exaggeration or doubt in my mind community college saved my life.
Zifnab
@burnspbesq: I think we got some compliance with UBS and Switzerland. Not everyone we wanted – but they did turn over a few thousand names.
Brian J
Shock of all shocks, Jon Kyl is either a moron or a shameless hack. Old news, sure, but it’s worth repeating.
On that note, I am simply astonished that anyone who isn’t a rightward partisan is voting for any Republican this year. Maybe there are exceptions that I am not thinking of, but I can’t seem to remember one person who isn’t racing towards the cliff of Teabaggery, eager to jump off while bringing the country with them. The Democrats are far from perfect, but they haven’t demonstrated the sort of never-ending incompetence that Republicans have. And disagree with them over their plans on a number of bases, but they are willing to debate. How anyone can feel this isn’t okay, especially when compared to the alternative, is beyond me. Yet, we see stuff like this. It’s simply nuts.
Zifnab
@Ash Can: My boss played for Auburn, and the full-ride scholarship put him through a school his parents didn’t have the money to send him to.
The athletic scholarship program isn’t really a case for athletics so much as it is the value of scholarships. Now this ex-athlete runs a small IT firm, paying good wages to a team of 20-something and 30-something professionals to aid with technology needs of several dozen clients.
In many ways, I owe my job to a football scholarship paid out 30 years ago.
Martin
Community colleges are also turning out to be the last vocational schools in the nation other than DeVry. If you want to learn how to be a surveyor, or take some courses in construction management, they’re pretty much your only hope.
In most cases, these jobs pay better than what you’ll get with a french lit degree from a big name university.
Randy P
@Scott: I picked up a collection of American Splendor comics in a bookstore a week or so ago. I did slog through about a third of it, but I have to admit, I still don’t get it (why he has such a following, I mean).
I guess that makes me some sort of ignorant illiterate Philistine.
Is this a thread that’s open enough for me to ask a question about English law?
PeakVT
Israel released a report on the Gaza flotilla disaster today. Apparently the main problem was that the Israeli military didn’t anticipate violent resistance by the activists. Links one and two.
stuckinred
I came home from Vietnam in 1969, two months short of my 20th birthday. I started at the University of Illinois 10 days after I came home. I had earned my GED while in the Army and, with the help of an savvy friend, weaseled my way into a Big Ten University. Shockingly I flunked out immediately and was adrift. Illinois has an excellent Community College system and, along with a cohort of about 10 other vets, I enrolled in Parkland College. I cannot say enough about the difference between a mega-university and the cc. After several years of on and off at Parkland I was readmitted to Illinois and in 1978 finished my BS. Fast forward to 1998 when I earned my doctorate in Adult Education with an emphasis on Adult Literacy. It is a shame that here in Georgia we have an outdated “Technical College” system that sits aside our university system but is separate.
Waynski
@Zifnab: I think it depends on where you are. I went to Westchester Community College in NY and we had some excellent professors. It was jokingly nicknamed “Harvard on the Hudson” but there were some very good profs at WCC. It probably didn’t hurt that Westchester County is one of the most affluent in the country, but I had a great experience there before moving up to a four year school.
Brian J
@Tony Alva:
I’m going to sound like a broken record on this, but I don’t care. I find it beyond puzzling that we aren’t throwing far more resources at institutions like this. No, not every person is meant to go to college*, and perhaps the system does encourage those who shouldn’t go to attend far more than it otherwise might, but that’s besides the point. Students of all types could use a boost in sharpening their skills, and with massive unemployment, it’s pitiful that we aren’t doing more to employ people and give others a leg up. The government can’t do a lot of things even remotely successful, but it’s shown that it can fund a system that is, at minimum, usually acceptable in educating people. Would spending a lot of money on this stuff employ everyone who doesn’t have a job? No, it wouldn’t, but it could certainly help, and the amount of money that’s called for is, in the grand scheme of things, almost certainly minimal. I imagine it’s much less than $100 billion per year, and you could give two million people jobs at $50,000 a pop for that much.
slag
@Martin:
Exactly right. If you want a substantial liberal arts education, community colleges aren’t your best bet. If you want to learn how to do something useful, community colleges can rarely be beat.
stuckinred
@Brian J: You don’t care about what? That Tony had an important experience in a community college?
PaulW
I just went back to the local community college to study up for computer certification for my job hunting.
It’s a nice campus, relatively active, good mix of people. I studied well and did good enough on the cert exam to earn the A+ cert.
My problem is that after going back to CC, I’m still unemployed and still looking for anything in computer tech support I could take. I wonder how my fellow students are doing in their job hunting…
Randy P
@stuckinred: Doesn’t care that he sounds like a broken record, I think.
stuckinred
@PaulW: It’s called necessary but not sufficient. There are few jobs period.
James Hare
My Dad has been telling me this for years. For 22 or so years now he’s been teaching people English in his local community college. Now he’s worried he’ll get laid off at 60. The community college system is probably one of our only hopes to retrain the huge number of manufacturing workers who have lost their jobs in this recession, and they’re all facing cuts. Community colleges rely on state and local funding a great deal because their tuition and fees are usually capped for residents. Just another part of our country suffering under the weight of 50 little Hoovers!
Larkspur
Community colleges are saving lives and minds. Maybe you won’t get a stellar liberal arts education there, but if you are working as, say, a cashier or a grocery store stocker, or an administrative assistant, and you nevertheless, despite your intellectually bleak circumstances, long to know a little more about the world, or books, or history, or biology, at least you’ve got your community college there. Bread and roses, folks.
Also, Kay Ryan lives in my back yard! Or possibly I live in her back yard. Anyway, although I’ve never actually met her, we live within bellowing distance of each other. And the community college in our little part of the world is remarkably good, and definitely brain-save-y.
The Moar You Know
Without community college, I wouldn’t have gotten into the UC system and wouldn’t have the job I have today – I’d be some minimum wage slave, pumping gas or making coffee. Full stop. Community college was THE factor that made the difference in my life.
Can’t endorse the community college system enough. If I ever get filthy stinking rich I’ll endow one.
cyntax
@slag:
I disagree, I got out of the Army, went to Santa Rosa Junior College and transferred to UC Berkeley, getting my BA in English with a concentration in linguistics. I think CC’s are ideal for doing your lower division classes in a more personal setting before going on to a big four year institution, either for a substantial liberal arts or scientific education.
stuckinred
@cyntax: Exactly!
James Hare
@PaulW:
I would certainly look to get more certifications than the A+. It’s fine for tech support and in the right market would probably get you in the door, but you’re probably competing against people with experience and further certifications. The other certifications will also help to distinguish you beyond just being a tech support guy — there is very limited room for advancement and it can be a really psychologically-difficult job. Good luck in this economy — I was looking just a few months ago with very little luck. Like everybody else (it seems) I got my job by virtue of knowing someone.
No class system here!
Larkspur
@The Moar You Know: Yep. People who are already filthy stinking rich ought to be funding community colleges a little more aggressively. I mean, I understand why anyone would want to be a multi-millionaire. But who on god’s green and luscious earth needs to be a quadruple bazillionaire?
RSA
I entirely agree. Unfortunately, I don’t know how much longer community colleges can continue to do this, given financial constraints and employment trends. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% of community college instructors are part-time faculty, and of course their compensation is miserable. Some people I know who have taught in community colleges have found it rewarding, but they’ve also said it’s hard to make a living.
Brian J
@stuckinred:
No, I don’t care if people are annoyed that I tend to repeat myself, in this case about how it’s so puzzling that we aren’t investing more in education as both a way to employ people now and to give people a leg up in the future.
burnspbesq
@Zifnab:
Simply put, the United States got out-lawyered in the UBS deal. DOJ and the IRS didn’t take the vagaries of Swiss domestic politics into account, and as a result they didn’t get adequate safeguards against exactly what happened.
stuckinred
@Brian J: Sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Janet Strange
Community college prof here (waves hand) and I appreciate the appreciation for CC’s. I love my job. Not sure I’ve saved any lives, but I’m pretty sure I’ve changed some.
I taught at a major university before I landed in my local CC and much prefer the latter. My students are driven and determined. There’s something about being a 35 mom with two kids and a job and paying your own tuition (very typical of my students*) that makes you want to get your money’s worth. They study, they show up for class, they come to my office hours to bug me for study tips and to go over material they’re stuck on. I just look at them in amazement sometimes at how they manage it all. And I’m more demanding of them than I was of university students because they deserve the best I can do.
*I teach courses that are pre-req’s for the nursing program, which is highly competitive to get into. Courses that attract a lot of young ones just out of high school and not yet sure what they want to do with their lives aren’t as much fun to teach. Did I mention that I love what I teach?
stuckinred
@RSA: No that much different from the rest of higher ed.
Brian J
I’ve never actually watched or cared that much about “Jersey Shore,” even though some people I work with are obsessed by it and I could have talked to JWoww (r) if I wanted to, but for those of you who are even slightly aware of what it is, it’s pretty obvious why it’s easy to crack jokes about it. That said, this speaks for itself:
cyntax
Some people I know who have taught in community colleges have found it rewarding, but they’ve also said it’s hard to make a living.
It’s a mixed bag in terms of making a decent living or not. It’s certainly hard to make a go of it as a part timer because you usually don’t get health benefits and the like. However, if you are a full time hire, then you’ll make more money with a masters teaching at a CC than you would at a four year with a doctorate. It’s unfortunate that the CC’s rely so much on part-timers to keep down costs–thank you Howard Jarvis.
stuckinred
@Janet Strange: Hooray for you!!!!!! Do you do anything with prior learning assessment in your program?
http://www.valdosta.edu/pla/
John Bird
North Carolina’s community/tech college system is absolutely fantastic. Transfers into UNC when I was there were common; the one fellow I know at a tech school right now is receiving enough financial aid to pay for all his classes and then some, which he more than deserves, going to school full-time, working full-time, AND with a wife and kid.
cyntax
They study, they show up for class, they come to my office hours to bug me for study tips and to go over material they’re stuck on. I just look at them in amazement sometimes at how they manage it all. And I’m more demanding of them than I was of university students because they deserve the best I can do.
Absolutely! Teaching freshman and sophmore classes at a four year has just reaffirmed my desire to teach at a CC. I don’t know if it’s because the students at a CC have made more sacrifices or if it’s because, as one teacher I know put it, CC students are just one bad break from falling out of the education system entirely, but on a whole they are way more motivated to learn than the average freshman at a four year.
Janet Strange
@stuckinred: As far as I know, we don’t. One of the private universities here does that, but they’re really expensive.
eta: And thanks for the attagirl!
John Bird
Another thing about many CC students is that they are seeking higher education after deciding against pursuing it immediately after high school; they’ve put more time and individual thought and responsibility into the decision than some 17-year-old Thurston Howell IV at a private school whose alumni parents hired a quack to get him diagnosed with three learning disabilities so he could go to college without a plan.
The Moar You Know
@Brian J: I read shit like this and am overwhelmed with a desire to see this nation get its own version of Kim Jong-Il, who will take people like this and put them to work in a mine digging salt with their bare hands until they die.
Linda Featheringill
@Randy P:
Why Harvey has such a following:
I understand why he has a following in Cleveland. In his shuffling way, he actually sketches an accurate picture of several different aspects of Life in Cleveland.
Now, why he is popular in other places I don’t know.
Keith G
Okay, as if John hasn’t started us off in a bleak enough footing, it seems that a new meme is trying to break out of the MSM:
To wit: Sarah Palin may actually be morphing onto a serious (as in serious) candidate.
http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/07/12/palins-haul/
Yippee.
Randy P
@The Moar You Know: “Some people might call you a brain dead clueless moron who should never be allowed near a voting booth. I call you my base.”
Linda Featheringill
@PaulW:
Yeah. The jobs don’t seem to be there. No matter what you prepare for.
Janet Strange
@cyntax: Yep, exactly. When I first started teaching here, I realized that this was the place for the people that didn’t get the leg up that being born to privilege and entitlement gives a person. Even growing up middle class is “privileged” in a way most middle class people don’t realize. I have a lot of students who know that this is their chance to make up for what they missed by not coming from that kind of background and that drives them.
Also, most people from genuinely poor backgrounds are absolutely terrified of taking on big debt, and since we’ve defunded public universities and made up the difference with soaring tuition*, they won’t even consider starting there.
*And don’t get me started on that. I started college during the Great Society years and was able to pay my tuition, fees, and living expenses with a part time job and never had to take out a student loan. I still think that’s how it oughtta be.
Aaron Baker
I’ve taught part-time for community colleges for about 20 years, and I greatly appreciate the appreciation. They’re a bargain–and many of the teachers are as well-credentialed as professors in four-year schools (and typically with more teaching experience than their four-year counterparts).
joe from Lowell
God bless community colleges. I helped my wife teach an algebra class at Mt. Wachusett Community College one year.
You know who takes algebra at a community college? A nurse’s aid who wants to get her GED so she can get a nursing degree. An immigrant who works at a metal shop, so he can get a promotion at work. Times 15, and there’s an introductory algebra class at a community college.
Best education investment society can make.
Mnemosyne
@Martin:
Just wanted to re-emphasize this point — there are a lot of blue-collar jobs that can really be enhanced with a few courses at community college. There aren’t too many places to get your bachelor’s degree in Fire Science, but it can be important knowledge for people to have before they run into burning buildings.
eemom
Don’t have anything to add personally, but I really like this thread about the CC’s. It is nice to hear something positive for a change. I am so tired of everything sucking.
Even the Polanski thing, though a disgusting travesty of justice, seems like a useful distraction. Does anyone know if this extradition denial is the end of the story, or does our bumbling criminal justice “system” get to try again?
Joel
@burnspbesq: fuck Switzerland.
I’m ashamed that I rooted for their hockey team in the olympics.
Svensker
@Brian J:
When colleges offer degrees in Journalism and Public Relations, they are not really colleges but overpriced votech schools. The result being people like Sarah Palin, who apparently has a “college degree.” Grumble grumble.
But then I’m a bah humbug kinda girl.
QuaintIrene
I would guess his conviction still stands, i.e. he still can’t set foot in this country without getting arrested.
cyntax
*And don’t get me started on that. I started college during the Great Society years and was able to pay my tuition, fees, and living expenses with a part time job and never had to take out a student loan. I still think that’s how it oughtta be.
Oh yeah. My mother-in-law knows an MD who paid his way through all of his education by working on a cruise ship going over to Europe and in the summers (this was before WWII). He’d have enough money saved from that to putter around Europe in the summer and come back to school with tuition, books, room and board paid for. The way in which college has become a debt mill is just criminal, but it makes the banks richer so…
Of course the Army will foot the bill, like they did for me and stuck in red, but as a solution to paying for education that just brings up a whole bunch of other questions.
stuckinred
@Svensker: Everyone is a curriculum expert! :)
artem1s
@Linda Featheringill:
yes, if you ignore almost the whole city. his ‘vision’ was from the chronically depressed point of view. I’m not saying it didn’t have value or artistic merit. It is, though, the typical MSM view point of burning river Cleveland. Harvey worked at the VA which was within a stones throw of one of the loveliest urban campuses and museum complexes in the country. But there isn’t much press in spinning Cleveland positive.
FYI, we still have Cuyahoga Community College, the first in Ohio and the largest. An excellent institution with 3 campuses throughout the county. Not just for poor kids. Between 1963 and 2005 Tri-C educated 700,000 students (one of 7 residents).
stuckinred
@cyntax: When I started in 69 I got almost the exact dollar amount my old man had gotten at the end of his GI Bill funding in 1949. Because I was 19, even after 3 years in the green machine and 25 months in Asia, I had to live in a dorm. I had to borrow money to be able to afford to go to school and work as a night janitor. (nah, I wasn’t bitter). The GI Bill payments increased significantly in the 70’s but it sucked when I started.
eemom
@Joel:
Yeah, I’m beginning to wonder if maybe there isn’t something to “Fuck Switzerland” — enabler of tax cheats and protector of child molesters.
Also, are there any students of history out there who can educate about the real story behind their neutrality in WWII? I know nothing about it, but I’m interested.
MikeJ
@eemom: I believe the real story of their neutrality was that they were an itty bitty teensy tiny country next door to a country that thousands of panzers and stukas.
stuckinred
From the wiki
cyntax
@stuckinred:
Mine were the GI Bill and Army College fund in the 90’s and I still had to work part time. But waiting tables filled it out nicely, particularly when I was up in Sonoma where you could make a pocketfull of cash working at one the the 4 star places that captured all the wine country tourist traffic. The funding really did improve going into the 70’s; I know someone who gets
a full rideher tuition paid for as a child of a veteran from that era. So sometimes we take care of the right people.cleek
you know things are fucked up when Harry Reid is calling out Obama for not being confrontational enough:
stuckinred
@cyntax: Was that the “Montgomery” GI Bill? The Army College fund was a matching program, right?
We have this phony “Hope Scholarship” in Georgia that is funded by the lottery. The problem is that it is based on grades and not need based so guess who overwhelmingly benefits? Kids from white suburban Atlanta where the schools are so much better than much of the rest of the state. Athens is full of kids driving bad-ass cars from the Northern burbs. The lottery is a tax on the dumb paying for the education of the well-to-do.
eemom
@MikeJ:
but why did Germany let them be neutral instead of stomping the crap out of them like they did to everyone else?
Waynski
@The Moar You Know:
Umm. Haven’t you heard? His name is Obama. All you need to do is call ACORN and have Snooky sent to a FEMA camp. It’s a no brainer.
cyntax
@stuckinred:
I think it was the Montgomery and you’re right the College Fund was a matching program. Together, they were good for paying most of my rent, and then the Pell Grant would take care of my tuition, so I could get by on part time work.
Education policy and education funding are some of the trickier things to get right, since straight performance based awards tend to favor the people who need the least help. And while that sort of free market competition is what’s most familiar to people, if not managed correctly, it undercuts the whole concept of education as an engine for societal change and individual uplift.
stuckinred
@cyntax: In Georgia right now they are focused on tracking down illegals who are attending system school. I’m not sure of the exact number but the recent crackdown uncovered fewer than 20 out of 300,000 students and less than half were Mexican.
Joel
@eemom: the Swiss supplied Germany with manufactured goods like ball-bearings and the like that were depleted when the allies bombed German factories. Being neutral protected Switzerland from the bombing. This was a fairly minor contribution, however.
Switzerland also refused refugees (i.e. Jews) from Germany and other neighboring countries and laundered German gold that was stolen from, you guessed it.
Basically, however, Germany didn’t invade Switzerland because it wasn’t worth it. Switzerland is a massively mountainous country with lots of local militia and not much in the way of useful resources.
cyntax
20 out of 300,000 students and less than half were Mexican.
I wonder how much it cost them to track them down. Another consideration, it seems like if you’re using the education system in America your intention is to stay here and find a better job, one that you’ll be paying income taxes on.
PurpleGirl
@stuckinred: This is sort of OT but when NYS was selling the lottery to voters many years ago it was to provide EXTRA money to education. Please note the “extra” money. Now lottery sales ARE the state education money given to localities.
stuckinred
@cyntax: Oh yea, the Mensa chapter in the Georgia legislature factored that in when they freaked out and demanded action NOW!
eemom
@Joel:
yes, that is all ringing a bell now. Thanks.
It also fits into the general narrative of Switzerland being a sort of passive-aggressive collaborator with the forces of evil.
And here I thought they were all about ski resorts and hot chocolate.
YellowJournalism
@cleek: Reid makes some legitimate arguments there, but the sad thing is that there are too many people who read or hear that Obama’s not a confrontational person and they immediately think that means he’s a pushover or meek. They will completely ignore the part about Obama being a deliberate and trying to be a peacemaker and bring people together, and the Right will use Reid’s comments as further “proof” that Obama is a failure.
Besides, I’m not sure Obama being more confrontational of Republicans would neccessarily help much because any time he has stopped trying to include them and make peace, they accuse him of being a soshialist tyrant who won’t work on bipartisanship. And that would make Glenn Beck cry golden tears.
Anonymous37
I think that should be “except”.
Brian J
@The Moar You Know:
If it makes you feel any better, she looks like the real idiot of the group. One of the other, or maybe the only other prominent girl on the show, JWoww was actually at my mom’s job trying to raise money and/or awareness for mentally challenged individuals, so they aren’t all bad.
randiego
proud graduate, San Diego Mesa CC – way better instructors than what I got when I transferred to State
Brian J
@Svensker:
Ahh, crap, I forgot to add what I meant to say after that asterisk. So here goes: college isn’t for everyone–or more specifically, four-year colleges. By that, I mean that it has varying degrees of worth for people, and we shouldn’t force it on anyone just because. I don’t know for sure what sort of jobs can be without a degree, and at the risk of offending someone, I am not going to guess. But they are there, and if they can be done without wasting the time and money of someone who doesn’t want to be in a school getting a four-year, or even a two-year, degree, so much the better. I don’t mean to suggest that someone who might not be a natural shouldn’t go for it, and I fully support any means to get people who want to learn in a position to do just that. I just mean that the idea that it’s the right move for everyone is misguided.
burnspbesq
@eemom:
Because the German leadership needed a place to stash all the stuff they were stealing from the countries they were conquering?
asiangrrlMN
@jeffreyw: I can see why! Yum yum yum.
@Brian J: Wait a minute. So, this is who the fuck people mean when they talk about Snooki? Seriously? WTF a person like this is semi-famous?
I agree that not everyone needs to go to college or is suited to go. Community colleges play an important role in our society, but like most other community-oriented programs, they are being gutted.
@Athenae: That poem is simply amazing. She plucked it from my very own brain!
MoeLarryAndJesus
Not just Harvey Pekar, but also Tuli Kupferberg of the Fugs, gone today.
I’ll miss them both.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HmJX11_AQE
Mwangangi
@cyntax: I’m at the SRJC right now! Have to wait until October to apply to the nursing program.
JMC in the ATL
I went from bartending and community college to getting an MS and becoming a CPA. And now I am tryng to land some adjunct teaching slots in area CCs. Circle of Life, I guess. In all seriousness, without CC, I’d still be bartending or managing a convenience store. I have nothing but respect for the work they do. And that is a huge part of my motivation to try to take on a couple of classes at night. It certainly isn’t the adjunct pay rate.
frosty
@Joel: John McPhee, in La Place de la Concorde Suisse describes how the Swiss showed the Germans how all the bridges and tunnels into the country were rigged with explosives, and how the Wehrmacht would be trapped and destroyed should they try to invade.
After he wrote it some of the other info about the Swiss “efforts” in WWII have come to light. I’m not quite sure why they weren’t invaded, but I still like the stories they told McPhee.
Brian J
@asiangrrlMN:
She’s an idiot and acts like one on television. That’s why she is so famous.