Brooks on Marx

For much of the op-ed, I agreed with the sentiments. Which were Brooks' interpretation of what Karl Marx would say now. But then there was this one little line:

They send their children off to Penn, Wisconsin and Berkeley, bastions of privilege for the children of the professional class, where they are given the social and other skills to extend class hegemony.

These are three very different types of universities. UPenn is private, exclusionary by nature. UW and Cal-Berkeley are public and inclusionary by nature. I do not know what Berkeley's cutoff is, but I do know what UW's cutoff is. If you are a resident of WI or MN, and graduated in the top 50% of your class, you were in. Whether or not you survived your first year is another matter. Many students from the smaller towns opted for one of the many other colleges / universities in the system and then transferred after they were more familiar / comfortable with the large size. It didn't cost a lot. It was easily covered with summer and part time jobs. I think for in-state, the tuition was $5,000 per year. Not exactly an exorbitant amount.

The end of the article also annoyed me, as it implied that its the rise of single parent households that cause the separation between educated and uneducated. Yes, there are more single parent households, but that's because its now OK to be single. One of the rare single parent households in the 50s raised my mother. Another in the 20s raised my grandmother. One became a college professor, and the other a principal. Neither my grandmother nor my great-grandmother felt the need to be married to raise their child. I bet that while the percentage of single parent households in the lower third increased, it also increased in the other two-thirds.

The article also lambasts children who are adopted (another of my grandparents, several of my cousins) as not being likely to graduate high school. It doesn't take into effect that while the rich can find ways out of pregnancy (birth control, abortion, adoption), the right wing, particularly the theological wing, is making sure that the poor cannot use those options.

Bicycles on Amtrak

I am sick of dealing with the traffic between DC and Philly. Particularly on holiday weekends. I do not enjoy spending 5 hours sitting in traffic each way. So, I looked to Amtrak.

Amtrak makes things very difficult to get between DC and Philly. Its OK if you only have your 2 carry ons. Then there's a train every 30-60 minutes. But, if you want to take a bike.... then you have to find a train with the checked baggage.

I found a whole bunch of them. But, they either do not let passengers on between DC and Philly or they don't let them off. So, I poked around the schedules. Looking at multiple schedules (because who would want to see *all* the routes between DC and NYC on one chart?). I think I figured it out. I can get on and off at Alexandria (right by King St. Metro) and then the Philly end works out fine. Its a bit longer than the commuter trips from DC. About an hour more each way. And it costs ~$145 including the bike.

Or I can skip the bike and travel roundtrip for ~$100 and 2 hours faster.

Or I can drive and deal with the disaster that will be Memorial Day weekend (estimated driving time, roundtrip, 9 hours, and $50 in tolls/gas).

*sigh*

Liberal Media

I've been reading the NY Times for most of my life. In the past month, it seems to have suddenly become conservative. Not that any "conservative" outlet would ever broadcast itself as such. Until a media outlet is to the right of fascism, its not "conservative". The changes in the Op-Ed page have made it only have 2 liberal voices, or 25%. There are four conservative voices, and four "moderates". Plus, the conservative voices write more columns than the liberals. Its official opinions are still somewhat left-leaning, but, seem to be moving to the right as well.

The Washington Post, which I have read for ~7 years has always been pretty middle-of-the road, by which I mean about even left and right, has stayed about the same. However, its official opinions are definitely right of center.

Meanwhile, conservative papers such as the Wall Street Journal, never have a single moderate opinion, much less a liberal one.

Yet, liberals are not an insignificant portion of the US. Moderates are 50% of the population, according to most surveys, and liberals are 25%. That means that the number of liberal papers should equal the number of conservative papers, and moderate papers should equal the conjunction of the two. However, I only know of one "liberal" paper that is a daily: the NY Times. And even that paper is going conservative.

I still don't understand what's with the bashing of liberal values. They are values that created modern countries. They believe in just legal system which allows each person to be treated equally, regardless of wealth, education, ethnicity, or any other discriminating characteristic. They believe in creating a base standard for each person, regardless of discriminating factors, for health care, food, and education. They believe everyone can achieve the top levels of society, if they are given an equal start. Its foundation is equal treatment, equal opportunity. They believe that institutions which are accountable to taxpayers are more likely to give equal opportunities than those only responsible to a small board of the very wealthy.

Conservatives, in contrast, what to keep the old ways. It is the definition of conservatism. Conservatives think that the U.S. gives enough opportunities as it is. They believe that corporations treat people fairly all the time. They believe that curtailing freedoms is essential when it conflicts with the old ways of doing things: birth control, gay rights, religion, protection of the environment.

Many people I know who are conservatives have the mistaken belief that conservatives are only for lower taxes and smaller government. The actions of the current conservative government should show that at least the latter is false. They oppress people who disagree with them: Moslems, seculars, gays, educators, public health advocates.

Yet, its the liberals who are forced to defend their positions and why they aren't anti-American. Something here is wrong.

I am done.

I turned in my last paper.

I gave my last presentation.

I took my last final.



I am done with grad school.

Achenblog: Daily Humor and Observations from Joel Achenbach

Achenblog: Daily Humor and Observations from Joel Achenbach

Today's is brilliant. Simply brilliant.

Jon Stewart & The News

At work, one of the few things we all seem to have in common is that we watch the Daily Show. There is the sci fi group. There is the sports group (particularly baseball, but a few football fans). There's a chunk that watches South Park. But we all watch the Daily Show. Even Tom Friedman is talking about Stewart's pull on educated Americans.

I know I personally rarely watch regular network or local news. I do read both the NY Times and the Washington Post fairly exhaustively online, and The Economist in print. But, the only news show I watch - and its now even getting DVRd on occasion if I can't see it at 11 - is the Daily Show. Its funny. Its like the old Weekend Update on SNL only better.

I saw Dennis Miller on the Daily Show a couple weeks ago. That was kinda weird. I kept expecting them to trade off the spoofs. But Miller isn't anywhere near as funny as he used to be. He got is big schtick and now he annoys me a bit. Although I like that I usually know what he's talking about. Its kinda like reading Orientalism - if I can get the references, I'm doing OK.

A view on the changing ideas of marriage

For Better, For Worse

What this article doesn't include is those people who decided to get married for the old reasons (i.e. not love, but for job promotion) in the modern times. They follow the old ideas of what is acceptable for a marriage, not the supposed ideals of the 1950s, but the real version that existed in the 1700s.

Both cheat incessantly. They have no real consideration of each other - basically they can tolerate each other, at best. But, they use each other for social standing. Without the husband, the wife would be broke, possibly childless (from her own following of the 1700s mores), and feel completely scandalized. Without the wife, the husband feels he would not have been able to proceed in his career. They do not have a partnership. They have separate lives that are much akin to modern roommates, only the man provides money for his wife. Both feel that everything is perfectly normal in such a situation: they are married.

There are other cases where they marry for love, partnership, etc, and the wife decides to stay home. They follow modern ideas about what a marriage is. This is not what I am talking about. I am talking about those who married a person solely because of their monetary prospects. The Anna-Nicole Smith with the 83 year old billionaire.

I see marriage as a formal life long partnership. My DF is someone I love, and beyond that, is someone I love spending time with. There are so many things we like to do together. I can see us doing many of these things for a very long time. I see no reason why any two people should not be able to form a marriage. It is a commitment to another person, and a commitment to love, trust, help, and be a friend to them for the rest of their life.

I see divorce as an acknowledgement that the person you married is not someone you can love, trust, help and be a friend to. There are a large number of reasons why that could be, although I think that the most common is that the person who you married is now not what you thought the person was when you married them. Either your perception was off, or the person changed and didn't change *with* you. The second is, in my opinion, a complete failure of the marriage. People change over time, but two married people should be working together as they change. The first is a failure of the people getting married to be honest to each other and to themselves.

Progress

I have done a good chunk of my spring cleaning. My bedroom is completely clean. I even cleaned out drawers. I threw out 4 large garbage bags worth of junk - mostly paper stuff. I also figured out a better place to store my fencing bag than right in front of my dresser (where it blocked the lowest drawer).

I still can't find a couple of things, namely my fencing penalty cards, but they were a little too large anyways. But I found information on two 401Ks I thought I had lost (i.e. the company I used to work for changed 401K companies and I didn't have the info). Now I just need to consolidate them. I found my savings bonds, which I can start redeeming next year.

Next, I tackle my closet.