Money, Money, Money

Maher is right on. All of the major issues in this country can be linked to capitalism and greed. Health Care, jails, war–these things should not, under any circumstance, be run for-profit.

When I worked at a medical clinic, it made me uncomfortable to be talking about vaccines and health in terms of bottom line and profit. It just seemed morally wrong to me. There must be a way to give good health care without the worry of money. There is a good way–many other countries use this way! I am sad to say, but I don’t know if we will ever step out of our individualist, capitalist, greedy ways.

New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit

By Bill Maher

How about this for a New Rule: Not everything in America has to make a profit. It used to be that there were some services and institutions so vital to our nation that they were exempt from market pressures. Some things we just didn’t do for money. The United States always defined capitalism, but it didn’t used to define us. But now it’s becoming all that we are.

What’s Your Education Story?

We all have an education story. These stories tell much than details of the drone inside the four walls of a classroom. These stories paint pictures of different phases in our lives. These stories explain who we are today.

Some stumble upon an educational path ridden with thorn bushes and thunderstorms. Some fly into their educational path in an all-expense paid for fighter jet with gilded wings. Some are encouraged, and led onto their educational path being told that their future will be grand and full of success. And unfortunately, some are discouraged from the moment they step into the light of their path. Some are told they are not capable, that theirs is a lost cause.

The Future of Education in the Flat World

I have been reading Thomas L. Friedman’s The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century and it has got me thinking a lot about the future of education.

The main thesis of Friedman’s book is that times have changed, are changing, and will continue to change drastically. We are living in a “flat” world where technology and communication has dramatically changed the way we live our lives. We live in a world where we can outsource work to India to save our company money, which consequences in a percentage of lower-end jobs being cut from the work field. Friedman argues that in this flat world, to be employable we must become “untouchables.” He explains:

“The way I like to think about this for our society as a whole is that every person should figure out how to make himself or herself into an untouchable. That’s right. When the world goes flat, the caste system gets turned upside down. In India untouchables may be the lowest social class, but in a flat world everyone should want to be an untouchable. Untouchables, in my lexicon, are people whose jobs cannot be outsourced.“

Friedman places these “untouchables” into four categories: special (Such as famous Hollywood stars or big namers like Bill Gates); specialized (This includes knowledge workers-lawyers, brain-surgeons, software engineers); anchored (Jobs which must be done in a specific place-waitresses, nurses, electricians); and lastly, really adaptable (Employees who constantly are learning and improving upon their skills to become more of an expert and less mediocre). In this new flat world, mediocrity is the kiss of death.

Now that so many of the lower paid and low-skilled jobs have vanished in America due to outsourcing, the bar has been significantly raised for Americans seeking work. Friedman argues that in this new flat world, higher education is not an option anymore. A college degree is needed now because jobs require a much higher level of skill than they did before we entered the twenty-first century. He suggests that all citizens should be offered at least two years of a college education in order to level the playing field. If we do not make college available to all (like we once did with mandating the high school years of education), then only the privileged and wealthy will get the education needed for the well-paying jobs of the future. If the level of education needed to become employed has been upped, so must the mandatory schooling of the American people.

Friedman has made me think about education in a very different light. I once thought that not all people were “college people,” and not all people should go to college. This was based on my experience with many college freshmen who seemed to be at university because it delayed their adulthood for another four years, or because their parents made them, or because it was expected of them. Now I see that college must be the end goal for all high school students. If these students want to compete in the global economy and someday land a good job and live a comfortable life, they have no choice but to go to college. But this leads us to a terrible conundrum-how do the underprivileged and poor make it to this step? And how do we make those who do make it to college see how important their higher education is for their future?

Getting a college degree is already becoming a norm in our society, and maybe this is not such a bad thing. We are living longer, and our careers are lasting longer than ever before. Higher education leads to longer and happier lives, and is a direct deterrent to crime (and in a country where 1 in 10 US citizens are imprisoned, perhaps more education is really what we need). But we need support-from our government-to make it possible for all to attend college. And professors and teachers need to work to illuminate the importance of their subject matter. Why is what you are teaching important in the 21^st century? Are you teaching your students the skills they will need to survive in the global economy and in the flat world?

And this leads me to the subject of technology and the use of it. Technology must not be the enemy inside the classroom. Technology is the future, it is the now, and it will make today’s students able to compete for jobs and survive in the uncertain job field of the future.

Everyone’s everyone.

[over radio]

Millicent Weems: Now it is waiting and nobody cares. And when you’re wait is over this room will still exist and it will continue to hold shoes and dress and boxes and maybe someday another waiting person. And maybe not. The room doesn’t care either.

Millicent Weems: What was once before you – an exciting, mysterious future – is now behind you. Lived; understood; disappointing. You realize you are not special. You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone’s experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone’s everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive. You are Ellen. All her meager sadnesses are yours; all her loneliness; the gray, straw-like hair; her red raw hands. It’s yours. It is time for you to understand this.
Millicent Weems: Walk.
Millicent Weems: As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty; your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving – not coming from any place; not arriving any place. Just driving, counting off time. Now you are here, at 7:43. Now you are here, at 7:44. Now you are…
Millicent Weems: Gone.

—- Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, New York

Great is language….

“Great is language….it is the mightiest of the sciences,

It is the fulness and color and form and diversity of the

earth….and of men and women….and of all

qualities and processes;

It is greater than wealth….it is greater than buildings or

ships or religions or paintings or music.”

— Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass:  Great are the Myths (1855)

Fall in Love

Hush. Calm yourself. Life is flux and change. The cost of existence is high. Think of the burning and sun converting four hundred tons of hydrogen into helium every second! Think of the bill to pay for human consciousness. Stop whining. It is all on loan. Accept your life with cheerful affection. Fall in love. Fall in love outward. Fall in love with this moment, with this earth now. In that response will be the seeds of right action or right nonaction. Fall in love and see what happens.

– Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist, Sharman Apt Russell

Words on Supermarkerts by David Foster Wallace

“By way of example, let’s say it’s an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you’re tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there’s no food at home. You haven’t had time to shop this week because of your challenging job, and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It’s the end of the work day and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it’s the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. And the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop and it’s pretty much the last place you want to be but you can’t just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge, over-lit store’s confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts (et cetera, et cetera, cutting stuff out because this is a long ceremony) and eventually you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren’t enough check-out lanes open even though it’s the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But you can’t take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the register, who is overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.