So, this post starts today with an admission:  sometimes I write this blog because I feel like it, and sometimes I write this blog because something has me incensed or annoyed, but sometimes I write this blog to keep myself out of trouble. I have, I will admit, a tendency to fly off the handle–there’s…

I am definitely having one of those days when I think I should post regular FB status reports on my frustration levels, because they might have something to say about whether or not I end the day without doing something rash. So to speak. But instead of that, let me make a book report. Actually,…

Yes, I know.  I said I was going to disappear for a while.  But it turns out I’m far too stressed to have nothing constructive to do, and these days I’m defining “constructive” very loosely.  At any rate,  what I really want to do is scream at some very specific people, and that probably wouldn’t…

I don’t believe in signs and portents,  of course, at least not on any conscious level, but I’ve been having an interesting couple of days. The thing this morning was just peculiar.  I have a 40 ounce tea cup, a huge thing, but not a very well made one.  In fact, I’ve got three identical…

And not very coherent. First, Mike–college loans may be a Republican plot, but the situation that got us there was squarely a project of Democrats.  It was liberals, not conservatives, who wanted “everybody” to graduate from high school, and liberals–and liberaly theory–that responded to the fact that not everybody was doing that (and some minorities were…

I’ve just had one of those days where, by the end of it, I can barely believe I’m still standing.  I had about six million things to do, it all had to be done as quickly as possible, the places it had to be done all had to be inconveniently driven to, and there was…

I mean, sigh. Sigh. Truly. First, let me state what should be obvious–I wasn’t talking about useless “arts” degrees. Granted, a useless arts degree would be just as useless as any other useless degree.  But an arts degree that actually was an arts degree would be very useful indeed, although in no sense vocational. The…

All right.  That’s not much of a post title, but I start a lot of sentences that way. It’s Saturday, and I’ve been informed by a flurry of frantic e-mail that it’s been five days since I’ve posted to this blog, or maybe six. And I don’t even have the standard excuses.  Usually, what happens…

And Mike says: >>>”OF COURSE jobs came to replace all those he listed–jobs as software engineers, technical writers, special effects technicians, CGI artists and directors,” No. >>> And I say:  YES. I wasn’t giving a comprehensive list, just a set of examples. And the fact is that there are not fewer jobs in the US…

Every once in a while, I’ll admit, I get frustrated. But let’s see what I can do about this.  Mike Fisher wrote: >>>The steel mills went away. And no jobs came to replace them. Many of the auto plants have gone away. And no jobs came to replace them. Other manufacturing jobs have gone away.…