Tag Archives: Education

I was reading the commentary on student loan forgiveness since Joe Biden has said he would do something. It is not going to be $50,000 in forgiveness as Senators Warren, Sanders, and Schumer are pushing. Biden has said it is unlikely it will be this amount. Indeed, he suggested $10,000. The $10,000 might be worthy if we canceled all of the penalties, consolidation fees, and the excess interest along with the $10,000. If you are not aware, Joe...

Tough Guy, senator Mitch McConnell making political hay over President Joe Biden extending a student loan moratorium for a few more months. The mistake Joe is making or has made is not deciding what to do. It is getting late in the game of politics. Here is senator Mitch McConnell. “I think in this country, it’s important to remind people that we ought to pay our debts,” McConnell opined. “We all pay our debts. And with regard to extending the...

As announced by the U.S. Department of Education April 6th: “An extension of the pause on student loan repayment, interest, and collections has been made through August 31, 2022. This is done to allow for the economy to continue to improve and COVID cases continue to decline. President Biden has made clear the continuing need to respond to the pandemic and its economic consequences, as well as to allow for the responsible phase-down of pandemic...

Jeannie and I played a LOT of board games with the kids over the pandemic. We still do. But if you’re like me, long games of Monopoly induce brain fog, Clue is dull and morbid, and Sorry makes you sorry you ever bought the damn game. What we wanted were games that were fun and engaging for kids as young as 7, but were great for adults as well. There were five clear winners, all of them games that I (and most of my friends) had never heard of: Splendor. Because all kids at heart want to be...

Jeannie and I played a LOT of board games with the kids over the pandemic. We still do. But if you’re like me, long games of Monopoly induce brain fog, Clue is dull and morbid, and Sorry makes you sorry you ever bought the damn game. What we wanted were games that were fun and engaging for kids as young as 7, but were great for adults as well. There were five clear winners, all of them games that I (and most of my friends) had never heard of: Splendor. Because all kids at heart want to be...

Time was when being able to read and write was good enough to meet the demands of industry. After a while, workers needed to have an eighth grade, then a high school education to be of much value. That was then, back before the world became complicated. Today, in order to understand what is going on at work, workers need a good foundation in mathematics and science, and to be able to read and understand fairly complicated instructions in order to...

An iconic American wilderness turns 150, National Geographic A “paradox of the cultivated wild.” That’s how National Geographic Explorer David Quammen  characterized Yellowstone National Park in a celebrated edition of National Geographic. In that issue, an epic ecosystem – it’s the biggest complex of mostly untamed landscape and wildlife within the lower 48 states – received epic treatment. On February 25th, Yellowstone National Park turned...

There is the forbidden, there is the given, the meek, and the powerful, sustenance all the same. Biblically, the laws of kashrut were rather explicit, has scales, no kids in mothers’ milk, cloven hooves, well, there is a debate. How does it eat? The kosher laws were crafted initially as a code of conduct not for morality as we see it now, but about purity, cleanliness, safety. Keeping us alive. Little was known almost 6,000 years ago about...

Expressions that pass from hand to hand like sealed containers… In Herbert Marcuse and Planned Obsolescence I undertook to develop a theoretical foundation for ‘planned obsolescence’ from Georg Simmel’s analysis of the “preponderance of objective culture over subjective culture that developed during the nineteenth century.” My intuition has proved to be uncannily prescient. Besides the indirect influence of Thorstein Veblen — by way of Vance...

Student Loan Cancellation will not Benefit the Wealthy, Alan Collinge, Student Loan Justice Org. Alan Collinge History In 1972, allegations about students abusing bankruptcy3 courts were beginning to make headlines. Major newspapers were publishing anecdotes about students who took out large college loans. Supposedly then, young graduates or students quickly declared bankruptcy to avoid paying them off. The Congressional Commission on Bankruptcy...