The scandal of college affordability

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Public officials have taken the idea of affordable college from something everyone should have to a luxury item only for the super-rich and super lucky.  Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and chuck Schumer have spent months asking Joe Biden to use his authority to eliminate or reduce crushing student debt. Biden promised to do so.  But in the end he has refused, despite new Roosevelt Institute research showing that educational debt relief “would provide more benefits to those with fewer economic resources and could play a critical role in addressing the racial wealth gap and building the Black middle class”.

As student debt crushes the elderly and people of color, into this vacuum comes a rescue … for a lucky few. Public officials have taken the idea of affordable college from something the world’s wealthiest nation should be able to provide to everyone, and converted it into an expensive luxury item only for the super-rich and those lucky enough to win the lottery.

Literally.

At first glance, the state initiatives could seem like pragmatism. With the federal government gridlocked and states unwilling to raise revenues to adequately fund universal access to affordable higher education, at least we can offer post-secondary education to a handful of the non-rich. And, hey, if it entices more people to get vaccinated, that’s an added bonus.

But at another level, this feels like something out of a dystopian sci-fi satire.

As other countries suffer mass casualties because vaccines are simply not available or affordable, America apparently has the opposite problem: we’re swimming in the much-coveted medical prophylactic against Covid, and yet we apparently must gamify the vaccine process in order to persuade our people to get free shots to protect themselves from the deadly virus.

Even worse, the big shiny enticing prize young people can win is not some sports car, speedboat, or even a visit to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. It is more affordable college – as if access to an education is not a basic right, but must be considered some overpriced, totally-out-of-reach, only-for-the-elite indulgence like a Caribbean vacation, or some other gaudy item on The Price Is Right.  (David Sirota, 17 June 2021)

My comment: When I was young the ( U.K.) government made it a priority to encourage further education . Except for accommodation my three years at university were paid for by the taxpayer.  So was subsequent business management education.  I don’t know whether the taxpayer got his moneys-worth in my case, but I sure did appreciate it .- and worked hard to justify it, too.  This current attitude to education is appalling!

Drink problem

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Back in 2019 research revealed by The Guardian ( 5 July) showed that one in ten people in a hospital bed in the UK are alcohol-dependent,  and one in five inpatients are doing themselves harm by their drinking.

While it is estimated that heavy drinking costs the NHS £3.5bn a year, the numbers of people treated has been unclear. But a major review published in the journal Addiction has collated 124 previous studies involving 1.6 million hospital inpatients and shows that 20% use alcohol harmfully while 10% are dependent. More than 80 people die every day in the UK from alcohol abuse. Cuts to alcohol services in the NHS and the community have made the situation worse, it says.  (The Guardian 5 July 2019).  Below are some statistics:

  • The average American drinks 470 pints of beer in a year.
  • Thirty-seven percent of the American population abstain from drinking altogether.
  • 4,328 pensioners in Britain received care for drinking problems in 2018/2019.
  • 15.1 million adults in the US suffer from alcohol use disorder. That’s 6.2% of the total population.
  • A quarter of Americans try alcohol before they turn the age of 18.
  • Americans drank around 9.5 liters of alcohol in a year – the same as 31 glasses of wine.

It is no surprise that alcohol consumption has only increased over the years. When you compare the figures with the last decade, it’s easy to see that alcohol consumption has risen sharply in both countries.

My comment: Epicurus is, maybe, best known for his advocacy of moderation.  I would suggest that a glass of wine at dinner time is fine.  Much more than that becomes self-destructive.

Documentary claims English invented champagne

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Champagne was developed in England long before it was popularised in France, a new documentary has claimed. The show, Sparkling: The Story of Champagne, reveals that a 1676 play called The Man of Mode includes “the first mention of sparkling champagne anywhere in the world”. The director claims he has “documentary proof to the British claim that the Brits were drinking sparkling champagne years before Dom Perignon, the ‘Father of champagne’”, developed his winemaking techniques in northeast France.

My take:  Wine has been imported from France, Spain and Portugal since medieval times.  Who knows how, where or when champagne was developed, but the likelihood is that Dom Perignon was just a first class marketer and that the actual history of champagne goes back centuries, un-advertised.

Killed by gunfire

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Gun violence has become an epidemic in America.  Over 38,000 people are killed every year because of deadly weapons.  Over 38,000!  And a huge proportion of the population doesn’t appear to care.  Or maybe they really think that this what the Founders intended?

There is no reason why anybody needs a weapon of war.

My take:  No further comment needed.

 

Will there be a sea change in the wealth gap?

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Americans are quitting jobs in record numbers.  Several retail workers among them recently spoke with The Washington Post, describing how the pandemic led to increased hours, pay cuts and understaffed stores, frequented by more disruptive customers. “We’re seeing a wider understanding that these were never good jobs and they were never livable jobs,”  said Rutgers University professor Rebecca Givan. (Washington Post 21 June 2021).

My comment: “Oh, well, I got away with it for years” (Anonymus CEO with seven figure salary). Maybe now company bosses like this will be forced to pay living wages, and a sense of fairness and equity start breaking through.  But I am not putting any money on it.

Fulton v. City of Philadelphia: Religion and politics

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Last week the United States Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Catholic Social Services (CSS), a private foster care agency that receives public funds.

In March 2018, the city of Philadelphia learned that CSS, an agency it hired to provide foster care services to children in the city’s care, would not work with same-sex couples due to religious objection. Philadelphia, in turn, informed CSS that it would not work with them unless they agreed to comply with nondiscrimination requirements that are part of all foster care agency contracts. At which point, the CSS sued the city for violating the First Amendment.

The  Supreme Court’s ruling in this case  was narrow and only applies to Philadelphia’s contract with CSS. The American Humanist Society commented, “While we breathe a sigh of relief that the Supreme Court did not overturn a precedent that is vital to maintaining church state separation, we cannot ignore the fact that the Supreme Court did grant the Church a special privilege to discriminate against same-sex couples.

We are deeply concerned, they continue, not only about the short-term impacts on children looking for a loving home, but also the long-term implications for the LGBTQ+ community as well as others impacted by religious discrimination. The verdict comes amid rulings trending in favor of religion, largely brought by religious institutions.

The American Humanist Society’s  Legal Center filed an amicus brief in this case last year supporting the rights of LGBTQ+ families, and  commented that they  would back down because of this decision.

“The AHA will continue to make it clear that we want a country where all of us are protected from discrimination, and push Congress to pass the Equality Act to update our civil rights laws to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination.

Religion should never be an excuse to discriminate, and our government should never put church before state. It takes the work of organizations like the American Humanist Association to protect this fundamental right”.

My comment:  My own belief is that the tolerant Epicurus, who welcomed all races and genders to his table,  would have opposed discrimination and intolerance wherever it was found.  Live and let live!

Some Dad jokes (well, anything for a change from politics).

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These are jokes entered into the competition for best Dad jokes:

I once hired a limo but when it arrived, the guy driving it walked off!

I said “Excuse me? Are you not going to drive me?”

The guy told me that the price didn’t include a driver…

… so I’d spent £400 on a limo and have nothing to chauffeur it.

 

• Why did the man fall down the well? Because he didn’t see that well!

• What did the pirate say on his eightieth birthday? “Aye Matey!”

• Someone has glued my pack of cards together – I don’t know how to deal with it.

• What do you call a zombie who cooks stir fries? Dead man wok-ing

• I was wondering why the frisbee kept looking bigger and bigger, and then it hit me

• I was stood behind a customer at an ATM and he turned around and said “could you check my balance?” – so I pushed him. His balance wasn’t that great.

• Why did the scarecrow get an award? Because he was out standing in his field!

• What did the daddy buffalo say to his son when he left for work? Bison

Hot news

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Tropical Storm Claudette was moving through southeastern Louisiana yesterday (Saturday) morning. It’s bringing heavy rain and high winds, and coastal Mississippi and Alabama, as well as the western Florida Panhandle are at risk of flash floods later in the day, the National Hurricane Center said. By Sunday, Claudette is expected to become post-tropical.

Meanwhile, the American Southwest continues to suffer a brutal heatwave, with five states — California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and parts of Colorado — facing temperatures that could rise well above 100 degrees through Saturday before eventually cooling next week, the National Weather Service said. Several cities have already experienced record-breaking temperatures this week. (CNN,  Reuters)

My comment:   And climate change is still a “hoax”?

Vaccines and patents

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Discomfort among European leaders early in May after Joe Biden’s surprise proposal of a temporary patents waiver to boost the supply of Covid vaccines for poorer countries.

Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission boss, said the EU was open to the idea, but at a summit in Porto, Germany and France gave it a cool reception. They may have a point about US and UK exports (or lack of them) being the real issue but with his move Biden appears to have put the US on the moral high ground about getting the world vaccinated, and Europe on the spot.  (Guardian 12 May 2021).

My comment:   We should of course be helping the smaller countries, both on moral grounds and political ones,  too.  There is no practical difference between roaring covid infection in Texas and covid infection in, say, India.  Covid will, and has, reached the US from developing countries.  The current strains were brought to the US mostly by people movement , which you cannot totally stop.   Aside from that there is the humane aspect, not to mention the soft power one. Epicurus would not have discriminated by race, politics or point of origin.  Covid is a threat to the world, and unfortunately will continue to be so unless everyone gets together to beat it.

On “ craven” corporations

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GB News is a new U.K. news channel based upon Fox News in America. It has been boycotted by numerous British companies and organizations.  The right- wing conservative Daily Telegraph published the following:

“The GB News boycott is a turning point: big business must end its woke campaigning or it may not survive the backlash.

“First it was their implacable, undemocratic hostility to Brexit, then their embrace of wokedom, and now their pathetic boycott of GB News, the centre-Right TV start-up.

“What is going on in boardrooms across Britain and the West?  A generation of craven corporate apparatchiks, in thrall to the latest American nostrums, have lost their moral bearings. The companies boycotting GB News will have greatly infuriated hundreds of thousands of consumers and only mildly pleased a few million Left-wingers.   They have declared war on the Conservative voters who, until very recently, used to support them.  This is a turning point for business. They must choose: are they for-profit ventures selling to customer-kings, or weapons of the Left, political organisations masquerading as commercial outfits, militating against freedom?”  (Allistair  Heath, The Telegraph 17 June 2021).

My comment:  “implacable, undemocratic hostility to Brexit”?  “ lost their moral bearings”?   Welcome to the “my way or the highway” style  of Fox News.  You can guarantee that the Brits will eventually copy what occurs in the US.  It is undemocratic, don’t you know, to oppose “conservatives”.  No wonder Epicurus despised politics.  He stood for freedom of thought and speech and respect for opposing views.

Learning from the American South

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“U.K voter ID plan will “undo progress”

The government’s plan for mandatory photo ID at elections risks disproportionately hitting older, disabled and homeless voters who are less likely to have such documents, campaigners have alleged. There have been warnings that “decades of democratic progress” could be undone by the measure because more than two million UK voters could lack the necessary ID to take part in future elections.

 My take:  You can’t help noticing that the British government governs with one eye on what  American Republicans are up to, that is , a variety of stringent vote suppression measures.  This photo requirement is  new to the UK, which has a thorough local register of voters, a system trusted for decades. Not content with winning the last election by a sizeable margin, the Tories now want to choose their future voters.  This copycat stuff has all the hallmarks of a growing fascist, or at least anti- democratic, tendency.

Women to be subject to the military draft?

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The Supreme Court has recently declined to hear a case on the constitutionality of the male-only military draft, framed as “end[ing] gender-based [draft] registration.”

The petition expanding the draft to women does  speak of “further[ing] the goal of military readiness” but concentrates upon the unfair imposition of “selective burdens on men”.

The Pentagon has “unequivocally acknowledge[d] that requiring women and men alike to register would ‘promote fairness and equity,'” the petition said, while a male-only draft “‘sends a message’ that women ‘are not vital to the defense of the country.'” Congress “exclude[d] women from [draft] registration” because of “archaic stereotypes about men’s and women’s roles within and outside of the home,” it argued, and current law “reinforces the notion that women are not full and equal citizens.”

What? The draft is bad, but not because it says mean things about women. It’s bad because it’s a huge violation of human rights, and the gender class whose rights are being violated right now is men. The state should not be able to force you to kill or be killed. Conscription — to use the older term that better conveys the coercive nature of the practice — is not “a fundamental civic obligation,” as this petition said. It’s indefensible compulsion, regardless of what sex it affects.

Women are not harmed by exclusion from the draft, however archaic the congressional reasoning that produced the present arrangement. Further congressional action should be along the lines of the bipartisan  bill to end  multi-decade occupations or war crimes, not this shortcut to “equity.”.  ( Damon Linker, The Week,  7 June 2021).

My take: So Mr. Linker is a pacifist.  I wonder how he would have reacted, resisting conscription, had the Nazis successfully invaded England?

I don’t know whether,  during my two conscripted years of military service, I helped  save many Cypriot lives. But it turned me from a gauche teenager into an adult, taught me what leadership was about and brought me face to face with people I would  never otherwise have met – and who turned out to be funny and really smart.  It was an education.  Wouldn’t have missed it.  (Can’t imagine what the presence of young women would have achieved. Better strategy and more common sense, probably?  But the downsides?).