Thank you, brothers and sisters.

The Nobel Peace Prize? Seriously?

I would have immediately sent this kid to BNCOC.

Be sure to read the whole essay.

Today's poll over at Slashdot is about back-to-school time and it's gotten me thinking about schooling and education (not the same thing). I won't go into my feelings about public primary schooling (much), this is mostly about secondary.

Every year that goes by I become more convinced that most colleges and universities should be shut down for the good of the country. I don't know why every high school in America is so focused on getting every student ready for college. I do know that this has had a stigmatizing effect on trade schools, apprenticeships, and blue-collar jobs, thus reducing the numbers of high school graduates that choose to go into those fields. Which is in turn causing a shortage of skilled labor. Honestly, how many liberal-arts-degree-holders does the world need? At what point did working with your hands become something to be sneered at? I doubt that most of those "educated" college graduates could do the highly complex work that those "grease monkey" jobs often require.

The other problem with this is that there are so many college graduates out there diluting the market that jobs that shouldn't require a degree often do. Does an entry-level administrative assistant really need a two-year degree for filing, typing, and checking email for ten bucks an hour?

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm a white-collar IT worker who never went to college. Most days I wish I was a farmer.

( Stolen interesting comment inside... )

Well, serving on a jury certainly was an interesting experience. I was kind of afraid that I'd get some stupid drug possession case where a law I disagree with was broken. I really wasn't looking forward to teaching eleven of my fellow citizens about jury nullification.

I was also worried that there would be a conflict between what is legal and what is right. It came close but sometimes technicalities and a good argument can give a kid a second chance.

The family and I went out and shared space with our community tonight. We went to the carnival at the Neighborhood Resource Center where we tossed beanbags, scooped up ducks with nets, had high-fructose-corn-syrup-free Italian ice, and ran into quite a few people we knew (including the folks from Books On Wheels with whom my wife is now plotting a radical bicyclectomy of our garage).

We also stopped by the event at a local church. Hey, they had a moon bounce. Who can resist a moon bounce? While we were there a random stranger came up to her and asked if she was <insert her actual name here>. They knew her from her books. She's going to get a swollen head if this keeps up.

<crossposted to the other woman.>

I'm test driving a new blog, head on over and check me out.

http://mcfisticuffs.blogspot.com/

Two things that go hand-in-hand. I'm updating my RSS reader and I'm always interested in broadening my horizons.

With that in mind, if you could add any blogs to my feed list what would they be? Mainstream, esoteric, liberal, conservative, news, personal, anything goes as long as you find it worth reading.