A National Crisis in Character

The majority of them are on federal financial aid. They are fine with more taxes as long as they will be taken care of. It is disturbing to hear that they are willing to spend their own money on tattoos and cell phones but cannot buy the book for class until the financial aid comes in.”

This starts early. I teach in the inner city of Los Angeles, and I'm amazed at how many parents excuse their children's poor academic performance with "He needs glasses, but we can't afford them." What they mean is, we are on a program where you get one free (well, tax-payer funded) set of glasses a year, and if you break or lose them, you cannot get another free (well, tax-payer funded) set for another year. I don't know the name of this program, or the details, but I've heard this enough to get the impression that this is the deal.

However, when I ask what the child does at night instead of homework... he plays games on his computer. You see, they can afford cell phones, computers, entertainment center, games, vacations, etc... they just can't afford glasses.

And the problem is not that they refuse, it's that they have truly developed a mentality where if the government doesn't give it to you, YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET IT YOURSELF. One woman said she couldn't afford glasses for her son. I asked how much they would be? She didn't know how much, she was just sure they couldn't afford it. So he can't see well enough to write a paper but he can see well enough to play Halo 3 for six hours a night. And they seem utterly unconscious that there is anything wrong with this picture.

Professor, would you like to explain why the book costs $150?

Heck, even I (no fiscal/financial genius, for sure) can explain that. There is a limited market for the book. It is (almost always) not a general interest item with a general market; potential sales are pretty much limited to academia and academia's victims. Fifty thousand of anything is always going to cost way more per unit than five million of the same. If not for profit, why bother printing them?

So he can't see well enough to write a paper but he can see well enough to play Halo 3 for six hours a night. And they seem utterly unconscious that there is anything wrong with this picture.

And if you were to point that out to them in those terms, you would be a racist/homophobe/bully/sexist/spoilsport...

Louisa May Alcott was an early feminist, a transcendentalist, very independent, “over-educated” ... not at all the sort of delicate, dependent “Biblical womanhood” the patriarchalists are after.

I sometimes wish I’d stuck with the “old maid with catz” plan, myself ;-). I was going to be IRS Commissioner and have an apartment in the Watergate. Now the Watergate is gone.

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