Yes, It Does.

To quote the captain: "I calls zem as I seez sem." ha...

Wow, when you click the Capt's link to CNN you see an awful lot of other cry babies looking for someone to bail them out too.

Choices people, we all make them, we should all have to live with them without the government bailing them out.

If the asshats that take our money are going to bail out the losers of our society then I vote that we give something back to the winners of our society. To all of those people who have held a job for more than 5 years straight, and paid actual taxes, a small rebate should be paid, and increased in increments of 5 years without a maximum. How about a reward for smart choices and good service rather than a reward for bad choices.

To further quote The Captain:

Whooozeda mommies wittle boy? Whooozedamommieswittleboy? Yes you are! Yes you are! Youz iz mommies' wittle philosophy major. Yessyouz are! Yesyouzare!!!!

"Youz iz mommies' wittle philosophy major" is, possibly, the funniest thing I have read this week.

Thanks!

I hear Saskatchewan rebates a portion of tuition paid... except that I don't really want someone that whiny and dependant here.

She has a point - one - that an education (in theory) is an investment in one's future, and should be allowed to be amortized over the person's career life, but it still doesn't ignore the fact that she chose $115,000 in debt and a low paying career.

I have zero sympathy for Sam. Here's an idea! Don't make choices that place you in situations where you're dealing with debt you can't pay off.

Life is a series of lessons.

Lessons will be repeated until learned.

Interesting story. My suggestion to Kate is that she link to the original story rather than put forth the Captain's rather senile rant. The Captain, for all his wisdom, appears to have lost it, this time round.

He is, for starters, sticking to secondary information. He never even read the original post by Sam. How do I know?

Consider his criticism:

"Sam thinks he's entitled to a college experience where he gets to strum is acoustic guitar while getting drunk and majoring in a subject that IS A HOBBY and NOT A CAREER CHOICE THAT WILL HELP HIM PAY BACK WHAT HE OWES!"

Theres no mention of acoustic guitars or getting drunk in the original post. The Captain just expects us to take his word. I would consider taking his word, but for the following:

"Sam is NOT a REAL man. He is an emasculated childish girl. "brings me to tears?" Oh, somebody make it so I can find this putz in a dark alley. The good news is this coward will never, AND I MEAN NEVER find a hot babe to even glance his way."

The Captain is right. Sam is NOT a REAL man. The Captain would have known this if he read the original post. He means it as a criticism of Sam. The problem is that Sam is NOT, in fact, a REAL MAN, or a MAN, for that matter. Sam is Samantha Hillstrom, a Production Assistant at CNN. Does anybody else see how senile the Captain's rant is? It gets better:

"Whooozeda mommies wittle boy? Whooozedamommieswittleboy? Yes you are! Yes you are! Youz iz mommies' wittle philosophy major. Yessyouz are! Yesyouzare!!!!"

Apart from the little boy bit, how does the Captain know that this person studied philosophy? Answer: He doesn't. Another gem of speculation from the all-knowing Captain. In the original post, she makes it clear that she wanted a career in television. They have specialised courses for that (which dont include Philosophy majors). Besides, all the philosophy majors I know are brilliant mathematicians - literally all of them. Something about Logic.

"Oh, sure, I know the Captain isn't a nice man. He's a mean man. An insulting man. A man that hurts people's feelings and displays anger and rage."

In Captains world, Sam is a man, but in reality, she is a woman. I wonder what that makes the Captain.

I don't really care for this girl though. She has brought it on herself and she deserves the headaches that are coming her way. Work hard and move up in the organization - thats the only way to beat it.

However, I would advise Kate to be a bit more discerning before she posts such commentary. This is the best conservative blog out there. I hope this link to the Captain isn't an indicator of slipping standards. Keep it sensible, Kate.

You know, i just don't understand where the Sam's of the world get the gall to whine about their own carelessness.

I'm a musician first, engineer second. I love music, play multiple instruments, and well, if I may say. I also love computers and technology, and am able to work efficiently with them to an advanced level.

Now in early highschool I thought for sure I would work at getting a bachelor's of arts in music. It was a wonderful idyllic dream. But above all things, having grown up with divorced parents, and seen both parents suffer through difficult financial times, I am a pragmatist. I weigh my options, I apply critical thinking. Sometimes too much to the point of needless worrying... I digress.

Now, when grade 11 came around, I'm sitting in my math 30 IB class, and the UofA sent some reps from the engineering faculty around passing out pamphlets, I knew what I wanted to do.

I *knew* that a degree in music would leave me looking for work, and the chances of mad success in the musical world are infinitesimal.

I *knew* that a degree in engineering would likely land me a job that would pay well.

I evaluated that a good paying job would allow me the time to pursue my most loved hobby of music freely (with the added bonus of not attaching the anxieties of finances to something that is therapeutic and relaxing), while bringing in the money to pay any student loans I needed, not to mention the money to get a home, raise my kids, etc, etc... re: be a normal productive member of society. Incidentally, I do have some student loan debt, still being under 30 yrs, I'm young, and will have them paid off soon after that milestone. However, the small amount of loans I have is due to the fact I worked FULL TIME while I did school FULL TIME. It wasn't fun, it was brutal, but I wouldn't let something as trivial as time to sleep impede my path to righteousness. Also, because I was willing to work full time, my employer (a large canadian telco) paid for a substantive chunk of my fees each term.

So, SAM, the difference between you and me, is I recognized that choices have consequences, I decided not to indulge in childish dreams of music stardom and sacrificed and slaved away to ensure that I wasn't in the position you put yourself in. You have noone to blame but yourself.

But god knows Obama plans to bail them all out too.

Everyone like you is a leech, and a coward.

Not to bore anyone with my life, but I went back to school in my late 20's. I couldn't see myself (and my family) living in my car like Jim Rome did before he "made it big". Now, if I'd like to pursue a career in entertainment, I'll have to do it on my spare time, and on my dime.

BTW, can you imagine if you could major in sports like you can arts? Think about it, a bunch of out-of-work people with basketball or hockey degrees but without the talent or drive to actually make a living doing it. Perhaps we could stimulate the economy by throwing money at a new league nobody wants or watches just to employ these people, sort of like the WNBA or the NWHL; then, we can pretend they are great and induct them into the Hall of Fame. After all, isn't this what we do with the “arts” right now?

You know, for Samantha in the US she could have joined the military, served her country, got her schooling mostly paid for and come out of it with her degree, job skills and possibly some money.

When are young people...or people in general going to take some personal responsibility for the choices they make?

A while ago, I saw a letter in one of the local papers from some woman who was doing a Ph D in some obscure branch of sociology. She was whining about how hard it was making ends meet and actually threatening to pull out of the program to spite those uncaring wretches who didn't value her work, as if people should have sympathy with her plight and throw money at her so that she could complete her worthless degree, (so that she could contribute something of value to society). I remember the letter clearly since Ted Byfield took her to task and introduced her to reality, pointing out that she was not doing anyone a favour and if she felt that she was not valued that she should go ahead and find something else to do, since nobody really cared about her problem, and lack of yet another Ph D in sociology would not be noticed.

She should've taken the easy route like I did. After high school, work in a lumber yard for two dollars an hour. With the money earned, leave home at seventeen and join the army. Get your education through them with the summers spent sleeping in trenches with half a foot of water in them and then spend the next four years living in barracks, and freezing in tents out in Wainwright in the dead of winter when it's minus 40. Then leave the army, do some science makeup courses split with working as a ranger. Take the money saved on Lieutenant's pay and use it to pay your medical education along with some loans and part time work in the city morgue. Work sixty to ninety hour weeks as a family medicine resident then move to a small towns in rural Canada where you're continuously on call. After five years of that, your loans will be paid off and voila: easy street!
Or . . . just pay off your freakin' loans.

I'd give the Cap'n's argument a lot more credence if he had read "Sam's" piece closely enough to realize she's a woman.
Basic errors like that pretty much torpedo the rest of his argument

How apropos...Paul Greenberg writes about "The Entitled"

http://townhall.com/Columnists/PaulGreenberg/2009/04/02/the_entitled

You know, "rip", lots of people give me advice on how to run my blog.

You'd think they'd just lead by example.

Ouch! Back to the sack eh?

Syncro

I lucked out and had a scholarship when I went. Before I had it I considered the Armed Forces. I worked before I went so I had beer money, $0.38 for two draft. Later I thought the military would have taught me just as much of the things that matter. Discipline,responsibility and self respect.

Even though Sam turned out to be a woman instead of a man, that doesn't change the basic situation - here is someone who decided to attend an expensive private school, decided to rack up a huge debt, decided to work in a field which pays very little - and she expects...what exactly? For her debt to be forgiven because she's suddenly realized she can't pay it off on her salary? For her boss to give her a huge raise so she can pay off the debt?

Can I stop the carping for a moment to suggest that the problem for the Sam's of the world is not their chosen profession, or the cost of their education, but the stupid pigheaded insistence that people aren't capable of doing any but burger flipping unless they have a four-year degree?

I studied engineering at U of Toronto; later, I moved to Waterloo to work with a start-up. Waterloo was the pioneer of the "co-op" program in engineering. Our firm hired a bunch of these guys, at different levels, and would use the youngest to do the grunt work, and the more senior to do more sophisticated things. As someone who had previously sneered at UW, the scales were cast from my eyes. These kids came out better prepared to work, better prepared to apply their knowledge, and, yes, much less burdened by student debt.

Why do so many schools in Canada and the US persist in the "8 months of school, 4 months of work, repeat for 4 years" paradigm? It saddles kids with tons of debt that a 4 months school/4 months work would help avoid. Co-op produces grads who understand what work is like compared to school. Co-op produces better grads.

My speculation: typical lazy attitudes of public sector professors with tenure, who never have to worry about a paycheque again. They don't give a damn about their students (even 30 years ago, I remember the disdain from some profs for their undergrads was palpable, but I hasten to add that wasn't true for all), just about their all-important (to their reputation) research, which in 99% of cases will be ignored within 3 months of publishing.

What would be so bad about letting students take two semesters, and then take an entire year off, to build up some cash and some real world experience? So you don't graduate until you're 28 instead of 24 - big deal. You graduate debt free, and with four years of real world work experience.

Of course, in the deep, dark corners of the conspiracy theory that ever lurks within me, I suspect that the reason most social science/soft science professors won't go for this is they know that the same type of pap they dish out to naive and ignorant (which does not mean unintelligent!) undergrads who have no real world experience would be laughed at and mocked mercilessly if they tried it on 27 year olds who've been working for 4 years. These "profs" know, somewhere in the shallow depths of their souls, that they need a steady stream of the inexperienced, the credulous, the easily cowed, for their scam to continue, which is why they fight tooth and nail against any attempt to modernize their approach to education.

But, hey - it's dinner time, and then Jeopardy!. We're all upset today, but none of us (me included) will do a damn thing tomorrow.

"and she expects...what exactly?"

Barbara

Sam, like others in the social "sciences" feels that she is underpaid, she wants to be paid at least as much as a plumber. Why? Well, because she went to University and the plumber didn’t. In Sam’s mind a degree has value; actually, it’s more valuable than the plumbers work, he’s only fixing toilets while Sam is fixing humanity(even though she hasn’t worked a day). Actually Sam thinks a plumber is similar to a janitor, so that’s what he’s worth($$). It doesn’t matter to Sam that the plumber has been working, didn’t take a loan, and has subsidized her education. Sam doesn’t even understand that it’s the plumbers money that has enabled her to go to University. Sam doesn’t respect the plumber or his occupation, this is why she feels entitled to a share of his money. A plumbers work isn’t as important as hers. This is an injustice in Sam’s eyes, just like it’s an injustice that hockey players make millions and teachers make tens of thousands. The only relevant question in Sam’s mind is “What about the children”?

KevinB: Took the words right out of my mouth!

"These "profs" know, somewhere in the shallow depths of their souls, that they need a steady stream of the inexperienced, the credulous, the easily cowed, for their scam to continue, which is why they fight tooth and nail against any attempt to modernize their approach to education."

So too does the NDP. This is exactly why they support lowering the voting age to 16yrs old.

Lord how I hate whiners!
I graduated into the 1983 NEP recession with $12,500 in student debt. That is about $22,000 in current dollars. Thanks to the prime rate hitting 21% when I was in school my overall average interest rate on the debt was 13%, and at that point in our tax history, interest on student loans was NOT deducted from taxable income.
I didn't get the career I planned for (thanks to the NEP accounting firms were laying off, not hiring) but I shut up, hunkered down lived without a car, TV or vacations in a studio apartment with a shared bathroom for the next two years until I paid off the debts as that was the clear priority.
If any college student wants sympathy, it's in the dictionary between sh!t and syphilis.

"Social science". Stuff for people who can't write or think well enough for liberal arts, and can't do math either, because math is well, um, er, hard. A degree for people who are breathtakingly stupid, yet also too lazy to be of any practical value.

As a dad who financially supported a child through one of those absolutely useless "sociology" degrees - let me lend my "amen" to this subject.

Once this child finally got that piece of toilet paper to hang on the wall I finally said "now, you are going to enrol in a Tech school and earn a diploma that will actually make you "EMPLOYABLE:!!!

So, with some 40K in student loan debt this kid of mine finally went to work in a real job but only because of the Tech school diploma.

The really interesting thing about getting this "diploma" from the tech school - my child to me that the work involved in getting this diploma was far greater than any work that had to be done to earn the university degree.

Interesting, huh?

KevinB 6:15 - This is a huge pet hate of mine, thank you for putting it so succinctly. Says me:

*Education is meant to be FREE, Gratis, in Advanced Western Societies. But it ain't when you're unemployable without a BA.

*The majority of people aren't scholarly. This doesn't mean they're stupid. It might mean they're too bright or restless for University. It might mean they have lives to get on with. These people shouldn't be put in a position where they feel they need to go to University.

*Then again lots of people ARE stupid. They shouldn't go to University either.

*Since far too many people now go to University, standards at the academy are in the toilet. In fact in most cases it's basically inadequate remedial for the ruined high-school system.

*The Universities are very left wing and useless. They serve to extend adolescence grotesquely.

*This whole thing benefits nobody but the professoriat. Do NOT get me started about how they waste their time.

Bitter, moi? Mais non. I have a B.A. I have the makings of an M.A. I've got a tenured prof. in the very immediate family. I don't care, I agree with me.

OMG! I traced it back to the original article, (whose comments are now closed because I sure wanted my shot at the jerk)

What scared me were the comments.

"we as a NATION need to support our next leaders of the future, ie college students"
I would much rather have a leader who understands,
A. Education is an investment.
B. It is not the only investment you can make.
C. risk/reward profiles apply to all decisions, not just stocks.
D. Investments made with borrowed money should be as low a risk as possible.

None of which requires a College Degree.

"I’ve been out of school since ‘95 and sadly still have over $30,000 in school loan debt. Currently, it’s in forbearance because I can’t afford the monthly payment. Sallie Mae’s advice, “Go get a second job.” Easier said than done these days. The government seems to be really good at eating other people’s debts these days…let them eat mine."

Why should we (taxpayers) do that? How many people do YOU employ? How much is your loan hurting economic liquidity? None? Thought so.

"An excellent point——–I’m still paying for school loans for one of my children—–and I believe that I will make it to Arlington National Cemetery before the coupon book ends——-we help the next generation by bailing out corporations of greed——and in return—-give the bill to the recent college graduates——no good deed goes unpunished——does it?"
Your choice dude, if my kids need loans, they will be paying them back. I like to call it personal responsibility.

"What’s worse is that our Government won’t allow us to get rid of student loans in Bankruptcy court"
Right so every broke new college grad can graduate, file chapter 7, and start a new life with free education. A sure way to keep interest rates down on student loans is to make them extremely high risk right?

"I agree 100%! My husband and I do not pay near as much as you Samantha, but our combined monthly student loan payment is as much as car or house payment!"
Ahhh remember the days when students buckled down, took jobs, and worked their way through college, instead of drinking, partying, and going to protests.....

"Oh! and I forgot to say to the people who are blaming us for taking student loans we can’t afford: NEXT TIME YOU GO TO SEE YOU DOCTOR, OR NEED A LAWYER OR AN ACCOUNTANT REMEMBER THEY HAD TO TAKE LOANS TOO. NOT EVERYBODY IS RICH. WE ALL HAVE THE RIGHT TO GET EDUCATED IN WHAT WE WISH!!!!!!!!

SELFISH!"

Wow! doctors, lawyers people who majored in stuff that MADE MONEY to pay back the loan. Education is an investment anybody? Risk/reward profile for Lawyers and Doctors is favorable. This slaps in the face everyone who made responsible decisions, responded to economic demand, pursued a financially rewarding career, whether it be their dream career or not, so they could pay back their loans and have a bright future for themselves and their family. "WE ALL HAVE THE RIGHT TO GET EDUCATED IN WHAT WE WISH!!!!!!!!" Not really, you have a right to pursue whatever education you can afford.

This totally depresses me. This is just wrong. If you want to make personal decisions, than take personal responsibility. I know this is heading toward.. "The guvment should pay for college..." Don't be surprised that when that socialism happens, the guvment also chooses your major based off what the guvment wants you to be, regardless of personal interest.

OK. Why does the throb in my big toe tell me that she would have been better off working for 2 years for free as a "production assistant"?

BTW: KevinB, why should any employer expect tangible results? ... our biggest employer doesn't.

Sam is a victim of poor counseling both parental and on the day she hit the campus and no adult came forward to spell out the realities of college career paths. Colleges are more than willing to create useless studies and degrees, the more warm gullible bodies, the more money that fills their coffers. It's a crime to graduate anyone with a degree in women's studies. I recently met a kid in a create-your-own-degree program that had coupled "environmental" with something as broad and useless as his degree. Where are the adults in this picture?

But, poor pathetic whining Sam does have options like learning a good trade, a small business start up, joining the military or just sucking it up and dealing with it.

Right on, Kevin B.

Ural:
BTW: KevinB, why should any employer expect tangible results? ... our biggest employer doesn't.

Sorry to appear a bit thick, but I don't really get your point. Would you care to elaborate?

I may just run against the flow. This issue (College degrees) is the fundamental problem facing our society & the economy. The existing generation of graduates are not stupid or unusually irresponsible (I call them Crack heads but I actually feel sorry for them)

The simple fact is more and more career paths will be flat-lined before the student graduates. The world job market is saturated for Lawyers, Engineers, Mathematicians, (unless they are brilliant) the old run of the mill job doesn't exist in private industry. Those that are coming into the Job Market are blind sided with that reality. Several Career changes have been the norm for ~20 years in the US. The CNN facility (Sam works) most likely has 1 in 10 that are employed in their “chosen” profession.

So I agree with KevinB & Sam, we have to change the system. The Brits don't pay for thier school tie, unless its very prestigious and it's big enough to hide stupid.

Take a look at Japan.. KevinB, the 3 & 4 year are party time for Engineering, the employing Corporations preferring to provide their own “focused” point of view of science. I am not sure it’s the best idea because engineering becomes a team concept such
that no one engineer understands the complete package (we do that deliberately for military contracts)

Like Sam I studied for a field that would lead to low pay and not much chance of a future. Unlike Sam I paid for it by working construction in the summer and bussing tables after class in the winter.
Like Sam I realised that my chosen career would not pay. Unlike Sam I went into trades and made a good living wile keeping my previous career as a hobby.
At 20 I grew up, at 23 Sam has not.
Now I have raised a family, own a home with my wife and can soon enjoy a pension. Sorry Sam, sucks to be you.

I bet he's a democrat. Perhaps he could get work with acorn.

Tim: your story is so true. There are so many academics who run a factory not a school. A factory in useless degrees that go nowhere except for a few who get in on the professorship gravy train. The enticement takes in many students who do not have a firmly defined career path planned out. How about a Science degree course majoring in environmental crap, or as was popular in the 70's, Astronomy. Jobs for a few every year in North America but not for thousands.
I think Sam is about to grow up.

Here's an interesting idea: Instead of government handouts and such for poor Sam and her ilk, we go the way the military does it. For every year at school learning you have to repay that year in service. Four years for Nursing or Engineering would be paid off with four years working in that field for the government or approved employer.

My daughter is going through nursing and is building up debt as a result. Since healthcare is a government thing in Canada, the chances she will work for some government agency is pretty darn good. If she wants to go for the big money down south or elsewhere then she can, after serving her time (sounds bad, eh) or repaying a portion of the money spent educating her.

The only down side is if, heaven forbid, the Lieberanos get back in power then there will be a plethora of socialologists, art historians, etc in the simple service rather than doctors, nurses, engineers and plumbers.

The government is giving out citizen's money to its friends.

This girl just wants to be recognized as another deserving friend.

She's given no more thought to the consequences of politically motivated debt forgiveness than dope dealers give to the the effects of their hustle on the economy of Mexico.

Me ... me ... me ...

Reference all the Gen-Y bashing and a comment I made at the source...lets make a bit of distinguishment shall we? We (gen Y)are also the ones dying on the frontlines in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

So Junker, when you say 'we are also the ones dying on the frontlines', how many tours have you served in Iraq/Afghanistan?

If the answer is one or more, thank you for your service.

If you're just a snivelling liberal arts student, trying to make a point, you're an idiot.

Junker?
Really?
I've had to listen to recruiters and basic trainers whine about your generation of "I want it now or I'm gonna bounce" entitleist attitudes for the past few years. I am thankful for every member of any generation that makes a commitment to serve. But a large number of the gen y'ers need to grow up and take some personal responsibility, and realize the world does not revolve around them.

Not an arts student, no.

And were those recruiters veterns of Cyprus or The Hindu Kush and Falluja?

You'll find we actually agree on the issue at hand. And I don't want to sound combative, just playing devils advocate; lets not lump my entire generation into one.

Same old story of the generation gap I suppose.

Wasn't it Orwell who said:

"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."

Astute chap.

Indiana,
Thousands of kids do go to college today and - for all intents and purposes - do major in sports. These are the kids who play football and B-ball, but never attend classes because they are sure they will make a mint in the NFL or NBA.

Mos Deafdog

True, but that athlete finds a job in the private sector selling shoes like Al Bundy, he doesn't get nor feel entitled to high paying job because he's entitled.

To answer your question, yes they were.

The Army has had to liberally use the 8 year minimum total service rules in order to make up for low enlistment numbers coming from gen y, a rule which affects primarily gen x enlistments and commissions. Again it seems gen x is required to do the heavy lifting and pick up the slack. No I don't think gen x is all that, we have our own significant faults, no I am not blaming you, nor gen y in reality, I blame gen W for being overprotective parents. IMHO too much individual focus (0 failure, everyone is special and important etc. etc.) as children instilled this sense of selfishness and entitlement, and substantially diminished the sense of service to community.

We (gen Y)are also the ones dying on the frontlines in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

The ones whining about repaying their loans aren't. And you don't want to be stuck with them in your unit.

but that athlete finds a job in the private sector selling shoes like Al Bundy, he doesn't get nor feel entitled to high paying job because he's entitled.

For every ballplayer who graduates and gets a job, there's a half dozen who don't. Occasionally you see them in the news, overdosing or being arrested. Mostly, when the school is finished using them for publicity, they just disappear back to the hoods they came from, no better off than before.

Time for universities to put away the fiction of the "student athlete" and start paying them.

I reread my own post and realized I was being a hypocrite as I myself was educated at taxpayer expense (US Naval Academy). So lets explore the success of socialized college education that takes place at Service Academies, that

1. Service obligation. Service Academies typically require 5 years of service in a combat discipline to repay those taxpayers who footed the bill for your degree.
2. Four years, that is what you get. Can't graduate in that time? Too bad, item one still applies, so get to work paying back the people.
3. Majors, UC Berkeley 300+ Degree programs, US Naval Academy 21 majors and no Journalism is not on the list. We're paying for this, and, that's right, you WILL major in what WE think is useful.
4. Curriculum. OOOh so you want to major in English or PoliSci eh, sure those are on the list; No problem, but you still need to graduate with a BS degree (Yes a BS in English, no I'm not kidding), so brace yourself for 3 semesters of calculus, 2 sem physics, 2 sem chemistry, 1 sem electrical engineering, 1 sem thermodynamics, 2 sem systems engineering, 1 sem statistics. You WILL have rudimentary understanding of the physical world when you leave, like it or not.
5. Spare time...heh, heh, heh, what's that? no you may not hold down your own job, we have plenty of activities planned for you, in your "spare time" to help grow you as a leader.
6. Did I mention you may only leave campus when WE say you can, which will be far less than you'd like too. Your job is school, you should be at school making the most of OUR investment in YOU.

Alternatively to the Service Academy model is the relatively free model associated with personal responsibility and self direction. But in that world you are expected to stand behind all those decisions and agreements YOU made.
Socialism = Servitude
Freedom = Responsibility

Gen Xer

Trust you read the Orwell quote? :)

Your thoughts, and the thoughts in general about a "sense of selfishness and entitlement" are well taken. Its seems today there is never a shortage of things for folks to complain about. This isn't enough, that isn't fast enough, I deserve more(the theme of this post).

What's amazing about this is that it is all taking place in a society that has more wealth and oppulence and freedom than any other society in history. By far....its not even a near run thing. Given the choice to live anywhere at any time in history and every single one of us would choose here, and now(yeah yeah, I know, I've heard it all about the "good old days", but I doubt many seriously would wish to return to them).

Maybe its a sympton of our own wealth, or wealthy societies in general. Maybe it leads to our downfall someday.

Yes I read the Orwell quote. Genius, but I stopped short of agreeing with it. The current spread of living generations seems so radically confused, such that the voices of each seem to have evolved on different planets. We ALL need a lot more time with our history books IMHO.

Maybe I'm just the exception that proves the rule but...
Entered the liberal arts in university knowing full well that I could not expect to be paid as much as other graduates, cause there's not a lot of demand for historians who focus on Augustan Rome. Because I knew that my field wasnt a high-demand or high-paying one, I worked every single summer from age 16 on as an intern and worked every weekend as a waitress or a salesgirl in a clothing store and managed to get a couple of little scholarships and only once asked my parents for help after a class overseas exhausted my savings. I got a credit card with a small limit and have built up phenominal credit for a person my age and I will graduate debt free (aside from a car payment which I make diligently) because, knowing that my pay after graduation would not be much, I refused to be saddled with debt and I refuse to lose sleep over money.
As lovely as a higher education is, a liberal arts degree just isnt a saleable asset, and those who choose to become art history majors or sociology majors need to remember that.

Hmm,, I don't know, my generation was expected to get out of the house by 18, now days they are 40, still w/mom, working on a degree, and looking for a place.