For the Patron's Saint Name of Frick

I'd bet the farm she also voted for Obamassiah and plans to do so again.

Although I have a lot of sympathy for the working poor, when your job doesn't pay enough, you need to be looking for one that does or finding a second job. While you're still employed. It sucks but so many of the facts of life do, especially if you're a liberal.

"Her take-home pay is $900 a month, of which $750 goes to rent. Each week, she spends $40 on gas to get her to the campus; she lives 43 miles away, where housing is cheaper."

Move closer to where you work,dear,and if you can't find a cheap place to rent,live in a dumpster,it's free. Think of it as "pioneering".

I guess the reason so many people make stupid choices,is because they are stupid. $900 a month!

At 43 she's still got lots of time left. Go take a six month welding course,then you can start on the Keystone Pipeline at about $25 an hour.

And don't forget to vote for Obama this Fall.

I suppose sending her a copy of "Worthless" would not help her situation,but she may be able to pass it on to one of her students.

Most of their problems are a result of the government they voted for. As the saying goes.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. Mencken

"Food-stamp use increased from an average monthly caseload of 17 million in 2000 to 44 million people in 2011, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Web site. Last year, one in six people—almost 50 million Americans, or 15 percent of the population—received food stamps."

No wonder the Obama-Nation is called out as the 'food stamp President'...those kind of statistics are appalling.

Cheers

Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief

1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”

This article has three different stories.Their names; Ms. Bruninga-Matteau, Mr. Stegall,and Ms. Hawkins-Sledge .

People with hyphenated names always seem to be messed up or are trying to mess up your life.
I wonder if I can get a gov't grant to study my theory.

Yeah well life has taught me to deal in reality.

When I omited education after secondary school from my resume.....I easily found very gainful employment driving a rig. Warm in the winter...air conditioned in summer.........

The storal to the morrey is get into something that has demand.....

But then there comes a time wether you chose to retire or not...you are....that's reality.

Ms. Bruninga-Matteau is a failure because she has the minimum qualification in her field - a PhD. The MAs are shoveling cow patties. If she wants tenure and a real job she needs to get off her food stamp padded rear and publish some meaningful literature that really adds to the field and not off on some pop culture tangent. If she is offering herself as a peg to fill a hole she needs to learn to accept what she can get. If she transforms herself into an acknowledged expert in something, she will find herself in demand.

If Obama eliminated all food stamps how many people in the U.S. would starve to death?

My guess?

0

It kind of remands me of the less than average looking drama majors and wonder what makes them think they will ever have a job in the real world where actors are good looking people. Not everyone can work for CBC.

Of course she's tatooed.

She's got it backwards. "Defunding of higher education" is not the problem. The hideous metastisization of higher education is.

The world doesn't need very many PhDs in Medieval History.

When it comes to the situation Ms. Bruninga- Matteau and her child find themselves in, as the Captain would say; " The father was not available for comment". Maybe all those highly paid professors she works with could take 2% of their pay and give it to her. It would be the "Obama" thing to do.

PhD. in Medieval History. 'Nuff said.

WTH, a PhD in Medieval History ? Would have made more money with a 2-year associate in Medical Records. Or, Hey, the McDonald's heya locally is advertising 'Manager Wanted'.

I'm sorry to see the cheap sneers on the lips of some of the commenters. Those whom you advise to live in dumpsters or become truck drivers are ambitious citizens who want to work. They have invested years in their qualifications and are willing to start at the bottom of their profession. They are no more worthy of your contempt than factory workers who have been rendered surplus thanks to globalization or automation.

To some extent, they are victims of their own optimism in believing that they will be among the few who will hit the tenured jackpot. Those tenured royalty who served as their advisors and who didn't warn them about the job market and those departments who are prepared to exploit them for coolie wages are also to blame.

As for "Scar's" advice to Dr Bruninga-Matteau to publish her way to fame, I will stop laughing long enough to tell him that even with a string of publications as long as her tattooed arm, the odds of a white, second-career academic with a PhD from a third-tier university getting a tenure-track job are about the same as winning the lottery on consecutive Sundays. I can guarantee Scar that the world is full of "acknowledged experts" with doctorates whose noses are pressed up against the window looking in.

During the '81 recession we had a fellow on the labour crew working heavy construction, his PhD was in metallurgy...

There are still some who, when pressed, will seek employment rather than a hand out...

Cheers

Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief

1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”

Why is a 51 year old man with two kids working as an adjunct while writing his dissertation. Hell, he might as well be training for a job in the NFL.

That you can do what you want and have it all is one of the greatest lies ever told. Finish school before you're 25--get a job, save some money and get ready to whisked out of the workforce at 50-55. Nobody, not even a third rate community college is going to hire a 43 year old much less a 51 year old with a newly minted degree!!

UCal PhD is equivalent to 1960 high school grad. The quicker she gets over the "I'm highly educated" crap the better.

She is overpaid and needs to seek retraining in a real job.

Enjoy the Obama depression.

" they are victims of their own optimism "

No,they are the victims of their lack of math skills.
Over a 20 year tenure that prof will graduate possibly 200 students and there is one position every 20 years available. The odds aren't good.

Medieval History is a course that should be taken by those with an interest in the subject,not as a career choice.

DrG,
I disagree about them being ambitious. They got along, delayed getting real jobs by going to school endlessly. They refused to consider the cost of student loans and whether there was enough ROI on getting a doctorate in medieval history degrees.

Factory workers who demanded evermore wage increases and benefits priced themselves out of the market.

I suppose sending her a copy of "Worthless" would not help her situation, but she may be able to pass it on to one of her students.

Oh, don't bother. Criticism is not something this woman has ever taken well. Googling "Melissa Bruninga-Matteau" is a treat.

You'll find, among other delights, an (unrelated) article about the "bullying epidemic," quoting as gospel her unverifiable anecdotes about being teased by her classmates. Their veracity is of little importance; what is clear is that from day one she really was the sort of stupid spoiled princess who was too busy stuffing her head with bad fantasy novels and her mouth with Cheetos to stand a chance of ever finding a husband with a disposable income or surviving at all outside her father's basement, except on welfare or the kindness of strangers.

Of course she has a blog. I'll leave you to your own devices to find it, if you must---there's little there but liberal platitudes and whinging about how she keeps getting passed over for bartending jobs in favour of younger women with better attitudes and healthier weights. (Naturally, to her mind she's "overqualified.")

She does let slip that her teenager has "ADHD and trichotillomania." In other words, the child is a lunatic with a particular penchant for pulling the hair out of his head.

The reasons why the child might be a harder case than the mother is less a mystery than the particulars of how he was conceived at all.

Her lot will NEVER improve, unless SHE does something about it.

Welfare won't get up to $80-120,000/year in her lifetime.

Harvard sure has some good pot.

$900 income, minus ($750/month rent + 4 x $40/week gas) = $(10) month. Math is hard!

Too bad she didn't minor in Victorian literature along with her medieval history. Then she might have been exposed to this little gem of Dickensian wisdom:

"My other piece of advice, Copperfield," said Mr. Micawber, "you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."

No, it's not math skills: it is optimism. Such people know the odds; they believe either that they will beat them or, even if they don't, their life was better spent as a grad student than as an aesthetician or spot welder. Given the hostility level of comments on this particular story, the under-employed PhDs probably found more sympathetic companionship in the student lounge than they would at the Bessborough on Wet T-Shirt Night.

As for Dr Bruninga-Matteau's colourful personality, don't think for a second that her attitudes or body markings disqualify her for a job in higher education. The halls of academe are full of those at the margins of sanity.

And as for those who curl their lips at medieval historians, let me say that a society can never have too many of us (though certainly the economy has little need of any.) We are a merry, industrious bunch with a love of ale and wine and the ability to tell jokes with punchlines in Latin. Invite one out for a beer and discover that for yourself.

Problem is that wage expectations in North America are now highly inflated. You are poor if you don't own a plasma TV and an iPhone.

The simple hard truth is that many of these people who get degrees in useless subjects are just trying to escape from their truth worth. Universities are like snake oil salesman peddling elixirs that will magically inflate your worth. The typical professor in woman's studies for example wants all these suckers in her class because it pays her salary, important because she too is worth very little in the open market.

The lady in question probably should be cleaning houses, and only for $40/day.

We have this enormous fear in North America of paying people for what their actual contribution to society is worth. Indeed governments would rather borrow trillions from future generations than admit this fact. But the system will collapse eventually.

To be honest I think all these unemployed students who spent big bucks on their education should launch a class-action lawsuit against universities for fraud.

She's "Entitled" doncha know?

The halls of academe are full of those at the margins of sanity.Geez,I hope that's not a selling point.

Could her problem stem from the fact that she has a Ph.D. in Medieval history? What's her other major? Basket weaving?

If she had a PhD in 'Recent history' she's realize that a PhD in Medieval history is worth bugger all.

she's "educated", which does not translate to smart

the ability to tell jokes with punchlines in Latin. Invite one out for a beer and discover that for yourself.

Yeah, I can hardly wait.

We've found Julia!

Don't like women much, do you, Dick Slater? I hope you realize this blog is run by one.

The real villains here are the academics who realized that there was untold $$$ to be had in convincing the middle class that a degree is a must have (which necessarily entailed the dumbing down of the entire "higher education" culture), and that their lives were easier and more fun with masses of frightened, ambitious graduate students desperate to please. (I would be very interested to know how many profs bonk their grad students, and how many of those students go along with it out of fear for their careers.) What TJ said is worth repeating: "To be honest I think all these unemployed students who spent big bucks on their education should launch a class-action lawsuit against universities for fraud."

DrG, Medieval history is fascinating; the problem here is that someone told this woman that studying it was profitable. (I bet she don't know no Latin, though.)

I wonder if she's considered discovering an Indian quadruple-great grandparent. Couldn't hurt.

" an Indian quadruple-great grandparent. Couldn't hurt. "

You bet,I'm on my way to Yale with less.

Problem is that wage expectations in North America are now highly inflated.

Riding the bus home Friday from my barely more than minimum wage job (1 of 2 I currently have), I hear two young people talking behind me. The young woman is saying "They offered me a course in auto body repair. I said 'How much will I make?' and they say $14-15/hr to start, and after 10 or 15 years, you can get up to $20-25. If I'm going to work at something for 10 or 15 years, I wanna make $50, $60, $70 bucks an hour".

I was sorely tempted to turn around and say "$50/hour works out to $97,500 a year. Only 1 in 20 Canadians with a job makes that much. Do you seriously think you're worth more than 19 out of 20 other people?", but of course, my mother taught me more manners than that. However, I did look at the young woman, and while "fat and ugly" would be a completely unfair characterization, so would "slim and attractive". It would be churlish to speculate on her relative level of intelligence based on a single snippet of conversation, so I shan't do that either. But I will store this in my version of Kate's "the children are our future" file.

wallyj, there's an update on the pertinent thread.

Dear Gaylord (and how apt a name is that?):

Since we are unlikely to meet for a beer, here is that joke I promised, stolen from a Wayne & Schuster sketch of the 1960s.

A medieval historian goes into a bar.

"What'll it be?" asks the bartender.

"A martinus," says the professor.

"Don't you mean martini?"

"If I wanted more than one I'd ask for more than one."

BM, I am disappointed. I suppose it makes sense that having a little indian in you is better than having been in a little indian. Oh well,life goes on,maybe a Quebec school has a place for me.

Black Mamba: Kate earns her keep by honest labour, depends on her brains for her bread, and finds the time to run a successful conservative blog, which by rights should have won her Warren Kinsella's Sun column long ago. She also hasn't, as far as I know, misbegotten a pup with no prospects beyond being a public charge like its mother.

If you must defend a woman's honour, you have plenty of other, much better options.

DrG - stop. You're killing me.

Oooooh, I don't know. What kind of schnauzer pup would Kate define as "misbegotten"? Hardly my area of expertise.

You don't like women, or black people, or all the vast quantities of us poor sinners whom you're sure will be tormented in hell as the angels rejoice. I used to think you were a Moby Dick troll, trying to discredit the blog, but now I'm leaning towards "Ian Paisley on 'shrooms, amusing himself online while his nurses take a smoke break". At any rate this is Kate's blog and the Captain's thread, so I'll leave it.

Here is comedian David Steinberg's old routine about taking an exam when you are so clueless, you don't even understand the question:

(As if reading the test question:) "Refute the allegation that the literature of the middle ages was moribund."
(As if writing:) "Some believe that the literature of the middle ages was moribund. Some believe that the literature of the middle ages was not moribund. I believe that the literature of the middle ages was not moribund. In order to refute the allegation that the literature of the middle ages was moribund, one would need to have a detailed knowledge of the literature and history of that period."

The article states: Ms. Bruninga-Matteau does not blame Yavapai College for her situation but rather the "systematic defunding of higher education." In Arizona last year, Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed a budget that cut the state's allocation to Yavapai's operating budget from $4.3-million to $900,000, which represented a 7.6 percent reduction in the college's operating budget. The cut led to an 18,000-hour reduction in the use of part-time faculty like Ms. Bruninga-Matteau.

Must be using midieval math too.

Medieval....but you all knew that.

Yes, a PhD in Medieval History was not the wisest choice. Bear in mind, she would have started this venture easily 10 or 12 years ago or so when it was not so obvious that there were not going to be many jobs in the humanities. Part of the problem is that the job market is a moving target. Not so long ago there was a race for people to get computer skills (programming, etc.). Now I know people with specialties in technical areas and they too cannot find jobs in their field. Another issue is that people usually need to find some complement for their skills -- if she is not good at math, she is not going to be an engineer. Finally, universities keep enticing people as they themselves need bums in seats in order to survive. It's a scam, for sure, but it will take a few years for everyone to realize it.

I think it's great when you can follow your interests but there is so much garbage out there that this should be done on ones own time with money earned from a real job. Expectations derived from some of these crap degrees show the mindset of the entitlement generation and the end result of everyone being special. There should be mandatory warnings that many degrees won't even get you a job at Walmart.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/08/29/living/bizarre-college-courses-mf/index.html?hpt=hp_bn8

Consider for a moment what would happen to these individuals being subsidized in their (financially) unsustainable career paths if they were cut off food stamps by nature of their being fit to work in fields more in demand. Two things would happen. First, many would have to change careers and second, the shortage created by their moving on would allow someone perhaps better qualified to take on more teaching tasks sufficient to make a living. IOW, subsidizing unsustainable activities begets more unsustainable activities.

Um, Yavapai College? Seriously? Medieval PHd? In Indian land? OMFG. What is she thinking.

She needs to RELOCATE. I am sure one of the west or east coast universities could use her services at a much higher salary.

A couple of fries short of a Happy Meal if you ask me.