Kill me.

First, the data include those who earned their degrees years ago, prior to
the erosion of academic standards and the degradation of the curriculum
that has been accelerating over the last few decades. As the recent
National Assessment of Adult Literacy shows, the literacy of college
graduates has been declining. For example, today, only 31% of college
graduates reach the "proficient" level with regard to their comprehension of
prose, compared with 40% in 1992.

Ranting practice.

A post in Crooked Timber starts from an overheard conversation among two ROTC students and mocks them behind their backs. The money quote: Ah, screwit, I'll take the whole post:

The other day I overheard a conversation between two guys in ROTC at my school. They were talking about a public presentation about the war that one of them had been to the day before, where the speaker had asked rhetorically, “When has war ever solved anything?” The ROTC guy was fuming – hadn’t the speaker ever heard of Germany? He continued: “they all say they believe in free speech, but never want to hear opposing views.” This launched an extended whining session between the two of them on this theme, disregarding the salient fact that he hadn’t said anything when he had the chance to ask questions of the speaker.

My first reaction was to be surprised that ROTC guys had to reach back to WWII to find an example of an uncontroversially just war – it occurred nearly half-a-century before either of them was born. I mean, what are they teaching in ROTC these days?

But my second reaction was how easily they slipped into thinking of themselves as oppressed victims. I certainly can imagine that the environment of the presentation had been strongly anti-war, and a defense of the war may well have drawn a heated reaction and maybe even some “boo”s. But I find it impossible to believe that the ROTC guy would have felt seriously threatened in any way. He just didn’t want to risk the possibility of being ridiculed for his support of the war. This is what so much of the right is reduced to: crying that they’re being oppressed – these guys genuinely believed that their rights had been taken away – whenever they don’t find themselves in the majority.

Not to deny that there is a good deal of victimological whining on any campus, but unless there is more to the conversation that the author isn't saying. Looks to me like the two kids were whining that this event was
a waste of their time. Any speaker who says something as inane as “When has war ever solved anything?" is clearly a waste of time. A professor should know better than to say "show me a black swan" when (as we can see) both of these kids have one each in their dorm fridges. But many don't.

Well, wastes of time are one thing undergrads have a right to bitch about.

Cleaning out my mailbox.

If not for the sender being a guy with my ideal combination of cynicism, good judgement and general knowledge, I would disbelieve:

Another good one: "asset rental". There are companies out there that, for a fee of $5k or so, will "rent" you $100k just long enough to get a bank statement with your name and a $100k balance on it. Y'know, just to show the bank that you have cash on hand.

Further affiant sayeth not. I think I want to clean out my checking account to a minimum.

(no subject)

One more thing before I go to bed, because I want you all to be as neurotic as I am.