Interesting: Curiouser and Curiouser

Sun AM, it was 19 degrees when I ran.  That's still cold enough to be bundled up a bit.  Yesterday afternoon when Carrie and I ran, it was 70 degrees at 4:00.  Hey, 50 degrees warmer!  Hooray!  The only downside was, as ideal as 70 degrees sounds, it really felt warm, for both of us.  I was "schweating" quite freely.  "I'm really hot," said Carrie.  But it was good to get out there in shorts and tee shirts, I think only the second time since Thanksgiving or so.  This AM's run met the upper 50s, shorts and a long-sleeved tee.  Will it last?

In a book I'm reading, I had to chuckle at this one:  Speaking of an attorney, "he was a man of such integrity he threatened to single-handedly give all lawyers a good name."  OK, I don't subscribe to the view that all lawyers are bad, but it was pretty funny.

And the older I get, the less I understand of some things.  For instance, I was reminded of this the other day and can't at all fathom it.  How can a pregnant Muslim woman strap on a suicide vest and kill herself and her baby?  For that matter, how can parents send their kids to get candy from US and other coalition troops, their kids with grenades in their hands?  How and why do parents do that?  If it's due to their religious beliefs, then maybe a lot more inspection and teaching about radical Islam needs to be undertaken.

Yet more articles, likely thanks to the blathering of Bernie Sanders, about free college education, at least tuition.  Of course, it wouldn't be free.  Oh, I see the lure.  Getting away from the community colleges, higher education costs far too much.  Getting a degree with tens of thousands of dollars of debt (note the three "of"s!) accompanying it is not good.  But "free?"  First, a college education results in a lifetime increase of more than a $1,000.000 vs a high school diploma.  This "free" business actually costs taxpayers.  That million bucks over a lifetime--do the taxpayers get any of that?  Heh Heh--of course they don't.  Second, why don't people look at the federal gov't's role in higher college costs, namely, the feds taking on the primary role in loans?  With the fed gov't ensuring payments, colleges were/are free to increase costs, without concern for the effect on students' pocketbooks/  Third, colleges in the '80s and '90s rushed to build new buildings, with all the lastest technology and gizmos, regardless of cost.  Now, those mortgages have to be paid; those high loans are coming due.  Today's students, granted maybe benefiting from this building/expansion, are paying for it.  Fourth. I think many full-time professors don't work enough.  That is, they don't teach enough classes.  If, say, a professor has a full-load, he/she is teaching, actually in the classroom, maybe 12 or 15 hours a week.  If anyone knows, it's me, but there are many hours of work outside the classroom.  But, c'mon......12 or 15 hours of teaching in a week?  That still would leave 25 to 28 hours for grading papers, preparing lessons, research, etc.  (BTW, if professors are researching on the colleges' dimes/time, shouldn't they also pay the colleges for income received for published books?  After all, they were getting paid by the colleges while researching and writing!)  And my guess (but I think it's a reasoned guess) is that many professors do not assign essays very often, if at all, that many of them are now using Scan-trons or something similar, where machines grade.  Of course, at the big universities there are graduate- and teaching-assistants to grade, copy, etc.  Again, 12-15 hours of teaching in a week?  Gee, I remember back in the "olden days," at the high school--30 hours a week!
Fifth, surely we must agree that students have far more "stuff" than in the past.  Drive past any college or university, a residential one, and check the student parking lots.  Hmmm......  Is it now a requirement for students to have cars?  Note, too, all of their technology, the latest in computers, phones, and all the rest--top of the line, expensive.  Going back to Amherst about 10 years ago for the first time in 30+ years, two things surprised me, a great deal.  One was the amount of student vehicular traffic.  The main intersection in town is a constant traffic jam.  The other was the number and variety of restaurants.  Back when, we had a few bars and grinder/pizza shops.  There were a couple of restaurants, but not many.  Now there are a whole slue of them, various ethnic restaurants, too.  The small town is blighted with them!  I guess a logical question is, "Are students getting loans so they can have cars, get the latest technology, eat at these restaurants, etc.?"

Last, but not least, I heard, but haven't confirmed, that Obama isn't going to travel to Calif for Nancy Reagan's funeral.  How small of the man!  What can he possibly be doing that takes precedence?  Yet another golf outing?  A fund-raiser?  That he didn't attend Justice Scalia's funeral was indicative of Obama's character or lack of it.  Now, this.  Wasn't this the President who was going to bring us all together?  Instead, he has created a greater gap between people, setting one group against another.  We are more divided than at any time in the recent past.  As little as I think of Carter as a President, at least he was a decent man.  I wonder if history will rank Obama with Buchanan, A. Johnson, and Harding.  Somehow I doubt it.  I know, I know.  That makes me a......