Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:
7PM: Radio Kos with McJoan
Joan “McJoan” McCarter joins us for our weekly chat with the folks at Daily Kos. Topics of discussion will include the GOP YouTube debate, a status report on the presidential race, and a look ahead to the issues that will drive the 2008 election.
8PM: Do all kids deserve a shot at a college education?
Polly Trout and Anttimo Bennett join us from Seattle Education Access to talk about their innovative programs to give all kids a shot at college education.
9PM: Is it time for government to get out of the marriage business?
That’s what Evergreen State College history professor Stefanie Coontz argues in a guest column in the Seattle PI. She is the author of Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage.
Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).
Does a plumber need a college education?
Huge mistake to think college is necessary or even good for all kids. In fact, for many it’s both a waste of time and money, but also a waste of their talents and passions.
Besides, I’ll bet a journey-level plumber makes more in a day than most college grads make in a week…
The Piper
Why shouldn’t a plumber know as much about law, economics, history, literature, business, and political science as you?
Baghdad’s Christian leaders say things are worse now for Iraq’s Christians than at any time in the last 2,000 years.
Waytago wingfuck fubars!
@2…RR…
Why shouldn’t you know as much about union couplings, pea traps, and backflow valves as a plumber?
When a pipe bursts, I want a skill plumber, and his opinion about whether Moliere is as good as Etheridge.
Given that most plumbers are extremely well paid, their innate business sense is superior to anyone who’d waste an entire career as a government lawyer.
But the bottom line is why MUST the apprentice study whether Emerson was the better Brahmin than, say, Charles Sanders Pearce or O.W. Holmes?
The world doesn’t need more over-educated, under-employed bitter barristas or video store clerks with B.A.’s in Romance Languages or anthropology. But we sure do need lots more good plumbers!
And electricians, tile and terrazo workers, masons, carpenters, chefs, and others…No bachelor’s degree required for these.
The Piper
“From the time of Jesus, there have been Christians in … Iraq. … But now, after nearly 2,000 years, Iraqi Christians are being hunted, murdered and forced to flee — persecuted on a biblical scale in Iraq’s religious civil war.
” … [T]he vicar of Baghdad is … the Reverend Canon Andrew White, an Anglican chaplain who suffers from … a fanatical determination to save the last Iraqi Christians from the purge.
“‘The room is full of children, it’s full of women, but I don’t see the men. Where are they?’ Pelley remarked.
“‘They are mainly killed. Some are kidnapped. … In the last six months things have got particularly bad for the Christians. Here in this church, all of my leadership were … taken and killed,’ White explained. ‘All dead. …’
“Many Iraqi Christians’ churches are destroyed or abandoned. … White is among the last Christian ministers here ….
“‘You were here during Saddam’s reign. And now after. Which was better? Which was worse?’ Pelley asked.
“‘he situation now is clearly worse’ than under Saddam, White replied. ‘There’s no comparison between Iraq now and then,’ he told Pelley. ‘Things are the most difficult they have ever been for Christians. Probably ever in history. They’ve never known it like now.’
” … [U]nder Saddam, Christians were treated much the same as Muslims …. Before the war, … there were about a million Christians in Iraq. They were … free to worship, free to build churches, and free to speak … Aramaic. But, after the invasion, Muslim militants launched a war on each other and the cross. …
“The Iraqi Christian community, which had survived invasions by Mongols and Turks, was driven out under American occupation. … White estimates most of Iraq’s Christians have fled or been killed. Those still here are too old, too ill or too poor to run.”
Quoted under fair use; for complete story and/or copyright info see http://www.cbsnews.com/stories.....3612.shtml
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Waytagowingfucks!!! Another unintended consequence engineered by idiots who leaped without looking.
@4 Extremely well paid? What does a non-union plumber make? $15 an hour? If he’s lucky? I don’t know what the union plumbers make. I suppose around $25, maybe $30, an hour. But they don’t work year round. They don’t work when there’s no work. They don’t work when they’re injured, and plumbers get injured a lot, because there’s lots of heavy lifting. They don’t have stock options or paid vacations. It’s hard, dirty, filthy work. I imagine if you asked any plumber to trade places with you, he would if he could.
@4 “But the bottom line is why MUST the apprentice study whether Emerson was the better Brahmin than, say, Charles Sanders Pearce or O.W. Holmes?”
Nobody says he has to. College is voluntary. I know a plumber who has a college degree in classical music.
Here’s an interesting story about an MIT professor who runs a program to give laptop computers to poor kids in Third World countries — and how Intel is trying to undermine him. Another fucking outrage by the greedy for-profits.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories.....0058.shtml
@6…RR…
Median hourly rate for a Seattle journey-level plumber is $28.15. http://www.payscale.com/resear.....te/by_City
You called one lately? They charge steep, they enjoy their work, and they do pretty good. Plus, they don’t have student loans to pay, aren’t cooped up in offices, and very often work without supervision.
And plumbers are in demand 24/7/365. Pipes burst more in winter than summer.
You seem to think working with your hands is demeaning when that’s what a lot of people still do. In fact, you have a penchant for looking down your nose at anyone who is at all different than you. How curious is that?
The Piper
“The world doesn’t need more over-educated, under-employed bitter barristas or video store clerks with B.A.’s in Romance Languages or anthropology.”
So what, exactly, do you have against barristas and store clerks?
“They charge steep…” Really? That’s not much compared to doctors, dentists, lawyers, and accountants. But then we restrict the supply of those professions. Now why is that?
If there was any way Piper could find to outsource the plumber’s work and pay him dirt cheap, he’d be on board in a New York nanosecond.
No, what Piper wants is a plumber who works cheap and is so uneducated in other ways that he’ll be influenced to vote against his own best interests — vote Republican.
OR, why would a soldier who fights in Iraq need a college education? We can cheat them out of the college education we promised a wounded soldier by saying that he didn’t complete his tour, so he’s not entitled.
That’s what Bushevics do.
@7…RR…
And he probably makes much more than he would if he tried to be a classical musician.
College should be voluntary, but the point of the thread is “…to give all kids a shot at college education.” What if the kid wants to go to a voc-tech? Or enroll in an apprenticeship program? Or join the military? Why should only college-bound types benefit? Isn’t that typically short-sighted elitist thinking?
The Piper
#4 Piper Scott says:
Ouch.
Working for the government was a “safe” option.
@11…PTBAA…
Because those professions are self-regulated. Those who are already in control who can subsequently get in.
And because they educational and professional training required for them is extensive.
“We,” the general public, don’t restrict how many doctors, lawyers, etc. there are.
The Piper
@10…PTBAA…
Nothing in particular…except so many who are in those jobs consider themselves to be underemployed.
The Piper
@12…HL…
Typical…Stupid, off-point, snide, moronic, and one cliche after another.
The Piper
“Besides, I’ll bet a journey-level plumber makes more in a day than most college grads make in a week…”
A journey level plumber on prevailing wage public works makes roughly $45/hr., which included benefits like health care, retirement, etc. That’s less that $400/day. The median income of a college grad is $40,00/yr. So yeah, you got a bet, Piper. Let’s say $1,000?
Studies also show the non-monetary social benefits of college are substantial.
“We,” the general public, don’t restrict how many doctors, lawyers, etc. there are.
That is laughably untrue.
re 17: The point, Piper, is that a plumber does not need to be an ignorant stiff. Your position is that he doesn’t need a liberal education.
Who are you to make this determination.
You are the one with the hackneyed ideas.
Bozo.
“What if the kid wants to go to a voc-tech? Or enroll in an apprenticeship program? Or join the military?”
Typical elitist attitude. The point, Piper, was to widen access to a 4 year degree, not ‘make’ youngsters go to college. What is it about wingnuts that compells them to invoke straw men at the drop of a hat?
@ 16: “Nothing in particular…except so many who are in those jobs consider themselves to be underemployed.”
Really? On what evidence is this astounding assertion made? Anecdotal evidence gathered at the local strip mall?
“hackneyed
adjective
repeated too often; overfamiliar through overuse; “bromidic sermons”; “his remarks were trite and commonplace”; “hackneyed phrases”; “a stock answer”; “repeating threadbare jokes”; “parroting some timeworn axiom”; “the trite metaphor ‘hard as nails'”
If this is not a dead on description of the swill we get from, “The Piper”, I don’t know what is.
Piper = “bromidic sermons”
“bromidic – dull and tiresome but with pretensions of significance or originality” = “The Piper”
Loopy Piper: “Those who are already in control who can subsequently get in.”
That is part of the issue, but by no means all of it. Funny you do not rail against this fact when the discussion is about labor unions (i.e., acting to restrict labor supply in a simple economic model).
Now why is that?
The list goes on, Piper. Shall I continue?
Correction @ 26: “That is part of the issue, but by no means all of it. Funny you righties rail against this fact when the discussion is about labor unions (i.e., acting to restrict labor supply in a simple economic model).”
We regret the error above and, unlike Joe Klein, offer our abject apologies.
@21…PTBAA…
If you go back and read what this programs is supposed to do, you’ll find that it’s restricted to college, which is narrow and excludes those who don’t want to go. I find that elitist and almost knee-jerk in it’s “a college education is a path to success.”
Most kids who go to college don’t go to attain a classical liberal arts education, they go because it’s a ticket, they think, to a good job. Many times, it is, but too often it is not.
Frankly, as is the case most of the time anyway, it’s more the quality of the individual that matters as to whether the individual will be successful. Character counts.
The general public really doesn’t have much to do with the numbe of doctors or lawyers. Seats in medical and law schools are highly sought after, and were there more seats, there would be more students, hence more doctors and lawyers.
I have no kick with anyone who wishes starting a medical or law school. No skin off my nose, just so long as I don’t have to fund it. Then, let there be as many new docs and papers-draw-uppers as the market can absorb.
The Piper
So tell me Piper: How many rich kids sign up to be plumbers’ apprentices? I’d wager about zero, which makes mockery of your entire point. Elitist, indeed.
Again, you claim: “The general public really doesn’t have much to do with the numbe of doctors or lawyers.”
They most certainly do. Your claim is false.
“Frankly, as is the case most of the time anyway, it’s more the quality of the individual that matters as to whether the individual will be successful.”
Ah, yes. The poor are simply defective or ‘lacking in character’. And you call liberals ‘elitists’? Pretty funny.
Hey Pooper,
You should call in. It’s your opportunity to trash the “evil” Evergreen State with your right wing bullshit straight into the ear of one its Professors.
The whole world can hear what a brainwashed, talking points machine you are. We’ll all be thankful if you did that.
@30…PTBAA…
You tell me and we’ll both know: how does the general public regulate the number of doctors and lawyers?
My second son isn’t a plumber, he’s a remodel contractor, which is part carpenter, tile worker (he’s excellent in this area…so much so that people who’ve toured his flip houses look him up to do tile work), electrician, and plumber. I’m very proud of him! And he doesn’t have a four-year degree. Why should he? He’s happy, is increasingly successful, and enjoys his work; what’s not to like about that?
Are the poor lacking in character? You seem to think so or else you wouldn’t have raised the point. Since I don’t measure success merely by money, as you apparently do, I believe you can be a person of tremendous character who has little money.
Still, it’s character that drives you to do your best, work to improve your situation, provide for your family, make a difference in your community, sacrifice for your country, and generally leave the world a better place than you found it.
There are a lot of rich bums and a lot of struggling men and women of tremendous character.
The Piper
@32…YLB…
Would rather watch the Don Rickles retrospective on HBO…
Stephanie Koontz isn’t a credible authority on marriage and family…But that’s just my opinion.
The Piper
@9 “You seem to think working with your hands is demeaning when that’s what a lot of people still do. In fact, you have a penchant for looking down your nose at anyone who is at all different than you.”
Projecting again?
@11 We don’t restrict the supply of lawyers. Every university and its brother has opened a law school! That’s because law schools are tremendous cash cows with very low overhead compared to, say, a medical school. Consequently, the U.S. has a huge supply of lawyers, many of whom are not well paid and/or work in other occupations.
@13 Crackpiper, I think the intent of the comment is that no one who is capable of doing college-level study, and wants a college degree, should be denied the opportunity because of the socio-economic status of his/her parents.
Of course, this runs counter to conservative thinking, whose ideological constructs are built around the notion of inheritocracy, so I wouldn’t expect you to like the idea.
@14 Working for government is not a safe option. Your job and/or entire program can be eliminated; you may find yourself working under incompetent and/or crooked management; your position may be at risk with every administration change; you may fall victim to office politics/backstabbing; you may be shoved aside by gender and/or age politics; or, God forbid, you may make a MISTAKE, in which case, you are expected to commit seppeku.
@14 Spoken by someone whose only experience with government is bitching about having to help pay for it.
@17 “Stupid, off-point, snide, moronic, and one cliche after another.”
Pretty good description of you and Stamm.
@29 Piper never met a program to help the disadvantaged that he likes.
@33 “flip houses”
Ah yes, the Piper family business supports the American economy …
Condi Brings Wolfowitz Back Into Administration
Rice has appointed discredited neocon Paul Wolfowitz as chair of a State Department group that oversees disarmament, nuclear proliferation, and WMD issues. http://www.newsweek.com/id/73273
Yes, Virginia, They Really Are As Nuts As You Think They Are
“Ron Paul wants you to be scared. There’s … what he calls a ‘conspiracy …’ to give up America’s sovereignty. It’s a shadowy scheme that begins with the NAFTA ‘superhighway,’ a road as wide as several football fields that will link Mexico, the United States and Canada.
“‘They don’t talk about it and they might not admit it,’ Paul said at the … presidential debate last week.
“He didn’t say exactly who ‘they’ are, but perhaps one can guess. ‘They’re planning on [taking] millions of acres … by eminent domain,’ warned the prickly libertarian. But elected government officials aren’t acting alone. There’s ‘an unholy alliance of foreign consortiums and officials from several governments’ pushing the idea, Paul wrote in October 2006. ‘The ultimate goal is not simply a superhighway, but an integrated North American Union—complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union.’
“Only it’s not true.
“The main purveyor of this broad conspiracy theory is Jerome Corsi, coauthor of ‘Unfit for Command,’ the book that helped Swift Boat John Kerry’s presidential ambitions. His latest offering is ‘The Late Great U.S.A.: The Coming Merger With Mexico and Canada,’ which became a best seller on The New York Times’s business list this summer.
“Corsi plays on … nationalist fears. He sees a scenario in which a North American Union is born and shares a currency, the ‘amero.’ …
“Jed Babbin, editor of the conservative newspaper Human Events, says: ‘I guess there are people who believe in [the plan for a North American Union]. But there are people who believe in Bigfoot.’ …”
Quoted under fair use; for complete story and/or copyright info see http://www.newsweek.com/id/73372
Roger Rabbit Commentary: The fact anyone actually listens to these nuts is a sad commentary on what our country has become. Unfortunately, a significant number of gullible Americans (all of whom vote Republican) can no longer tell the difference between a novelist and journalism. In fact, I wonder if the media industry knows the difference.
And a badly written dime novel, at that.
Corsi’s reputation as a purveyor of fiction is secure.
“Conservative author and pundit Debbie Schlussel has accused Corsi of plagiarizing elements from columns that she has published, and subsequently posting them under his byline in his WorldNetDaily column.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.....ontroversy
Roger Rabbit Commentary: So how about it, all you rightys who very recently bashed Martin Luther King Jr.’s plagiarism, should Harvard revoke this guy’s degree?
“Corsi is also a prominent endorser of the concept of ‘abiotic oil’ production; the idea that oil is naturally produced underground through methods other than the scientifically-accepted process of converting biological material. This view is sometimes used to counter concerns over ‘peak oil’, but as yet has no demonstrable basis in fact.”
(same source as above)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This guy truly was matriculated in the womb of wingnuttery.
And how about that good old WingNut (TM) Humor (SM)?
“In August 2004, during Corsi’s cooperation with the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, the website Media Matters for America reposted a number of controversial comments some interpreted to be anti-Islam, anti-Catholicism, anti-semitic and anti-homosexuality made by Corsi at the forum threads of the Free Republic website, dating from 2001 through 2004. Corsi responded that the selected posts were failed attempts at humor ….”
(same quote as above)
Taking Credit Where It’s Not Due
And then there’s this …
“When questioned about his connection with Corsi … John O’Neill claimed that Corsi was not actually a co-author of the book Unfit for Command, but rather was ‘simply an editor.’ (‘Scarborough Country,’ Aug. 10, 2004; ‘Wolf Blitzer Reports,’ Aug. 11, 2004).”
(same source as above)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This is the kind of turd that wingnuts listen to when deciding how to vote. Which makes me think literacy tests might not be such a bad idea after all.
Before any of my liberal friends get too enamored of Rep. Paul, I think they should take a good hard look at who he’s fellow-traveling with.
Here’s a Newsweek article about Rudy Giuliani’s secret business relationship with an anti-U.S. Arab government. http://www.newsweek.com/id/73371
But none dare call it treason ….
Setting aside the GOP’s loyalty-challenged frontrunner, Governor Hick-A-Bee is ascending rapidly in GOP preference polls, but this guy has a ton of baggage not and should be pretty easy to grind into the dirt.
BREAKING NEWS — HUGO CHAVEZ LOSES CONSTITUTIONAL VOTE
“(CARACAS, Venezuela)—President Hugo Chavez suffered a stinging defeat Monday in a vote on constitutional changes that would have let him run for re-election indefinitely and solidify his bid to transform this major U.S. oil provider into a socialist state.
“Voters defeated the sweeping measures by a vote of 51 percent to 49 percent, said Tibisay Lucena, chief of the National Electoral Council …. She said that with 88 percent of the votes counted, the trend was irreversible.
“… Now, Chavez will be barred from running again in 2012.”
Quoted under fair use; for complete story and/or copyright info see http://www.time.com/time/world.....66,00.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Gonna be hard now for our wingnut friends to claim this election was rigged.