- DaddyBear’s college financing fix – Four years of public university study is free to the student, but we are going to put a 33% tax on the first 10 years of that student’s income that is more than double the national poverty level.
- It goes up to a 50% tax on any income if it takes you more than 10 years to get to that income level. This should incentivize folks to get a degree that leads to gainful employment and to get off their butts and get a job after graduation.
- You can get that tax rebated to you if, after five years of working at that income level, you quit and take a lower-paying, but important, job, such as social work or inner-city / rural teaching, for five years.
- We will defray the start-up and maintenance costs of the program by putting a 15% tax on the income of the top 10% most highly paid employees at state colleges and universities.
- I might even be amenable to a special tax on ‘instructors’ or ‘professors’ who do not devote 75% of their work week to personally giving instruction, grading student work, or meeting with students to work on their education.
- Participation is, of course, voluntary, but I don’t want to hear a peep about how unfair it is that folks have to pay to get their degrees in Klingon Studies or whatever if they choose to go with how we finance college now.
- When I was a kid, we were told that nuclear winter would tip us over into a new ice age. Now, we are worried about retreating glaciers and melting polar ice caps.
- Am I the only one who sees a possible solution to the new problem by invoking the old problem?
- The Kentucky Derby is in a little less than two weeks, which means that the drought of available manpower and employee attention, which started when the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament brackets came out, will soon be over.
Musings
Posted by daddybear71 on April 24, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/24/musings-236/
Today’s Earworm
Imagine, if you will, a 6 foot, 4 inch, 300 pound Barbarian-American singing this in his best French tenor while doing the dishes and wiping down the kitchen after getting the Young Prince off to bed.
Welcome to my house.
Posted by daddybear71 on April 24, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/24/todays-earworm-720/
On Poetry
I hope you all enjoyed this past year’s posts. It all started when I realized that I was having difficulty finding a few quiet moments every day to just think, and I decided that a year’s devotional would be good for me. In addition to a little daily scripture, I decided I’d throw in some poetry to get my mind stretched back out.
Poetry does a good job of reminding me of things which ought to be remembered, and to show me that the problems we face now are not new. When a poem written centuries ago speaks to the grind, the heartaches, or the rancor of your day, you understand that men and women through the ages lived through the same things as you.
Anyway, thanks for coming along with me on my daily mental calisthenics.
Posted by daddybear71 on April 24, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/24/on-poetry/
A Year of Poetry – Day 365
The harp at Nature’s advent strung
Has never ceased to play;
The song the stars of morning sung
Has never died away.
And prayer is made, and praise is given,
By all things near and far;
The ocean looketh up to heaven,
And mirrors every star.
Its waves are kneeling on the strand,
As kneels the human knee,
Their white locks bowing to the sand,
The priesthood of the sea!
They pour their glittering treasures forth,
Their gifts of pearl they bring,
And all the listening hills of earth
Take up the song they sing.
The green earth sends its incense up
From many a mountain shrine;
From folded leaf and dewy cup
She pours her sacred wine.
The mists above the morning rills
Rise white as wings of prayer;
The altar-curtains of the hills
Are sunset’s purple air.
The winds with hymns of praise are loud,
Or low with sobs of pain,—
The thunder-organ of the cloud,
The dropping tears of rain.
With drooping head and branches crossed
The twilight forest grieves,
Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost
From all its sunlit leaves.
The blue sky is the temple’s arch,
Its transept earth and air,
The music of its starry march
The chorus of a prayer.
So Nature keeps the reverent frame
With which her years began,
And all her signs and voices shame
The prayerless heart of man.
— James Greenleaf Whittier, The Worship of Nature
Posted by daddybear71 on April 23, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/23/a-year-of-nature-day-365/
Insults and Refutations
The student government of Western Kentucky University recently passed a resolution calling for free tuition for students of African descent. The real President of the University responded here, but I thought I’d put my own spin on it.
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (KDDY)— Western Kentucky University Chancellor Daddy J. Bear has responded to a recent student government association resolution to support reparations for black students.
The resolution’s purpose was to establish full and free access to WKU for black students, and well as free tuition, and to acknowledge slavery is a “debt that will never be paid.”
Mister Bear said in a statement released Thursday:
“Are you out of your ever-loving minds? How in the bloody blue pluperfect <CENSORED> did you all get into this university? Get the head of Admissions in here, now!”
“Apparently the members of the Student Government aren’t being given enough homework, because they had the time to pass this drivel. In order to head off the inevitable passing of similar wrongheaded ‘legislation,’ allow me to clarify that their resolution is is a waste of paper and electrons, which is probably a good way to describe their academic performance. I have read the SGA resolution, and I am ashamed that they have learned so little at the University that they would think that we would adopt any such policy.”
“I’ve spent much of the last year engaging in dialogue with black student leaders on campus, which has led to a greater understanding and appreciation of their experiences and priorities on my part, as I hope that they have learned that my priority is their education, not their feelings. I want to reiterate that our goal at the University is to prepare our students for entry into the job market as useful, thoughtful, and properly trained professionals, not as poorly-groomed dolts who think that a meaningless resolution passed after many speeches cribbed from the 23rd All-Soviet Veterinary Conference of 1952 will do a lick of good for race relations.”
“As we continue to try to educate those who think that such half-baked ideas are worth their time, we will focus on those things that help all students succeed: scholarship, personal discipline, and challenging curriculum. We will direct resources, energy and effort toward those methods that are responsible, practical and proven to achieve student success, and continue to point and laugh at the Twitter activists, perpetually offended, and those who think that silly hats can change the world.”
Posted by daddybear71 on April 22, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/22/insults-and-refutations-7/
A Year of Poetry – Day 364
Down in a green and shady bed,
A modest violet grew;
Its stalk was bent, it hung its head
As if to hide from view.
And yet it was a lovely flower,
Its colour bright and fair;
It might have graced a rosy bower,
Instead of hiding there.
Yet thus it was content to bloom,
In modest tints arrayed;
And there diffused a sweet perfume,
Within the silent shade.
Then let me to the valley go
This pretty flower to see;
That I may also learn to grow
In sweet humility.
— Jane Taylor, The Violet
Posted by daddybear71 on April 22, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/22/a-year-of-poetry-day-364/
A Year of Poetry – Day 363
The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy,
And wit me warns to shun such snares as threaten mine annoy;
For falsehood now doth flow, and subjects’ faith doth ebb,
Which should not be if reason ruled or wisdom weaved the web.
But clouds of joys untried do cloak aspiring minds,
Which turn to rain of late repent by changed course of winds.
The top of hope supposed the root upreared shall be,
And fruitless all their grafted guile, as shortly ye shall see.
The dazzled eyes with pride, which great ambition blinds,
Shall be unsealed by worthy wights whose foresight falsehood finds.
The daughter of debate that discord aye doth sow
Shall reap no gain where former rule still peace hath taught to know.
No foreign banished wight shall anchor in this port;
Our realm brooks not seditious sects, let them elsewhere resort.
My rusty sword through rest shall first his edge employ
To poll their tops that seek such change or gape for future joy.
— Queen Elizabeth I, The Doubt of Future Foes
Posted by daddybear71 on April 21, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/21/a-year-of-poetry-day-363/
Musings
- You know, for a guy who makes his living dealing with technology, I’m really starting to hate technology.
- No, that’s OK, mister work phone, please spontaneously reboot and reset yourself to factory settings.
- Of course, miss laptop screen, it’s perfectly fine for you to start having fuzzy weird digital ghosts at odd moments while I’m scrolling around.
- Oh, no, please, excuse me, mister TV remote. It’s entirely my fault that you have decided that you will only work at angles ranging from 0 to 15 degrees from center of the television screen.
- The peanut butter eggs in the white wrappers are not, in fact, ‘diet’ peanut butter eggs.
- I stand corrected.
- I can wait another week or two for the movie I ordered to arrive because Amazon has it on backorder, or I can cancel that order and go to the local Big Box Retail Cooperative and buy a copy there.
- The downside of waiting is, well, waiting.
- The downside of buying local is that I’ll have to go to Big Box Retail Cooperative and deal with, shudder, people.
- Oh, well, movie’ll get here when it gets here.
- One advantage of working from home a couple days a week is that my lunches are of higher quality.
- You see, when I take my lunch to work, I usually just have leftovers microwaved on a paper plate.
- When I’m at home, I can get fancy and use an actual dish to heat up my leftovers. Perhaps I can even use real silverware.
- Not only that, but I can have tap water cooled in my very own refrigerator. At work, I have tap water that’s cooled with ice chunks like a peasant.
- Apparently, “‘Tear down the flood walls, bulldoze it flat, and salt the earth with radium” was not the answer the young lady with the clipboard was looking for when she asked me what I thought the mayor could do to make Louisville better.
- When that answer seemed to confuse her, I told her to just put down that I thought we ought to hire more teachers.
- I saw an ad the other night for a company called ‘Dads Heating and Cooling’. I imagine their service calls involve a lot of demands for you to get out of their light and to fetch them the 3/8’s.
Posted by daddybear71 on April 20, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/20/musings-235/
A Year of Poetry – Day 362
Here bounds the gaudy, gilded chair,
Bedecked with fringe and tassels gay;
The melancholy mourner there
Pursues her sad and painful way.
Here, guarded by a motley train,
The pampered Countess glares along;
There, wrung by poverty and pain,
Pale Misery mingles with the throng.
Here, as the blazoned chariot rolls,
And prancing horses scare the crowd,
Great names, adorning little souls,
Announce the empty, vain and proud.
Here four tall lackeys slow precede
A painted dame in rich array;
There, the sad, shivering child of need
Steals barefoot o’er the flinty way.
‘Room, room! stand back!’ they loudly cry,
The wretched poor are driven around;
On every side they scattered fly,
And shrink before the threatening sound.
Here, amidst jewels, feathers, flowers,
The senseless Duchess sits demure,
Heedless of all the anxious hours
The sons of modest worth endure.
All silvered and embroidered o’er,
She neither knows nor pities pain;
The beggar freezing at her door
She overlooks with nice disdain.
The wretch whom poverty subdues
Scarce dares to raise his tearful eye;
Or if by chance the throng he views,
His loudest murmur is a sigh!
The poor wan mother, at whose breast
The pining infant craves relief,
In one thin tattered garment dressed,
Creeps forth to pour the plaint of grief.
But ah! how little heeded here
The faltering tongue reveals its woe;
For high-born fools, with frown austere,
Condemn the pangs they never know.
‘Take physic, Pomp!’ let Reason say:
‘What can avail thy trappings rare?
The tomb shall close thy glittering day,
The beggar prove thy equal there!’
— Mary Robinson, The Birth-day
Posted by daddybear71 on April 20, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/20/a-year-of-poetry-day-362/
A Year of Poetry – Day 361
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
-- Edgar Allan Poe, A Dream Within A Dream
Posted by daddybear71 on April 19, 2017
https://daddybearsden.com/2017/04/19/a-year-of-poetry-day-361/
DaddyBear
DaddyBear’s Den 