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Sir Tom of Northfield's avatar

Item 14: COLLEGE - If you're smart, you won't need it. If you're stupid, it won't help.

Jake's avatar

Back in the day we went to college to party and stay out of Vietnam. An education was a distant second priority. BTW: My tuition bill was $145 a quarter for all four years.

Shoveltusker's avatar

Same. When I began at Georgia State University in 1972, I'd take 15 credits per quarter, which was a full load, for $150. Books were extra. It was very easy to put myself through school while working a low-paying job and living in a cheap apartment with a roommate. Also, I drove a used car that cost me $300 (1966 Opel Kadett).

Robert Brusca's avatar

Life before richification of America ans a vision of a nation of collge graduates. No wonder tuitions rose so much. My BA cost $12 a credit hour...

tj's avatar

Actually brought to you by Obama, he got the government to do student loans. The reason? banks were mean and wanted you go do something other than basket weaving.

Cranky Frankie's avatar

I can only assume the student union was a temple of total deprivation. No water slides. No lazy river. No ice cream stand or hot dog cart.

Horrible. How ever did you survive it?

Shoveltusker's avatar

GSU was pretty basic 50+ yers ago. I remember a cafeteria where you could get very inexpensive coffee and breakfast/lunch. It was totally a commuter university in those days. Now it's got dorms and really nice amenities I suppose. And a football team. And MUCH higher tuition.

Retirednottired's avatar

Wow, youngster. I went to college because I didn't know how to do anything else. It cost $200 per semester (no quarters back then). Avoiding the draft was a consideration, as well.

Doug's avatar

Yes, "avoiding the draft was a consideration" until 30 days after graduation and a "Greetings" letter arrived in my mailbox.

Sir Tom of Northfield's avatar

I quit college after 2 years to earn money to go back and I too received "Greetings". Spent 2 years in the Army with 18 months of that in Germany. It could have been a lot worse.

Robert Brusca's avatar

Brought to you by jake the mistake. I can assure you that eas not all of us but the 2S was very important...

Doggie Dad's avatar

It's essentially young-adult daycare.

Suzie's avatar

….More like radical activist training camp.

Marilyn Brinley's avatar

Before the Woke agenda, universities routinely turned out people educated beyond their intelligence. Now they turn out people who have been indoctrinated into believing that they are intellectually superior to those who are actually intelligent.

Sir Tom of Northfield's avatar

Leftists took over "education" starting in 1968 and it's been getting worse every semester since. They teach Envy and Hatred and Climate Hysteria. Shame on them!

Vince Gallo's avatar

Worse of all taxpayers subsidize it.

Grumpy Oldman's avatar

long before that, Sir. Mid to late ‘50’s.

steph_gray's avatar

I’ll submit an even earlier example.

There’s a hilarious scene in Cary Grant’s “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House” about the “progressive” school his daughters are attending.

The year of the film: 1948.

W.'s avatar

Must take exception and respectfully disagree. My Father paid for four (4) years. One shot, he said, fool around and find a job. As a result I graduated debt free.

I believe there is still value in a formal education. I learned discipline studying most weekends and weeknights when friends were going to movies and parties.

I learned to read at a higher level, analyze and think critically all very valuable tools now still today.

I understand I am fortunate and will agree simply that college is tough and may not be a good one-size-fits-all. It does separate the shortsighted goof offs from determined, focused and persistent students. Make no mistake about it.

Robert Brusca's avatar

Still a fan of college and having an educated fellow man...we do not want a nation of morons... even more important as people begin to rely on A-I instead of having knowledge themselves. I do not like where this is going... all humor aside

Grumpy Oldman's avatar

LOL! America already has a nation of indoctrinated morons. Just look @ the East & West coast states.

Sir Tom of Northfield's avatar

Education has nothing to do with intelligence or honesty or decency. It is a huge waste of time and money. Be an autodidact. It's better and it's free!

Damn the torpedoes's avatar

And stay home and teach your children the classics.

Jason Leonard's avatar

When I got my MBA, I showed up in tshirt and cargo shorts, picked up a couple of programs and left.

I have definitely scored jobs because I had an extra piece of paper, but all of my knowledge came from hard work and earned experience.

James Taylor's avatar

When I graduated (from a state school, nothing fancy), that degree and GPA was the only foot in the door. I didn't get past the HR people if I had less. Then I had to be interviewed... see what I really studied beyond my transcript. Then I had to take a programming test to see if I could solve/debug some simple C programs and write a small program to reverse a string, or to create a linked list from a file of unknown size. I got one job because I read (and used) the DOS Interrupts Book. :)

I remember those, because they were much like my classes....and that I was writing programs beyond just class since I was a sophomore. I wrote programs on various computers (BASIC/6502/68K assembly) since I was 13. So I got the job. But today? It's FAR easier to get your foot in the door, and some of the new grads couldn't pass the entry tests I took fresh out of school.

Lynette's avatar

In the late '70s, my tuition was $167 a quarter for my B.A.J. (Montana). In the early '90s, it was a wee under $1,000 a quarter for an A.A.S. (Oregon).

donald b welch's avatar

young men should not go to college. 70% are females and their target is men.

James Taylor's avatar

That ship sailed heck, in the 2000's. I needed college to get into my profession. They required a CompSci degree. But these days, a CompSci degree is as useless (from some schools) as a basket-weaving degree... and costs WAY too much.

I am glad I didn't get a Master's. ;-)

Shoveltusker's avatar

Regarding the Korean fried chicken story: I saw news bits like this referred to once as "blackwashing": Good White People™ falling all over themselves to credit blacks with something, in order to appear virtuous, generous, and more knowledgable than the rest of us honkies.

Blacks themselves can do this also, such as the academic (forget his name) who claimed that there was an ancient civilization somewhere in Africa that invented airplanes (I suppose the movie The Black Panther reflects that same sort of fantasy).

Blackwashing, by the way, is a very, very NPR thing to do. Do better, Bari!

Tmitsss's avatar

Don doesn’t have to make things up, he can tell you about Norbert Rillieux, sugar daddy.

Don Surber's avatar

My man. I may write a tribute newsletter on the original Sweetness

Shoveltusker's avatar

Just looked him up. Very intriguing. I've visited Evergreen Plantation in Louisiana several times with our traveling program. It's still a cane plantation, still has the owner's big house (scenes from the Tarantino movie Django Unchained were filmed there), still has the slave houses, and they still have some of those huge metal wok-shaped fire-heated bowls that the syrup would have been boiled in back in the day. His invention would have been a massive improvement on that horrifically nasty work.

And to think, Rillieux was a cousin of the painter Edgar Degas. How 'bout them apples.

Tmitsss's avatar

From the book: Exceptional Americans 2 The Capitalists. By Donald Surber

Don Reed's avatar

Speaking of chowing down at KFC (Korean Fried Chicken) (Mike Royko: "Go ahead, sue me! Fried chicken, fried chicken, fried chicken!")...

Mr Surber: “Stephen A. Smith lives in North Caldwell, a small borough in Essex County, New Jersey. His primary residence is a 7,232-square-foot mansion located at 50 Beachmont Terrace.”

Which Disney made damned certain that Google on its Google Maps blurred out the entire picture of his mansion from the street:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8777282,-74.2554379,3a,75y,137.52h,89.32t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sx_3NOBx6qj43IQvynvWb5A!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D0.6804082609910722%26panoid%3Dx_3NOBx6qj43IQvynvWb5A%26yaw%3D137.5218692058102!7i13312!8i6656!5m1!1e4?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTEyMy4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Technically, is this known as a "blackout"?

Aaron Jones's avatar

If this ostensible ingenuity is so damn pervasive, whaddya call Detroit, Chicago?

Playswithneedles's avatar

#11, If some lunatic murdered an abortionist do you think that the WSJ would write, “Pro-lifers shouldn’t be blamed for the violent act of one man.”?

Of course not.

Doggie Dad's avatar

The MSM and their useful idiots are happy to paint Trump and MAGA with a broad brush of culpability for any violence, disaster, or malfeasance. Their first response to tragedy is to find a link to Trump, and by extension, his supporters, however weak. Within hours of the tragic air collision over the Potomac in January, some talking heads attempted to blame Trump, who'd been in office for nine days.

Valoree Dowell's avatar

John Kennedy (LA Senator) said it best. If Trump said breathing is dangerous, all dems would hold their breath. (Close paraphrase)

Brian LeMay's avatar

Reckon who we need to see about getting that done 🤔 ?

Sam Prentice's avatar

Remember when they also tried to blame him for that plane that turned over upon landing in CANADA!!!!

NNTX's avatar

I found it interesting that the WSJ take was further left than WaPo’s…

Suspect this is b/c WSJ still, despite its largely woke news staff and increasingly left wing editorials, makes $$. Bezos trimming WaPo’s bloviating to reduce losses.

Steve (recovering lawyer)'s avatar

In my humble, yet unimpeachable opinion, today's posting of Highlights is beyond doubt or cavil, one of Don's absolute best! It presents us with a snapshot of America today, where the forces of all that is good and noble are in a running battle with the idiots, tyrants, liars and assorted ne'er-do-wells who compose the political/journalist/lickspittle class. There are simply too many goodies in the mix for me to comment on any single one of them, except to acknowledge a kindred spirit between us as possibly the only two people yet alive who remember The Lovin' Spoonful. "They play clean as country water. Well, the ones in Nashville do." Zal Yanofsky sends his regards from wherever he is.

Subvet's avatar

Hey wait a minute.. I "believe in magic in a young girl's heart":

Grizzly's avatar

Clean as country water, Wild as mountain dew

Steve Boggs's avatar

Been playing since theys babees.

Had work since they was two.

Steve Boggs's avatar

Totally agree. Been down in Cuba for the last 2 Saturdays. A real treat to come back today’s Surber.

BubblePuppy7's avatar

How many guitar pickers in Nashville?

Steve (recovering lawyer)'s avatar

Everybody knows there's 1352 guitar pickers there.

steph_gray's avatar

I just asked my guitar player/amour and he knew it too. ☺️

Ross's avatar

There is one , no 12, about soldiers time being wasted picking up trash.

Good grief, for at least a couple of thousand years most of a soldiers life is spent building stuff, cleaning stuff, painting stuff, picking up trash and yes, even building roads and bridges, apart from polishing brass and saluting officers…

Alice Ball's avatar

Lovin’ Spoonful, always a favorite of mine!! And Don, good poll options today, but obviously it’s the CIA news. Good one!

Shoveltusker's avatar

“The last pending criminal prosecution against President Trump was dismissed by a judge in Georgia, effectively ending efforts to hold Trump criminally responsible for attempts to overturn the 2020 election.”

The irony here is that it was the fraudsters who "overturned" the election to the tune of roughly 10 million ballots in favor of the senile, crooked-ass puppet who "campaigned" from his basement by appearing in heavily-edited videos that were produced between the naps that his shrewish, fashion-criminal puppeteer wife scheduled for him.

Marlan Hoerer's avatar

Very vivid recall of exactly what happened Shovel.

Brian LeMay's avatar

FWIW , in the State of Georgia all legal expenses incurred in responding to an overturned indictment must be paid by the prosecuting authority . What goes around comes around !

Vince Gallo's avatar

Item 9. Oh Lord take this young woman into your Heavenly Kingdom There she can protect all of us forever. And please Lord heal and strengthen and restore your servant who is still struggling for his very earthly life.

In Jesus Name I pray.

Amen

🙏✝️❤️🇺🇸

Shoveltusker's avatar

Yes, DEI really has made college stupid. So has the feminization of academia.

DEI emerged from a feminized academic culture, of course, but feminization has its own pernicious effects. Comfort, safety, and "fairness" have displaced risk-taking, adventurousness, and competitiveness.

Jeremy R's avatar

And "feel good" over facts that make people uncomfortable.

Damn the torpedoes's avatar

It’s where young white girls go to turn into screaming shrews, living alone, except for the cats.

Shrugged's avatar

ITEM 14: . . . “Student loans made college expensive. DEI made college stupid. A.I. made college obsolete.”

This is the best summary of higher education I have ever read.

DeniseVB's avatar

I'd like to see the government get out of the Student Loan business. Welcome to the real world kids !

Wim de Vriend's avatar

The government getting into the student loan business is the main reason a college education became insanely expensive.

William Coulter's avatar

Stephen Smith needs to shut his pie hole.

I can’t stand that guy.

And what does the A stand for anyway!

Sam Prentice's avatar

I'll give you two guesses about that fricking "A". I could tell months ago when this black idiot all at once started showing up everywhere that a campaign was underway to prop him up from somewhere. Why, I have no clue. I think he is a veritable moron. I don't think he is even worth a crap as a sports analyst. Definitely an AA or DEI token. But he's down for the cause in that 7000+ sq. ft. mansion.

Albert P. Sweeney's avatar

It stands for asshole

AZCACTUSPETE's avatar

Wow.. do I agree with that. He is a comic; not a serious person. Whenever I hear him on Sirius (driving around), I immediately switch to some good music. He is not worth the time. He gives me a headache. He is a non event. Just a loudmouth.

Jim Nelson's avatar

A male version of Jazzy Crockpot.

nikki003's avatar

Item 14....College?? Plumbing problem here...calling a plumber today and dreading the $ ....don't know any poor plumbers, do you? Just like electricians, beauticians, HVAC folks, grocers, and dozens of others including great entrepreneurs of all types....especially good local doughnut shops/bakeries, NOT Dunkin!

Valoree Dowell's avatar

Kids! Trade school! Apprentice! We need you!!

N.Wallace's avatar

Plumber gives homeowner the bill. Homeowner shocked: "Damn! You make more money than my doctor!" Plumber: "Yea I know. I used to a doctor."

nikki003's avatar

Perfect! plus many less lawsuits too..... :).........over the years many master plumbers we dealt with had a very hard time getting apprentices to train....now that young people are waking up to reality, maybe it won't be so hard going forward to find young trainees.....

Valoree Dowell's avatar

Last plumber who came to my place had an apprentice with him. It was awesome to hear them work together, asking, teaching, learning. They were each having a great time. Impressed!

Jeremy R's avatar

Journey men plumbers and electricians make north of $30 per hour in this part of the world. Not bad for no debt and they are always in demand.

Other trades are about the same. My son was a welder for Caterpillar and is transitioning to an electrical position as they recently changed the product line at his facility. Prior to that he was a pole climber but tired of the travel involved with his employer.

Damn the torpedoes's avatar

WSJ had an article today that Mass Maritime grads could command +$200k upon graduation, on a merchant ship of their choice. If I was a kid looking to see the world on someone else’s dime, that’s where I’d go. I’d bet the shipping co.’s do tuition reimbursement, too. A friend of mine did that, used to ship (free) exotic furniture from around the world home for the house he bought three years later with all the salary he saved while seeing the world.

nikki003's avatar

Great article!! just read that last evening...we had NO idea the USA still had a maritime workforce......if HS's still have guidance counselors why are they not promoting ALL options to the young....Oh, wait...THEY probably have no idea or knowledge either......read many of the comments under that great article....visiting schools by some of the grads is a great idea to let them know what's out there instead of wasting 4 yrs and lots of $$ for something they may never use.......

Sam Prentice's avatar

Hey, Dunkin still has the best coffee you can buy at the lowest price. Three one-pound bags of ground coffee for $19.99! But you are right about their donuts, though. If you eat one of their donuts you will still taste it a day later!

Flier's avatar

"hey Daddy," kid says looking at that photo of Sydney Sweeney, "where are her genes?"

"Yer lookin' at 'em, kid."

Jake's avatar

My Thanksgiving prayer came true. Trump is still President, even with his declining health. He dropped a turd in the Thanksgiving pool when he revoked Biden's autopen pardons. Thought it would get more coverage. I guess the press took Thanksgiving off.

Marlan Hoerer's avatar

They are still digesting the turd Jake !!

Vince Gallo's avatar

Aha! That Sydney. How dare she wear a white bikini?? What little there is of it. Showing off her genes like that.

C’mon Don! Show us the rest of the Sydney Sweeney pics. lol 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Marlan Hoerer's avatar

Is not a bi-kini a two piece swim suit ??

steph_gray's avatar

I showed it to the amour and he got that mistake…

…after a bit. 😆

Vince Gallo's avatar

Shhhhh! Who cares? 😂😂😂😂😂👍

Valoree Dowell's avatar

I knew there was a reason Don led with the pic. I’m surprised the male readers scrolled past it. Not criticizing, mostly jealous…

Don Surber's avatar

It was a fact check. As God is my witness, I thought editors knew words

Ken H's avatar

Words? At a time like this, who needs words?

Subvet's avatar

Clicked the wrong button. I haven't seen the drudge report in so long I don't how long its been. 10 years, 15 years who knows, it could be 20. I forget how old I am.

#9 Myheart aches for those national guard kids.

#10 I want anyone not here legitimately gone, gone, gone. With a capital F.

Yes, Ilhan Omar that means you! Its bad enough we have a home grown idiots like Asshat Oassio Cortez and Rashida Tlaib.

Pogostick17's avatar

I don’t know why this irritates me so much but here goes: it’s the Democrat party, Democrat National Convention, and Democrat members of the House and Senate. They are anything BUT democratic and I wish everyone would stop using that modifier.

Grumpy Oldman's avatar

their mascot’s a jackass & the policies they promote are communist, so use either…

I prefer jacka$$-communist because they’re ALL about the money - YOURs, not theirs.

Amy's avatar

Exactly, and I agree, stop saying Democratic Party.

Jeremy R's avatar

In all fairness, North Korea is the democratic people's Republic of Korea, and East Germany was the German democratic republic. See the trend?

Wim de Vriend's avatar

It's a permanent reminder not to judge a book by its cover.

Vince Gallo's avatar

Item 30. You mean he called out the Lee sisters: Uglee, Beastlee and Ghastlee.