I've been seeing a lot of lectures and articles lately that ask "are students learning enough/anything/the right things," and generally questioning the value of a college education.
The most striking example was from my favorite candidate, Mr. Rick Santorum, when he said this:
Not all folks are gifted in the same way. ... Some people have incredible gifts with their hands. Some people have incredible gifts and ... want to work out there making things. President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob.
There are good decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them.
Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his.
First of all, all the people I know who didn't go to college desperately want their children to be able to attend college. To imply that poor people don't want to go to college is a little far-fetched.
But his comments got me thinking--what would my life have been like if I hadn't gone to college? First off, I probably wouldn't have left Maine. I would probably have started working retail and/or secretarial jobs (the kind of things I did during summers and winters in college). I might now be at a place similar to where my Aunt Norma was at my age: twice divorced, living with my two kids and working at a bottling plant.
What do you guys think--any regrets about deciding to go to college? And should we be encouraging every kid to go to college? Maybe Rick Santorum just feels that college campuses are full of heathen liberals who will crush your children's belief in God?
College: Snobs Only?
R.I.P. Celebrities
Long time, guys! I'm just now emerging from the seclusion of writing my final project--nice to have a break from the cycle of writing and procrastination.
I'm not normally one who gets all weepy about celebrity deaths, but for some reason I was particularly struck by Whitney Houston's death this weekend. I can't say I was surprised, but I guess I had imagined that her life would be much like Liz Taylor's--she would live hard and crazy, but would be with us for a long time yet. Watching the video below (and the Grammys last night) just made me remember how much I loved her songs as a kid. She missed out on half her life (dead at 48!) and we missed out on many more years of her performances. (If there is any doubt, I submit Tony Bennett and Johnny Cash a exhibits A and B of singers entertaining us well into their old age.)
So, my question for you all: What are the ingredients that cause us to feel the loss of a public figure in a personal way? And was there ever a celebrity (sports, entertainment, or otherwise) whose passing hit you particularly hard?
Whitney Houston on the death of Michael Jackson by RichJuz
You Must Remember This
This is a bit of a dated issue, but it struck me as interesting. When Osama bin Laden was killed last month, journalists were interviewing all kinds of people for reactions, and it seemed like many twentysomethings felt more emotional about the event than people our age. When it happened I was surprised and relieved, but I knew his death wouldn’t mean the end of the war—it had a strange anti-climactic feeling to it.
What I kept hearing and reading was that people who were kids or teens when 9/11 happened really had their worldview shaped by that event. It seemed like 9/11 was a dividing line between their childhood years and the intrusion of a harsher world. We were 21 and already out of college, so I feel like maybe the impact was different for us.
Then I started to think about the 90s, when we grew up, and what the seminal events were that changed the way I thought about the world. Maybe this is weird to admit, but what I remember most wasn’t the fall of the Berlin Wall or the collapse of the Soviet Union or even the Gulf War, but the televised show trials. I remember people racing home to watch the O.J. Simpson trial, and how the bookstore I worked at sold paperback copies of the Starr Report. Hilariously, I think I also remember the impeachment trials because we had our own mini version at Goucher (when they tried to impeach Ridg Mills from student government). Ah, good times!
I’m curious to know how you guys (and your younger friends) reacted to bin Laden’s death. And what were the big national or world events that made a difference when you were young?
Suckers for Zuckerberg
I promise to wax philosophical about weightier matters soon, but until then I must ask:
Can you guys tell me what is so great about The Social Network? I feel like I have had the following conversation about 5 or 6 times already:
Unsolicited Advice Giver: Have you seen The Social Network?
Me: Nope.
UAG: It's supposed to be really good.
Me: Yeah, I don't have any desire to see that.
UAG: Oh no?
Me: It sounds like some privileged white guys making money and then behaving badly. I mean, I can see that anywhere, right?
The other thing people say is, "Aren't you interested in Facebook?" Hey, I like a good story about a plucky Internet start-up as much as the next gal, but is there something I'm missing here? Socially awkward nerd + grand vision + started in a garage/dorm room = success and mild megalomania. I mean, I remember liking that idea when it was a TV movie about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
I guess I'm baffled that there are so many panties in a wad over this movie. What do you think? Should I suck it up and go see it?
P.S. Don't even get me started on the Black Swan/Natalie Portman issue ...
Depressing movies
This isn't exactly topical, but I was listening to the archives of Joe Rogan's podcast and they were talking about it. A film came out in November of 2009 called "Precious." In this movie, a morbidly obese illiterate 16-year old girl has two children that were the result of repeated rapes by her father. Later in the movie, she finds out he also gave her AIDS. Oh, and she was also sexually molested by her mother. And... it won tons of awards. WHAT. THE. FUCK. Who wants to watch this movie??
Now, apparently the real heart of the movie is about the girl meeting a support group, and trying to put her life back together. I'm sure it is very inspiring or some shit. But I reiterate: WHAT. THE. FUCK. Who wants to watch this movie??
On the aforementioned podcast, they were talking about this movie, and how it seems like really depressing movies are always the ones that win awards. Why is that? Why does society reward depressing movies, but not fun movies? Why is it that a comedy or action film will rarely if ever win "best picture," but the Incest Rape Spectacular is a shoe-in for every award under the sun?
(Please note that I don't actually care about what films, actors, etc. win awards. Doesn't interest me in the least. I am just questioning the process by which these awards are given out, and what criteria are being used. I also admit to not being a film buff, so I welcome any disagreements.)
The Death of the Blog?
Okay, so let me start by saying that the title of this post is a little strange because I just started a new blog (The Back Catalog) about a week ago. So obviously I don't actually think that the blog concept is dead.
However. Let me take you back to earlier today. Earlier today, I saw AJ's post and thought to myself, I should post on Egypt 6 again. Bring it back to life. But then I realized something. I do "blog" all the time. It's called Twitter. All my random musings about life and updates on how my life is going appear in small sub-140-character status updates. And for longer versions, people often use Facebook to describe in detail what's going on or what opinions they have. So I just feel like the average person has a lot less use for a blog (or a personal home page, for that matter), in the current world of "social networking."
However, I think there is still room for blogs with specialized focus. For example, my new blog is a music review site; and there is no good way I could accomplish that by using Facebook or Twitter. I just think that the day of the personal blog may have passed us by.
The Importance of Being Googled
So I'm talking with my coworkers the other day about the student internship program that we all have a hand in managing, and we begin to discuss one of the assignments where students take stock of their "internet presence." Students have to look at their social networking profiles, online resumes, and even their email address to determine what a potential employer might find when searching for them online. We ask the students to fill out a brief form and then discuss what changes they might make to improve or "fix" their internet presence.
Kids These Days
Hmmm, I’m sensing a theme here, what with this coming on the heels of Keith’s mall post back in August …
So I’m wrangling a cohort of about 16 undergraduates who are doing internships during their final semester at UMD. Of the 16, 13 are going on to grad school. Of those, 3 are going on to pharmacy school. Most know they want career they want after their academic time is over.
I’m impressed with these kids, but sometimes my inner monologue wells up and says, “WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE? I HAD NO IDEA WHAT I WAS DOING AT YOUR AGE! WHAT THE HECK CHANGED IN THE LAST TEN YEARS TO MAKE KIDS THIS WAY?”
I admit that my group this semester may be an anomaly. But really, I had some basic assumptions about teenage and college years (times of aimless exploration!) that may need to be rewritten. Are these kids really any different from us? And if so, what forces were at work to make that happen?
Or maybe ... it's just me. *Sigh*
The Mall Generation...
Welcome back to Egypt6...
When we last left our caped crusaders over one year ago, we were periodically blogging about random topics and having some mildly spirited conversation, while no one on the Internet paid attention. For old time's sake, here is a new topic to ponder...
I was at the mall yesterday with Cat having a bite to eat before our movie and I couldn't help but notice that the place was overrun with teenagers. Now, teenagers at a mall is no big thing today, but when I was growing up, no one hung out at the mall. I distinctly remember the King's Plaza Mall in Brooklyn, NY being a scary, filthy place that we only went to when we were desperate for some item we could not by closer to home. Later on I do remember the nice, clean Staten Island Mall becoming a new place to go, but again, I have no recollection of anyone my age actually hanging out there.
This led me to ask the question, "When did you have to be born to think that hanging out at the mall was just something normal?" Cat contends that it may have to do with where you grew up. She did not live near a mall, so it was never something she thought about. Having lived in the city myself, I cannot speak for everyone, since NY did not easily give up its small business mentality, which I think factors in the discussion.
Nevertheless, I think this is still a generational question. According to sources, we (being the authors of this blog), were born at the end of of generation X, which was supposed to have ended between 1979 and 1982. I have always contended that this was a transitional era, which explains why for example, it is considered acceptable by many when someone in our age bracket is not technologically literate. In this case, the thinking was that you needed to have exposure to a computer to learn how to use one. In the same way, you would actually need to have malls to want to hang out in them...
So, bringing this back to the original question, at what point did teenagers start hanging out in malls? I think this didn't really start until the mid 1990's, which would place the birth date for this phenomenon circa 1983-1984. I am sure there are more enlightened milestones people use to judge generations; The Kennedy Assignation, Reagan getting shot, the Challenger Explosion, the first or second world trade center bombing, but alas, I will leave you with something far more superficial...
What do you think?
Top Chef, Now With Chest Tattoos
I was watching the initial interviews for the contestants on the upcoming season of Top Chef, and I noticed that two of the women had significant tattoos on their chests. (See ‘em here and here). Rich played a little devil’s advocate with me on this topic, and I wanted to see what you guys thought.
I argued that possibly these women got inked up in their younger days and, even though they now have mainstream priorities for professional success, the tats are still an important part of their self-image. (Hence the refusal to cover them up.) But, last night, Keith (the authoritative expert on such things) tweeted that “tattoos, it seems, are the earrings of today.” Maybe there’s no need to cover up tats anymore! Maybe there is no stigma, only social cache.
On the other hand, maybe it’s just that the culinary arts are a field where it pays to be “edgy.” Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential certainly made restaurant kitchens sound like a pirate ship. Or maybe chefs are like editors – their appearance doesn’t matter because they work behind the scenes.
I know you guys are both connoisseurs of the television arts, if not Top Chef in particular, and have probably seen your share of celebrity/television chefs (not to mention tattoos!). What do you think? Tattoos for All? Tattoos for Chefs? (Ha, “tattoos for chefs” totally sounds like a hot new charity.)
P.S. I recently saw my first episode of Iron Chef. No one told me it was like American Gladiators with ovens!
Late to the Game
So yesterday and today I ran the company’s twitter feed. It basically involves choosing recent articles that we think our Twitter followers might be interested in, and then posting a teaser line with a shortened link to the article. The two guys who usually do it are really good, but you can view my meager attempts at http://www.twitter.com/themotleyfool. Everything before June 24 is their handiwork :^)
I was really nervous the first day about not being clever enough or possibly tweeting something inappropriate. But I’d always been afraid of being creative on a deadline, so this was a nice (albeit not-too-stressful) challenge.
This is one of a few recent events that’s changed my mind about Twitter. I realize now that Twitter is just a tool, and that all the annoying narcissism it inspires doesn’t negate the valuable uses. I was moved by all the on-the-ground twittering from Iran in these past weeks, but a more personal use for twitter occurred when my friend got hit by a car. He was able to tweet from the accident and while in the hospital to give everyone updates on his hospital room #, the time of his surgery, how he was feeling, etc.
This epiphany of mine is kind of a no-brainer, I admit. But as I get older I find myself less enamored with new technology unless it enriches my daily life in some obvious, immediate, user-friendly way. The result is that I wait until things have reached the mainstream. I will never again be an early adopter! Is that sad? Or just prudent?
Are you guys the same way in respect to embracing new technologies?
Pizza Quest
This article made me think of Keith & V.'s on-again off-again quest for terrific pizzas. Any "best of" list is subjective, of course, but I was dismayed that there was no New Jersey pizza, and hoping against hope that he might recommend some great DC/MD/VA pizza (an elusive beast that may or may not exist).
Keith, do you guys still go on the occasional hunt for good pies? And Joe, have you found any worthwhile pizza places in Maryland?
Kindle Me This
Had a question to put to you guys -- especially since one of you has a Kindle and is no doubt now part of a secret Masonic society of Kindle owners.*
Read a great NYT article about how the Kindle eliminates the possibility that you can see what someone is reading or vice versa. But I take issue with one item:
“It’s really expensive,” she said of the Kindle 2, which Amazon sells for $359. “If you’re going to pay that, you’re giving a statement to the world that you like to read — and you’re probably not using it to read a mass market paperback.”
First off, the first person I met with a Kindle was a total gadget hound; I can see a lot of people getting it just because it's the new new technology.
Second, why wouldn't you use it to read mass-market paperbacks? This reeks of snobbery. Some of the more voracious readers I know are readers of paperback mysteries and genre fiction. And really, what's more likely to be available on Kindle -- the collected works of Stephen King or the new translation of *insert obscure foreign writer here*?
Is buying a Kindle really a proclamation that you are a Reader who enjoys mass quantities of Literature on Serious Subjects? Do set me straight on this one.
*Speaking of Masons, I must admit I am kind of excited for the new Angels and Demons movie. But can it compare to National Treasure?
Goodbye Geocities!
I just put up a link to my blog about the end of Geocities. Circa 1997, Geocities was one of the greatest places on the web. It certainly lasted longer than my xoom.com account!
Tony "Jesus"
Just a note... If you notice the rotating pictures that come up each time you go to Egypt6, you may have seen the picture of a bearded guy with no shirt. That's a good friend of my family, Tony, circa 1974.
Tony is actually going in for what will hopefully be minor surgery soon, so please keep him in your thoughts.
Thanks,
Joe
More Unsung Shows
Picking up on the theme of unsung shows, here are some that come to mind...
Better Off Ted- This show is not necessarily unsung, but rather it is very new and needs more attention. The best way to describe the show would be to think The Office meets Office Space. The show focuses around the title character, Ted, who is in charge of Research and Development for a mammoth, multifaceted corporation, Veridian Dynamics. Their slogan, "We Do That!" as in... Science... We do that! Technology... We do that!
In this show, our title character, who serves as narrator through a series of monologues directly to the audience, explains how he navigates the whims of his boss, played by Portia DeRossi, as well as those of her corporate overlords. In the first episode, Ted is asked to cryogenically freeze one of his employees because, "We just want to see if it can be done." Unlike Ron Livingstone's character in Office Space and Steve Carrell's in the Office, Ted seems to have a golden touch in his office and earnestly tries to to make his employees, boss as well as the audience happy all at the same time.
Standoff- Now this is definitely is an unsung show from a couple of years back. Starring the aforementioned Ron Livingstone and Rosemarie Dewitt, who has been featured on Mad Men, as well as the movie Rachel Getting married. The premise of this show is "If 24 were a love story." If only the Fox network knew how to market this, people may have watched...
Nevertheless, the show is about two hostage negotiators who are partners both on the job and after hours (Livingstone and Dewitt). Each week, they take on another fast pace crisis, which unlike 24, wraps itself up within an hour. The only overarching themes have to do with their relationship. Again, this show only lasted 19 episodes and was not granted a finale, but the action was good and the chemistry was always fun to watch.
Well, that's all I have for now... I should spend some time at some point review my other list favorites, Jericho, Nowhere Man, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (and the list goes on...)
Unsung and Unseen
Joe and I spent most of the car ride to Jersey discussing television, and last night I saw my first episode of one of the shows he recommended, Boston Legal. Blessedly, it completely lived up to my expectations! I wanted to take everything James Spader said and frame it. And it was good to see Shatner at his bloated best – somehow managing to mix gravitas with outrageousness.
Anyway, I wanted to elicit a few more sterling suggestions for underappreciated TV shows that I should catch up with. I’ll start off with a few of my own.
Boomtown – another show tragically cancelled after just a season and a half. It’s a police procedural set in L.A., but the gimmick is that it shows you one case from several different perspectives. So you don’t get the whole story until you see it from the point of view of the D.A., detectives, beat cops, EMT, etc. More cinematic than your average Law & Order spinoff.
Life – cop goes to jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Twelve years later he gets exonerated and is given a multimillion-dollar settlement. He rejoins the police force that put him away, in part because he wants to go back to being a cop, but also because he wants to find out who framed him. Best part: While in jail, he studied up on zen philosophy, which he now spouts while working cases. His terse, I’ve-got-a-dark-secret female partner treats him like the weird little brother she’s stuck babysitting. And the fact that he’s the weird cop (instead of tough-as-nails or world-weary) is refreshing. Also, the soundtrack is definitely worth downloading.
Burn Notice – Remember before all those Pierce Brosnan-era Bond movies, when spies were fun? So this spy gets mysteriously blacklisted. While he’s trying to figure out who blacklisted (burned) him, he makes money by helping people who’ve somehow gotten on the wrong side of gun-runners/kidnappers/drug dealers/etc. Each ep includes handy spy-on-a-budget instructions on how to, say, make a surveillance device out of a cell phone, or where to shoot the car behind you during a car chase. Best part: It never takes itself too seriously.
Joe, I know you mentioned Jericho and Nowhere Man. (See, I was listening!) Any others to recommend … in the comment box or perhaps a separate post?
Insert "ShamWow" Joke Here.
I had talked to Joe about possibly putting up a post that outlined the differences between the myriad As-Seen-on-TV product hosts. I kept getting the Slap Chop/ShamWow guy confused with the Kaboom! guy, for instance. (Which, in hindsight, makes no sense.) But then Mr. ShamWow got arrested, ensuring that I would forever remember him.
Anti-Facebook Apology
I have often been asked why I’m not on Facebook. The reasons are many, but below are a few Pro-Facebook arguments, my issues with Facebook, and why my anti-Facebook resolve was ultimately broken.
Argument: You can play Scrabulous (or whatever the non-licensed version is now).
Rebuttal: A Scrabble game where you can look up words and take a day to make your move is for THE WEAK.
Argument: You can look up all your old friends that you’ve lost touch with.
Rebuttal: I did that on Friendster, and then I never talked to any of those people. NEXT.
Problem #1: It’s not ubiquitous enough. Until everyone and their grandma is on Facebook, it’s not a reliable means of communication. When people I know send out a Facebook invite, they also end up sending out an email to all their friends that aren’t on Facebook. In that case, why not just Evite? Last week, The Richest Man’s friends sent out a Facebook invite Saturday morning to do something Saturday evening. He didn’t check it and thus missed out on an event he would’ve enjoyed. His reaction: “Why didn’t they just call or text me?” Which leads me to my next point …
Problem #2: It’s impersonal. The Richest Man’s friend’s put their “Hey, let’s hang out” request on Facebook so that all 57 of their “friends” would see it. But that’s the equivalent of a mass email. There’s a time and a place for mass emails, but I know I always prefer a personal request to hang out with a small group of friends. Makes you feel less like a friend-minion in the friend-empire. (Also, half the people I know who say they’re on Facebook say they don’t use it; they just feel obligated to be on because everyone else is. LAME.)
Problem #3: My cluttered life. This is more of a personal problem, really, but sometimes too much media leaves me jittery and numbed, unable to focus on anything that cannot be passively consumed in 20 seconds. Facebook just seems like one more website to check, and why bother when most of my friends have flickr accounts/twitter/blogs/gchat statuses?
The Internet straw that broke my back: I always said that I would join when my lack of Facebook caused me to miss out on things. Via Facebook, my friend Becky invited everyone to meet her for drinks on her day off. I missed out on drinking, folks. This is now serious.
Also, Vicky tells me that there is some word game on Facebook where Keith dominates, and I am pretty sure there is no way he can be better than me. Or more modest. I need to start establishing my word supremacy.
Was I foolish to hold out so long? Can I now be welcomed into the cult of Facebook with no grudges held?
Either way, I welcome my new social-networking overlords!
Musical inspiration
As some of you are no doubt aware, I made it a sort of new year's resolution this year to write an album (or at least an EP) worth of songs, and arrange/record/mix an album. Mostly just to prove myself that I could actually see a project like that through from start to finish.
However, recently I've hit a creative wall. I'm two songs in, and it's March already, and inspiration isn't exactly flowing like an avalanche coming down the mountain.
So here's where I ask for help from the Egypt 6 readership. Any song ideas? I'll entertain any ideas, serious or otherwise. My last two song topics/inspirations were 1) exploring Weird NJ sites as a teenager, and 2) H.G. Wells' The Time Machine. So it's not like I'm going for some sort of common theme here. Thanks in advance!