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Sunday, February 2, 2020

Post #4450 Social Media Digest

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[This is a comment to a libertarian post comparing declining technology costs and rising college costs.]
Of course, these days you can buy an Amazon Fire Tablet 8 for about $50, and I bought a Dell Chromebook for just over twice that. I can still recall buying my first PC desktop clone for nearly $3K, and my last vastly superior laptop cost under $500. My last low-end but full-featured Samsung Android phone cost under $100, and my monthly service bill is a fraction of what I was paying 20 years ago for a fraction of current services. I'm sure others have similar experiences.

 I (a former USAF brat, the oldest of 7) went to a small residential Catholic college in San Antonio in the 1970's; I paid my own way mostly on scholarship and work-study, graduating with a $1600 loan to pay off.

[One of my old Navy buddies posted some engineer's post basically apologizing to women over his profession's sexist sins which he never had to endure.]
Apparently he's recently taken his gender studies course. I've had talented female math, science and MIS professors. One of my nieces-in-law has a Master's in engineering.

 What I can tell you is I had to leave academia as a professor in a tough economy, and a lot of positions were earmarked specifically for female candidates. So much for my white male privilege.

[I'm not sure whether my brother-in-law or sister commented (they share his account), but they were irate I shared on my timeline the blurb of a FEE post debunking the myth that public school teachers are under-compensated. Two of their daughters have taught in public schools, although the older one got laid off in Colorado during the recession and has mostly struggled since then. She is currently a substitute teacher in Ohio.]

Ask me if I give a damn whether any relatives have any problems with hearing the TRUTH. If you had the integrity to actually READ the article, you'll see there are certain differences among states. (If you think my criticisms of public school teachers are bad, wait until you read what I've said about civil servants or the USPS. I've blogged on these several times; you need to deal with the fact I don't always agree with you or other relatives.) I have a pet peeve with all the retarded politicians who kiss teacher union asses. You have asshole teacher unions in Illinois where many teachers with seniority never get laid off (it's the ones like Claire who get laid off--and they make the least money) and retire to a million-plus pension. Illinois property taxes are skyrocketing; pension outlays have literally quintupled since 2000; it's affecting city services. These bastards feel entitled; fuck that.

 I have a pet peeve about politically correct and WRONG stereotypes. I put up with more shit teaching college than you'll ever know--and unlike K-12 teachers in many/most states, none of my state positions ever had a pension path. I used to put in an average of over 70 hours a week; not all professors did--especially if and when you get tenure. My undergrad students would typically make more than I did within 3 years, if that--with a mere fraction of my knowledge and skills. I didn't become a professor with the idea of becoming rich. I put up with shit you have no clue goes on in universities. To give one small example, I caught Asian graduate students cheating on assignments. When I attempted to discipline them, I had senior faculty members and administrators coming after me, accusing me of attempting to sabotage their foreign student program.

 If my public school niece or nephew can't deal with the fact laid out in the article, that's their problem. These authors did not attack my relatives; they are simply pointing out the facts. I don't make excuses for my performance; I had to deal with a lot of prejudices against academics when I had to leave academia, unable to find another teaching job in a recession. IT recruiters were the worst; they treated my 8 years in academia as if I were unemployed, and my prior experiences they thought were obsolete and likely degraded. Life isn't fair. Deal with it.

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One of my most popular tweets ever: over 4740 impressions and counting, high retweets and likes.












































































































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