October 2010

A pothole in the road to voc-ed

October 13, 2010

I see the volcanic Stanley Fish is rumbling over the dim fate of the humanities. He sees SUNY Albany’s dismantling of its French, Italian, classics, Russian, and theater programs as the beginning of the end. It’s not news, of course. Foreign language departments across the land have been eviscerated or killed: at Drake and Louisiana [...]

Read the full article →

Is Money Talk Rude?

October 12, 2010

Over at Surviving and Thriving, Donna Freedman brings up an interesting topic: the old tradition that you don’t talk about money. Spinning off an article that appeared on CBS MoneyWatch.com in which an informant told a reporter that “talking about money is really crass,” especially during a recession, Donna suggests that there’s a limit—a fairly [...]

Read the full article →

“Semester’s” end

October 11, 2010

The first 8-week term of the semester ends this week. Three sets of papers and assignments will come pouring in, starting today; papers need to be read and grades filed by Friday…preferably by Wednesday, since two new courses go online next Monday. And naturally, I’m sick…have been for the past ten days. Bleyagh! Got a [...]

Read the full article →

Where the jobs are…and aren’t

October 9, 2010

Tina, editor par excellence, sends along this interesting (not to say alarming) article from NPR’s Planet Money. Even though the recession is officially over, as NPR’s Jacob Goldstein points out, that means rather little for the suffering quotient. Eight million jobs have disappeared from our economy since December 2007, most of them in manufacturing and [...]

Read the full article →

Moments of Fame

October 8, 2010

Funny appeared in the following carnivals this week: Carnival of Personal Finance Alpha Consumer Want to Buy That Car? Don’t Test-drive it! Carnival of the Vanities Dodgeblogium Higher Ed in Arizona: Soon to get even BETTER! And on October 4, MSN Smart Spending kindly featured the post on (NOT) test-driving a car.

Read the full article →

Getting through a Social Security-free month

October 7, 2010

Despite the late, great annoyance of having Social Security confiscate an entire month’s SS income in direct contradiction of what two of its workers said would happen, it looks like October will pass without too much disaster. I’ve managed to scrounge together some cash by combining last spring’s American Express kickback (which, mercifully, I’d stashed [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →