Linkland.

[sechan19]

Julie Klausner deplores the latest trend of women-as-little-girl and laments its pervasiveness throughout all areas of pop culture.

In connection with the above, Tami associates said trend with Zooey Deschanel and wonders if this trend is race/class specific. Is there a black Deschanel or a latina Deschanel? she wonders. Or is the girly-kitten movement irrevocably tied to middle-class whiteness?

(In a related note, I just bought a romper the other day and I look adorable in it. But I would never claim to like "rainbows, Girl Scout cookies, and laughing a lot" on an online dating site. I'm more of an "ice cold beer, splatter-gore comedies, and mismatched socks" kind of gal. Oh, and I love quantum physics, though I do admit that math is hard for me. Man, identity is hard.)

All Things Considers takes a look at how the college horror story is back. Apparently, worries over whether or not college is worth it have circulated ever since the first major post-college recession of the 1970s. Also apparently, college is, in fact, totally worth it.

Clarence Clemons, saxophone player extraordinaire, has died. RIP Big Man.

Comments

[derrangedferret.livejournal.com]

My thought on the "is college worth it" thing is that I wish it wasn't so often presented (as it was in my high school, anyway) as though YOU weren't worth it if you didn't go to college but instead went to, say, a trade school, or got real professional experience elsewhere.

[reteva.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I think we'd benefit considerably from adopting the French model, where students are filtered into professional/craft tracks and university tracks depending on their strengths and preferences. The world needs ditch-diggers, too.

[foxxydancr.livejournal.com]

or at least, the world needs ditch diggers who aren't washed up PhD students in the humanities.

[firynze.livejournal.com]

See, I'm with you. I would argue that "advanced education or professional preparation" is worth it. College isn't right for a lot of people...but trade school is. Or a professional apprenticeship. And we need people like that.

But I'm not so keen on the idea of paying/bribing people to skip college and start businesses, particularly in Silicon Valley. There's too much that can go wrong with that scenario, and too much nontangible benefit offered by college in terms of life experience and broadened horizons.

[foxxydancr.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the Klausner piece. While I don't like her writing style particularly, or there are points which I wish she'd taken further, it does hit on some things that I have been thinking around recently. we'll hve to talk about this further at some point...

and yes, I bet you do rock the romper.