A Bad Sunset

Sunset Magazine, the magazine for those "living in the west," issued its February edition which included an article on the 20 best fantasy places to live. There were four categories: Woodsy, Wine Country, Tropical and, for those wanting to move verrrry west, Pacific Rim. Listed in each of the four categories were five towns along with an interview of a family who offer advice to help you make that move "from daily grind to living in paradise." To my surprise-bordering-on-utter-disbelief, Boulder Creek, California, landed one of the five Woodsy spots.

Other than their short, poetic reference, which I reprinted below, Sunset didn't offer any substance in the article to support its picks. I emailed Sunset to ask them what research was involved in their decision-making process. I have received two thank you responses for my inquiry, but no explanation. What they printed in the article was laughable and deserving of criticism. Before I blast them for what they wrote, however, it is only fair that I establish a basis for why I believe they failed.

Even the Boulder Creek bear is brown bagging.

First, before any of you hill people get all up in my ass about stereotyping the Santa Cruz Mountain culture, remember that you stereotype yourself - and do so openly - with every drink you take from your brown-bagged bottle at the bus stop/Probation Department shuttle, with every snide comment you make about people coming "over the hill" and encroaching on your way of life (those would be the people with jobs and money contributing to the tax base and property values), and with every reference you make to living a rugged, throwback lifestyle while your generator runs because another fallen tree took out the power. I am merely acknowledging your opinion of yourself before offering mine, which is open to allowing you to freely insert any grammatically correct form of the word "hypocrite" after the word "you." That said, if anyone in the San Lorenzo valley is offended by criticism, you should stop reading. Or interrupt the person reading this to you.

Let me preface my completely personal spew by stating that I have nothing against the people in the community of Boulder Creek. But other than a mailbox, I don't have much in common with them either. Although I have lived in Boulder Creek for the past two years, I am not of the "mountain folk." I was born and raised over the hill, in the Santa Clara valley, in a culturally diverse, San Francisco bay area suburb where flannel is preferred for use as a bedding material rather than clothing. I live in Boulder Creek only because I married into the mountain environment, the very act a testament to my love for my wife, who was also raised in the same suburban area I was before she moved into the woods some 25 years ago. I would hazard to guess - and why wouldn't I hazard - that like me a large number of the 4,000+ people in Boulder Creek also do most of their "living" in Scotts Valley, Santa Cruz, Los Gatos, and a number of other places where hygiene is a practice and not a greeting to a neighbor named Gene.

Contrary to what I imagine Sunset Magazine believes, Boulder Creek is not a fantasy destination. It's a place to pass through. Granted, I haven't explored the entire town border to border, but excluding a few residential pockets around town, I've found it more rusty than rustic. While there are a couple of knick-knack shops, the town has no particular attraction that would encourage one to stop any longer than it takes at the town's lone stop sign. If your definition of living is similar to mine, it includes having certain amenities related to keeping members of the community in the community. For example, I live close enough to town to take a leisurely stroll for a morning cup of coffee, and would if a) there were places to sit and enjoy it other than curbs and retaining walls and b) if the people sitting on the curbs and retaining walls weren't polluting the air with cigarette and pot smoke. In fact, there's nowhere in town to just sit and relax.

Boulder Creek, Ca, coffee shop                    Auburn, Ca, coffee shop

Even as I write this, I received the February 24th edition of the Press Banner, the local paper, which has a cover photo of a Boulder Creek child enjoying a sunny day at the park...7 miles away in the town of Felton! BC has a park in town, Junction Park, and the people I've seen hanging out there the few times I've gone by make it look like a failed Occupy encampment.

But Sunset Magazine thinks this could be your dream move. And who am I to argue with the experts at Sunset? And they are experts because it says so right on their website. "Sunset is the premier resource for achieving the ultimate Western lifestyle. Our experts focus on travel destinations in the 13 Westerns states, home design outdoor living ideas suited to our region,..." The magazine has been publishing their expertise in pretty much the same manner since the second World War. So here is the magazine article verbatim describing why Boulder Creek landed one of the top five "woodsy" spots:

"Just over the hill from schmancy Woodside, absurdly rural Boulder Creek (and neighbor La Honda) has the open space to keep cyclists, hikers, and horses happy."

Wow! That's some definitive, fact-filled sales pitch. Here's a fact they left out: According to Google Maps, Boulder Creek is about 34 miles from Woodside, or about a one hour drive. That's "just over the hill" the way Hawaii is just a short flight from Los Angeles. And our "neighbor" La Honda is just as far. In fact, at 12 miles and 24 minutes, La Honda is actually "just over the hill" from Woodside. And how about the four families they interviewed who made these fantasy moves? None of them moved to Boulder Creek. Of the four, three of them had businesses that didn't require local commerce to sustain them, and the fourth started a niche bakery, which would die in a place like Boulder Creek because a $3 gluten-free, vegan cupcake doesn't go with chainsaws, cigarettes and liquor. Might help with the pot munchies, but having those folks hang out at your front door while the yeast rises won't entice mom and dad to pull the Lexus over to grab a snack on the way to Santa Cruz. Or the park in Felton. Three of those families also had children, and I would question why you would want to raise your kids in an environment where most parents want them to be able to leave after graduating high school.

Apparently Sunset Magazine feels its reputation is solid enough that they can piss on your leg and make you believe it's actually raining, which in Boulder Creek is a pretty bold feat considering it gets about 48 inches of rain per year. Those climatically challenged pussies living just over the hill in schmancy Woodside get less than 29 inches. So if you want to move to "absurdly rural" Boulder Creek to happily bike, hike or horseback ride as Sunset suggests, you better be happy doing it wet. Otherwise, hold onto your dreams and wait for another sunset.

Magic Manballs

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Soft Balls

Last November, a Seattle, WA, court ordered the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance to pay an undisclosed settlement amount to three men who were disqualified from the 2008 Gay Softball World Series because of their perceived heterosexuality. The men's sexual preferences were apparently called into question when a protest was filed against their team for violating a league rule limiting teams to two heterosexual players per team, a rule which I assume was created to ensure every team had at least two "pitchers." The aggrieved players countered claiming they were not straight, but bisexual, and because they were not full-blown gay they were being discriminated against.

In response to the complaint, lodged by other teams in the league, a protest committee was assembled to question each man about their sexuality and lifestyle. Then, according to the report, the committee voted on whether or not the man being questioned was, in fact, gay. The committee ultimately judged only two of the five men subject to the probe were gay. Those two were handed a single red rose and allowed to continue to the elimination round... Okay, that last part didn't happen.

Anyway, the other three men were determined to be "not gay." But here's the rub, um, issue. The three men appeared to have met some qualification at some level to support their assertion that they were bisexual. According to NAGAAA rules, bisexual is considered to be gay for team roster purposes. Anyone who follows sports recognizes this as an important point because that means being bisexual doesn't count against what could only be described (by me) as the heterosexual hard cap (think "salary cap for penises"). In hetero-layman's terms, you're allowed to fill a roster with switch hitters who can handle any position instead of having a roster that's loaded with catchers.

Perhaps it was the team photo that raised suspicion.

As part of their argument, the players asked the court to throw out the roster limit on straight players as discriminatory, which I don't get. There are only three categories in question here: gay, bisexual and straight. If you are either of the first two, straight discrimination shouldn't be part of your argument, and to me using it kind of implies you're straight. I think this because I played for a church softball league for a couple of years. In order to play, I had to be a member of the church. So guess where I was every week during the season? Back pew with three other "Christians." I got away with it because nobody made me prove I was a Christian. I could have been asked anything about God and, well, I'm not going to get any points for saying I thought about reading the Bible. Likewise, to play in a gay softball league, I don't believe you can get a pass for saying, "Well, I thought about blowing a guy once."

I don't condone the exclusion of one particular lifestyle in favor of another. I've played sports with gay men and gay women, straight women, straight men who played like they were gay, guys with physical disabilities - hell, I played on a team where you'd think we were all disabled. We respected each others' personal differences and got along with our lives. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks like that. There exists a need to stay in one's comfort zone, so I understand the importance of establishing an organization subscribing to a certain philosophy that generates acceptance and stimulates member growth openness within that membership, and they should be allowed to make the rules - whether good or not - to maintain that solidarity. Legal precedence has been established to support this. The Boy Scouts come to mind, having successfully prevented the openly gay from participating in their organization (Remember, it's Boy Scouting, not boy scouting).

The establishment of the legitimacy of the rules isn't the question here; the skirting interpretation of the rules is. The NAGAAA, to its credit, moved to clarify the rules regarding bisexual and transgender players, welcoming them as participants, and further stated the disqualifications in question were not consistent with its goal. As one official put it, "We fought hard to protect ourselves and our core identity and I am relieved this issue is finally behind us."

Which, given the circumstances, seemed to be where they'd prefer to put it.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2012. Sorry I'm late.

According to an interpretation of the Mayan calendar, it's going to be a short year. Doomsday is predicted to fall on December 21 because that's when the Mayan calendar ends. Apparently that's all it takes. A calendar ending.

My wife made a calendar last year. Even though her calendar ended on 12-31-2011, there was a 1-1-2012. I was surprised until she told me her secret to preventing human extinction: she made a new calendar for this year. Sounds relatively simple enough. All you have to do is start the months over, change the last digit in the year, and add an extra day in February every four years. You can pretty much do that until you die, or until your hand cramps up and you simply stop. Which is what I believe happened to the Mayan's official calendar maker. He just stopped.

It would be understandable if he did. It was a big calendar. And not because it was made of stone. I've kicked myself for writing the wrong date on a check. With a pen. On paper. This guy's cutting rock. Can you imagine the pressure of not missing a day? He could have triggered some sort of cultural faux pas by accidentally putting a little chip on a Thursday in June. Yeah, I know they didn't have Thursdays or Junes back then. This is an analogy, so unless you're Mayan, don't be so critical.

Anyway, put yourself in this guy's sandals...

Blogger's note: For all of you women asking, "Why is it a he? Why couldn't the calendar maker be a woman?" the answer is as simple as it is sexist. The supreme Mayan court - all men - reviewed a lower Mayan court's all-male decision that women could not engage in any activity, other than birthing and basket weaving, that was outside of the food service industry. The higher court upheld the decision 4-1, with the lone dissenter having his head chopped off by a vote of 4-0 for being a pussy. The supreme court's decision, literally written in stone, was interpreted by an archaeology expert, also a man. So until someone finds a Mayan basket calendar...it's a he.

As I was saying, you're the official Mayan calendar maker, and you're sitting around chiseling out that calendar...chiseling out year after year after year. You get to 100 or so years and take it to the boss. He likes it, but says, "Better take it out a bit more. Just to be safe." So there you sit and you knock out a couple hundred more years. Maybe you add a another fifty, not to kiss his ass, but as a thankful gesture for him giving you the time off to watch the sun set during the solstice celebration. Whatever.

But things change and now you have a new boss, a real forward-thinking, go-getter type. He says, "When can you stop? There is no stop. That's why Oxzectlata got his head lopped off...no ambition." The new boss tells you the Gods told him the dynasty will last forever, "So keep chipping the rock, Jack." Anyone who's ever worked for this type of boss knows the party is over for him as soon as the punch bowl is empty.

A few years go by and the boss is scheduled to get his new string of beads to show he's vested in the organization. When he leans over so the shaman can bestow the honor, dude gets the ax...right across the back of the neck. One big schwap! and there it goes, right down the ceremonial steps into the crowd. How's that for announcing a job opening! So all you can do now is go back to the stone and keep adding years until they hire a new boss who can tell you to stop. But it's a civil service job and the hiring process is painstakingly slow. Now you're 5,000+ years into the project and the civilization is predicted to become mired in a decline caused when men with white skin show up and start subdividing chunks of high-end real estate on the coast with mortgages backed by superior fire power. You say "Fuck this", drop your chisel, and tell everyone you're going north to San Diego because you heard the weather there is awesome.

I may have embellished the story a tiny bit, but you get the picture.

Anyway, there sits the Mayan calendar, waiting on someone's dynastic to-do list to get extended. Unfortunately, the prophecy of a hostile takeover holds true when boats full of Spaniards hit the beaches, so #1 on the list changes to "survival" and a few things don't get done. A few millennia later some pith-helmeted post-grad on an archaeology fellowship weed-whacks some vines off a pyramid in the Yucatan and finds a big, round rock with inscriptions cut into it. He determines it's a Mayan Long Count calendar and takes it to his professor. The professor announces this incredible find and takes credit for the discovery. The post-grad is pissed off because he knows the professor is an idiot who can barely wipe his ass, let alone write a grant. But the post-grad can't do anything about it because the professor has tenure. So the post-grad says, "Fuck this", walks away from his incomplete dissertation, and tells everyone he's going to San Diego because he heard the weather there is awesome.

Meanwhile, the incomplete dissertation gets passed around and because it ends without an ending, "scholars" believe the ending is the end. But they'll be wrong, because my wife made a calendar and her calendar ends on 12-31-2012. And rest assured my wife will make another calendar that will start on 1-1-2013. It, too, will go a full year.

So fear not the claims of the end of the world. As long as my wife makes a calendar for subsequent years, there will be subsequent years to calendar. And civilization as we know it will continue to exist. At least until she gets tired of making calendars. When that happens, I'm going to say "Fuck this", pack my things, and go to San Diego because I heard the weather there is awesome.

A Grainiums Holiday Greeting

Ah, yes. 'Tis the season. I wanted to put together a holiday play as a gift to all of you, but...well, I had a bad day. Here's some of what happened:

"Ladies and gentlemen, take your marks! Time to rehearse the second act of this three-act play. You! Yes, you in the corner! The Thanksgiving feast is over. Put the food down somewhere besides your throat. We already have a Santa. I don't need another fat ass knocking over stage props. Come on, folks! We still need to get set up and do a run-through of the New Years scene today. If you have plans to get home in time to celebrate the last Christmas before the 2012 doomsday, get your shit together!

"All right. House lights! Cue the fake snow! Aaaaaaannnd...orphan kids...start crying. Come on, real tears! Show some feelings. You're not selling the pain of this scene without real tears! Remember, you're orphans! You have no family. You're not getting an Xbox! Oh, for Christ's sake, where's the woman with the pepper spray?! That's right. Beautiful! Those are tears!

"Okay, stage left...enter the park carolers to sing to the 99%ers. More feeling! Make them want those five gold rings! Wait...hold it! CUT! Where are the damn protesters? What!?! What do you mean the Occupy characters have left? They went home? They can't go home, they're fucking homeless. How can we stage a protest against corporate greed if the protesters leave to celebrate one of the most commercialized holidays of the year? You! Yes, you! Stop spraying the kids and help move all of these empty tents off the stage. What? I don't care where. Empty here, empty there...move them!"

So you see, things didn't go very well and, regrettably, I called the production off. But I didn't want to let this stop me from sharing the in spirit of the season, so I called upon my editing staff and went looking for a  backup plan...

W.A.T.C.H. This!

WARNING: This blog contains sharp language, pointed remarks and words that can be choked on. Under certain circumstances, it may have a shock potential. Reading this blog could result in head trauma and/or irreversible brain damage. May be used indoors or out. Not advised for children under, oh, let's say twelve years of age.

There. I have disclaimed you.

The consumer advocacy group W.A.T.C.H. (World Against Toys Causing Harm) has published its list of what it believes are the 10 worst toys of 2011. The toys are allegedly dangerous, meaning they have "the potential to cause childhood injuries, or even death." Most of the toys are manufactured for small children. Their hazards are by and large of the choking variety, with a few strangulation and head injury potentials thrown in. W.A.T.C.H. has been doing this list since 1973. I applaud their efforts to promote toy safety, efforts that have prompted numerous product design changes that undoubtedly have reduced injuries and saved lives. But...

We shouldn't need groups telling us what's hazardous to our health. Anyone paying attention already knows what's hazardous: EVERYTHING! Everything is potentially life-threatening, which means everything should come with a warning label because somewhere there is a guy - odds are it's the male of our species - who will find some way to use some thing contrary to its designed purpose. That results in lowering the bar of stupidity juuuust enough for another attorney to jump over and before you know it, everything with a pointed end has a sponge tip. And the only people that's good for are the Nerf product development people at Hasbro, the toy company that manufactures a fully automatic Nerf blaster. Fully automatic, because "semi" is half-assed. (Rumors about the development of a long-range, unmanned Nerf bunker buster are unfounded.) Incidentally, the blaster was recalled, but not because of potential injury to the person being shot. It was recalled because the plunger might pinch the skin on the shooter's hand. Medic!

As a parent, I generally placed proper concern about the toys I bought for my children where it belonged. If I knew I wouldn't enjoy playing with them, I knew my kids wouldn't, either. Sure, there were times I'd cave in and buy them something that would distract them from "my" toys. On those occasions, I put faith in my child's I.Q. that toys having parts that could be inserted into most any orifice wouldn't be inserted into those places. Hell, there were times I had enough trouble getting food into their mouths, so they're gonna swallow plastic? Hah!

The Polly Pocket Hospital, which

comes with two nurses and an on-call 
Ear, Nose and Throat specialist.

My daughter, for example, had a large collection of Polly Pockets, miniature plastic figures that lived in pocket-sized cases. Her collection was large enough that she could have crapped an entire Liliputian town - including pets - out of her tiny little butt. Never happened. My son also had plenty of toys perfectly capable of fitting comfortably up his nose or scarring his flesh. Yes, there were occasions when my ear caught the muted, painful cry that preceded the slipper-footed child running toward me holding an "owie." Then came the story of what happened, followed by me telling them what my parents told me: "Well knock it off before someone really gets hurt." I'd slap on a cool bandage adorned with patterns of Ninja Turtles or kitties to impress their friends and send them on their way. Won't happen again, because next time is "I told you so" time, "Clean up this room" time, or "Put it away and read a book" time. Sometimes all three.

Like me, my kids learned to respect pain. When you respect pain, you respect risk and you avoid extreme pain. Simple. I know this because as a kid I owned two of the three top-rated banned toys in the United States: Clackers, which were two very hard plastic balls attached to a string, and Lawn Darts, which need no description. (The third, in case you're interested, was the Slip 'n Slide). Want to guess how many times I hit myself with the Clackers? If you guessed "once" you were right. There was no second time because the first time hurt way too much. Want to guess how many times we played Lawn Darts contrary to the manufacturer's instructions or warnings? Are you kidding? I couldn't begin to count the number of modified games that didn't include "how far," "how high" or "how close can you get it to me." An easier question would ask how many times one of us got hit with the darts, with the answer being "zero." Know why? Because enough of us got hit in the head or arm with the fucking Clackers!

I'm not saying I didn't look out for the welfare of my children. I'd have been heartbroken had something serious happened to either of them. But sometimes I think we put warnings on things or make rules that do nothing more than shift accountability. By trusting groups with cute names like W.A.T.C.H. instead of a group with a to-the-point name like D.A.R.W.I.N. (Dangerous Activities Reducing Worldwide Inhabitant Numbers) telling us how to play, we merely add to the shifting of responsibility away from ourselves as parents to teach our children a) to be cautious and, b) that there are avoidable consequences for not paying attention to "a." A helmet doesn't make a bicycle safe, just saf-er. Safe is only good when it's

put it in the proper perspective. Some meaning must be attached to it, so you occasionally have to let the kid on the Big Wheel roll down a steep slope and hope his equilibrium is better than his judgment.

Today, it's all fun and games until someone gets an eye poked out an attorney shows up. Labels to us were nothing more than a third parent, which means very little when you don't pay attention to the two you already have. Still, I'd hate to think where I'd be today if I hadn't learned first-hand that concrete is hard, electricity shocks and fire is hot. Sometimes I learned painfully, and sometimes playfully. Would we have been safer growing up heeding any of the warnings we frequently disregarded? Doubtful. Because even if there had been a warning label on the dryer drum telling us not to shove my brother inside and roll him down the driveway...well, Lawn Darts.

Occupied Thought - College Edition

Is it me or has the Occupy movement seemed to be going the way of every great concept that's washed up on the shores of this grand nation? (I would have said "crossed the borders into," but that's a different issue.) What started as an attempt to bring attention to corporate greed, government fiscal irresponsibility, and unfair taxation seems to be turning into more of a fashion statement than a political one. The movement is being applied beyond that initial focus of the 99%ers, and now Americans from all walks are creating a convoy of personal bandwagons to occupy everything that's perceived as unfair or inequitable except farm labor jobs. They couldn't be content standing on streets with misspelled signs, now they're turning the movement into the Great American Camp Out. And you know somewhere there's

The pen is mightier than the sord!

an overpaid Coleman or R.E.I. ad exec trying to figure out a way to ride a little mileage down that road to get their stock values up.

Instead of staying the course and keeping their sights on banks and other financial institutions, or maybe showing the capacity to organize a road trip to Washington, D.C., like middle school kids do, protestors have diversified and to no one's surprise are now assembling on college campuses to protest high tuition.

Q & A Time: What's the difference between an activist and a protestor on a college campus?
a) Although neither has graduated, activists have more years of college.
b) Activists write signs, protestors carry them.
c) Activists get hit less with police batons than protestors because all smart leaders
    stand in the rear of the formation.
d) On average, activists spend more time in court and protestors spend more time
    in the emergency room.
e) All of the above.

Would come as a surprise to anyone that a confrontation resulted from a protest at a college campus? While I could use an example from the campus at UC Berkeley, that institution of higher learning has technically been occupied in perpetuity since the 60's - and by some of the same people (See Q&A above, answer "a") - so it's hard to separate the overlap between one protest and the next. Instead, I give you the following incident from the campus of the University of California, Davis.

On November 18th, campus and city police in Davis, California, confronted Occupy protestors at an unauthorized encampment in the UC Davis campus quad. A spokesperson from UC Davis said the campers were given "written warning to remove the tents by 3 p.m., or police would remove them." Guess what happened after 3 p.m.?

Campus police watch as two UC Davis engineering

undergrads struggle in vain to successfully refold a

tent and make it fit inside its storage bag.

Naturally, one side was not very pleased with the result. A graduate student supporting the student activists criticized the UC Davis police for what he characterized as a particularly aggressive stance in dealing with the protesters. The student said the communication between police and their liaison was sparse. "They were not communicating well with student activists. We had no intention to antagonize the police." Okay, how much of that "remove the tents or the police will" communication didn't land between their ears? UC Davis students average a score of 510 to 640 out of a possible 800 on the Critical Reading section of the S.A.T. tests, so I can't imagine they'd need a picture to go with the words in order to comprehend the written warning.

As for having "no intention of antagonizing the police," everyone participating in these Occupy functions should be aware by now that occupying a space without permission - that means setting up a tent camp where there is no KOA sign - will at some point in time result in the police showing up and giving the order to disperse. If you are one of the 99% not packing up your hemp duffel bag and walking away, you're what's commonly referred to as an antagonist. The minute you are instructed to leave and you don't, you have crossed the line separating "non-violent civil disobedience" from having the right to remain silent.

While the Davis campus incident is mild compared to the recent incidents any incident at Berkeley, the potential for escalation cannot be ignored. The job of the police is to enforce. All of you English majors pay attention: the word "force" is in the word "enforce." It's not like it's a Word Jumble puzzle and you have to move the letters around to see it. And force can be as passive as a direction, like a written warning, which when followed avoids the physical use of force. Now for you History majors in the crowd, you know what else is a use of force? An occupation. Just ask anyone from Poland, France, or Czechoslovakia still alive from the 1940's.

I'd like to take a side, but the student body isn't making me feel very sympathetic to their cause. I fully support anyone's right to voice their opinion or decry an injustice. I think the schools have made it very clear that protesting is fine, camping isn't. So if you organize and set up your campsite with the intent of getting arrested, and openly admit to doing so, you should expect to get arrested. The problem manifests itself when the police show up to arrest anyone who won't leave and the ones who were there to get arrested resist getting what they wanted, which is to be arrested. This leads to the cops having to use force. Then the ones who got their wish complain about the use of force by the cops. Sure, there are cops that probably like their jobs waaaay to much, but the beating/subduing can be avoided next time if you just stick to the plan and get fucking arrested. If you turn the around and put your arms behind your back instead of linking them with your neighbor and playing red rover, you're less likely to get a hickory stick Heimlich or a pepper spray facial.

I'm not part of the 1%, but I don't feel like I'm part of the 99%, either. I'm as upset with rising costs and big government debt as much as anyone. What the banks and the government did and continue to do affect me, too. I'd like to protest, but I can't take time off work to sit on the curb and cry foul. I do that and the next thing you know another mortgage isn't being paid and the debt problem grows by one more. What upsets me more is when someone who's borrowing money from a bank to, oh, I don't know, go to a college with a name that doesn't start with "Community," protests about how greedy the banks holding those loans are. Here's my protest about what banks do: they create unsecured debt by lending money to someone who will, for example, spend seven or eight years in college getting their doctorate in rhetoric or some other liberal art degree that has no marketability, then can't get a job to pay their loan back. So who gets stuck with that debt? The bank, a.k.a. me.

If some of those student loans are going to come out of my pocket, I want to see some return on my investment. So I say this to you students: Get out of your tents and back into your classrooms. Hit those books to find a practical solution to the problem. Show me that level of intelligence that qualified you to be an alum of an elite university and not a certified specialist from a Technical Institute (read: trade school). Otherwise, if you want me to pay for you to pitch a tent, join the military.