Greenberg's Theorem

I don't know how many of you are lucky enough to have your local paper carry conservative columnist Paul Greenberg, but the R-G has done us the favor of bringing him back for another round. Last we saw Paul around these parts was the late '90s. He's the editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and a huge Clinton-hater, so he enjoyed a good eight year run there reminding us all that the Clintons were the most corrupt people on Earth. My impression at the time was he was trying to be a "moderate" voice fighting against the Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy the Clintons wanted to impose on this great nation. I guess now that he is on Townhall, he has abandoned that pretext. Anyway, now that there is another Marxist-Leninist (or is that Leninist-Marxist?) in office, the R-G has brought Paul back to scare us with his "the world is going to hell because it no longer looks like Little Rock circa 1955 anymore" stories.

I bring all this up because his column published today hits close to home.

Every teaching assistant at a large state university has had the experience. At least I did as a TA in the University of Missouri's history department. Sometime during the semester you'd get a call from a junior assistant coach -- as new to the academic life as you were -- who just wanted to drop by and have a Coke.

My first thought, of course, was "No, not every TA experiences that," but I got the gist and played along, besides we all have to generalize from the particular every now and again. My second thought was that Paul must have been a TA in nineteen-dickity-two, and that is one hell of a generalization from the particular, given that we have invented cars, electricity, and thinking since Paul was a TA.

Of course the young [buzz-cutted, one imagines] coach goes on to encourage him not to flunk some football player. Paul slyly lets it be known that he played ball, so to speak.

The young coach had carried out his assignment, I'd done my duty, no hard feelings. That's the way it worked. Every system has its little accepted corruptions that accumulate like sludge on the gears.

The next sentence is the one I loved most in the article:

I don't know if that kind of visit still happens. It shouldn't.

See, you know that times have changed since Paul was a Tiger, because we have invented thesis statements since then. You know, opening sentences that let the reader know what the rest of the article will be about. Paul's was about the universality of an experience. Four paragraphs in, he has acknowledged that he has no idea if his initial argument is actually true. This is not going well.

From these petty corruptions that make society work, Paul moves on to the real horror taking place on our college campuses today.

There's been one big change since my days behind the lectern. It's no longer the coaches who appeal, wheedle, growl, grovel, or whatever it takes to raise a student's letter grade. It's the students themselves.

The horror![?] Actually, as we've discussed, there have been a lot of changes at Mizzou since Paul was behind the lectern. I can think of one giant change to college life at a Southern university since Paul taught there. Can you?

What could be worse than having actual students beg their TA for a higher grade? Academics studying such a thing.

Naturally enough, a team of academics has written a paper about this sad trend. ("Self-Entitled College Students: Contributions of Personality, Parenting and Motivational Factors"). The syndrome now has a name (Academic Entitlement) and an abbreviation (AE) -- just like Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Doubtless there will soon be federal grants and endowed chairs to study AE and a drug to treat it. And sure enough, it'll turn out to be more widespread than anyone ever suspected.

The four scholars who did this Pioneering Study trace the origins of AE to parental pressure, material rewards for good grades, competitiveness, and "achievement anxiety and extrinsic motivation." They conclude that AE is "most strongly related to exploitive attitudes towards others and moderately related to an overall sense of entitlement and to narcissism."

At the risk of putting all that in plain English, these kids are spoiled brats with character problems.

Ha, ha, ha! Academics. Have they nothing better to do than study a phenomenon that affects tens of thousands of people? I mean, Paul was unaware that it was an issue until he read about their study in the New York Times, but come on, isn't this just a giant waste of our time that also just happens to alert us to one of the greatest threats to civilization itself? Ha, ha, ha. Academics.

Paul goes on in the "kids today" vein for a bit until he gets to his point, which is toward the end of the column, rather than, well you know where the point of an article belongs because you were educated after people stopped wearing onions on their belts.

Consider this newly named syndrome another argument for universal military service. Call it Greenberg's Theorem: There's nothing wrong with these kids that six weeks of basic training at an Army base in some barren clime wouldn't cure -- if they didn't manage to have mama or papa get them out of it.

It's true you know, six weeks of basic would settle their hash. Plus, then we'd have lots and lots of kids to fight in the twin threats to civilizations itself, Iran and North Korea, those haters of freedom, what with their forced military service and all. Oh, if only we didn't have that so-called "natural-born citizen" Obama in charge, then we could get something done in this country, I tell you what.

Let me leave you with the words of one of Paul's more insightful readers, Patrick from the great state of Texas:

LIBERALS LOVES TEST

LIBERALS USE TEST AS A WAY TO SHOW NEED FOR THEIR GREED. NOT I.Q. TEST, NOT DNA TEST, NOR ANY TEST THAT CAN PROVE ANYTHING, THEY USE TEST TO CLAIM PREJUDICE. TEST SHOULD BE USED TO SEPARATE THE STUDENT FROM THE ENTRY LEVEL CAREER PERSON AND THEN ENHANCE THE SKILLS TO ENABLE BETTER PEOPLE.

Paul couldn't have said it better himself.

The Mysterious Case of the $30,000 Waitress

There is many ways the following, from CNN's program Your Money, is awesome.

[CNN Host] ROMANS: Peter Morici the Senate was right to bail out on this bailout?

Peter Morici,University of Maryland School of Business: They didn't bail out. Gettlefinger bailed out. Toyota workers are paid very well, they have outstanding benefits, but that is not good enough for Ron Gettlefinger in the UAW. Instead they want a gold plated package as if they're the British aristocracy.I don't think a waitress making $30,000 a year in Indiana ought to send her tax dollars to Washington to subsidize that nonsense.

Digby focuses on the notion that Morici casts unionized workers, not capitalist investors or executives, as the equivalent of aristocracy. I am particularly enamored with the fact that a professor at a business school in the US apparently operates under the delusion that waitresses in Indiana are pulling down $30K a year.

According to the government, the average waitress earned $7.14 an hour, including tips, in 2006. Ignoring the fact that our hypothetical waitress is in Indiana and probably on the bottom end of the wage scale, $7.14 an hour comes out to $14,851.20 a year, assuming a 40-hour work week, which is probably high.

Of course, it could be argued that these facts make UAW salaries even more outrageous, but (hopefully) our Indiana waitress understands that her customers are likely to pass along that pay in the form of chicken fried steak orders and tips. The less money in their pockets, the less money in her pockets. This simple economic formula is probably over the head of our b-school guy, as he is so far off in his estimation of what is happening the US economy that he thinks that entry-level jobs in the US earn 75% of the average wage. Would that they did.

Now That's Snackin'!

Step 1: Organize a bowl of your finest grievances.

Step 2: Make pour and consume a Tanqueray martini.

Step 3: Repeat Step 2.

Step 4: Take a Snyders of Hanover pretzel rod, dip it into a jar of Sierra Nevada Stone Ground Stout mustard, then wrap that rod with some prosciutto di parma.

Step 5: Consume.

Step 6: Repeat Step 5 as necessary.

A Sucker Is Born

Kinoki foot padspossibly the awesomist bogus product commercial ever.

[Update]: A lot of people I know refuse to believe this product exists. But it does.

16 Years, Down the Tubes

My wife just suggested that Raiders of the Lost Ark is not necessarily better than Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. And while I type this, she further asserts that "this movie is just a little more badass than Indiana Jones."

Shitfaced

Have you all seen the Belvedere Vodka commercial featuring Vincent Gallo? I think the commercial is pretty bad. I'd link to it, but I can't find it on the nets.

The commercial is just as "arty" and pretentious as you might expect from Gallo, but my question is why the fine folks at Belvedere would use him. Does he have some kind of cultural cache that I am not aware of? I mean what percentage of the population has heard of the guy, but doesn't know that he is a racist shit head that seems to genuinely believe that people want to buy his old crap and/or pay $1M to be impregnated by him (no blacks need apply)?

The other question is why the fine folks at Belvedere chose Mr. Gallo. Either they didn't know about his website and personal views, which shows poor judgment, or they knew about this and chose to feature him anyway, which shows shockingly poor judgment.

For those that might be tempted to view the website as a joke or an "art piece," please show me even once where you get that impression, except in the "sperm" sale, which could only be a joke because it is so over-the-top. But none of the rest of the site is, so I don't know why we would consider this odious slice to be a put-on.

Just so you know, I hadn't read the gawker piece when I wrote this. Been meaning to for awhile, but just did it today. Hmmm.

Whaaaaaaa...?

Take a gander at this "hilarious" press release from the Republican branch of the House Energy and Commerce Committee concerning SCHIP.

Now I am all for getting "drunk" at work on a Friday afternoon and putting weird shit up on the internets, but for fuck sake, when you work for Congress, you really should be careful about these things.

Three million kids without health insurance has never been so funny.

Pre-AGEL Phone Call Blogging

You know why the song Jessie's Girl is awesome? It's the line:

She's loving him with that body/
I just know it.

It's the "I just know it." As if there is some doubt in Rick's heart that Jessie and his girl are actually sleeping with each other. They way says it, like we, the audience are the ones harboring this doubt and he needs to convince us of the strength of his belief.

Rick, we never doubted it, and you divinely reveal too much. We love you because we pity you.