Mexico is wracked by gangs and drug cartels, so it is at risk of imploding.
Mexico hosts large, well-attended international book fairs, so no it isn’t.
Related: Mexican man sells daughter for money and beer.
Not related: The ten most worthless college degrees. Disclosure: one of those majors was mine, but I managed to overcome it, finance-wise. Not sure I’d go down that road again, though…
Midday video break: (mostly) Acoustic 90s clips
Comment by Curmudgeon on 1/14 @ 2:40 pm #
Time to dust off War Plan Green.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 1/14 @ 2:41 pm #
You majored in Dance, Dan?
I ought to have guessed. It has your name in it.
Comment by Bob Reed on 1/14 @ 2:48 pm #
*Whew*
Thank God arospace engineering wasn’t on that list…
Comment by Patrick Carroll on 1/14 @ 2:52 pm #
Ah, it’s all coming back….
Mensa
Mensa
Mensam
Mensae
Mensae
Mensa
Mensae
Mensae
Mensas
Mensarum
Mensis
Mensis
Charles the Bald: Quid distat inter Scottum et sottum?
John Scotus Eriugena: Tabula tantum!
Latin is a language
As dead as dead can be.
It killed tghe ancient Romans
And now it’s killing me.
Et cetera.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 1/14 @ 2:52 pm #
“arospace”?
Comment by Slartibartfast on 1/14 @ 2:53 pm #
I think I’m one of the few engineers that both spells worth a damn, and cares about spelling.
Comment by dicentra on 1/14 @ 2:57 pm #
I majored in Spanish Lit. Is that like English Lit or Latin? And yeah, it’s a worthless degree, unless you’re going to teach Spanish Lit in the Uni. Which is a useless profession, IMO, but there you are.
Funny that the photo they chose for “Religion” is a couple of Mormon missionaries. We’ve got lay clergy, so you don’t need a degree in theology to be ordained to the priesthood.
As for Latin, it might not make a good major, but it’s a good thing to know, if for no other reason than to understand grammar and etymology. My cousin’s kid is in a high school that emphasizes Latin, and they had a big old Latin fair with games and junk in Latin. Once you’ve got your Latin down, you’re all set for Law, Medicine, Science, and Linguistics.
Comment by Bob Reed on 1/14 @ 3:04 pm #
Slart,
That’s how aerospace is pronounced in parts of North Carolina…
Obviously typing isn’t one of my mad skillz…
Comment by Mikey NTH on 1/14 @ 3:08 pm #
Heh: “…using it to start a fire in a 55 gallon drum because you are homeless.”
Comment by DarthRove on 1/14 @ 3:11 pm #
The Latin people also seem to be somewhat entreprenurial. I remembered “Winnie Ille Pu” from my H.S. days, and on Amazon I found the Harry Potter books in a Latin translation.
“Dominus et Domina Dursley, qui vivebant in aedibus Gestationis Ligustrorum numero quattuor signatis, non sine superbia dicebant se ratione ordinaria vivendi uti neque se paenitere illius rationis.”
Brings back all the boredom of Latin III, don’t it?
Comment by Bob Reed on 1/14 @ 3:12 pm #
And, I know it’s an excuse, but the laptop keyboard is just not as spacious as the full size one…
Mebbe I should use the ol’ talk to type program!
No, then I’d just have to attach a darn mic…
Comment by Slartibartfast on 1/14 @ 3:15 pm #
I’m just throwing a few sharp elbows to the rib cage, Bob. Nothin’ personal.
Comment by Bob Reed on 1/14 @ 3:18 pm #
I know Slart, but too many years with the luxury of a secretary have ruined me!
Comment by happyfeet on 1/14 @ 4:02 pm #
Yay! I made the top five!
Comment by Slartibartfast on 1/14 @ 4:04 pm #
I share a secretary with about 200 other engineers. She doesn’t do typing.
Comment by happyfeet on 1/14 @ 4:05 pm #
I do pretty well for someone who just double-checked how many days November has. Not bad at all really.
Comment by McGehee on 1/14 @ 4:09 pm #
I bailed out on a communications major, worked for a few years, and went back to major in poli sci.
I’m pretty sure poli sci is #12 — right behind journalism.
Comment by kelly on 1/14 @ 4:24 pm #
Is a music degree on the list? It must be, I have one.
Our trusty firewalls disallow me from looking myself.
Comment by Eric on 1/14 @ 4:37 pm #
On a serious note, a lot of people who went a hundred grand in the hole to get an unmarketable degree have to be pretty bitter about the whole thing. I have to believe from an economic perspective at least half the students in private colleges right now would come out way ahead in the long run working instead of going to school.
Comment by Techie on 1/14 @ 4:41 pm #
Thanks for posting that video, two of my favorite bands (i’ll pretend Natalie is still with 10,000 Maniacs).
In the Latin Harry Potter, do they translate the spells into Fake English?
Comment by Techie on 1/14 @ 4:49 pm #
More 10,000 Maniacs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rhKJcTgmgI&feature=related
Comment by Rusty on 1/14 @ 5:11 pm #
Anthropology has to be in the top 15. Good thing I learned a trade.
Comment by Mikey NTH on 1/14 @ 5:19 pm #
History, Poli Sci, and English were good for teaching. Not so good when you can’t find a teaching job. Law School was a better choice.
Comment by donald on 1/14 @ 5:40 pm #
I flunked out of Georgia, Georgia State and Olympic college (Bremerton, WA), in a grand total of 6 years. I was gonna be an English major. To get laid. Really. I guess I really didn’t flunk out of Olympic. I took a philosophy class, in which I called the professor a lying fraud (He turned my stomach with his seething hatred for the military, which kinda sucked since I was in the Navy) and I quit going to my English class after I pulled my hamstring and couldn’t kick (For the football team, I was pretty damned good people) anymore, I didn’t want any part of that dump.
Comment by donald on 1/14 @ 5:41 pm #
I was only gonna be there two quarters anyway.
Comment by donald on 1/14 @ 5:49 pm #
That philosophy guy literally had wild gray hair, smoked a pipe, dressed for shit, and wore those goddamned birkenstok/gay thor sandal deals. And on the day I walked in that class, I had no idea what that meant. Just remembering that reminds me just how fucking stupid I can be.
Comment by Rich Cox on 1/14 @ 5:52 pm #
Most Liberal Arts degrees are not intended to be used directly unless you want to teach. They are a jump off point and teach you the basic skills needed to go further in a specialization. History taught me how to study, develop a thesis, research, synthesize a spectrum of arguments into a cognisant statement, and place things/ life/ whatever into context. It also shoehorned beautifully into my Poli Sci International Relations minor. But now I am a Flight Instructor.
The list just seemed to take most of these majors too literal. It is OJT and life that will give you the real training. I would never change a thing with my degree except take it much more seriously at the time and study a hell’a lot more. And party.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 1/14 @ 5:52 pm #
I read a story the other day about some gal that was bitter and bewildered that he degree wasn’t all that helpful at paying off her student loans. Her degree: Photography. Her loans: $146,000.
I’m willing to bet she’s part of the “reality-based community.”
Comment by Jeffersonian on 1/14 @ 5:52 pm #
“her” degree
Comment by Mikey NTH on 1/14 @ 7:04 pm #
#27 Rich Cox:
This comes to mind: http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_4_classical_education.html
However, the expansion of the university after WWII has put students into a bind. A degree is needed, but what will that major be good for? A classical liberal education was fine when few people went to university and few people received a classical education (how many graduated from high school before WWII?). Even if the first two years are spent on a liberal education, it is done with full PC and grad student instructors.
Unless the student is independently wealthy, a concnetration on those areas of study (philosophy, art history, Latin) isn’t going to prepare them to do anything else in the real world - either teach, be a perpetual student, or go on to law school. Or enlist.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 1/14 @ 7:24 pm #
There’s a grave disconnect here.
Universities and trade schools are two different things, or should be.
The notion that everyone needs a university degree is a shameful thing, for which the academy bears a great deal of responsibility.
Comment by Bob Reed on 1/14 @ 7:24 pm #
Slart,
At the Navy we had enlisted personell serving as our clerks and admin workers…
Curiously, they didn’t refuse to type too often…
Comment by Patrick Carroll on 1/14 @ 7:37 pm #
I had the (dis)advantage of parents who were determined I’d be a Roman Catholic priest (oldest boy, Irish family, 1960’s, etc) (Jayzus! It’s a long story!).
The parents sent me to three religious boarding schools, each of increasing severity, for my secondary school education. I cheerfully sucked down the liberal arts and shat out nothing but atheism. Yes, I was a bad boy. (Dad, Mom, I’m sorry.) They could play their games, I’d play mine.
I got an academic scholarship out of secondary school, appeared at University College Galway in 1979, and applied for the Applied Physics and Electronics major, despite a complete lack of, you know, actual science in my secondary school transcript. The head of the Physics department, Prof. Philip Walton (son of the “Walton” in “Cockcroft and Walton”) took me in.
I had a great time. I *love* Physics, with a passion I can’t begin to describe without looking like a Parkinson’s patient on caffeine. Oh, and when I went through the Irish University system, if you chose science as a major, you got nothing but science (maths, physics, chemistry, biology) for four years. IT. WAS. BRILLIANT.
So, I got this massive liberal arts education in high school, and loads of maths, physics, and chemistry at college. And *then* I did six years in the US military. I am now mostly a happy person. A veritable PzKw V among people. What can I not take a shot at? Thank you, monks, priests, parents, professors, and long-suffering sergeants. Oh, and Galway west of the Corrib.
Tell me again. Why am I sharing this? Oh. Right. Degrees.
Don’t be a fool. Stay in school. And study Natural Philosophy.
Comment by Bob Reed on 1/14 @ 7:47 pm #
AMEN SBP…
Comment by happyfeet on 1/14 @ 10:25 pm #
Techie that’s almost the best song ever in the history of songness I think. There’s a girl I know who is sort of just incidentally beautiful what when that song comes on she is happy and she dances and it’s way better than the video. Can we add this one too though?
http://www.artistdirect*.com/nad/window/media/page/video/0,,4400879,00.htm
Comment by The Lost Dog (or Lost God, maybe?) on 1/14 @ 10:29 pm #
Comment by kelly on 1/14 @ 4:24 pm #
“Is a music degree on the list? It must be, I have one.
Our trusty firewalls disallow me from looking myself.”
I have one, too. It’s called an “MOSI” degree. Master Of Stupid Ideas, If I recall correctly.
It’s just as usefull as tits on a bull. If I tell my insurance company that I am a musician, they double my rates. And don’t even THINK of putting anything about being a musician on a job resume…
Comment by Spiny Norman on 1/15 @ 12:15 am #
The students of those “10 most worthless college majors” (and those who have degrees in them, I’m certain) sure got testy in the comments at the holytaco link, Dan.
Heh. Funny shit.
Comment by donald on 1/15 @ 5:39 am #
I was one of them clerk typist guys Bob. You what was cool about that? It was almost like being king rat.
Comment by Bob Reed on 1/15 @ 6:46 am #
donald,
FWIW I had an understanding with the ones in our squadron. They got the important stuff done, stat, and everything else; well whenever…
The Chiefs actually ran the Navy anyway; us officers just thought we were in charge!
Comment by donald on 1/15 @ 7:46 am #
Bob,
We had our Senior Chief. He was doing his first sea tour in about 25 years, and was doing it to make master chief. He was also finishing off his doctorate in psychology and used us as part of his thesis, or whatever you call it. It was like being in a laboratory. He’d do stuff like come into the office and give everybody a candy bar except one. We did two cruises together, and his ability to keep guys who were bored out of their minds focused was incredible to me. He’s a great dude, still lives in Spring Valley in the same house he bought in 1969 for about $8,000.00. It’s worth about a half mil today. I’m real happy for him. He changed my life.
By the way, CV-61 baby.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 1/15 @ 8:28 am #
Hm. I had a USAF officer working for me, and he refused to type. He wasn’t half bad at everything else, though. Probably an enlisted guy would have been more tractable. I’ll have to try that sometime.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 1/15 @ 8:30 am #
Dunno if you can even get a mobile home in that part of the country for less than three-quarters of a mill. Maybe things have changed, though.
Comment by MarkD on 1/15 @ 8:59 am #
The military is good with that life-changing stuff. I was a really bored kid who didn’t know what he wanted to do, did know I didn’t want to be drafted, so I took engineering because dad was one and the pay was decent. Well, I didn’t like it. I especially loathed the first Computer Science course I took.
So I quit and joined the Marines. Who told me I had a really great score on the language aptitude test, refused to send me to language school, and made me a computer programmer. Then they sent me to North Carolina, which I hated and volunteered to go anywhere to escape. So they sent me to Japan - where I somehow ended up staying for my entire enlistment, living off-base and not on any duty rosters, and in general having way more fun than anyone deserves, especially in the Marine Corps. I didn’t totally waste all my time though, I took some college classes and taught English as a volunteer. That turned out to be the best thing I ever did, because those classes took me everywhere and I saw more Japan than most tourists could ever hope to. I ended up marrying a student in one of my classes. I guess it’s going to work out, we’re about a third of the way to our 100th wedding anniversary.
When I got out I eventually finished my degree in Business, because the company I worked for was big on degrees for professional staff - besides the GI Bill paid for it. Most udergrad degrees won’t do any more than get you a chance at a job. I don’t know about other fields, but some of the best IT guys I ever knew had no degree, a degee in Astronomy and a degree in Agriculture.
The only degrees I’d denigrate (can we still use that word?) are the XXX Studies degrees. I wouldn’t hire anyone who holds one. You can be certain you’re getting a professional grievance monger. With everything else, the degree proves you’re not a quitter. It’s up to me to find out if you can do the job and want to do the job.
Comment by donald on 1/15 @ 11:04 am #
It’s all about the Spring Valley Inn Slart.