College Loans are getting tough.

 Since the college loan system was put in, college tuition has risen thru the roof.  Any time any college feels it needs more money, it raises tuition.  The students, who have already signed tremendous loans, just grumble and sign again.  They have sunk so much money into their college educations that they will sign for another few thousand bucks and just grumble about it. 

    One thing we could do now.  All the money spent on college is wasted if the student flunks out and does not graduate.  We ought to require colleges to pay off the student loans of those who flunk out and don’t graduate.  This would sharpen up the college admissions offices to only admit students who can do the work.  Right now colleges admit just about anybody because the students that don’t make it don’t cost the college anything.  If the colleges were responsible for paying off the student loans of those who do not graduate, they would be much more cautious about admitting marginal students. 

Are there any good new movies?

 I was cruising Netflix today , the 100 most popular movies rented from Netflix.  Arghh.  They all looked boring except for Addams Family 2.  I gave the Addams a rent but I worry that it will be terrible when it gets here.  I am a movie buff, I have movies on VHS and DVD going back to the 1940s.  The new crop doesn't measure up.  Hollywood movies used to be world wide famous.  They helped us win WWII and the Cold War.  This current batch won't do anything that good. 

Do Adults ever buy hardback fiction to read themselves?

   Is anyone writing decent adult fiction anymore?  I look at the best selling hardback fiction in the Wall St Journal weekend edition.  Most weeks two or three classic Dr. Seuss books and some other children’s books are there.  Seldom are there any books in hardback fiction that I would care to read myself. 

   I’m thinking that the Dr. Seuss and other children’s books are bought by parents and other grownups as gifts for children.  I don’t think grownups read hardback fiction anymore. I know I am reading a fair number of Young Adult books. The YA books have protagonists that actually do something, have a plot that I can follow and have some interesting things happen, and other sequels so that if I liked the first one, I can buy and read some more of the same.

What are the Russians thinking?

    TV coverage of bodies lying in the street, many of them bound, mass graves and blown up buildings are going all over the West, and making us think the Russians are real barbarians.  It is doing them harm, we think that people that uncivilized need some harsh sanctions, like cutting off their oil sales, messing with their credit, seizing $120 million yachts, and other stuff is what they deserve. 

   If the Russians had any sense, they wouldn’t leave dead civilians lying in the streets.  I don’t know where Putin himself is coming from, but the high command of the Russian army ought to have insisted that the troops lay off the civilians.  Somewhere down the chain of command, things were let slip.  Could have been officers at the division level, or at the brigade level, or the company level.  Or it could be that the troops just ignored their officers and started shooting civilians.  How ever it happened it hurt the Russians badly.  They should have known what this sort of behavior would do to them, and they should have prevented it.  They failed, and they are now drawing world wide condemnation. 

More Old Line Science Fiction Authors, L. Sprague de Camp

de Camp was a pretty good writer.  All his stuff is worth reading.  My favorite is Lest Darkness Fall. It's old, copyright 1939. but it still reads well.  Thru methods not well explained, a modern archeologist, Martin Padway gets miraculously transported from our modern time back to Ancient Rome of the 500s.  Despite being written about 70 years ago Padway comes off as a perfectly reasonable modern American in his dealing with the inhabitants of Ancient Rome.   Fortunately Padway knows Latin and Italian well enough to get along in Ancient Rome.  He manages to make a living by borrowing money from a local Rome banker and setting up to distill and sell brandy.  The time is just a few weeks before Justinian, the Eastern Rome Emperor will make his attempt to reconquer Italy for the Empire.  Padway decides to oppose Justinian and Justinian's general Belisaurius.  Thru good luck, and employment of some 20th century military ideas, the Goths in Italy, with Padway leading them, manage to defeat the Imperial invasion.   Padway meets a number of pretty and cool chicks, does not marry any of them.  All in all a good read.  You will enjoy it.   

How long before Biden crashes the US dollar?

Goldman Sachs asks the question.  These are bankers worrying about borrowing too much money.  When bankers express worry about such things, trouble is not far away.

Presby’s sugaring off party

Presby throws this party every year.  Breakfast of pancakes, choice of bacon, pork sausage, or ham, donut holes, coffee.  Kids love it.  Saw new maple sap tanks and the new stainless steel sap boiler, bought some maple stuff, and enjoyed the morning.