Higher Ed in Decline

The Washington Post headlines an article with this descriptive title.

Colleges are now closing at a pace of one a week. What happens to the students?

As you can imagine, student outcomes aren’t great, many do not go on elsewhere to finish up. Lost credits is an often cited reason. Alumni are left wondering about the value of a degree from a defunct school.

I am more interested in why the schools are closing, which the WaPo article addresses thusly.

“It’s simply supply and demand,” said Gary Stocker, a former chief of staff at Westminster College in Missouri and the founder of College Viability, which evaluates institutions’ financial stability. The closings follow an enrollment decline of 14 percent in the decade through 2022, the most recent period for which the figures are available from the Education Department. A decline of as much as 15 percent is projected to begin next year.

Students should note that public institutions are unlikely to shut down. Should a public IHE close, it was likely a member of a system. Other campuses of the system will accommodate affected students. 

As a retired faculty member, I wonder what’s happening to the laid off faculty. I’d guess their job market is terrible, the norm in shrinking “industries.” 

The other DrC and I were fortunate to ride the boom in IHE growth and we benefitted thereby. It no longer has those rosy prospects. The underlying factor was and is demographics - a student base that is both changing and shrinking. 

The Norms of Rural Life

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) wrote a book in which she briefly described killing a dog she owned that killed critters and generally misbehaved. Folks want to make a big deal about that, especially animal lovers. Political mavens say her admission put paid to her hopes to be Trump's VP choice.

Why do you suppose Noem wrote what she did? The behavior she described is more or less routine in rural areas. Bad dogs get put down. 

How do you suppose wolf puppies eventually evolved to be our loyal, loving companions? Because of human-aided natural selection. Our ancestors killed those canines that acted too wolfish, kept and nurtured those which demonstrated some willingness to be our sidekicks. 

Many hundreds of dog generations later, we have lap dogs, racing dogs, working dogs, herding dogs, guide dogs, guard dogs and sled dogs. They come in all sizes, many body types and sizes, exhibit a range of selected-for behaviors, etc. Many seniors treat a dog as a surrogate grandchild.

In essence we created dogs out of an existing species - wolves - which had pack instincts somewhat compatible with co-habitation with humans. Wolf packs have alpha leaders which the others follow, their domesticated descendants have transferred that loyalty to a human leader.

If you grew up in a rural area, as Noem did, you'd consider her behavior close to routine. Dogs which kill stock get killed, preferably by their owner, but sometimes by the owner of whatever livestock was killed. 

I know this because I grew up in a rural area. My uncle who lived nearby raised turkeys commercially, he wouldn't have hesitated shooting a dog he caught killing his birds.

Saturday Snark

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Friday Snark, a Day Late

Images courtesy of Politico's Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Process Note

Sorry for no posts in the last two days, the DrsC have been “in transit” to our summer home in Wyoming. What made it particularly trying was that we did it about two weeks earlier than planned.

We weren’t “on the run” from Nevada, we just had a need to get to WY sooner than planned. This we accomplished without any major hassles. 

Spring comes late in the high country, there are still snow banks on the north sides of hills, houses, etc. The aspens are just “thinking about” leafing out, but it hasn’t happened yet. On the other hand, I've seen the season's first deer-in-the-yard.

The drive from I-15 east through the mountains of eastern Idaho was especially scenic. The other DrC, who has a more artistic eye than mine, said it looked like some terrain we experienced on a late spring drive up the Alaskan highway, and she was absolutely on target. 

Later today, while taking rest breaks from de-winterizing our house and unpacking the truck, I will try to get the Friday and Saturday Snarks chosen and posted. That’s all for now, time to get to work.

Our View of Ukraine

I haven’t written recently about our involvement supporting Ukraine against Russian invasion. I know such support has become controversial among Republicans, of whom I consider myself one.

Just to be clear, I believe what Speaker Johnson did recently to move funds to support Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan was the right thing to do. That Democrats were needed to get it passed is okay with me, we disagree about much but why not cooperate on those things about which we agree?

I fully understand the irritation many in the GOP feel about the Biden administration’s failure to secure our southern border. I feel it too. 

But I understand the Biden losers have decided to make an open border the hill they will die on, and sacrificing an ally - Ukraine - which is fully occupying the Russian military in their eastern provinces won’t change that. A win in November is how we change our border policy.

“Fighting to the last Ukrainian” is an ugly business. As long as the Ukrainians wish to do so, subsidizing that effort is money well spent. If we were supporting a NATO ally our GIs would be there dying alongside theirs. And if Ukraine falls, I am convinced one of our allies will be Putin’s next target.

Advice for Spring Grads

We cite Nate Silver's work here at COTTonLINE with some frequency. Today he gives excellent advice I'd suggest you share with any youngsters of your acquaintance who will be graduating from high school next month. The following is from a post on X reposted on Instapundit.

Just go to a state school. The premium you're paying for elite private colleges vs. the better public schools is for social clout and not the quality of the education. And that's worth a lot less now that people have figured out that elite higher ed is cringe.

All of my degrees are from public higher ed institutions. I then spent my entire academic career teaching in state colleges and universities. 

We graduated young people with human and intellectual skills, to whom the market was pleased to offer career employment. Especially for in-state students, public higher ed offers very good value, consider this.

A 2023 study by a Dartmouth business professor found that just 11.8 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs have an Ivy League education, and only 9.8 percent got their MBA from an Ivy League.

Afterthought: Suggest they go to the Placement Service at their college or university and ask what majors recruiters are asking to interview. Then strongly consider limiting choice of major to that subset of fields for which there is proven demand.

Curious ... Very Curious

Power Line's Steve Hayward posts this chart sourced from an Economist/YouGov survey.

Interesting that "marriage" isn't mentioned, only parenthood. You gotta admit the current low birth rate works in Democrats' favor.

What do you suppose these numbers mean? That whites were already Trump voters and most of the cross-overs will be POCs? 

But why parenthood? I wonder if the phrasing of the YouGov question somehow excluded parents who are not involved with their children? Hat tip to Potterworld's Mr. Ollivander - the wandmaker - for my title.

Pondering Homelessness

The Supreme Court is now hearing arguments about homelessness, with the usual stuff trotted out by both sides. I don't know what SCOTUS will decide. I do know some of the factors I'd like considered. Here some of them are, in no particular order.

What percentage of the homeless are free from addiction, mental illness, and crippling physical disability? In other words, what percentage could hold a job and purchase some kind of minimal housing?

Everywhere I go I see signs indicating businesses are hiring. I presume most employers demand not drunk, not stoned, sane, and minimally healthy employees. 

What percentage of the homeless are unhoused because they are insane or addicted to drugs or alcohol to the point of being unemployable? Presumably many of these could get treatment that would include housing but prefer being unhoused and stoned, drunk, or delusional. Is our society required to tolerate their preferences and the consequent eyesore it creates?

Time was, counties had "poor farms" where those down on their luck could get a roof, a bed, a shower, and some chow in return for laboring on the farm. I'm not sure what happened to those institutions, probably subdivided and developed.

Much of the homeless problem we face is the result of shutting down state mental institutions which once housed many of these same damaged individuals. Now they live on the street and self-medicate with booze and street drugs until they OD fatally.

Successful Presidencial Styles

I started reading John Judis' "Why Are Voters Worried About Biden's Age?" with the notion I would be turned off by the content. I assumed it would be a defense of Slow Joe. Don't be scared off (as I almost was) by the blog's title: The Liberal Patriot, 

Instead, what I read was a very interesting analysis of the various styles of presidential behavior that have worked, that attracted public support. It also points out why what Joe Biden has done has not worked. I recommend the article to you.

Antarctica Getting Colder

 The journal Climate Change Dispatch headlines an article thus:

Antarctica Is Colder, Icier Today Than At Any Time In 5,000 Years.

Whew! That doesn't support the global warming hypothesis at all. Somebody tell Al Gore and Greta Whatshername.

West Antarctica’s mean annual surface temperatures cooled by more than -1.8°C (-0.93°C per decade) from 1999-2018 (Zhang et al., 2023).

Not just West Antarctica, but most of the continent also has cooled by more than 1°C in the 21st century. See, for example, the ~1°C per decade cooling trend for East Antarctica (2000 to 2018).

Hat tip to Power Line for the link. 

A Forlorn Hope

In the run-up to November's election Democrats will do their level best to convince you, if elected, President Donald Trump will destroy the United States. I don't believe they will succeed.

We all experienced four years of a Trump presidency and the US wasn't destroyed, was it? Did he do everything perfectly, of course not. No president does.

Did he do darned well in spite of Covid? I say he did, that's how I remember it and I'll bet you do too. Is he stylistically to everyone's taste? No, he's not ... so what? 

I am convinced I don't want an additional minute of Biden presidency, beyond noon on Jan. 20, 2025. Biden has been a tool of the left-most part of his party, and is deteriorating into dementia as we watch. 

When he was elected a lot of folks thought "Biden won't be an embarrassment like Trump sometimes is." Man, oh man, was that prediction completely off the mark. He is literally doddering through those duties that can't be ignored, mumbling about cannibals and other mental fluff.

Biden is a yuuuge embarrassment.

More Progress

The snow pack is almost gone in our WY mountain valley, we should be there in just under three weeks. We normally plan to leave NV before the weather here goes over 100 degrees. 

WY usually looks a little bare when we first arrive. I'm guessing the aspens will not have leafed out yet. That process is magical to experience. 

It will be hot as we pack up to head north, but bearable. Once there we'll get to experience spring all over again. 

Indeed one of the pluses (or minuses) of the migratory lifestyle is experiencing two springs and two falls each year. A downside is the spring hay fever sniffles last longer.

Tell God, Trump Says Hi

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-MS) has a favorite Trump-as-President anecdote he sometimes tells, and here it is from a RealClearPolitics article on his speakership in these tough times.

The call came one morning as Johnson was finishing his devotions in his office (where he lived). The president wanted him to vote yes on the bill. The congressman stubbornly explained why he had to vote no.

His Bible was open to the Book of Daniel at the time, Johnson was once fond of telling friends, specifically the passage where Daniel interprets the dreams of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. And the congressman felt compelled to tell Trump that, once their call ended, he would pray for the president. The line went quiet. Trump broke the silence: “Tell God, I say hi.”

Saturday Snark

They left "independent women" off the hate list.

Only seniors will get this one.

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

After Battle Analysis

Yesterday we wrote about Israel striking back at Iran after Iran sent hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel. Today comes the information that the Israeli response was much smaller than the provocation. 

The latest news is that the response may be spaced over several days and deal with a variety of targets. Doing it this way forgoes the "shock and awe" impact the Iran attack had, but keeping Iranian assets on edge against an attack that may or may not come on any particular day may be more demoralizing.

One thing is clear. Having been attacked directly by Iran with no proxy to hide behind, a red line was definitely crossed. Now Israel is freed up to directly attack whatever target in Iran seems fruitful, whenever it chooses. There’s no denying a state of war exists between the two nations, the former fig leaf is gone.

Friday Snark 2.0

Images courtesy of Politico's Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Democrats Prefer Hamas

Steve Hayward's chart for today's Power Line concerns voters net sympathy for Israel, calculated by Gallup as "% more sympathetic toward Israel minus % more sympathetic toward the Palestinians." This is cross-tabbed with party affiliation. Note a majority of Democrats are more sympathetic toward the Palestinians, hence a negative result. 

Historically, American Jews have nearly been as reliable Democrat voters as blacks. An election under current conditions creates interesting dilemmas for them and for the party's policy makers.

Friday Snark 1.0

 Susan Vass, a retired stand-up comic who posts at Power Line as Ammo Grrrll, recalling what she asked a group of teachers who’d just been lectured half to death about the achievement gap between various student racial groups.

I’ve heard a lot of concern today about how some students are not keeping up with others. Couldn’t you just solve this by asking the white kids to do WORSE?

As you might guess, she got a good laugh. She adds that today, unlike 15 years ago when the quip was delivered, nobody would dare laugh.

My take: Cancelling gifted programs, isn’t that asking the white (and Asian) kids to do worse? If you haven't read the Kurt Vonnegut short story Harrison Bergeron, understand he didn't mean it to become a how-to for DEI programs.

Breaking: Israel Strikes Iran

Various sources are reporting on Friday morning Israel began retaliatory counterattacks on Iran itself and on Iranian proxies in Syria. Information is quite preliminary, some call what arrived on-target "missiles." 

Other sources say these were "stand-off" munitions launched by Israeli planes flying outside Iranian airspace. My understanding is that, to civilian observers near the target, these two types of munitions would be indistinguishable. 

Two cities hit in Iran both house major aspects of the Iranian nuclear program. Iran claims their nuclear sites are unharmed. 

An interesting outcome will be assessing the effectiveness of Iranian anti-missile/antiaircraft defenses. Iran has Russian systems that have an hyped reputation, how those will perform in combat will be a good learning. 

Nobody believes the Iranian air defense systems are anywhere near as good as Israeli systems. Those are touted as perhaps the world's best.

A Simple Improvement

Not all new technology is mind-bogglingly complex, some quite simple things make everyday life easier. The particular innovation I have in mind is the microwave-in-the-unopened-bag spinach we recently began purchasing.

Presuming you like spinach (we both do) it is quite as tasty as the older frozen block of spinach you cooked in a sauce pan. It dirties nothing, requires no cleanup, and contains the perfect amount for two spinach lovers to have alongside our grilled steaks. 

I add a dollop of butter and a sprinkle of black pepper to my half. It vanishes in no time. And, yes, I do sometimes think of Popeye while eating it.

Cue the Cannibals

Joe Biden claims his uncle Ambrose, who died in a plane crash at sea off New Guinea, was in fact eaten by cannibals. For a boring guy, Biden has certainly imagined for himself a fascinating pseudo-biography. 

A parodist would be hard pressed to come up with allegations exaggerated enough to surpass what Joe routinely claims for himself. He's been making these claims for decades.

Sad to say, never the brightest guy, our POTUS has senile dementia. So many go gaga before they shuffle off the mortal coil. I hope for our sake, dear reader, we can dodge that bullet.

Avoiding Conflict

It is widely reported the University of Southern California cancelled a valedictorian's speech by Asna Tabassum - a Muslim - when her online comments supporting the Palestinians in Gaza and calling for the "abolition" of Israel were uncovered. 

The school claimed threats to the safety of attendees were received after her speech was scheduled and her opinions on Gaza revealed. No specifics of these threats were given.

I suspect it is more likely the threats to the private university were threats to withhold large donations by wealthy SoCal alumni, a substantial number of whom are Jewish. For a private university dependent on gifts by successful alums, cancelling her speech is an entirely rational act, if also somewhat embarrassing.

About Lawfare

I haven’t written a lot about the Trump trials, viewing them as Lawfare against him. “Lawfare” being a neologism combining “law” and “warfare.”

Now they’ve begun and my opinion hasn’t changed. I continue to believe most of them would never have happened if he were not a presidential candidate, don’t you?

What we are witnessing, is an abuse of our legal system for political ends. What is alarming is that this sort of thing, once begun, is hard to stop. 

Both parties will now feel emboldened to utilize it against their opponents. Result: the “system” is coarsened, no good thing.

I think of this as the Harry Reid problem. As majority leader the late Sen. Reid (D-NV) got rid of a supermajority requirement for confirming judges, and got a few liberals through. 

Then the Rs got a Senate majority and proceeded to use the new rule to get an R majority on the Supreme Court, which is the ultimate goal in this game. If Ds are honest, they must blame Reid for that outcome. Rs used the rule against its instigators.

If you bet horses they way they’ve run in the past, you’d bet on Trump finagling his way through this legal briar patch, with at worst a few scratches. As he’s fond of saying, we’ll see what happens.

Confidence Lost

Related to the post below, Steve Hayward has a chart reflecting annual polling over the past 29 years on the question of whether people have a "great deal" or quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers and television news. 

It is hard to make elected governments work when trust in news sources is this low. So I do a bit of 'horseback' extrapolation as follows.

Roughly half the electorate votes for each major party. If zero Republicans trust papers and TV news, then something like 2/3 of Democrats don't trust them either. These Democrats must understand they're being lied to at the same time they're reading stuff designed by the legacy media to please them.

HRH Katherine, Queen of Karens

There has been much reaction to the critique of management at NPR by 25 year employee Uri Berliner. Writing for the Washington Examiner, Conn Carroll describes Katherine Maher - the head of National Public Radio, aka NPR - as follows:

She’s a vegetarian. She hates cars. And white men flying on planes. She supports race-based reparations, rioting, and the Black Lives Matter movement. She believes “America is addicted to white supremacy.”

She doesn’t want to become a mother because “the planet is literally burning.” She uses phrases such as “CIS white mobility privilege” unironically. She admits to growing up “feeling superior … because I was from New England and my part of the country didn’t have slaves.”

And she has history with the humanity-hating World Economic Forum. I believe the title of Carroll's article describes her perfectly.

NPR’s queen of the Karens

I Observe Progress

Last time I posted a WY snow photo - 11 days ago - the depth was maybe 22 inches. The above suggests today it's down to maybe 8 inches. 

A quick review of the weather predictions for the next week or two suggest highs in the 50s. We should get continued decline in snow levels. Looks like our arrival before mid-May will be feasible. 

An interesting factoid, a lot of our snow melt in the high altitude part of WY evaporates instead of running off. I imagine it zooming from frozen through the liquid stage almost directly into airborne water vapor. Having low humidity helps this process.

Meat Is Healthy Human Food

The Daily Mail reports the findings of a study of the health implications of eating faux-meat instead of actual meat. Turns out real meat is healthier.

The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that people who ate a diet high in fake meats like Beyond burgers and Impossible burgers for eight weeks had higher blood sugars than those who ate real meat.

We humans need to accept we are omnivore primates, like our closest relatives the chimps and bonobos. We evolved eating meat and, while we can live without it, shouldn’t presume doing so would be healthier.

If anything, we should assume the opposite as a working hypothesis. It’s one so far we’ve been unable to disprove. 

A Question

I live in dry country all year long, dry desert in winter, dry mountain valley in summer. So I know something about life in dry country. 

One thing is clear about these places, living here is only possible if rather special care is taken to ensure a not interruptible supply of water. The Middle East is a notoriously dry place, where such care is second nature to those who live there.

One wonders why attacking the other side’s water system isn’t a standard way of warfare in the Middle East? It doesn’t seem to be. Israel could target the water system for Tehran and leave the city uninhabitable.

Is it somehow off-limits? Is there honor among these famously corrupt and untrustworthy tribes? 

I suppose my recent return to Dune and the parched world of Herbert’s fremen triggers this question as we await Israel’s response to Iran.

Income Taxes

In honor of Federal Income Tax Day today, our topic is income and how and by whom it is taxed. 

Steve Hayward of Power Line posts the above chart. I believe it is accurate but slightly misleading. You need to heed the asterisks (*) after state abbreviations.

The states shown in light gray tax no income. WA only taxes capital gains. NH only taxes interest and dividends. Neither taxes regular or retirement income. 

The states marked with a single asterisk have a flat tax which usually means income is taxed at a flat percentage regardless of how much you earn. In other words, they don't penalize high incomes. The rest - a majority - tax high earners at a higher rate per dollar earned, a so-called "progressive" tax rate.

The DrsC are domiciled in WY and winter in NV, neither state taxes income of any sort. Our little valley in western WY straddles the WY-ID border. ID taxes income, WY doesn't. Guess which side of the valley is more heavily populated, 

You guessed right, of course, it's WY. Ironic that we should have a microcosm of the national trend to move away from higher tax jurisdictions to lower tax ones, right in our mountain valley where the winter's snows are finally beginning to melt.

How Are These Different?

There is something I’ve been mulling over for some months, and have finally decided to put some of it down in words. These thoughts are preliminary and tentative. It has to do with the current furor over transgenderism and involves reasoning backwards.

Since I was little - too many years ago - a standard indicator of mental illness was delusional thinking of the “I am Jesus,” “I am Cleopatra” or “I am Napoleon” sort. My entry question into this whole issue was to ask myself how those differ from “I am a different gender than my physiology suggests?” 

How is the one delusional and the other not? And if they aren’t different, then why do so many people want to say they are different, that “I am Napoleon” is delusional and “I am another gender” is not?

I have reasoned most LGBTQ+ individuals fear that if society believes transsexuals are mentally ill, the next step will be to conclude they too are mentally ill. It is the proverbial slippery slope problem. 

I understand the LGBTQ+ reasoning and, if I’m honest, have no answers for them. As a society we are not there now but if there is an outbreak of Puritanism (it has happened in the past) they could end up viewed as broken individuals, in need of corrective ‘treatment.’

Meanwhile, the Cass study for NHS suggests we not rush into treating children with gender issues. Most such resolve themselves in young adulthood with the individuals becoming gay or lesbian.

Iran Attacks Israel

It is widely reported Iran today launched a substantial number (some say 100s) of cruise missiles at targets in Israel. It is also suggested most of these were intercepted and destroyed without reaching their targets.

I presume Israel will return the favor and launch at targets in Iran. They will very likely have greater success although that is not certain.

Iran seemingly did not launch harder-to-intercept ballistic missiles at Israel. Ballistic missiles tend to be substantially more expensive than cruise missiles.

Cruise missiles are small, unmanned aircraft that take off and fly to their targets, carrying explosives. Ballistic missiles follow paths similar to high-arcing howitzer shells, and also carry explosives. Cruise missiles can loiter while a target is located, ballistic missiles cannot.

The US has announced it will assist Israel's defense. What happens next is unclear, maybe Iran's attack is a symbolic one-off, maybe it's the beginning of a wider regional war.

Later … More recent reports claim ballistic missiles were also used, and make a distinction between suicide drones and cruise missiles, both of which were apparently flown. One supposes the cruise missiles fly faster than the suicide drones and lack the ability to loiter.

Apparently Iran has called their salvo a “one-off” response to the attack near their consulate in Damascus, meaning that it can, if Israel chooses, end here or it can go further. Biden, of course, is pushing for “end here.”

Saturday Snark

This is no joke, I've purchased there.

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.