For the past couple of days, I’ve had to prepare for presentation (more about that later) by pouring over the press reports from the months following the murder of Katie McCarron. Unlike most of my work, there’s little in the way of emotional distance – even now – as I read over the events of 2006. It makes me sad and angry at the same time. It’s not a good combination.
So, today, for my benefit, I’m turning to something a little lighter. Hot off the press from the Tiger Weekly, the student newspaper of Louisiana State University, is a fun little piece that made me smile today. OK, I even giggled at one point.
With students all over the country graduating this month, the U.S. is eager to observe the effects of a new law which eliminates 30 percent of the graduating student population.
President Obama’s 2009 Job Market Fairness Act serves to create a less stressful environment for new graduates who would otherwise struggle in the current recession.
This year, the bottom 15 percent and top 15 percent of all graduating classes will be removed from the job market via lethal injection, giving mediocre college graduates a better chance at employment on their own merits.
Studies show that the top 15 percent of college graduates are not as immediately beneficial to the economy as the middle 70 percent, who will spend more money rather than save it. Conversely, the bottom 15 percent are nine times more likely to borrow more money than they can afford. Eliminating both extremes will allow the economy to stabilize within the next year, supporters said.
However, while an online poll indicates the new law has an 80 percent approval rating, many students are outraged by the initiative.
Read the rest of the article here. –Stephen Drake
When I was at UC, Berkeley, in the 1950s, one friend, before finishing his PhD in Electrical Engineering was interviewed and hired by Bell Labs, New Jersey. He didn’t have to go job hunting at all. He would have been at the top of the euthanasia heap at LSU and what a waste that would have been.
Oh,rofl.
Under the satire, is an underlying theme. The top 5percent and the bottom 5percent coincidentally also are the groups labeled “exceptional” in our society. The very “smart” or those who are quick at learning in the ways judged intelligent, and those who are the least at learning in the ways judged acceptable. (I know I am only including those who get into the school realm and graduate, in this satire.)
The “gifted” in our society, as well as the “slow” “retarded” are considered “special” and “exceptional”(and euphemisms for people who do not
fit the middle/average intellectually, as judged by our society for what is “norm”/average).
I grew up hearing, in my own family, “you can be too smart”. To which I countered, “No, it helps with solving problems.”. Working class family from a religious/ethnic group that prized book learning (not for girls), yet had the American mild fear of the
“different”.
It is similar with people who learn slowly, or do not fit into the academic structure. (I am not talking about racial institutional segregation, a separate “track” indeed.And/or poor kids of all ethnic, color who are “tracked” away from academic futures. Or the kind of education many kids with disabilities are offered.
At age 4, I got a lesson in stigma of kids with disabilities.
I was in Kindergarten in a public school in Brooklyn, NYC. It was noticed that I couldn’t see well.
I was sent to the Special Ed class that was in the basement, next to the cafeteria. It was during WWII, and some of us qualified for school lunch. I was then sent to an eye doctor, who discovered my myopia and I got glasses. I was then put back in mainstream classes. And labeled “gifted”. I knew it was “bad” to be “special”…you got to be in the basement and people looked at you oddly.)
Inside many jokes….
Stephen,
Thanks, as always, for the humor. We crips and crip allies need all the humor we can get these days, don’t we?