23 April 2012

Random Monday Thoughts

* Just two weeks and a couple of days are left for the Colorado General Assembly. Still in play: Civil unions, undocumented immigrant tuition, making it easier to hold back kids who aren't performing academically to grade level.

* Maternity dresses are a lot less dumpy than they used to be.

* Proof that we live in a civilized society: Coffee shops that serve mimosas on weekends. Here's a shout out to the great Daz Bog at 17th Avenue and Park Avenue in Denver.

* Boulder, Colorado author Carrie Vaughn's 2011 novel "After the Golden Age", about a forensic accountant without superpowers who is estranged from who superhero parents is definitely screen play worthy. The well balanced plot and carefully timed character development shows her writing maturing from her somewhat raw "Kitty" series, while continuing to include some of the spunkiest female characters in fiction today.

* Sunday's Denver Post featured a front page story claiming that Generation Y is starting to put distance between evangelical religion and conservative politics. It's a very hopeful possibility, but I'm not sure that I'm ready to believe it yet.

* Congratulations to my cousin's three children in Columbus. One has earned his degree and actually found a job in one of the toughest job markets for new college graduates in years, and the twins both have respectable college admissions lined up - separated for the first substantial period of time in their lives. Good going guys. My cousin and her husband have done a great job raising such solid kids. I hope I'll be as successful in that department.

* Of course, my brother and I and those of my cousins who do have kids have to make up for the six of my cousins who have ended up by choice and by chance not having kids. You'd think we grew up in a deep depression instead of a very prosperous several decades.

* In my lifetime, kids have gone from being an inferior good to a normal good (in the language of economics, an inferior good is something you buy more of when you are poor and a normal good is something you buy more of when you are better off).

* While newspapers all across the country, including the Denver Post, are cutting back on content, Dayton's paper is actually beefing up its offerings.

* All across the state and the nation, psych wards, and especially juvenile psych wards are closing. But, Denver Health is bucking the trend, offering the only new juvenile psych ward in the nation this year. Good work guys.

* Middle schools start way too f--ing early in the morning. On this, my daughter and I agree.

* SCOTUS is taking up the constitutionality of Arizona's immigration laws on federalism grounds. The case against is that immigration is vested solely in the federal government and can't be addressed by states without express delegation. The case for is that absent a specific reason, state laws are constitutional. While I had some intuition on how lower courts would rule on this case based on the state of federal law prior to a SCOTUS rulling, all bets are off in the U.S. Supreme Court.

* It's hard to tell is CU-Boulder's draconian crackdown on 4-20 events by banning vistors from campus that day achieved its ends of curtailing those events (it seemed to) or if it accomplished anything worthwhile. The cost of a year at CU-Boulder before the state "scholarship" for in state students and after fees is now $13,000 a year for arts and sciences undergrauates. This is an increase, but not a huge one.

* CU-Boulder tuition is up again, but just 5%. It is about $13,000 for one year's tuition and fees for an arts and sciences undergraduate before the state "scholarship" for in state students, for a net of a bit more than $10,000 a year before room and board and books. A four year degree, including those things is $80,000-$100,000 for an in state arts and science undergraduate (in addition, of course, to opportunity costs). Still a decent value, but also one that excludes a lot of people even with significant financial aid packages available in many cases.

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