SwiftVets.com

[TEWSPilot]

...from a Naval Academy graduate and Vietnam war pilot friend of mine.....

While all of us have been mired in this financial mess, we've forgotten it's back to school time -- with many offspring leaving home for college.

Now, I don't have kids. But that shouldn't stop me from giving advice. If anything, being childless allows me the time to contemplate how to raise them.

And so, I've crafted this "Letter to the College Freshman, From Mom and Dad":

Dear Muffy,

We wish you luck. We're so proud of you, and know you'll do great. But if you come home claiming meat is murder while sporting a nose ring and some Asian tattoo stamped on the crack of your butt -- you can't come in. If you want to make a statement by mutilating the body God gave you -- then go the whole nine: Cut off your face and join a carnival. At least that's a career move with strong profit potential.

If, while away, you've decided that America is at fault for everything, then you will sleep in the backyard and crap in a hole you dug yourself. After all, your professors admire Third World countries, so why not live like you're in one?

We do hope college "opens" your mind, but if you announce that terrorism is just the powerless speaking to the powerful, then we will beat the crap out of you. But we won't behead you. We'll leave that to the "powerless".

If you also tell us that capitalism is corrupt and socialism is supreme, then hand over your cell phone and your credit cards. Practice what you preach and reject these trappings of an evil market system. We also want your bong. What can we say? We've earned it.

Also, if you must lecture your father on evil corporations, remember that he toiled at one for years so he could afford your tuition, while paying thousands into useless government programs that your teachers embrace. If, after that, you're still moaning, you will do it naked, because we will take the clothes off your back and kick you out on your butt. See how life works when everything we worked so hard for disappears?

Finally, if you really think you're an individual -- that is, a person who leads instead of follows -- then you should easily resist the indoctrination of your delusional professors, misguided dormies and anyone with purple hair.

But if you come home and suddenly you're "edgy" and "angry" -- claiming that the BS you picked up on campus is better than the common sense we taught you -- then you'll need to find new parents.

Don't worry we'll still love you. We just can't stand you.

Love (really), Mom and Dad

In science, refuting an accepted belief is celebrated as an advance in knowledge; in religion, it is condemned as heresy.

Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit....a latin proverb meaning "A wise man does not pee against the wind".

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

Woohooo! Very cute!
_________________
~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[GenrXr]

ISI has a couple of good books for choosing a college which still teaches fundamentals, such as the trivium. Rhetoric, Logic and grammar, the fundamentals of western civilization's education.

[TEWSPilot]

I heard an actual economist talking about better uses for the $700B "rescue" package we just got stuck with. He had several eye-openers, some just for effect to give people an idea of how much money $700B actually is, including buying every Professional Soccer team, NFL, NHL, and MLB team in the country, building all of them new stadiums, hockey rinks, and roundhouses, and paying every player $180M for the first year...with money left over. He said it could have paid off every student loan in the country and had money left to buy every student a new car and a better than modest starter house. Think what that would have done for the economy. With no student loans to pay back, college and technical school graduates could begin to save and buy things instead of staying in debt for 20 years while the economy drags along. Lots more to what he was saying, but I was in my car and didn't take notes.