May I direct your attention to my friend Don's website, which has a new essay on it about life in Vietnam (where Don is now living). It's a great essay -- especially fascinating to Floridians, I think, or anyone with a pet interest in the "tourist" mindset. Click this text to read it, and once there, explore around Don's site to see pics of Vietnam, other essays, and poems! CLIQUEZ ICI.  ¶ 6:13 PM

  Yesterday, Brian and I drove about 12 miles north of the Golden Gate, and checked out some of the local trees.


Amy in the hole


Atlas struggled


Trees, trees, everywhere...


even making a bridge


lovely ferny crick


same crick, different angle


pretty little growing things, covered in little bugs


tall  ¶ 4:53 PM

  The New York Times printed an article today titled: As Wealthy Fill Top Colleges, New Efforts to Level the Field

Here are some choice tidbits:

"At prestigious universities around the country, from flagship state colleges to the Ivy League, more and more students from upper-income families are edging out those from the middle class, according to university data.

The change is fast becoming one of the biggest issues in higher education.

More members of this year's freshman class at the University of Michigan have parents making at least $200,000 a year than have parents making less than the national median of about $53,000, according to a survey of Michigan students. At the most selective private universities across the country, more fathers of freshmen are doctors than are hourly workers, teachers, clergy members, farmers or members of the military — combined."

...

"If anything, some college officials said, the statistics may understate the level of student wealth because they rely on a survey of freshmen. When officials at Binghamton University, part of the State University of New York, matched survey data with financial-aid forms, they found that students often listed their parents' income as lower than it really was, said Cheryl Brown, the director of undergraduate admissions."

...

"Michigan is still not dominated by wealth as some private colleges are. Almost half of its students are from families earning less than $100,000 a year, the student survey shows. But the changes are still unmistakable, say professors and others here.

'When most people think of a typical college student, they're thinking about eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and having massive debts,' said Scott E. Mendy, a junior from Tigard, Ore., who receives financial aid. At Michigan, he said, 'people live very well.'"

...

"The advantages of campuses with increasingly wealthy student bodies are obvious, educators say: the colleges have more resources for research and student activities, more professors doing cutting-edge work and more students who received solid high school educations."

...

"'We were founded on the principle of allowing larger numbers of students to go to college in an affordable way,' Mr. Spencer, Michigan's admission director, said. 'But having said that, the price of college has gone up, and many of the truly needy will not bother to apply.'

That concerns people here and on other campuses because of what it could mean for the variety of campus life and for the broader economy.

'We're very worried,' said William Fitzsimmons, Harvard's director of undergraduate admissions. 'There are some very, very talented kids in the bottom quartile who aren't even going to college. It's a huge waste of talent.'


...Which is why schools like the University of Arkansas, Florida Atlantic University, Southeastern Louisiana University, etc., etc., etc., are so damn important right now: while the elite schools play admissions games and roll around in their rooms of dollars like Scrooge McDuck, these smaller, more democratic schools are actually trying to educate everyday people.

Best to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and UMAnn Arbor in their quests for economic diversity, but in the meantime, a few rounds of applause, please, for Workhorse Academia.
  ¶ 12:32 PM