Lose It Whether or Not You Use It

A recent news account on increasing fees at colleges indicated that many students couldn’t understand why they should pay fees for things they might never use. The school swimming pool was one example.
Explained the head of student services at Stockton, “We could not provide the services at a reasonable cost unless everyone contributed.”
When college students get in the real world, they will find they are paying federal income taxes for many programs they do not support, let alone use.
When they become property owners, they will pay school taxes whether or not they have children in public schools. They may pay open space taxes, whether or not they believe in preserving open space. They may pay a library tax whether or not they use the library.
A recent article pointed out that every airline ticket includes a surcharge that gives billions of dollars to “general aviation” airfields largely used by owners of private airplanes.
The list is endless.
Maybe the college fee system should be considered just another lesson for the young.

Wolfowitz Loses Job, Girlfriend

For weeks, his name has been in the headlines every day.
No, not Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
Paul Wolfowitz, outgoing president of the World Bank.
I started a clipping file on Wolfowitz more than a month ago, thinking it might be a topic for me.
As luck would have it, he finally gave in and resigned while I took a couple days off. And it seems that everything about him has been written, including the Wall Street Journal’s daily defense.
Wolfowitz has a girlfriend employed at the World Bank. He transferred her to avoid a conflict of interest. He also raised her pay, by $50,000, bringing it to $193,590.
Pretty cheap compared to what Gov. Corzine spends on his girlfriends.
Often called “the architect of the war in Iraq,” that label earned Wolfowitz little respect from the Bank’s European members and may have been a prime reason they wanted him out.
The girlfriend, Shala Ali Riza, was described in a New York Times article as speaking Arabic, French, Italian and Turkish and having “considerable experience in Africa and the Middle East.”
Too bad he didn’t get some Middle East advice from her before “designing” the war.
Not only is Wolfowitz out, but the New York Post has reported Riza, tired of seeing her name and salary in the news, dumped Wolfowitz.
And so it goes.

Chimpanzees: Smarter and Altruistic?

There is increasing evidence that chimpanzees are sometimes smarter than human beings.
The New York Times reports that only “a 1.23 percent difference in their genes separates Home sapiens from chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes.”
Of course it’s been known for some time that chimpanzees can make and use tools and hunt in groups. According to the Times, they seem to be capable of “empathy, altruism, self-awareness, cooperation in problem solving and learning through example and experience,”
Based on that, I would say it’s quite possible they would give more to the United Way than Cape May Countians.
And, says the Times, chimps can even “outperform humans in some memory tasks.”
These conclusions come from a symposium in March called “The Mind of the Chimpanzee.”
It included reports on laboratory experiences that showed the chimps’ “underlying intelligence,” or “cognitive reserve.”
A chimp, admittedly with “months of training accompanied by promised food rewards,” did much better than humans on a memory test — recalling and typing numbers flashed on a computer screen.
It makes sense to me that food rewards were the key. When Bokito, the 400-pound gorilla briefly tasted freedom May 18, escaping from the zoo in Rotterdam, where did he head? To the restaurant.
Your comments would be appreciated, but I am away for a couple days so they, and my further comments, will not be posted until Thursday, May 25.

Abolish New Jersey's Death Penalty?

Should New Jersey abolish the death penalty?
It could happen.
The state Legislature put a moratorium on executions at the end of 2005 when the death penalty study commission was formed.
The commission concluded in January that it cost taxpayers more than life imprisonment and did not deter crime.
That cost notion represents the expenses of the normal, lengthy repeals process, a curious angle indeed.
The State Senate Judiciary Committee voted 8-2 last week to release a bill that would replace the death penalty with life imprisonment without parole, a policy in a dozen other states.
The Assembly has not considered it yet, but the Assembly speaker reportedly supports it and Gov. Jon Corzine opposes capital punishment.
The legislation would not affect death sentences in the federal system, where the suspected Fort Dix plotters would be prosecuted, for example.
New Jersey reinstated the death penalty in 1982, but hasn’t executed anyone since 1963.
It is hard to imagine a more sensitive, passionate and emotional issue. How do you feel?

College Loan Scandal Update

An update to my May 2 Blog on corruption in the college-student loan industry. The House of Representatives May 9 approved legislation that would ban gifts from lenders to schools and also require schools that provide lists of approved lenders to report any business dealings with those lenders. The vote was 414-3. It’s a shame it takes a law to ensure colleges do what they should have been doing all along.

A Response to Shore Critics

My editorial page column this week revealed, and rebutted, some shore criticism by Inquirer columnist Daniel A. Cirucci.
It noted that he found the shore too hot, the ocean too cold, the sand too fine, the towns too crowded, and too many beer bellies in Wildwood, which, like the bellies, really hits below the belt.
Cirucci’s most insidious implied criticism, though, was of the people, my people. He wrote that in his preferred vacation spot, Hilton Head, “the friendly natives speak in a slow drawl that invites you to linger.”
What Cirucci obviously does not know is that if the original Mason-Dixon line could be extended eastward, it would run smack through Cape May County. Further, New Jersey did not vote for Abraham Lincoln, preferring Stephen Douglas by 4,500 votes,
The folks around here around can slow drawl with the best of them. Cape May County is said to have some of the slowest people in the world.
Most local restaurants will “invite you to linger” — as long as you order another drink.
Hopefully this settles that final Cirucci complaint.
I invite your comments, but please don’t try to tell me where the Mason-Dixon line is. It was paved over a long time ago.

Greed in Higher Education

Education — what finer calling is there?
Higher education — even better.
My regard for education is so strong — and I am so naive — that I am still surprised when something mars it.
No, I’m not talking about former Gov. Jim McGreevey being hired by Kean University to teach courses to do with ethics and leadership. That is so outlandish as to defy belief. I have a hunch the McGreevey connection that made possible this obvious attempt to boost his state pension will come out.
I’m talking about the scandal over colleges getting paid off to recommend certain lenders for loans to students. There are some $85 billion in college loans out there, and 21 colleges and three lenders have already made settlements.
Some of the colleges called it revenue-sharing. I call it kickbacks.
At the University of Texas at Austin, a key factor in rating loan companies was the quality of the free meals and other perks.
One may be less surprised that the banks would pay off. But colleges...
In some cases, the schools themselves may be innocent, but financial aid officers allegedly received gifts ranging from money to trips in return for pushing certain lending institutions.
It’s the same greed that we see all too often in politicians.
The U.S. Department of Education is supposed to regulate the student loan industry. It apparently hasn’t. Surprised?