Tried to go to the White Sox game tonight; it was pouring. Oh, well, another time.
Apartment's still a ridiculous mess. On the bright side, I did my part in helping clean by spending a couple hours yesterday going through the huge stack of magazines I dragged from the apartment (none of them originally mine, by the way) to cut out recipes so I can throw them away. I've discovered there are lots of pluses and minuses to being the last of my roommates left at the apartment. Yes, I get all the random furniture/silverware/books/magazines/etc I want that the others seem not to care about, but I also had to do all the cleaning and deal with the random junk and the extra furniture. I finally finished it all last week, and I did put a lot of time into cleaning, although it certainly didn't end up perfect. The landlord called today; he was bitching about it not being clean enough and about a couple pieces of furniture being left (I said that they were perfectly good, and that we wondered if the next tenants wanted them, and that we'd be more than glad to move them if they didn't; he made some nasty comment about how Absolutely Terrible it is to have anything left over in the apartment-- including the damn carpet from my room that was there when we moved in!). I hope the bastard doesn't take money from the security deposit-- he didn't mention it, but maybe he figured his complaining was enough. If he does... I don't know. I suppose technically it'd be my fault and I should take the hit, but on the other hand, I'm the one who did the damn cleaning that needed to be done, not a single solitary other person. (Well, except for Alex being sweet and helping me out.) Bleh. Just cross your fingers that for once the landlord doesn't feel like being an ass.
Let's see. I've got seven million thoughts about electoral politics that've been swirling around in my head for at least a month, that I'll try to organize into something coherent at a not-too-much-later date. But for now, this is something I ran across on the web today, that hit me because it's in tune with what's been on my mind lately; from a John Edwards speech:
Finally, as we make the price of college entry lower, we have to make the path to college entry fairer. If we are truly serious about providing a ladder to success that all Americans have the chance to climb, then we cannot wink at each other when we see special privileges for the most fortunate that serve to pull the ladder away.
More than 200 colleges today give students a leg up in the admissions process in exchange for a very early commitment to attend. Applying early is worth the equivalent of 100 extra points on the SAT, yet as a practical matter it is available only to the most motivated students who come from the most educated and fortunate families. Students can't apply early if they don't know about the program or can't afford to lock themselves into a particular school because they need to compare financial aid packages. Early decision worked great for my daughter, because my family could afford to use it. But for thousands of families who can't, early decision is fundamentally unfair...
We also need to address legacy admissions. Many schools reward applicants because their parents went to the same school. Instead of valuing parents who have worked for years so their child could be the first in their family to go to college, these schools actually put that child at a competitive disadvantage based on his parents' education. There's no question many legacy students are highly qualified and tremendous additions to their schools. They can be admitted without any preferences, and they should be. Unlike affirmative action, which I support, the legacy preference does not reward overcoming barriers based on race or adding diversity to the classroom. The legacy preference rewards students who had the most advantages to begin with. It is a birthright out of 18th century British aristocracy, not 21st century American democracy. It is wrong. So today I want to challenge America's colleges and universities. If you have an early decision policy, end it. If you have a legacy policy, end it.
This isn't an area where government should have to act. We can help by making absolutely clear that our antitrust laws don't stand in the way of cooperation by schools to open the doors of college. But schools should live up to their ideals and America's ideals on their own.
If schools don't end these policies, then other action may well be necessary.
Kids from the kinds of families I grew up with already have to fight an uphill battle to get to college. They don't need additional barriers that stand in the way.
I like John Edwards. I really do. You can tell me I focus too much on domestic policy and not enough on foreign policy if you like. But, whatever. I feel a little happier personally today about what my pragmatic side will compel me to begrudgingly do for John Kerry in the upcoming months.
