President Obama had a perfectly fine message for young people when he spoke at a General Electric plant in Wisconsin yesterday: Learning a skilled trade can be just as lucrative and worthy of respect as getting a college diploma. Unfortunately, that’s not what he said.
Instead, he took a cheap shot at the favorite punching bag of people who deride higher education in general and the liberal arts in particular. He attacked art history. “I promise you, folks can make a lot more potentially with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree,” he said.
After having read both autobiographies of the President, all I recall is that he majored in "choom studies" when he was in school, so he's hardly one to disrespect a legitimate area of study.
In fact, both my wife and my nephew are art history majors and, I think, have contributed at least as much to the improvement of general society as some...politician.
I've been getting this from the new wave of ordained clergy, too, as many of them are failures from the financial world who have decided to re-invent themselves as holy men and women. They tell me that their degrees in accounting, marketing, and business administration are of greater advantage to the church than are degrees in the liberal arts.
Yeah, that's why the Episcopal Church is so financially healthy nowadays. [That was sarcasm, by the way.] Thanks, newbies.