orichalcum

892,000 new jobs for "post-secondary school educators" are predicted within the next seven years. Admittedly, I suspect the vast majority of those are lecturers or adjuncts, but it's still a lot more than the 205,000 for lawyers or 212,000 for doctors.

Sadly, this news comes from an article discussing the benefits of a college education and whether it's really necessary for most people. Apparently, the conservative social scientist Charles Murray, best known for the infamous _Bell Curve_, has been arguing in the WSJ that "the number of Americans able to handle challenging college classes" is no greater than 15%," and so we should just leave the low-IQ kids out and tell them to go get menial jobs. Conveniently, he argues, the reason why kids in inner-city schools aren't achieving better is because they just aren't that bright (insert veiled racism here), but this will all be okay because the increasing wealth of the "cognitive elite" means that there will be lots of new jobs for "craftsmen." Yes, and domestic servants too! (In the interests of fairness, I write this while my babysitter watches my child and my cleaning lady mops my floors as I work on a lecture for tomorrow's class, but I also recently had a long conversation with my babysitter urging her to send her elder daughter to college so she can become a lawyer like she wants, and that it's far better to take out loans now and pay them back later.)

I had a dream last night wherein I realized that I don't actually want to go back to college. It was my usual "I have had to move back into the Yale dorms, because somehow there is one class that I mysteriously failed to pass and now I need to retake it" dream, except this time, I was dealing with the awkwardness of sharing my dorm room with a full-grown golden retriever and a baby, and my husband living off-campus and only being able to come over for occasional visits. And you know what, it's really hard to smuggle a golden retriever in and out of a Gothic residental college without any of the staff noticing, and there are lots of stone staircases for babies to fall down, and you can't trust 19-year-olds to keep the baby gates closed, and I _like_ living with my husband. Sigh. I guess I _have_ grown up. :)

I'm reading Alison Weir's biography of Elizabeth I (part of trying to get myself into a History Dept mindset) currently, and was startled to discover, at first, the extent of Elizabeth's persecution and execution of Catholics. While at the beginning of her reign non-attendance in Anglican services was punishable merely by a fine, punishments gradually increased.

At the same time, a large number of Jesuits came over to England from the continent to preach Catholicism and encourage "recusancy" and support for a rebellion designed to put the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots in Elizabeth's place. Meanwhile, the Pope declared Elizabeth excommunicate and England under Interdict. Midway through her reign, the Pope issued a Papal Bull openly encouraging Catholics to assassinate her and saying that such a deed would incur no sin.

So on one level, we have what can clearly be seen as religious oppression - people being persecuted because their faith differs from the monarch's and the majority of their compatriots. On the other hand, there are really good reasons for the government to view the religious minority as an active political threat and as potential traitors and assassins.

Where's the justice? If a religious leader to whom adherents of that religion owe obedience is actively calling for the murder of a political leader, is that political leader justified in ordering retaliations against members of that religion? It's very easy to say, "oh, the poor Catholic martyrs." But I don't know what I would have done as Elizabeth or one of her advisors.

From TWOP's recap of _Rome_ by M. Giant, appositely: "Oh, who hasn't saved the Republic several times on this show by now? Everyone talks about how great the Republic is, but with all the saving it's constantly in need of, I'm starting to see the "Republic" as this helpless, dizzy chick that's always getting tied to train tracks and menaced by cougars. Shut up, "Republic.""

So, last Thursday was the day after the Ides of March and Caesar's assassination. First, the Senate debated whether or not to give Caesar a public funeral. The newly formed Republican faction are a bunch of very nice students, and they wanted to compromise. They offered to let Caesar have a publicly attended funeral, as long as it was paid for by his family, not the state. The Caesarians, who are more, um, assertive personalities, were having none of this. By a narrow margin, they succeeded in getting Caesar both a state-sponsored funeral (during which Cinna the poet was massacred by the mob) and two weeks of free funeral games, and a play commemorating his memory.

Then we moved on to the question of what should happen to Caesar's assassins. The Republicans believed they were again offering a compromise by suggesting that the assassins all resign from the Senate and from their public offices. The Caesarians suggested death for all of them, and then compromised on death for Brutus, Cassius, and Casca and resignation for the rest. After much debate, a vote was held, resulting in a tie. I rolled a die to determine what "unaligned Senators" had voted, and Brutus was spared execution, though forced to resign.

Tomorrow is the last session, and will help determine the fate of the Republic. One major question I have is how to deal with the continued regular losses of the Republicans. They more frequently have a member missing, which hurts them, and to be fair, I should take away Brutus' vote. However, this may make them frustrated as it gives them even less chance of winning any votes. I don't know how best to be fair.