NO CHILD LEFT WHERE?
By
Dr. W.R. Marshall, Ph.D
April 12, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
For years college students have been forced to take useless classes like Astronomy or Philosophy or English Literature for god’s sake – I mean, who needs Shakespeare if you’re going to work for Bear Stearns? (And you’re certainly not going to need any of that stuff for the job you have after Bear Stearns; the breakfast shift at Denny’s is no place to ponder Hamlet’s epistemology.)
Which is the point. From its inception, the American university system has pumped out generation after generation of students who are forced to sit in class after class of everything from Art Appreciation to General Zoology, all in a misguided effort to make them “better educated” (whatever that means). No one has ever asked these future masters of the universe if they haven’t already learned enough, having been all the way through high school and all. Even worse, no one has listened to the single greatest complaint, (right after “I don’t have beer money”), of college students across the nation: “When am I ever gonna use this stuff!”
Take heart kids, your salvation is at hand.
At Randolph College (which was an all women’s school until last year) in Lynchburg, Virginia, Associate Professor of American Culture, Julio Rodriquez has heard your wailing and gnashing of teeth and is doing something about it. In an effort to make education once again relevant, Dr. Rodriquez will be taking his class on a week long trip to Las Vegas to study vice. The educational odyssey will culminate in a visit to the birthplace of vice, (if you don’t count religion, politics or major league baseball), a brothel.
Not just any brothel, but the Mecca of any lad growing up with a couple of bucks in his pocket and stiffy in his trousers; the world renowned Chicken Ranch. The bordello of Broadway and motion picture fame, the hook shop that can trace its roots back before the Civil War, the joy house where you can not only get laid, but you can use your credit card and get points toward other exciting adventures.
Every year the American Culture Program takes a trip and explores some facet of Americana. A couple of years ago they went to Disneyworld. I have to tell you, going to the Chicken Ranch is much better idea: they’re going to spend less money and when they leave, feel much cleaner.
This year, after studying gambling, carousing, drinking, maybe visiting an opium den, in Sin City proper (where it is illegal to pay for sex – you have to draw the line somewhere), Dr. Rodriquez will ferry eleven young ladies to the Chicken Ranch in Pahrump, Nevada – just as close to Vegas as you can legally get to pay for bootie – to embrace American culture. And in the parlor, which “is exquisitely decorated and is the perfect atmosphere for romantic introductions” (for more wallet-tearing prose check out the Chicken Ranch web site) Dr. Rodriquez and his band of feminist scholars will explicate the cross cultural, neo-colonialist, semi Marxist dialectic of the “Frappe French,” the “Bungalow,” and the “Reverse Half and Half” with its obvious Hegelian underpinnings.
The professor is onto something here. Look at the job market…there ain’t one. Business majors are getting wait listed for barista training at Starbucks, doctors are treated like fast food employees, tenure for university profs is quickly disappearing, lawyers are…well still lawyers, teachers are treated worse than lawyers, and they only choose one American Idol a year. Four years in a university prepares you for squat.
But Dr. Rodriguez understands America’s future; the service industry for all the countries we’ve made rich by borrowing so much money from them. We’re not going to get it back through technology or trade, but if we can serve Chinese tourists the best Appletini, or give them the best Drag Party, our children will still have a place in the world.
� 2008 - W.R. Marshall - All Rights Reserved
