Isorhythm

Have some kittens on a Roomba to celebrate! Students and faculty have been out for almost a week, so I expected this week to be a breeze, but it's been unexpectedly busy! Lots of fires to put out before the new semester begins in January! In a few days, I'll head north until the new year. Many busy days ahead. I will never tire of kittens on Roombas. :)

I'm decidedly emotional.

Under the proposal approved by the Revenue Laws Study Committee, a group of House and Senate lawmakers, the maximum weekly benefit for someone out of work would drop from $535 to $350. Also, the state would replace its 26 weeks of benefits with a cap of 12 to 20 weeks, based on the health of North Carolina's economy.  -- " Proposed cuts to jobless benefits heading to general assembly ," Laura Leslie for WRAL.com 01/08/2013   Gov. Pat McCrory said Tuesday he's determined to get North Carolina's public university system to focus on teaching what's useful in terms of getting a job and criticized an "educational elite" for offering courses in subjects such as gender studies that don't lead students onto clear career paths. "That's a subsidized course. And frankly if you want to take gender studies that's fine, go to a private school and take it," said McCrory, who graduated from private Catawba College. "But I ...

There’s a pretty strong consensus among all but the most ideologically conservative economists that the solution would involve considerable public investment in education, infrastructure, and green energy, new policies to promote domestic manufacturing, more activist regulation of the financial industry in particular, and a more progressive tax structure. But no matter who wins the election, Faux said, the governing elite has pretty much already ruled out that agenda, in favor of light regulation and governmental austerity. "Obama, Romney and the Low-Wage Future of America." Dan Froomkin. As much as I care about accessible healthcare, marriage equality, and a woman's right to her own body, I would forego another flurry of such news stories for a frank discussion of jobs, especially one that addresses quality in addition to quantity.