Universities work up new scheme to ‘free’ students from debt

Modern academia is anachronistic, if nothing else.

The latest trend that appears to be catching on is termed “income-share agreements.”

Schools such as Purdue University, Norwich University and Lackawanna College are offering to pay students’ tuition if students offer them a percentage of their future salary for a fixed number of years, according to an Associated Press report.

In contrast with traditional loans, in which students simply pay down the principal and interest until there is nothing left, students with income-share agreements pay back a percentage of their salary for a set period of time.

Uh, isn’t this just another name for “sharecropping?”

Perhaps universities ought to put a halt to the ongoing building spree which so many are currently engaged in – constructing fiefdoms that would make many a medieval lord envious – and get back to the business of simply educating students.

Should we save endangered animals from asinine campaigns?

Example of poor use of social media: The above Twitter post by an organization called Save Animals Facing Extinction.

“Poachers are hunting elephants in extinction. We could lose them FOREVER! Should we stop poaching immediately?”

Then, in a box, “Should We Save Elephants From Extinction?”

Short answer: I suppose. Slightly longer answer, with a caveat: Yes, if we can eliminate the above inanity, possibly by having the idjits who came up with this campaign trampled by a herd of rogue elephants.

Even if one ignores the insipid questions, “Should we stop poaching immediately?” and “Should we save elephants from extinction?” (But won’t someone think of the illegal ivory and elephant-foot wastebasket industries?) the link in the Twitter post takes you to a … petition page, where you can add your email address and zip code.

That’s it. That’s how Save Animals Facing Extinction is going stop poaching and keep us from losing elephants forever(!)

The organization has a decent website, with links on how individuals can contribute money, but you wouldn’t know it from the Twitter post. You have to find it on your own.

Endangered species have it hard enough; this sort of tommyrot makes a mockery of their plight.

Poor fish in rich pond seems like a heavy burden to bear

More than 20 years ago while living south of the San Francisco Bay Area I attempted to reduce my 2-1/2 hour commute by moving closer to my job, located in San Francisco’s financial district.

The best deal my then-wife and I could find was half of a run-down duplex in a run-down neighborhood in an ugly part of an ugly suburb. Yes, we were enamored.

The duplex featured almost no yard, was in desperate need of extensive renovation and was located in a neighborhood loaded with gang graffiti, lots of blacktop and cookie-cutter structures.

I couldn’t haven’t imagined a less appealing environment, especially given that it was still 30 miles from my office. Still, it was the least-expensive housing option we could find within an hour of the city.

The price in 1996 was $267,500. We literally decided within minutes of walking out of that duplex that we would have to move out of the Bay Area in order to buy a home.

Things, apparently, are even more expensive now.

Consider that a burned out home in San Jose is selling for $800,000. The realtor representing the seller said the asking price is reasonable given the housing market and its location.

Realtor Holly Bar tried to downplay the price by stating that it’s the lot she’s selling, not the house.

“They did leave it standing so you can remodel it versus tearing it down so you save a lot of money when you can leave a wall up and do a remodel versus a complete teardown,” she said.

The latest numbers in California’s Santa Clara County show the median price for a single-family home is $1.4 million, according to television station KTVU.

Barr said that less than 24 hours since posting the listing on Facebook 10 potential buyers have contacted her. She anticipates it will sell in a few days.

I’ve often wondered how individuals, even those with high-paying technology jobs, sleep at night having to make mortgage payments of such proportions. If there’s an industry downturn and you lose your job, it’s a lot harder to hold onto your home when your monthly housing payment is $3,000, $4,000 or $5,000.

The region does have nice weather, plenty of amenities and other opportunities that are hard to come by elsewhere. Still, when burned-out homes are selling for $800,000 and the median price of a single-family home is $1.4 million, one wonders if another housing bubble is about to make itself felt.

Romanesque church appears to have date with wrecking ball

Developers are expected to make public early next month designs to raze a 88-year-old historic church in Worcester, Mass.

Developers of the proposed Roseland Apartment complex will unveil plans, which include tearing down the former Notre Dame des Canadiens Church to erect a four-story apartment building, on Aug. 2 at a Worcester public meeting.

The church, built in 1929, was closed by the Diocese of Worcester a decade ago. Multi-year efforts to preserve the structure have apparently failed.

Worcester is said to be “in a renaissance of development, dining and culture,” and historic properties like the Notre Dame Church in its downtown have been targeted by developers to make for Worcester’s new future, according to the website Masslive.com.

Located in the downtown of what was once a major industrial city, the church served for three-quarters of a century as the epicenter of Worcester’s once-large French-Canadian community.

The Romanesque Revival style structure was the first French-Canadian Roman Catholic parish established in Worcester, and the mother parish to three later French Canadian parishes in the city.

Historically, French Canadians represented Worcester’s largest immigrant population, second only to the Irish.

While some artwork, historical artifacts and stained glass windows have been removed for reuse, many stained-glass windows still remain in the building, according to the group Preservation Worcester.

It should be noted that the church is in desperate need of an overhaul, which would likely be quite expensive, given its size. That said, it’s hard to imagine a replacement that could prove anywhere near the draw for tourism.

Over the past 20 years, many Roman Catholic dioceses in New England and the Rust Belt have had to consolidate and close churches as attendance and parish membership has dropped.

Notre Dame des Canadiens is not listed on the state or national registers of historic places, but is listed on the Massachusetts Cultural Resources Information System.

The church survived an earlier attempt at demolition. During the dreadful urban renewal efforts that swept much of the US in the 1950s and ‘60s, plans called for Notre Dame des Canadiens to be knocked down. However, strong opposition from residents from across Worcester resulted in the Worcester Redevelopment Authority dropping its plans to acquire and demolish the church.

It doesn’t appear the church will get a second reprieve, however.

(Top: Image of Notre Dame des Canadiens church, Worcester, Mass.)

Georgia restaurant taunts with zenith of fast-food offerings

The above sign, spotted at Long John Silver’s in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., reflects perhaps the greatest offering ever put forth by a fast-food establishment.

As I gazed up at the promotion for the “Butter Milk Cod” basket, my mind began spinning furiously. I’ve never eaten at a Long John Silver’s, which is known for seafood, but if any promotion were to get me inside, this would be it.

“Butter milk cod” held so many possibilities that a simple basket seemed ridiculously inadequate. And for just $5.99? Mind = Blown!

Eventually, tired of trying to work out the many different options in my head, I put pen to paper and created my own “Butter Milk Cod Matrix” (patent pending).

As you can see below, there is an amazing number of delicious and nutritious choices that can be created when one has butter, milk and cod:

• Butter;
• Milk;
• Cod;
• Buttermilk;
• Butter Cod;
• Milk Butter;
• Milk Cod;
• Cod Butter;
• Cod Milk;
• Buttermilk Cod;
• Butter Codmilk;
• Milk Buttercod;
• Milk Codbutter;
• Cod Buttermilk; and
• Cod Milkbutter.

Long John Silver’s Butter Milk Cod Matrix. Click to see larger version. (Remember, patent pending!)

Scanning the list of items created by the intricate matrix, I don’t know that there isn’t anything on it I wouldn’t consume, although I can’t say that cod milk or cod milkbutter would be the first items I would reach for.

Alas, when I finally pulled myself away from the sign and my “Butter Milk Cod Matrix” (patent pending), I was disappointed to find the Fort Oglethorpe Long John Silver’s not yet open.

As I pulled away toward Tennessee, it was with a heavy heat, my new-found craving for cod butter unsatisfied.

Redefining the problem as a means of remaining viable

I pass the above billboard, paid for by the National Fair Housing Alliance, each day on my way to work. It brings a number of issues to mind.

(Begin disclaimer.) As a caveat to keep the easily offended from being seized with apoplexy, I understand discrimination still exists. It likely always will. This is not an attempt to diminish or disregard the impact of discrimination in housing. (End disclaimer.)

That said, the billboard is an appeal to emotion, and not a very good one at that.

The average 6-year-old boy’s “dream home,” at least from what I can recall, is a pillow fort made from couch cushions.

Any bank making a loan to a 6-year old would, of course, be hauled before regulators and hit with sanctions, unless the 6-year-old was a pop music wonderkid, ala Michael Jackson, 1965.

Finally, I know of very few recent instances of individuals or organizations discriminating against others when it comes to selling homes. It seems illogical to turn down someone else’s money when you’re trying to sell your home.

A glance at the website for National Fair Housing Alliance – a Washington, DC, operation which touts itself as “the only national organization dedicated solely to ending discrimination in housing” – shows very little actual activity in this area. And it’s safe to say that this organization, begun in 1988, would be promoting such cases in order to rationalize its existence. Under “enforcement” is the following:

• Last December, the National Fair Housing Alliance and 20 local fair housing organizations from across the US filed a housing discrimination lawsuit against Fannie Mae in federal district court in San Francisco, alleging Fannie Mae purposely failed to maintain its foreclosures in middle- and working-class African American and Latino neighborhoods to the same level of quality it does for foreclosures it owns in white middle- and working-class neighborhoods;
• Last August, the NFHA and nine local fair housing organizations filed an amended discrimination complaint against Bank of America alleging illegal discrimination by the bank in black and Latino neighborhoods; and
• In May 2016, NFHA announced it had filed a federal lawsuit alleging race, sex, and source-of-income discrimination against Travelers Indemnity Co. for failing to provide habitational insurance to apartment owners who rent to tenants who participate in the Housing Choice Voucher program.

That means over the past year, the only activities that this entity has seen fit to post to the “enforcement” section of its website are lawsuits that it has filed. No resolutions of cases. And filing a lawsuit hardly qualifies as “enforcement.”

If one looks at the NFHA’s “news & media” section, one finds press releases for the following:

• A Seventh Circuit panel unanimously affirming a preliminary injunction that required the Kenosha Unified School District in Wisconsin to permit a 17-year-old transgender boy to use the boys’ restrooms at his high school; and
• The results of the fourth annual National Fair Housing Alliance poetry slam. “Poetry slams are our opportunity to connect creative arts with social justice,” according to the organization.

There are also press releases announcing a settlement between Bank of America and the National Fair Housing Alliance Reach in a mortgage loan case, and the Supreme Court upholding the right of cities to sue banks whose practices harm the municipalities and their residents.

The last two have a direct tie to the NFHA’s mission; the first two seem a bit off the reservation for an organization dedicated to ending discrimination in housing.

Finally, consider this from the NFHA’s annual Fair Housing Trends Report, issued April 19, 2017, which documents “continued patterns of discrimination and segregation and highlighting fair housing trends in 2016.”

“We are one year away from commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Fair Housing Act which was passed just seven days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April, 1968,” said Shanna Smith, president and CEO of NFHA. “Some advances have been made in opening up neighborhoods to everyone; however, people of color, persons with disabilities and other marginalized groups continue to be unlawfully shut out of many neighborhoods that provide quality schools and health care, fresh food, employment opportunities, quality and affordable credit, small business investment, and other opportunities that affect life outcomes.”

Some advances? There were many, many neighborhoods from which minorities were excluded in 1968, either de jure or de facto, and there wasn’t a great deal they could do about it. Those that fought against such discrimination were often harassed, and those who dared move into white neighborhoods were many times treated extremely harshly, even violently. Those actions, as near as I can tell, are largely absent today.

Were such actions taking place, the media would highlight them in great detail.

If people of color, persons with disabilities and other marginalized groups are unlawfully shut out of neighborhoods today, there are remedies that authorities are more than willing to employ, and rightfully so.

If, however, groups such as the NFHA feel the need to downplay success in opening up housing opportunities for all so that they can continue to garner funding and have a viable reason to remain in operation, that doesn’t speak very highly about it as an organization.

Protecting monopolies under the guise of reducing risk

To paraphrase English playwright William Congreve, hell hath no fury like an occupational licensing board catching wind of an “nonprofessional” practicing said profession.

In Arizona, for example, the state board of cosmetology is investigating Juan Carlos Montesdeoca after receiving a complaint that he gave free haircuts to the homeless.

Montesdeoca committed the deeds on Jan. 28 at a downtown Tucson library, after organizing the event through a Facebook group and soliciting help from volunteers. He did it “out of the kindness of my heart,” and in memory of his mother, who loved her hair, he told Tucson News Now.

That didn’t set well with the Arizona State Board of Cosmetology, which began an investigation after it received an anonymous complaint alleging that Montesdeoca was “requesting local businesses and local stylists to help out with free haircuts (unlicensed individuals) to the homeless.”

What one man views as charity another sees as unwanted competition, apparently.

The Arizona board is pulling out its big bag of disjoined logic in an effort to keep Montesdeoca and other “do-gooders” like him from helping those unable to afford haircuts.

Those getting their hair cut outside a licensed salon by an unlicensed person run a real risk, according to Donna Aune, the board’s executive director, adding that state law prohibits a person from practicing cosmetology without a license.

Remember, we’re talking about haircuts, not letting back-alley butchers remove gall bladders.

It wasn’t too long ago that those who wanted to braid hair legally in South Carolina had to demonstrate 300 hours of training. If one decided to use hair extensions as part of said braiding, regulations required a full cosmetologist curriculum, some 1,500 hours of class.

I’ve seen youngsters learn to braid hair in 15 minutes. What possible reason could there be to have required 300 hours of training, or to force someone who wants to apply extensions to take a 1,500-hour cosmetologist curriculum except to winnow out competition?

There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that the costs of occupational licenses outweigh the benefits. For hair braiding, as for many other occupations, licensing appears to do little more than prevent some people from earning an honest living in the occupation of their choice.

In 2012, Mississippi, which requires zero hours of training, had more than 1,200 registered braiders. Neighboring Louisiana, which requires 500 hours, had only 32 licensed braiders – despite its larger black population, according to the Institute for Justice.

Reason.com had some pithy comments regarding the potential risks involved with having an unlicensed individual cut the hair of the homeless in Tucson:

“The risk of getting a bad haircut is certainly chilling. But these were free haircuts. Free haircuts given to people who were in no position to pay for one. I’m sure they were aware of the risk they were taking by letting the unlicensed Montesdeoca cut their hair outside of a licensed salon environment, but they were probably okay with that level of risk considering they were homeless and were getting haircuts for free,” according to the magazine.

A problem many homeless have when it comes to job hunting is presenting well when it comes time for an interview. A decent haircut can go a long way toward boosting self-esteem and making a good first impression.

But the Arizona State Board of Cosmetology, whose members likely weren’t serving these individuals in the first place, is more interested in making sure absolutely no one infringes on their monopoly.

(Top: You could give this homeless man in Tucson food, money and a job, but not a free haircut – unless you’re a licensed cosmetologist – thanks to the heavy hand of the Arizona Board of Cosmetology.)

Internet diagnosis: The common cold or breakbone fever?

Thanks in part to spending a full hour walking the rows of Longterm Lot No. 2 at the Charlotte International Airport searching for my car at 1 am, I recently found myself under the weather. As in, sick enough to miss work, which happens about once every five years.

After several days of feeling generally awful, and having little else to do, I decided to enter my symptoms into a certain Internet site, just to make sure I didn’t have something other than the common cold. Schistosomiasis is said to be on the uptick in these regions, or so rumor has it.

Fortunately, I’m not the easily excited type as the exercise proved, yet again, the utter absurdity of how knowledge is used on the World Wide Web.

I went to a very well-known site – which I will simply call WebQuack – and entered my symptoms, none of which were unusual: Headache, hoarse voice, nasal congestion, nighttime wheezing, post-nasal drip, runny nose and sore throat.

Be forewarned: this is not an exercise for those who might lean toward hypochondria.

After I entered the relatively straightforward symptoms, I was given 97 possible diagnoses. Only a very few seemed probable, such as sinusitis, nasal congestion, hay fever and the common cold.

Others seemed to have little relation to the listed symptoms: astigmatism, nearsightedness, farsightedness, post-concussive syndrome, toxic shock syndrome, sunburn, chemical burns, thermal burn of mouth or tongue, goiter, insulin reaction, hernia and narcotics abuse.

Some were almost comical: caffeine withdrawal, excessive caffeine use, foreign object in nose, malocclusion (bite out of alignment), botox injection and constipation.

Others were dreadful: diabetes, stroke, meningitis, brain aneurysm, brain infection, brain tumor, lung cancer, esophageal cancer, throat cancer, intracranial hematoma, multiple sclerosis, scarlet fever, typhoid fever and whooping cough.

Then there was the handful of potential afflictions that seem utterly improbable: plague, radiation sickness, cyanide poisoning and ricin poisoning.

Plague? I generally keep my distance from flea-infested rodents, particularly in large Third World cities where the Black Death is still a problem.

Radiation sickness? I haven’t been to the Chernobyl or Fukushima nuclear power plants, and stay clear of spent nuclear fuel whenever possible.

Cyanide? I think I’d have a few more symptoms that those I listed, such as seizures, profuse vomiting and cardiac arrest.

Ricin?!? That’s what Soviet-bloc agents used to do away with enemies of the state. Unless I, in my misspent youth, angered a Stasi agent with a long memory but incredibly poor tracking skills who’s just getting around to evening the score, this seems quite unlikely. That, and the fact I’d be dead before I could have typed my symptoms in WebQuack.

So, what’s the point of this aspect of WebQuack? One supposes it’s to get people to go see doctors, ask for products advertised on WebQuack’s website and drive revenues to said advertisers. As for being helpful, it seems anything but.

Trying to recollect memories of fabled Milk Farm Restaurant

For more than 50 years I’ve passed the old Milk Farm Restaurant sign near Dixon, Calif. The visits are less frequent these days, occurring on trips West when I visit family, but each time as I head along Interstate 80 south of Sacramento I see the venerable marker, all that remains of the once-famous eatery.

Those not conversant with area history have no way of knowing that the site was once one of the busiest stops between the state capital and San Francisco, where thousands were served weekly.

The 100-foot sign, topped with a cow jumping over a moon, once lit up with neon so vivid that it pierced the thick winter fog of the Sacramento Valley.

In my memory, I couldn’t recall the restaurant ever being open, and supposed that it had closed sometime in the 1960s. My parents said they had taken me there when I was around 18 months old, which would have been around the start of 1966. Yet, I would pass the site dozens of times in later years and could not remember the restaurant in operation, or even what it looked like.

So it was somewhat startling to find out that the Milk Farm, which began serving customers in 1919, remained in business until 1986.

Old Milk Farm Restaurant sign, Dixon, Calif.

Just down the road was another famous restaurant, the Nut Tree, in Vacaville, which operated from 1921 through 1996. I clearly recall that location and stopping there on more than one occasion. But the Milk Farm remains a void, except for driving past its iconic sign each time I headed north to such places as Davis, Sacramento or Lake Tahoe.

Fortunately, the world does not base historical judgment on what this author does or does not remember.

The Milk Farm began in 1919 as Hess Station, named for local rancher Karl Hess, who rented cabins to travelers in the days before motels.

The site was beside the old Lincoln Highway – Highway 40 – which was later expanded and renamed I-80.

Hess was apparently quite a promoter: he held milk-drinking contests, sold inexpensive chicken dinners and offered “all-you-can-drink” milk for 10 cents. He also helped make a named for the town of Dixon, where my grandfather and other family members attended high school, as the heart of the California dairy industry.

In 1938, Homer Henderson and his wife bought Hess Station and renamed it the Milk Farm. They added the cow logo which can be seen on the sign today.

“Stables, gas stations, an orange juice stand and a new restaurant all contributed to the Milk Farm being labeled ‘America’s Most Unique Highway Restaurant’ and to features on the radio and in such national publications as the Saturday Evening Post,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Celebrity visitors including crooner Bing Crosby, boxer Jack Dempsey and California Gov. and future US Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren.

The sign still visible today was erected in 1963 at a cost of $78,000, no mean sum more than 50 years ago.

The restaurant was eventually done in by rising food prices and increased competition, particularly from fast-food chains.

It closed in 1986 following damage from a violent windstorm and never reopened. In time, vagrants began inhabiting the structure, and in 2000 what remained of the building was razed.

Only the sign remains, a witness to the pre-chain-restaurant era, when part of the fun of vacationing involved the journey itself, and eateries put more emphasis on the quality of their food than on gimmicks used to lure travelers inside.

Zzyzx, Calif.: Where a charlatan created an empire

Just off Interstate-15 in a lonely section of San Bernardino County, Calif., sits the implausibly named locale of Zzyzx.

To get there, you take 4.5-mile-long Zzyzx Road.

The name was the creation of a quack preacher/televangelist/medicine man named Curtis Howe Springer, who arrived in the Southern California area in 1944.

Looking to set up a health spa, Springer came up with the name Zzyzx. By naming his spa the Zzyzx Mineral Springs resort, he was able to claim that it would be known as “the last word in health,” according to the website Roadtrippers.com.

Springer, born in 1896 in Alabama, had already enjoyed a lively career traveling the nation preaching, promoting various endeavors, selling fraudulent cures and working to stay a step ahead of authorities by the time he arrived in California.

Among his many enterprises was founding health spas. During the 1930s and 1940s, he opened a spa in Fort Hill, Pa., and tried to open others in Maryland and Iowa. But because Springer wasn’t fond of paying taxes, he lost his Pennsylvania spa to government seizure.

By the mid-1940s Springer had headed west and, working in conjunction with an associate, filed a claim to 12,800 acres in California’s Mojave Desert.

Springer, ever the resourceful sort, hired homeless men from Los Angeles’ infamous Skid Row to build the Zzyzx resort.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Springer’s resort, which ultimately included a 60-room hotel, spa, mineral baths, a radio studio, and a church, was built on a fraud. He used a boiler to heat pools around the resort.

He promoted the resort through his radio program, which was carried on more than 320 stations, according to Roadtrippers.com. It also included advertisements for his special remedies.

“Listeners would send in donations for his ‘cures,’ which he claimed could relieve constipation, hemorrhoids, hair loss and, oh yeah, cancer,” according to the website. ”However, what people were getting was, well, actually a bit better than snake oil. It was mostly celery, carrot and parsley juices.”

In the late 1960s, he was “swapping” lots in Zzyzx for large sums of money. If the Feds didn’t take notice of his quack cures, they did eventually catch on to the fact that Springer was making a lot of money and not paying much in taxes.

He was accused of squatting on the land and his claim to Zzyzx was invalidated. Springer and the other inhabitants of the community were evicted, and Springer was convicted for selling junk “cures,” although he served less than two months in jail.

He died in 1985 in Las Vegas.

For the past 30 years, the Bureau of Land Management has allowed schools in the California State University system to manage the land in and around Zzyzx.

While the remains of Springer’s charlatan empire is still evident around Zzyzx, the area is now home to a highly regarded Desert Studies Center, the handiwork of a consortium of CSU campuses.