Category: Kids Today

Athenae, Bigotry, Immoral Values, Kids Today, Race2 Comments

Let Me Check Something

Allison Hantschel

Last week we learned that we can — nay, SHOULD — summarily execute black men for being suspected of robbing convenience stores or selling loose cigarettes, but white men should not be kicked out of college for raping women because one woman might not have remembered every single thing about a trauma correctly. Is that about where we’re at right now? ETA: Also, we cannot punish our own politicians for ordering torture and lying about it. Because rude.  At least we’ll be REALLY on top of the critical law enforcement issue of the day: smoking. A. Continue reading Let Me Check Something

Athenae, Immoral Values, Kids Today1 Comment

I Hope You’re Proud, Rush Limbaugh

Allison Hantschel

I’ll bet he is, actually:  One Less held seminars for student groups on bystander intervention and how to be supportive of survivors. Jackie dove into her new roles as peer adviser and Take Back the Night committee member and began to discover just how wide her secret UVA survivor network was – because the more she shared her story, the more girls sought her out, waylaying her after presentations or after classes, even calling in the middle of the night with a crisis. Jackie has been approached by so many survivors that she wonders whether the one-in-five statistic may not … Continue reading I Hope You’re Proud, Rush Limbaugh

Big Damn Heroes, Doc, Kids Today, Law/Justice1 Comment

Cardinal Columns: Nationally Awesome

docphd

      The kids of Cardinal Columns, who spent the last year fighting against censorship, bullying and generally poor administrative behavior, have just earned the National Scholastic Press Association’s highest honor, the Pacemaker. These things are ridiculously hard to win and represent the overall quality of the publication, not the fact they fought against censorship. In short, IN SPITE of the heavy hand that tried to crush them, they managed to be one of the best high school newspapers in the country. If this doesn’t give you hope, I don’t know what will. Rock on, folks. I’d buy you … Continue reading Cardinal Columns: Nationally Awesome

Athenae, Immoral Values, Kids Today, So Called Liberal Media, Stupid Republican Tricks7 Comments

Being a Rape Victim is Awesome, By George Will

Allison Hantschel

Are you even serious, right now:  Will offers an anecdote from a student at Swarthmore College, in which a woman reported a rape after a former sexual partner wouldn't take no for an answer. Will implies that because the incident occurred "with a guy with whom she’d been hooking up for three months," she wasn't sexually assaulted. Right. Once you have slept with a guy once, he has unrestricted access to your vagina for life. It is physically impossible for him to rape you. The female body has no way of shutting that down.  "I just kind of laid there … Continue reading Being a Rape Victim is Awesome, By George Will

Athenae, Kids Today2 Comments

Assholes Are All There Is

Allison Hantschel

Jude knows this sort of thing makes me crazy: 5. Set plans are dead. People have options and up-to-the-minute updates on their friends (or other potential romantic interests) whereabouts thanks to texts & social media. If you aren’t the top priority, your invitation to spend time will be given a “Maybe” or “I’ll let you know” and the deciding factor(s) will be if that person has offers more fun/interesting than you on the table. God. Not everyone is from Rich Kids of Instagram, and just because there are high-profile examples of people being trivial assholes does not mean that every … Continue reading Assholes Are All There Is

Athenae, Kids Today, So Called Liberal Media2 Comments

The Internet Isn’t Everything Everywhere

Allison Hantschel

College kids still depend on print:  What do you think about the fact that less than a quarter of college newspapers at public schools nationwide are updating their online content daily? It’s concerning. I’ve always viewed the purpose of student newspapers as two-fold. Part one is to serve a niche market as a community paper and part two is to provide a training ground for the next generation of journalists. If you don’t have regular daily content, it might be hard to achieve those goals — especially part two. I mean, we live in the year 2014. Professional media outlets … Continue reading The Internet Isn’t Everything Everywhere

Athenae, Games, Geek Cred, Kids Today, Twitter4 Comments

On Losing Your Identity and #Gamergate

Allison Hantschel

GamerGate and its bullshit makes the NYT:  These players are so concerned about the fragility of big-budget video games in the face of cultural analysis and criticism that they circulated an online petition last year calling for the website GameSpot to fire a critic, Carolyn Petit, for daring to complain that Grand Theft Auto V “has little room for women except to portray them as strippers, prostitutes, long-suffering wives, humorless girlfriends and goofy, new-age feminists that we’re meant to laugh at.” (There were no such demands for the heads of male critics — including me, writing in The New York Times — who said … Continue reading On Losing Your Identity and #Gamergate

Athenae, Kids Today5 Comments

Ignorant Racist Fucknutted Assholes Credit Kids for Their Racist Ignorant Fucknut Assholery

Allison Hantschel

It’s all about THE CHILDREN:  “I don’t feel comfortable sending my daughter to school with people who could be infected with ebola.” “Really concerns me. I don’t want to keep my boy out of school.” “Tell us when we come into the door. Don’t smile in my face and have a secret like that.” “Anybody from that area should just stay there until all this stuff is resolved. There’s nobody affected here; let’s just keep it that way.” “I think for another couple weeks. I don’t think it would hurt, I mean you have a lot of children that are … Continue reading Ignorant Racist Fucknutted Assholes Credit Kids for Their Racist Ignorant Fucknut Assholery

Athenae, Kids Today, So Called Liberal Media

State of the Media: Everything Has Never Been Okay, and Will Continue to Be Okay

Allison Hantschel

First, Whet:  1995 happened to be the first time I did a newspaper internship. One of the first things I learned was that the paper had a 20% profit margin, which was good but not even great for the industry. If that sounds insane, it sort of is; as Meyer pointed out, it’s a luxury-item profit margin. Or a monopoly-product margin, but that monopoly was already slipping away. In turnover, newspapers are more like supermarkets than yacht dealers. Their product has a one-day shelf life. Consumers and advertisers alike have to pay for a new version every day if they … Continue reading State of the Media: Everything Has Never Been Okay, and Will Continue to Be Okay

Athenae, Immoral Values, Kids Today, Law/Justice1 Comment

The Victim-Blaming Culture

Allison Hantschel

A lethal mix of laziness, stupidity, wingnut reactionism and just plain cruelty:  The process sounds simple: Go to a courthouse, file a form, and get a private hearing within a day or so. If the judge—who usually holds the hearing in his or her chambers—denies the petition, a minor has a right to a speedy appeal. A pregnant teen, according to standards defined by the Supreme Court, must show either that she is mature enough to have an abortion without her parents’ involvement or that an abortion is in her best interest. “The way most laws are written, if you … Continue reading The Victim-Blaming Culture

Athenae, Immoral Values, Kids Today, So Called Liberal Media, Stupid Republican Tricks2 Comments

Right-Wing Media Translations: Nebraska School Gender Edition

Allison Hantschel

Teachers to school in Nebraska: We get questions occasionally about gender issues. Please help us answer them without sounding like complete morons. School to teachers: Here is a handout from an organization that specializes in these issues. The handout talks about gender-inclusive language, and suggests some things you might maybe someday kind of do if you want. Wingnut media: OBAMAHITLER IS FORCING SCHOOLS TO BAN THE WORD BOYS BECAUSE EVERYBODY IS A QUEER NOW AND GIRLS CAN’T BE CALLED GIRLS AND EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE. THIS IS TRADITIONAL AMERICA YOU CANNOT OPEN A GENDERLESS FRENCH MIME SEX SCHOOL. School, patiently: No. None of … Continue reading Right-Wing Media Translations: Nebraska School Gender Edition

Athenae, Kids Today, Uncategorized3 Comments

why don’t our kids care about all our old stuff?

Allison Hantschel

Ugh, so tiresome:  Will my children ever have their own awkward but poignant, John Hughes-worthy moments when teenagers today can have entire relationships over text messages? Would the kids in The Breakfast Club even talk to each other if they found themselves in a Saturday morning detention today, or would they spend all their time on their phones, texting their friends and tweeting about how lame it was and never actually make eye contact with one another? Would anyone today even believe that Seinfeld and friends would spend that much time talking to each other out loud about nothing? 1. … Continue reading why don’t our kids care about all our old stuff?

Current Affairs, Doc, Education, Kids Today4 Comments

Big Chief Principal on the warpath; demands all students in his teepee use “redskin” to describe his tribe

docphd

Meet Rob McGee. No, he’s the other one…   Over my time in covering student newspapers and the battles they face when dealing with administrators, one thing has become abundantly clear: The more wrong the argument, the more vigorously the administrators enforce it. This week in Pennsylvania, the adviser to the Neshaminy High School’s student newspaper was suspended for two days. In addition, the student newspaper was docked $1,200 from its printing budget, an obscene amount of money for anyone, let alone a student paper where money is tight to begin with. The reason? Adviser Tara Huber refused to force … Continue reading Big Chief Principal on the warpath; demands all students in his teepee use “redskin” to describe his tribe

Athenae, Kids Today, So Called Liberal Media, Stupid Republican Tricks4 Comments

OH NO YOU DID NOT JUST, BRUCE RAUNER

Allison Hantschel

Asshole:  Columbia College Chicago journalism professor Curtis Lawrence brought his class of aspiring reporters to listen to Rauner’s announcement about something or other and get some practice covering a political press conference, according to the Sun Times’ Natasha Korecki. Rauner’s seasoned political team decided not to let the students into the event. “Working media” only, they said before giving the boot to 12 up and comers. Working. Yeah. Lemme tell you something, I worked harder as a student reporter on my laziest day than I ever did on my hardest day as a pro, in no small part because everybody around … Continue reading OH NO YOU DID NOT JUST, BRUCE RAUNER

Athenae, Kids Today, So Called Liberal Media4 Comments

The World is Ever Ending: Journalism in Decline

Allison Hantschel

Print is dead, first edition:  That’s 1978. But hey, don’t let that get in the way of your dire predictions:  Maybe 25 year olds will start demanding news from yesterday, delivered in an unshareable format once a day. Sigh. Kids today, who hate newspapers so much [pdf link]. Yet another piece that conflates “less money than we had before” with “not enough money for print journalism.” This is pretty par for the course, and at least touches on the fact that the death of your local main street has some impact (ya think?) on your local newspaper: CVS and Best … Continue reading The World is Ever Ending: Journalism in Decline

Athenae, Economy, Kids Today4 Comments

Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

tommyfd

Ugh: With more people attending colleges charging ever-higher tuition, the number of borrowers has increased 70 percent in 10 years. So has the amount that the average student borrows. In 2004, 23 million people had student loans, and the average balance was $15,651. By 2013, 39 million people had student loans, and the average balance was nearly $25,000. Tuition at even a state school is now so expensive that even if I’d be able to get into Madison these days (my GPA was decent but not outstanding and I sucked at standardized tests) I wouldn’t have been able to afford … Continue reading Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Athenae, Economy, Kids Today

Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Allison Hantschel

Ugh: With more people attending colleges charging ever-higher tuition, the number of borrowers has increased 70 percent in 10 years. So has the amount that the average student borrows. In 2004, 23 million people had student loans, and the average balance was $15,651. By 2013, 39 million people had student loans, and the average balance was nearly $25,000. Tuition at even a state school is now so expensive that even if I’d be able to get into Madison these days (my GPA was decent but not outstanding and I sucked at standardized tests) I wouldn’t have been able to afford … Continue reading Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Athenae, Economy, Kids Today4 Comments

Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Allison Hantschel

Ugh: With more people attending colleges charging ever-higher tuition, the number of borrowers has increased 70 percent in 10 years. So has the amount that the average student borrows. In 2004, 23 million people had student loans, and the average balance was $15,651. By 2013, 39 million people had student loans, and the average balance was nearly $25,000. Tuition at even a state school is now so expensive that even if I’d be able to get into Madison these days (my GPA was decent but not outstanding and I sucked at standardized tests) I wouldn’t have been able to afford … Continue reading Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Athenae, Economy, Kids Today4 Comments

Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Allison Hantschel

Ugh: With more people attending colleges charging ever-higher tuition, the number of borrowers has increased 70 percent in 10 years. So has the amount that the average student borrows. In 2004, 23 million people had student loans, and the average balance was $15,651. By 2013, 39 million people had student loans, and the average balance was nearly $25,000. Tuition at even a state school is now so expensive that even if I’d be able to get into Madison these days (my GPA was decent but not outstanding and I sucked at standardized tests) I wouldn’t have been able to afford … Continue reading Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Athenae, Economy, Kids Today4 Comments

Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Allison Hantschel

Ugh: With more people attending colleges charging ever-higher tuition, the number of borrowers has increased 70 percent in 10 years. So has the amount that the average student borrows. In 2004, 23 million people had student loans, and the average balance was $15,651. By 2013, 39 million people had student loans, and the average balance was nearly $25,000. Tuition at even a state school is now so expensive that even if I’d be able to get into Madison these days (my GPA was decent but not outstanding and I sucked at standardized tests) I wouldn’t have been able to afford … Continue reading Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Athenae, Economy, Kids Today4 Comments

Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Allison Hantschel

Ugh: With more people attending colleges charging ever-higher tuition, the number of borrowers has increased 70 percent in 10 years. So has the amount that the average student borrows. In 2004, 23 million people had student loans, and the average balance was $15,651. By 2013, 39 million people had student loans, and the average balance was nearly $25,000. Tuition at even a state school is now so expensive that even if I’d be able to get into Madison these days (my GPA was decent but not outstanding and I sucked at standardized tests) I wouldn’t have been able to afford … Continue reading Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Athenae, Economy, Kids Today4 Comments

Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Allison Hantschel

Ugh: With more people attending colleges charging ever-higher tuition, the number of borrowers has increased 70 percent in 10 years. So has the amount that the average student borrows. In 2004, 23 million people had student loans, and the average balance was $15,651. By 2013, 39 million people had student loans, and the average balance was nearly $25,000. Tuition at even a state school is now so expensive that even if I’d be able to get into Madison these days (my GPA was decent but not outstanding and I sucked at standardized tests) I wouldn’t have been able to afford … Continue reading Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Athenae, Economy, Kids Today4 Comments

Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Allison Hantschel

Ugh: With more people attending colleges charging ever-higher tuition, the number of borrowers has increased 70 percent in 10 years. So has the amount that the average student borrows. In 2004, 23 million people had student loans, and the average balance was $15,651. By 2013, 39 million people had student loans, and the average balance was nearly $25,000. Tuition at even a state school is now so expensive that even if I’d be able to get into Madison these days (my GPA was decent but not outstanding and I sucked at standardized tests) I wouldn’t have been able to afford … Continue reading Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Athenae, Economy, Kids Today4 Comments

Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Allison Hantschel

Ugh: With more people attending colleges charging ever-higher tuition, the number of borrowers has increased 70 percent in 10 years. So has the amount that the average student borrows. In 2004, 23 million people had student loans, and the average balance was $15,651. By 2013, 39 million people had student loans, and the average balance was nearly $25,000. Tuition at even a state school is now so expensive that even if I’d be able to get into Madison these days (my GPA was decent but not outstanding and I sucked at standardized tests) I wouldn’t have been able to afford … Continue reading Work Your Way Through College, Kids!

Current Affairs, Doc, Kids Today, On Wisconsin

Cardinal Columns: Almost… Almost… Almost…

docphd

About six months after the Fond du Lac school district implemented a “censor them all, let God sort them out” policy regarding its student media, it appears the board of education has decided to act right. According to at least two sources, the board met in a “workshop” earlier in the week and agreed in principle to a document that declares the publications of Fond du Lac High School to be public forums. This will essentially provide First Amendment protection to all of the media at the school, including the award-winning Cardinal Columns news magazine and Fondy Today, the school’s … Continue reading Cardinal Columns: Almost… Almost… Almost…

Athenae, Economy, Kids Today3 Comments

Kids Today Are All Liberal Arts Pussies!

Allison Hantschel

Why do I read the comments? Why, God? “They’re coming out of college with huge debts and having to take low-wage jobs. [So they’re]trying to fight back,” said Bill O’Meara, president of the Newspaper Guild of New York, which represents a group of Kaplan tutors in New York City who unionized hoping to bargain higher pay. Middle class jobs have lost ground just as millennials have entered the workforce. Some 58% of the jobs created during the recent economic recovery have been low-wage positions like retail and food prep workers, according to a 2012 report by the National Employment Law … Continue reading Kids Today Are All Liberal Arts Pussies!

Athenae, Economy, Immoral Values, Kids Today5 Comments

No Free Lunch

Allison Hantschel

Hand stamps for the poor kids: In an interview published by The Daily Camera on Monday, Roni revealed for the first time that her disagreement with the school was over a practice of stamping children’s hands if they did not have enough money in their account to pay for lunch or even if they were eligible for free lunches. “As soon as I saw it happening, I was like, ‘No, this is not OK,’” Roni said. “The students felt so humiliated, like they had done something wrong. They didn’t want to go into the lunchroom any more. It’s unethical and … Continue reading No Free Lunch

Athenae, Kids Today, So Called Liberal Media2 Comments

High School Journalism is About the Process

Allison Hantschel

Yes:  We don’t encourage our children to play with blocks from a young age because we expect them all to be architects and builders. We do it because we know the seemingly simple task of stacking diverse, colored objects into myriad shapes encourages cognitive development and problem solving. So it is with scholastic journalism. In the comments to Washeck’s piece, Betsy Pollard Rau, a former Michigan high school journalism teacher whose students have won many reporting awards, said that some students went on to careers in journalism, but many more used skills learned in high school journalism in other professions … Continue reading High School Journalism is About the Process

Athenae, Fuck The Mommy Wars, Immoral Values, Kids Today3 Comments

It’s Not About You

Allison Hantschel

This nails it, almost:  But what all these issues, no matter how gigantically separated an Esquire puff piece and a Tennessee mother’s jailing for meth may seem, reflect back at us: How, in this country, every barometer by which female worth is measured—from the superficial to the life-altering, the appreciative to the punitive—has long been calibrated to “dude,” whether or not those measurements are actually being taken by dudes. Men still run, or at bare minimum have shaped and codified the attitudes of, the churches, the courts, the universities, the police departments, the corporations that so freely determine women’s worth. As Beyoncé … Continue reading It’s Not About You