[geeks] Q: Regarding Linux in K-12 education

[Phil Stracchino]

On 01/18/10 14:40, Sandwich Maker wrote:
> " From: Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at gmail.com>
> " 
> " []
> " 
> " On a related note, I recently met a recent college graduate that was
> " applying for substitute work in our district, he had student loans
> " that he had to start paying towards and he wasn't able to find a
> " better job than substituting - it seems he invested four years of his
> " life and borrowed $160,000 to get an undergraduate degree in Theater
> " Arts. When I heard that my first reaction was "Doesn't he have any
> " parents?!"
> 
> i have a running battle with my gf/so about this.  when i suggest it
> isn't [financially] smart to major in art history, she seems to think
> i'm trying to trash liberal education.  i'm all for rounded education
> [eg. art history as a minor], but where's the sense in majoring in a
> field where the job opps are very limited, pay is low, and/or
> competition is fierce?

Besides which, there's the problem that majoring in art history
qualifies you to be ... well... an art historian.  And really nothing else.

On a related note, I think a lot of the problem with a lot of the dreck
that's passed off as art these days is that, well, to be a successful
artist you've got to have TALENT.  You can go to college and learn the
abilities, and the technical skills.  But you can't learn talent in
class.  You have it, or you don't.  You work to develop it, or you
don't.  Some people can develop it (witness the progressive evolution of
Howard Tayler's artwork in Schlock Mercenary).  Some can't.  And if you
haven't got it, it doesn't matter how many degrees you have in art, the
odds are that anything you produce is going to be crap.  There are an
awful lot of modern "artists" out there who are basically subsisting on
the vanity and pretentiousness of the elite high-society set who can't
tell actual art from complete garbage, but who daren't take the risk of
actually admitting that in public.  So no matter if it's a plain white
canvas or a toilet with a hole drilled through it, if it has a high
price tag they'll look solemnly at it, nod knowingly, spout a line of
bullshit about the depth and social relevance of the artist's vision,
and pony up the cash.

There is a story, to which I'm unable to find a reference right now,
about a famous artist (I believe it was Salvador Dali, but it might
possibly have been Pablo Picasso) who was asked by a French reporter
whether his work was really art.  By way of reply, he got a large
canvas, went to a pig pen, threw several buckets of colored paint over
the pigs, then draped the canvas over the pen and let the pigs run
around under it leaving smears and trails of multicolored paint on the
canvas.

"I know that this is not art," he told the reporter.  "You know that
this is not art.  But if I put my name on it, they will line up to buy it."


-- 
  Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
  alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
         Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                 It's not the years, it's the mileage.