Episode 18: A Goat-Tying Phenom Demonstrates Her Craft

I’ve always wondered why rodeo isn’t in the Olympics.  It is a great sport and fully as athletic as any other, and has never been recognized by the NCAA–thank goodness!  How many athletes would be in college football if they had to buy all their own equipment and provide all their own entry fees and travel expenses?  Go Brooke!

We must not have watched the same clip.  There was nothing inhumane about what happens to the goats–they’re tied and released.  Beats the heck out of being raised to be eaten.

This is catch and release, not bullfighting!

And why shouldn’t certain aspect of rodeo be adopted by the Olympics?  Many of the sports there are vestiges of millenia-old activities:  shooting, skiing, running, throwing spears.

As for poor parenting, well, I raised my daughter in the way I saw fit and “allowed” other parents to do the same with theirs.  If a child is raised in a rural environment, say farmland Nebraska, what would be more natural to the culture and to the family than for the child to “rassle with the livestock.”

I see nothing laudatory about this so called “sport”. If she were tying a Golden Retriever, would everyone think it’s so acceptable?

I’m with 11191774; Brooke is an impressive young person who  I would love to hire tomorrow.   And as an academic dean, I offer a short prayer that she will pursue an academic career and bring her kick-ass  approach to academia.  You go, Brooke!

It’s because of this mentality that I moved away from the country as soon as possible. Ugh.

Why do they tie the feet? And what is the role of the horse? It would help if the video explained the basics.

I’d like to know where you can get a college education and 4 year degree for $25,000

Missouri State University’s tuition for in-state students is around $6600/year.  See http://www.missouristate.edu/costs/.  This doesn’t include room/board or books, but it’s just a bit above your $25k cap.

Are colleges and universities preparing students for careers that no longer exist?  Are the courses obsolete?  Not everyone is destined to be an engineer or a nurse – two career choices that still offer opportunities.  Even teaching is no longer a safe choice, with school districts chopping budgets to the bone.  What are students supposed to do?  Go into decades-long debt for a degree that turns out to be worthless in the marketplace?  Answers, please. 

I would have to say that a university degree is more important now than it has ever been in the history of humanity.  First of all, the jobs of the future are most likely not in the United States.  I am working in a Japanese advertising company located in Beijing, China.  I got the job because I was fluent in Chinese and had a degree in history as well as a graduate degree in Chinese studies.  Other students should look abroad to start their careers.  I plan to use my experience here to later find a job in the United States.  Second, students need to pay attention to what they study.  Even though I got a degree in history and Chinese studies, it was my skills in mandarin that actually got me the job.  Many companies do not need “liberal arts majors.”  They want skills.  Most jobs are for those educated in computer science, chemestry, math, engineering, etc.  Even here in China, they want native speakers of english who are educated in these areas.  If you are getting a degree in art history, although beneficial to society and humaity, it is not beneficial to your future career.  If you can pay for your degree on your own, get a degree in whatever you want.  If you are taking out loans, you need to get a degree that will help you pay off those loans.  Anyone who tells you anything different is just giving you bad advice. At the moment, I am one of few who is paying off my loans, and that is because i branched away from what i really wanted to study, which was philosophy. 

Others might disagree with me, but reality is reality and idealism always works in movies.  After some work experience, I might later apply to PhD programs in history.  A more realistic approach to studying what i want instead of just jumping into that much debt right away.   

Beijing, China.  Learn some Chinese and find a job in one of the fastest growing nations in the world.  Besides, the chinese government wants young foreigners in their undergrad programs so much that many Americans even get full scholarships and stipends. 

Who decides what’s virtuous, and who decides what makes society better and how?

So the study of music, art, Shakespeare, Cosmology, have no worth?  No one to defend these?  I  went to Caltech and was required to study those “non-practical” liberal arts subjects.  They have added enormous value to my life. Not my career.  

They even made me study some history, so now I am doomed to understand as Americans with no knowledge of history repeat the mistakes of the past.

We are moving toward an aristocratic society, with a class/caste system that includes the very wealthy, a gentry (professionally educated, prosperous people), and worker-drones (including most with college degrees) of various levels of prosperity and poverty.

Some worker drones live in autonomous or semi-autonomous cultures that offer emotional satisfaction, intellectual stimulation, cultural stimulation, community activity, church activity or sports and entertainment as their other life outside work. Others live in an unstimulated environment at work and outside work.

Some of us, like me, enjoy a good civic infrastructure offering the stimulation we need. My need is for cultural and intellectual stimulation. People in academia might be surprised at all the not expensive cultural stimulation available, in some places, outside the university setting (and some of us, like me, also take advantage of the free events at universities).

My near ancestors grew up in a rural society in Europe dominated by aristocrats. But they were alllowed to be tutored in the classroom and library on the local lord’s estate, along with the lord’s children. Grading, of course, did not exist nor testing as US schools know it. Learning was work but also a great pleasure, solitary and social. A few of the ancestors went to university, most did not yet they were fleunt in Latin and Greek and quite adept at math and at seeing their own insights into the literature they read and talked about. Math and literature were the family recreations on their farms.

Perhaps, as we move toward a society of ultra-rich and influential aristocrats who are not interested in making public higher education affordable, we will return a great deal of learning to sources outside the university. And perhaps not.

I have always felt that the studies of the humanities are best served as seconds,or late firsts, later in life. In the future universities may thrive by offering six month and one year programs in the humanities to executives and others seeking more than technical or professional mastery. I would hope that these programs do not involve grades or tests (except as interesting self-diagnostics and as bases for social conversations).