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May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
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Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
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May 13, 2013
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David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
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Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
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Jewish World Review
Stalking your college kid won't change a thing
By
Jim Mullen
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Many colleges are complaining about a new problem: parents who refuse to leave after the students have moved in. There are tales of parents who rent hotel rooms in college towns for the first week of classes in case Little Darling forgot to bring his iPod, Xbox or his security blanket. There are parents who won't leave the new dorm room and parents who call the student every five minutes. It begs the question: If the parents don't think the new student can make it on their own, why should the college?
You expect a little separation anxiety on the first day of first grade. But the freshman year of college? That's a little creepy. I can understand being teary-eyed and fearful, but anything past that and we've moved into drama-queen territory.
If you think Junior is such a nincompoop, why did you let him apply to some school eight states away instead of the local campus? Is freshman math different at Far Away U than it is at a community college? Junior can always transfer to the status school after a year or two and take his degree there. And with all the money you've just saved, maybe you'll be able to afford it.
If you haven't put a kid through Far Away U yet, let me tell what you're paying for: After six weeks, you will get a phone call from your formerly straight-A, honor-society student that he/she has decided to change their major from engineering to theater. He/she needs more money for new books, as the $800 worth of engineering texts and workbooks are now useless and taking up space in their dorm room, where their new boy/girlfriend needs to set up their campus tattoo business.
A week later, student health services will call your home and ask to speak to your student. You say he/she is not home, but what's the problem?
"We can't tell you, that would be an invasion of the student's privacy. But it's important that the student call us right away." You are about to get in the car and drive across seven states when your student calls. "Why is health services trying to get hold of you?"
"It's just an infected piercing/tattoo. Chill, would you?" Their new major this week is Rap Music Production. "I can't think in this dorm room. There's a fierce two-bedroom place right off campus for $2,600 a month, and if we split the rent six ways it's the same price. Spike thinks it's a really good idea."
"Spike? Maybe we could come out there and meet your friends and see this apartment."
"Why do you always want to know my business? Can't I have any privacy? You are wrecking my life! Can't you just leave me alone?"
Those drama classes at Far Away U must be really good. Maybe it is worth it.
By week eight your student is making plans for the next semester. They have a study program in Florence that your student wants to take because he/she is now dating an artist who will be in Florence next semester. You point out that you have never been to Florence because you have spent your whole life saving money so your student can go to college and get an education so that they will be laid off from a better job than the one you have. You calmly mention that your student doesn't speak Italian and has no artistic ability, and ask what will happen to the music career while he/she is overseas?
"If I don't go I will die! I will stop eating! You will never see me again!"
The next week, Florence is off, he/she can't wait to get a degree in botany.
This will happen whether you spend the first week there in a rented hotel room or not. You may as well save the money.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here.
Jim Mullen is the author of "It Takes a Village Idiot: Complicating the Simple Life" and "Baby's First Tattoo."
Previously:
Putting my life in Jeopardy
Mo' government, mo' problems
iLostIt
Dressed for excess
Expert tease
The mysteries of Jersey
You are a toilet, where am I?
Don't we all cheat at the game of life?
What happens when I forget where Google is?
Don't let the doorman hit you on the way out
Picasso fiasco
Purple (hair) Daze
Let me hear your body talk
Working from work
Babies deserve clean restrooms, too
3-year-old bear-killers are a thing of the past
Money-making ideas on the fly
Collecting and hoarding
Chain of fools
Please come pick up your acting awards, ESPN commentators, you've earned them
You've been superpoked by the U.S. gov't
e-Readin', e-Writin' and e-Rithmatic
A pose by any other name
Warning: Column contains 2010 spoilers
He loves only gold, only gold
Think about direction, wonder why …
Flushing your money down a diamond-studded toilet
More like wack Friday
The good, the ad and the ugly
The desert of the real
Let books be large and in charge
I was insulting people way before the Internet
GPS drill sergeant: Left, right, left!
Butterfly in the sky, you make winds go twice as high
Music to my ears it's not
You don't light up my life
Fair or not: Country living is far from Little House
A parable for the ages
Top 100 Cable news stories of the century
Green dumb
A developing story
Thinking outside the lunch box
What's good for the goose is good for the scanner
Newspapers will survive, but network TV?
A really big show of generation gaps
When pigs flu
The reports of our decline have been greatly exaggerated
Mergers and admonitions
Invest in gold: little, yellow, different
Stuck in Folsom Penthouse
Collecting karma
Setting loose the creative juice
It's all in the numbers
You're damaging your brain with practical skills
The real rat pack
The unspeakable luxury of the Park-O-Matic
Gross-ery shopping
© 2009, NEA
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