A brand-new week and a brand-new month — and no foolish jokes this Monday morning as we all try to be more smart than sorry.
High overcast here on California’s north coast, but that’s just the weather.
Time is double-timing down the old calender and it’s really, really hard to believe it’s April already, and winter seems such a distant past I can’t even remember that fat, red-decked asshole coming around toward the end of December — how we forget the ugly and remember only the pretty.
(Illustration found here).
Speaking of ugly for those boys and girls in all those colleges and universities as graduation is coming too quickly — the hunt is on: The result: Nearly half of the college graduates in the class of 2010 are working in jobs that don’t require a bachelor’s degree and 38 percent have jobs that don’t even require a high school diploma, according to a January report from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. The report called into question whether too much public money is being spent on providing students with degrees that make them overqualified for the only jobs that are available.
A daughter graduates from Middle Tennessee State University next month — she’s going to grad school, so hahahaha-har to job hunting. She’ll get a journalism degree, it’s more than a fool’s errand to work nowadays.
The big thing right now, however, ain’t no education. This first day of April, and this week, comes spring break for Humboldt County schools and other educational facilities around the US. This crazed, booze-swilling, chick-chasing, party-crashing scene has apparently been around for a shitload of a long time — and it’s not such a great financial windfall for those party sites.
From The Atlantic:
Like Western democracy, Socratic philosophy, written histories, epic poetry, and every other foundational pillar of high culture, spring break began in ancient Greece.
Called “Anthestreria” by the local teens, and their parents, it was a festival dedicated to Dionysus, the god of wine and whoopee and just about every excuse to party.
For three days, people would dance, singers would perform, women would deck themselves with flowers, and Greek men would compete to see who could be the fastest to drain a cup of red wine.
…
It wasn’t until the mid-twentieth century that modern spring break emerged.
In 1934, Sam Ingram, a Colgate College swim coach, was looking for a warm place to keep his swimmers in shape.
He chose the small, quiet town of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
More swimming instructors followed.
During World War II, rich Ivy League students, who occasionally visited Bermuda during their spring breaks, were suddenly spooked by rumors of German U-Boats roaming the Caribbean. T
he best intracontinental alternative was to meet up with the swimmer co-eds in Florida.
And so, Ft. Lauderdale became the first official home of the American Anthestreria tradition.
…
Just inside the armpit of Florida’s panhandle, looking into the Gulf of Mexico, sits Panama City Beach, the “spring break capital of the world.”
Every year, the area draws up to 500,000 college students — that’s 42 co-eds for every city resident counted in the 2010 Census.
For many years, Panama City has been MTV’s home base for spring break coverage, and partiers spend $170 million during six-week period, according to a 2004 study.
Sounds like quite the stimulus.
But Laurie’s research in Bay County (home to Panama City) found that “the sales tax collected in Bay County during the month of March is actually the lowest of any month” before ticking up in April.
…
If you’re wondering how half a million people leave so little a mark, however, the proper response is that they do leave an unmistakable mark on local crime and non-criminal citations.
March is by far the year’s worst month for public safety in Panama City Beach.
I grew up on the Florida Panhandle and PC was the place for chicks — in high school, back in the tame 1960s, Panama City was the place to go drool. Although my own area around Fort Walton Beach, about 50 miles west of PC, for some reason was not effected until the late 1960s and early 1970s — then it became party time!
Decades later, I lived/worked in Pismo Beach, California, and spring break was a huge money-making festival. Students from the San Joaquin Valley visited in droves, spent a lot of cash and then went back to hell-holes like Fresno and Bakersfield. I hated them, but loved their money!
As we wallow in spring, cold weather is still around at a lot of places, and can be more than hazardous, at least for way-small things:
An entire troupe of performing fleas has fallen victim to the freezing temperatures currently gripping Germany.
Flea circus director Robert Birk says he was shocked to find all of his 300 fleas dead inside their transport box Wednesday morning.
…
Michael Faber, who organizes the fair, told The Associated Press that an insect expert at a nearby university was able to provide 50 fleas in time for the first show Sunday.
Faber says he hopes they’ll “get through this without any more fatalities.”
And finally, the best news site up here, online and off, Lost Coast Outpost, got hacked this morning via April Fool’s Day, I guess. The only bad part is the hacker lobbed a mass of photographs of this bearded guy along the edge of the page — weird, but funny, yet a pain in the InterWeb ass for the Outpost guys.
Good day!