Job Mentality
A college degree just ‘aint what it used to be – so says Newsweek in this article about a “crumbling job market for college grads” in China. This perennial problem is nothing new, but the current worldwide financial crisis is definitely not helping things. With an estimated 1.5 million graduates of the class of 2008 still jobless, the government has responded with a plan to create 9 million jobs in 2009, primarily to help build up the country’s infrastructure as well as positions in rural villages – an initiative that recalls the zhiqing campaigns of years past in which young intellectuals were sent to work in the countryside, albeit with far less ideological motivations.
Judging from pictures like these, they’ve got their work cut out for them.
Brangelina Brats Run Amok, Octuplet Mom Denies Being a Leech
Meanwhile, halfway around the world, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s brood of six children reportedly “wreaked havoc at a top London hotel as their Hollywood parents enjoyed a glitzy night out,” according to the San Francisco Gate’s Daily Dish; while elsewhere, octuplet mom Nadya Suleman told NBC’s the Today Show she is “not receiving welfare” despite confirmation from her publicist that USD 490 in monthly foodstamps from Uncle Sam. Suleman has been criticized of leeching off the US taxpayer in her alleged quest to mother as many children as possible.
Spoilsports
Experts at the University of London have released a study that claims children raised primarily under the care of their grandparents are more “badly behaved” than those who “go to nurseries,” though they tend to pick up “better vocabulary under their grandparents.” The report, which was published in the Journal of Social Policy, also cites the superior “cognitive skills” of said children, but says they tend be “less adept with numbers and letters as compared to children who were in a nursery” as well as “less ready to move on to primary school.” No specific mention of what, exactly, constitutes “bad behavior” was made, but judging from how your correspondent’s own in-laws spoil his daughter, one can venture a guess …
