Rumi Nations

I read in a Bob Herbert column in the New York Times that UC Berkeley is suffering from all the woes afflicting California's budget. I saw once that California has an economy that's larger than Russia's. UC Berkeley is apparently the pinnacle of California's public higher education system. When governments face budget deficits, they often look at education expenditures as a low-hanging fruit. This is unfortunate, but perhaps pure 'research' into the origins of the human race or into the private life of some long-dead writer seems to be rather academic to budget planners compared to, say, unemployment allowance or health-related expenditures. Again, within the broad umbrella of education, it's topics such as music education in schools which is often the first one to bear the brunt of budget cuts when times are tough. There is this wonderful movie called Mr. Holland's Opus starring Richard Dreyfus that depicts something of this over a 30 year period. The ...