Apologies in advance for an unnecessarily wordy post about how it makes me cry to read the New York Times

It turns out that middle-aged men suffer from Useless Degree Syndrome as well. The article is about men in their 40's and 50's who are unemployed for years at a time because they can't find work that they don't find beneath them.

Hmm, this is starting to sound familiar. One of the subjects of the article even writes novels about cowboys to pass the time. Whoa! I thought I was going to cry when I read this, for two reasons:

1) That in one way or another, these men are reminiscent of about three-quarters of my friends right now, and if this connection is correct and relevant -- that western civilization (yeah, I said it) is at some sort of breaking point because it is currently structured to produce people that are over-educated and still somehow under-qualified for respectable work in a related field -- it's too bad I'm not intelligent enough to see the connection, leading me to;

2) The New York Times is an unbelievably good newspaper. The above article is about 3,000 words long and touches on two major characters and nearly a half dozen economic variables, including the fact that many of them are living off disability (which is growing at a sizeable rate in the U.S., which is also hilarious because the Republicans are in power), while others amongst the unemployed middle-aged are living off the equity in homes they own while they grow steadily in value (which makes me jealous again).

I really, really, really wish I were smart enough to write for this newspaper. Too bad I only have a Masters degree from a j-school where the only NYT alumnus was a copy editor over the summer (in her own middle age, mind you, which somehow ties in again with what I've just written, for reasons too complex for me to recite again, and probably too complex for me to even understand, being the type who isn't smart enough to write for such a fine newspaper).

I thought she was a good teacher.

Oh, and THREE PEOPLE wrote this article, too. THREE PEOPLE, who probably spent days of effort on this masterpiece, and which is COMICAL when compared with many writing positions where j-school grads are asked to write numerous articles a day.

Apologies again. This post was completely uncalled for... but fun to write, so THERE.