Unemployment Vs. College, Pizza Vs. Food

The Becker-Posner Blog asks whether unemployment compensation should be extended:

However, the actual large extension poses a major risk of creating an unemployment culture where men and women remain “ unemployed” for years. Once the period of unemployment becomes long enough, people begin to get the habits from being unemployed for a long time: they sleep late, develop various leisure interests, and at the same time their work skills depreciate from not using them for an extended period.

Ummm, when I read that I couldn't help but substitute:

However, the actual large extension poses a major risk of creating an college culture where men and women remain “in college” for years. Once the period of college becomes long enough, people begin to get the habits from being in college for a long time: they sleep late, develop various leisure interests, and at the same time their work skills depreciate from not using them for an extended period.

My parents would be delighted if I went to grad school, which is tempting, but I have many older friends who did long stints in grad school and come out with jobs paying the same as mine, bad work habits (which I also suffered from thanks to college), and mounds of debt. The only thing drawing me in is the actual desire to learn more about subjects I'm interested in, but I've seen too many people get burned by that. They get to study something they like, but under professors who aren't any good. What would make me go to grad school? The chance to study under a specific expert perhaps. That's how it was in the days of people like Plato. You didn't go to school just to go there (or in the case of some friends, to attempt to ride out the recession), but to follow a great scholar or two.

I'm feeling much better, but this weekend I was at DrupalCamp NYC, which is a conference for the web platform I develop on. It powers this site, though I definitely have neglected other features besides the blog. I presented a couple of sessions- user interface, LAMP/MAMP stack, and Drupal for small business/education/non-profits. But the food was a big challenge. I managed to get gluten-free options this time, but the option was gluten-free pasta with tomato sauce— not exactly a source of calories or nutrition in general, though definitely more nutritious than the conventional offerings of cheese pizza and bagels, though there was some fruit provided. Next year I'm going to push for either not doing food at all or doing food that isn't made of refined flour. The problem is that people want to spend as little as possible...when are people going to learn that cheap food mostly = bad food? Paleo, the idea that humans should eat human food, is very popular in the tech community, but this reminds me that it's still a small movement. I ate the gluten free pasta, bananas, and coffee... and ended the weekend bloated and fatigued.

What would a better option consist of? I think a salad bar with loads of greens, good calorie-rich dressings, nuts, fruits, and meats would be an awesome option that would please everyone from vegans to celiacs.

P.S. Another instance of government crushing the small farm movement- this time not raw milk, but a home-slaughtered pig. The government is scared because they are realizing that the jigs up- people are realizing that government inspected and approved does not equal safe and that individuals can often do a better job.