Happy Cog Redesigns MICA (or, why I'm not a Republican)

It's been awhile since I last checked Jeffrey Zeldman's Blog—Zeldman is the grandfather of things such as web standards, accessibility and usability evangelism, and the movement to ban tables and flash-based web design in favor of XHTML and CSS—but I got quite the surprise when I happened by his site yesterday. It appears that Happy Cog, his web design firm, just finished a complete re-design of the website for Maryland Institute College of Art—my alma mater back up in Baltimore. What a strange twist of connections! Apparently they even visited the campus to get a personal feeling as to what MICA is—which is kind of a shame, because I would have loved to have met Zeldman by chance. But oh well—of course, the first painting I see on the homepage when I visit the site is the work of an old friend of mine.

I did happen to get a pang of sadness for not being back at MICA—I won't lie, I have been having some homesickness/wanderlust lately here at Arcosanti. But then, Baltimore isn't going anywhere—and if I want an MFA, I can always go back to MICA (if I can afford it).

Strangely though, I realized during this same moment of missing Baltimore that there was a thread of anger, and I found out why I am not a Republican. Odd segue, I know, but it's true. I had to leave MICA for economic reasons after two years. And if the Republican theory of economics is right, that implies that I was not working hard enough—that somehow, I did something wrong, or my middle-class parents did something wrong, or that we laid on our haunches, or that I didn't pursue my education hard enough. Which is entirely not the case. Especially now, given the work I am providing for myself as a re-capitulated freelancer via Proteus Creative—even while many firms would not hire me due to my lack of degree. The reality of it was that my family got screwed when the housing bubble burst.

I'm sorry, but if Republicans want to reach out to my generation, the first have to use a tagline other than the moldy idea of the Carnegie-Vanderbilt "American Dream". They have to convince me first that "socialist" countries like Denmark, for example, where they pay a 50% income tax, is much worse than our economic model—when all the Danes get their college paid for from the day they step into pre-school.

It's funny, those Danes may be "socialists" (I'm so scared), but at least they have a college degree. Which is more than what can be said of me.

Anyway—odd political byway, but it was somehow tied into it. And I didn't quite realize how strong my feelings were in the area. It deserves its own post in all reality—but there it is.

Congrats Happy Cog on both a beautiful website and a wonderful client to work with.