The Attitude with Arnie arnesen, dec. 10, 2020

​​Our opening political verse by Skip Tenczar (our version of Calvin Trillin)
Rudy is getting the best hospital care
With pre-emptive drugs and washing his hair.
But for you and me,
At home we would be
Infecting our loved ones in a state of despair.

Part One:
The morality of canceling student debt  President-elect Joe Biden promised to forgive some part of student debt. An ethicist considers what's fair
https://theconversation.com/the-morality-of-canceling-student-debt-150606
We chat with Kate Padgett Walsh. Kate is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Iowa State University. She publishes on the history of ethics and the ethics of debt. She is interested in the ethical questions that surround borrowing, lending, repayment, and default today, and in contextualizing those questions within historical debates discussions of the ethics of debt. She teaches courses on ethical and moral theory, and she holds a B.A. from Middlebury College, an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University.
Part Two: Katherine Rogers, State Representative, Concord, NH.
We discuss the recent election, and particularly ‘down ballot’’ elections. In NH, the State House went from Democratic to Republican control.  The change was illustrated by the actions of the new House.  Many rules were changed, and this was dramatically evident in the way that the organizing session started.  Some of these were the introduction of armed representatives on the floor of the House, lobbyists now have priority over citizens who wish to speak when a bill is being considered, sexual harassment training now eliminated, though sexual harassment this has been a problem in the past in that body.  Future meetings will be problematic with the presence of Covid,since the new House will not allow virtual meetings. The influence of the “Freedom Caucus” will be felt.