why the disconnect?

I want to make sure the US remains a first-world country. Two aspects of this come to mind:

1. The primacy of science. We're the country that put a man on the Moon, after all. Any first-world country has to have a culture steeped in science and a population conversant with basic scientific method. Right?

2. We need an educated, skilled workforce. To get this, we need an immigration system based on merit, rather than family ties or just the ability to make it across the Rio Grande. Right?

So why is it that the two major parties don't support both of these things? The Democrats are all for science, acknowledging the reality of climate change, etc., but they seem to want to let anybody into the country who wants to come here and can make it across the border, legally or not. The Republicans, on the other hand-- or at least the Trump contingent among them-- want a meritocratic immigration system but remain willfully ignorant of climate change-- and probably evolution, for that matter.

I want both. Why isn't there a party for people like me?

they'll make a republican of me yet

Will wonders never cease? A Republican carbon tax? I know it's hard to believe, but here it is, put forward by the Climate Leadership Council headed by Reagan-era luminaries George Shultz and James Baker, backed by Larry Summers, Christine Todd Whitman, and Janet Yellen. They don't call it a tax, of course, but a 'fee' or something. That's what it is, though.

https://www.clcouncil.org/

Now if the Republicans could just come up with a semi-rational health care plan, I might be forced to convert.

old white guys

I get a little tired of the media constantly referring to 'old white men' as if they're part of a dying breed of dinosaurs. They're at it again with this Kavanaugh brouhaha, referring to these Republican senators as OWMs. It might behoove the media to remember that at one time these guys were YWMs, the kind of people who built this country. And with the experience of age, they might actually have learned a thing or two.

It might also behoove the media to be reminded that at present there are no civilized, prosperous first-world black or Hispanic societies anywhere. There is no Wakanda, and frankly I don't see one on the horizon.

kavanaugh

I view these allegation about Brett Kavanaugh as basically ridiculous, even if there's some truth to them. I mean really, who cares what a couple drunk teenagers may or may not have done for a few minutes 35 years ago?

I find there's a much more serious charge against Kavanaugh that in my view should definitely keep him off the Supreme Court: the fact that he's a member of this tribe of overprivileged, spoiled-brat East Coast preppies. I don't want these people running  my country, thenkyo. They care much more about preserving the perks and privileges of their class than they do about sound governance of a population they view with barely disguised contempt.

And then there's the other question: Is the guy a drunk?

literature

I don't think literature-- fiction, poetry, drama-- is nearly as central to our culture as it was even when I was a child. The high point of the novel was probably the nineteenth century. Dickens, Balzac, Tolstoy: These were tremendously influential figures in their cultures-- centrally influential. And in this country it sputtered on into the mid-twentieth century-- Fitzgerald, Mailer, Bellow (I never liked Roth). But today? I'd say Jonathan Franzen is arguably the best known serious novelist in the country-- and even that's due largely to Oprah-- but is he really a very influential figure in our culture? I don't think so. I think fiction is kind of going the way of what used to be called 'fine art'-- an incestuous little loop of producers and consumers. Have you noticed how much writing today is just . . . about writing?

And surely nobody cares about poetry. Why, for example, does this country have a poet laureate? The British had one so Alfred Lord Tennyson could write birthday ditties for Queen Victoria, but I doubt one American in a hundred could tell you who our current poet laureate is. I can't.

As for drama, I can only speak personally. I don't go to the theater. I don't go to movies. I don't even have a television set. What am I missing?

Our culture today is some combination of market forces, technology, and public policy. Literature doesn't have a whole lot to do with it.

the trouble with modern life

The trouble with modern life is that it's too fast. There's not enough time to think things through. This is even true in academe. Publish or perish! Everything is too rushed.

'Make America Great Again'

We are the country that put a man on the moon. Let’s get back to being that country.