I have been reading this blog for only a few weeks now. I see how people seem to have prepared responses to topics and I think, how do they do that, except that they must only blog or write this for a living. I have a real job that only allows me to read this at home. I figure all the rest of you get off easy.

I have lived in this state all of my life. I am proud to be a Texan. Carpet-baggers have come in and settled. Bushes included. Being a progressive pacifist, can you imagine how I feel? Papa Bush and the clan have taken over a state that -- remember LBJ and Anne Richards -- used to be at least Dem . . . and still has progressives, even though Jim Hightower seems to be moving more toward entertainment instead of politics.

Not having read the book, I can't comment. Having read the review, I could have written it in the ronnie years, when I was told not to put a certain bumper sticker (Democrat) on my little car for fear that homeless might hit me up for money.

I guess I'm saying that I've been there, and am still there. Oh and I don't trust anything lenghthy written in a short period of time. (Maybe I'm an idiot, but I took my time on this.)

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michelle -- welcome aboard. Keep reading and commenting. It take a while to get the hang of blogging. After I had been doing it for a few months, Meteor Blades pointed out that I made some good comments but never seemed to write more than a paragraph. At some point, particularly when a piece or argument really engages you, the words will fly off your fingertips.

On education. Would dispute that we are more educated than ever before. Thirty years ago I worked with a bunch of old codgers. Most had only a couple of years of college, one only a high school degree and few had college degrees. But those guys could out write and out analyze a business those in their thirties and forties with MBAs that I most recently worked with. Those old guys had better logic and deductive skills. Today many of those advanced degrees are not knowledge based but trade based. That leaves them ill equipped to handle the novel or unique and they fall back on belief structures to get them through it. Something very important seems to be missing in the education of Americans during the past thirty years, and it is the tools that they should be getting in their teen years. It doesn't mature until a few years later but without a good foundation, there is not enough there to mature.

Marie, thanks for the hand-up -- will do.

Here, here, Michelle & Marle! As a former high school teacher (I couldn't fake it any longer) I affirm what you've said. Education has essentially become nothing more than corporate vocational training--high school for the wage slaves, undergrad programs at traditional colleges as well as DeVry & Phoenix "University", etc. for the middle-managed, and grad school for elites--all of it sans any pause for reflection on the information "learned" let alone any application of critical thought and/or intellectual analysis. We are a dumber populace than 50 years ago, to quote that keen-eyed 20th century social critic Frank Zappa:
Dumb all over, yes we are.
Dumb all over, near and far
Dumb all over, black or white
People, we is not wrapped tight.

In my book, I made a distinction between knowledge, information, intelligence and critical thought. Today, we have more information than ever. Unfortunately, we seem to have less ability to process that information critically. So, we end up with situations where 83% of America didn't know that there were no Iraqis on the planes on September 11th, and the majority of high school kids think the First Amendment "goes to far" in its free speech protections.

Now, clearly there is a gap between my desire and the reality of education today. I would love to see philosophy and logic classes in grade school - especially logic; simple A=B and B=C stuff. I think it would go a long way toward demanding more accountability going forward in our political and societal processes. Instead, we get rote memorization of names and dates and facts and figures, and not nearly enough practical application to modern events. After all, what's the whole point of teaching history, if not to learn something from it?

Having said all of that, I understand our modern education landscape, and I do realize that anyone who would attempt to do this would be run out of the suburbs on a Communist flag. Critical thought has somehow been equated to Liberal elitism. This has disasterous consequences for America.

Thanks for the review Paradox!

Common ancestor -- that's all.

post failed, sorry

iUniverse means that it is a self-published book, which is probably why it was produced so quickly. Good for him for writing it.

I agree with Marie, Rev Dave, and Tim. Perhaps it is possible for the electorate to be both undereducated and overeducated simultaneously given the subjectivity of what we can consider to be "educated". I am undereducated by any definition since I threw up my hands and quit school way back in my sophomore year of college. I believe my parting shot was something like it was all just a boot camp for consumerism and corporate obedience school. To maintain my level of stupidity, I read a lot. One book was a simple primer of rhetoric that they used to use back in the forties. Now, when the ad people and the pols trot out some fancy rhetorical device, I remember it being calmly discussed and defined in that book. And really, so much of that schtick is by the book. Teach rhetoric; drum it into little heads with the same passion as one does grammer. It won't hurt a thing.

Notwithstanding my abreviated education and limited resources, I still find myself in the corporate world managing commercial real estate. My biggest beef with the MBA crowd currently is that they all seem to have studied from the same field manual, and they all (please allow me to be broadly general) follow a simple creed: Find Cheap Labor and Exploit It Until It Runs Dry. Genius! Buy the man a Michelob! All that money to reap such a bruised and paltry homily. What a waste of intellecuosity.

If you want to get laid, go to college; if you want to get an education, go to the library, - Frank Zappa