you lost me at: "Most mothers have a certain look in mind for their children..."

they do? on what planet?

file under "more crap from over-sensitive parents in salon"

no-one reads past the headline. true. that's because it's the headline. you're supposed to use it to encourage readers (presumably even people who you dont agree with who you want to influence) to read the rest of the ad. putting something so off-putting in the headline (even to me, absolutely against the war, and an admirer of moveon) is just incredibly, well, stupid.

tactics count. being smart with details count. blathering adolescent rubbish ("ooh, I know - General BeTRAYus - get it!?") just gets you screwed.

on the one hand, we have articles like this one, along the lines of: "we are getting dumber". on the other hand we have many articles describing how tough admission is to the top universities, how pressured kids are to achieve early etc and so on.

and then my own experience in San Francisco is that there are many super-smart, super-talented young people around.

my guess is that america is bifurcated in education along economic lines. a small percentage is very well educated, focussed and capable, and a growing much larger percentage is undereducated, with diffuse attention and limited mental training and therefore limited problem solving abilities.

the top percentage run companies, design stuff, play the markets, take advantage of the global expansion and get more wealthy. the mass consumes. it's easier to sell flat screens if the mass doesn't read, no? easier to sell advertising to a non-literate, uncritical audience. cheap, profitable TV like the reality crap sells easier to an audience that's never been forced to wonder about what constitutes an effective narrative (insert your own example here).

the competition to get into, and remain in the "ruling class" (shall we call it), is fierce and getting fiercer. for good reason. those super-moms have a point - they want their kids driving the system when they are older (venture capital, software, international investment!), not being driven by it.

capitalism, for all its faults, ruthlessly optimizes. if we only need 5% of the population to be well educated to drive economic growth, then that's what we're gonna get. corrections like the current mortgage crisis are part of the growth process - the "ruling class" got too greedy sticking ridiculous products on the dummies (let's not be afraid of being judgmental: a poor education sets you up beautifully for a teaser-rate loan - if you don't like to read, you are unlikely to understand that your payment is going to pop 50% or more after 12 months). for a while, the system resets until a new means of optimizing profits from the consumer shows up, and off we go again.

America isn't closing the book on intelligence - it's figuring out how to have "intelligence" distributed most effectively (that is, very unevenly) so that the economic system operates as profitably and efficiently as possible.

in case it's in doubt: I don't support this process. I believe in government intervention to support the lives of the majority. It breaks my heart that our local state school in san francisco, in an area containing some of the most expensive real estate in the world, cant afford a music teacher and is about to lose the part-time sports teacher. reason: nobody with money around here goes to the local state school - they go to privates, where they are already being groomed, at the age of seven and eight, to join the top tier, the drivers, the unofficial ruling class...

J

the phrase "cybersex is real", posted a few comments above, has to be the silliest expression of the zeitgeist I've heard in a while.

good luck with all that real cybersex, y'all.

and I'm just in awe that Juan Cole can spend the time doing an article on second life whilst pumping out his amazing blog every day. much respect.

a few years ago I stopped reading salon because of the stream of "me me me me" articles written by "mothers who think" - a wonderfully condescending construction (the implication being that mothers who dont have the time or inclination to write little essays about getting to know their latino nannies dont actually think).

lately, I've come back, since these articles are few and far between. but this one is a classic: total self-absorbed bullshit from somebody who has the money and time to wonder about her half-assed obsessions.

and now, back to slate.com

Have been since 2000 (horrid new internet money, dahling). I surf a lot, look after my kid and bless every moment I dont have to work. They should do "House Husbands of San Francisco" - we're really boring nice people.

Must go check the home-made baked beans.

Joe

Sure, freedom can be a burden. But if you have to go to an office, you dont have a choice - you have to go in to a probably windowless room, sit under nasty fluorescent light, listen to idiots, and do the bidding of somebody you (at best) dont know very well, and probably dont like a whole lot.

If you have organized your life to be able to get up in your PJs and work on your novel/script/video installation, you do have a choice.

That choice is a pure blessing, and next time your artist/extreme sport/dosser friends moan about it, just gently point out that they are better off than 99.99% of the human race, and sure life is hard all around but they might want to get a frickin' grip.

and Garrison: for goodness sake stop rambling. sure you're an old dude (and apparently greatly enjoying the persona), but that doesn't excuse writing like you're asleep.

Joe