H/t Kos, this exchange with Dana Perino is an amazing case study.

Q The President warned of the danger that al Qaeda could gain access to Iraq's oil resources. But I don't understand how a fragmented, clandestine, non-Iraqi terrorist organization could produce and sell Iraqi oil on the global market, especially when the majority of Iraqis have turned against al Qaeda. Could you describe a plausible scenario?

MS. PERINO: The purpose of what the President said is that al Qaeda should not be allowed to have safe haven in Iraq and take over --

Q How can they take over Iraq's oil reserves --

MS. PERINO: Well, if we were to leave we would certainly ensue chaos and not be able to -- if we were to leave too soon, it would certainly be chaos and it would be terrible for not only the innocent Iraqis, but the entire region and, in fact, our own national security. That's what the President --

Q But the Iraqis would let a foreign terrorist organization take over their oil?

MS. PERINO: You're missing the point, and I think that you should go back and read --

Why is it so rare and striking when a reporter actually points out the ridiculousness of saying that Al Qaeda might take over Iraq and its oil if we leave that country.

Deja vu all over again - how is it even possible that these pernicious, utterly mindless, endlessly repeated assertions are permitted to survive public scrutiny? Why isn't every reporter, every day, constantly challenging this blatantly baseless myth that forms the core of our continued involvement in Iraq?

I admire your idealism, and your industry, truly. When I look back at my own history, though -- a divorced father of a four year old with custody on alternate weekends, and a month every summer -- I remember with no small amount of shame how I plunked a kid fresh from daycare down in front of the TV while I prepared her dinner. Then bath, story reading, bed, followed by dishwashing, a nightcap, perhaps some laundry, etc.

Her mother fared little better, although I freely admit that she had the greater burden. Somehow, it turned out all right, rotten schools and all. At least we both had decent incomes, and made more determined attempts on weekends to live up to our responsibilities.

And yet...think of the kids from the fourth season of The Wire. Are anyone's kids less valuable than our own? of the ideas you've expressed, the one which resonates most strongly with me is the idea that teaching should be considered the noblest occupation of all, and that teachers should be selected, supported, and compensated with that principle in mind.

And yes, I too am an idealist, if a somewhat battered one.

It's interesting that this discussion has devolved into a discussion of education.

Much of the carnage and the horror that the world has experienced flows from a single statement. "They hate us because of our freedoms". - buhs

I will never forget the day I heard that. I almost choked.

It was nonsense then, and it is nonsense now. Why didn't people notice?

yeah I heard kurt vonnegut speak about thirty years ago, and he said to totally deal with the crisis in education we need only pay the teachers more than the bankers and cut the class

sizes by more than half.

the way I have come to put that in current terms is: start teachers out with salaries at about 100,000 a year and make the requirements correspondingly stiff.that would be a start.

Imagine if only the very, very best of us were teachers (i imagine a kind of navy seals type of process for teachers lol to seperate the very best from the merely good), and they were trained and compensated and supported. But for that, my dear, I

am afraid philosophers would have to become kings.

by philosophers I do not mean philosophy professors. I once realized that if they ever start looking for the philosophers to put them into a new Gulag, that the best place to hide would be in an academic philosophy department. No one would ever think to look for a real philosopher there.

Ha. I remember when one of my daughters, then about fifteen, heard bush say that on tv. She laughed at him and said: who would believe that, dad? Is he an idiot? fiercely proud I was of her.

In this age of peak oil (i.e., where the discovery and production of oil has peaked or is peaking globally), U.S. corporations believe their strategic interest is to control the sources and supply lines of petroleum in order to sustain economic growth.

We the people - at least more and more of us - believe that OUR strategic interest is to save the world from global warming and depletion of our water, soil, oceans, forests, and species. This requires less growth, more preservation. These two ways of thinking are irreconcilable.

She should run for President. I hope she does.

Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning? - buhs

So what have we learned today?

When Settembrini spots a troll for you, just say: "Thank you" and don't step in it.

Amen. I'd still like to hear from Aych, though. He seems to have come up the way my dad did -- the hard way. He's a survivor, and an impressive one at that.

If anyone has any doubts about America, I'd present them with Aych. He reminds me of the old Abraham Lincoln Brigade volunteers I ran into while looking for work in the old ILWU hiring hall in San Francisco. (I never got sent out on a job; in the mid-sixties, the port was already half dead, and in the few weeks that I hung out there, nobody got work who wasn't on the A list.) Still, the time was well spent. Those old coots were an impressive bunch.

Working-class intellectual used to be a term of honor and respect. Maybe it could be again, should the present fever ever break.