Nearly Half of All Americans Deny Evolution:

And yet nearly every one of them accept modern medicine. Presumably, these folks assume that modern medicine is nothing more than witchcraft. Is there any wonder that the state of education in this country fails to progress? That so many people buy houses they can't pay for? That drivers are unable to calculate their gas mileage? That voters elect and then re-elect an administration that does so much to ruin their country?

Amy Harmon tells the story of a Florida biology teacher who struggles to open the minds of his students, in today's New York Times.

Putting America into Debt and Keeping It There:

Jonathan D. Glater reports on the massive student debt issue in America, in today's New York Times. Once upon a time—your grandfather's time—the cost of a college education amounted to lost wages during the period you attended college. Young people were encouraged to go to college because their increased wages over their working lives, as a result of the better jobs they would have, would more than make up for the four or five years of lost wages during the time they spent in school.

Then colleges realized they could charge practically any fee they could devise because lenders were so eager to loan money to students. The cost of education skyrocketed well beyond inflation, rivaled only by the increased cost of health care. Today, the average college grad leaves school with something like $23,000 of debt, and considering the current economy, perhaps little hope of paying that debt off for many years to come.

Perhaps even worse, we have learned in the recent past that colleges have been colluding with lenders at the detriment of students, funneling debt to unscrupulous lenders with ballooning interest rates.

40 Years in the Wilderness:

Forty years ago this week, Channing Phillips of Washington, D.C. had his name entered into nomination for the office of president of The United States. It was the first time in history that an African American's name was entered at a major party convention. (See The New York Times' Sunday Book Review.)

The Dude discusses vampires: "One of the interesting initiatives we've taken in Washington, D.C., is we've got these vampire-busting devices. A vampire is a—a cell deal you can plug in the wall to charge your cell phone." — George W. Bush, Denver, Colorado, August 2001. (Please, nobody tell Buffy about this!)