Education and our broken Senate -- two complementary articles: One of my favorite NYT editorialists, Bob Herbert, wrote a wonderful article in the NYT today entitled "Putting Our Brains on Hold." It speaks to the issue of the poor state of American education and its lagging-behind-other-cultures youth. He places a great deal of the blame on deep state budget cutting and other issues. The reasons though, I think, are even more profound and complex than even HE stated. If you haven't already read it I paste it below.

I also paste the link to a rather lengthy but well-worth-reading article from the New Yorker Magazine entitled "The Empty Chamber: Just how broken is the Senate" by George Packer. It is about the implacable Republican/Democratic divide that exists now in the US Senate as it never has before in our history.

It seems out entire culture is in a frozen state of discord, division and angry rhetoric. We do not speak to each other and really hear. Mea culpa, I am guilty of that too. The economy, the media, and the explosive cultural change is partially responsible for some of it. It is, of course, more than simply that. Both articles reflect the frozen, stupefying, inactive nature of our culture hanging in suspended animation unable to move. What has gone wrong? There must be a rainbow somewhere. I just cannot seem to find it.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/opinion/07herbert.html?_r=1&hp

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/09/100809fa_fact_packer?currentPage=1