I wish it were different. I wish that we privileged knowledge in politicians, that the ones who know things didnt have to hide it behind brown pants, and that the know-not-enoughs were laughed all the way. I wish that in order to secure his partys nomination, a presidential candidate would be required to point at the sky and name all the stars; have the periodic table of the elements memorized; rattle off the kings and queens of Spain; define the significance of the Gatling gun; joke around in Latin; interpret the symbolism in seventeenth-century Dutch painting; explain photosynthesis to a six-year-old; recite Emily Dickinson; bake a perfect popover; build a shortwave radio out of a coconut; and know all the words to Hoagy Carmichaels Two Sleepy People, Johnny Cashs Five Feet High and Rising, and You Got the Silver by the Rolling Stones. After all, the United States is the greatest country on earth dealing with the most complicated problems in the history of the world--poverty, pollution, justice, Jerusalem. What we need is a president who is at least twelve kinds of nerd, a nerd messiah to come along every four years, acquire the Secret Service code name Poindexter, install a Revenge of the Nerds screen saver on the Oval Office computer, and one by one decrypt our woes. Words of Sarah Vowell, The Partly Cloudy Patriot
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 07:20:37 +0000