Perry was down in Lynchburg, Virginia, yesterday, paying homage to his spiritual leader, Jerry Falwell, the man who explained Katrina as an Act of God taking retribution on the sinners of New Orleans. (Nota bene: not on the sin but the sinners). Like many on the religious right, Perry loves God, he just doesn’t like people all that much. He revealed that he wanted to be a veterinarian when he was young, but flunked organic chemistry. This helps us to understand why he has such an aversion to the science of Global Warming and Evolution. But we have to happy for all those dogs and cats without botched vasectomies.
I went to a lunch sponsored by the Aspen Institute (a Liberal Think Tank) yesterday and sat next to a 92 year-old Washington lawyer who explained his longevity to me thus: “The good die young.” That certainly appears to be the case in Syria, where Ghiyath Marar, a rose of a young man, was latest victim of that government’s campaign of official murder. If my lawyer friend is right, Assad will live to be 200.
The luncheon speaker was Stephen Heintz, President of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, who portrayed such a gloomy picture of where our nation is headed that one attendee wondered aloud if it was possible to commit hari kari with a plastic knife. He had been in Europe recently and reported that the heads of foundations there are deeply troubled that the country that was once the engine of global prosperity is becoming a Third World backwater that doesn’t invest in scientific research or the education of its people. The stats bear this view out. We have more people living below the poverty line since 1993, and today’s Post tells us that SAT reading scores have hit their lowest point in decades. Well, come on! If you want people to start reading again, stop printing so much bad news! Do as Fox does and tell the people what they want to hear!
I’m going on the road starting tomorrow night, on and off, for the next month: London, Calgary, Kabul, and Baku. As usual, will give you up-to-date dispatches from the front.
Rupert