ODDS AND ENDS

I. My big sister, Barbara, who will be eighty next year, has had an extraordinarily distinguished career. After winning the Westinghouse Science Talent Search and graduating summa cum laude from Swarthmore, she went on to earn a doctorate in Biochemistry at Harvard. She then worked for a while on a project headed up by the Stanford Philosopher and logician Patrick Suppes to teach mathematics to Central American children by radio, before joining the Education Department of the World Bank. Having served on projects in such places as The People's Republic of China, South Yemen, and the Central African Empire, she was elevated to the position of Ombud of the entire World Bank, a post from which she retired some years ago. She radiates a focused, practical intelligence that is enormously impressive.

When Barbara was a teenager, she took a test to see what she might have an aptitude for. After reviewing the results, the psychologist administering the test gave her one piece of advice: "Don't ever become a secretary!"

I thought of that this morning as I struggled with my computer to merge print the letters that will form this year's fund-raising appeal for the scholarship organization I run, University Scholarships for South African Students. I have been doing this for twenty years now, and Microsoft Word has all manner of mail merge wizards and little drop down menus to take you through the process. Since I break my donor list into eight sub-groups for mailing purposes [different address structures, different degree of personal touch in the salutation, etc.], I have to go through the mail merge process over and over before the letters are ready to be folded and stuffed into the envelopes [which have already been merge printed]. This is, you understand, pure rote work, requiring nothing more than patience and a modicum of intelligence. And yet, I find it the most stressful and tiring thing I do all year. Teaching a class, which I did yesterday, is by comparison a breeze. I suspect had I taken that test, I would have received the same advice.

II. The NY TIMES has a long story this morning detailing the scrimy doings of that perfectly coiffeured, Hollywood handsome scumbag, Senator John Ensign. If you follow the story to an inside page, you will find a photo of Ensign and his wife, his top aide and his wife [with whom Ensign had the affair], and Ensign's chief fund raiser. Look at Ensign's wife and the woman with whom he strayed. They could be twins! It is creepy.

III. I spent some time yesterday watching the Baucus committee's debates and votes on the health care reform proposals. [C-Span 3, if you get it]. Washington Senator Maria Cantwell is really impressive. The contrast between her manifest intelligence and decency, and the appalling inadequcies of Kyl, Hatch, and the other Republicans on the committee is a sight to behold.

IV. As I predicted, health care reform is alive and well and will almost certainly include some form of a public option. When this is all over, I will explain how I know these things.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

All right, let me see if I have this straight. Senator John Ensign's staffer and her husband have their house broken into by thieves. The house is so messed up that they and their children move in with the Ensigns, who live in a neighborhood nearby. While they are all living together with the Ensigns and their children, Ensign starts shtupping the staffer. This causes some difficulties, which lead to the staffer severing her connection with the Senator's staff. Senator Tom Coburn, who is both a doctor and a lay minister, counsels Senator Ensign, and then, when questioned, says that as both a doctor and a minister he claims the privilege of keeping what he and Senator Ensign talked about private, except that Senator Coburn's office puts out a press release full of details about which the Senator has claimed privilege. Meanwhile, Senator Ensign's rich father and mother make eight gifts of $12,000 each to the staffer, her husband, and the two children, for a total of $96,000 totally free of all tax consequences [anyone can give anyone $12,000 a year or less with no tax consequences], ostensibly to tide them over the difficult time they are having.



Meanwhile, Senator Larry Craig is emplying a wide stance in the pubic bathrooms in an airport, Senator David Vitter is frequenting a DC madam, Governor Mark Sanford is explaining that though he crossed the sexual line with his Brazilian bombshell, he did not cross the sexual line with a number of other women, though he did cross a line nevertheless. And Governor Sarah Palin ups and quits her governorship, in order to show that she is no quitter, and then, having decided that her first attempt at explanation left something to be desired, gives a series of hastily arranged interviews with representatives of the hated Mainstream Media, wearing waders even though she gives no evidence of being actually engaged in fishing.

When I was young, the Republican Party was the party of grownups. Dull, unimaginative, out of touch with whatever happened to be the popular culture of the day, but manifestly grownups. What is going on? The Democratic Party is now the party of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as sober and serious a pair of grownups as you could find.

What happened?