This mean-spirited country

How much this country has changed since the forties and fifties when I remember my parents wondering if their new friends were Democrats or Republicans. It was impolite to ask because it was nobody's business. Politics was as private as religion.



Now everything is ideological. Mindlessly so. Too sad because our best hope may be the minds of immigrant kids, the ones at the science fairs and spelling bees, whose parents still value education. You don't find many Dick and Janes there. They're at the mall.