re: #298 Decatur Deb

Maybe the problem is that an Alabama beginning teacher makes less than 1/500 of Rothlisberger’s take, and he can’t even get Pittsburgh to the SB.

I do definitely think that what Ludwig said about Jewish culture the other day is a big part of it. Jewish culture holds learning up as the highest achievement, and a doctor, a professor, is far more cherished than a franchise owner or an athelete.

In general American culture, we lionize kids who are sports stars. We ostracize kids that are nerds and scientists. And the GOP publicly castigates scientists as everything from immoral to greedy liars. We have a gigantic anti-science, anti-intellectual streak in this country, and one of the major parties celebrates it on a daily basis. But it’s far beyond the GOP; the anti-intellectual streak in the US runs wide, and deep, and they did not start it nor are they the source of it.

We need to change our culture. We need to celebrate scientists, and we need to stop pretending that everyone who earns a million dollars is somehow proved to be worthy or intelligent or anything else by virtue of doing so.