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Thanks again. And who wouldn’t trade a few years of genteel, middle-class poverty for a chance to be a fish and wildlife biologist in the great American west? Re: America’s New Pastime: The Politicization of Everything The “Politicization of Everything” makes me wonder what would happen if the Democrats are successful in packing the supreme court, making D.C. and Puerto Rico states, and changing voting laws so that all votes can be purchased from citizens and migrants alike for a Big Mac. The motive underlying many Democrat ideas like open borders is to gain an edge over Republicans. What if Republicans were no longer a threat? Would Dems gain any advantage by further dividing the country by race? Would Dems find a new maturity in their role as stewards of the nation or would they use their power to exact revenge? – David S. P.J. O’Rourke Comment: David, you ask “what would happen?” Well... We’d get a Democratic president and Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. (Sound familiar?) And then those Democrats would start tearing each other apart the way they’ve already begun to. (Check news of the New York City mayoral race to see what happens when there’s “only one” political party.) The thing I love most about Democrats is how much they hate each other. And, for that matter, themselves. Put two Democrats in a room and you’ll get at least three diametrically opposed political positions with no room for compromise.
campus were always expensive, so I went the cheap two-meal plan route. Our beer, when it was affordable, “It’s Oly when you live in the West,” even for low-paid fish & wildlife biologists. One gentleman I knew in Montana said his incredible good fortune was to be hired by a company that did not have a biologist classification on their pay scale, so he was placed with the engineers. Olympia beer in Montana, Generic beer (from Pearl Brewing in Texas) in Idaho, and “Vitamin R” Rainier in Alaska (Molson was cheap on the state ferry, a real treat). “Champagne living on a beer budget” had to give way to “beer living on a burrito and water budget”... (I never seemed to mind a siesta after lunch.) – Charlie B., tropical north Idaho Geoffrey Norman Response: Dear Charlie, Thanks very much for that. It tracks with what P.J. O’Rourke and I remember (dimly) from our own college years. A sense of almost agreeable poverty. Or frugality, at any rate. And why not? The beer was good enough for your still-untrained palate. The work was all indoors and there was no heavy lifting. When it was over, you missed it and you didn’t feel like you were carrying a heavy load of debt. You certainly didn’t feel like you were due a handout from people who had been driving trucks, herding cattle, building roads, etc. while you were living the college life. You did not rue those years and the burden of debt they had loaded on you. In fact, you kind of missed them.
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May 2021
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