I should really plan these things beforehand.

When I was a younger man (but older than a young man), and was a junior professor at a college in Missouri, one of my constant friends was a fellow who served as a self-professed, 'lion tamer' in the elementary school in town.

The elementary school itself was on the east end of the small town, and if the levee didn't hinder the view, the students in his particular classroom would have a lovely look-see of the Mississippi River.

If your view of the Mississippi is limited to the views seen from St. Louis or Nawleans, then you're missing out; I have fond memories of the summers of the late eighties and early nineties, when we could finish a show at the local dinner theatre and make our way out to the other side of the levee to light a fire, have a tasty beverage or two, and pick at the guitars and sing old songs and laugh like no one was listening.  The river was fickle thing; it could be so shallow you could walk across it (such as the drought of '88, one of the hottest summers of my recollection) or high and huge (the summer of '93, where the bravery and tenacity of several thousand townsfolk kept the aforementioned levee from being overcome), but there was nothing so comfortable as sitting in the sand along the shore and listening to it simply slide by.....and wishing, just for a minute, you could be Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn.

That is not my point, alas.  It's merely a digression that my reading public has come to expect from the humble scribe.

My friend, Scott, the elementary school teacher, once asked his students a routine geography question:  "What river is that on the other side of the levee?"

They spoke as one.  "The Missouri!"

Scott had to explain that it was the Mississippi River, one of the longest rivers in the country.  They scoffed at him and his lack of knowledge.  How could THAT be the Mississippi River, if they lived in MISSOURI?  If they are, in fact, in MISSOURI, then that river must be the MISSOURI RIVER.

A lack of knowledge can always be supported by geographic pride, it seems.

I can remember Scott being somewhat tired after that incident; largely, because even though he won the argument (no matter how what you do, you cannot change the fact that that river was the Mississippi and NOT the Missouri), he knew, in his heart, that he didn't really change their minds, and that they left the classroom thinking he was a big fat liar.

That story came to mind this morning (and please remember that my morning begins at just about the time you're calling it a day) as I did a quick scan of the news websites, making sure my life was complicated by something that somebody did when I was sleeping, and I came across a story about a certain once and future politician who suggested that Paul Revere was warning the British by ringing bells and shouting that they weren't going to take our guns or our freedom.

Eventually, I'm going to get to the point when I'm not surprised anymore.  I had hoped it would have come by now.

Now, a while back, when this once and future politician claimed that the Health Care bill contained something called , "Death Panels"....I thought that surely a thinking person would never believe that kind of hokum and humbug.

Yup.  Surprise, surprise.

When asked a simple question about what kind of newspapers, magazines or websites she reads to keep up on current events, she couldn't name....a single one.  And she blamed the interviewer for throwing her a trick question.

Surely, nobody would buy that....oh, wait.  Head-shaking-inducing Surprise.

Combine this whole story with the recent studies that a large portion of the population of the United States feels that a college education is useless, and overpriced, and you'll see that we're on that path that Herbert George Wells wrote about back near the turn of the last century......the Eloi who caper and cavort with no cares, and the Morlock that eat them.

However, I do sleep well enough with the knowledge that my kind will be the first ones up against the wall when the revolution comes.

So, I got that going for me.