Social Mobility

Back on Earth, Bill Cosby Fights for Hearts

Articles — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 14:41:00 -0400

The 17th century philosopher Blaise Pascal once observed that mankind is suspended between two infinities -- the infinitely large and the infinitely small. And so it is with two figures in the news: Al Gore wishes to speak for the planet, while Bill Cosby wishes to speak to the human heart.

And it’s revealing, given the liberal biases of our culture, that one man gets so much attention and the other man, so little.

Gore, former vice president-turned-pundit-movie star, has chosen, as his topic, the infinitely big. And he has been rewarded hugely: He just won the Nobel Peace Prize, on top… more

Keeping Up with Fabian

Articles — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:35:00 -0400

Don’t worry, I’m not another one of those priggish good-government types who’s going to scold California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez for his lavish, campaign-financed globe-trotting. Nor am I going to make fun of the fact that he characterized his lifestyle -- the $5,149 meeting at a Bordeaux wine shop or the $8,745 hotel bill in Barcelona -- as being pretty much the same as "how most middle-class people live." Believe it or not, I actually have reason to be encouraged by the speaker’s antics as well as the self-assessment, however flawed, that he’s typically middle class.

You see, news of his… more