Britney has made it pretty easy to snipe at her lately. But imagine - as anyone who’s ever endured a loved one’s meltdown can do - that repose of composure playing out in the media glare every night. 

So, contrary to a long standing belief that once in the public eye, everything is fair game – falls under the be-careful-what-you-ask-for category - Britney is getting a pass.  

Sort it out chick, will ya, so we can hurl barbs at ya without feeling guilty. 

And will somebody, anybody, please bury Anna Nicole quick. That taxi driver arbiter is tearing up again. 

The test scores are in and American high school students continue to lag further behind their peers in the rest of the industrialized world with their reading and math scores.  

Nice to see that that no child left behind mandate is working so well for America.  They’re all being left behind together. 

But take heart, we’re still seventeenth in the world in high school graduation rate. Mexico is still in the rear view mirror. 

But then I’m sure that’s just leftist media reporting that is somehow inaccurate, right? 

What kind of excuse is there for America to have that kind of educational performance?  

America needs to step back and figure out again what its values are. 

And not those tired old moral values debated continuously ad naseum – gay rights, abortion. Etc., - which everybody just needs to agree to disagree on -  but those values which determine what kind of country we become in the 21st century. 

Do we continue the disturbing trend towards just being a culture of personality – with all the inherent associated vacuousness? Or do we return to the meritocracy we set out to be?  

Political correctness is killing us. Goals need to be set. People need to hear the truth, and take responsibility for their part in the growing apathy, or America is just going to become some science fiction version of what-mighta-been. 

Esquire magazine columnist Chuck Klosterman, wrote recently that revolution in America is impossible – in part - because of the size of the bureaucracy and the number of people beholden to that bureaucracy. 

Good thing Steve Jobs didn’t just sit around and contemplate the iPod - saying well the music industry structure is pretty entrenched and what chance do I have.  He contemplated revolution, a sort he knew he could win.  

Somehow America needs to inspire more like-minded revolutionary souls.

—FEBRUARY 2007