Double quote of the day: Now I know why Scotty died young

These two pieces turned up in my reading list this morning. I believe what both of these people have to say.

Perhaps that means I have what  that F. Scott Fitzgerald  would consider a first-rate intelligence, so I suppose I should feel sort of good about that. But to believe both of these things at 9 in the morning . . . now I guess I can understand why Fitzgerald was hammered by noon most days.

First:

Self-government must be an educational enterprise, with lessons learned over and over again, and that is what Elizabeth Warren is about these days. She is still teaching. She teaches because she has learned, and she has learned because she teaches. The great teachers are the ones who remain students at heart, who keep learning from their students, and from the world around them, and from their own drive to know even more about even more things, and who then are able to transmit that knowledge—and more important, the drive to know more—to their students.

Charlie Pierce

Elizabeth Warren Is the Teacher

And then:

No doubt, the Internet and cable television have allowed various political and corporate interests to spread disinformation on a scale that was not possible before, but to have it believed requires a badly educated population unaccustomed to verifying things they are being told. Where else on earth would a president who rescued big banks from bankruptcy with taxpayers’ money and allowed the rest of us to lose $12 trillion in investment, retirement, and home values be called a socialist?

Charles Simic

Age of Ignorance

The quotes only capture the direction of the two pieces; you should read them both – they're going to the p3 Reading list, just in case. But you should also consider whether you'll need a big dose of your self-medication of choice at your elbow when you're through.

Just sayin'.