Garrison Keilor on  his "Writer's Almanac" just reminded me that today, December 28th, is the birthday of Woodrow Wilson. As Garrison recounted the events of Wilson's life, I realized that Wilson, not George W. Bush (my previous nominee), should be considered the worst American president, so far. Of course, the disasterous results of his presidency have had more than 85 years to play out. Bush may yet surpass him, though I doubt it. And, thinking about it, there are interesting similarities between the two of them.

I heard Nina Totenberg report this shortly after 5:30 EST on ATC. She said that Sen. Spector wants Judge Alito to explain about the situation, report on dkos a while back, where Alito,while a Judge, promised to recuse himself from a case involving Vangard, and other, funds he was involved with. Alito  apparently promised to recuse himslef, then refused to. Whoever intitally reported here said it could be a problem for Alito, and apparntly Spector agrees.

That's all I got.

If the following suggestion were carried out it would surely not cure all the problems of American education. But it might be a big step in the right direction. And it could be done by any parent of a male preschooler. No new programs, taxes, mandates, or anything, accept, perhaps, more personal resources spent on day care or home care. It was presented to me one morning in our teachers' lounge by my friend Mark, a highly-respected Fifth Grade teacher with about 25 years experience (and two successfully-grown sons). It is supported by my own experience as a Middle and High School teacher, and all kinds of documentation that I have seen over the years, but cannot cite. To Wit:

A great many, but not all, boys should be held back from entering school for an additional year.

I can't beleive that it is left to an economic and techno (still can't link) novice to make the first mention of the large drop in the stock market yesterday. Esp. since it was predicted HERE in excellent posts by London Yank and Sparks, and others.

DOW fell to 21 month low, 174 pts., lost 1.6% of value.

And it has been covered by MSM, including the various NBCs, NPR, and CNN. They even give the reasons
-Higher oil prices coupled with
-Notice that several Asian central banks, led by S.Korea and Taiwan, are diversifying away from the dollar. In the CNBC story it was noted that China and India's central banks were taking notice, whatever that means.

The NPR story, that I just heard, noted that this was largely caused by massive U.S. borrowing overseas, and the apparent loss of faith that much of this will be recovered profitably.

Please, some responsible adult cover this, with proper comments, analysis,links, etc.

Is it the beginning of the end?

This entry is follow up to Welshman's entry of 2/4/05 which he summed up as

"Our posts here should address not the deficiencies of Bush but the deficiencies of the nation. The question is not what sort of President should you have but what sort of country should you have". (Sorry, I can't do the yellow thing).

(Or, in deathless headline of the Daily Mirror:
"How Could 59,054,087 Americans be so dumb?")

Only a few comments that followed dealt with the  historical roots of the American Character, or at least the currently dominant American Character,  embodied in the rise of Andrew Jackson (President of the United States, 1829-37).