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John Kass has a lot on his mind. America’s in turmoil, and he’s got deep misgivings. But instead of a stool in a dimly lit coffee house, Kass had to settle for page two of the Sunday Tribune, a venue where the lights are bright and logic comes first.
“On those nights when they were young,” he wrote, “they smoked pot in the streets and listened to Dylan in the car and dreamed of the risks they’d take.” But they’re much older now, “and they rush toward the warm embrace of big government and promised security.” In Kass’s vision, the boomers grew up to be a generation of nervous Mister Joneses, and so many of them they can turn their fears into laws and governments.
Last weekend some people I knew in high school came over for dinner — all of us refugees from one of a red state’s more conservative suburbs. We talked economics just long enough to establish that everyone was getting wiped out, and we also talked about race. It isn’t fear that’s made us want to vote for Obama. My freshman year was the first year the black kids in town got to go to the white schools. Obama was someone we never expected to see in our lifetimes.
