The word public, as in public schools or public option, has become a dirty word in, uh, public life. The question is, can a nation survive once it has abandoned not just moral notions of the public good but the positive notion that there is a public?

The War on Thinking is fought on many fronts by a diverse army of selfish elites and bitter, know-nothing Palinites. The entire American advertising industry and the mediasphere it paid for are implicated. Thoughtful people don’t buy pet rocks, a perfect symbol of American consumer products.