>> Paradise questioned: William Deresiewicz on the disadvantages of an Ivy League education. (via Kottke)

Because these schools tend to cultivate liberal attitudes, they leave their students in the paradoxical position of wanting to advocate on behalf of the working class while being unable to hold a simple conversation with anyone in it. Witness the last two Democratic presidential nominees, Al Gore and John Kerry: one each from Harvard and Yale, both earnest, decent, intelligent men, both utterly incapable of communicating with the larger electorate.

>> Paradise found. A Toronto family put together a pretty illustration of how they fought for their right to rip up a 4-car driveway and turn it into a garden. (via Kottke)

>> Paradise fabricated: n+1 visits the Creation Museum, which “promotes young-earth creationism, which teaches earth was created by a direct act of God between six and ten thousand years ago, in six 24-hour days.”

One of the fun things about creationism is that it speaks to the dreams of children and B-grade filmmakers everywhere: humans mingling with dinosaurs.One sign in the Dinosaur Den reads “The word dinosaur wasn’t invented until 1841, which explains why dinosaurs are absent in the Bible’s account of animals on the Ark.”

>> Paradise imagined: A Nerve feature on “Bubble Boy” Buckminster Fuller, who “coined the phrase “Spaceship Earth” to try to make people see our planet as a groovy interstellar vehicle that needed care and maintenance, just like a trendy car.”

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