Oh, no.

Michael Crichton died. He was one of my favorites, and the only public intellectual who didn't make me ashamed of my alma mater. The greatest person to come out of the Harvard English department in a very, very long time. Except he didn't stay an english major for long: he got fed up and left. My favorite story about him is that he got so annoyed at his awful, pompous, talentless Harvard writing teacher that for one assignment he just took a George Orwell essay and submitted it under his own name. This is the kind of stuff students talk big about but nobody ever has the guts to do. But Crichton did it, and of course the hack teacher gave Orwell a B minus. That was it for Crichton, and so he abandoned his early major and switched to the sciences and pre-med. I just wish I would have been that smart and perceptive that early on, instead of realizing what I had to do only in my senior year once it was already too late, and having to do premed from scratch after graduation. Better late than never, though, and a heartfelt thanks to a great writer and a great man like Michael Crichton for inspiring me and so many others.

The whole conservative blogosphere is celebrating him today, linking to his famous essays and speeches mocking environmentalist religious hysteria. I was pretty much obsessed as an undergrad with the argument that humans have a fundamental need for religion and that even the most violently secular are driven to live out Biblical archetypes, and was excited to see that Crichton's anthropological research led him to the same conclusion. I would like a moment, however, to present a different side to his ideas. In my senior year, I put aside my secular myth kick and took up a new literary obsession. The Portrait of a Lady, Herzog, Light in August, The Plague, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Flannery O'Connor's stories, all pointed me in one direction. Here are Michael Crichton's thoughts on selflessness, on the importance of losing yourself in devotion to others. That was the message I took away from Henry James and co., and it profoundly changed my life. I never saw that Crichton essay until today, but please check it out and think on what he has to say, it sure is a lot shorter and more straightforward than my reading list was.

Anyway, all a long way of saying that I will miss him, and I hope he rests in peace.

It's not enough that Obama wins and Michael Crichton dies, but now, less than a day after I wrote about how I would love to move to Texas to be closer to people like her, Rachel Lucas announces she is moving to England! It's actually great news for her, and I wish her the very best, but it's been a rough day for America is all I'm saying.

I should add as an afterthought to my Crichton Orwell story that my writing teacher at Harvard was simply amazing. He was definitely a big exception to the rule. His secret? The class was actually all about none other than Orwell! Crichton's trick would not have worked with this guy, believe me. That's a danger with good teachers, though: they keep you under their spell (have I mentioned The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie?) and prevent you from breaking out on your own. I'm glad that wasn't a problem Crichton had to worry about.

Just a Matter of Time

It was, frankly, inevitable. The rest of the world has gone to pot over the last few decades - Britain and Canada both went from brave, proud, fierce gems among the nations to pathetic, cowardly, unfree faces in the socialist crowd in a mere fifty years. America, being America, held out for a while longer, but I am not surprised it's over.

The optimistic take is that the voters don't understand what they are getting themselves into, that Obama will be revealed for what he really is, and that the masses will rally to Palin in 2012. But I'm no optimist. I think Americans understand exactly what was at stake in this election. They are not stupid. I'm afraid it's worse than that. Today's America has, to borrow Kathy Shaidle's terms, more parasites than patriots. Or, as Rachel Lucas put it, if you'll excuse her language, the lazy assholes outnumber the selfish racists. Entire huge segments of the population are living off free money legally stolen from their betters, with no shame! Not even a hint of shame, not a moment's pause for pride, but with loud claims of entitlement, and all the while receiving a great deal of sympathy, far more sympathy than anything felt for those whose hard-earned money is being stolen. If people live like this, if we allow them to live like this, if we encourage it and promise it and reward it, can we truly be surprised that people choose it over a difficult, free, and independent life? It seems not even a million innocent babies being murdered every year is a cost high enough to dissuade them from wallowing in this imitation of humanity that is a government-owned life.

Kathy's post is a must-read, please don't skip it. We only disagree about one thing, as she takes comfort in the knowledge that at least she doesn't have to live in America. I will always love America, and will always live here if I have any say in the matter. I may now be in the minority that clings to guns and religion and to what Virginia congressman Jim Moran today called "the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it," but it is a great minority, the ideological and, more often than not, literal descendants of the brave men and women who once made America the greatest country in the history of the world. And if that means that I have to move to Texas and stay there, well, I very much look forward to it!

If you want a good idea of what is going to happen in the next few years, if it hasn't happened already, just read this and change the British nouns to American ones. Another must read, which I have linked before and which I find myself going back to over and over again, is here. The consequences, unintended or (I suspect) very much not, will be disastrous, and will, like all culture-destroying improvements, be irreversible.

It was a beautiful dream while it lasted.