We have too many people who are credentialed rather than educated, and too many people who think their education creates an automatic entitlement. The problem isn’t with “merit” rising to the top, the problem is that we have a false and destructive idea of what constitutes merit.
– Glenn Reynolds
One of the most amusing accusations against Spencer Pratt was that he had no experience in government, no training in government, and no credentials in government. What made it risible was the patently poor performance those with experience, education, and credentials have displayed in governing Los Angeles. A Spence Pratt could almost certainly do no worse than they have done.
June 25, 1876. The Battle of Little Bighorn. Custer’s Last Stand. Everybody knows the story. But not everyone knows that 12 years earlier — almost to the day — Custer had his first Last Stand. On June 11, 1864, “the Boy General” and the Michigan Cavalry Brigade almost got the chop in a place called Trevillian Station, Virginia, at the hands of Custer’s West Point roommate and then Confederate Brigadier General Tom Rosser. 
I liked the one-armed bandits. I liked putting the coin in the slot and pulling the lever. Usually, three mismatched images came up (playing cards, stars, animals, whatever) and nothing would happen, but sometimes two of a kind – even three of a kind – would come up. Coins came clinking down into the tray, and that was pretty cool. 
Seventy-seven years ago today, on Jun 8, 1949 (please check the math; it’s never my strongest suit), the British firm Secker & Warburg published George Orwell’s ninth, and last, completed book.
