!!!!!

Listening to NPR tonight, I learned that Claude Lévi- Strauss is celebrating his 100th birthday. Honestly, I believed he must have died quite a few years ago, and that, for some reason or another, I'd missed his editorial in the Times.

I'm really glad he's still with us. As far as I'm concerned, his was the most brilliant mind of the 20th century -- and I'm willing to bet he remains a lot smarter than the vast majority of those currently running this imperfect world. We only can hope that many of the Obamites have read Tristes-Tropiques and La Pensée Sauvage.

Happy birthday, Monsieur le Docteur, and I wish you many more. Also, I wish to see some structuralists around our new president. Maybe you could drop him a line, just to say hello. They say he's willing to listen. Okay. Let's see.