Dr. Helen:Many of the reasons I was never able to gear mselyf up for the task of obtaining an advanced degree are demonstrated by the NYT article. First of all it took me 25 minutes to read it. Then, I realized that to understand it, I would have to go back and read the Heinlein and Melville novels I was supposed to have read in high school but never did. I would have to re-watch old Benny Hill shows and then pull out all the Kipling novels that I never read either; and read them until I understood the humor of Its as if Rudyard Kipling woke up one morning and decided he wanted to be Benny Hill". I would have to look up a dozen words whose definition I thought I knew, but are completely incomprehensible to me in the context in which Mr. Itzkoff (of whom I have never heard) uses them. Then I would have to look up a few more which I have never heard of at all. I had no idea that there was a World Science Fiction Society, or that it had an award named after John W. Campbell (I thought he made canned soup). Ive actually never heard of Mr. Scalzi either, or of any of his works; but since he describes himself as a Rockefeller Republican, I would have to do enough research to differentiate one from regular Republicans.The one thing I really find interesting is that the only link the article provides is to John F. Kennedy, as if anyone who could understand all that other baloney wouldnt know who Kennedy was.