Where did all the mega-smart people go? Do we not have any Ben Franklin's in this generation spewing wisdom like a busted water line on a county road? Where is that one quintessential thinker every generation seems to have?

We have our Stephen Hawking scientist, our Bill Gates capitalist and our (insert your own canidate here) philosophical types, but we do not have that one fella who has put the all the deep thinking parts together and offers workable everyday solutions. Does this person exisist in Norway or China? Did we drop him on his head when he was a baby? Kill him in a cell phone related car crash? Fail to offer him an education and he is living on the street?

We need to mold one up like a hive of bees making a new queen with royal jelly, if we don't have one drowning in the system this very second.

I am afraid the day of men for all seasons has passed. In this day of specialization, very few can be counted as knowlegable in a variety of fields. Buckminster Fuller, Steve Allen, and Mortimer Adler were probably the last of the breed.

Part of the problem is we no longer value knowdege for it's own sake. We call those who strive for it unattractive names, and caracature them as "Cliff Clavens"

Contrast this time to the nations founding, when knowlege was what was respected above all else. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison, Hamilton.. all men of wide ranging interests and expertise.

Perhaps that is the problem with America today. We no longer respect the best and brightest enough to draft them into leadership.