Yesterday charter school shill Sarah Hernandez jumped into the open seat race for CA-34, one of the bluest districts in the country. The last thing that kind of district needs is some pawn on the charter school billionaires jumping into Congress disguised as a progressive Democrat just because EMILY's List demands a woman fill the seat. Betsy DeVos is a woman too.
Our guest blogger today is Dr. Daniel J. Levitin, a neuroscientist who has written for us a few times over the years. Dan and I have been close friends for over 3 decades. He is perhaps best known as the author of the mega bestsellers This Is Your Brain On Music (which is required reading at Harvard for all incoming freshman) and The Organized Mind. His new book is timed for the start of this election season and is a primer on critical thinking for everyone.
When Digby, John and I were first getting to know Ted Lieu, back when he was still a state Senator, we asked him why he was willing to leave the young family he's so devoted to in L.A. and spend so much time in Washington, D.C. He told us it actually had a lot to do with his two sons-- a compulsion to help turn Congress towards solving the accelerating problems around Climate Change. And, sure enough, last month when Ted was named the freshmen Democrats MVP, his unrelenting work-- with members on both sides of the aisle-- for climate change was first and foremost in everyone's mind.
Unless you've taken any classes from him at Stanford or McGill, chances are if you know who Dan Levity is, it's because of one of his best-selling books, This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature, and The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload. Dan is a a cognitive neuroscientist specializing in music perception and cognition.
