One of my pet peeves is the undercurrent of anti-intellectualism that seems to run through American society. No, Americans are no dumber or smarter than anybody else, but our culture doesn't do much to encourage the life of the mind. I'm surprised there are as many scientists, artists and writers in this country as there are.

We don't trust smart people, we suspect they are effeminate, weak, cowardly, "have no common sense", are socially inept, and even subversive. High school is for sex, sports, cliques, cars, clothes and being "popular" and "cool"; whatever the hell that means.

I am convinced this bad seed is planted early in our school days. School is not for education, at best, its primary social function is to help you get a better job--a meaningless chore that has to be endured so you can move up a social class. Smart kids learn quickly to hide it, lest they be given the social kiss of death, to be called "brains".

My cousin Rudy often remarked on this, and today, 50 years, later his views on the issue closely track mine. He came to the US from Cuba at 15, and had already finished most of high school. (They graduate them about a year or two earlier than we do here).

He started out as a sophomore here, and he took no courses here that he hadn't already had in his own country, including languages (English was mandatory), algebra, history, and literature and composition in his own language.

He remarked that Cuban kids were very much like Americans, they had sissies, bullies, jocks, social climbers, shy kids, loners, gang members, scholars, dunces, fashion freaks, skirt chasers, troublemakers, teacher's pets, the whole spectrum. What they didn't have was a correlation between any of these personality types and academic achievement.

The brains could just as easily be athletes or Beau Brummels, hip to the latest dance steps and hair styles, mama's boys, or criminals in training. Some kids were smarter than others, and some performed academically better than others, but that did not figure in their social standing or the normal adolescent pecking order. No one was ostracized or ridiculed for being a "brain", and there is no Spanish translation for nerd, dweeb or geek. A TV show like "The Big Bang Theory", which plays on the social clumsiness of scientists would have not made any sense.

Rudy never went to college, but he retired last year as a high-level technical manager at our local nuclear power plant, although he lacked both the normal prerequisites for that job: an engineering degree and Navy shipboard reactor training. Both Rudy's kids graduated from college, his son is a physical therapist, his daughter is a lawyer, a Public Defender.