Richard Cohen is a God-damned idiot.

That is all.

EDITED: Okay, maybe that's not all. As my wife rightly informed me, my brusque post above doesn't exactly present my views clearly.

Math is not a universal skill, I understand that. I'm not trying to disparage anyone who has difficulty with mathematics. But when I see things like this:

"If, say, the school asked you for another year of English or, God forbid, history, so that you actually had to know something about your world, I would be on its side. But algebra? Please."

and this:

"Writing is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact. Algebra is not. The proof of this, Gabriela, is all the people in my high school who were whizzes at math but did not know a thing about history and could not write a readable English sentence."

I see someone who is not only bad at math, but someone who is proud of that fact. And that galls me.

Yes, English and history teach you something about the world. But so does algebra, and anyone who says otherwise is lying. Does Richard Cohen think algebra comes from a vacuum? Or perhaps he could be made to realize that algebra is a language to describe the world around us, and that learning that language is another way of understanding that world.

And that second quote...ye Gods, if Richard Cohen really thinks writing is the "highest form of reasoning" you'd think he'd at least be smart enough to recognize a bullshit argument when he writes one. There are people who are good at math but not good at writing? Yes, yes there are. Why does that imply anything about the value of math vs. writing? If I said the following:

"Math is the highest form of reasoning. This is a fact. Writing is not. The proof of this is all the people I have known who were highly literate and well-versed in history but couldn't calculate a tip to save their life."

I'd be full of shit. And I'd be called full of shit, and rightly so.

There are people who are good at math but not at English. There are people who are good at English but not at math. Why does Richard Cohen think the latter group is exhibiting "the highest form of reasoning" but the former group is worthy of his derision?

EDIT #2: The LA Times article that Cohen refers to at the beginning of his column. Cohen is providing a glib and simplistic answer to a tragic and complicated problem.