Dear fellow improbable...

[mgc1961]

It didn’t sound like my cup of tea. In fact, it sounded like some kind of boring “think tank” thing and I declined their nice invite.

It was Teller — of Penn & — who told me that declining was a mistake. (Yes, Teller can talk, and so could Harpo.) Teller is a brilliant man — for starters, a former Latin teacher. And what I had missed was an annual conclave of brilliant people of all varieties.

The next time, I accepted.


Follow http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/10/dear-fellow-improbable/?hp

[mgc1961]

1. Expanding slightly on this question:

"Hasn’t almost everyone, sooner or later, hit upon the realization that because you have two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents and so on into near-infinity, you are related to practically everyone on earth?"

Many people have moved about the planet and, as Mr. Cavett points out in this article we, and I'm going to use myself as an example, are really a collection of regional names that doubles with each receding generation of fore-bearers.

What then, do readers think is the national heritage of a person who's past is made up of this partial list of surnames?

Adams
Yeager
Peters
Martin
Cornett
Elam
Evans
Williams
Ford
Benge
Hinkle
Millikan
Felts
Binkley
Liggett
Dowlen
Burnett
Senter
Harris
Chandler
Bourne
Sutherland