The assertion is all too familiar by now; summer vacation is a relic from our agrarian past that has outrun its usefulness and is undercutting the education of struggling students.

In response, I must climb the sunny ramparts and raise a defense in the name of unstructured time and family values because I believe summer vacation is still one of the best things we have going for us in this great land…

As I write this, I am taking a break from my own vacation. Just outside this cabin is a gorgeous lake that stretches from high desert far back into mountains that still retain snow at their peaks. This is a place to which I have brought my family for two decades to meet up with several other families in a gathering that holds a permanent priority on our calendars.

When we first began coming here, the oldest children in the group were tiny and the rest were yet to be born. Now, those offspring are successful young adults. Each one of them has gone to a good university. The oldest have moved on to budding careers or graduate school. A few more tedious weeks sitting in a classroom during their summers would have made no positive difference in their lives, but missing summer rituals would certainly have been a detriment.

In the evenings at this annual rendezvous, the entire group – children and adults – gathers around an extended table, sharing a meal and raucous conversation. Among the adults who have sat at the table with the kids are three Pulitzer Prize winners, one of America's best sports reporters, an editorial writer on a major newspaper, a foreign desk editor on an even more major newspaper, a columnist on the nation's best newspaper and others with important accomplishments and interesting ideas to contribute. My children have learned vital lessons from all of them, perhaps most importantly that smart, accomplished people who read books (and write books) can also be hilarious goofballs who know how to have fun.

Vacationing by the lake, the children have learned to clatter around in canoes, drive a ski boat, cast a fishing line and swim like fish. They've slept out under a dark sky splashed with constellations. They've watched trees flame like matchsticks when forest fires topped the ridge across the lake. They've learned to work through the inevitable disputes among their peers and learned contrition when their antics got carried too far. Most of all, they've learned the value and joy of unstructured time, the essential liberty of an American childhood.

Now, I know what some will say about the picture I have just painted: Most children don't have the kind of opportunities my children have had. In answer to that, I'd point to all the other families up and down this lake who seem to be engaged in their own family rituals. Through the summer, they number in the thousands. Multiply that by the thousands of lakes and rivers and beaches in this country and you have a pretty big number.

Toss in the summer camps, civic swimming pools, sports programs, music camps and art lessons that occupy kids in the summer. Include the rural children learning to ride horses, care for animals and run machinery, plus all the suburban kids working at summer jobs. That adds up to a huge number of American children learning plenty of valuable lessons.

To be fair, the real concern of the TIME article is with children who are stuck at home with nothing to do; kids who are not performing well in school whose parents give them little opportunity for enriching experiences because they are either unable or uninterested. Yes, there are too many children stuck in that summer limbo. But the answer is to give them something more, not take away summer vacation from everyone.

As TIME advises, we need to target the disadvantaged with enriching summer activities. I'm all for that, as long as the rest of the kids are left with their liberty. American education has already taken a disturbing turn toward being an endless, joyless grind, thanks to politicians and educators who think testing and regimentation are the way to raise learning levels. (Meanwhile, the Chinese – recognizing the economic value of creative minds -- are going in the opposite direction and laugh at us for emulating their mistakes.)

The state educational system commandeers the major share of our children's young lives and turns parents into enforcers of often excessive homework demands. There is no good reason to take away more time from families and no virtue in undercutting the invaluable education that goes on outside of school along sunny shorelines and at communal dinner tables.

Summer vacation is a pure expression of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What could be more American than that?

And then things got really stupid...

That's the grand conclusion reached by George Mason University economics professor Daniel B. Klein in a recent Wall Street Journal commentary. Too bad the professor reached that conclusion using analytical methods unworthy of a callow undergrad.

One of the most important things I learned 25 years ago while studying for my master's degree in International Relations was to not take statistical analysis on face value. Numbers don't always lie, but they are all too frequently massaged to support the analyst's preconceived notions. Here's what Klein did with the numbers from a Zogby International survey of 4,835 American adults...

Klein presented eight assertions and asked members of the survey group if they agreed or disagreed with them and too what degree. Here are the assertions and the response Klein defined as wrong:

• Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable (Disagreement is wrong).
• Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (Disagreement is wrong).
• Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (Disagreement is wrong).
• Rent control leads to housing shortages (Disagreement is wrong).
• A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (Agreement is wrong).
• Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (Agreement is wrong).
• Free trade leads to unemployment (Agreement is wrong).
• Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (Disagreement is wrong).

The result? People identifying themselves as libertarians or conservative generally got all but one or two of the questions "right." Liberals and progressives generally got five or more answers "wrong."

From this, Klein deduced that conservatives are "better informed about the policy choices facing the country" and he warned:

Governmental power joined with wrongheadedness is something terrible, but all too common. Realizing that many of our leaders and their constituents are economically unenlightened sheds light on the troubles that surround us.

As the esteemed George Will would say (while sighing deeply), "Well...." Here are a few things about Klein's analysis and conclusion that are misleading.

To begin with, his presumption that all eight assertions are unambiguously true is, shall we say, presumptuous. I will agree with him that anyone who equates a monopoly with market dominance and who still thinks rent control is a great idea probably has not been paying attention. But some of the other statements are more values-laden and, while factual, do not tell the whole story.

For instance, licensing of professional services probably does raise the cost of those services, but that may be because licensing excludes charlatans who would lure consumers with cheap prices and then deliver poor service. Restrictions on housing development do generally drive up housing costs but may also create value by preserving farmland and wild spaces, which some would consider a good thing.

Technically, many liberals got those wrong, but they may be right that licensing and zoning laws are sound public policy.

Other assertions leave room for reasonable quibbling. Yes, the standard of living by conventional measures is higher now than it was 30 years ago, but a liberal might note that the rise is dependent on two-worker households that have seen their incomes stagnate over the last decade. Free trade may increase employment overall, but some American workers, unquestionably, are dislocated by open competition. Third World workers making products for American companies are probably, as a whole, better off than their countrymen, but there are many examples of awful working conditions at foreign companies that contract for work with U.S. businesses. It's a bit much to contend that anyone who sees a big gray area on this issue is an economic knucklehead.

Klein acknowledges that the eight statements do not "challenge the political sensibilities of conservatives and libertarians" the way they do liberals. Clearly, a number of liberals were answering from their gut, not their brain. But Klein fails to acknowledge that, because the statements reinforce the way conservatives and libertarians see the world, they may also be answering with their gut rather than from superior knowledge of economics.

Klein's survey proves nothing but the obvious fact that many people answer questions based on their pre-conceived notions. It would be easy to create a different set of statements skewed toward liberal views that could make conservatives look uninformed. For instance:

• Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction at the time of the American invasion.
• Saddam Hussein had no connection to the attacks on September 11, 2001.
• Victory, along the lines of the victory over Nazi Germany, cannot be achieved in Afghanistan.
• Fighting terrorists over there does not mean we won't have to fight them here.
• The U.S. banking system would have collapsed in 2008 if government had not stepped in.
• Excluding Social Security and Medicare, the contribution of welfare programs to the federal deficit is tiny compared to the cost of the military.
• If allowed to continue over the next decade, tax cuts for the wealthy will drive up the deficit far more than bank bailouts, stimulus packages and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Following Klein's lead, I could make a strong argument that, if a person disagrees with these assertions, his connection to reality is minimal and he should not be allowed to run the country. And really, don't these issues have far more to do with "the policy choices facing the country," in Klein's words, than the topics in the professor's economics quiz? (Is rent control on anyone's national crisis list?)

Another important rule I learned in grad' school was that something is not true just because you agree with it. I fight that very human tendency ever day. It's easy to latch on to the latest wild revelation flying through cyberspace -- such as Klein's survey -- to reinforce what one wants to believe. This phenomenon contributes to the extreme partisanship that has overtaken political discourse in the country. We no longer just agree to disagree with our fellow citizens, we insist they are fools and dupes, if not subversives and traitors, who want to drive the nation to ruin.

As someone on the center-left, I miss the style of that great conservative, William F. Buckley, who could challenge and change my ideas with his intellectual brilliance and civilized discourse. I even miss Ronald Reagan who stayed friends with his political adversaries, adapted his strong beliefs to new realities and partnered with an "enemy," Mikhail Gorbachev, to make the world a better and safer place.

Those were conservatives with whom I could disagree, yet find common ground. I can't say the same for the many arrogant, rude ideologues who claim to be their heirs. I can easily imagine the depth of their glee at discovering "proof" that liberals are just plain stupid.

Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has issued a fatwa targeting Norris, declaring the cartoonist's "proper abode is hellfire" because she drew a cartoon last spring that inspired Everybody Draw Mohammed Day. In a just world, Awlaki's proper abode would be a prison cell or a padded room...

Justice, however, has not caught up with this terror guru who has been linked to the failed car bomb in Times Square, the massacre at Fort Hood and a plot to gun down U.S. soldiers here in the American homeland. Instead, he is running free and sending out screeds that condemn those who offend his medieval mythology. As the New York Daily News reported on Sunday:

In an English-language Al Qaeda magazine that calls itself "Inspire," Awlaki damns Norris and eight others for "blasphemous caricatures" of the Prophet Muhammed. The other cartoonists, authors and journalists in Awlaki's cross hairs are Swedish, Dutch and British citizens...

"The medicine prescribed by the Messenger of Allah is the execution of those involved," writes Awlaki, 39, a Las Cruces, N.M.-born American citizen.

"A soul that is so debased, as to enjoy the ridicule of the Messenger of Allah, the mercy to mankind; a soul that is so ungrateful towards its lord that it defames the Prophet of the religion Allah has chosen for his creation does not deserve life, does not deserve to breathe the air."

I exchanged e-mails with Holly Norris a couple of months ago, when her rather benign and whimsical cartoon first started stirring up the extremists. Clearly a gentle soul, she was shaken by the animus her drawing had inspired. Now, she must be terrified, especially since she tried to mollify the zealots by disavowing her cartoon. Apparently, Awlaki had not heard about her expressions of regret. Or he didn't care.

During a conversation on KIRO radio on Monday, I repeated to host Frank Shiers -- who moonlights as a political cartoonist -- what I had said about Holly's cartoon when it first appeared: Lampooning the prophet is not something I would rush to do, simply because it would offend a broad community of decent, peaceful Muslims with whom I do not wish to pick a fight. I'd rather focus my cartoons on creeps like Awlaki who are truly deserving of ridicule. Nevertheless, Holly Norris has every right to draw whatever she wants to draw and express any opinion she may want to express.

But, as I told Shiers, this new threat on Holly's life makes clear the genuine risk we face when we dare to challenge Muslim militants. In most other countries, editorial cartooning has always been a hazardous profession. On a regular basis, cartoonists are threatened, jailed, exiled and even killed. (For specific cases, check out the web site of Cartoonists Rights Network International.) In the United States, cartoonists have thrived under the shelter of the First Amendment, suffering only the nuisance of nasty e-mails or threats of lawsuits. But American cartoonists, like all Americans, now face an enemy that has no tolerance for truly free speech. They believe in only one thing: submission to their idea of god.

I'm not sure most of us have come to grips with the struggle we face. Folks on the right think we can battle these new foes by sending armies across the world and occupying countries, as if this were World War II. Folks on the left want to pretend that if we were just nicer, no one would be mad at us.

The reality is that Western Civilization is being challenged by an ideologically-driven enemy that holds our values in contempt. This enemy is confined between no borders and operates on a subterranean level where armies cannot reach. It will take decades and a broad range of forces to defeat them -- everything from spies and commandos to diplomats and cultural ambassadors.

Frankly, cartoonists will be of minimal use -- although one armchair critic named Eric Lurio would disagree. Writing in the Huffington Post, he disparaged Norris for backing down in the face of death threats. He thinks she should be as brave as Ghandi:

What Molly Norris initially did was the right way to address the problem: fight terrorism with humor, intelligence, and panache. The response was threats of murder. She backed down and apologized to her oppressors. I guess she didn't want to end up like Gandhi.

Terrorism works.

That's laying way too much on Holly. "Panache" isn't going to protect her. She didn't know what she was getting into and does not deserve what has happened.

Now, though, she should understand one thing: We are in a mortal struggle with an elusive, merciless death cult. So far, American leaders have been no more clever than American cartoonists in choosing the ground on which to fight. Nine years after 9/11, it's time to pick our battles more wisely.

But that's not the worst of it...

So, I have to ask myself a question: Is this kind of 21st century multi-tasking a sign of an efficient, productive mind or a shallow, scattered brain? And that's the Burning Question I want to ask all of you...

A fascinating new book by Nicholas Carr, The Shallows makes the argument that the communication technology we employ actually shapes the way our brains work. Books, Carr says, focus our minds and encourage deep contemplation. The Internet, in contrast, promotes rapid sampling of information, making us scanning and skimming experts instilled with the ethic of the industrialist, rather than the intellectual. As he writes:

When carried into the realm of the intellect, the industrial ideal of efficiency poses, as Hawthorne understood, a potentially mortal threat to the pastoral ideal of contemplative thought. That doesn't mean that promoting the rapid discovery and retrieval of information is bad. It's not. The development of a well-rounded mind requires both an ability to find and quickly parse a wide range of information and a capacity for open-ended reflection. There needs to be time for efficient data collection and time for inefficient contemplation, time to operate the machine and time to sit idly in the garden. We need to work in Google's "world of numbers," but we also need to be able to retreat to Sleepy Hollow. The problem today is that we're losing our ability to strike a balance between those two very different states of mind. Mentally, we're in perpetual locomotion. . .

I would extend Carr's thesis to include the 24/7 media world. In the now-fading past, a newspaper landed on the doorstep once a day delivering a professionally packaged selection of information about events in the outside world. A person could peruse it at comparative leisure, mull things over and slowly develop a judgment about what it all meant. Now, news comes in a constant flood from cable TV and web sites, invariably accompanied by instant analysis from an army of pundits parsing every nuance and imagined portent. Sober contemplation is rare; gut reaction rules. Every small story is treated as a big thing until it is quickly replaced by the next frantic gaffe implosion.

While the storehouse of information grows more vast by the minute, it comes at us in smaller and smaller pieces. On TV news, we no longer hear even a paragraph of a political speech; sound bites are, more often than not, less than a sentence long. As far as personal communication, letters in the mail long ago gave way to e-mail which has now been surpassed by texts and tweets. After all, who has time for a message longer than 140 characters?

Neuroscientists suggest these changes in communication are literally paving new highways across our gray matter and causing old mental thoroughfares to sit empty. In time, those old routes may become impassable.

What do you think? Is the new world of information technology turning us into shallow thinkers, increasingly incapable of pausing long enough to contemplate, synthesize and develop deep insights? Are we rerouting our neural pathways and becoming speedy simpletons? Can information overload actually make us dumber?