Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

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James Taranto has some choice words about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has done more to undermine our constitutional democracy than almost any other person. I will celebrate when she leaves the Court.

Here are highlights from today's exciting stage of the Tour de France, which I watched live before riding my bike 34.2 miles in the Texas heat. Chris Froome throws down the gauntlet! (Note: One runs the gantlet but throws down the gauntlet. The way to remember the difference is that the longest words—"gauntlet" and "throw"—go together.)

Gretchen Goes to Nebraska (1989). The number of great albums released in 1989 is staggering.

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To the Editor:

Re “How to Get Paid to Do Nothing,” by Tom Hodgkinson (Sunday Review, July 10): Waiting in line is an inevitable part of living in a civilized society (unless you are a celebrity). But for us ordinary citizens, it is reality.

The global trend of rich people paying someone to wait in line for them appears harmless. Who cares? You could get paid to do essentially nothing, just “shuffle forward” occasionally.

Let’s make one thing clear: You are not being paid to do nothing. You are being paid for your time. Apparently, a rich person’s time is more valuable than your time. That is what this trend means.

It’s indicative of an increasingly isolated global elite. And it’s indicative of a crumbling civil society, one in which value is determined by capital alone.

ELEANOR MORSE

Washington

Note from KBJ: To an economist, the only cost is opportunity cost. The cost of a given activity is the amount one would earn in the next-highest-paying activity. So yes, a rich person's time is more valuable than a poor person's time, because the rich person can do more with his or her time than a poor person can. Is the letter writer advocating that poor people not be allowed to work? It wouldn't be the first time a progressive has advocated a policy that hurts the poor. Sometimes, as in the case of the minimum wage, they even know that what they advocate will hurt the poor, but they don't care. It's all about virtue signaling. "I care. I'm well-intentioned. I mean well. That my policies don't actually help (and sometimes hurt) the very people I'm trying to help doesn't matter. It's the thought that counts."

Is anyone surprised by this? Barack Hussein Obama has been told by everyone he has come into contact with over the course of his life—his parents, his grandparents, his grade-school and high-school teachers, his college professors, his law-school professors, his colleagues, his wife, his daughters, his assistants, his campaign operatives, and his White House staff—that he is wonderful: a man of talent, intellect, energy, moral rectitude, and class. The surprise would be not thinking he is God's gift to humanity. Read the symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and decide for yourself whether Obama possesses them. You've had almost eight years to study this individual and are therefore in a position to diagnose him.