My IQ is 24, just like your jersey number for the Knicks!

So I went to see Bill Bradley promote his new book, The New American Story, at the Princeton Barnes and Noble. He spoke for about 20 minutes, answered a formulaic question about the electoral college asked by your standard pretentious I-think-I'm-a-scholar man and then signed books.

I got to the front of the line for the book-signing and became your standard tard.

I believe I said something along the lines of, "Hello sir Mr. Bradley, Senator Bradley, er, former... Erica? E-R-I-C-A? With a C? Yes that's good. THANKS!"

In the midst of that jumble of nonsense, which I believe took me all of half a second to say, all he said was "With a K?"

Now what I'd meant to say was that I'd seen him speak about seven years ago at the YWCA in Santa Monica about Title IX, and that I really admired him.

Maybe he understood...

***

Anyway his talk was pretty interesting. He discussed the $1 gas tax concept (where it cancels itself out by going toward social security while social security is taxed less from your paycheck, combined with more stringent fuel-efficiency standards for cars.) He talked about combating gerrymandering with citizen committees to draw Congressional districts, and then having those districts either approved by a panel of judges or voted on by the general public. He also talked about funding campaigns with taxpayer money -- although I wasn't so sure about that one.

He discussed his theory on the social security crisis, saying it could be solved by raising the minimum age to receive benefits to 70 (phased in by one month every two years until 2099); making 2 percent of the 6.5-percent of social security tax apply to all income (right now social security only taxes income up to $94,200), bringing state and local government employees into the system (this would only apply to new employees and would be phased in over five years) and basing the cost-of-living increase on the chained consumer price index (I don't completely understand that part, but it's supposed to be more accurate than the straight-up cost-of-living index because it takes into considerations the substitutions people make based on price increases... but I'm sure Aviva will tell me if I'm completely wrong in my understanding of that one).

So that's my Bill Bradley experience.

Tomorrow's that foster care roundtable in New York... wish me luck...