This is why you have to write thoughts down when you think them. Last night and this morning I knew there were lots of things I wanted to write about. Sitting here tonight with the girls not yet asleep upstairs, I can only think of one of them.

Yesterday’s Times magazine essay on satire, My Satirical Self, had a teaser – How making fun of absolutely everything is defining a generation – that suggested an indictment of satire. I wanted to read it so I could get angry at the narrow-mindedness of the attack and then acknowledge the truth underneath it. But the essay was thoughtfully written, at least until the misplaced critique of POTUS at the end. The author, Wyatt Mason, praises the intelligent satire of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and uses those pieces to contrast the news consuming temperaments of baby boomers and post-boomers.

Before there was Jon Stewart, there was Doonesbury and Not Necessarily the News on HBO. My interest in politics – as a tween, I used to deliver political flyers for state legislature candidates – led me to Doonesbury in the comics section of the paper, and my love of history made me buy the Doonesbury books so I could enjoy Trudeau’s takes on the Vietnam War and Watergate. I remember the snob appeal of Doonesbury, the sense that I understood a joke that a lot of kids my age wouldn’t understand. And when I read Garry Trudeau’s quote about the popularity of his strip, “People who get their politics from the funny pages get what they deserve at the polls,” I felt that maybe I understood the limits of satire.

I think that what I’m concerned about these days, with so much satire in the media, and so many news shows that may as well be satire – Hannity & Colmes, Greta van Susteren, Rita Cosby, Nancy Grace – is that too many people are getting their politics from lampoon shows. If that’s the case, then people can be more passive about politics; they don’t have to have their own convictions if they can recognize when others’ convictions are being mocked. But my concern might be colored more by my worried perspective as a father and a teacher than any reality about youthful political awareness. After all, Emily Jones is only a few months out of college. So there’s hope for us all.

The Mets are about to clinch the NL East. It’s exciting to watch. Makes me wish I were in Queens right now, or at least in a bar surrounded by other Met fans. Come October, there’s only one NL team capable of beating the American League champ, whoever it may be. And I hope I’m with other Met fans when I watch that game.