To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.
Albert Einstein
Political Potpourri
- The GOP is now ahead 242-191 in the House race as CA-20 was called for the Democrat and NY-25 went to the Republican (as expected). Two remaining seats are uncalled: CA-11 and NY-1. The lead in NY-1 flipped over absentee ballots, so it is likely both remaining seats will be awarded to the Democrats.
- Joe "Sore Loser" Miller, the unsuccessful GOP candidate for the US Senate from Alaska, is refusing to concede despite losing by over 10,000 votes--not even close. He is trying to grasp at straws in a pathetic attempt to save face. A federal judge issued a temporary injunction against Alaska's election board's certification of results; Miller is attempting to strike any trivial variation of Lisa Murkowski's name as a disqualified vote and he also wants a hand recount of machine-scored ballots (as a computer professional who also used mark-sense forms for some exams as a teacher, I can attest that Miller's position for a recount of tabulated results is without merit whatsoever). I've made the other point several times--voting is not a spelling contest. Those 8000 or so voters who thought they had voted for Lisa Murkowski but made a slight typo should not be disenfranchised. I have to believe that the federal judge is simply bending over backwards to give Miller all due consideration, so Miller will not be able to appeal his decision. Voting processes as specified by a state legislature cannot override a citizen's fundamental right to have his vote counted. In my judgment, the issue is more about integrity and character--write-ins in almost any election are negligible. In this particular election, they won a clear plurality of the vote, and there was only one well-known write-in candidate, the incumbent senator. If any federal judge ultimately ruled in Miller's behalf, it would not be upheld on appeal; the evidence of voter intent is compelling.
This is what our forefathers fought for? I don't care if two-thirds of the American public are willing to impose strip-or-molest on the rest of their fellow Americans in violation of an individual's unalienable rights... IDBE is spot on; I'll quote a few items that got my attention:
Last year an assassin attempting to murder Prince Mohammed bin Nayef of Saudi Arabia blew himself up with a bomb stuck where suppositories normally go. Luckily, he didn't try to board an American aircraft this Thanksgiving or all air travelers would probably have to bend over and cough...Flight attendant and breast cancer survivor Cathy Bossi [during her pat-down was told by] the TSA agent, "You'll need to show me that." So [Bossi] removed her [breast] prosthesis for the agent...In the "enhanced pat-down," a TSA agent broke the seal [of retired teacher Thomas Sawyer's urostomy], and it leaked over Sawyer's body and clothing...Then there were the 100 Indiana National Guardsmen returning from duty in Afghanistan who were forced to exit their plane during a stop.Bill O'Reilly: Stereotyping College Professors?
To any regular readers of the blog, I've been an occasional critic of Bill O'Reilly, primarily on his populist topics like oil speculation and the Ground Zero mosque. I'm going to pick on his Monday talking points memo "Trusting President Obama". (O'Reilly's podcasts are available for a limited time period following their original broadcast via iTunes and other media: click here.) I guarantee that Bill O'Reilly probably would never guess the point where I took issue with him.
O'Reilly is talking about the current kerfuffle about the full-body scanners/intimate pat-downs and basically talks about a couple of points I've been stressing over the past week, including risk-based selections and random sampling procedures. But then he starts talking about Obama's communication patterns, which at times tends towards the abstract and long-winded. He then basically categorizes Obama as your typical college professor, clueless about how the real world operates, living in a world of abstractions and ideals.
I'm particularly sensitive about that stereotype because it was a common bias I had to battle in transitioning from academia in the early 1990's; I've mentioned in past posts that I had to hide my PhD--or even remove it from my resume, on the advice of professional recruiters. In fact, I was curious why the UH Alumni Association was referencing my MBA instead of my PhD in mailings; I was told that it was common practice by most program graduates, that the MBA was more marketable. Most of my fellow PhD candidates (at least the American ones) had significant professional IT experience, a number of them as a mid-level IT manager or consultant; I myself was in my third year as a programmer/analyst when I started working on my MBA, taking a couple of courses a semester. As a professor, I kept up with a variety of industry publications (subscribing to some of them like Computerworld); I was an early user of Microsoft Windows and Word (before Windows 3.0 was introduced, never mind Office).
I don't think I have a thin skin, but as someone who taught full-time as a college professor for 5 years (and another 3 as a UH graduate teaching fellow), I think O'Reilly is way off-base. I never had a professor anything like Obama. Are some professors long-winded and have problems connecting with their audience? Yes, but you could make the same point about certain clergymen, medical doctors, and other professionals. I'm speaking as someone whom has read literally thousands of research or professional articles and taken courses which would be mind-numbingly tedious to most people.
I've listened or read dozens of Obama's speeches and writings, and I don't particularly find them "interesting", i.e., thought-provoking or novel. There's a lot of noise--you have to filter out the repetitious, predictable political spin, the scapegoating and defensiveness, the platitudinous insights, the condescending rhetoric, etc. The general impression I get at times is that he is trying to impress other people with how intelligent he is by making arcane distinctions, using technical jargon and rattling off a rehearsed series of facts and statistics.
I realize that some readers may think my posts themselves can be rather inaccessible and long-winded (my mom has occasionally used the word "boring"); my dissertation chairman used to tease that it took me 20 minutes just to introduce myself. I do think there are distinctive differences in my style: I work on the readability and organization of my commentaries; I'm more interested in ideas, not political spin or fingerpointing; I seriously look at opposing positions; I'm decisive--I don't equivocate about my perspective on controversial issues
I am not here advising Barack Obama on his "communication problem", e.g., giving over 30 speeches on health care, and the public is still opposed. But what's fascinating is, for someone who prides himself himself as knowing symbolism, he didn't understand the significance of being seen playing golf during the oil spill process; he was caught flat-footed on the AIG bonus issue; while private sector employees are living with at risk jobs, reduced hours or lower pay/benefits, Obama is hiring public sector employees with virtually tenured employment, total compensation averaging over $100K with pay increases.
I'm writing a book of essays on my political perspectives; one of them looks at the usability of government products and services. This is more of a paradigm shift in conceptualizing things. I gave an example several weeks ago of Governor Mitch Daniels whom focused like a laser on the Indiana DMV--in particular, improving atrocious wait times. Similar considerations occur in other aspects of how the government touches the lives of citizens. The most obvious example is the current TSA kerfuffle; how could Obama and his administration possibly not anticipate the public uproar over touching a taxpayer's private areas and/or see him or her naked? But you can also look at numerous unpleasant developments after the health bill was signed into law.
In fact, one of the big issues is jobs, but how did Obama address it? What are businesses looking at? Employee benefits; government regulations and paperwork; uncertain policies (e.g., tax); high tax rates compared to the rest of the world, etc. Until Obama learns to conceptualize from the position of a business owner or a job seeker (whom might be willing to work for less than minimum wage if it's the difference in getting a job), he'll continue to have communication problems.
Political Humor
"Vice President Joe Biden turned 68 years old. President Obama was so excited. He asked Biden to attend the party for him." –David Letterman
[Joe Biden is eligible for social security. The Republicans are planning a big retirement party for him when he turns 70.]
An original:
- Great Britain has announced the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton. The wedding is scheduled at Westminister Abbey on April 29, and the wedding day will be a national holiday. No doubt American federal workers have noticed and want Barack and Michelle's wedding anniversary to be made into a national holiday.
Musical Interlude: Instrumentals/One-Hit Wonders
Climax, "Precious and Few". On my all-time favorite list and one of the first songs I ever chose to license. As a bonus, I'm embedding one of my favorite related medleys by the Lettermen (I love their harmonies and material; their greatest hits LP is one of the first albums I ever bought).
