When I was a kid, I was obsessed with space, NASA, the Space Shuttle and pretty much science in general. I had an eight foot tall poster of the Space Shuttle on my bedroom wall at my parent's house (still do, in fact). I still love it, which is why it pains me to read about manned space flight coming to an end – at least for the United States. That part doesn’t pain me, although I think it makes the world substantially less cool. What pains me is the fact that I can’t really mount an argument for manned space flight that rises above, “But it’s so cool!” That would work and be adequate reason for an eight year old, but I just don’t think it’s a rationale that an adult should embrace (at least not by itself).
As undeniably sweet as it is to have a space station, I don’t think the science it produces justifies the cost. There are tons of things that NASA is doing – from sending a probe to the sun to all the various Mars probes going on – that are producing good science at reasonable costs. I don’t think this should be the end for NASA. I do think we should reconsider what we get out of something in a clear, levelheaded way. Although, if NASA were to decide that they wanted to send me into space, I would consider changing my mind.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Sunday Afternoon Music
It was quiet and dark today. The first time it’s been cool in I don’t know how long, and it rained for a lot of the day. Stars of the Lid are the perfect band for a day that's had me thinking a lot about loss and how things change. They're a duo from Texas, and they create slow, lethargic, sad and incredibly beautiful music. This track is off their most recent album, And Their Refinement of the Decline.
Fighting One
When I started reading Andrew Sullivan years ago, I never thought we'd eventually find ourselves on the same page.
Refighting the Monkey Trial in Third Period Biology
This is an interesting article about the difficulties of teaching evolution in high schools today. It seems like a completely unfamiliar environment from me. Not only did I not grow up in Missouri, but I graduated from high school during the Clinton years, before half of the country apparently decided to lose their minds and think that evolution is false. Teaching high school age students is hard enough, I can’t imagine also having to deal with this kind of thing.
Half of Americans believe that evolution is false. Just let that roll around in your brain for a minute.
It’s an unbelievable statistic. Is this simply a religious fad? For the most part, religious groups didn’t have a problem with evolution for almost all of the twentieth century. Even the Catholic Church supports the teaching of evolution. Why is it that these evangelical, protestant groups have a problem with evolution? And why just evolution? Why are they not protesting tectonic plate theory, carbon dating, geological science or mineralogy? Why do they still cling to discredited dates made up by an Irish bishop in 1654? It just seems like a strange, nonsensical place to decide, “This far, no further.”
Half of Americans believe that evolution is false. Just let that roll around in your brain for a minute.
It’s an unbelievable statistic. Is this simply a religious fad? For the most part, religious groups didn’t have a problem with evolution for almost all of the twentieth century. Even the Catholic Church supports the teaching of evolution. Why is it that these evangelical, protestant groups have a problem with evolution? And why just evolution? Why are they not protesting tectonic plate theory, carbon dating, geological science or mineralogy? Why do they still cling to discredited dates made up by an Irish bishop in 1654? It just seems like a strange, nonsensical place to decide, “This far, no further.”
Taxes
Ezra Klein has a good summation of the candidates’ tax policy. I think this is always worth looking at, and this one is especially worth checking out because it comes with a handy graph! We all love graphs, right? So, go over and check that out. What he’s basically pointing out is that, while McCain will lower taxes across all the brackets, the vast, vast majority of those tax cuts are saved for the top bracket. McCain will dump buckets of money over the head of eagerly waiting millionaires.
Obama, on the other hand, will lower taxes on everyone except the top bracket – and by substantially more than McCain, especially for the first three brackets. So, basically, when it comes down to it, unless you know where to buy spats and monocles, Obama is the guy you want setting tax policy. I really don’t understand why this hasn’t gotten any more play. Oh, perhaps it’s because of things like this, a clip from CBS News’ “Where They Stand” segment. The segment takes three families in Ohio and explains what would happen to them under both Obama and McCain’s tax plan. Only, for the family making the most ($214,000 a year), instead of telling them what would happen under Obama (no change), they decide to explain what would happen if, instead of being this family, they were another, different family making more money (their taxes would go up!). What is the point of having three families to illustrate your point if you simply say, “But if they were different, you’d get different results”? It’s balancetastic.
Obama, on the other hand, will lower taxes on everyone except the top bracket – and by substantially more than McCain, especially for the first three brackets. So, basically, when it comes down to it, unless you know where to buy spats and monocles, Obama is the guy you want setting tax policy. I really don’t understand why this hasn’t gotten any more play. Oh, perhaps it’s because of things like this, a clip from CBS News’ “Where They Stand” segment. The segment takes three families in Ohio and explains what would happen to them under both Obama and McCain’s tax plan. Only, for the family making the most ($214,000 a year), instead of telling them what would happen under Obama (no change), they decide to explain what would happen if, instead of being this family, they were another, different family making more money (their taxes would go up!). What is the point of having three families to illustrate your point if you simply say, “But if they were different, you’d get different results”? It’s balancetastic.
Writer Redux
I have to say, I was very saddened this morning reading the title of Aaron's post. I can count on one hand the number of times I've felt similarly saddened by the death of artists I'd never met. I read pretty much all of DFW's work during my first year in graduate school, which coincided with meeting and becoming friends with Aaron (who turned me onto him -- I'd previously only read Infinite Jest).
He was among my favorite living writers, and was young enough that his best work may have yet been ahead of him. Not anymore to be sure, which really is the legacy of suicide -- the foreclosed promise of unfinished effort.
He was among my favorite living writers, and was young enough that his best work may have yet been ahead of him. Not anymore to be sure, which really is the legacy of suicide -- the foreclosed promise of unfinished effort.
David Foster Wallace
One of my favorite authors, David Foster Wallace, has apparently committed suicide. The article doesn’t speculate why, which is appropriate – who can possibly know? I obviously didn’t know Mr. Wallace except as an author of amazing skill and range. His gigantic 1996 novel, Infinite Jest is a great book, worthy of its comparisons to Pynchon and DeLillo. His essays, however, were equally accomplished, exploring subjects as diverse as lobsters, cruise ships and John McCain. That last essay, recently published in its own paperback volume, is really worth checking out. Wallace gets at the essential strangeness of McCain and the way he presents himself. It’s an excellent read.
It’s strange when people we don’t know, but have had an impact on us die. I’ve read a lot of Wallace’s writing. It’s meant a lot to me over the years. On a human level, I feel sorry for his wife and his family – but I didn’t know them, so that kind of sympathy can only be distant and general. But I did read his writing, and I do feel very sorry for the world that there won’t be any more.
It’s strange when people we don’t know, but have had an impact on us die. I’ve read a lot of Wallace’s writing. It’s meant a lot to me over the years. On a human level, I feel sorry for his wife and his family – but I didn’t know them, so that kind of sympathy can only be distant and general. But I did read his writing, and I do feel very sorry for the world that there won’t be any more.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Dick's Parting Shot
OK, and then this is it for today...
VP Cheney has apparently decided that since he does not consider himself to be part of the executive branch of the government, he does not need to comply with the 1978 Presidential Records Act which requires him to turn over the documents generated during his time in office to the Library of Congress, which seals them for at least 12 years and then releases them to government historians, who will keep them for additional years writing official histories.
The idea that we might never really understand what the most active and powerful vice-president in US history actually did during his time in office, not just while he is there, but ever, is a fitting ambition for a man who has sought to use his time in office, so far as one can tell, to trample any effort by the other branches of government or the public to restrain him in any way.
A coalition of historians, archivists, and some sort of legal watchdog group in Washington DC, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, have sued the VP's office in an effort to prevent him from hauling off his papers and burning them in his back yard at the Naval Observatory. See their press release here.
Considering that Cheney continues to refuse to submit to congress a list of his staff on the grounds that he is free to ignore the legislative branch, these guys face an uphill battle.
More on this to come, I suspect.
VP Cheney has apparently decided that since he does not consider himself to be part of the executive branch of the government, he does not need to comply with the 1978 Presidential Records Act which requires him to turn over the documents generated during his time in office to the Library of Congress, which seals them for at least 12 years and then releases them to government historians, who will keep them for additional years writing official histories.
The idea that we might never really understand what the most active and powerful vice-president in US history actually did during his time in office, not just while he is there, but ever, is a fitting ambition for a man who has sought to use his time in office, so far as one can tell, to trample any effort by the other branches of government or the public to restrain him in any way.
A coalition of historians, archivists, and some sort of legal watchdog group in Washington DC, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, have sued the VP's office in an effort to prevent him from hauling off his papers and burning them in his back yard at the Naval Observatory. See their press release here.
Considering that Cheney continues to refuse to submit to congress a list of his staff on the grounds that he is free to ignore the legislative branch, these guys face an uphill battle.
More on this to come, I suspect.
DARPA Fischer- Tropsch
As a follow-up to an earlier post regarding alternative energy, DARPA, the DoD's research wing, has implemented a research project looking into cleaner alternatives to Fischer Tropsch conversion. The budget, a miserly 4.5 million, seems unlikely to produce many breakthroughs. See the full story in Aviation Week, one of the most misleadingly named publications ever and my new favorite magazine.
Tribes
I read this piece by Judith Warner this morning, and it's been floating around in my head ever since. Specifically, the line I keep returning to is this one, a statement made by a mother in a crowd with regard to the liberal bias of some children: “So often these kids that are so incredibly full of themselves, I find their parents are Democrats. The Democrats, they hate ‘us,’ the United States, but they love ‘me,’ that is, themselves.”
I am unsettled by this sentiment. One expects that people who strongly identify with different political parties are going to have different ideas on a range of issues, but this woman's hatred and identification of Democrats as being outside her conception of true Americans suggests a dangerous tribalization.
Again, political rallies are probably a pretty good place to look for partisan extremists, but this hatred is what is allowing McPalin to run a campaign based on increasingly lengthy series of statements which are now universally acknowledged to be lies. I will not use the many more polite terms others have been using. They are not exaggerations, or misstatements, or elasticities of truth. They are statements depicting a reality diametrically opposed to actual events ("I said no thanks...") and repeated for weeks in the face of clear and contrary evidence.
And it doesn't seem to matter. McPalin continue to climb in the polls. Their small lead on the RCP average board has lasted long enough to move past being convention bounce or daily irregularity. The lead, if commentary is to be believed, comes from predominately blue collar voters who seem to prefer "the composite image of the candidate" to their policies.
I don't know what income bracket that mom quoted above finds herself in, but nothing in her statements suggests that she was there hoping to preserve Bush's tax cuts. We do a very poor job of dealing with class in American public discourse, largely because 80% of us identify as "middle class," rendering the effort to address meaningful demographic probabilities useless. But far fewer Americans have the kind of income mobility they like to imagine they do. There are real demographic indicators that indicate your strong probability of living in poverty and with limited hope of improving your lot, or the prospects for your children. Pretending these indicators don't exist, or could never apply to me, doesn't make them go away. Identifying with the Republican party not only casts blue collar support behind a party that has demonstrated repeatedly that it really isn't interested in doing very much to redress that lack of opportunity, but in fact prefers to work to increase the already yawning chasm between upper and middle income brackets. Obama is eloquent enough to seek out the language to attack that very illogical support structure, and he should try to do so. It shouldn't be so hard to get people to vote in their own self interest.
I am unsettled by this sentiment. One expects that people who strongly identify with different political parties are going to have different ideas on a range of issues, but this woman's hatred and identification of Democrats as being outside her conception of true Americans suggests a dangerous tribalization.
Again, political rallies are probably a pretty good place to look for partisan extremists, but this hatred is what is allowing McPalin to run a campaign based on increasingly lengthy series of statements which are now universally acknowledged to be lies. I will not use the many more polite terms others have been using. They are not exaggerations, or misstatements, or elasticities of truth. They are statements depicting a reality diametrically opposed to actual events ("I said no thanks...") and repeated for weeks in the face of clear and contrary evidence.
And it doesn't seem to matter. McPalin continue to climb in the polls. Their small lead on the RCP average board has lasted long enough to move past being convention bounce or daily irregularity. The lead, if commentary is to be believed, comes from predominately blue collar voters who seem to prefer "the composite image of the candidate" to their policies.
I don't know what income bracket that mom quoted above finds herself in, but nothing in her statements suggests that she was there hoping to preserve Bush's tax cuts. We do a very poor job of dealing with class in American public discourse, largely because 80% of us identify as "middle class," rendering the effort to address meaningful demographic probabilities useless. But far fewer Americans have the kind of income mobility they like to imagine they do. There are real demographic indicators that indicate your strong probability of living in poverty and with limited hope of improving your lot, or the prospects for your children. Pretending these indicators don't exist, or could never apply to me, doesn't make them go away. Identifying with the Republican party not only casts blue collar support behind a party that has demonstrated repeatedly that it really isn't interested in doing very much to redress that lack of opportunity, but in fact prefers to work to increase the already yawning chasm between upper and middle income brackets. Obama is eloquent enough to seek out the language to attack that very illogical support structure, and he should try to do so. It shouldn't be so hard to get people to vote in their own self interest.
A Weather Report
I’d like to mention that it is raining here for the first time in about two months. Fall is on the way! Summers here are incredibly hot and dry. Once it starts raining, though, the weather changes pretty radically. I look forward to it not being a hundred degrees any longer. Falls here are pretty short before the dull, gray and mild winter sets in, but it will be a nice change of pace.
Other than that, I’d like to apologize for yesterdays run of no posts. School starts on Monday and I’ve been busy getting reading for the new year. Should be fun. Plus, I’m teaching eight grade this year! They’re going to enjoy my hand turkeys when Thanksgiving comes around.
Other than that, I’d like to apologize for yesterdays run of no posts. School starts on Monday and I’ve been busy getting reading for the new year. Should be fun. Plus, I’m teaching eight grade this year! They’re going to enjoy my hand turkeys when Thanksgiving comes around.
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain
I find I don’t really have much to say about Sarah Palin. PW covered that well enough. It’s become clear for anyone who wants to see that she’s ludicrously unprepared to be vice president, let alone president. The New York Times has a good editorial about why, if you’re curious about the details. It’s pretty horrific when you step back and take it all in. I mean, if she’s lost Ross Douthat ...
There are two things that I find much more interesting, though. The nomination of Sarah Palin is indicative of two things, one about John McCain and the other about the citizens of the United States. The thing about McCain is simple. For all his vaunted (and largely mythical) maverick status, for all that he prattles on about “honor” and “country first,” picking Palin tells us exactly what he thinks about governing the United States: contempt. The only reason McCain picked Palin was because, in descending order of importance, the core of the Republican Party, evangelical Christians, loves her because she is one of them in a way McCain never was and never can be; McCain desperately needs to shore up that base, because without them the 50 percent plus 1 equation of the Bush years won’t work; and her pick was wacky and unexpected, just what a maverick would do. You’ll notice that “competence” and “ability” are not on that list.
For McCain, those terms, “honor” and “country first,” are just phrases, props to be brought out when he needs to score points. The point for McCain is, and always was, power – being an important man who people fete and fawn over, especially the media. McCain doesn’t have anything else. He doesn’t want to make the world a safer place, or to leave the country in a better state than he found it. I don’t think he’s a sociopath – I’m sure that if those things happen, he’d be pleased about it. But not to such an extent that he’d let them get in the way of the greater glory of John McCain, Maverick. His long tradition of taking stands against his party and against the establishment does not reflect any sort of truth-telling or commitments. This is why those stands have so often been so ideologically inconsistent. There isn’t any ideology underpinning them. He simply goes with what will get the most press coverage.
The second thing that Palin’s pick reflects is the long tradition of anti-intellectualism in the United States. Since the end of the Vietnam War, when the technocrats who got us into that (chronicled in David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest) fell from favor in a major way, we’ve seen the rise of Barry Goldwater’s conservatism. David Brooks talked about this aspect of conservatism this week. The current conservative establishment has no use for technocrats. It goes against the conservative belief that all one needs are the right convictions, the right upbringing, the right first principles and everything else flows from that. Ronald Reagan. George W. Bush. John McCain. Sarah Palin. These people don’t value knowledge because their creed has no use or place for it. From mocking of Al Gore in 2000, the contempt for John Kerry’s military service in 2004 and now the criticism that Obama is too cold, too calculating and too much like a scolding teacher. For the life of me I’ve never understood this aspect of the US – from school yard bullies mocking those who do too well in school to Fox News … well, pretty much everything Fox News does. It’s been a frustrating trend to watch. Here’s hoping we’re seeing its apogee.
There are two things that I find much more interesting, though. The nomination of Sarah Palin is indicative of two things, one about John McCain and the other about the citizens of the United States. The thing about McCain is simple. For all his vaunted (and largely mythical) maverick status, for all that he prattles on about “honor” and “country first,” picking Palin tells us exactly what he thinks about governing the United States: contempt. The only reason McCain picked Palin was because, in descending order of importance, the core of the Republican Party, evangelical Christians, loves her because she is one of them in a way McCain never was and never can be; McCain desperately needs to shore up that base, because without them the 50 percent plus 1 equation of the Bush years won’t work; and her pick was wacky and unexpected, just what a maverick would do. You’ll notice that “competence” and “ability” are not on that list.
For McCain, those terms, “honor” and “country first,” are just phrases, props to be brought out when he needs to score points. The point for McCain is, and always was, power – being an important man who people fete and fawn over, especially the media. McCain doesn’t have anything else. He doesn’t want to make the world a safer place, or to leave the country in a better state than he found it. I don’t think he’s a sociopath – I’m sure that if those things happen, he’d be pleased about it. But not to such an extent that he’d let them get in the way of the greater glory of John McCain, Maverick. His long tradition of taking stands against his party and against the establishment does not reflect any sort of truth-telling or commitments. This is why those stands have so often been so ideologically inconsistent. There isn’t any ideology underpinning them. He simply goes with what will get the most press coverage.
The second thing that Palin’s pick reflects is the long tradition of anti-intellectualism in the United States. Since the end of the Vietnam War, when the technocrats who got us into that (chronicled in David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest) fell from favor in a major way, we’ve seen the rise of Barry Goldwater’s conservatism. David Brooks talked about this aspect of conservatism this week. The current conservative establishment has no use for technocrats. It goes against the conservative belief that all one needs are the right convictions, the right upbringing, the right first principles and everything else flows from that. Ronald Reagan. George W. Bush. John McCain. Sarah Palin. These people don’t value knowledge because their creed has no use or place for it. From mocking of Al Gore in 2000, the contempt for John Kerry’s military service in 2004 and now the criticism that Obama is too cold, too calculating and too much like a scolding teacher. For the life of me I’ve never understood this aspect of the US – from school yard bullies mocking those who do too well in school to Fox News … well, pretty much everything Fox News does. It’s been a frustrating trend to watch. Here’s hoping we’re seeing its apogee.
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