First, let me say, John McCain’s tie really wasn’t working.
As far as content, I took a few notes about some things as I listened that I will share. They don’t necessary have a coherent theme, but I want to put them down anyway.
When McCain brought up earmarks and pork-barrel spending, he specifically mentioned ~$3 million in earmarks to study bears in MT. The bridge-to-nowhere backed by Palin is an obvious contradiction, but I was a little surprised Barack didn’t ask about the ~$3 million in earmarks to study seals in Alaska or the ~$1 million to study Halibut. Perhaps he just raised above it?
A comment by McCain that stuck in my head early on in the debate was (quoted from CNN transcript of the debate) “I’ve got a pen, and I’m going to veto every single spending bill that comes across my desk.” He can’t be serious, can he? Every single bill will be vetoed no matter what there merit? This sounds a little dangerous to me.
I was disappointed that Obama said the words ‘clean coal’ when talking about energy. I think we all know there is no such thing as clean coal, no matter how you package it.
McCain certainly seemed to have lost his cool while Obama was talking about Iran and the possiblilty of opening a dialog. I’m not sure if that helped or harmed him though.
I also found it ironic that McCain sort of brushed off how we got into Iraq by saying it wasn’t helpful to talk about that when Obama pointed out he thought it was a bad decision that he did not support. I think he stated something to the effect we wouldn’t need a surge if we didn’t go in under false pretenses in the first place. However, McCain thought the history of how the Taliban came to power was very important when illustrating his own point of view on Pakistan.
Tonight, I was watching the ABC interview with Vice Presidential Candidate, Gov. Sarah Palin. An observant listener may have noticed that Gov. Palin couldn’t answer any of Charlie Gibson’s questions. Furthermore, at times it seemed she didn’t even know what Mr. Gibson was talking about. For example, “Do you agree with the Bush Doctrine?” Amazingly, even after Mr. Gibson spelled out the Bush Doctrine for Gov. Palin, she still offered no opinion.
Gov. Palin presents herself as being just an ordinary, small town American. Having been raised in a small town myself, I am quite familiar with the no-nonsense attitudes of my friends and neighbors. One thing that I can say about my small town is that everybody is able to offer a genuine, unequivocal opinion. Gov. Palin wasn’t able to offer an opinion on any of the foreign policy questions asked by Mr. Gibson. It makes me wonder if she’s ever really considered any issue that, while affecting the rest of the world, didn’t cross her executive desk.
Sarah Smalltown would have been passionate and direct. Who is Sarah Palin?
P.S. Ankles crossed, knees together, sit up straight, look him in the eyes – grace and poise. Grace and poise!
On a trip to the post office this morning, feelings of the dis-satisfaction I in general feel about customer service once again reared its head. It often seems that the person serving you most concerned about selling you more, rather than what you need or even want. Often this is done in ways that are less than transparent. To illustrate this point, I would like to share my trip to the post office this morning.
I arrived at my local post office this morning to mail a birthday present to my sister-in-law. I was surprised that there was absolutely no line, which of course put me into a very good mood.
When I arrived at the counter, the lady instantly put my package on the scale and asked “Is two-three days ok?” and showed me priority mail packaging tape.
I sort of stumbled thinking is this my most economical option? She quickly jumped at my hesitation and ask “or would you like it over-night?”.
At this point, my brain was racing. I want the cheapest option, so I said “No! No! 3 days is okay.”
She then punched a bunch of buttons and up on the screen came my total, $20 and some odd cents. A this point, I looked and said, “Is this the cheapest way to go?”.
She then responded, “No, you can go parcel post, but it will take 6 days.”
This was the option I wanted along, so of course I agreed to the parcel post service.
At the risk of sounding like a grandmother, I have to say, I remember the day when I would bring my package to the post office counter. The service agent behind the desk would take the package, weigh it and show me all the options and prices for mailing that package on a little screen. It was a pleasent experience for me as I like to always see my options.
This system seems to be replaced with a system that causes me more stress. Because my options are not layed out for me in a straight-forward manner, I must be dilegent enough to remember to ask for the parcel post option. Perhaps this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but consider this the next time you are at a resturant and after ordering your meal the waitress asks “Do you want to add an order of bacon with that?”, or you’re at the drive through and the attendent asks “Do you want to Biggie size that?”, why aren’t they asking “Would you like to kid’s size that?”
On Saturday I had an interesting encounter with a TSA agent at the Milwaukee airport. I was returning home from a two week long journey that took me to St. Louis for a physics conference and then Milwaukee where I visited with family, met with some undergrads at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI, and give a colloquium at the UW. At the conference I had acquired a t-shirt which had ‘physicist’ across the front. I decided to wear this t-shirt as I traveled home.
At the Milwaukee airport after you have your check luggage tagged by a gate agent, you have to hand your luggage to a TSA agent who runs it though an x-ray machine before it is loaded onto the plane. As I was handing my bag to a TSA agent, he asked, “What am I thinking?”.
I had no idea what to say. I mean does he think I am a terrorist? Does he think I have something illegal in my bag? I don’t know. So, I say to him, “I don’t know.”
His response was rather alarming. He said, “Your shirt says your a psychic.” I looked down at my shirt, looked up rather puzzled and then, shyly said, “It says physicist.”
He looked at me, turned his back and walked away without another word.
I couldn’t help feeling a little insulted and very worried.
I’ve been thinking about science education in our country quite a bit lately. This morning I woke up thinking about something that I think illustrates the difference between public perception of science in the late sixties versus today.
I recalled a story my mother told me when I was young. My mom had taken a science course in high school where she claimed she once did an experiment the nearly burned down the school. The next year the teacher of this science class asked her if she would be taking chemistry that year. My mom respectfully declined.
I think back to when I was in high school. It seemed to me that the attitude was more like take the minimum requirements to get into college. When I was a senior, I though perhaps I’d like to be an engineer. I seriously had a high school English teacher tell me that I should leave those kind of science jobs to the ‘real’ geniuses.
It seems that our society’s attitude towards science and math has really changed. It seems that within one generation we went from a society encouraging our young people to study science to a society telling our young people, oh no… don’t do that, it’s too hard.
I find it very frustrating. I truly believe that if taught well anyone with positive encouragement both at school and at home can learn and excel at math and science. Instead of telling our young people to ‘take the minimum’, I think the message should be take as much as you can get.
