Currently Reading
I’m currently reading Seeker by Jack McDevitt. McDevitt is an excellent writer of hard science fiction and based on a short meeting with him at the Campbell Conference dinner at KU in 2005 he’s a pretty nice guy too.
It it’s important, the President will tap dance.
The New York Times notes that President Bush is taking credit for huge decreases in the deficit, crediting it all to his tax cuts. Recessions happen. Recoveries from recessions happen. When those recoveries occur budget deficits go down. While it is possible that the right tax cuts to help dig out from a recession most of the Bush tax cuts weren’t the kind that accomplish that. And even if they were it appears that the magic is wearing off. Increasing deficits won’t help our long term economic look out. There aren’t enough politically palatable spending cuts to accomplish the necessary reductions, either. So given the nature of President Bush the question becomes whether or not the next President will have the courage to be honest about what’s really good for our country’s future. I have my doubts.
What?!?! Another Blog??
Yes, it’s another blog added to a horrendously overpopulated blogosphere. Why? Because like most people I just wanted to sometimes guide the conversation. As much as I might enjoy reading other people’s blogs and commenting on them there are times when I just think “What about this…” and can’t turn someone else’s blog in that direction.
As far as the title is concerned it’s somewhat obvious where it came from but not so obvious how long it took me to come up with it. I thought of variations on polymath since I consider myself one to a degree, having majored in chemistry, education with speech and drama emphasis (with an English minor) and computer science as well as having taken courses that just interested me whenever I could. Most of the good ones were taken. Then there came the ones where I wanted to reflect my belief that the implications of the simple fact that things change and they’re changing faster than ever are all too often under-appreciated by many people even if they do think they understand that things are changing fast in our modern world. And then…then I read a comment on another blog that made me think of how this person’s response didn’t seem to recognize that it just wasn’t the 1950’s anymore. Then that blended with a certain comment by James Carville and a title was born. And it only took a few months more to decide to go ahead and start it out on a WordPress hosted site.
About
The title of this blog obviously (or not) comes from the James Carville exhortation to the Clinton campaign in 1992. As surely as that message was important for that political campaign I think that remembering that it’s not the 1950s or any other decade/century in the past any longer at a deep level of understanding is important to discourse on every subject in the public sphere. People in their 50s or above who fail to understand why the truths they grew up with just don’t necessarily apply any longer irritate me no end.
As for me, I’m just a semi-elderly (for what I do) semi-geek who’s worked with PCs for 25 years while being an active science fiction fan as well. What do I mean by work with? Put them together. Keep them going. Program them. Network them. Explain them to other people. Troubleshoot them. Basically anything that has to do with a PC.
That having been said computer science was my third college major with the first two being chemistry and education with a speech and drama emphasis and english minor. What can I say? I also took classes that advisors frowned upon for not relating directly to my major(s). But they were interesting. A counselor once looked at my transcript and commented that most people are either good at the arts and social sciences or the hard sciences but my record looked pretty evenly balanced. Yep. When I retire I think I want to be a college student.
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