The painter lady

I recently moved (6 blocks) and was yesterday spending a few hours doing some 'move-out' cleaning of the old place. The property owner had hired a painter to repaint the interior, a middle-aged woman, self-employed, who does high-quality interior work. I'm cleaning the inside of the refrigerator and she's painting when she asks me what I think about the war, do I think it is was the right thing to do. "Yes," I respond, "I do." "But don't you think it's all about a spat between Osama and George Bush who were doing business together and something went wrong and now they're fighting?" she asked. I had to stop scrubbing for a moment and think about the best way to approach this. "Not unless I'm wearing my tinfoil hat so that they can't read my mind." Maybe she will ask herself what I meant, was I serious. Clearly, here is a woman who needs to begin to ask questions. If this is an example of an educated and interested voter, I fear for our republic. I hope and trust that on November 2 she and her ilk will be a small minority.

The first debate

The problem with John Kerry is that he appears to be an amateur politician. I mean, his desire for votes and popularity are still visible. Back in, I don't know, '70 or '71, at least one person walked out on one of his speeches for the veterans against the war remarking that it was all about John Kerry, not about the war. And it still is. As in any debate, if one side knows something the other doesn't they have a definite advantage. In this debate, if the Bush team can bring forward a topic about which Kerry is somewhat ignorant, Kerry wil not know what position to take and he will vacillate, trying to somehow claim all sides so that he doesn't offend any potential voters. This predilection makes him appear to be unprincipled, as in 'having no principles,' still in search of who he is. And I think the appearance is the fact. One should not be so naive as to believe that Bush is somehow a white knight reflecting only the truth - he is, after all, a politician also. But at least he and his people seemingly take a position and hold it. If this difference between these men becomes apparent during this debate, and I think it will, Bush will emerge as a clear winner.

A second element is Kerry's way of speaking. First, he's boring - nearly the definition of 'blah, blah, blah.' But more importantly, he does not speak clearly. He's like the painter who does not know when the painting is finished and continues to add to the work in the hope of clarifying, defining, and all the while the effect is to confuse the observer and obscure the point. If the viewer's conclusion after listening to a Kerry point is 'What did he just say?' then Kerry loses.

SpaceShipOne

All I can say is "Finally." Why the hell did this take so long, anyway? Somewhere along the way, NASA became the problem. What has been accomplished so far is not quite the 'jump into the spaceship in the family garage and rescue Father on the moons of Jupiter' that we readers of Heinlein had expected by now, but it's a start.