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The Slow Journey

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The journey starts at the funeral for my Grandmother, Arletta.  I was a punk kid from Miami not at all used to the damp cold of a Pennsylvania January and all the relatives who drunk junk cars and spoke with a deep accent.  Truth be told, as much as I loved my Grandma I was worried about missing the upcoming Superbowl, Dan Marino’s first appearance with the Dolphins.  There was a lot going through my mind as I had to sit quietly waiting for the service to start.

My Mom broke the whirl of contemplation in her usual quiet way.  “You see those people over there, in the plain dresses and hats and prayer caps?”  I nodded, they were damned hard for me to miss.  “They’re your second cousins.”  What?  I have relatives in the 17th Century?

I’d like to say what direction my thoughts went from there, but I can’t tell you.  Suddenly, a whole lot of things made sense.  This was the first time it sunk in that my Grandfather had left the faith, Santified Bretheren but Amish as a decent shorthand for us Englischers.  I was one of … them.

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Gaps & Gaffs

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The long season that leads up to an election is more like a basketball game than any other sports analogy – you make your shots, stay with the plan, and stay focused in the last few seconds.  That is why campaigns are often defined by gaffs and mis-statements.

The recent comments by Rep. Todd Akin won’t be repeated here, but there are plenty of places where they have been refuted completely.  One of them comes from the Romney campaign, which even went as far as to call on Akin to quit his Senate race.  They don’t want this anywhere near their candidate.

Polls show that, like a good hoop game, the Presidential election is close.  But the gap among women is on the order of 15% and could become much worse.  How?  This takes us back to a number of mess-ups with women that defined the discussion last Spring and threatened to rub off on all Republicans – something they can’t afford.

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Ayn Rand

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Ayn Rand is one of the most influential authors of American thought in the late twentieth century.  It’s hard to find any college educated person under 40 years old who hasn’t had at least a brush with her works and the philosophy of Objectivism.  This is fascinating given how little serious critical attention has been paid to her work and how largely unknown it is in other nations.  She is the leader of a strong but underground movement, highly cultural and generational.

Rand finally bubbled into parts of the mainstream with the arrival of Paul Ryan, a one-time advocate of her work who advised staffers to read up on their Rand when he was a young congressman.  His later disavowal of Rand’s philosophy smelled like a rat to some, who wanted to make an issue out of it.  Bad move.  Rand and Objectivism do not lend themselves to sound bites or anything remotely simple.  The enticement of this mind candy is strong and deep.  But what is it?

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Tesla

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Chances are if you’re over about 30 you’ve never heard of Nikola Tesla.  That’s a shame because both electric motors and the way we distribute electricity are among the many contributions this man made in his incredible career as one of the most brilliant scientists who ever lived.  That’s why Mathew Inman, the artist behind The Oatmeal, is raising money to turn the brilliant if somewhat tortured genius’ lab into a museum.

The story of Tesla is far bigger than the campaign to create the museum, however.  It’s a story of how business trumps science and invention, at least in the minds of American popular culture – and why the two are often horribly at odds with each other.  Yet, the way the story progresses far beyond Tesla’s life it shows that there is an eventual redemption, because if you are under 30 years old there’s a good chance you have heard of Tesla – and have a pretty low opinion of his onetime mentor and later rival, Thomas Edison.

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Miscellaneous

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It’s mid-August, about the time that people’s minds turn away from the beach and back to school and work.  Somewhere in here, there will be attention paid to the election, too.  The way things are right now is about all anyone will notice when they get back at it.

So let’s check back on a number of stories we’ve talked about here and see how they developed.

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