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More Feminine, More Real

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“People say that having more women in engineering will change everything. Well, that’s the damned point!”

Professor Toor was particularly animated one day in 1986. Our Heat & Mass Transfer class at Carnegie was very technical, with infinitely more time spent on math than sociology. Herb Toor, however, was a empathetic and real-world professor with a reputation. He was out to change engineering forever, and put his prodigious passion into it.

I think about him a lot when we reach milestones, such as the recent swearing in of a record 102 women in the US House of Representatives.

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The Rats Know

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Like all mariner tales, the story slips in like a schooner on a foggy, becalmed day. Rats, the story goes, might leap off the lines that held a boat fast to the dock if they knew the next voyage was doomed. And rats, as creatures of the bilge, always knew. When you see them on the lines do not sign on to that ship for she is bound for Davy Jones’ locker.

People today are rarely as superstitious as ancient sailors. But when you have far too many hours adrift at sea with no winds, like this Congress, the mind does wander. A change of leadership isn’t always up to the voters, as it were, but up to the crew and their desire to not miss the message of the rats.

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Not Even Trying

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The US House just passed what it calls AHCA – the Obamacare repeal legislation they have been waiting 8 years to pass.

There are many ways to criticize this bill, ranging from the AMA’s criticism that it dismantles what safety net we have to a full-on dismissal by key Senate Republicans.

But there is a deeper criticism that has to be made – the real problem with this bill is that the House isn’t actually even trying to govern. They’ve completely given up.
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Still Not Over

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Is is really over?

New York produced two big winners, Clinton and Trump. They may be the overall winners as a result. While they both appear unstoppable there is still more to come as the primary season winds down. And the betting money is still on a contested Republican convention so the best may be yet to come.

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Republican Chaos, Democrats in Charge

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With Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) dropping out of the race to become Speaker of the House, the level of chaos in Congress has hit a new height. It’s hard to imagine what comes next in this intractable situation as nearly every option has become open – including the longshot possibility that a bi-partisan group of centrists might soon be in charge.

Will this open the floodgates and see something get done or will the gridlock become even more set in stone for the next year? Like the weather, everyone likes to complain about it but no one seems to do anything about it. But next year could be the year that Democrats actually do something and take control – of both the Senate and the House. This is actually possible if we seize the moment.

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