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...science. Yes, from glucose star to rant in 24 hours.
Of course, numerically it has seven letters. Think of how amazed I was when I went to ScienceDebate.org after the RNC convention to see this link:
What left me rather nonplussed was the sizable representation of "D's" as well as "R's." A sample:
Senator Barbara Boxer California (D)—chair, Committee on Environment and Public Works
Senator Jim DeMint South Carolina (R)—member, Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation (Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchinson is retiring)
Mitch McConnell Kentucky (R)—Senate minority leader
Harry Reid Nevada (D)—Senate majority leader
John Boehner Ohio–8 (R)—speaker of the House
House Member Eddie Bernice Johnson Texas–30 (D)—ranking member, Committee on Science, Space and Technology
House Member Frank Lucas Oklahoma–3 (R)—chair, Committee on Agriculture; member of Committee on Science, Space and Technology
Nancy Pelosi California–8 (D)—House minority leader
The rest are at the link above, with the encouragement to email respective representatives.
This silliness has gone on long enough and produced addled, attention deficit leadership! More concerned with sloganeering than science or engineering. Instead of being treated like an informed, Jeffersonian democratic republic, we're treated like the text-in voters of American Idol.
According to the International Monetary Fund, China is poised to surpass our economy in 2016! Godless, communist China! That is irrespective of who occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue (previously known as the Executive Mansion before 1901). They've invested in STEM-focused education, and we've allowed lawmakers to create loopholes, offshore tax havens and export jobs that drive an education system to supply it with workers, not pass standardized tests with absolutely no meaning, or global equivalent. We are goldfish in a much larger ocean than our self-made, self-righteous boundaries.
If I sound incensed, I'm wondering why you are not, and why we're asking softball questions, or submitting our representative leaders to litmus tests from the left or right while the sun shining on our mythical "city-on-the-hill"is setting rapidly.
I'm wondering why knowledge is feared. Take your pick: evolution, the Big Bang, the age of the earth/universe; dinosaurs being the predecessors of modern birds. If it challenges a dogma or worldview, it must be "evil" (that is a four-letter word). Science is not. It can be used for evil, obfuscated, deliberately tampered with, but in the right hands and with the right motives, it can be a force for good, not ill. And I should expect representatives of my democratic republic to answer questions with tact not tactics; honest inquiry or admittance to lack of expertise. "I don't know" is the beginning of discovery and wisdom: tweeting during a joint session of congressis not.
I'll admit to witnessing that our collective moral compass has strayed, and modern television with all its channel options and "reality TV" is as empty as a ream of fresh printer paper, but righting it "true north" should not involve the blissful embrace of ignorance.
We were [once] the country of "one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind." No more.
It makes Neil Armstrong's departure (and before him Dr. Sally Ride) all the more prescient...and sad.
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