Who picked the best VP?

I hate to say this, but McCain’s choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin for VP is a brilliant move, and a great way to invigorate his campaign. She’s young – helping to quell concerns about McCain’s age. She’s a woman – attractive to discontented Hillary supporters. She’s conservative and pro-life, helping to attract the evangelical crowd. She’s a Washington outsider, bolstering the Republican ticket’s ability to bring a message of change. This is, quite simply, a bold and daring choice. And it makes one wonder if the Republicans may overrun the Democrats and serve up the first female presidential candidate. Actually, the strongest female leaders in Europe – Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel – have been conservatives. Could it be that a woman has to be a conservative to be seen as “tough” enough to become a leader? Liberal woman may be perceived as “softer” and can’t convince people that they have the stamina to be world leaders.

Of course, that’s speculation. Right now I’m afraid McCain has won this round. Obama’s choice of Joe Biden as his running mate pales in comparison. Biden is a good guy, but he’s a safe choice. He complements Obama on foreign policy, connection with working class voters, age, and experience. But he doesn’t make the ticket more dynamic. Perhaps the Democrats figured that Obama can carry the excitement all by himself and needed somebody to ground him. But people don’t want to be grounded; they want to be lifted up to a higher vision. This one is a score for the Republicans, and they are darned smart to announce it the day after Obama’s historic acceptance speech. I was working on a blog entry about Obama’s nomination, but now that seems old and stale. If it has that kind of effect on my little blog, imagine what it does to the big media machine. But fortunately things move fast in politics, and a lot can happen before Election Day. The excitement will wear off and other issues will become more important.

And while McCain's choice is smart, it's also a gamble that's sure to put off some Republican voters. It's interesting how both Obama and McCain chose running mates that undercut some of their core arguments. Obama talks about bringing change to Washington, yet chooses a VP who has worked in Washington politics all his life. McCain's hammers Obama for lack of experience, yet chooses a running mate who is even younger and less experienced. It will be interesting to see how that all plays out once the excitement settles down and the debates begin.

And we should all remember that we are not voting for a black candidate, a female candidate, or a war hero candidate. We are voting for the person who is best suited to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world. McCain’s many years of service and experience apparently have not brought him insight and wisdom when it comes to world affairs. And that’s an area where Sarah Palin can’t help him. In contrast, Obama’s speech yesterday demonstrated, once again, that he has the insight, the intelligence, and the judgment to make decisions that are in the best interest of the United States and the World.

My Life as a Football Mom

My 9-year-old son Nicklas is a sports nut. He wants to participate in every conceivable sport, and so far he’s been involved in soccer, basketball, baseball, swimming and tai-kwon-do. But this summer he decided that he wants to play football – not flag football, but real football, with full equipment. That did not make me happy. I consider football to be a dangerous sport that promotes aggression. I know this is heresy in the U.S. (and especially in Champaign, Illinois), but I have never been able to understand the appeal of that game; to me it looks pointless. All I see are two groups of big guys standing opposite each other. At a given signal they charge, struggling to knock each other down, until the referee blows his whistle. Then they withdraw, until it’s time to start over again. Somewhere in all this, there’s a ball floating around, but how anyone can keep track of that is beyond my comprehension.

However, Nicklas is convinced that he is the next Eli Manning, and who am I to crush his dreams, so when he brought home a flyer about a new football league in town, I agree to sign him up. But I knew we would have problems when I saw that all the important parent meetings and equipment handouts were scheduled in mid-July, while we were on vacation. I had to scramble to get everything done as soon as we got home, and we immediately started out with practices every single night for two weeks. Most of the parents actually camp out at the practice field, watching the kids from 6:00 – 7:30 pm. Who has time for that? I, on the other hand, rush home from work, rush Nicklas to practice, rush home to cook dinner, rush back to pick him up… you get the picture (OK, some days my husband comes home from work early enough to pick him up – yes, he usually works that late).

To make matters worse, we had scheduled a trip to South Dakota on the weekend of the first game, so I had to tell the coach that Nicklas wouldn’t be there. That was OK, but there was another problem – Nicklas hadn’t been weighed on the official scale that the football league is using. (Actually, he was weighed when he got his equipment, but the person who weighed him forgot to record it.) So I get an email from the coach saying that he has to report on Saturday morning to be weighed. Well, that wasn’t possible since we would be out of town. The coach gives me the name and phone number of a person to call in order to resolve this matter. I have no idea who this person is, but I call him and start explaining the problem. It turns out that he is the president of the football league, he has no time for small matters like this, and he certainly has no patience for ignorant people like me.

Nicklas must be weighed on this particular scale, which is on loan from the wrestling team for just one day. I try to ask if he could be weighed at a different scale, or if they could just go by the weight that was recorded when he had a sports physical in June. But no, that’s not OK. I ask the guy what I’m supposed to do, and he finally has had enough of me and yells, “It’s your own fault, you choose to be out of town when football season has started.” Uh oh, I’m afraid we just don’t have the level of commitment it takes to be a dedicated football family.

But then I see my son in his full football gear, broad shoulders, padded pants, and a big helmet. I see him come out of practice drenched with sweat, not complaining one bit about the hard work and rough tumbling. I see his excitement when the coach tells him that he is one of the fastest players and a valuable addition to the team. And I can’t help being a little bit proud of my budding quarterback. Maybe we can get used to this after all.

Money or Happiness?

This blog shouldn't be all about politics - so here’s something completely different to ponder. A study at the University of Illinois has looked at the correlation between happiness and money. The researchers found that the happier you are, the more money you make – until you reach a certain point. If you are blissfully happy; that is, if you are scoring a happiness level of 10 on a 1-10 scale, you earn less than people who score 8 or 9. Similar findings have been reported in other studies.

So what do the researchers conclude? A little unhappiness is good for you. It’s fine to be reasonably happy, but you need a sliver of dissatisfaction, because is will make you more likely to work harder and strive to make things better. If you are overly optimistic, the researchers contend, you’ll have less self control and be more complacent, and you won’t do as well in terms of career and wealth. The scientists suggest that if you are “too” happy, you should surround yourself with negative people who can drag you down to a level where you start caring about doing something with your life and making money.

These conclusions may have been valid, if they were based on a longitudinal study and found that ten years later these “overly optimistic” people were suffering and unhappy, because they hadn’t become wealthy. But that may not be the case at all.

Apparently, it doesn’t occur to the researchers that money may not be the ultimate goal for everyone. Maybe the “10s” are blissfully happy, exactly because they have realized that life isn’t about making money. Who is to assume that it is more important to be rich than happy? If you are blissfully happy, do you need money? Maybe the people who score “10” are those who have found that the pursuit of happiness does not equal the pursuit of money. Maybe they have moved beyond the desire for material possessions and found happiness through love, relationships, good health, and overall quality of life.

It would be very interesting to take a closer look at the people who score a “ten” in happiness. Are they Buddhist monks who have reached spiritual enlightenment? Or are they, as the researchers imply, naïve airheads who will at some point fall flat, because they don’t know how to worry about important things in life?

Without knowing more about these studies than what has been reported in the press, one can certainly draw a conclusion that’s very different from what the researchers suggest:

Making more money will increase your happiness, up to a certain point. If you want to become blissfully happy, you must transcend the need to make money and let go of your material desires.

A Dream Ticket After All?

What a relief! Barack Obama can finally claim the nomination and everyone can focus on the general election. But what about Hillary? She still hasn’t conceded, and speculations abound in the media today about Hillary as VP. Does she want it? Does Obama want her? Do the voters want her? I don’t know about the first two questions, but it looks like the answer to the third question would be yes. She continues to have a very strong following. It is amazing how she and Obama have split the victories between them. Even last night, when it was clear that she had no chance of becoming the nominee, she and Obama took one state each. Obama has long been the likely nominee, but he has run almost parallel with Hillary in terms of delegates and he is winning by a slim margin.

It seems clear that Obama has a problem with a part of the constituency – the low-income, uneducated, white voters – and that Hillary has a strong appeal among those groups. It may be that once Hillary is out of the picture, those voters will rally behind Obama. But maybe not. Maybe they’ll flock to McCain. Together, Obama and Hillary would be unbeatable, because of their appeal to different demographics.

I’ve argued against the “dream team,” but that was when Hillary suggested Obama as her VP – a preposterous suggestion when she was already losing the nomination. Of course there are many problems with Hillary and Obama as running mates. After six months of ripping each other apart, will they be able to stand each other? Will she hurt his message of change? Will Obama supporters be able to overcome their distaste for her? She may not be the ideal choice for VP, but it seems next to impossible to get around her. Not just because she refuses to back down (which at this point seems fairly pathetic), but because her supporters keep going, too. With the strong, passionate support both Obama and Hillary have garnered, a joint ticket may be the best way – perhaps the only way – to unite the Democratic Party.

Racism in America

As Barack Obama is inching closer to the presidency, one can’t help wonder if the U.S. will be ready for the first black president. Will the low-income, white voters support him? If nothing else, Obama’s candidacy has really exposed the issue of race in the U.S.

It’s very difficult for an outsider to understand race relations in the U.S. Coming from a small, ethnically homogenous country like Denmark, I had never thought much about racism until I moved to the U.S. (Denmark is starting to have its own problems as the nation is becoming more multi-ethnic, but that’s a different story). And it wasn’t until my kids started school that I realized how deep the racial divide still is in this country.

We live in a city of about 70,000 people. Several years ago, a group of black parents challenged the school district, saying that the schools with predominantly black children were of a lower quality and their children didn’t receive the same level of education as the white kids. Their lawsuit resulted in a consent decree, whereby the school district agreed to fix the problem. Their solution was to implement a system that’s called “schools of choice,” which means that your kids don’t attend your neighborhood school but will be bused somewhere else. Most people still try to choose their neighborhood school, but the popular schools have long waiting lists.

The school district also has an accelerated learning (gifted education) program for students who qualify. The self-contained gifted classrooms are placed at the schools with the worst reputation in the worst neighborhoods, in an attempt to lure children from privileged homes to these schools (that’s not the official explanation, of course).

Our children attend the gifted program at a school that is located in a low-income, predominantly black neighborhood, and 67% of the kids come from low-income families. The gifted program provides an excellent education, but the gulf between the gifted and non-gifted classrooms is evident. The ethnic breakdown of students at the school is 40% black, 34% white, and 16% Asian, but in the gifted classrooms, it’s more like 50% Asian, 45% white, and 5% black. It’s a recurring problem for the school district that black kids don’t make it into the gifted program, and that black low-income kids still attend their neighborhood school.

And it appears that the racial barriers are already firmly in place even for young children. The kids in the gifted and the non-gifted classes don’t get along very well. There are the predictable taunts, such as the non-gifted kids calling the gifted kids “nerds” and “teacher’s pets,” but there are also racial undertones. For example, a black kid said to my son, “I want to wipe the whiteness off your face.” A lot of the racial slurs are directed from blacks to Asians. My son’s best friend is Korean, and he’ll often endure comments such as “you’re a stupid Chinese boy.” It’s very sad to see that the racial hostility is already in place when you’re 10 years old. Those kids must have been inculcated with negative attitudes towards what their parents probably see as the “privileged races”.

When my daughter started Kindergarten last year (not a gifted classroom; the program doesn't start until 2nd grade), she became best friends with a black girl. They were inseparable at school – until the girl’s older sisters declared that they didn’t like Nathalie and that Caitlyn shouldn’t play with her. Nathalie would come home and tell stories like this: “Caitlyn pushed me at recess, because she wanted her sisters to think she’s not my friend.” I can’t say that the sisters disliked Nathalie because she is white, but I also can’t see any other reason – they didn’t know her at all. Not surprisingly, Nathalie and Caitlyn are no longer best friends. (Nathalie‘s current best friend is a black boy, who apparently doesn’t have older siblings).

Quite frankly, I was shocked to learn that racism runs rampant among kids. And it’s a tall order to expect the school system to fix it all. The problems in the schools are reflecting a broader level of societal problems. Champaign schools are segregated because the city is segregated. There are neighborhoods for black, low-income families and neighborhoods for white, upscale families. The problems need to be addressed at a broader, societal level.

But is doesn’t hurt to start with the kids. I think the schools should work to promote racial integration, starting at the Kindergarten level or earlier, when the kids are still open and less biased. It would also help to provide kids with homework help to break the social heritage of underperformance. A kid whose parents dropped out of high school simply cannot get the needed academic support and encouragement at home. These kids need support that matches what the privileged kids get a home. As the low-income kids perform better academically, they also may feel less alienated and threatened by the kids from wealthier homes.

There are no easy answers, but I hope that Obama is right that the U.S. is ready to become a united nation. Maybe having a black president would at least facilitate the process.

Who's bitter now?

Gosh, I took the weekend off from reading any political news, a now there’s another fully erupted battle in the Democratic camp, with McCain on the sidelines echoing Hillary as best he can.

This time Obama is being “elitist” because he said small town Americans were “bitter” and clinging to “guns and religion.” Hillary apparently believes that this is the gaffe she’s been waiting for, or at least she can make it into one.

Meanwhile, according to the buzz on the internet, and at least one town where Hillary tried to bash Obama (link) , some small town people actually agree, saying that yes, they are bitter and angry – over lost jobs, high gas and food prices, indifferent politicians. And being the non-elitist candidate is kind of a hard sell for wealthy, privileged HRC.

I just wish that the Pennsylvania voters will get to it already, and vote Hillary out of the contest. This is getting ridiculous and it’s certainly not helpful to anyone.

Hillary might have been a great president, but this is not her time, and she needs to realize it. Trying so hard to make Obama look unelectable is absurd.

And the worst part of it is that now they’re both at each other’s throats, with Obama accusing Hillary of playing Annie Oakley, pretending to be a beer-drinking, gun-slinging, down-to-earth gal. I just wish Obama would stay above the fray, but I guess that’s not realistic if he wants to win.

I also wish he wouldn’t keep apologizing for this statements. It’s nice and refreshing with a politician who can admit that he makes mistakes, but it shouldn’t be to the point that whenever someone takes issue with something he says, he immediately retracts. He should own up to his statements, even if they rub some people the wrong way. “Bitter” is not a bad choice of a word, and it probably reflects perfectly fine what he meant to say, and what many people across America feel about the current state of affairs. It’s great that he tries to clarify and elaborate, but there’s no need to claim that he “misspoke,” the current preferred vernacular for “I’m stupid/lying/didn’t mean for other people to hear that”.

Seriously, these three people speak all the time to all sorts of crowds. And every word they utter is instantly available to the world on the Internet. If they never made a statement that could potentially be offensive to someone in their vast audience, they would never be able to say anything of substance. I do think there is a difference, however, between Obama’s comment and Hillary’s and McCain’s recent “misspeaks”. You can argue endlessly over whether Obama’s comment shows that he understands small-town Americans and empathize with them, or whether he understands small-town Americans and patronize them. (Either way, the comment shows that he understand them).

Hillary’s “misspeak” about sniper fire, on the other hand, was repeated multiple times and reveals an attempt to misrepresent and over-dramatize her life experiences. McCains multiple “misspeaks” about shia and sunni muslims reveal that he does not have a firm grasp on the situation in Iraq, which is serious because his primary claim to the presidency is his expertise regarding foreign policy.

There is a big difference between getting the facts wrong, about your own life or a political situation, and getting a point across by using a description that may rub some people the wrong way. Making such a big deal out of such a small thing really shows that there are no major issues for Hillary and Obama to discuss, underscoring the point that it’s time to stop fighting and unite behind one candidate.

Who's behind the door? A president or a goat?

A recent article by John Tierney in the New York Times discusses the Monty Hall problem. (Featured in the old game show “Let’s Make a Deal” with host Monty Hall). This is a math problem with a psychological component, addressing probability as well as choice and decision-making.

The problem goes like this: You have three doors. Behind one is a car; behind the other two are goats. You win the car if you pick the right door.

So you pick one door (say, Door 1), but before it is opened, the game host opens one of the other doors (say, Door 3) to reveal a goat. You now get to decide whether you’ll stick with your original choice (Door 1) or switch to Door 2. Which one gives you a better chance of winning?

According to John Tierney, you may think that your chances are 50-50 no matter which of the remaining two doors you choose, but in reality you’ll be better off switching to the other door. Why? Because your chance of picking the right door out of three would be 1:3, while your chances of picking the wrong door would be 2:3. So there’s a greater chance you picked the wrong door and would be better off switching to the other door (though there is some discussion of the validity of this probability if your first choice was completely random).

Interesting concept.

Now imagine that there are three doors. Behind one is a great president and behind the other two are goats. If you pick the right door, the country will prosper, but if you pick a goat, it will go downhill from here.

You randomly pick Door 1. The game host opens Door 3 and reveals John McCain. You know that behind the other two doors are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But you don’t know who’s behind which door, and you don’t know who’ll be the great president and who’ll be the goat.

What should you do?

Maybe you should ask the audience to help you. Assume that the rest of the world are sitting on the other side of the stage and can see what’s behind the doors. Sometimes the outside perspective provides an advantage.

It looks like the audience will tell you to pick the door that leads to Obama. He’s the overwhelming favorite of people in Europe and everywhere else, as this piece by Shmuel Rosner points out.

But of course Americans don’t care what the rest of the world thinks. Or they wouldn’t have reelected George W. Bush in 2004. “How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?” was a headline in Britain’s Daily Mirror after the 2004 election. And you’ve got to admit the Europeans were right on this one. So maybe they’ve got it right again.

OK, of course we shouldn’t pick a president based on what people in other countries think. But it doesn’t hurt to listen to some common sense.

And of course, picking a president isn’t a completely random game. We have plenty of information on which to base our decision. But when it comes down to it, we can never know for sure. We’ll just have to hope we’re picking the right door.