Ryan, Debi, and Toren Cragun's Blog

I just finished my morning class on Friday and was responding to email when I heard that John McCain was visiting the university at noon. I called Debi, who doesn’t have classes on Fridays, and asked her if she wanted to see him. Regular readers will know we don’t generally lean Republican, but we are always willing to listen to ideas, even if they are coming from someone we don’t generally agree with.

So, we headed to the room (in my building) where the meeting was supposed to be. When we arrived we were told it was an “invitation only” event. I’m not sure why politicians do that, but we were a little annoyed. We kind of pushed to see if there was anyway we could get in but all they would offer was, “Well, if you wait, there may be a little room in the back and we can sneak you in.” I had class at 1:00 so I couldn’t wait forever, but after about 30 minutes of waiting for Senator McCain to arrive, one of the campaign people tapped us on the shoulder and asked if we wanted to go into the meeting. I had to say no because I had a class, but Debi went in.

She stood through the meeting at the back. It was mostly filled up with military brass (in civilian clothes) and McCain’s speech was mostly pro-military, pro-war. We don’t often think about the strong military influence in Tampa, but there is a huge air force base in Tampa (MacDill), so military issues are popular.

Debi thought he seemed nice enough and he was actually able to respond intelligently to questions without resorting to guttural monkey speech (like our current monkey-in-chief), but she wasn’t sold on his positions. After a little more research she realized that McCain has pledged to overturn Roe v Wade without exceptions. As a genetic counselor, that is an untenable position. If Senator McCain had ever sat down with someone who has a child with a very serious genetic condition that guarantees the child will die, he might just change his mind. But, of course, he has to speak to the evangelicals who will help him get the nomination from the Republican party.

Anyway, it was a good chance to see a candidate, even though it’s not a candidate we would consider voting for in the actual election.

Saturday we walked past the Gasparilla festivities here in Tampa. We were thinking of going to one of the parades, but once we got there we realized it wasn’t really our scene. Everyone there had a cooler of beer on one shoulder and a beer in their free hand. It seems like an excuse to basically get drunk and stay drunk all weekend. That’s not really our sense of fun.

Instead, I came home and began the tedious process of extricating our chimney from our wall… Okay, that sounds funny, but long story short, when the last person to do a major remodeling on our house was working on it, apparently they figured it would be cheaper to just leave our chimney in the wall then remove it for closet space. So, they cut off the top, roofed over it, then sheetrocked it in. As uber-cheapos, I figured I could use the bricks from the chimney for a garden. So, I chiseled the top 6 rows or so off on Saturday, cleaned them up, then used some of our compost to build a small garden. We figure we’ll add to it slowly as we extricate more bricks and get more compost. For now, we just planted peas and cucumbers. We’re supposed to be able to harvest in a couple of months. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Here’s an interesting news item I rediscovered in the NYtimes today: raising animals for meat releases more CO2 into the atmosphere than does the entire travel industry combined. This is based on research conducted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. I’m sure some of my regular readers will take issue with this, but it is kind of intriguing. Add to that the growing evidence that vegetarianism is a pretty healthy diet (possibly not the healthiest – a small amount of meat may actually be slightly healthier; see references below) and the connection to IQ (though not causal) and things are looking up for vegetarianism. Maybe this is just confirmation bias, as we all have a tendency to look for evidence to support the things we believe/want to believe. But some of this is also pretty good science. Anyway, here are the references:

• Cho, Eunyoung, Wendy Y. Chen, David J. Hunter, Meir J. Stampfer, Graham A. Colditz, Susan E. Hankinson, et al. 2006. “Red Meat Intake and Risk of Breast Cancer Among Premenopausal Women.” Archives of Internal Medicine 166(20).
• Gale, Catharine R, Ian J Deary, Ingrid Schoon, and G David Batty. 2007. “IQ in childhood and vegetarianism in adulthood: 1970 British cohort study.” BMJ 334(7587):245.
• Spencer, E.A., P.N. Appleby, G.K. Davey, and T.J. Key. 2003. “Diet and body mass index in 38000 EPIC-Oxford meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans.” International Journal for Obesity Related Metabolic Disorders 27(6):728-34.
• Steinfeld, Henning, Pierre Gerber, Tom Wassenaar, Vincent Castel, Mauricio Rosales, Cees de Haan, et al. 2006. Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

I was reading the local paper Monday morning when I happened upon a notice that Mitt Romney was holding an “Ask Mitt Anything” meeting in Tampa that same day at 5:30 (like 5 minutes from our house). We’ve been swamped getting all of our stuff moved into our house in Tampa, getting ready for the classes we’ll be teaching soon, and getting ready for a short trip to California. But we didn’t want to pass up on a chance to see Mitt Romney spout his anti-working class ideas in person. Even though I knew there was absolutely no way I’d ever vote for him before I went (e.g., he opposes civil liberties for people he doesn’t like – like habeas corpus – and is anti-choice), if there was even a smidgen of truth to the idea that you could literally ask him anything I had a few questions I thought would be fun to ask. So, we headed to La Teresina Restaurant in Tampa around 5:00 pm to see if we could get a seat. It was pretty full, and the local media were there in full force, but we got a decent seat. I came with three questions prepared:
-Why does Mitt think atheists and agnostics are unfit to be President of the US? (see his quote here)
-Why does he not value civil liberties like habeas corpus? (he wants to double the size of Guantanamo Bay Cuba, where habeas corpus is not a right and people are unethically, immorally, and unjustly imprisoned without the right to challenge their imprisonment)
-And how would he reconcile his law of consecration temple covenant (which basically says that he will put Mormonism first, always) with his duty to uphold the Constitution if elected President? (this is the question the media doesn’t seem knowledgeable enough to ask him)

Not surprisingly, I was not afforded the opportunity to grill him. The meeting was supposed to start at 5:30. He arrived around 6:00. There were four or five questions asked in the short 45 minute meeting, all of which seemed basically canned. One guy even asked, “How can my wife and I help you in your campaign?” It was pretty pathetic, frankly. Everything he said, regardless of how inane, was accompanied by waves of applause and people waving signs. They even tried to put a sticker on me as I arrived to indicate I supported Mitt – that didn’t last. I took it off before I even got inside the main room to find my seat.

So, why don’t I support Mitt? It’s not that he isn’t a personable guy. To get this far in a presidential campaign you have to be personable. He seems nice enough. He’s also good looking and looks very healthy for a 60 year-old. What do I have against him?

Here are a few of the positions Mitt staked out:
-He wants to increase the size of the military by 100,000 troops and increase military funding, claiming there are lots of “bad people” out there. He didn’t say where the money would come from nor why we need that many troops, but he insisted on this (probably because Tampa is a military town; MacDill AFB is just south of the city)
-He wants to make George W. Bush’s tax cuts permanent, get rid of taxes paid by the middle-class on investment income, and abolish the estate tax (which he, of course, referred to as the “death tax”).
-He wants any convicted sex offender to serve a very harsh sentence and then be tagged with a GPS tracking system for life (honestly, I’m not making that up).
-He wants to continue the war in Iraq indefinitely.
-He has no idea what to do about Israel and Palestine (someone asked him that), but he knows the words ‘Hamas,’ ‘Fatah,’ and ‘independent state.’
-He wants to strengthen families by magically reversing the growing trend of women having children outside of wedlock (little statistical tidbit for you – about 30% of births in the U.S. today are to unmarried women, but many of them are cohabiting with essentially permanent partners; this pales in comparison to the percentages in Western Europe, and I and most other demographers don’t really see it as a problem).
-He wants to “give people control” over their social security retirement by instituting personal retirement accounts. This one is pretty obvious for someone like Mitt who made his millions running an investment firm – investment companies would make trillions of dollars off such a deal, while leaving the average American hung out to dry making poor investments while the wealthy get wealthier.

Basically, I don’t agree with pretty much anything he said. His positions are so contrary to the needs of everyone but the upper middle class and the wealthy that it would be a terrible shame for the working class and the poor to have this man as President. He didn’t mention the poor once. Not once. He didn’t suggest anything that would help the poor. Another fascinating element of this meeting was the fact that there were virtually no racial or ethnic minorities there. I know there was one Hispanic person there because he was a “dignitary,” a current state representative, Trey Traviesa. But I don’t recall seeing a single black person nor another Hispanic person (and virtually no Asians, either). That’s pretty remarkable considering the meeting was in a Mexican restaurant in Tampa, where the Hispanic population is increasing by leaps and bounds. You can’t throw a wiffle ball into the wind in Tampa without someone saying “Hola!” to you and offering you authentic Hispanic cuisine (both of my neighbors are Hispanic and and the person who lives across the street is Asian). Yet, no minorities. Hmmm… I wonder why? Maybe because Mitt Romney is the perfect presidential candidate for the super rich and, like George W. Bush, doesn’t care about poor people.

Mitt also didn’t have anything nice to say about the Democratic Presidential candidates. He verbally insulted Hillary, Obama, and John Edwards on multiple occasions, resorting to ad hominems and insults rather than reasoned and intelligent commentary on their positions and ideas. I was appalled.

In short, here’s my current take on Mitt Romney for President: Mitt is slick and attractive and wealthy. His policies would favor white, wealthy people. If that sounds like something that interests you, go for it. But if you are interested in equality, opportunity, and new ideas (see Debi’s comments below), Mitt’s not your man.

In the interest of offering a slightly different take on the meeting, I grilled Debi about her experience. Here are her thoughts:

What do cabbage, cauliflower, Mitt Romney, and George W. Bush have in common? According to Mark Twain, “a cauliflower is nothing but a cabbage with a college education” (meaning it has been cultivated). The same is true of Mitt Romney and George W. Bush – Mitt Romney basically thinks everything that George W. Bush does (i.e., he has the same DNA, like the cauliflower), but Mitt Romney can string these terrible ideas together in a way that makes them sound slick and well-rehearsed, unlike George Bush’s broken, stuttering sentences. In short, Mitt Romney is a cultivated George W. Bush.

One of the first things he said was, “I’ll get rid of the death tax.” At that minute I knew where his priorities lay… Mitt Romney is a multi-millionaire who wants to pass his money to his kids. He repeated this assertion a number of times. Make no bones about it, Mitt Romney is a big-money Republican.

Additionally, Mitt wants to implement the same social security personal retirement accounts as George W. Bush. It really is the same ideas with just slightly prettier and more eloquent packaging.

Update 9/17/2007:
I forgot to include the pictures I took with my crappy cellphone camera. This first one is of the setting before Mitt arrived. It turned out clear, so I thought I’d post it.

This one is of Mitt. Like I said, my cellphone camera sucks.

I was tagged by Dave to post eight random facts about myself.

All right, here are the rules:

1. You have to post these rules before you give the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

8 Random Facts:

• 1. I’ll start with a good one. On a dare at about age 12 I threw an aerosol can into a fire at a scout outing. I was fairly confident it would explode, but I had no idea what kind of damage it would do. Turns out, quite a lot. I was standing about 20 feet from the fire when the can exploded and, wouldn’t you know it, the bottom of the can literally hit me in the groin. I know, you’re saying I’m making this up, but I’m really not. Here’s the deal – the bottom of the can was circular and covered with soot. I was wearing a baggy white t-shirt that hung down past my waist. When it exploded I immediately felt something hit me and collapsed in pain. Everyone else was hiding and no one else was hit by anything from the fire. The bottom of the can left a circle on my t-shirt that, yes, ringed my penis. There was no hiding the irony – I was marked as having been hit in the penis for my stupidity until I was able to change my t-shirt. Oh, and as a bonus fact, I’m an Eagle Scout.
• 2. Another good one… The very first time I went through a Mormon temple endowment ceremony (which, for those who don’t know, is a series of rituals including handshakes, gestures, acting, and odd clothing – you can see a transcript of the ceremony here), I was flabbergasted. That, in itself, isn’t the fact. The fact is, I was riding home with my Mom, who was there with me, when I turned to her and said, “Mom, do we belong to a cult?” She had a response that appeased me at the time (it was patently false, but a good rationalization for a believing Mormon), but who knew that I really did belong to a cult (a.k.a. New Religious Movement with a charismatic leader).
• 3. Another compound fact… I love cooking. Really, I enjoy it a great deal. But here’s the fact: I’m not sure I know if people really like the food I make. I mean, I know Debi likes it – why the hell would she keep pretending after 7 1/2 years? But I often wonder if the other people who try the food I make really like it or are just being nice. If you’re reading this and have ever tried anything I’ve made, you can comment and tell me the truth (even commenting anonymously will work; I’d just like to know).
• 4. I like compound facts… I literally learned to drive a tractor when I was 8. Now, among many circles, I’m sure that wouldn’t be a big deal. But given my circle of friends, it probably is. The second part this fact is another story. I learned to drive a tractor at my Aunt and Uncle’s cherry orchard in North Ogden in Utah. I started working at their cherry orchard at 6 and worked two summers before they put me on a tractor. All of my older brothers worked there with me – we made up about half the cherry harvesting crew. My oldest brother, Troy, who was a rebel against the norms of Mormonism from a young age, taught me to drive the tractors. In doing so, he did a lot of crazy things (like randomly driving through the rows of trees just for the hell of it). But he also told me one thing that saved my life… The orchard was planted on a relatively steep hill and was in the shape of a diamond. There was a road that encircled the orchard and one that ran right down the middle of the orchard. The one that ran down the middle was the steepest way down, but also the fastest. And, for some reason, about 3/4 of the way down the road there was a 20 to 30 foot drop off where the middle road made a sharp turn. If you didn’t make the turn, you’d go off the drop off and, well… The first time I was entrusted with driving a tanker full of cherries down to the skimming area was shortly after I learned to drive a tractor. A tanker is a large trailer that hooks to the back of the tractor and is filled with about a ton of water and another couple tons of cherries. It’s used to transport the cherries to the plant where they are processed. I’d seen other people drive these up and down the orchard hundreds of times, so I knew it was possible to drive it down the middle of the orchard. But what I didn’t realize is that, because of the loose soil of the orchard, you couldn’t use the brakes of the tractor alone to slow your descent on the middle road. If you tried, the weight of a full tanker would actually push the tractor down the mountain. As I made my first trip down the middle road with a full tanker, I started going to fast and did what I always did when trying to stop – hit the brakes. I slowed at first, but then my wheels locked up and I began to slide. Then I started going faster and the tanker began to jack knife with the tractor. I was about 50 feet from the drop off and gaining speed. I was also freaking out – I was going to die. Then something my oldest brother said in passing popped into my mind – use the first gear on the tractor when going downhill and let the tractor’s engine do the work of slowing your descent. In a panic, I jammed the transmission into first gear and popped the clutch… Wouldn’t you know it, it worked! Immediately the tractor regained its traction and slowed my descent. I inched my way around the bend above the drop off, stopped at the bottom, and nearly passed out from an adrenaline high. Quite literally, an off-handed comment from my rebellious older brother saved my life.
• 5. Here’s a disturbing one… While a Mormon missionary in Costa Rica I saw a woman bludgeoned repeatedly with a large chunk of concrete. I was told by an immediate supervisor not to intervene and, ever obedient to authority (at the time), I didn’t. Amazingly, the woman survived (I still don’t know how), but the scene still haunts me when I think about it.
• 6. Another disturbing one from my Mormon mission in Costa Rica… My first companion and I had just finished hitting up a security guard in a housing complex about reading the Book of Mormon. The reason we spoke with him was because he wouldn’t let us into the complex otherwise. He still didn’t let us in to bother the people who lived there, but we left him with a copy of the Book of Mormon anyway (standard operating procedure during my mission). We started walking away when we heard a commotion behind us. We turned and watched a guy running towards a car shoot the security guard, then jump in the car. His driver then hit the gas and swerved towards us. We jumped off the road as he passed us, then ran back to the security guard. He was shot in the hip. We waited until someone had called an ambulance then left at the behest of the others who came to his aid. Smartly, they pointed out that we were foreigners and, since there were about 3 other witnesses, they thought it would be in our best interest not to get involved. (Costa Rica’s a beautiful country, mind you, it just has a lot of crime… At least, in the areas I frequented.)
• 7. A boring fact… I build my own desktop computers. I’ve built two now and am going to be building a third in a couple of days. I could probably find better things to do with my time, but I get a strange sense of pleasure fidgeting around with computers.
• 8. Finally, I went to graduate school believing I would find evidence to support my religious beliefs. That didn’t work out quite as I planned, but boy am I glad I went.

I don’t have eight people to tag for this. Most of the people who read this blog don’t have blogs of their own. So, unfortunately, this is going to die with me

I got my dissertation defense date – May 4. It’s a little nerve-wracking, but it will be good to have it done. It’s kept me pretty busy lately.

I also need to recommend a new local restaurant to my fellow Cincinnatians – Mama’s Hot Pot (8372 Reading Road). It opened up about a month ago and is just a couple of blocks from our condo. We stopped by yesterday. The food is good and very well priced. I wouldn’t say it’s the highest quality restaurant I’ve been to, but it’s local and the owner/chef comes out to chat with you. I tried the vegetarian lasagna, which was okay. Debi got the falafel – and I was jealous; the falafel was superb and cheap. We also split a bowl of potato soup that was uniquely spiced (lots of dill) and great. The owner also treated me to a sample of his rice pudding, which was also very good. The menu is probably a bit hit or miss, but definitely worth giving it a chance.

Finally, I caught this short article in the January edition of Footnotes about a poll taken among Iraqi’s. The article is actually pretty objective and doesn’t really have a particular political bias. This one question really struck me:

When asked about “the three main reasons for the U.S. invasion of Iraq,” 76% of Iraqis cited “to control Iraqi oil” as their first choice; 41% said “to build military bases” as the second choice; and 32% mentioned “to help Israel” as the third choice. Less than 2% of Iraqis cited “to bring democracy to Iraq” as the most likely explanation for the U.S. invasion of their country.