I was sent a link to a speech by Newt Gingrich on Education. Not expecting much, I was surprised by the saliency of his speech. His "world that works" and "world that fails" model begs critical thinking.

View his speech here.

Alternately, if you're just interested in hearing a briefer introduction to his argument, view this clip, entitled "FedEx vs Federal Bureaucracy."

Fair warning: I could be very, very, very misguided in the observation I am about to make.

Earlier today I was driving on the freeway and happened to be listening (by chance) to the Rush Limbaugh show (hosted today by Mike Davis). I'm not conservative by any means, but I'll occasionally listen to Rush just to test my ideas against his. I have always believed if you can't weigh your thoughts and opinions against the opposition and have them come out stronger and better honed, what's the point of having them in the first place?

I listened incredulously as Mike Davis bemoaned the rising number of government enforced smoking bans because they were yet another example to him of government curtailing American liberty; as he slammed Michelle Obama because of her recent appearance on The View; as he comforted a caller (Marie) who articulated her despair over how easily people were falling to Obama's gimmicky rhetoric. This last caller, Marie, emphasized that she would be compelled to move out of the country if Obama is elected. Davis was quick to soothe her, saying, as best I can recall, "Now hang on a minute Marie, tap the brakes on all of that. I know that you feel strongly about this, but if we survived eight years of Bill Clinton, if we survived the Jimmy Carter presidency, if we survived....then certainly we can survive this. Not that we're going to, because Obama will certainly not be elected."

Throughout the time I was listening to this show, I had been again wondering in the back of my mind why a liberal or democratic radio show had not been able to take hold on American airwaves. It had been attempted, but never gained steam. I've heard Limbaugh criticize the attempt before, citing its failure to the fact that there simply aren't enough American's willing to jump on the democratic bandwagon in order to justify a radio program, in addition to other justifications. Today, however, I arrived at my own possible explanation.

I wonder if the reason why conservative talk shows are so much more successful than liberal talk shows isn't because contemporary individuals feel a greater need for shepherding, cheerleading, and a balm for uncertainty, whereas more liberal individual prefer a more independent, laissez-faire way of gaining knowledge and forming opinions. This occured to me as I realized that I grew most irritated with Rush or with any other talk show host at precisely the moment they began to preach, rather than to reach out to listeners. Occasionally they will leave the microphone behind, stop describing current affairs, and step up to the pulpit, where they proclaim what other people ought to think.

It seems reasonable to me, if only considering the stereotype, that conservative individuals of the baby-boomer generation are much more comfortable with a "big-brother" figure who is looking out for them, telling them what to think or what to hate, than liberals. In contrast, liberals would become irritated by such an attempt at making them conform. I should emphasize that I do not mean to suggest that conservatives can't (or won't) think for themselves, that liberals are "free-thinkers" who are smarter than conservatives, and nor am I trying to place a value on one or another mindset. I'm ambivalent, in general, to people's political orientation. In this instance, I was simply led to wonder if a part of the conservative/liberal paradigm might be empirically related to a certain level of Uncertainty Avoidance, and if the tipping point would correlate to one's political orientation.

Interesting.

The latest from PC World is as ironic as it is fascinating. Robert Strohmeyer reports on a burgeoning new crop of websites which are unlike anything we have seen before. These novel services are predicated on the impulse people feel to connect on social networking sites (SNS) and seek to drastically enhance the layperson's ability to connect online. Recognizing that many SNS users are generally active on not just one but a swath of SNS, these services capitalize on the fundamental trusim of their market generation -- that multitasking is always a plus -- and condenses the SNS a person is active on down to one convenient loctaion.

From my perspective (increasingly not the norm, I find), the irony lies in the fact that where one might suspect a person seeking "authentic" connections online might desire to put all of his or her eggs in just one basket, rather than spread them out all across the farm, now we see a service which allows you to spread all of your eggs across the farm, and hold a digital basket where you can keep your eyes on them at all times. It provides the illusion of solidarity, but promotes quite the opposite.

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See
Robert Strohmeyer, "Web Apps Manage Social Networking Overload" (Pc World, June 2 2008).