HASSLINGTON'S SECOND PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE POLL RESULTS
Though I am a supporter of Senator Obama's presidential candidacy, I know for a fact that several supporters of Senator McCain's candidacy read the Hasslington blog-site on a fairly regular basis. (I know this because they refer to recent things I've written when I converse with them, often without being prompted to do so.) It is therefore the case that I was a bit surprised when every single person who took part in "Hasslington's Second Presidential Debate Poll" decided that Senator Obama won the debate.
Now, obviously this blog-site is bound to attract more Obama supporters than McCain supporters, so that might account for the Obama victory in the poll, but that alone doesn't account for the overwhelming nature of the victory. Another big factor was probably Senator Obama's calm and steady performance during the debate, which probably struck people as impressive next to Senator McCain's various attempts to paint Senator Obama with a "too liberal" brush, most of which fizzled-out, often leaving Senator McCain with a slightly frustrated look on his face. Still another reason might be the fact that Senator Obama, leading in the national polls heading into the debate, did nothing to hurt his candidacy, though he landed no real knock-out punches, either. And, of course, a few of Senator McCain's supporters might simply have decided that their candidate had an "off" night (he can ill afford many more of those), whereas Senator Obama did better by comparison.
Whatever the reason, the results were overwhelming. I wonder what the results of the third presidential debate (and the accompanying Hasslington poll, which will appear following the debate) will be?...
HASSLINGTON'S WEEKEND: "YA' KNOW, LET'S GO UP NORT' TO DULUT'..."
Mrs. Hasslington and I spent the weekend at a friend's house in Duluth, Minnesota (population just under 100,000), which is located at the mouth of Lake Superior, about 150 miles north of our abode in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/Saint Paul. Because of its unique location, Duluth is in many respects the westernmost Atlantic Ocean port in North America, despite the fact that it is near the middle of the North American continent. (Ships enter at the Saint Lawrence Seaway in Canada and make their way through the Great Lakes prior to ending their journey in Duluth.)
Duluth--whose oldest residents seem to insist on pronouncing "Dulut'," though no one else who lives there calls it that--was a sadly dilapidated, rather ugly city when I visited in the mid-1980s. At that time, it was a one-trick pony, economically speaking, as it was a mining (taconite and the like) and shipping town. When the mines became economically untenable, much of the city's population fled, leaving behind what seemed to me to be a post-apocalyptic landscape. Yet since the early 1990s, Duluth has slowly but surely diversified economically (and it doesn't hurt that it is still a shipping town, as well as the fact that some mining business has rebounded slightly), and the city has improved in many ways. For instance, its population is once again on the rise, and it is also far easier on the eyes now than it was twenty or twenty-five years ago.
Among other reasons, when I live in Minnesota, I try to visit the city once a year or so in order to monitor its progress (obviously, when I'm abroad for extended periods of time, this does not occur), though I don't go there during their ridiculous winters anymore. At present, it seems to be doing okay, though the national economic downturn has adversely affected Duluth's economy the way it has similarly affected most towns and cities. So we'll see how things go insofar as Duluth's future economic diversification is concerned....
By the way, if you happen to find yourself in Duluth, you might want to check-out Sir Benedict's English bar, which is located in an old, converted brick gas station near the lakeshore. As one might suspect, it's just as "Upper Midwest" in decor and feel as it is "English," but in its own, uniquely messy, hodge-podge way, the combination works. (Mrs. Hasslington, a British expatriate, agrees.) Sir Benedict's is often called "Sir Ben's." Knowing this in a general but obviously not specific sense, I informed our taxi driver that we would like to go to "Gentle Ben's," which elicited a huge belly-laugh from both the taxi driver and the other passengers.
In my defense, there are a lot of bears in northern Minnesota. So I would think mine was a fairly natural mistake....
SURELY TWO HARBORS CAN COME UP WITH A BETTER NICKNAME THAN THAT....
Two Harbors is a small shipping town located just twenty or twenty-five miles up the Lake Superior coast from Duluth, and we decided to spend part of this past Saturday there. The road through the town looks like a strip-mall infused nightmare, but the actual heart of the town is gorgeous, filled with small, surprisingly elaborate-looking, well-cared-for houses and little corner shops. During a visit to the lakeshore, which features a beautiful red lighthouse, our enjoyment of the scenery was temporarily put on hold (shall we say?) due to the fact that someone who lived nearby announced to us in a rather unsolicited manner, "Sometimes we call this town Two Bar Whores."
Now, as I said, the main road that runs through the town looks like a sad statement on Corporate America's idea of paradise, but, given the look of the majority of the town (and the friendliness of its people), that gentleman seemed to be selling Two Harbors somewhat short. One way or the other, were I a local resident, I don't think I'd be apt to vote him onto the town's chamber of commerce....
"MIXED-TAPE REVIEW": IT'S GOOD, SO PLEASE WRITE POSTS MORE OFTEN
This past spring, a friend of mine started a blog, which he calls "Mixed-Tape Review" (and which is located at http://www.mixedtapereview.blogspot.com/). It deals with various topics, from politics to movies (the Godfather films; Alfred Hitchcock; etc) to sociology, and I find it interesting. The author is a busy guy, but I am writing this in the hopes that he soon begins to write posts more often than he does at present. So let's see if this works--at any rate, it can't hurt....
REMEMBER WHEN SHOWS MARKETED TOWARD CHILDREN PROVIDED MORE THOUGHT-PROVOKING QUOTATIONS THAN TODAY'S ADULT-ORIENTED SHOWS OFFER?
When I was growing up, I loved the British science-fiction television show "Doctor Who," which was initially marketed for children. (It ran on the local PBS station.) This surely puts me in the "hopelessly nerdy" category, particularly since I still feel affection for the old program, which ran from 1963 to 1989. (And I still occasionally watch the new version, which began in 2005.) In fact, though I love reading speeches delivered by the likes of Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, etc., one of my favorite quotations is from an early episode of Doctor Who, way back when William Hartnell played the role of the time-traveling Doctor. (Obviously, other favorite quotes of mine come from the likes of Lincoln, Churchill, and so forth....)
At the end of one episode, recognizing that people are inherently selfish (or at least self-centered) before they're generous, The Doctor left a particular group of people by making sure to both acknowledge his own self-interested nature and show how it can be used in a generous manner, in the hopes that they do likewise. As best I can remember it, he said the following:
"Some day, I shall be back. Yes, I shall be back. Until then, there must be no undue fears or anxieties. Just move forward in all your beliefs, which will prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine."
Linking generosity (which we see in his plea for them to "...move forward in all your beliefs...") with a certain pragmatic self-interest ("...which will prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine...") is the sort of somewhat symbiotic, very proactive acknowledgment I'd like to hear from our political leaders a bit more often.
ENERGY AND EASTERN EUROPE: AN AMERICAN OPPORTUNITY
Psst: Like a lot of Eastern European countries, Poland is frightened by the burgeoning power of Russia, particularly (but not exclusively) as it is applied to the European energy market. With European Union restrictions on carbon emissions in place, Poland's large quantities of coal cannot at present be utilized to provide as much energy as the country would like. Hence, Russian natural gas lines might find themselves in Poland in increasing numbers.
This is where American technology can come into play. Carbon sequestration, which removes a lot of the carbon from coal as it is transformed into energy (and is therefore a far cleaner way of using coal-powered energy), and which is presently being developed in the U.S. and elsewhere, can be applied to ease Poland's energy crunch and avert the Kremlin from setting down further roots in Poland, which I need not remind folks is an American ally in Eastern Europe.
This is a real opportunity to apply American techology to a part of the world that is feeling economic and cultural heat from Russia, and it would grow jobs in both the United States and Europe if a major energy partnership were to take place in such countries as Poland (amongst others in the region). At present, the U.S. is working on providing interceptor missiles and accompanying radars for the region. Why not also work on providing mutually-beneficial energy technologies, which would mean a ramping-up of research, and therefore an increase in jobs, here in the U.S.? Surely the Kremlin would find it harder to suggest that U.S. clean-coal technologies are a "threat" to Russia than they do at present regarding U.S. missiles, right? Oh, they'd try to find a way to make it seem "insidious," but I doubt they'd sound convincing to many presently-wary Eastern Europeans....
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