FOR SENATOR OBAMA, MODERATE DEBATE SUCCESS IS MOST LIKELY A POSITIVE SIGN....
The results of "Hasslington's Third Presidential Debate Poll" indicate that Hasslington readers think Senator Obama "won" the third and final U.S. presidential debate, though most of them think it was a "moderate" win for him as opposed to a "big" win. Yes, a few folks thought that it was a big win for Senator Obama, and a few folks thought it was a big win for Senator McCain (and a few folks thought the debate ended in a tie, or a draw), but slightly more than half of those who cast their vote in the poll on this blog-site in the twenty-four hours after the debate ended thought that it was a moderate victory for Senator Obama. No other option registered higher than 15% or 16%. As I did not see most of the debate due to other obligations, I accept the decision of the Hasslington voters, and I thank them for casting their votes.
One way or the other, Senator McCain most likely needed a "big" win in order to immediately gain ground nationally in the presidential race, and, given the results of polls conducted by various national and international media outlets in the wake of the debate, he most certainly did not achieve a "big" win in the minds of the vast majority of voters. In fact, like the Hasslington poll, many of the post-debate surveys conducted by the major news organizations (and the like) suggested that Senator Obama may have achieved a third debate victory, if not an overwhelming one.
But let's say, for argument's sake, that it was evenly matched this third time around. Even if that were the case, as they say in baseball, the tie goes to the runner. Senator McCain's team has been on the field for a while now, and Senator Obama's team has been at bat during that time, which is most likely a positive sign for Senator Obama's team. A tie, therefore, goes to Senator Obama's baserunner. His next batter is stepping up to the plate, and Senator McCain's pitcher is tiring visibly.
Yet there are still two and a half weeks until the next election. Hold onto your seats, political fans, because we'll soon be entering the ninth inning, with Senator Obama leading 3-0 and his closing pitcher ready to shut things down. Yet, as Yogi Berra would say, "It ain't over 'til it's over." That may sound silly, but there's little use in denying that there's a certain amount of solid sense in that Yogi-ism. As applied to this election cycle, there's probably a lot of sense in it.
NOTE TO THOSE WHO MISTAKINGLY THINK A PROVINCIAL, INSULAR MENTALITY CAN STILL BE APPLIED IN THE U.S.A. IN A WORKABLE SENSE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Mrs. Hasslington, who is British, attends a French-speaking group on a regular basis, which meets here in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, USA. Other people in attendance include (but are certainly not limited to) folks from France, Spain, the continent of Africa, South-east Asia, and so on and so forth. (If Governor "I-just-got-my-first-passport" Palin stumbled upon this group while looking for the pom-poms she had accidentally misplaced, it would blow her mind, I'm sure....) And, of course, they all speak English, too.
I cannot for the life of me see how this type of scenario, multiplied on a mass scale across the country, would serve to destabilize anything in our fine republic, with the exception of cultural myopia. (But I'm all for destabilizing that.) In fact, as far as I'm concerned, it simply makes things more interesting, and it also carries on the tradition of the constant addition of new ideas and motivated people that has made the United States the great country that it is.
SPEAKING OF THE BRITISH....
Or, rather, speaking of a Brit who recently became an American citizen.... Mike, I'll be out of town this weekend, but I'll hoist a few with you at our local watering hole sometime soon. Until then, as always, take it easy, my friend.
(That's really all I wanted to say in this particular segment.)
REGARDING THE IMPORTANCE OF TRAVEL, PARTICULARLY BUT NOT EXCLUSIVELY INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL
In a column written for CNN International, British writer Robin Oakley reminded me recently of one of my favorite quotations. "It was the American Mark Twain," Oakley wrote, "who reminded us all that 'travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.'"
Insofar as this topic is concerned, let me make a few things clear: Mark Twain was not only a great writer (if you've read any of his material you would probably agree that such a declaration goes without saying), but he was also great in a uniquely American manner in that he was sarcastic yet warm-hearted, sophisticated yet Midwestern from his head to his toes (which, being a Midwesterner myself, I would suggest is certainly a virtue), well-read and experimental in both his writing style and the substance of what he had to say, well-traveled yet unmistakeably salt-of-the-earth, and every bit as relevant today as when he was alive and producing his classic works of literature.
Yet I also want to say that what he had to say regarding travel--he traveled both inside and outside of the United States extensively--is, to my mind, very accurate. To that end, and as applied to my own life, I have found that a lot of folks my age (which is to say in their thirties) misuse the excuses "I couldn't afford to travel when I was younger" and "I can't afford to travel now."
Well, I grew up in a middle class family and went to a private high school, so even though we were never "in want" (as the saying goes), given the demographics of the school I attended, I was almost surely in the lower half insofar as household income was concerned. So, too, was a good friend of mine, with whom I traveled to Germany on the school's summer foreign-exchange trip when we were sixteen or seventeen. Though there were a lot of males in the school's various German classes and the trip was open to all, we were the only two males who signed up for the trip. (Ten young ladies were also on the trip; despite the favorable percentages and despite the extensive time we spent with those young ladies--or perhaps because of the extensive time we spent with them--my friend and I were to both come up rather empty on the romance front during that trip....)
Fast-forwarding to the present day, I've been back in the U.S. for a year or so (previous to that, I lived for two-and-a-half-years in England), and in that time I have seen a fair few folks with whom my friend and I attended that private school. When they ask me about my life, among the various things I mention is my time spent abroad. When I tell them this, more than a fair share of them say something along the lines of, "Well, I wish I could have traveled back then, but we couldn't afford it. And I can't afford it today."
This is complete nonsense. I worked for a year as a small business manager here in the U.S. (during which time I made a very modest salary) and I have since worked as a teacher both here in the U.S. and abroad (during which time I have made a similarly modest salary), and I could still afford to travel. Sure, I could not afford to purchase an SUV or the like, but I could and have been able to make ends meet without accumulating debt while still traveling abroad on as regular a basis as possible. Many of the folks with whom I went to high school, for their part, came from either middle class families similar to mine or upper class families whose resources vastly outstripped my family's, and many of them make much, much more money per year than I do and have fairly generous vacation plans. Hence, what they are saying is nonsense.
Robin Oakley, in the article to which I refer above, writes, "...anybody with the money to own an SUV, hunt moose, and drive a snowmobile has the money to travel." He's right. So this is not about "not being able to afford" to travel--not for the folks to whom I refer. It's about priorities; it's about where the money goes. I do not wish to own an SUV, and I care very little about whether or not folks with whom I attended high school, etc., own SUVs or snowmobiles or retro-fitted houses in the suburbs. They are obviously free to do so. What does bother me, however, is this "I can't afford to travel abroad" nonsense. Actually, they don't wish to travel abroad, at least not enough to sacrifice a few creature comforts.
Again, that's their prerogative. But I wonder how many of them would be as focused relentlessly on the accumulation of ever more and greater creature comforts as they seem to be if they took the time to ditch the excuses, purchase plane tickets to some place outside of the country where they've never before been, and went there....
The wider world is not for a select few, folks; it's not the domain of a few "elites." On the contrary, in this international era, nearly everyone who can afford to should explore it. And those who cannot afford to should be helped to do so. I guess this is my way of saying that I care about my country enough to want to see its fine people better understand our unique role in the world not only from our perspective at home, but from the perspective of an American abroad. We do a lot well, but we also get the leaders we deserve, and to that end we could use a lot less of what we've had over the last eight years. A bit more international savvy and less of a tin ear to the developments of the day would help us to recalibrate our focus so that we can continue to provide new and different--and important--leadership in an ever-changing world.
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