Dougall the Prolific
This morning, Rep. John Dougall and I were on KCPW talking about how blogs help legislators open the Capitol doors to constituents. But I've gotta tell you, John is bringing me down.
I've always known he has incredible energy, but John is setting an impossible standard for the rest of us to keep up with. While I'm trying to encourage other legislators to use this incredible tool to improve constituent communications, I look over at John's 4 entries a day and figure I might just quit myself.
If only John would come out of his shell and tell us how he really feels about things. Again, I love it. A huge part of the reason America is so divided politically is that many of our political leaders equivocate instead of lead. Rather than stake out solid positions on issues (other than the predictable hot-button issues), they muck around in the middle. If there are no firm positions, the marketplace of ideas will only offer squishy fruit. The people get frustrated by the lack of firm leadership and by the inability to tell where, if anywhere, their leaders propose to take them.
I've always known he has incredible energy, but John is setting an impossible standard for the rest of us to keep up with. While I'm trying to encourage other legislators to use this incredible tool to improve constituent communications, I look over at John's 4 entries a day and figure I might just quit myself.
If only John would come out of his shell and tell us how he really feels about things. Again, I love it. A huge part of the reason America is so divided politically is that many of our political leaders equivocate instead of lead. Rather than stake out solid positions on issues (other than the predictable hot-button issues), they muck around in the middle. If there are no firm positions, the marketplace of ideas will only offer squishy fruit. The people get frustrated by the lack of firm leadership and by the inability to tell where, if anywhere, their leaders propose to take them.
posted by steve u. at 7/08/2005
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4 Comments:
I'm not sure I agree with you. If you consider for a moment the current administration, one might have to wonder whether the single-mindedness has been helpful or hurtful. "Stay the course" is a wonderful concept in theory, but not in reality. If a chess player begins a game in aggressive mode, then suddenly find himself without queen, tactics 'might' need to change to a more subtle form of play, or even to seek out a draw. If in the realm of human living situations or circumstances change, then one would hope that the individual would be willing to adjust.
I wrote an editorial for a local newspaper, but it never made it. I hope you find it elucidating!
Doc
I assume you’ve heard of Charles Darwin, Ethologist, who proposed the theory of survival of the fittest. He used the terms “Assimilation” and “Accommodation” to describe the learning process involved in survival of the species. Assimilation is the ability to take in new/novel information from the environment. Accommodation is the ability to use that knowledge and add it to existing schemas, to what you already know in order to improve your chances for survival. For example; a caveman leaves his cave. It’s freezing outside. He wears no animal skin. He does this every day until he dies. Another caveman sees this, only this cave man decides to wear his animal skin. He survives longer. His ability to use his brains and adjust to his environment assures that he, his group, and his genetic characteristics will survive to the next generation.
If one is so intransigent and unyielding to new ideas, refuses to even consider that there is another opinion, rejects the input of any potential new information, they get virtually stuck in a dynamic and ever changing world. We have all, at one time or another said in hindsight, “if I knew then what I know now”. This statement implies that we are sorry we didn’t see the signs…have failed in some way to see all the possibilities or to learn from our experiences. This is how Mr. Bush appears to me.
I'm not sure I agree with you. If you consider for a moment the current administration, one might have to wonder whether the single-mindedness has been helpful or hurtful. "Stay the course" is a wonderful concept in theory, but not in reality. If a chess player begins a game in aggressive mode, then suddenly find himself without queen, tactics 'might' need to change to a more subtle form of play, or even to seek out a draw. If in the realm of human living situations or circumstances change, then one would hope that the individual would be willing to adjust.
I wrote an editorial for a local newspaper, but it never made it. I hope you find it elucidating!
Doc
I assume you’ve heard of Charles Darwin, Ethologist, who proposed the theory of survival of the fittest. He used the terms “Assimilation” and “Accommodation” to describe the learning process involved in survival of the species. Assimilation is the ability to take in new/novel information from the environment. Accommodation is the ability to use that knowledge and add it to existing schemas, to what you already know in order to improve your chances for survival. For example; a caveman leaves his cave. It’s freezing outside. He wears no animal skin. He does this every day until he dies. Another caveman sees this, only this cave man decides to wear his animal skin. He survives longer. His ability to use his brains and adjust to his environment assures that he, his group, and his genetic characteristics will survive to the next generation.
If one is so intransigent and unyielding to new ideas, refuses to even consider that there is another opinion, rejects the input of any potential new information, they get virtually stuck in a dynamic and ever changing world. We have all, at one time or another said in hindsight, “if I knew then what I know now”. This statement implies that we are sorry we didn’t see the signs…have failed in some way to see all the possibilities or to learn from our experiences. This is how Mr. Bush appears to me.
6:00 PM
It's great to see a few of our legislators who are willing to be open with the public about their views on various topics -- even if it's not practical for most to be as prolific as Mr. Dougall :)
There is one feature that I wish you'd enable on your blog, though. I rarely encounter a blog that doesn't support an RSS 2 or Atom feed, but yours appears not to. Now, granted, my list of RSS feeds is getting a bit too long as it is, but I'd like to add your blog to the list, as that's the most likely way for me to remember to read it from time to time! (I'm certain that Blogger does support at least Atom, and probably also RSS 2. It's just a matter of turning it on.)
Doc: That's all true as far as it goes, but I think it's clear thanks to the MilBloggers and Arthur Cherenkoff's excellent "Good News from Iraq" series that the legacy media is not giving us anything near all of the available information on this war. (And it's not even hard to figure out why - the media successfully lost Vietnam for us, and they'd love to do it again). If we assume that Mr. Bush also has access to better information (much of which is unlikely to be declassified until the war is over) it becomes less useful to second-guess him.
On topic: I'm thrilled to see a solid guy like Steve running against Sen. Hatch. I believe that idiotic anti-progress laws like the DMCA and the Sonny Bono Act will not be fixed until a younger, more tech-savvy generation assumes power in Congress (and probably in business - Mark Cuban clearly "gets it" in ways nobody at Disney or Fox or AOLTW do). And if that can be accomplished without making Howard Dean happy so much the better ;-)
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