I Just Became Slightly More Likely to Vote for Hillary Clinton
I've been keeping an eye on the contenders for president, and nobody has really stood out to me so far. The closest I've come to a decision to date has been some waffling around Bill Richardson. I've looked at Obama because, hey, he's a rock star — or was — but I haven't been all that impressed, particularly when he's spoken in unscripted situations. Edwards? Eh. I'm not ready to support anyone who pushes faith-based values as part of his political platform, even if I do happen to agree with some of those values coincidentally. As far as the Republicans go, well, that's just not going to happen unless they start changing in ways I can't imagine them changing.
I've never been a big fan of Hillary Clinton. She gives me a bit of the willies, honestly. Something just doesn't seem right. I don't trust her. Then again, I generally don't trust politicians. It's always been a pet theory of mine that anyone egomaniacal enough to run for president should be disqualified on the basis of potential mental illness. Hillary gets under my skin a bit more than most.
Nonetheless, the likelihood of my voting for the woman has just increased due to some things she said during a tour of the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. It turns out that she's actually capable of carrying on coherent, unscripted conversations about science with real live scientists (unless, of course, she was briefed beforehand about the benefits of using recycled denim as insulation, which I find a tad unlikely). Here's a bit from an article in the San Francisco Chronicle:
...Did growing plants on a roof instead of nailing down shingles sound goofy to her? Nope -- she understood the "urban heat island" effect, which means that the soil-and-plant roof will be 40 percent cooler than a typical top.Admittedly, this isn't rocket science... but after listening and reading what some of our current crop of candidates have had to say about any number of science-related issues, even this much is enough to get my ears pricked up. Clinton's next statement is largely political, granted, but I certainly find myself in agreement with it and she's the first candidate I've heard phrase this with something resembling passion for the subject:
And how hippie-silly is using shredded blue jeans to insulate the walls? Not at all, she said -- aside from the recycling benefit, it snuffs the danger of glass-like fibers breaking down and polluting the air.
"It's exciting to tour someone who is so aware of the issues of sustainability, of green buildings and even the challenges of creating green buildings," said a shell-shocked-looking Chris Andrews, who as the academy's associate director led Clinton and Newsom through the $484 million structure. "I frankly did not expect that.
"I've led a lot of tours like this with a lot of officials, and believe me, this was pretty unusual to have someone understand what I was talking about."
"Scientists have been muzzled, information has been taken off of government-sponsored Web sites, the leaders of our country have dismissed scientific research and advancements," Clinton said. "There has been a concerted effort against stem cell research, a campaign against evolution. I mean, it has been relentless."All of which is true and addresses a number of the concerns I have about the future, if it couldn't be guessed from my almost daily explosions over the Creationist/"Intelligent Design" boondogglers and the like. And yes, it would be nice to have someone in the White House who didn't see evolutionary biology as some sort of witchcraft and understood the difference between a cluster of cells stored in a freezer and a human being. All of that is stuff I could certainly get behind.
"It's important to have institutions like this, with such a distinguished history, that can perpetuate curiosity and intellectual inquiry. But it would help to have a president who actually supported science again."
This isn't to say that I'm anywhere close to making up my mind to vote for, or even support, Clinton in 2008. She has gained a grudging bit of respect from me, though. I wasn't expecting that to happen. I still disagree with her on other issues, and that's true of all the candidates. Still, her statements about science in general, and about the campaign against evolution in particular, gives me an inkling that she may actually be paying attention to what's going on on that front in the Culture War. It is, at least, a step in the right direction that she had the cajones to say so unambiguously.
