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DNA Blueprints Guide The Construction Of Specific Human Structures
Chad Mirkin discusses using DNA to build a three-dimensional structure out of gold, likening the process to building a house. Starting with basic materials such as bricks, wood, siding, stone and shingles, a construction team can build many different types of houses out of the same building blocks.
The article includes an audio recording of the full interview. Photo courtesy of the UCSD School of Medicine.
| Life is a Bell-Shaped Curve |
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| Opinion - Global Warning | |||
| Lisa Jain Thompson | |||
| Thursday, 27 November 2008 21:00 | |||
 Fairfax, VA, 2008. Life is a bell-shaped curve. The universe is only infrared or ultraviolet on the extremes. What the human species refers to as visible light is, in reality, a combination of the colors the human sees as a rainbow when airborne water particles act as a refractive medium. Nothing is as absolute as it seems on first glance, not even the recent surge in Democrat seats in the United States House of Representatives and the Senate. Real Politics seldom marches lockstep with party affiliation. In the glow of successful national elections, we often forget that voters elect individuals not national political parties and their agendas.
Voting is a risky and uncertain venture where it is just as likely we will lose our shirt as make our point. [N1] The various possible political combinations and interactions makes it improbable that any payout will be as large as we may expect.
The results of the recent presidential election — you may have heard, former Senator Barack Obama won – brings in a lot of new Democratic Party representatives and senators. [N2] The Democrats control majorities of 255 seats in the House and 57-60 seats in the Senate. [N3]
A superficial reading would conclude that President-Elect Obama’s political coattails to have given party liberals absolute control of both House and Senate. Perhaps we should step back and look beneath the election exuberance to the actual political bent of the newly elected. Although simple math may explain a relatively near term, local phenomenon, relativity is needed if we wish to explain the workings of the universe. [N4]
A more careful examination of the inbound Democrats would determine that in addition to the anticipated liberal contingent, there is a heavy influx of moderate to conservative members in the incoming freshman class. The Democrats won 24 house districts that were previously held by Republicans (they carried only three of these districts in 2004). [N5] These included victories in conservative districts in Alabama and Idaho.
Eighty-one Democrats in the 111th Congress will represent districts carried by President George W. Bush in 2004 . [N6] A third of the Democratic House majority comes from districts that vote traditionally Republican. It is unlikely that there has been a sudden long-term liberal conversion in those districts, doubtful that voters have had an earthshaking come to liberalism moment that changes their lives and voting patters forever.
A profound distaste for the current president has more to do with November’s election results than anything President-Elect Obama may have said or any outstanding promises in the Democratic platform. The Republicans were pulled down by President W. Bush and then anchored there by the dramatic economic downtown.
The liberal dream agenda [N7] will have trouble garnering enough congressional votes to become law. The driving rule of politics is survival. Self-preservation is tantamount.
As has been noted many times, all politics is local. [N8] Aggressive, vocal support for an agenda that does not reflect the political wishes of your constituents is a roadmap for defeat in the next election. Voting records are dissected in attack ads by the local district opposition.
Freshman Democrats, aware of the political leanings of their home district and their recent elect to the contrary, may be wary of throwing their public support (and recorded vote) for the entire liberal agenda. We can expect some Freshman Democrats to be more conservative than the Republicans they replaced (who had the cover of being Republican to counter-balance any votes for a seemingly liberal proposal).
The Democratic Majority and President-Elect Obama will soon find that it is easier to run for the office than to run the office. [N9] What played well in the Democratic primaries does not necessarily play well to the country as a whole.
No matter what was atwitter in the media before the November elections, there was no great upsurge in African American voters or the young voters (aged 18-29). Black voters made up 11 percent of the electorate in 2004 and 13 percent in 2008; young voters were 17 percent in 2004, 18 percent four years later. The difference was in who they voted for. Obama did seven points better than Kerry with black voters and 13 points better than Kerry among young voters.
But then John Kerry ran an abysmal campaign. He let a small group of conservative veterans attack his war record without any meaningful response from him until it was too late. His public image had already been reset in the minds of the electorate. Combined with his awkward, rambling speaking style, Kerry’s campaign was doomed.
That President-Elect Obama would receive more votes than Kerry in any category is unsurprising. The camera loves him. The crowds adore him. The groupies want him. In addition to all that, unlike the inarticulate John Kerry, Barack Obama gives good speech. [N10]
Although it appears that the country as a whole as shifted from slightly right of center to slightly left of center, there is no assurance that the change is permanent. There are touchstone issues that, if enacted without changing underlying assumptions and beliefs of much of the electorate, can derail any long term shift and begin moving the pendulum back to the right.
If the liberal wing of the Democratic party unilaterally imposes its agenda on the American people without a lengthy public discussion outside of the closed confines of the Congress, the mid-term election in 2010 will send a lot of freshman Democrats back home to their original day jobs. I doubt if this is in the best interests of the Obama Revolution. [N11]
If President-Elect Obama is as intelligent as he appears (and I have no doubts that he is not), he will run his presidency and make decisions from a position much closer to the center than his rhetoric in the Democratic primary would indicate. He will work for long term change rather than hastily push an agenda filled with trip wire issues, especially with the Iraq War already appearing to resolve itself in the last year of the Bush Administration.
Possibly after the mid-term elections, and certainly after his re-election in 2012 (assuming he doesn’t crash and burn), we can then expect President Obama to attempt to implement controversial elements of the liberal agenda he supported during the primaries (two of which may be of interest to men and women born with Harry Benjamin Syndrome [HBS fka transsexuality]):
The first issue is merely removing cultural obstacles that force gays and lesbians to remain in the closet if they wish to hold meaningful employment in some locations. Although controversial among social conservatives, ENDA, in its simplest form, is probably doable.
The more all encompassing the ENDA provisions are, the more difficult will be the ultimate passage. House members who voted a few years ago to pass ENDA when they knew the Senate would probably kill it, may not be as enthusiastic if they know ENDA stands a good chance of becoming law. Grandstanding is ill-advised if your political district back opposes your position. Right is right but getting re-elected is normally everything. President-Elect Obama and the Democratic Majority needs to move slowly if they expect to govern effectively beyond the immediate congressional session.
The unilateral protection of Gender Expression [N12] is more controversial and possibly impossible to achieve without laying extensive groundwork for passage back in the local districts. Social Conservatives see gender expression as disruption of the social contract, a deliberate public misrepresentation of identity with the intention to deceive. Even some HBS men and women find fault with making what they see weekend cross-dressers a protected class.
Religious conservatives may believe that Gender Expression violates the laws of God. To them, a person who presents him or herself to society in a gender role other than one that matches their genital is immoral, a threat to the fabric of society and their fervent religious beliefs. Gender Expression is confused with cross-dressing and transvestism. Transgender is all about sin, a choice and a life style that should be discouraged if not legally prohibited.
President-Elect Obama and the supposed Democratic Majority will find neither the Social nor the Religious Conservatives’ position on Gender Expression an easy thing to overcome without a significant risk to their political capital. The concept of sex-neutral bathrooms is threatening to many women who worry about their physical safety in a world where “creepy” men may disguise themselves as women without worry or legal repercussion. Parents and guardians, already apprehensive about male child molesters lurking in public restrooms, will publicly express their concern as to how Gender Expression and sex-neutral bathrooms makes the world a better place for their children.
The public outcry if unilateral protection of Gender Expression is imposed by congress will place intense pressure on both house and senate members who will find themselves scrutinized and pressured by with their electorate back home. If not carefully structured and a cross-cultural foundation of support slowly built, Gender Expression may speed the return of the Religious Right to national prominence.
President-Elect Obama may decide that the protection Gender Expression is simply not worth the effort that would be needed for passage during his first term. The downside of such a proposal may represent too great a risk to his Presidency and the Democratic Majority, a risk that can be avoided only if he, and the congress move slowly.
The grandstanding liberal outrage will be deafening.
But then it always is.
Notes[N1] Voting is similar to playing Craps, a gambling game played with two dice; a first throw of 7 or 11 wins and a first throw of 2, 3, or 12 loses and a first throw of any other number must be repeated to win before a 7 is thrown, which loses the bet and the dice. Unless a player is extremely lucky, the odds favor the house winning and the player ending up poorer than when he started. See Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, both of whom were seen as good ideas at the time.
[N2] Obama won at least 364 electoral votes (don’t ask) and almost 53 percent of the popular vote (a regular landslide compared to the last four presidential elections). [N3] Three Senate seats remain undecided subject to recount or a run-off election. 60 seats represents a majority that cannot be filibustered by the opposition party (assuming party senators voted as a block which normally is not the case). [N4] The macro universe is governed by relativity, the micro by quantum physics. Newtonian based theory and math only works in the local neighborhood where approximate solutions are usually sufficient. [N5] Democratic Presidential Nominee John Kerry. [N6] Richard E. Cohen in the National Journal. [N7] Project your innermost dreams here. The wish list is long and no two are exactly the same. [N8] Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, former Democratic Speaker of the House. [N9] Ibid. [N10] How odd: it is culturally permissible to indicate that Kerry is inarticulate (no matter how many words he uses to explain himself) but a statement that Obama is articulate (which he undeniably is) brings out the cultural police of political correctness demanding an apology for racial insensitivity or worse. This is obviously bullshit. [N11] Golly, we elect a man (surprise!) who is made of almost equal parts of white and black. So are a lot of Sicilians and Cubans but we don’t make a big deal of it. Mostly it doesn’t matter unless you are playing the dozens or applying for membership in the Klu Klux Klan (or the Democratic Party, it seems). [N12] Gender Expression is how a person presents themselves in society, whether they dress in the socially accepted role for a man or woman. A male may prefer to live his life as a woman, a woman may prefer to adopt the role and dress of a man. Neither wishes to change their physical sex, only their outward gender expression and mode of dress (vice HBS men and women who wish to correct their outward physical genitalia and secondary sex characteristics to agree with the sex identity of their brain that is present since conception). Transgender persons include both those who express their preferred gender full time and those who cross-dress only on occasion.  Ms. Lisa Jain Thompson is the Co-Founder & President of TS-Si, Inc. She also serves as a Contributing Editor and columnist for the TS-Si website. Ms. Thompson's signed articles contain her own opinions and do not necessarily convey an official position of TS-Si, its partners, or affiliates. Lisa welcomes your comments. You can use the public form below or send private correspondence via her TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.
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| Last Updated on Friday, 28 November 2008 07:24 |
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