"Ms Kwan Goes to Washington", from Hersh

[CARA]

Condoleeza Rice was perhaps the worst Sec of State and least qualified Natl Security Advisor in the history of American govt.
She was hired by Bush Sr because someone needed to teach junior how to pronounce the names of the capitol cities of foreign countries.

She did well at this and never let on how little jr knew about the world.

The rest led to some of the worst and most failed foreign policy in the history of the USA.

I am beginning to understand why this site in general discourage mixing skating and politics. Assuming you are joking, what you mentioned still offend me.

Hey, at least Bush knew there were only 50 states in the Union, rather than "57" states like our current "dear leader" believe. Nor did Bush denigrate the vast majority of US citizens as "bitter cringers" touting guns and religions. I am neither Christian nor a gun-owner, but I couldn't believe the arrogance with which then candidate Obama looked down upon my fellow Pennsylvania citizens.

Nothing this man has done since has changed my mind. I'm pretty sure I could say Mr. Obama as one of the worst presidents with many facts to back up when his term is up. But hey, that's just my humble opinion.

[Mathman]

^ I believe Mr. Obama meant to say, there are 57 varieties of Heinz pickles.

[roundboypete]

According to her USFSA bio

In her career (Michelle Kwan) has received 57 perfect 6.0 marks in major competitions...

(one for each pickle).

[seniorita]

^

I dont eat pickles but as an outsider observer that I am, Mr Obama is far more popular and respected by the general public in this side of the ocean than team Bush, the reasons are pretty much known, but anyway , i m just the messenger. Me, I would vote for Michelle anyway.

[janetfan]

I am beginning to understand why this site in general discourage mixing skating and politics. Assuming you are joking, what you mentioned still offend me.

Hey, at least Bush knew there were only 50 states in the Union, rather than "57" states like our current "dear leader" believe. Nor did Bush denigrate the vast majority of US citizens as "bitter cringers" touting guns and religions. I am neither Christian nor a gun-owner, but I couldn't believe the arrogance with which then candidate Obama looked down upon my fellow Pennsylvania citizens.

Nothing this man has done since has changed my mind. I'm pretty sure I could say Mr. Obama as one of the worst presidents with many facts to back up when his term is up. But hey, that's just my humble opinion.

I disagree with everything you wrote but see no reason to take it personally. We just have different politics and are entitled to our own opinions.

Too bad Rice never taught junior how to pronounce "nuclear."

[CARA]

^

I dont eat pickles but as an outsider observer that I am, Mr Obama is far more popular and respected by the general public in this side of the ocean than team Bush, the reasons are pretty much known, but anyway , i m just the messenger. Me, I would vote for Michelle anyway.

It makes sense. Mr. Obama's governing philosophy in general is far more closer to socialized and/or social democracy prevalent in Europe. In addition, "polished," "articulate," and "liberal" Mr. Obama is far more agreeable to liberals European media. Thank goodness, Mr. Obama is not a "bumbling," "inarticulate cowboy"!

(e.g., majority of journalism major are liberal-democrates. One study indicates more than 90 % of journalists in US votes for democrates. I assume the ideological inclination of Europe to be similar. So much for the objective-neutral media coverage. )

[Olympia]

I don't want to continue the discussion of contemporary politics, so as not to cause distress to anyone.

But I can't let pass Mathman's remark about having taken part in that earlier convention as a Fannie Lou Hamer delegate. How wonderful, Math! Hamer is one of my great heroes, as is Bob Moses, the CORE worker who did so much to help get voters registered in Hamer's home state of Mississippi that year. He could share your screen name, Mathman: he is the founder of the Algebra Project, designed to teach math literacy to low-income children. He believes that math literacy is in a way the civil rights issue of our time, and I am inclined to agree with him.

For those of you who are too young or who are from elsewhere, one main goal of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and the 1960s was voting rights. If people can vote, they can change the laws. This is why in many states in the South, African Americans were intimidated and otherwise kept from registering. Dr. Rice's father was one. Fannie Lou Hamer, a Mississippi sharcropper (a kind of tenant farmer), was another, and there were hundreds of thousands more. The Civil Rights movement used all sorts of nonviolent tactics, including marches, voter registration drives, and masterful publicity, to convince the Federal government to enact a law that would ensure the voting rights of all. They succeeded in 1965. I won't go into the whole story here, but it is one of the most breathtaking achievements in American history. Another of my heroes, John Lewis, was an activist from that time. An indication of our progress: he is now a longtime member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

[CARA]

Too bad Rice never taught junior how to pronounce "nuclear."

And too bad no one taught Mr. Obama how to pronounce "corpsman."

[janetfan]

I don't want to continue the discussion of contemporary politics, so as not to cause distress to anyone.

But I can't let pass Mathman's remark about having taken part in that earlier convention as a Fannie Lou Hamer delegate. How wonderful, Math! Hamer is one of my great heroes, as is Bob Moses, the CORE worker who did so much to help get voters registered in Hamer's home state of Mississippi that year. He could share your screen name, Mathman: he is the founder of the Algebra Project, designed to teach math literacy to low-income children. He believes that math literacy is in a way the civil rights issue of our time, and I am inclined to agree with him.

For those of you who are too young or who are from elsewhere, one main goal of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and the 1960s was voting rights. If people can vote, they can change the laws. This is why in many states in the South, African Americans were intimidated and otherwise kept from registering. Dr. Rice's father was one. Fannie Lou Hamer, a Mississippi sharcropper (a kind of tenant farmer), was another, and there were hundreds of thousands more. The Civil Rights movement used all sorts of nonviolent tactics, including marches, voter registration drives, and masterful publicity, to convince the Federal government to enact a law that would ensure the voting rights of all. They succeeded in 1965. I won't go into the whole story here, but it is one of the most breathtaking achievements in American history. Another of my heroes, John Lewis, was an activist from that time. An indication of our progress: he is now a longtime member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Thanks for sharing Olympia and very impressed by mathman's activism.

Nice thoughts and stories about human rights and dignity will rarely upset fair minded people.

For that it takes figure skating officials and judges.

[seniorita]

Oh I missed this part before, Mathman you got elected*?? (i see you shared Michelle ambitions? )
* I dont know what delegate means, sounds cool though.

He believes that math literacy is in a way the civil rights issue of our time, and I am inclined to agree with him.

Tonight I m gonna search more about this, what a great phrase.

[Olympia]

Political conventions in the U.S. are a kind of carnival for politicians. (I'm only half kidding. There are bands and flags and balloons and hats and all sorts of shenanigans during a convention, along with speeches and back-room deals. Portions of it are televised--like the world's most highly populated reality show!) Each state sends delegates, and the delegates decide on the nominee for that party for president (and incidentally the vice president too; you can't vote for these two offices separately in an election). The delegates can't just vote for whom they want: most of the choice has already been made by what are called primaries, which are sort of pre-election elections in each state. We ordinary citizens vote in those primaries. A candidate who wins a primary wins some or all of that state's convention votes. Each political party has its own convention, and by the end of that convention, the party has chosen its presidential candidate.

In 1964, if I recall correctly, an all-white delegation from Mississippi was seated at the Democratic convention. There was great controversy, and a racially mixed delegation, including Fannie Lou Hamer (see my post above) petitioned to be made the official Mississippi delegation. They were denied. But things did change. As I say, by the next year, the Voting Rights Act was made into law.

The history of the civil rights movement is an amazing one, because the main part of the action was spearheaded by people who committed themselves to nonviolent direct action, inspired by Gandhi. I recently read that some of the Egyptian activists this year had made a study of the movement and tried to put some of their ideas into practice. I think that Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, and Martin Luther King would be most gratified if that is true.

[Mathman]

Bob Moses, the CORE worker who did so much to help get voters registered in Hamer's home state of Mississippi that year. He could share your screen name, Mathman: he is the founder of the Algebra Project, designed to teach math literacy to low-income children.

I knew (and know) Bob Moses fairly well. He was the general and I an insignificant foot soldier in the 1964-65 voter registration project in Mississippi. (By the way, the most charismatic of that group was Stokely Carmichael. He later became radicalized and left the mainstream movement.)

And now - ahem -- OK, y'all asked for it...

"Al-jabr and al-mukaballah" (restoring and balancing) was the title of a treatise written by the great Persian-Arabian mathematician Al-Kwarismi in the ninth century. (His name survives in the form “algorithm,” which originally meant, “reasoning in the fashion of Al-Kwarismi.") He invented, among other things, the idea of solving equations by “doing the opposite (restoring) to both sides (balancing)." He was also instrumental in introducing the Hindu numerals into the Arab world; in 1200 this astonishing base ten place-value system was transmitted to the Latin-speaking West by Fibonacci (Leonardo of Pisa).

Aren't you glad you asked?

[janetfan]

^^

Always good to hear about Fibonacci who appears in quite a few historical/thriller type novels.
Wonder why certain contemporary novelists seem so fascinated by Fibo and his sequence

A partial list of Fibonacci in literature from Wiki:

The Fibonacci sequence plays an important role in the plot of the children's book The Wright 3 by Blue Balliett.

The Fibonacci sequence plays a small part in the bestselling novel and film The Da Vinci Code.

The Fibonacci sequence plays a part in unravelling the Atlantis Code in Stel Pavlou's bestselling novel Decipher.

A part of the Fibonacci sequence is used as a code in Matthew Reilly's novel Ice Station.

In Philip K. Dick's novel VALIS, the Fibonacci sequence (as well as the Fibonacci constant) are used as identification signs by an organization called the "Friends of God".

In the collection of poetry alfabet by the Danish poet Inger Christensen, the Fibonacci sequence is used to define the number of lines in each poem.

The Fibonacci sequence is one of many mathematical topics in Scarlett Thomas's novel PopCo whose main character has an affinity for mathematics.

The Fibonacci sequence is one of the main sources of math-based magic for the main character, Reason Cansino, in Justine Larbalestier's trilogy, Magic or Madness

The Fibonacci sequence is mentioned in the children's book Math Curse by Jon Scieszka.

It was briefly included (and recognized by Charles Wallace) in the television film adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time.

The Fibonacci sequence is frequently referenced in the 2001 book The Perfect Spiral by Jason S. Hornsby.

The Fibonacci sequence is mentioned In the movie The Oxford Murders. In the movie a professor and a grad student work together to try and stop a potential series of murders seemingly linked by mathematical symbols.

The Fibonacci sequence and golden ratio are briefly described in John Fowles's 1985 novel A Maggot.

[SkateFiguring]

I find Fibonacci in nature fascinating, making some of the most beautiful configurations.

Using Fibonacci in predictions of stock price movements is so common now that it is often included as a one of the technical analysis tools in charting. Less commonly used is in timing the turning points of stock prices.

Just a couple more reasons to be fascinated by Fibonacci.

[seniorita]

Fibonacci has been a favorite subject of this forum
Now who can write the real Phi with his keyboard?