Jack of Harts

In fourteen hundred ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

I learned that rhyme as a child, and it has always stuck with me.

He was part of the Age of Exploration, when Europe started looking outward again. They had rebuilt from the Fall of Rome and Muslim Invasions that shattered much of Southern Europe. The Spanish crown was actually in the process of liberating the last of the Muslim conquests in Spain as Columbus sailed. The Black Death that had wiped out a third of Europe was over a century in the past.

It was a new age of looking beyond immediate survival and wondering what was out there, beyond the borders of the tiny kingdoms that still survived. Discovering new places and revisting ones long lost to legends. Columbus sought to find a new route to India, not realizing that what we would call the Americas completely blocked his path there. But he did find his way here, and he ushered in a whole new age for America.

And in our modern age, we still admire his courage and determination to explorer. We’ve taken that as the ethos of America. We look for new ways of doing things, and for new places to see. Just as we imagine Columbus did.

So Happy Columbus Day. May you see something new to you today.

Another debate is in the can, and after last week I decided to watch it very carefully. The first thing I was looking for was who would interrupt the other first. I figured it would happen fairly soon, probably after the first round of question and answer. I was not disappointed when Harris interrupted Pence fairly early in the debate. Though it did not delve into the total crash and burn of last week’s debate.

Harris spent most of the debate attacking Trump, rather than the man she was debating. And Pence spent most of his time talking about the policies the Trump/Pence administration had, were, and would be conducting. Harris made a lot of funny faces and called Trump dishonest. Pence stayed calm and went a bit long on most of his answers, to the point that I was getting tired of the moderator trying to shut him up in the middle of sentences filled with information I actually wanted to hear.

There was one big confrontation between them when Pence tried to get Harris to answer the question about whether they would pack the supreme court, and then took the stage back when she didn’t have a quick answer and told everybody that of course they would do it if elected. There were numerous other confrontations and disagreements between them as well, but the moderator did fairly well at making certain each had the time to answer the questions the way they wanted to. Including giving extra time to Harris after she and Pence argued about some point of fact.

The thing I liked most about the debate is that we heard from both candidates and they had the time to say what they thought in response to the questions. That is the role of a good debate in my opinion. With some room for them to disagree in real time and call each other on those opinions and the facts that back them up or disprove them. We got that in the Pence Harris debate, and so I consider it a mostly successful debate.

I personally think that Pence’s calm demeanor and presentation helped him win the night, though I do admit to being biased on the point. I have always liked those aspects of his personality, and wish more politicians acted like him.