by Cheryl Rofer
The consensus seems to be that John McCain comes across as a grouchy old man, and Barack Obama as presidential, so Obama "won" the debate. McCain badly needed a game-changer to come from behind, but in the recycling of tired memes that seems to be his debate, no such was to be found. He continued as though his first priority was to rally the base, who may be tiring of Sarah Palin. But he didn't throw them any new red meat, and it's becoming clear that pandering to the base is turning off the independents.
Two small points that I found strange were his mention of Sarah Palin's concern for autism and (once again) that "overhead projector" for a planetarium.
Sarah Palin's son Trig has Down Syndrome. As far as I am aware, Down syndrome has nothing in common with autism. If Palin has recently said some things about autism, I'm not aware of them. But then, I'm not following Palin closely.
McCain made the legitimate point that Palin has a personal interest in special-needs children because of Trig, and therefore she might be expected to urge governmental actions toward alleviating some of the burdens parents of such children bear. But then he mentioned autism at least twice. Both Down syndrome and autism are maladies of special-needs children, but I couldn't figure out why he focused on autism.
McCain seemed to think he landed a punch on Obama once again with that business about an "overhead projector" at a planetarium. I've been bothered about that since it first came up. I still get childhood goosebumps when I think about the lights slowly dimming at the Hayden Planetarium and the stars beginning to come out. I was fascinated by that dumbell-shaped chrome monster in the center of the room and, after the first few visits, watched it slowly move to produce that starry sky. I figured it must have all sorts of gears and perhaps more than one light source, along with a very precise drive motor, again perhaps more than one. I haven't kept up with planetarium projectors, but I suspect that now they're computer-controlled.
So, at a price of $3 million, I figured that McCain had that "overhead" business wrong. Yes, a projector for the sky overhead, but not one of those little overhead projectors that are becoming obsolete as we hook up our laptops with no need for transparencies. Three million dollars is about what one of those sky projectors would cost.
I haven't bothered to check it out until now, and I easily find that my suspicion was correct. McCain didn't know that it was the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, as famous as my Hayden Planetarium, and the Columbia Journalism Review tells us that it was indeed a replacement for one of those Zeiss projectors from my childhood. Here's what the Chicago Tribune has to say, with a photo of the old projector.
All this has made me wonder what today's planetarium projectors look like. It turns out that Carl Zeiss AG is still making them, and this photo is of one of the latest. Not too different from the old ones, but I'll bet there's a computer in there and a keyboard outside.
One more trivia point: apparently Joe the Plumber isn't registered to vote.
Update: Or maybe he's registered but not a plumber.