Candy Crowley spoke at the Dillon Lecture Series at Hutchinson Community College Tuesday morning. She is CNN’s Chief Political Correspondent and anchor of their Sunday morning talk show, State of the Union.

She spoke about the presidential election and what the candidates are doing as we get closer to election day. She said she lives in Maryland and although it’s not a swing state, Virginia is, and they’re seeing the ads geared toward that state. She said watching the ads that, “You would think males are an endangered species because all the ads are about women.” The reason, of course, is that women tend to vote to more.

Her comments were really balanced as she spoke about both campaigns and what they were concerned about at this stage. She talked quite a bit about polling and how it’s just a snapshot of today. She said she uses polls to see general trends.

She also talked about why certain stories get play and others don’t. She used Romney’s comment about the 47% and how that fed into an existing storyline that was already in the zeitgeist. The trick for candidates, it seems, is to lay out those storyline potentials long before something like that happens that feeds into them.

Of course, timing is also important. She mentioned a gaffe Obama made, but it was in March, and how something in September is harder to overcome by the time of the election. She said Romney’s camp is concerned about not having time to recover from various things and Obama’s camp is concerned that he’s polling under 50% sometimes and that’s not good for an incumbent. She said at this point, Romney has to run a near-perfect campaign if the polls are correct because they give the edge to the President.

She said this is a “base election,” meaning it will hinge on who gets their base out to vote. She said she has thought for years that there are no undecided voters. She said, “There are voters who aren’t paying attention, and there are voters who’ve decided they’re not going to vote.” But she said a conversation with her son convinced her otherwise, and that some people are actually undecided, because he is. But she said it’s a small percentage of people.

What it comes down to are the 4.5 hours of the debates. She will host the one on October 16, the first woman to do so in more than 20 years. She said she’s getting more than 100 emails a day of people suggesting questions

She said there’s always an “x-factor” in who people decide to vote for, things we can’t determine exactly. She noted that 40% of people are saying they’re not satisfied with their choice, which means things could change. She said for Obama part of the x-factor may be, “The pull of history in some of those undecideds,” because he is the first African-American president.

Looking ahead to four years, she comments on both parties and potential candidates.

How partisan things are is related to redistricting, as has been said by multiple people. She pointed out that more than half the house was elected by a 60% majority or more because redistricting has made districts more of whichever way they leaned.

She said if Romney loses there will be a real fight in the Republican party between the idea of the tea party and that we need a “real” conservative, versus those who believe we need to widen the tent and can’t remain a party of largely white people in a country where there’s a minority majority. She said it will be a party trying to figure out its heart and soul.

For the democrats she said, “Joe Biden still dreams of being president.” She said she believed what Hillary had been saying about not planning to run in four years but just recently she saw her speaking at a Clinton Global Initiative Event about collecting taxes on a equitable level and the expression on her face made Crowley think Hillary might be considering it.

It’s that surprise that Crowley says she loves about politics. You never know what the candidates or the voters are going to do. She ended the lecture by telling the audience to remember that, “The country is always stronger than the people who run it.”

At the luncheon following she said it was helpful to her to hear what questions people had – what people in Kansas wanted to know about the election.

The questions were non-partisan (I was so glad!) and included:

• voter fraud
• the amount spent on elections (she said for people to always look at who is giving money for any ad you see and what their agenda is)
• the Mormon question (we don’t know – elections are always multi-determined)
• how she prepped for the debates and how much leeway she has (she said she asks a question 3 different ways generally and then says something like, “so you’re not going to answer” and lets it go so she doesn’t waste all her time)
• how important are spouses (she said people vote for the top of the ticket)
• who runs polls and who is asked
• how has social media affected elections (she recommended factcheck.org, politifact.com and snopes.com, and encouraged people to consider where information is coming from)

She was incredibly warm and pleasant. She mentioned that when she worked at the AP, the motto was, “Get it first, but first get it right.” That’s how journalism is supposed to work. It was a wonderful, interesting morning!

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Dr. Wayne Scott Anderson spoke at the Dillon Lecture Series recently and he had some interesting things to say. He is associated with Medifast products, otherwise known as “Take Shape for Life.” There are a number of people in Hutchinson who have done this diet, and some of those people are very evangelistic, which I find to be a big turnoff. My observation is that any diet involving meal replacements tends to work in the short term, and when people stop using the meal replacements they gain that weight back – plus some. It’s the “plus some” that is the big problem in dieting.

Regardless, I went into the lecture with some “attitude” about the whole thing because people can be so pushy about it. And, it should be noted, that many of them are making money off convincing you about how wonderful it is, so I am suspicious of this.

But, I have to say, I was very impressed with Dr. Wayne Scott Anderson. He was not at all pushy about the product and just talked in general terms about health and weight loss. Frankly, I was surprised. I half-expected the lecture to be a “rah-rah” about this program, but it wasn’t. He had some things to say that I thought were excellent points.

The main one that resonated with me is that he said for people to lose weight you have to help them overcome the psychological and logistical barriers of losing weight. He said one of the things about the meal replacements is that they remove the logistical barrier because people don’t have to become nutritionists overnight. Frankly, he’s the first doctor I’ve ever heard mention there’s a psychological barrier to losing weight. I don’t know that these things are the answer, but it was interesting to hear someone actually say that. And I can see that point about meal replacements. I just don’t see how that works when you’re not using them anymore.

I’m not on the bandwagon, but I had had some of the food from a friend who has used the diet, and it’s not bad. I even ordered some to have for travel food. I have to say it’s really great for when you’re hungry and need a little something and don’t have time to make something or find something. The first time I had it was before a concert with this friend and we didn’t have time to eat. He produced some of the pretzels and although we were very hungry they held us for 2-3 hours. I was impressed with that.

I think Dr. Anderson may have also offered the secret in passing when he was speaking at the luncheon. He still uses the meal replacements – not that he needs to lose weight – but he uses them for convenience. Maybe that’s key and people can keep using them indefinitely to keep the weight off. In the arena of making money off people, that’s pretty darned convenient, too. But, of course, you have to eat anyway.

It was very impressive that he said during the luncheon that it didn’t even have to be those meal replacements – that any would do that were nutritionally sounds. That is certainly not the attitude I hear from people who are pushing the diet locally. Of course, that wouldn’t make them any money.

I’ve been paying careful attention to those in town who have done this diet and how their weight maintains over time. In general I’m seeing the same process as with any other diet – it comes back – perhaps more slowly than with other diets, but it seems to keep coming back.

Although I have no medical training, as a life-long fat person I could teach medicine a couple of things about weight loss, but no one wants to listen to the people living it. I’ve tried – with MDs and psychologists since I was in my early 20s – to explain it’s not physical but mental. Every fat person you know can tell you the calorie count of any food off the top of their heads. It’s not a lack of knowledge. It’s not a lack of willpower. We understand the equations involved of calories in and calories out – fat does not make us stupid.

What we can’t get you to understand is that all the solutions you’re offering are not addressing the real issue, which is beyond “life style change” and “diet” and such. But, either you won’t listen to us or – what I’ve come to believe is more likely – you don’t care. No other medical advice is offered that has the tremendous fail rate of dieting. If 90% of the time when you set a bone the bone was still broken when the cast came off, we’d stop doing that.

It seems there would be a tremendous financial advantage in figuring out a real solution – and Medifast, Jenny Craig and the others – are taking their piece of that pie. But, unfortunately, real pie will most likely beckon people back to their old ways and weight. Until someone creates a real solution, the cycle is set. But we need someone with some medical training who actually cares about doing that, to find a real answer. So far that person hasn’t been born, it seems.

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Frank Abagnale spoke at this morning’s Dillon Lecture Series at Hutchinson Community College. He is an author and consultant for security, and also the subject of a movie, Catch Me If You Can, where he is played by Leonardo DiCaprio. It is based on a book he wrote detailing his life story.

At age 16 he ran away from home, and began to commit various crimes of fraud in order to bankroll his life. He traveled all over the world, impersonating a Pan Am pilot, then pretended to be a doctor. Needless to say, it was an interesting time in his life.

No one associated with the movie has ever met him, but he was happy with the product. He mentioned Spielberg said he didn’t want to make the movie to glorify what Abagnale did during those years, but what he has done since then.

At age 21 Abgnale went to prison. Five years later they let him out if he agreed to serve the rest of his term working for the FBI to prevent document fraud, forgery and embezzlement. He remained at the FBI for decades after he was obligated to, and said today he still sees the years of fraud as shameful. He has turned down three pardons from three sitting presidents and credits his wife with changing his life.

During the luncheon, he spoke about security and said credit cards are the safest form of payment one can use. Something really interesting is that he said many kids get their social security numbers stolen because there is no credit reporting for people under 18.

He believes that punishment for fraud and recovery of stolen funds is so rare that prevention is the only viable course of action. He has authored several books, and has many free products on his website about how to protect yourself.

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Author and journalist, Cokie Roberts, spoke at the Dillon Lecture Series today. She talked about various things and I just want to share a couple of quotes that illustrate the gist of her talk.

She said people are continually asking her if today’s partisanship is the worst it has ever been and she assured us it is not. The 1850s, when politicians were killing each other in duels, was far more contentious. She said one of the calmest times was the 1950s, and said she has, “Come to believe that time was aberrant.” She attributed it to the post-war mentality.

But for today, the answer is straightforward. “In the end, change has got to come from us. Voters have to punish politicians for being partisan,” she said.

She explained how redistricting has really increased partisanship. She mentioned speaking with President Bush about it at length. Computers make it even easier to sort voters now and that has affected redistricting even more. But she said, “I am essentially a pollyanna about these things… they go in cycles.”

At the luncheon she talked about how the poverty rate now is the highest it has ever been in history. She said people need to realize that cuts for deficit reduction are, “not just waste, fraud and abuse – real people get hurt.” She said when we talk about balance we need to remember cuts are real. Priorities matter.

She also spoke about education and how it was the one thing that really gave people a chance in this country. She said, “We no longer have an economy where you can work on a manufacturing company line and have a good middle class lifestyle… The only way you can do that is with an education.”

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Sunday I wrote about a 140conf speaker being told to close his laptop during a presentation. The very next morning I was at the Dillon Lecture Series and attended the luncheon afterwards. I was checking my email on my phone before the luncheon got underway, and someone a few people away said in an exasperated tone, “Patsy, please tell me you are not texting!”

I replied, “No, I’m checking on the condition of a friend who had surgery this morning.”

“Oh, okay,” he said. Then went on to say to others nearby, “Did you hear all the phones go off during the speech?”

I did not get a chance to ask him later, and I didn’t want to embarrass him at the time, but I wanted to ask why he cared if I was texting. Of course, he didn’t seem too concerned that he might embarrass me, but two wrongs don’t make a right. Regardless, why did he care what I was doing.

I was not saying a word, unlike the others creating an uproar in the room – talking at a volume I considered far too great. I was not disturbing anyone in any way. If I were having a text conversation with a friend, why is that any different than having a conversation with the person sitting next to me? It seems it should bother people less. Are you just concerned because you can’t eavesdrop? Why do you care? What difference does it make? I wasn’t engaged in conversation with him or anyone else at the time. Why is it anyone else’s business what I’m doing on my phone?

For the record, it wasn’t my phone that was ringing during the speech. I had turned mine off. Of course, we all forget that on occasion and I just chalk it up to the law of averages. It’s not a huge deal. I find a phone ringing to be less troubling than someone dropping something. We consider that an accident. Why is a ringing phone such an assault? You would think people have been offended by an ethnic slur being slung at them the way they snarl at the person who neglected to turn off their phone. Now, when people answer their phones in the midst of a speech or something, they get some ire from me. But if they quickly mute the ringing phone it was just an accident – lets all calm down.

I’ve never understood why people are so bothered by someone talking on a cell phone. Why is that any different than people talking in general? Psychologically, the answer is about eavesdropping – the fact that we can’t hear the conversation in context is what disturbs people. Although I’m a fan of “overheard conversation” and have cataloged some of it on this webpage, cell phone conversations only bother me if they’re overly loud, which they often are.

I’m going to have to come up with some response to people, because this is becoming a frequent issue for me. This is at least a dozen times something similar has happened in the last few months. However annoyed people may be by me using my phone – which I still don’t understand – I can guarantee you I’m about twenty times more annoyed by them saying something to me about using technology as a tool when they aren’t equally annoyed by others doing the exact same thing without technology. One of these times some unfortunate person is going to get my pent-up ire and that’s not going to be pretty. I don’t want to be that person.

So, I’m trying to figure out why people care. That seems to be step one.

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Jeff Corwin spoke at the Dillon Lecture Series at Hutchinson Community College on Monday, January 31, 2011. Born in Massachusetts, the 43 year old Corwin, is most famous for his television work with Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, MSNBC and CNN. He has also addressed the United Nations and worked in the tropical rain forests of Belize. He has been on expeditions to six of the seven continents. Only Antarctica remains. He lectures on wildlife, ecology and conservation to audiences throughout the United States.

At this lecture he provided some startling statistics. At the current trend, within 20 years, one out of five species will be lost. Every 20 minutes, something disappears.

He said, “The biggest problem we face is that we are not connected to nature.” With 392 National Parks, twice that many National Refuges, and four times that many State Parks each of us co-owns about four acres of land, and “we never see it.”

He spoke about the moment he became a naturalist. He grew up in the city but said, “nature was my sanctuary. I hungered for the time we’d go to my grandparent’s home.” It was there, at age six, when he first saw a snake on the log pile. He said, “I thought I had discovered something new.” He caught the snake, and it bit him. He ran into the house where the adults said, “Get rid of it.” He replied, “No, I love it.” He said, “That was the moment I became a naturalist.”

He said, “In my heart I’m a naturalist – someone excited by nature, who wants to share the natural world. That moment was the lightning bolt.” He wondered aloud what would have been different if it had been something other than a snake. But, because it was he says, “I love snakes. I have always loved snakes.”

For the next two years he observed the snake, taking photos and sketching it. He witnessed shedding, defense, predation and reproduction. “The day I became a conservationist was the last day I saw that snake,” he said.

He was watching the snake, sketching it and in a moment everything changed. The snake was biting at something that wasn’t there with the front third of its body. He widened his view and saw that a neighbor had killed the snake with a shovel. He said he realized, “Good people make bad decisions because they lack information. That was the moment I became a conservationist.”

But he said it’s elephants, not snakes, that have been the most present during his career. He told three different elephant stories that illustrated how elephants “live in long-term, multi-generational units.”

He spoke about spending the night sleeping with a three month old orphan elephant in Africa – a technique they discovered raised the survival rate to 95%. He said he viewed it as the “ultimate slumber party experience.” At one point in the night he realized the elephant was having a nightmare. Although he wasn’t yet a father, he found a soothing touch calmed the elephant and as the elephant was going back to sleep, its trunk was twisting his hair into a lock.

Elephant’s trunks are articulated by 40,000 muscles. They are so strong they can knock down a tree, but also able to pick up something five times smaller than a grain of rice.

Ten years later, when his first daughter was an infant, and he was left alone with her, he was comforting her as he had the elephant a decade earlier. He started to rock her and as she started to go back to sleep she began to twist his hair into a lock.

He said, “Something fundamental changed in me as a conservationist in that moment.  I had been a conservationist for the animals. I became a conservationist for the children.” Every twenty minutes something disappears from the Earth. He said he wants it to be possible for “every generation to have access to a biologically rich planet.”

He spoke about frogs as being in particular danger. He said frogs are a keystone species that has survived five extinctions and been on the planet for 350,000,000 years. He said we will lose half of them in the next 7-12 years. There are 12,000 species of frogs. He says, “Frogs are the ultimate canaries in the coal mine. They are nature’s barometer to tell us something is wrong.”

A fungus is the main reason frogs are dying. The concern is not only for the species, but humans use frogs for medications for many things including Parkinson’s, cancer and AIDS.

He showed video of a particular frog that turned out to be the last known male of that species. The females need a male to help them push the eggs out. The pregnant females were dying without giving birth. But from that one male frog there are now 5000 tadpoles that may well save the species.

Bats are also being affected by another fungus. The common brown bat, which we have in Kansas, was once the most abundant mammal species on the planet. It will be extinct in a short time on the current track we’re on.

One bat eats 1,400 mosquitoes a night. One colony consumes 450 tons of mosquitoes a year.

He spoke about a particular cave in Vermont he visited in 2008 that had 365,000 bats. Two years later they found only two dozen bats there and a carpet of bat bones.

But, he said, “it’s not too late.” He used the example of the bald eagle. In 1970 there was one pair of bald eagles in the entire state of New York. There were 450 pair in the entire lower 48, and it was rare to see one. Now there are 10,000 pair. Ironically, just yesterday, Greg and I had gone outside of town to see one that is here.

“Who are we to decide what the next generation gets for resources. We have a duty to protect them so our children will have a beautiful world to inherit.”

He said the prairie is one of the habitats most in peril, and that prairie dogs are another keystone species. He elaborated at the luncheon, saying that the prairie looks very simple but is surprisingly complex, much of that underground. He said, “Iconic species used to roam these lands. Prairie habitat is very endangered. There’s something magical about a prairie.”

At the luncheon he spoke about the Deep Water Horizon oil spill and pointed out our technology to harvest oil is at a Star Trek level, but our ability to manage a spill is at a Wright Brothers level. He said, “We made so many small errors that it added up to the worst hornets nest you ever ran over with a lawn mower.”

He said he rarely gets to talk about the spill the way he would like, and that we don’t fully comprehend how damaging it was to the marshes because there’s no way to clean the oil from them. He said we are losing the equivalent of one football field of wetland every 45 minutes in that area.

In the lecture he said the spill, “Reminded us all how fragile our planet is.” He covered it for four months and said it, “dramatically and radically changed my view of the world.”

He said of all the species, that conservatively we’ve identified about 10% of them, and only 1% have been scientifically explored. He said a significant amount of things we discover are small, but not all. A new species of buffalo has been found in Vietnam. Madagascar has found 11 new species of lemurs in the last three years.

He said, “99.99% of anything that has lived on our planet is gone. A formula of life comes about and stays until something happens.” He said that doesn’t compare to what we’re doing because we’re not allowing them to follow their own natural path. “We pay a price when we lose this life,” he said.

Ice worms may hold the secret to long life for humans. Although we’re very different, their genome is similar to ours and the telemeters adjustments scientists have made to them have extended their lives from two weeks to two months.

On a lighter note, I was watching to see if Corwin ate the chicken salad sandwich prepared for us. In passing he commented that people were often surprised he was a deer hunter, but he viewed using a renewable resource for food as okay. He said he doesn’t eat protein from a super market. He wants to know the quality of the animal’s life experience, what it ate and how it lived. He said, “I do believe nature is beautiful, but we are also part of it.”.

Ethicist Michael Josephson spoke at the Dillon Lecture Series at Hutchinson Community College in Hutchinson, Kansas on November 9. He founded “Character Counts” in 1993 to teach students and others integrity. More than 7,000,000 students have been involved with the program based on six pillars of character: Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring and Citizenship.

He offered many summations I thought were worthy of note. Some were funny and some more thoughtful. I jotted down some of them to share here.
We are all building our own houses.
If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to get what you’re getting.
I want to be thin… when I’m not hungry.
You don’t have to be sick to get better.
When you really believe something you want to share it.
Kids don’t care what you know until they know you care.
Everyone has a label that says, “Make me feel important.”
Someone who lies for you will lie to you.
First and foremost you’re an individual responsible for your own actions.

He spoke about rational decisions and rationalization. He said the rational decision process is that you reason first and come to the conclusion. Rationalization is when we reach the decision then come up with the reasons for it. He said, “Rationalization is an anesthetic to the conscience.”

He shared numbers from a  recently released report on values and conduct of American Youth that included 43,000 students.
55% of boys and 33% of girls had been bullied in the past 12 months
53% of students said they have hit someone because they were angry
28% of Seniors had five or more drinks in the past two weeks
26% of Seniors have used illegal drugs at least once in the past month
18% of boys and 12% of girls have had sex with at least four different partners
11% of girls have been forced to have intercourse at least once in her life
14% of girls have been pregnant at least once
64% have cheated on an exam in the last year (67% of athletes)

He said the true test of integrity is, “my willingness to do the right thing even when it costs more than I want to pay.”

Some schools in the area participate in the program, and one of them mentioned at the luncheon that they just started the program last year, but a disciplinary standard they’re tracking went from more than 300 last year, to 13 so far this year. Josephson says the idea is to make character part of the DNA of a community or school.

At the luncheon, someone asked if this program could work without the parents being involved and Josephson said it certainly did. Sometimes parents are part of the problem, he said, “Parents are a mixed bag,” and represent all the behaviors possible. He said sometimes they’re, “reprogramming kids from some of the problems.”

Someone asked if this was a religion-based program. Of course, it’s not, since it’s used in public schools. When he was questioned more about religion in schools, he gave a great answer that it was best to keep them separate, because not everyone shared the same faith – he is Jewish for example, and he wanted the program to be able to reach the most people. He went on to say that character and religion were not tied together, saying, “There are people of character who have no religion.”

Another question was about what is legal. He said legal is the bare minimum and “ethics is much broader than the law.”

He spoke about politics saying “I think most people in politics are much better than their campaigns indicate.” He asked an important question, “Why did compromise become such an ugly word? Democracy requires compromise.” He said he wants people who can change their minds. That means you can receive new information. He said, “Thinking people disagree.”

The Character Counts program is about starting with a notion of core values and a common language. He said we need to institutionalize continuity so regardless of who the mayor or superintendant is the program continues..