Dear President Obama,

I had high hopes for your presidency. At first this may seem odd considering that I didn't even vote for you. Regardless of your policies that I disagreed with, I admired your charisma and ability to inspire others. When you spoke of the change you would bring to Washington, I sincerely hoped that you would follow through.
Unfortunately, most of what I have seen from the White House is business as usual. Your promises of bipartisanship seem paltry and weak. You stood by and ignored the voice of the right until they had enough votes to threaten your policies. If you had brought them into the process earlier and made some concessions, they would have been more likely to support your policies. Giving them some credit along the way would have made them more willing to join you also. After all, why help when every victory is trumpeted as a win for the left.
I was bitterly dissapointed time and again as you stood silently by while others attempted to marginalize and slander the tea party movement. I had hoped that you might echo the idealism of Jefferson and defend the right of these people to stand for their beliefs. Instead it seems that you condoned the attacks made by Pelosi, Reid, and others, which only made a group already feeling marginalized feel even more so.
Your attempts to reach out to the Muslim world are admirable, yet I see no such attempts at conciliation here at home. You would reach out to those who intend real, physical harm to their enemies, and ignore those whose weapons are words. Whether real or imagined, there are many who feel the yokes of oppression are tightening, why do you not attempt to ease their fears? Simply assuring them that you are listening and considering their pleas would make a dramatic difference.
The foundation of America is not in politicians, but in idealists. In you my hope was that we might return to that foundation, but it seems unlikely now. Your promises of fundamental change in Washington seem to be hollow words.
Is allegiance to a political party more important than the belief that America stands for something greater than any party?
It's not too late to make me believe again in the hope you promised.
Sincerely,
Chris (a cynic who wants to believe)

Fresno... Stupidest City in America?

I imagine like many of you I first heard of this ranking through late night comedy. My first thought was, "How can something like even be measured?" Surely they didn't take a random sample from each city and administer IQ tests? After a little web searching, I was able to find the source of the rankings on The Daily Beast.
As it turns out, they weren't measuring intelligence in the city at all. What they actually measured was educational level, political involvement, educational institutions, and book purchases. I won't argue that these factors don't have some bearing on intelligence, but they are in no way accurate measures.
I won't argue whether Fresno is truly the stupidest city or not by their measures, or even by any measures. What I will argue is whether this is truly a reasonable comparison. First of all, one should recognize that Fresno is primarily an agricultural area. This means that vast portions of our population are field workers or work by packing the produce. These jobs do not need degrees, and trying to change that would be ridiculous.
More to the point, I am intensely disgusted with any person who looks down their nose at another person simply because of their work. Some people may enjoy the feeling of smug superiority over a field-worker, but just as quickly whine about how hot it is when they exit their air conditioned vehicle. Do they imagine the produce magically floats from the fields to the supermarket shelves? Field work is backbreaking labor, and is sometimes much more technical than we may realize.
These attitudes are among the reasons that the children of field workers despise the work their parents do, and instead turn to gangs and drugs. They have been taught that intelligence is the ultimate trait, and money the ultimate goal in life. Since they have neither they feel a sense of hopelessness.
For the record, I take issue with anyone who assumes that educational level is the same thing as intelligence. A person who has completed an advanced degree is not automatically smarter than an illiterate African bushman. The bushman may not have the tools to survive in an industrialized society, but neither would a PhD allow a person to survive one second longer in the deep Kalahari.
Can we all just put aside our petty aspirations of superiority. Why not just accept that each worker has a part to play and is important in their own right.