This election will be the last chance to shake things up for a while…. at least the next four years. Obama is inspiring, but he is also smart. His policies make sense.

I remain positive that the U.S. public will see the necessity to move in a new direction.

As summer ends, I find myself getting really sad that the boys will be back in school full-time. Granted, I have had a babysitter part-time all summer so I can do my nagging research; therefore, I can’t truly claim the title of “stay-at-home-mom.” That acknowledged, I think the hard part is Miles is starting Kindergarten. This means that I now have all my kids officially in school. Not “pretend” pre-school to make myself feel better about working, but they are in “real” school now. Summer has been great: days at the pool, staying up WAY past bedtime, eating junk food, and exploring. I guess I can’t really pinpoint exactly why I am so sad. I think it is that the time won’t come back again.

Once again, the presidential election boils down to untrue soundbites. The latest ad from the McCain camp misrepresents Obama. FactCheck.org did a good job breaking down Obama’s budget policy here. The scary part is this: most people will not check the facts or read about the issues.  Rather, they will listen to the dumbed-down soundbites on cable news channels. We all want to hear what speaks to our own ideological package—myself included.

I’m reading Hans Blumenberg’s essay “An Anthropological Approach to Rhetoric” at the request of an advisor. The request stems from my attempt to start the second of my three preliminary exam reading lists—the list in rhetorical theory. Anyway, I like this quote, among others in the text:

There is something like the expediency of what is not expedient. … Whatever time is saved is always immediately used up. We must increasingly abandon the idea of a model of education or culture [Bildung] that is governed by the norm that man must always know what he is doing. … Of course the circumstantiality that goes with the claim to know what one is doing is not in itself a guarantee of humane or moral insight, but as a pattern of delayed reaction it is potentially also a pattern of ‘conscious’ action.

I am working on finding theoretical links between rhetoric and the intellectual work I am pursing in biomedical ethics and predictive genetics. As of now, I am attracted to the idea of critiquing predictive genetics along the lines of a “critique of capital,” specifically, the use of human tissue as a transnational commodity; however, this approach has seemed much more “cultural studies” than “rhetorical studies.” Blumenberg’s essay is helping me find some links that may justify my project within my own disciplinary boundaries. That of course is the goal: fitting your dissertation through the hoop that is your discipline.

I’ve started to formulate (on a very early level) my reading list for the STC portion of my comprehensive exams next fall. I plan to do quite a bit of reading over the summer—and this list will definitely grow. To start, here are a few articles/books I am looking at:

• Zappen, James P. “Francis Bacon and the Historiography of Scientific Rhetoric.” Rhetoric Review 8 (Fall 1989): 74-87.

• Boas, Marie. The Scientific Renaissance 1450-1630. The Rise of Modern Science. 1962. New York: Harper Torchbooks Science Library-Harper, 1966.

• Whitney. Charles, Francis Bacon and Modernity New Haven: Yale UP, 1986

• Winner. Langdon. Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought. Cambridge: MIT P, 1977.

• Van den Daele, Wolfgang. “The Social Construction of Science: Institutionalisation and Definition of Positive Science in the Latter Half of the Seventeenth Century.” The Social Production of Scientific. Knowledge. Ed. Everett Mendelsohn, Peter Weingart, and Richard Whitley. Sociology of the Sciences: A Yearbook I. Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel, 1977. 27-54.

• Webster, Charles. The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine and Reform 1626-1660. London: Duckworth, 1975.

• Halloran, S. Michael, and Annette Norris Bradford. “Figures of Speech in the Rhetoric of Science and Technology.” Essays on Classical Rhetoric- and Modern Discourse. Ed. Robert J. Connor 179-92.

There is a lot more to come…but, I think this is an interesting start to poking around in areas of interest.