Carter and the UFO

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
21

Geepers! You sure are touchy Wendell. I never said, WAS the case, I said MIGHT be the case. Nor did I attach the concept of politics being involved. Perhaps you know Mr. Carter personally and over an expanse of time long enough to know the answer to such things. And then again perhaps you don’t or maybe it was related to you by someone else. Whatever the case, what else can one assume since you did not supply as to how you know these things.

I met the man once, though very briefly. He seemed like a nice man, but he didn’t come off as a braniac, but just a regular guy. And that, in its way, is refreshing. I also met some other politicos while at the SSC (a different time and local than the JC meeting), some were like meeting some friend’s dad, some were all business and yet some others made you think of the sterotypical used car salesman. All of which though is pretty much meaningless since it is “first impression”.

With regards to Jimmy Carter mistaking Venus (or whatever) for a UFO …

First of all I say “so what” since it isn’t really important. Many people mistake and misidentify things that they see, read, or hear. Especially when its after the fact that they are quizzed about it. Secondly what is the reliability of the story in the first place? Maybe it is JUST a story somebody decided to make up for some reason. I suppose if one wanted to take the time, one might be able to rebuke or validate the story. But, again, since I think its unimportant, I am not likely to be the one research it.

22

Flyfisher writes:

> Geepers! You sure are touchy Wendell.

If you consider that “touchy,” you’re not going to be very happy on this board. I was correcting your factual mistake (and in a fairly polite manner, I thought). If you don’t like having your mistakes corrected, the SDMB isn’t for you.

In any case, you didn’t say either that something was or might be the case (so I don’t understand that reference). You said that Carter didn’t strike you as a brainiac. In fact, he was one of the smartest and most well-read Presidents we’ve ever had. I don’t say that from my experience on having met him. (I heard him talk at a Habitat for Humanity fundraiser once. He gave a coherent talk, and I shook hands with him afterwards, but meeting him once doesn’t make me an expert on him.)

I was already an adult at the time Carter was elected, so I remember the news stories about him and his Presidency very well. It’s clear from everything I’ve read about him and about other Presidents during my lifetime that Carter was both smart and well-read. That’s been generally agreed to by people of many political persuasions who’ve written about him. It’s also clear that he wasn’t a good manager. You could argue about whether his political policies were very good.

23

I have received quite a bit of email lately from people who have mistaken Venus for a moving object just above them (one was from a military man describing a pilot who thought a UFO was perhpas 1000 feet overhead, and wound up chasing Venus).

People are amazingly unfamiliar with the sky. It’s rare for me to find people who know what a sundog is, let alone people have actually seen one. I’ve seen hundreds, maybe over a thousand, yet most people never notice the patches of light in the sky, even when they are obvious.

Many people are shocked when they find out they can see planets, and even man-made satellites. I’ll note that some satellites can be the third brightest objects in the sky, after the Sun and Moon.

If you are not familiar with the sky, mundane things (if you count planets, satellites and atmospheric phenomena as mundane) can seem extraordinary. That’s why I claim that if UFOs are real, amateur astronomers should see more of them than anyone, since they spend so much time looking up. Yet very few claim to have seen something they absolutely cannot explain.

My point is that even an educated fellow like President Carter can make the mistake of thinking that Venus is a spaceship. It happens all the time.

24

Holy moley! Perhaps your comprehension was just a tad lacking in this instance, eh?. With regard to whether people got into certain institutions of higher learning and how Jimmy Carter fit into that particular senario, I said “Maybe that is case involving Jimmy Carter.” Maybe means might or could be. Maybe in no way, shape or form indicates a certain thing.

Nor do I (or did I) claim to an expert on him either. However, though, he did seem like a nice person (which I did say). But what the hell does that mean? Not much really. MAYBE he could have been putting on a front or MAYBE not.

As for what you read in the papers; News stories generally have a slant to them based on the bias of the person writing it. So basically it is part fact, part opinion, and some details have been omitted due to being considered “not important to the story” or MAYBE some have been “invented”. So, while on that tact, have you happened to read how Jimmy has pissed off the current and last White House administrations on several occasions due to his actions promoting his ideas of foriegn policy though it conflicted that of the President at the time. Should he be doing that?

Depends, I suppose on the motivation. But at the same time it isn’t hard to see how it might tick off the administration at bat since it MIGHT put wrench in workings of their plans. My personal thinking is that such things are bad medicine. According to some things I’ve read, Bill Clinton was miffed on several occasions due to that. Is it true? It MIGHT be, but MAYBE it isn’t since you can’t believe every thing you hear, see, or read since the folks providing the “information” MIGHT have their own agenda.

Now for something more interesting …

Sundogs have probably seen by many people, they just didn’t know the label for it or what they were looking at. Which fits in with “People are amazingly unfamiliar with the sky” statement. I’ve seen quite a few of them (but not all at once) when “cursed” with the window seat on a commercial airliner.

I have always found it interesting that many people didn’t seem to have the faintest clue about the Moon, Sun, planets or couldn’t point out some of the more “popular” constellations like Orion or bright stars like Regulus or even Polaris. A junior high school science class I was in (many, many moons ago) covered these things … perhaps many of my fellow students were snoozing or didn’t have their “learning cap” on.

Over the years I have noticed that many people exhibit an indifference and lack of interest in such things. Perhaps these folks find “Ally McBeal” (TV in general) more to their taste interest wise. Educated or otherwise, you can’t make someone learn about that in which they have little or no interest (but you knew that).

25

Don’t rely on junior high school science classes. I’m not saying that you didn’t have a good class, but if so, it was entirely because of your teacher. There are exactly zero good science texts available below the high school level, and few enough in high school. The net result is that much of what Americans learn in elementary school science is just flat out wrong. I wouldn’t be surprised if many folks learned in their science classes that the planets aren’t visible to the naked eye, for instance. Heck, there are probably science classes which teach that the Moon isn’t visible to the naked eye: Certainly a lot of folks are surprised when they see it during the day.

26

Chronos, you could very well be correct in that, much has changed since 1968. Possibly the teacher of that class was more motivated than others. I just got through quizzing the nephew about that very thing a few weeks ago. According to him, even in his high school level science class they only “skimmed” the subject of the solar system. Seems rather sad that so little time would be spent on such. Do you teach or are involved in some way with teaching? Just curious, since you mentioned defective school science text books.

27

Flyfisher writes:

> With regard to whether people got into certain institutions of
> higher learning and how Jimmy Carter fit into that particular
> senario, I said “Maybe that is case involving Jimmy Carter.”

No, at no point did you use those words. Go back and read your original post. When you put words in quotes, they should be exact quotations.

> So, while on that tact, have you happened to read how Jimmy
> has pissed off the current and last White House administrations
> on several occasions due to his actions promoting his ideas of
> foriegn policy though it conflicted that of the President at the
> time. Should he be doing that?

What does that have to do with his intelligence or his erudition? I wasn’t arguing about his political policies. That’s a matter for Great Debates, not this forum. Whether he was smart or not and whether he was well-read or not is an objective matter, and all the news stories during his Presidency and since have agreed that he was both smart and well-read. All of them, even those by people who disagreed greatly with his politics.

So he wasn’t a very good President. That’s an entirely different thing. A Presidency is not an I.Q. test. It takes lots of other skills than high intelligence to be a good President. Carter was lacking in some of those skills. Regardless, he was smart and well-read.

28

Whatever, Wendell. Nevertheless methinks you need to work on your comprehension. And by the way, “Maybe that is case involving Jimmy Carter”, is an exact quote since I cut and pasted it (twice now) into my reply. You’re right about one thing though, great debates is the place for this continue.

29

O.K., excuse me. Now I see where you wrote, “Maybe that is case involving Jimmy Carter.” (In any case, it’s not true. Carter did not come from a well-off family.) Your posts are hard to read. You are clearly typing fast and not going back to proofread your posts. You leave out words occasionally and this makes them hard to understand. You complain about my misunderstanding your posts, but that’s what’s going to happen if you don’t edit your posts to make them clearer.

30

Sorry about the missing “bits” Wendell. There is evidently some level of dyslexia in getting info from the brain to the finger tips. Well, its either that or I think much faster than I can type, or maybe both. I wonder if the “multi-tasking” I have to do in my work is the cause? Sometimes I bounce back and forth on my work computer between reading stuff, doing CAD drawing, writing stuff and writing code.