Feeling Good or Doing Good...

Synchronicity: A screen capture of my Yahoo mail window includes this week's emailed Goldberg File accompanied by an ad for Boys & Girls Clubs. The ad is part of the Yahoo interface, not the emailed newsletter.

(Click the pic to see a larger version.

Then click the back button to read the rest of this post.)

The initial section of the File reads:

By now everyone knows about the NASA [chief] propeller-head who never seemed to think twice (until this week, at least) about the fact that he was hired to be the Stuart Smalley of remedial-math-and-science students in Sudan. "Listen up, little Muhammeds [sic], as the head of NASA, let me tell you: You're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it, we rocket scientists like you."

What I'm hoping is that Charles Bolden, a decorated Marine, just sucks at diplomacy and was basically making it up, because it's actually a little scary to imagine that the president of the United States actually told the chief administrator of NASA any such thing. Did he tell the head of the Social Security Administration to remind gays of their rich history of interior design and keen fashion sense? Has the poobah of OSHA been informed that his foremost priority is to buck up Chinese living abroad about their entrepreneurial achievements?

What's so weird about Bolden's statement is how condescending it is. It sounds like a compliment, but it's actually something of an insult. Bolden's charientism [link added-RP] can't possibly win him much good will from the Muslim world, because the people paying attention in the Muslim world already know about their scientific legacy and telling them that they've forgotten it really comes across as a lecture about how they aren't living up to it.

I mean, would it ever occur to Bolden to remind Israeli kids of the Jewish history of excellence in math and science?

Alas, that's not a very long list. Boston's not much of a college town, either. 

The ad reads "Be Great" while NASA's new charge appears to be "You were great once."

I suspect that we can expect much better from B&GC than NASA.

Are Yahoo ads synched with email content in the same way the Google ads are tied to key words in Blogspot posts?

For more of JG's NASA take: click.