Douglas L. Ross - My Personal Reflections

In this recent blog post I said that I felt like we have a chance to actually have a President that we can be proud of no matter who won, McCain or Obama. I still feel that way in principle, so now we'll see if I was right. Despite the fact that I voted for McCain and I still think he was the better man, I join McCain in wishing President-elect Obama the very best. I pray especially that Obama and the country will be spared the kind of unprecedented trauma, through no fault of our own, that plagued President Bush from the outset. Personally, I don't really care that much about Obama's race but I can understand the sense of pride that most African-Americans have in this accomplishment. It's worth a moment of celebration, but very soon Obama will need to move on and show that he deserved it, not just from a misguided sense of entitlement that likely got him elected in the first place, but because he can lead us in sensible directions that we'll actually be proud of...

I'm very proud to report that my wife Joy was honored by the City of Alpharetta , Georgia for her efforts as a Trustee of the Alpharetta Historical Society and in historic preservation work for the city. Joy was among a group of Alpharetta residents who helped the city obtain recognition as a "Preserve America" city. Preserve America is a White House initiative in cooperation with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and in partnership with the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, and Transportation; U.S. General Services Administration; National Endowment for the Humanities; President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities; Institute of Museum and Library Services; and the President's Council on Environmental Quality.

We just returned from two wonderful weeks hiking and sightseeing in Yellowstone and Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I hadn't been to Yellowstone or the Grand Tetons since I was a kid, nearly fifty years ago and then only briefly. I had completely forgotten how awe inspiring those mountains are and how humbling it is to be a little flyspeck on that vast landscape. In addition to the fantastic scenery we were very lucky to see both Grizzly and Black Bears, Moose, Elk, Wolves, Eagles and lots of Buffalo. One of the Bear encounters was particularly exciting because we had to quickly jump into our car when the big Grizzly charged up a hill and went right behind our car. I snapped the picture below out the back window as the Park Ranger was yelling and we were diving into our car.

My son asked me what I thought about Sarah Palin for Vice President? I realized that I wasn't sure what I thought about it. So I thought about it. My first reaction was negative. Mainly, I questioned whether she really had the necessary experience to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. But that's really an issue that's being framed unfairly by a lot of false dichotomies from the liberal left who simply don't like her values or fear her popular appeal from the great-unwashed. For example, take Matt Damon's "finger on the trigger" question implying that someone that's dumb enough to have religious faith and to believe in a God's creation can't be trusted to have their finger on the trigger. When you really think about that you quickly realize that it rules out just about every President or Vice-President we've ever had. And besides that, the implication that a woman like Palin would be trigger-happy is ludicrous. The opposite is far m...

Prof. Wing at Carnegie Mellon coined the term "computational thinking." The term is actually a bit difficult to describe. Personally, I don't think even Prof. Wing has captured it's essence in a pithy phrase yet. For those who are familiar with computer science this definition resonates. Computational thinking involves solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior, by drawing on the concepts fundamental to computer science. Computational thinking is really about applying what mankind is learning by working with computers to the everyday problems of society. I particularly like the historical analogy that Prof. Wing uses to describe the potential significance of computational thinking. The analogy is to the invention of the printing press. The printing press had a profound affect on societal development by enabling wide spread dispersion of reading, writing, & arithmetic skills, and resultant development of problem solving, design and human...

According to professor David W. Galenson there's hope for us old guys who still want to make a contribution to society. I was listening to Dr. Galenson's lecture at an event where an organization called Civic Ventures was awarding The Purpose Prise to a group of baby-boomers who, unlike me, were taking on society's biggest challenges. It was inspiring. One of Galenson's insights that I thought was particularly interesting was this idea of two fundamentally different approaches to innovation; one the deductive "flash of brilliance" sort and the other the painstaking, gradual, cumulative, inductive sort that comes with the wisdom of a lifetime experience. He speaks of those of us in the later category feeling "stupid" in their youth at not being easily able to learn by the deductive method. This was my experience exactly and its somehow very encouraging to learn that I'm not alone.

Some people fit each other perfectly and are simply meant to be together. My uncle Kendall Ross and his beautiful bride Anna Rae Rowe were such a couple. Last year, after nearly sixty years of marriage, Kendal died and left Anna Rae alone for the first time in her life. It was incredibly sad and I simply cannot imagine how lonely she must have been. This past week Anna Rae died, essentially of a broken heart. We're sad that she's gone and we'll miss her very much but we're all convinced that she's in a better place now, reunited with the love of her life, her friend, her protector, her companion, her everything. They made our lives better; they helped us all grow up with a wonderful model of goodness and decency; they were both deeply respected in the community for their work ethic, their penchant for helping others and the devotion to God and the church; and they also taught us that you can be good but still have fun. Someone said once that the real measure of a p...