disoriented

My Red State is turning Blue

One of the endearing things about living in a Red State is all of the quaint customs that we can share with our Blue State friends. One fall day, I took my family for a drive up by the Mississippi River to watch the fall colors along the bluffs. We were driving through a small town and I told my daughter that this was one of those towns that was so small people would stop their cars in the middle of the street to talk to one another. She thought I was pulling her leg. No sooner had we come out of a convenience store than she saw two cars stopped in the middle of Main Street with the drivers chatting through the open windows. Try to explain that to someone from New York or L.A.

Another Red State mainstay are the State and County Fairs. These agricultural exhibitions are held every summer in counties all across the country. At the fair you will see livestock displays, homegrown produce, all sorts of contests, from photography to quilting and a wide variety of entertainment. There will be local talent shows, barbershop quartets, and nationally known acts. The fairgrounds usually has a grandstand that can host rodeos, tractor pulls, auto races or music concerts. The Fair also comes complete with a carnival midway. You can throw a baseball with a radar gun, have your age guessed and ride a Ferris wheel all in the same place.

Of course it would not be a state fair without the food. In Iowa, our state fair is known for it's corn dogs, funnel cakes and pork chop-on-a-stick. You can eat your way from on end of the fair to the other.

One of the most curious customs associated with these fairs, especially in Iowa is the selection of the Pork Queen and her court.

Each year the Iowa Pork Producers crowns a young woman the Iowa Pork Queen. Now this is not a contest for obese women who have eaten their way across the fair. In fact most of the winners are normally sized. Becoming Pork Queen is a big deal, it is competitive and if you win it is something you put on your resume.

The photo attached to this post is of a Pork Princess (I guess, someone has to die or abdicate for her to become queen.) Actually, I took the picture at a parade last summer. The young lady in the white dress is the county Pork Princess. She is one of ten statewide finalists for Pork Queen.

The Iowa Pork  Queen is a spokesman for the Pork industry and agriculture in general. She will make the rounds and do public affairs presentations on behalf of the Pork Producers. In 1990 the Pork Queen got pied in the face by a PETA activist protesting animal slaughter.

Unfortunately during this week's Iowa Pork Congress a tradition my be coming to an end. Bowing to gender-equity issues (and presumably not wanting to have a male pork queen) the Pork Producers are considering a revolution of sorts to do away with the Pork Queen. Unlike Marie Antoinette, she'll be able to keep her head — she'll just become one of a group of androgynous Pork Ambassadors.

I don't know how I'll sleep tonight knowing that none of my daughters can ever become, Iowa Pork Queen.

Mad at MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving)

No organization has done more to combat drunk driving in this country than Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). MADD has been active in publicizing the dangers of drunk driving. MADD has done extensive education to encourage teenagers to not drive drunk. MADD has been active in lobbying both federal and state legislatures to strengthen drunk driving laws. MADD has been active with law enforcement in championing aggressive targeting of drunk drivers.

Like MADD, the dis-oriented author believes in strict enforcement and strong  penalties for those who drive drunk. In fact I would go so far as to suggest that there should be no criminal difference between driving drunk and injuring or killing someone while driving drunk. The thinking is that the punishable act is making the decision to drive while drunk. Once a person has gotten behind the wheel while impaired — whether they kill someone is simply a matter of chance. I am not expert in blood alcohol level and impairment, but I would suggest a graded system:

< 0.08 No Penalty 0.08 - 0.10 Minimum 6 months to 5 years prison > 0.10 Minimum 5 years to 10 years prison

The problem the dis-oriented author has with MADD is that, in spite of all the good work they do, MADD advocates positions that violate our constitutional rights in the interest of curbing drunk driving.

The new year is 24 days old. 25 days ago on New Years eve, I was faced with a dilemma. I was driving to pick up my son after a Church Youth Group activity. It was after midnight and the local police were out in force. The dilemma was this, if I were stopped at a sobriety checkpoint what would I do?

If I were driving erratically and the officer stopped me because I displayed behavior giving him reasonable cause to believe I were drunk — that would be one thing. I have no problem with officers acting upon cause in performing a stop. The issue is random stops.

The Fourth Amendment reads:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Therefore is is a violation of my civil rights for a police officer to pull me over and ask me to walk the line without probable cause. So if such an action is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment, why is the dis-oriented author so concerned? Because the courts seem to be on a mission to erode our constitutional rights. Random stops of individuals however are still found by courts to be illegal so I should probably not worry.

The Fourth Amendment is critical because it prevents the government from simply randomly arresting people to see whether they might be guilty of a crime.

The real issue is the so-called sobriety checkpoints where all vehicles are stopped and drivers subject to scrutiny and possibly field sobriety testing. The logic (or rather illogic) still floors me. The Supreme court decided in MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF STATE POLICE v. SITZ that while it is illegal to violate an individual's rights by performing random stops — the police can violate everyone's rights by stopping everyone.

Furthermore, MADD in their literature for law enforcement states that:

... checkpoints often also result in the arrest of drivers for other offenses such as driving with a suspended license or carrying weapons. ... checkpoints are the most effective general deterrence enforcement tactic available to law enforcement officers today.

So without probable cause a checkpoint becomes a fishing expedition for all sorts of criminal behavior. Things have gotten so out of kilter that law enforcement officers have attempted to use exiting the highway after seeing a sign warning of a sobriety checkpoint as probable cause that you are DUI! Fortunately the Supreme Court overturned that fiasco in US v. HUGUENIN AND MARTIN.

If it were not for the heart wrenching and effective advertising campaign by MADD, we would never put up with this intrusion of government on our civil rights. I agree with MADD that we must find a way to crack down on drunk drivers. But I am not willing to throw out the Fourth Amendment to do so.

So, what happens if I get pulled over at a sobriety checkpoint? I honestly do not know. As a citizen of the United States of America, I should not have to think about what  I will do when the government comes for me.

[Note: The only alcohol the dis-oriented author does not even drink alcoholic beverages — his interest in this subject is strictly from a civil liberties point of view.]

Why can't our schools teach math?

Ask anyone with a degree in mathematics what they would do if they won the lottery and this is what you are likely to hear:

First the lottery is a tax on people who can't do math. But if they were to play and win, a surprising number of them would retire and take up second careers as elementary math teachers.

Of course, the dis-oriented author doesn't have statistical evidence of these results — only anecdotal evidence based on being himself a mathematics major and asking this question of others. Even so, it warrants an inquiry.

Why would math people dream of teaching elementary mathematics? Is it because of the elementary teachers who did so much to encourage us? Could it be that an elementary teacher first opened our eyes to the wonder of  mathematics and that started us on a path through school, university and into life beyond?

Unfortunately no, to a man, the mathematicians I have spoken to dream of teaching elementary school mathematics because their elementary math teachers were so uniformly bad. 

I was fortunate, I had many excellent teachers who had a lasting impact on my life. My children, who have at various times bee in Homeschool, private school or public schools have also had some truly great teachers. I look back at my high school, Math, French, Humanities and Language Arts teachers. They helped me to see the magic in their subject matter. I went on and graduated with a university degree in mathematics and I still dabble in French, History, Speech and writing. These teachers had a profound effect on my life and I am grateful.

Unfortunately there are few Mr. Hollands or Jaime Escalantes teaching math in our elementary schools. Middle school is often not much better. Few elementary teachers are math experts. Most are reading specialists yet they are the ones who provide the primary science and math education for almost all K-6 students. Very few schools have math specialists in K-6. Unfortunately, by the time students reach Middle School, they are already unprepared to learn any mathematics and pre-disposed to consider the subject geeky.

One of my wife's special gifts to our family is that she loves (and knows) children's books. She reads to the kids all the time, classics like Louisa May Alcott and various Caldecott Award Winners. She makes reading come alive for them and when they are old enough they can't keep their hands off of books. She has instilled in them a love of reading that will enrich them throughout their lives. I also know that there are teachers out there in public and private schools who do the same with their students,

Can you imagine an elementary teacher teaching reading and never having her class read books, or poems, or plays? The entire class would be on basic skills like phonics. Students would learn how to read but have no sense of awe at where reading could take them. Students would know how to read and form sentences, but never appreciate Horton Hears a Who or Stuart Little or even Where the Wild Things Are.

No one consciously teaches reading this way. But this is precisely how mathematics is usually taught in our nation's elementary schools. Students start by memorizing arithmetic facts and never really see how they can apply to anything in their lives.

The problem is that most elementary school teachers are simply not qualified to teach mathematics. I went to a university with a large college of education. To make some extra money, I tutored students who were taking Math for the Elementary Teacher. What I saw then was frightening. Many of these students could not do much more than basic arithmetic — even long division was difficult. When it came to anything remotely advances like number systems and bases or simple geometry — well, that's why they needed me.

These students were for the most part caring committed professionals. But they were being sent into the field unprepared for the task ahead of them. If we are serious about improving our children's math skills then we must demand competent mathematics instruction from the start.

I understand that not every child will become a mathematician but for those who could, the present system is a sure route to mediocrity — we can do better.

 

The Two Iraqs Pt II: Iraq as post-war Japan or Germany

In this second of two posts on Iraq apologetics, the dis-oriented author finds himself disagreeing with his conservative brethren.

I agree that we must now stay the course -- we cannot afford to cut and run. History, they say, has already given us a successful example. Or rather two examples: the American Revolution and the postwar reconstruction of Germany and Japan.

In this post, I will look at how the founding of Iraq is like (or rather not like) the rebuilding of post-war Japan or Germany.

Likewise, the dis-oriented author believes that Iraq has little in common with the reconstruction of Japan. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan again:

My conservative brethren would have you believe that Paul Brenner is the modern-day Douglas MacArthur. Well, I knew Douglas MacArthur and Mr. Brenner - you are no Douglas MacArthur.

Iraq has little in common with Germany or Japan. In Germany and Japan we fought an all-out war. On the homefront we were united. Roosevelt declared that there would be no return to status quo ante — only a total victory over the axis would suffice.

In Iraq we have believed our own press releases. We act as if we can fight a surgical war and win. Our troops are facing an insurgency that decapitates prisoners and blows up civilians and soldiers alike.

John Kerry wanted to wage a more sensitive war. No wonder he lost — we are already waging a more sensitive war under George W. Bush. In this so-called war we are trying to defeat the Iraqis and at the same time not offend their sensibilities.

In Germany and Japan we waged total war. We did not attempt to inflict civilian casualties indiscriminately. However the strategic situation in both the Pacific and European theaters caused us to deliberately bomb civilian targets.

In Germany, even with the famous Norden Bombsite, allied forces felt that it was necessary (albeit controversial) to target large civilian populations to break Germany's will and industrial base. Air Marshal Harris executed the plan that entailed using incendiary bombs against what today we would call soft targets. Specifically housing blocks and residences. This bombing reached its apex with the near total destruction of the German city of Dresden.

In Japan of course, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki targeted large numbers of civilians and brought the world into the atomic age. The debate continues but Harry Truman felt it necessary to beat Japan into submission and the A-bomb did just that. There was a legitimate fear that an invasion of the Japanese mainland would result in 1,000,000 American casualties. Since we as a nation were in a total war, there was little discussion about Japanese casualties.

In Iraq, we have fought with one hand behind our back. We did not declare war and after sending troops many in congress vacillated on supporting them. We have tried to limit civilian casualties so as not to be seen as an invader or aggressor. We hoped to be viewed as a liberator. Unfortunately we have employed rules of engagement that often limit the ability of our troops to protect themselves. Even in the recent attacks on terrorist stronghold Falujah, we tried to refrain from killing civilians or blowing up mosques.

I was talking to a friend who was in Iraq shortly after the invasion, he told me how much the Iraqi (Shiite) people welcomed his unit and the aid they received. Unfortunately since we have been unable to provide adequate security in certain areas of the country, this affection has turned to contempt.

Yes we were able to impose a government on Germany and Japan but only after we had beaten them into submission. Can you imagine General Douglas MacArthur putting up with Japanese insurgency on the scale we face it in Iraq?

The Two Iraqs Pt I: Iraq as a new American Revolution

The dis-oriented author often finds himself acting as a conservative apologist. But in the case of the non-war in Iraq, I find myself in the politically  uncomfortable but intellectually honest position of disagreeing with my conservative brethren.

The evolution of the causis belli is troubling. First the rationale was to invade to because Sadaam's Weapons of Mass Destruction were a threat. More recently the party line has been that we went no Iraq to free the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator.

I agree that we must now stay the course -- we cannot afford to cut and run. History, they say, has already given us a successful example. Or rather two examples: the American Revolution and the postwar reconstruction of Germany and Japan.

In this post, I will look at how the founding of Iraq is like (or rather not like) our own American revolution.

Iraq has little in common with the American Revolution. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan:

My conservative brethren would have you believe that Iyad Alawi is his nation's Thomas Jefferson. Well, I knew Thomas Jefferson and Mr. Alawi - you are no Thomas Jefferson.

The leaders of the American Revolution were Americans. Only after entreating the king to give them a voice in Parliament - their rights as Englishmen - only then did they seek redress through arms.

In the early stages leading up to hostilities, men like Madison and Adams were drafting state constitutions that would serve as a model for the U.S. Constitution. These men were the leaders of an American enlightenment. They were philosophers, jurists, agronomists, scientists and statesmen. Militarily, they waged a war of attrition against a superior force.

Only after years of fighting for their own freedom, did the colonists receive the help from the French that ended the war. Our founding fathers formed this new nation through their own vision, courage and blood.

The Iraqis, on the other hand, are having democracy thrust upon them. Their new nation if successful will also have been bought with American blood.

The only similarity I see is between the Iraqi insurgents and our founding fathers. General Washington understood that by prolonging the war - they could make it so costly that Britain would sue for peace.

The insurgents understand that they cannot win on the battlefield. But they apparently believe believe that by terrorizing the Iraqi people and increasing the death toll among U.S. Forces, they can win their war of attrition. Who knows, it worked for the Viet Cong.

Why Kerry Lost the Election

I have spent the last three weeks in California. Last year I think I made someone mad at the home office. I spent all of last January in tropical hotspots like Ontario and Nova Scotia. This year I spent three weeks in January in southern California. Of course it rained the whole time, there were boulders in the highway, floods, and mudslides — it makes Canada look pretty good.

But California still is the left coast. It is the politics that make California unique. California is the land of the ballot initiative, recalls and Governor Arnold.

I was driving in a parking lot and I saw this bumper sticker and now I know why why John Kerry lost the election.

[The bumper sticker reads: "In an arranged marriage with John Kerry — Still in love with Howard Dean"]

I was in Iowa during the caucuses and I remember the Deaniacs. I watched them in their orange toques [ski caps] in threes braving the cold. Dean was the darling of the Democrats. His people seemed to be everywhere, but then came the scream. And in a a flash, the Dean campaign was over.

Soon John Kerry became the party candidate. But throughout the campaign it was hard to find anyone who really believed in John Kerry. One of my close Democrat friends could only say, "anybody but Bush."  And during the campaign not only could Kerry not stand on a position but on the one thing where he had an opportunity to differentiate himself he blew it.

Kerry voted to support the invasion of Iraq. Worse, during the campaign after the invasion, John Kerry said that  he too would have invaded Iraq, only he would have done it better.  The reason John Kerry was not inaugurated today is because he failed to capture the imagination of his followers. Opposition to Bush was not sufficient to carry the day.

As a conservative Republican, looking ahead to the 2008 elections I am worried. None of the candidates that seem to be vying for early front-runner status in the Republican party are conservatives. Romney, Giuliani, McCain seem to be the early leaders (and Arnold would be if not for the Constitution).

I fear that we conservatives in 2008 will be like the Deaniacs in 2004. Opposition to Hillary will not be enough to carry the day if Rudy is on the top of the ticket.

Why can't girls do math?

Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers found himself in the middle of a controversy this week.  According to the Boston Globe:

The president of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, sparked an uproar at an academic conference Friday when he said that innate differences between men and women might be one reason fewer women succeed in science and math careers. Summers also questioned how much of a role discrimination plays in the dearth of female professors in science and engineering at elite universities.

At this point MIT Biologist and Harvard alumnus, Nancy Hopkins could take no more. She got up and left saying that if she had stayed, she would have "either blacked out or thrown up."

When I first heard of Summer's remarks, I could scarcely believe my ears. I thought of my own daughters, one of whom is gifted in mathematics, and I was upset.

The more I think about it, the less sure I am.

My first reaction was exactly like that of Ms. Hopkins, "How could he say such a thing."

The dis-oriented author himself graduated with a degree in mathematics. Therefore, I have seen the anecdotal evidence (or lack of evidence) about women in mathematics. When I was in college, we alternately called the engineering building, Chinatown or The Monastery.

I rarely had a math or computer class with more than two women in it — most had none. On the other hand one of the best math professors I had was a woman who had gotten her Ph.D. in the fifties when it was practically unheard of. Even today as a computer consultant and trainer, it is rare that even 10 percent of my students are women.

So why is this so?

I have long believed that it is because in our culture, women are not encouraged to study mathematics or science. I assumed that  this combined with the limited opportunities for women to earn tenure in math and sciences contributes to the problem.

There is a shortage of women professors and combined with the current trend towards affirmative action the situation is getting desperate out there. I  recall my own university days when a woman showed up for a search committee session, we almost automatically assumed that she would choose a larger more prestigious school because everyone was trying to fill a quota.

No one denies that there is a shortage of women in math and the sciences. But the question is why.

The debate comes back to nature vs nurture. I find it hard to believe that women cannot excel in math to the same degree that men do.

But the debate is not about what I (or anyone else) believe or would prefer. We have reached such an extreme of political correctness that it is taboo to even suggest certain hypotheses.

Perhaps there are innate differences between men and women that explain why so few women pursue careers in math or science. But if we castigate anyone who asks the questions — how do we expect to find the answers.

Even the Red States are Crazy

According to the Quad City Times of Iowa (a red state):

A southeast Iowa lawyer has appealed a judge's decision to dismiss a lawsuit that asked the state to give driver's licenses to a Mexican couple who are in the country illegally.

The suit has been filed on behalf of a pair of illegal aliens currently living in Des Moines, Iowa.  The couple had been given $1000 in traffic fines in a single weekend.  The argument is that they were singled out because they were illegal aliens. Therefore, denying them the privilege to drive denies them equal protection and is therefore a violation of their Constitutional Rights.

Rights? What rights? I can enumerate the rights that we should grant to illegals:

• Humane treatment while imprisoned
• Swift deportation

On September 11th 2001, this nation was attacked. Now more than ever, it is important that we take seriously the security of  our borders. Recently, the Mexican government has been giving its citizens advice on how to cross illegally into the United States. You can check out a copy of the pamphlet online. Even the Bush administration policies have encouraged illegal immigration through the president's guest worker policies.

This case is particularly onerous because it is yet another attempt to get the court to do what the legislature will not — issue Driver's licenses to illegal aliens.

The dis-oriented author is not opposed to immigration, he simply believes that those who come to this country must obey it's laws. To give special privileges to those who enter illegally is an insult  to those who wait patiently to  legally enter and become a part of our society.

Those who flaunt the law should not then appeal to it for protection.

Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914, David McCullough

Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough is a chronicle of one of the greates engineering feats of all time, the Panama Canal. McCullough's book is a fascinating story of both the technical and social challenges faced and overcome in the building of the canal.

I learned a great deal about the canal. I was not aware that the canal had been started by the French. Or that the extent of the failure of the French canal company. Nor did I know that  Panama had been a province of Columbia and how the United States and a Frenchman had played a role in bringing about Panamanian independence.

Finally, the story is a triumph of American ingenuity and determination — where the French failed, the Americans triumphed.

I was a high school junior when President Carter signed the treaty giving control of the Canal Zone back to Panama. Th final handover of the canal occurred at the end of the millennium on December 31, 1999. I didn't know much about the canal at the time. I had always believed that the canal had been an American endeavor from the start. At the time, treaty opponents said that the canal was an American invention built with American blood, sweat and tears. After reading McCullough's book I think the truth is somewhere in the middle.

The first survey of a possible canal route through Panama was ordered by Charles I of Spain in 1534. The Emperor Napoleon III of France considered a canal project in the mid 19th century. But it took a private citizen, a Frenchman, Ferdinand de Lesseps to begin the canal. De Lesseps was a French diplomat from a storied family. He had built the Suez Canal. De Lesseps was one of the greatest Frenchman of his time, he was a member of the French Academy, the Academy of Sciences and held the highest rank in the Legion of Honor.

De Lesseps had a dream of a canal at Panama, a French canal. And for de Lesseps especially, the dream was a sea-level canal like the one at Suez. De Lesseps went to Panama to build a canal, and he took with him the hopes and dreams of a nation. His company raised money from small investors all over France and on him lay their hopes.

As it turns out the French were not prepared for the scope of the work. The rain, the jungle and disease eventually beat the French into submission.

Eventually, the Americans took over the work. The new American team was eventually headed by a railroad engineer named John Stevens. Stevens brought in a string of railroad men to oversee the work but more importantly he gave his chief physician, Dr. Gorgas free rain to combat the malaria and yellow fever that had plagued the project. Gorgas understood that both diseases were mosquito-borne. He used a nearly unlimited budget to eradicate mosquitoes from the construction zone. Eventually it would be said that there were no bugs at all in the canal zone.

Theodore Roosevelt took a personal interest in the work. Eventually Stevens angered Roosevelt and resigned.

The next chief was a military engineer, Colonel George Washington Goethals. Goethals ran the canal zone like a military operation. He finally underst0od that the canal would have locks and not be cut at sea level. Goethals did what it took and brought the canal to completion.

The majority of the workers, the unskilled laborers came from the West Indies. While Goethals, improved life in the canal zone, almost all of that improvement was felt by the white workers. The West Indians lived in much different conditions. On the other hand the laborers were paid much more than they could ever earn at home and the company stores sold goods well below their normal cost. They were also among a very select minority, even the laborers had complete health coverage.

After reading this book I want to take a cruise through the canal.

The Path Between the Seas gets 5 of 5 dis-oriented smileys

Purchase The Path Between the Seas from Amazon.com.

Stranger in a Strange Land

One of the downsides to living in a small town is that there are relatively few good restaurants. The small town being in the middle of a red state means that there are no ethnic restaurants. Of course there are a few Chinese restaurants but my community has only two Thai places and only one sushi bar (unless you count the combined Chinese/Japanese places with small sushi bars.)

The dis-oriented author spent five years as a restaurant manager before becoming an IT professional.

So as a business traveler, one of  the real treats of being on the road is getting to spend time in communities with a vibrant restaurant culture. I love going to places like New York or San Francisco and exploring new restaurants.

This week, I am in Cerritos, California, a Los Angeles suburb with a different Asian restaurant on each corner.

I especially enjoy Filipino food. My mother is from Guam and our family lived there for a few years when I was in Junior High School. Filipino food reminds me of the food from Guam. Filipino food includes hearty stews and a wide variety of fish dishes. Filipino cooking also involves a lot of pork including my favorite Filipino dish, lechon. Lechon is a roast pig cut up into small cubes and served dry or with a thick liver sauce. (I know, liver sauce does not sound appetizing but it is.)

This week I visited a Filipino restaurant chain that I know from my previous travels, Goldilocks. Goldilocks, is a restaurant from the Philippines that has stores in the US and Canada. In the Philippines, Goldilocks is known primarily as a bakery. In the states it provides not only baked goods but traditional Filipino cooking.

This week I was in Goldilocks for lunch. The place was crowded  and I felt a little self-conscious when I realized that mine was the only white face in the place. What a minute, I realized that mine is not a white face. I have lived most of my life in the midwest with a largely homogeneous white population and for the most part I think of myself as white. It was only in this environment surrounded by other Asian and Pacific Island people that I realized that I am in fact not white. My face was just like every other face in the place. In fact the guy behind the counter first addressed me in Tagalog until he realized that I only spoke English.

Actually I look more like a Samoan football player or perhaps a Japanese-Hawaiian sumo wrestler than anything else. But as I look in the mirror or look at my parents or sibling's faces, I realize that I am not ethnically white. I am brown. What I rally am is culturally white.

I grew up in a white community where I was accepted, not in spite of my color but rather, without regard to my color. My friends were all white, my neighbors were almost all white. My classmates were almost all white. I t never dawned on me that I was any different than anyone else.

It is funny that even now as an adult I feel most different when I am in a group where I am the same as everyone else.