Why Does John McCain Hate Planetariums?

Okay, so I’ve officially gone from admiration to mere respect, and now to plain dislike of John McCain. He made my list for the following point about Barack Obama in Tuesday night’s debate:

He voted for nearly $1 billion in pork barrel earmark projects including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?

All I could think was, Oh he did not just go there.

But it’s true. In fact, McCain has previously refered to Planetariums as “foolishness.”

Adler Planetarium, Chicago IL Credit: Shoppingdiva

How can you be against Planetariums??? Planetariums never did any wrong to anybody!!! In fact, just the opposite! Planetariums have coaxed countless young urban minds out of their heads and inspired them with the awe and majesty of the universe. I still have the starmap I got during one of my childhood visits to the Planetarium.

For someone who has to overcome public concerns over his technological illiteracy, John McCain’s calling the Adler Planetarium’s state-of-the-art multimedia system an “overhead projector” is a huge misstep.

Adler Planetarium Projector (Not an Overhead Projector) Credit: Meironke

Maybe John McCain’s thinking of his own childhood visits to the planetarium, when it was just people making shadow puppets with their hands by candlelight. Today’s planetariums are like IMAX on crack. I paid $10 for a 20-minute show at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum’s planetarium, and it completely blew my mind. I am certain Senator McCain hasn’t been in one of these new planetariums, because, if he had, he wouldn’t be such a grumpy-butt trying to deny the rest of us the pleasure of attending them.

Credit: msmail

This is not the first time McCain has judged science through the filter of his own ignorance. In the first presidential debate, McCain attacked a study of Bear DNA as pork-barrel politics, remarking, “I don’t know if it was a paternity issue or criminal, but it was a waste of money.”

Actually, it was evaluating the endangered status of one of America’s largest mammals. Refusing to support science to protect America’s environment undermines McCain’s assertions that he is a Teddy Roosevelt Republican–one of the greatest Environmentalists this country’s history. Teddy created the National Park Service, what’s McCain offering to live up to that legacy?

America’s superiority in science and technology are what has made us the shining example for the world for decades. Planetariums and science education are not foolishness. Somebody needs to tell McCain to stop hating on us Geeks and show some respect.