http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/27/dea...nnovation.html
I've had to listen to speeches like this one from Dean for close to 2 decades. How do the plans in St. Louis jive with that? Have all of Dean's speeches been a joke? Does FIRST even believe in the things they say? What is FIRST celebrating in St. Louis? The accomplishments of 400 FRC teams, or a celebrity rock star? Take a look at some excerpts from the link above:
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Celebrating Celebrity
It's not what our country doesn't have enough of, supply, it's what we have too much of compared to the rest of the world. Our kids are constantly barraged by nonsense. They are constantly barraged by every kind of bigger-than-life role model who comes from one of two places--the NBA or Hollywood. It's the only culture in the world where kids by the time they are 5 or 6 years old, they all know who Britney Spears is, and Paris Hilton is, and Shaquille O'Neal is.
And then after spending eight hours a day, five days a week in school learning, you say to any kid on the street here, "Can you tell me the name of a single, living, famous, scientist, engineer or inventor?" And they can't. Well in the free culture, you get what you celebrate. If we don't celebrate these things, why are you going to get kids to put their time, their energy and their passion towards those things? So whether they're inner-city kids with no resources or yuppie kids with more than is reasonable, they'll all bounce a ball four hours a day because it's their way out. They're all going to be the next NBA star because it's cool.
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I think if the country could prove somehow that some foreign government was able to so radically undermine the perspectives and goals of the kids in this country as to create the generation that we've now got moving up, we would hunt them down and kill them for treason. Instead, we've got Hollywood and the NBA unwinding this country. We're doing it to ourselves. But the bottom line first I think is invention. Create an opportunity for kids to get together with serious adults in a meaningful way where there's content but it's still as much fun and as exciting as a football game or a rock concert. That's the invention. The innovation occurs if the invention finds its way into the culture and changes what we do.