[speaker001:] did you see in the newspaper or on the news when uh President Bush fainted at a dinner it was was that in Japan
[speaker002:] that was in Japan uh I didn't get to see that uh we've uh just gotten back yesterday from vacation
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] and so I was bumping up and down the highway in a camper and uh I didn't get to watch any television so I've just been finding out about this once I got back
[speaker001:] well I thought it was pretty scary I I missed it uh I mean I when they were rerunning rerunning it like the next day or something I mean I didn't hear about it on the day it happened but I it was interesting you know that when he fainted and every one kind of jumped up on the table and surrounded him and it's really amazing that that would happen and then of course all the Dan Quayle discussion comes up again
[speaker002:] yeah well I was kind of pleased that uh when I got back that that was the hot item on the news that uh the President had fainted at dinner because that means that nothing else happened anywhere in the world
[speaker001:] that's uh that is true that is real good well he you know as for as young as he is he seems to have had several health problems you know health uh incidences if not problems
[speaker002:] yeah well you need about three kids running around the house and uh you you'd have your share of health problem too
[speaker001:] right that's right well I um I guess I haven't really been I've been trying to tune out a lot of the political issues right now when because the campaigning is starting and uh so
[speaker002:] yeah well I think the key issue that's going on at the moment is the uh uh current economy
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and I think there's a lot of things that need to be done to to rectify that situation I'm not sure that the government is the key player
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] um
[speaker001:] it is scary
[speaker002:] I think one of the statements that was made uh a year ago by uh Gorbachev when he was announcing some of the problems that existed in the Soviet Union he made the comment he said well our country may be bankrupt but referring to the United States he says your schools are bankrupt
[speaker001:] yes
[speaker002:] and uh that's been a big concern for me and I noticed that uh when I go into the tougher courses at some of the universities like Organic Chemistry or something like that
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] that uh you don't find very many white American males taking the tough courses
[speaker001:] right they're foreign students
[speaker002:] you find you find a lot of Asian students uh you find uh a lot of females in the class
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and in all of the tough courses that I have taken the only blacks that I've found in the class have have generally been from Nigeria or some other African country they're foreign students
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] and it's I think it's kind of pathetic that uh our kids are not motivated to uh to study in depth and uh to take the hard courses and I'm I'm concerned that that is our economic problem not not how much money is being spent at Christmas time
[speaker001:] well they seem well that's really true and but I have noticed from uh my associations with teenagers in high school that they are really motivated by how much money they can make and when they hear on the news about people being laid off and uh you know corporations and things I mean I feel like they don't wanna make the effort out of um their own personal interests to follow a particular field or they wanna think you know how quickly can they make money
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and they're not attracted by the the work that has to be done to achieve uh you know a position like that
[speaker002:] yeah well I know when I went through school uh I went through an engineering school and of all my close friends they were all there because they loved engineering
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] they loved building things they loved solving problems uh they liked you know being creative and there was another group of students there that were there to be engineers because they heard that engineers made a lot of money
[speaker001:] right
[speaker002:] and we didn't mix very well you know there was a a total difference in attitude and we felt very isolated or uh discriminated against in not being you know separate classes in terms of attitude
[speaker001:] um-hum um-hum well you're right when you say that um the important issues need to be not so as much what's going on other places I mean that it's important for us to do I mean we we can't be isolated here but um you know we do need to pay more attention to our own economy and
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and our own civilization because we've seen how quickly and it's almost unbelievable the fall of the um Soviet Union and and the um Berlin Wall and all of that's almost unreal to me still
[speaker002:] yeah well that was a terribly precarious economy economy uh I've been kind of watching it over the years and observing that the the amount of bureaucracy over there