Author: marc (Page 34 of 60)

In the room at the entry of my parents’ house sits an antique desk dating to the turn of the last century. On this desk sits a brass lamp, not quite so old. On the base of this lamp is a brass plate congratulating its original owner for some achievement or other in the year 1922. What is of interest? After more than 90 years, the original bulb yet burns. That is what I thought of when I read a posting at David Frum’s blog from his friend John Gardner entitled A Snowball’s Chance of Economic Recovery. The author says he has an epiphany while looking at still functioning decorations from Christmases long past:

Christmas lights that are over half a century old and still working. A couple of Snowballs and their successors, the GE Lighted Ice (small pieces of plastic on top of a colored bulb giving an overall impression of ice) give out every year, but the vast majority go on. Cool to the touch and providing a soft light, they are close to the ideal light for a natural tree. Of course, they were made in the United States.
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An economy based on planned obsolescence or rapid turnover of items of poor quality may generate more sales, at least in the short run; an economy based on quality will endure. Some companies in a variety of industries are (re)discovering this, but their range is too often limited, either by region or by cost. The true genius of postwar General Electric and so many other icons of American industry was that real quality at a reasonable cost was available for the masses – and made here at home.

Light bulbs that last decades are hardly an innovation. But how would our societal philosophy change if we made cars to last essentially forever? This would require serious systems engineering from the drawing board on, but it already done with aircraft. Aircraft are engineered with ease-of-maintenance as a key design factor. Items that are destined to wear out are replaced at specified times. Why is this not done with cars? I suppose some idiots want the “freedom” to get cheap shit from China and replace it all time and again. For those with no foresight, the enormous downstream cost is worth it in “right now” dollars.

I recently began rereading McPherson’s book of essays on the Civil War “This Mighty Scourge.” Of interest was a theme I noticed from William Tecumseh Sherman’s memoirs a few months ago. Then, as now, the fourth estate was a tool for both good and ill. While every American soldier dating back to the days of the powdered wig has considered himself to be fighting for the cause of freedom, I wonder how many fail to appreciate the value of the “free press.” Surely the freedom of the press should fit nicely with their image of a free society. Why, then, is the press depicted so negatively in so many war movies.

I recall holding a clear contempt of the press in general the day I saw “Hamburger Hill.” That movie proffered a heroic speech by some low-level non commissioned officer castigating a reporter for his reporting. Included in the tirade (as I recall, to be fair, though, I have not seen this movie in a couple of decades) was the implication that fair reportage was tantamount to treason. Well, McPherson gives a description of the love/hate relationship of the Civil War soldier and his voraciously consumed print media. It would seem that Sherman’s opinions on the subject were quite representative of the opinions of the entire U.S. Army during the same time frame.

It depressed me a bit that the ostensible object of primary importance is very often compromised in favor of security. I am further reminded that, in bullshit stylized retellings of stories such as “Braveheart,” characters like William Wallace probably knew appreciably less about the concept of freedom than his mostly illiterate defenders. Indeed, the statement that “[T]hey will never take our freedom!” is a bit sillier when you realize that it is technically true. Given that that group of people had never possessed freedom certainly precludes freedom being taken. Similarly, in “300,” we see the supposed rush to defend the democratic state (or collection of states). Do the worshipers of such tripe fail to acknowledge that Sparta was about as distant from the Enlightenment values as it was possible to be? Freedom as we now know it is a product of the French Enlightenment (and, the real key event in the earthshaking change that followed, the American Revolution). The grand document in which Enlightenment values are forever carved is, indeed the U.S. Constitution. Even then, it took bloody wars and civil unrest to bring many of the concepts to full fruition.