TOF and the Footpath

Many years ago, the TOFling desired himself to cross the campus quadrangle. It was called a 'quadrangle' because that sounds more academic even than rectangle. Furthermore, it can be nicknamed 'the Quad', whereas a rectangle's nickname is best left to the imagination. In any case, the Quad had been renovated, in the course of which labor paved footpaths had been laid leading from the classroom buildings on one side to those on the other side, students being anxious to travel quickly from class to class. Or to the cafeteria, which also lay on one side.

It did not take long before bare lines through the grass were worn from the tramp of many feet seeking different shortcuts than those allocated by the landscape planner.

Many years later when Interstate 78 was opened, a bridge was thrown across the Delaware. Happily, it landed on each side, thus providing egress from and ingress to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A billboard went up that read: Pennsylvania: America Begins Here. Now, the planners had intended this to mean 'begin' in a temporal sense-- Independence Hall, the Constitution, Valley Forge. But folks east of the Delaware, in New Jersey, took it in a spatial sense and took umbrage with it. "What are we," New Jerseyans cried, "chopped liver?" The answer to this being "Yes," not much more need be said.

But in pursuance of the beginnings of American, the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission, known as the DRJTBC, possibly the most unpronounceable acronym a quasi-government instrumentality even coined -- although admirable in its succinct descriptive nature -- placed a Visitor's Center at the toll bridge. (Someone had to pay for that bridge, and it may as well be those who use it.) This was situated in the lower level of the Commission building wherein the toll takers took their ease when not manning the booths. (Or womanning, in some cases. Or cousining in the case of TOF's cousin.)

To access this Visitor's Center, there was an exit ramp off the highway that led to the parking lot. The weary driver could collect brochures, de-vend a machine, rest in the rest room, and so forth. When leaving, the driver would pass through a stand-alone toll booth and rejoin the mighty flow of traffic. 

However, it soon became clear that the mighty flow of traffic consisted in large part of mighty tractor-trailers of impressive length, few of which stopped at Visitor Information Centers and were rolling on No-Doz much of the time anyway.

Consequently, the toll taker was more lonely than the Maytag Repairman and about a year after opening, the toll booth was closed and the entrance to the Visitor Center was moved to a hairpin turn immediately after the phalanx of toll booths by which people had to pay to leave New Jersey. See the map above for the layout. The old ramp, now blocked with a metal gate, is not shown.)

Planners gotta plan, but the one thing such Plans have in common is that they never work out according to Plan. The reasons are manifold. They usually involve people, and people are notorious for doing what they want and not what the planners expect. They also involve a static view of the universe, and assume that factors affecting the Plan will never change. That's why so many buildings and other public facilities get reworked shortly after opening. The road gets changed from one-way to two-way -- or vice versa. Facilities get repurposed to other uses. The grand entrance becomes a lobby devoid of receptionists, with a solitary telephone on what had been the reception desk whereby the visitor may announce himself to the proper extension number.

The TOF's hometown there is a cute custom of designating single blocks as one-way. Lincoln Street, for example, is two-way west to Folk St., whereupon it becomes one-way east-bound for a single block. On the next block west, it becomes one-way westbound for several blocks. There was a reason for it, one supposes; but TOF entertains the fantasy that at some point a block will be designated one-way that will result in all the traffic in the city converging on an intersection from which there is no legitimate egress. 

Surely, it will be a grand and glorious day when all health insurance is handled by the government -- actually by a single corporation favored by the government. There will be nothing wrong with that Plan, we are sure.

The only way to ensure that the Plan is followed is to enforce the following of it with penalties, fines, and rewards for good behavior. That's why socialist regimes always tend toward the authoritarian however much they might have consisted originally of Earnest Reformers anxious to replace the inequities of the existing system with the inequities of a new one.

The Olde Curmudgeon -- Chapter 8

...continued from Chapter 7.

Chapter 8. The Allegory of the Storage Tank Demurrage

When Jack Heller returned to his office, he found a stack of reports waiting for him.  One was the cost analysis of constructing a new storage tank.  It gave dollar figures for construction materials, contractor and subcontractor costs, delays caused by construction, and so on. 

Pump up the action!

What it did not give was any reason to suppose that the tank would solve the problem.  He toggled his screen to intercom.  "Molls, get a hold of Kelly in Purchasing.  Tell him I'd like a breakdown of demurrage costs by week for the past year.  I'd like it broken down by which chemical was involved, which carrier, which pumping station.  I think that will do for now.  I wouldn't mind knowing who was running the pump at the time, or what time of day it was; but those details might not be ready at hand."

"You got it boss," said Molly Colinvaux. "You think it might be clogged pumps or something like that?"

"I'm not going to guess ahead.  I just want to know the size and shape of this problem."

The Olde Curmudgeon -- Chapter 7

...continued from Chapter 6.

Chapter 7. The Allegory of the Check Sorting Process

"The Check Sorting Process...," said Jack.

"Yeah.  You remember checks," the old curmudgeon said. "They were rectangular pieces of paper on which people promised, no foolin', that they had the money in the back to cover a payment."

Jack scowled.  "I know what a check is."

"More like was.  It's like printing with ink on hot lead.  They were printing that way since Gutenberg, and in an instant it was all gone.  An entire industry, a whole technology.  Pfft."  He snapped his fingers.

"The allegory...?" Jack prompted.

The Olde Curmudgeon -- Chapter 6

...continued from Chapter 5.

Chapter 6. The Journey of a Thousand Miles

"I was hoping," Jack said, "that we would get back to that before I had to get back to the office.  So, tell me, Grumpy, how I can convince corporate to fund a new storage tank so I'll have enough capacity to off-load all the tank cars each month."

The old curmudgeon shook his head.  "It's all that salad you eat.  It goes to the head and turns it to cabbage.  Don't assume that the solution is a bigger storage tank until you've walked a mile in the symptom-cause-remedy shoes."

Jack scowled.  "Aren't you straining a metaphor there?"

"Best I could do.  I told you, you have to start from the symptoms.  The excessive demurrage."

The Olde Curmudgeon -- Chapter 5

...continued from Chapter 4.

Chapter 5. The Allegory of the Printing Plant

Old Number 9, a flatbed Miehle

You may think, the old curmudgeon told Jack, that the allegory of the printing plant involves a shrub who could not write cursive.  But although such a tale has a certain whimsical charm to it, our allegory is set more prosaically in a place that printed technical journals.  They produced serials for such organizations as IEEE, ACS, Audubon, et al. They printed Physics Today, The Journal of Astronomy, and numerous other such things.  They employed degreed chemists as proofreaders.  Many of the journals were printed on flatbed Miehles from hot lead type in 300-lb forms.  The sheets would often hold sixteen or thirty-two pages on a single impression. There were web presses, of course, and perfectors, and even an offset web.  These were the Old Days, and printing a magazine was no job for weenies, let me tell you. 

The Olde Curmudgeon -- Chapter 4

...continued from Chapter 3.

Chapter 4. Three Kinds of Problems

"I would have thought," said Jack, "that there were thousands of different problems.  I mean in my plant alone we have dozens of processes -- manufacturing of a score of chemicals, administration of personnel, facilities, maintenance... You name it.  Last week alone we had a problem with reactor dumps on fluoropolymers, high costs on caustic, late deliveries from a supplier, a customer withholding payment, leaky valves on HF tank cars, a price increase on ammonia...  That's already more than three problems."

The old curmudgeon pursed his lips.  "I said three kinds of problems, but never mind for the moment.  Do you know what a problem is?"

The Olde Curmudgeon -- Chapter 3

...continued from Chapter 2.

Chapter 3. Three Problems

"Wait a minute!" Jack promised. "You said there were only three things I needed to know -- symptom to cause to solution -- and now you tell me there are three more things I have to know?"

"You should be so lucky.  I told you there were three things you had to know.  I never said there were only three things.  How stupid would that be?  I told you, it's useful to organize ideas into threes, as long as you don't force them."

Jack sighed an tucked into his salad.  The old man sure had a sour outlook on things. Get Off My Lawn his lapel button read.  Yeah, a grumpy old man, for sure.  And it wasn't like he had skin in the game, not as far as the storage tank problem went.

Of course, that might make him a perfect sounding board. He had no ego invested in anything that had been repeatedly booted around in interminable meetings. He remembered the 'first three' and suddenly realized that part of the trap lay in thinking about 'the storage tank problem' when the bigger storage tank was only a solution they had jumped to.  The problem was that he was paying too much demurrage to the railroad.

"But I don't see how that helps me very much," he said when he had voiced that thought to his companion.

The Olde Curmudgeon -- Chapter 2

...continued from Chapter 1.

Chapter 2. Three Things

The sour-faced old man settled into the booth across the table from Jack Heller, and Jack wondered fleetingly if he had made a mistake by inviting him.  The fellow had a battered black notebook in which he jotted a few notes, slapped his pen down, and slammed the cover. "There!" he said with some satisfaction. "That will show the Manichees!"

Jack shook his head. "What?"

"Private joke.  Sorry."

"You said you knew why our meetings were so ineffectual.  You said I had to know three things.  I really only have to know one thing.  How to get corporate to approve our capital request to build a new storage tank."

The old man bobbed his head while Jack spoke, but ended by shaking it sideways.  "I thought you said you had a problem."

The Olde Curmudgeon -- Chapter 1

Chapter 1. A Chance Meeting

Jack Heller was glad to get away from the plant and deliberately drove several blocks out of his way to stop at a restaurant he was not known to frequent. The meeting had not gone well and he was convinced that although at the end everyone was agreed on taking action there had not been a clear action plan regarding who was to do what and by when. Too many meetings ended that way, with the illusion of action. Meanwhile, cash was dripping out from the bottom line -- sometimes even gushing out.

The restaurant was a mid-level eatery with booths set between dark wood partitions, or partitions of something that was intended to resemble wood. They were much like the cubicles within which his office staff labored, or did something that was intended to resemble labor. A partition ran down the center of the room with booths on either side of it. More booths ran along the walls. Jack did not think the restaurant could fit any more tables in the room, yet it did not seem to be crowded. A good use of floor space, he judged.

Welcome to the Future

The following musings are by James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal: 

"How can we learn to say no?" asks David Leonhardt, "Economic Scene" columnist for the New York Times. Put your tongue on your palate, aspirate and round your lips? Nah, that's not what he means. His column is on health-care policy:

The federal government is now starting to build the institutions that will try to reduce the soaring growth of health care costs. There will be a group to compare the effectiveness of different treatments, a so-called Medicare innovation center and a Medicare oversight board that can set payment rates.

But all these groups will face the same basic problem. Deep down, Americans tend to believe that more care is better care. We recoil from efforts to restrict care.

These new institutions are necessary, Leonhardt explains, because the "try-anything-and-everything instinct," which is "ingrained in our culture," is expensive: "From an economic perspective, health reform will fail if we can't sometimes push back against the try-anything instinct."

Leonhardt argues that sometimes costs can be cut without reducing the quality of care:

When patients are given information about potential benefits and risks, they seem to choose less invasive care, on average, than doctors do, according to early studies. Some people, of course, decide that aggressive care is right for them. . . . They are willing to accept the risks and side effects that come with treatment. Many people, however, go the other way once they understand the trade-offs.

They decide the risk of incontinence and impotence isn't worth the marginal chance of preventing prostate cancer. Or they choose cardiac drugs and lifestyle changes over stenting. Or they opt to skip the prenatal test to determine if their baby has Down syndrome. Or, in the toughest situation of all, they decide to leave an intensive care unit and enter a hospice.

Still, patients' voluntarily forgoing treatments whose costs outweigh the benefits may not be enough. Having taken on, over the objections of the public, the responsibility for everyone's medical care, the federal government may not be able to keep its promise: "Eventually, we may well have to decide against paying for expensive treatments with only modest benefits."

Oops, sorry about that, Gramps!

It seems as though this is a pretty strong argument against ObamaCare. But we need to encapsulate it in a pithy phrase. What would you call governmental institutions that empower bureaucrats to decide when to deny medical treatment--panels, as it were, that have the authority to determine when a patient's death is necessary for the health of the fisc?

Coming up with a suitable term is a high-powered intellectual challenge. Our thinking cap is on, and we'll get back to you as soon as something dawns on us.

The End of Darwinism Evolution

or

Evolutionism vs. Creationism

The surest way to gin up some traffic here is to put those terms into the post. Heheh.

Now, I cheated in the title, as will become apparent in a moment. Aristo-Thomists might already suspect the pun. If so, keep quiet until I'm done here.

On one side of the debate is a group of people with deeply held metaphysical beliefs who tell fables. On the other, a group of people who desire above all that their beliefs be recognized as a science. I speak, of course, of evolutionists and creationists, respectively. The atheist philosopher, Michael Ruse, once made an important distinction between evolution and evolutionism, the latter being a pseudo-religious commitment to the former. A similar distinction can be made between creation and creationism, with the latter desiring the former to be stamped a science. There is a symmetry to it all that is pleasing to geometers, string theorists, and auld curmudgeons.


Mary Midgley addresses this in her book Evolution as Religion. Another atheist critic of over-the-top evolutionism is David Stove: So you think you are a Darwinian?

1. Evolutionism.

You cannot draw a metaphysical conclusion from the physics. But it is baldly asserted by evolutionists that the "fact" of evolution has "proven" God unnecessary. This is as if the fact of the piano and the physics of vibrating strings "proves" there is no need for the pianist, as the music has been completely explained by the acoustics. 

The statement is silly on several levels. First of all, in philosophy God is not an hypothesis put forward to explain particular physical phenomena. Rather it is a conclusion reasoned from various facts about the world. (No, you don't have to accept the reasoning.  Just be aware that in classic theology, God is at the end of the string, not at the beginning.)  This is not the time for that discussion; but let it be said that neither God nor evolution is "necessary" for auto repair.  So what?  As Cardinal Schoenborn once said, "I certainly hope that God is not invoked in the course of an ordinary scientific explanation." 

But what gives evolution such lofty credentials? Does it possess the Subtle Knife? Why not suppose that Maxwell's Equations made God obsolete? Back in the old days, Gregory of Nyssa engaged his dying sister Macrina in a Platonic dialogue, which is what people did before Twitter, I suppose. Gregory told her that mechanical automata were said to prove that God was unnecessary. So this sort of thing has been going on for a long time, with the death of God announced breathlessly every generation or so.

For St. Macrina's answer, see: Gregory of Nyssa, On the soul and ressurection and scroll down to the part beginning "But what, I asked, if, insisting on the great differences..." Basically, she said that such automata provided supporting evidence for God's existence. And the same is true of evolution.

Secondly, as James Chastek has pointed out:

Presumably, evolution means we can stop looking for some magical elf-and-Santa-workshop where God busily assembles new species. Great. Call off the search. If evolution were to fail, what then? Would it leave the sort of hole that could be filled by the the magical mystery species shop? No. We would just look for another natural explanation, whatever it was. If evolution were to fail, it would not leave a God-shaped hole, and so it follows that it is not filling one now, nor has it ever done so.
thomism.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/4392/#comments