Henry Ford

     Henry Ford founded Ford Motors when most cars were still made as a fine craft. Different craftsmen worked for months making a car none of them would ever be able to afford to buy.  Henry Ford had a different idea. He would mass-produce a simple car, and pay his workers a high enough wage to be able to afford to but what they were making, To Henry Ford, this would create a system that would perpetuate itself--more people making more things because everyone making the things would also be buying the things they were busy making.
     Many people thought Henry Ford's ideas were outlandish. They thought he paid his workers too much, causing discontent in other workers. Henry Ford was very unpopular with many of the wealthier people. Henry's system worked, but unfortunately, this has not convinced everyone that we are all better off when workers can also afford to be consumers. This needn't be "ungreen"--consuming means services and green products, as well as manufactured goods. When other people can afford to buy what we are selling--and we are all selling something, one way and another--cars, insurance, education, technical services, entertainment--we are all more prosperous. Even people living on retirement income see an increase in their benefits when more people are making a decent living.

Suggestion--anyone's poverty impoverishes everyone.

epistemological doubt

Even a broken clock is right twice a day--




but you won't know when.

barbed wire is for cattle

     Barbed wire was invented to keep cattle from straying--so they wouldn't become lost, or ruin a neighbor's crops. Barbed wire may be useful for cattle, or  when running a prison, but it doesn't belong on city streets. What is barbed wire is meant  to do at the top of a six-foot fence? Anyone who wanted to climb over that fence would do it with or without the barbed wire. If a six foot fence is protecting something so valuable the owner feels a need for barbed wire, then he or she already has a problem that barbed wire can not fix. Maybe the valuable goods need to be moved indoors.
     Here in Philadelphia we have something worse than barbed wire--razor wire. It is more common than barbed wire. You may see it on the roofs of buildings or on top of fences. Aside from making our city uglier, it is dangerous and ought to be illegal. Razor wire was at the top of a six foot fence built around nothing but some grass--this on street busy with pedestrian traffic. Any schoolchild could have been sliced up by it.
     The first razor wire I noticed ( in a neighborhood that vaunts itself as hip and stylish) was on top of a high fence built around goods for sale left outdoors. The solution would have been to move the goods indoors. Anyone who wanted them badly enough to climb a high fence would cut through the fence--and avoid the razor wire


Suggestion--razor wire is ugly, nasty, and probably already illegal. If it isn't already illegal as a man trap ( protecting property with a device meant to cause injury or death), then perhaps we can get a new law or ordinance passed to make it illegal.

exceptionalism

     One of the things that defines our society--one of the main things--is that we have all agreed to one set of laws and rules--to be applied equally and without favor or prejudice to each and every citizen. No exceptions, no "case-making", no special allowances or privileges.  Every increase in "exceptionalism" is a decrease in what makes our society a living entity. If some people don't have to send their children to school; if some people are allowed to smoke peyote; if some people aren't required  to have a photograph on their driver's licenses; if some people are allowed to run casinos; if some people are allowed to use speech that differs from that allowed others--it all chips away at the structure of our society.


Suggestion--we need a set of laws and rules that apply to everyone-no exceptions.  If everyone can't live with it, maybe we need a new rule--one that everyone can live with.

going postal

Suggestion--don't say (or write) "going postal"

The writers using the expression "going postal" may not realize that it refers to a real series of crimes that happened  years ago. A "disgruntled postal worker" walked into a post office and shot several people. The crime seemed to inspire "copycats", and  "going postal" became an expression for going insane. This was later the subject of a movie--but the crimes were real, and the victims are dead. So it's not an amusing expression.

heads I win, tails you lose

Have you ever flipped a coin to decide something?  If "heads I win, tails you lose" doesn't sound suspicious to you, try it with another person, and see who wins.

internet voice lock

     One of these days internet security may mean showing your thumbprint to your computer--or talking to it. Most people have probably been asked for a thumbprint at some time. Fewer have been asked to permit their voices to be recorded--to make what was once called a voice lock. My mom worked in a building that had these--years ago, in the 1970's. In theory the voice lock would open only to the sound of the same voice. It worked very well, to a point. the device really could tell one voice from another, and would not open except when it heard that voice. The problem was that a recording of the voice might work as well as a live person speaking.

Suggestion--perhaps a program sophisticated enough to tell a live voice from a  recording could be given a try