THE ENTERPRISE
THE END OF AN ERA
The end of an era. The Feb. 3. 2006 Wall Street Journal article headline reads "Western Union's Last Telegraph Marks the Conclusion of an Era." Such a monumental historic event only managed to find its way to page B3! This brings to mind a quote I have repeated many times to illustrate that no matter how much things change, they stay the same.
“Over the course of a few years, a new communications technology annihilated distance and shrank the world faster and farther than ever before. A world-wide communications network whose cables spanned continents and oceans, it revolutionized business practices and gave rise to new forms of crime.” —Source: Steve Woolgar in the Wall Street Journal, June 27, 2000.
THE PONY EXPRESS
But he wasn't being quoted on the Internet, but rather on the telegraph and the quote was referring to the year 1840. The telegraph did change everything, because it was the first means by which information could travel faster than people, and reach distant places before those traveling there could get there. Before that, information traveled at the speed of a horse (the Pony Express), or perhaps at the speed of people traveling by horse or wagon. What a dramatic change this made in society. Governmental decisions could be transmitted nearly instantaneously. News stories, some true, many distorted to serve selfish interests, could influence policy and decisions across the land. Does it sound like I am talking about current events? I'm not. This was in the mid-1800's, before many of our states had even elected statehood. I thought about this as I visited a town Granville, Ohio, which was founded in 1805 and then stopped at a couple of the Inns that were built there shortly thereafter. (One of which will be the site for our Tenth Reunion Conference in Sept. 2006)
THE HORSE AND BUGGY ERA
This era was well before the automobile was even invented. Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler did that in Germany, around 1885. It was an era when predictions were that if trends didn't change, we'd be knee deep in horse manure from all the horses and wagons used for transportation. But that prediction didn't come to pass. Many apocalyptic predictions don't. Perhaps, someday, the Earth will run out of oil, but I doubt seriously that anyone reading this need worry about it. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have an energy policy; it means the reasons for it, and the content of it must consider far broader matters than just the supply of oil.
THE STATE OF OUR UNION--AND MORE
When George W. Bush gave the State of the Union speech a few weeks ago, many wondered what his laundry list of topics and initiatives would be. Of course one would be to stay the course to protect our freedom and thwart terrorism. (I refuse to say "defeat" as I would refuse to say we could "defeat" evil or stop "sin.") That included pushing the agenda to promote liberty and democracy (in Iraq ... and other oppressed countries). And of course there was the obligatory part about the need for (selective) eavesdropping on suspected terrorists. His comments on Social Security & Medicare were also expected, but the bi-partisan commission was a welcome idea since it is one of few approaches that might actually lead to some kind of reform. So was the concept of a competitiveness initiative based on education--but that is a very long term approach. If he had announced one based on "training & re-training" current displaced workers, that would have been far more effective in the near term. My favorite take-aways (I guess everyone who listens has a few) were the ones on using Information Technology to improve and lower the system of Health Care, and on the topic of Energy Independence for the US, including the development of alternative fuels for our vehicles.
HEALTH CARE AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
A brief statement on IT in Health Care: Come on people, just get on with it. The government has to do its part, which is to mandate action and provides some standards (preferably developed by a blue-ribbon commission of private sector experts), and offer some kind of economic incentives for early adopters and penalties for "foot-draggers." A few leading medical and IT organizations are already moving. This needs a BIG push, since it won't just reduce costs and maddening, old-fashioned forms to fill out 3-4 times with the same info--it will improve health care by making history and medical records readily available, and it can reduce errors of all kinds while providing a wealth of data to evaluate still more improvements. Some one throw some cold water on the privacy paranoids. Hackers already steal more vital data than this will put at risk. Come on--would you rather have great info privacy and die? Or have great medical systems and live? I know my choice.
ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
I am so tired of filling the coffers of madmen in the Middle East--whether it is our so-called friends like Saudi Arabia (with friends like this who needs enemies--check where al Qaeda originated and where the 9/11 attackers were from)--or worse, like the Iranian, Syrian and Venezuelan groups of US haters. There is absolutely no reason (except for politicians) that the US cannot be essentially energy independent--at least of oil used for fuel and many other energy needs. Nuclear power plant technology has come light years since Three Mile Island. We know how to build and operate them safely and just need to get real about what to do with spent fuel. (Maybe we can export it to be buried in the deserts of the Middle East.) The Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge is teeming with--not wildlife, it's actually pretty scarce up there--but with oil. We need to get on with an orderly plan to tap it. We can also make huge quanitites of Ethanol, both from corn (which we grow in abudance, and pay many farmers NOT to grow it) and from other kinds of biomass which we also have or can easily produce in abundance. And our vehicle producers already know how to make vehicles that run on it , and our ubiquitous filling stations can pump it.
Lest someone think I don't believe conservation is part of the answer--I do--big time. We need to demolish the CAFE lobby (that's Corporate Average Fuel Economy, a measure--albeit erroneous and outdated--of how efficiently the various car/truck companies' vehicles are at using fuel.) We need to jump the requirements by at least 1-2 mpg each year until it exceeds 30 mpg, and the know-how and technology to do that exists right now! We need to fund alternative energy development in the short term with added taxes on gas produced from oil (I know, they are regressive and penalize the poor--so give them a tax credit if they drive a vehicle that gets over 30 mpg). I can't feel sorry for a "poor person" driving a used behemoth, V-8 SUV or truck and complaining about gas prices. The US can be energy independent of foreign oil in this generation, perhaps in a decade or two, maybe less.
OBSOLETE OPEC, FLUSH THE PAPER-BASED MEDICAL SYSTEMS
So, Mr. President, the telegraph is gone, replaced by the Internet and satellites and fiber optics and Wi-Fi. The horse and buggy is long gone, so lets lose the horse manure in policies that keep the US a prisoner of radical Islamists who happen to sit atop lots of oil reserves. Let's OBSOLETE OPEC. We decided half a century ago to put a man on the moon and we did it, pretty fast, I'd say (and a lot of our current space technology is still of that vintage.) How about we quit spending money replacing tiles on obsolete spacecraft and make our next "Man on the Moon" projects just two: Energy Independence and Information-based Infrastructure for Health Care.
Aim the your Presidential hunting rifle at these two and the "stray bullets" will hit (and improve) a lot of other important problems (Medicare/Medicaid for one biggie). Since 60% of Americans disapprove of what you are doing anyway, and that disapproval has never caused you to change your plans or actions in the past...now is the time to make the John Kennedy-esque speech calling for Congress and all Americans to rally around "Freedom--from Tyranny and Terrorism, from Imported Energy, and from archaic Information Infrastructure in our Health Care and Medical systems."
Now there's a platform I can get excited about. How about you?
Best, John
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