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  • Putting Deeds Behind Words: ASCE's Response to Barack Obama's Call for More Infrastructure Investment

    Seems to be about all our President hears these days:

    In response to President Obama’s comments on infrastructure in his Jan. 27 State of the Union address, ASCE (American Society of Civil Engineers) has issued this statement by 2010 President Blaine D. Leonard, P.E., D.GE, F.ASCE:

    We appreciate that the president mentioned in his address that railroads and the Interstate Highway System are critical investments in American infrastructure. He also spoke about how investments in infrastructure are investments in nation building. But the fact is, in recent decades we’ve stopped investing in our future. We are still driving on Eisenhower’s roads and sending our kids to Roosevelt’s schools.

    The broken water mains, gridlocked streets, crumbling dams and levees, and delayed flights that come from failing infrastructure have a negative impact on the checkbook and on the quality of life of each and every American. Investing in America’s infrastructure will support and create jobs — an essential function for economic recovery — as well as bring tangible personal benefits to Americans, like safer communities, less money spent on gas and more time with our families due to shorter commutes.

    The President’s leadership on infrastructure is essential for our future prosperity. We need a bipartisan commitment to create a long-term plan for our infrastructure; one that includes sufficient funding levels and dedicated revenue sources. Without that, anything we do now will be nothing more than a band-aid.

    ASCE has, IMHO, bought too much in recent years to the “politically correct” line rather than what’s really correct, scientifically or otherwise.  But the Society has consistently documented the defects in our infrastructure.  These pronouncements only get publicity when something collapses (like the I-35 bridge in Minnesota.)

    And speaking of Minnesota, it seems that their junior Senator Al Franken isn’t happy with his Great Helmsman these days:

    Sen. Al Franken ripped into White House senior adviser David Axelrod this week during a tense, closed-door session with Senate Democrats.

    Five sources who were in the room tell POLITICO that Franken criticized Axelrod for the administration’s failure to provide clarity or direction on health care and the other big bills it wants Congress to enact.

    The sources said Franken was the most outspoken senator in the meeting, which followed President Barack Obama’s question-and-answer session with Senate Democrats at the Newseum on Wednesday. But they also said the Minnesotan wasn’t the only angry Democrat in the room.

    “There was a lot of frustration in there,” said a Democratic senator who declined to be identified.

    “People were hot,” another Democratic senator said.

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  • The Difference Between a Northern and a Southern Fairy Tale

    This priceless gem, from a colleague at the Church of God International Offices:

    I have discovered the difference between a northern fairytale and a southern fairytale.

    A northern fairytale begins, “Once upon a time…”

    A southern fairytale begins, “Y’all ain’t gonna believe this…”

    This should be enshrined at Rock City.

  • Even the Sharks in Palm Beach Have a Social Season, and a Note About Republican Activist Helen Cluett

    And in this case I’m not referring to the attorneys:

    Sharks gathered off Reef Road Thursday morning, but were not moving into public swimming areas.

    Mark Hassell, town lifeguard supervisor, reported Thursday that no sharks were seen congregating at Midtown Beach or Phipps Ocean Park. Both public beaches remained open.

    Midtown Beach was closed for about 30 minutes last week when a group of sharks moved through the area.

    Rick Wentley, owner of PB Boys Club and an avid surfer, said he checked conditions Thursday morning with the thought of going out.

    Although he usually surfs in the North End, he said he was going to move farther south along the Palm Beach shoreline — just in case — to avoid sharks. But it turned out the waves just weren’t there.

    Sharks typically migrate north in March and April.

    Gary Goss, professor of biology at Palm Beach Atlantic University and a local shark expert, said the grouping of sharks is most likely a prelude to the upcoming seasonal migration.

    The schooling behavior is typical for fish and the sharks that go after them for food, he said.

    “They’re getting ready to go north.”

    The seasonal migration pattern is a well-honoured practice amongst the human residents:  south to winter in Palm Beach (with the social season to go with it,) then north for the summer.  So why not the sharks?

    My family was somewhat exceptional in being year-round residents.

    And now for something completely different: saw this piece about Republican “activist” and philanthropist Helen Cluett:

    When is it time to get out of politics? A) When you’re about to turn 90. B) When you realize that all of the candidates you’ve backed have lost. C) Never.

    Helen Cluett will tell you the answer for her was B, but if you dig a little deeper you’ll see that the real answer is C.

    Cluett turns 90 in May, and she says she’s “worked my fingers to the bone” for the Republican Party, and that it’s time to step aside to let a younger crowd take over the battle.

    And you may in fact not see Cluett working the phone banks in 2012 or even this fall when the fate of Congress again is put before the American electorate.

    But she’ll be deeply involved — if only to argue a point or two with visitors, family and friends. That’s the nature of one of Palm Beach’s most noted activists, both in politics and in charitable causes.

    The Cluetts were the “sellers of shirts” whose weight on the vestry of my home church Bethesda-by-the-Sea was crucial in the 1968 booting of my mother’s ladies guild’s rummage sale from the church proper. That in turn led to the start of the Church Mouse resale shop, now something of a Palm Beach institution.  Obviously Helen wasn’t directly involved in that, as in that time there were no women on the Vestry (her husband Bill was another story.)  But for me, active in both Republican politics and the church, it’s hard not to feel an affinity with someone who has been diligent in the G.O.P. and lists Jesus Christ as a “most admired person” in the Shiny Sheet.  Besides, the whole Church Mouse saga is a classic “lemons to lemonade” story.

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  • Elitist Snob Advice: Stop Blaming the Republicans Because Your Agenda Isn't Passing

    It’s hard to catalogue all of the whining that our President and other members of his party have made because a) the Republicans have opposed their agenda (health care, cap and trade, card check, etc.) and b) it has not passed as a “consequence” of this.

    If we look at this objectively, however, we come to realise that this cannot stand, and this piece is to demonstrate why.

    Considering the Obama Administration’s agenda, we see the central desire of any elitist snob: to make the U.S. a Europe on the other side of the Atlantic.  (And let’s be clear, snobs: we are the other side of the Atlantic.)  Just ticking of the agenda (as in the first paragraph) should make this clear: our “best and brightest” would like universal state-furnished health care, trade unions representing the workforce, and everyone taking mass transit to their jobs (note I didn’t say, “taking mass transit to work.”)

    It makes sense, therefore, that a European style objective should be obtained with a European style process, and the Obama Administration was gifted in the 2008 election with the potential to do just that.  The process is familiar to anyone who understands how parliamentary systems work.  You have the majority, “the Government.”  They prepare and propose a program, elucidated by a “speech from the throne.”  The minority, “the Opposition,” has the job of opposing this.  Assuming that the majority passes its agenda, it stands or falls upon the success of that agenda in the next election.  The whole concept of “bi-partisanship” in this kind of system is rubbish.

    The Democrats, lead by their de facto Prime Ministers Obama, Pelosi and Reid (first problem: there’s more than one) had the White House and both houses of Congress.  They gilded the lily by having a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, if you count their coalition partners (one Socialist, one Independent.)

    Personally, I’m good with this concept.  That’s why I proclaim myself as an elitist snob.  They won the election, they pass their agenda, then they stand or fall based on its success or failure.  Sounds simple to me.  I don’t like the Democrats’ agenda, but hey, if Americans are dumb enough to vote for this, they deserve to suffer the consequences.  I figured this would roll forward with little meaningful opposition.

    It didn’t.  Their explanation is that there is no “bi-partisanship” because the Republicans wouldn’t do anything but say “no.”  But, in the European/elitist snob scheme of things, the Republicans filled their part of the bargain.  As the Opposition, their job is to say no and wait until the Government goes down the tube with their agenda and they get back into power.

    The core problem the Democrats are having is that they’re trying to forward an agenda that is not acceptable to their entire coalition.  Before they set off on this adventure, wisdom would indicate that they should have surveyed their own people and figured out what would pass.  Had they done this, they could have passed a great deal with the Republicans left with, to use Mao Zedong’s phrase, “gesticulating and criticising.”

    Lesson from this: don’t entrust a European agenda to a group of people who are simply overconfident Americans with a view of themselves as exceptionalistic as their opposition has of the country.  Maybe they should start by overhauling our system of government and getting a parliamentary system where this would play out like it’s supposed to.  Personally I’m good with that too, but I doubt seriously that the country would be the better for it, which is why I support a party whose inclinations don’t always square with my instinctive desires.

  • John Kenneth Gaibraith, the Real Elitist Snob

    If Galbraith, whose economics are back in vogue again, wasn’t one, they don’t exist:

    Here we reach the heart of the matter. Galbraith’s thinking about social and economic matters was always de haut en bas; his solutions emerged from the Olympian heights of his own ratiocination, to be applied to the clueless multitudes below. (No doubt his own great height, over 6 foot 8, accustomed him to looking down on people.) His literary style is symptomatic of his attitude, a true case of the style being the man himself. Hundreds of times, he uses question-begging locutions that intimidate with their orotund grandeur. I open a book of his at random and find the following: “The controlling fact is”; “This trade-off is present in all accepted thought”; “Nor should one wish otherwise”; “It has now been adequately urged”; “This is not a matter of choice; it is the modern imperative”; “It would, of course, be a serious error”; “This has long been recognized”; “All of this is to be welcomed”; “The lesson is clear”; “The solution is not difficult; it has the advantage of inevitability.”

    The cumulative effect is to intimidate those who believe themselves not well enough informed to contradict so high an authority. We are far from the realm of Jane Austen’s light and ironic “It is a truth universally acknowledged.” When J. K. Galbraith enunciates a truth universally acknowledged, he does not want us to smile inwardly; he wants us to fear not being included in le tout Paris of correct, generous, and humane thought. What fool does not wish to be on the side of the inevitable? Who does not want to recognize what has so long been recognized? Who dares to deny that what the Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics says three times is true?

    It’s hard to convince most Americans that a) those who are raised at the top hold a high opinion of themselves and a low one of the rest of humanity and b) they’re so convinced of their own rectitude that they’re oblivious to the real nature of their idea.  It’s been that way for a long time.  As I said in a post about growing up in Palm Beach:

    Attitudes from the “coasts” about “flyover country” in the U.S. have been deep seated for a long time; stage productions like this only reinforced that. It’s fair to say that, if the “Religious Right” had fully grasped the contempt they were held in when the movement first got going in the late 1970’s they would not have started the Moral Majority: they would have started a revolution.

    Dalrymple also notes this:

    There remains, however, an astonishingly gaping absence in Galbraith’s worldview. While he is perfectly able to see the defects of businessmen—their inclination to megalomania, greed, hypocrisy, and special pleading—he is quite unable to see the same traits in government bureaucrats. It is as if he has read, and taken to heart, the work of Sinclair Lewis, but never even skimmed the work of Kafka.

    Had he done this, his view of the world would have been much more cynical and less roseate.  Besides, he should have read Kafka long before Sinclair Lewis.

    Why?  Because Kafka is European!  Any real elitist snob knows that!

  • Highway Bill Hits the Pothole of Politics

    Our government loves to spend money, but not on really productive pursuits:

    Washington’s focus on jobs and search for revenue keep transportation bill parked in Congress

    The drumbeat of jobs, jobs, jobs in Washington and debate on financing have become major roadblocks to getting a six-year $500 billion transportation bill into gear and onto a fast-paced road to passage.

    Infrastructure advocates argue that investment in transportation infrastructure is a sure-fire creator of jobs. There’s support for jobs and infrastructure on Capitol Hill, and the clamor for jobs will increase government investment in the latter. However, there’s no guarantee Congress will go further and address surface transportation’s long-term needs any time soon.

    It’s true that transportation projects aren’t the quick job creators that some would like.  But people need continuous employment.  Beyond that, upgrading and maintaining our transportation system is necessary to insure the general productivity of our economy, which does create long term economic growth.  That’s a fact, and the political bias on both sides against transportation spending doesn’t change that.  Put another way, they will pay for themselves over time.  They’re an investment.

    The favoured largesse is, of course, wealth transfer and entitlement payments.  But Sarah Palin fans take note: that “bridge to nowhere” she got caught up in during the 2008 campaign (and all of the other ones we see) will do more to improve the productivity and long-term well being of the country than the vast majority of entitlements.

  • Some Thoughts on the Engineering Profession

    This is a very old piece, dating from the late 1990’s, which I am reposting on this site.  It’s still relevant for a number of reasons, not the least of which to address an issue that became a hot topic in the following decade: the concept that science and religion are mortal enemies and mutually exclusive.  The article is the same, except I’ve modified the opening paragraph and deleted the closing link to reflect the fact that it has been moved.

    Most of my family business website is devoted to the wave equation as it is applied to piling, the equipment used to install the piling and other related topics. This article takes a look at some broader issues that affect engineers and their profession. Having worked in engineering for over twenty years, and having also taken on some activities outside of the profession, I realize that there are some things that need some broader consideration than they usually get.

    As things stand in the U.S. today, engineering — which I know to be a great and honourable profession — is in a state of crisis. This isn’t of itself unusual; in times that change as rapidly as they do, just about everything in life is in a state of crisis. Technical journals lament the fact that the work involved in becoming an engineer, coupled with the legal risks associated with the practice of engineering (especially in construction centred civil engineering) isn’t adequately compensated by the income an engineer can reasonably expect during a career of practice. They do this while advocating the addition of a master’s degree as the first degree of practice (a step that is probably a necessity, albeit an unfortunate one.) Looking at the compensation and stature in society given to doctors and attorneys (grudgingly in the latter case) compared to that of engineers makes one sometimes wonder if it’s worth it. Many obviously don’t think so; engineering not only has difficulty attracting women and minorities to the profession in the U.S., it struggles to get its native sons to look at it as a career.

    Part of the problem is an inheritance from the ancien régime division of labour in society, something we inherited not only from the French (before their revolution) but from that last great ancien régime society of Europe, the United Kingdom. In such a scenario there were three classes (or estates) of society; those who prayed (the clergy,) those who fought (the nobility,) and the rest of us who worked to support the other two. Needless to say the last group, although essential to the success of the other two, wasn’t quite up to par with them in esteem. A carryover of this can be seen in our own society which, although technologically oriented as any, is still pretty much run by its attorneys (the keepers of the law) and its managers and administrators (business and government,) neither of which are very technical about much of anything.

    But it would otiose to blame everything on others; part of the problem is with ourselves. Putting the perennial PR problem aside, the root problem is that engineers are by nature too narrowly focused on a purely technical view of things to “lift up their eyes” (to use a Biblical expression) and take the broad view not only of the world around them but their potential role in it. This is not to say that engineers are the uncaring, unfeeling automatons they are caricatured to be; they are not. But we really tend to be boresighted about a lot of things when it would pay us to expand our perspective. Such a disposition is reinforced by the educational system, which tends to crowd out other studies to fulfil the necessities of a complete technical curriculum.

    I have had to struggle with this as much as anyone; however, for me there have been two factors that have mitigated a narrow focus to a large degree.

    The first is my interaction with the family business, both in growing up and in the time I spent there. My decision to go in to the business came relatively late in high school; my education up to that point had been heavily weighted towards the liberal arts. When I arrived at Texas A&M, I discovered that I was in the company of engineering students, most of whom had been technically focused through JETS, technical hobbies and other activities leading up to entering the College of Engineering. I managed to make the transition well but my perspective remained different. Moreover in the years at Vulcan I spent a lot of time dealing with financial, legal, personnel and other non-technical matters. They used to allow engineers in the U.S. to be licensed “by eminence,” i.e, without the educational requirements but based on experience and performance. It’s too bad they don’t admit lawyers to the bar that way, or I’d be totally bivocational!

    But the other, and certainly more powerful, force in my life that make me look at things differently was my Christian faith and my relationship to Jesus Christ. This in turn led to my activities in the church and other Christian organizations. These, coupled with study of the Bible, let me to realize three important things.

    • People are most important. Christ came to redeem people, not things or even institutions. If our activity is not centred around the needs of people, we have missed the most important thing.
    • People have problems that do not always admit straightforward, “clean” solutions. This was especially driven home when I spent a lot of time at a Christian coffeehouse ministry that was also a counselling centre. Although Jesus Christ is the solution for people’s problems, implementing that with hurting people on a daily basis takes caring and love.
    • The study of engineering was helpful in my Christian walk in that it emphasized absolutes. Sooner or later it is necessary to take a stand somewhere. Engineering also reinforced an ethic of personal integrity and “dealing in reality,” which is important in the development of real Christian character.

    Being a Christian has forced me to focus on realities that are not purely technical in nature, yet which represent real human needs that must be addressed. This has broadened my outlook and hopefully made things better for others too. Technology is intrinsically morally neutral; it is what we do with it, and with ourselves as well, that makes the difference.

  • Directing the Federal Reserve for Dummies: A Guide for Clueless Directors

    That’s what it looks like to me:

    The Federal Reserve, in what one can assume is likely a very critical resource for bank directors, says that while newly appointed Bank Directors may have such mission critical skills as “basic management experience and skills, an inquisitive attitude, and a willingness to commit time and energy to bank matters” they likely miss “a basic knowledge of banking and what to consider in overseeing a bank.” Well thank goodness the Fed is there with this critical 5-minute guide in providing bank directors with all the information they need on how to to run a bank. And they wonder why some are sceptical about the soundness of the bank system.

    HT to a well placed relative who is far more qualified than many on the Fed.

  • A Real "Alhamdulillah" Moment: Bishop John Chane Retires

    It’s the only word that really “captures the moment” about this event:

    Washington Episcopal Bishop John B. Chane announced Saturday he will retire in the fall of 2011, saying it was “time to elect a younger person to lead what I consider to be the best and one of the most influential dioceses in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.”

    Speaking to about 325 attendees at the annual diocesan convention at the Washington National Cathedral, Bishop Chane, 65, admitted he was stepping down during a time of flagging growth and stagnant giving in the 42,000-member diocese.

    I wonder why the growth flags…

    John Chane main claim to the “Inconsistency is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds Award” is this:

    The Anglican/Episcopal world has been regaled with the strange relationship between Episcopal Bishop of Washington (DC) John Chane and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While promoting the complete acceptance of homosexuality in the life of the Episcopal Church, Chane has cultivated his friendship with a man whose regime hangs homosexuals from truck cranes.

    If John Chane’s friends succeed, the only residue of the Diocese of Washington will be in Rock Creek Cemetery.

  • The Gospel for Septuagesima: Christians Need to Stop Pining for the Big Payoff

    From the 1928 BCP, it’s the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard:

    For the Kingdom of Heaven is like an employer who went out in the early morning to hire labourers for his vineyards. He agreed with the labourers to pay them two shillings a day, and sent them into his vineyard. On going out again, about nine o’clock, he saw some others standing in the market-place, doing nothing. ‘You also may go into my vineyard,’ he said, ‘and I will pay you what is fair.’ So the men went.

    Going out again about mid-day and about three o’clock, he did as before. When he went out about five, he found some other men standing there, and said to them ‘Why have you been standing here all day long, doing nothing?’

    ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

    ‘You also may go into my vineyard,’ he said.

    In the evening the owner of the vineyard said to his steward ‘Call the labourers, and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, and ending with the first. Now when those who had been hired about five o’clock went up, they received two shillings each. So, when the first went up, they thought that they would receive more, but they also received two shillings each; On which they began to grumble at their employer.

    ‘These last,’ they said, ‘have done only one hour’s work, and yet you have put them on the same footing with us, who have borne the brunt of the day’s work, and the heat.’

    ‘My friend,’ was his reply to one of them, ‘I am not treating you unfairly. Did not you agree with me for two shillings? Take what belongs to you, and go. I choose to give to this last man the same as to you. Have not I the right to do as I choose with what is mine? Are you envious because I am liberal?’ So those who are last will be first, and the first last.” (Matthew 20:1-16, Positive Infinity New Testament.)

    If there’s one thing that bothers me about Evangelical Christianity these days, it’s that people expect–and are promised–a big pay-off for what they do (and especially what they give) to the Lord.  There’s really nothing new about this–it’s an issue that comes up more than once in the Gospels and elsewhere–but these days it’s pursued with a singular lack of subtlety.

    We know that our reward is eternity with God.  That is ultimately the “two shillings” (I love the old British currency in this translation) of the parable.  What else is better?

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