Snail mail - idle minds

My wife picked up the mail and there among the ads and bills was a hand-written letter from our daughter in Omaha. We communicate with that daughter via email on almost a daily basis. Why would she send a hand-written note when she has a computer and knows how to use it? The answer was that she had undergone surgery on her foot, was confined to resting - not walking - and the computer was in another part of the house. But, there was a pen and note paper at hand so she wrote a chatty little note which our son-in-law mailed for her.

A slow U.S.P.S. note when a computer is available? Started my mind wandering. Why do people make a less reliable choice; jump to conclusions, resort to rumors, or guessing, or imagining, or .... whatever people often do as first response to anything, when access to the world's finest, fastest computer is available, right there between their ears? I am asking, why do people so often fail to think? Yes, think.

A year or two back, a friend in middle America wrote to tell me of an attempt by a group of investors to build a coal-fired power generating plant out on a Kansas prairie. Citizen protests against that "pollution belching monster" were so loud and sustained, the plan was vacated. My friend was happy.

I thought differently. Some 60% of America's electricity is generated in coal-fired power plants. We are not building new plants, and some existing ones are getting pretty old. That means they employ old technology which surely is more pollutant-producing than would be a modern, new plant. Populations have grown around some of the old plants, meaning people are living in very close proximity. Trainloads of incoming coal and outgoing ashes surely do not enhance their neighborhoods. Had the modern, new plant been built as planned, some distance from any residential area, perhaps it could have afforded the closing of one of the old, outdated plants. Wouldn't that have been a good thing? Maybe. Maybe not.

The point here is that I witness very few people looking for the "big picture" for any event.

General Motors' Chevy Volt is an interesting subject. The government promoted an electric car (recall the source of 60% of our electricity) which General Motors built. Building a new automobile is a costly experiment made possible only through massive sales of the vehicle. Turns out, nobody wanted to buy the Volt. Too small, too expensive, inadequate for most people's needs. Chevrolet made a "initial" run of the small cars - which they cannot sell - so they have had to suspend production until they could, hopefully get rid of some of their inventory.

A costly, failed (to date) experiment. But then, I guess you don't need to think when you are spending someone other people's money!