As I was talking to a professional grant writer yesterday, the issue of altruism came up. The "issue" gives you a little bit of a hint as to how we veered off of the word's non-ironic interpretations. Now this is by no means surprising. It goes together with corporate grants as closely as the positive PR any group would hope to get with giving a grant. But all of this dialogue really brought me to take a 30,000 foot view of what seems to be happening out in the United States today. Is anyone passing down the legacies of previous generations? High Tech is so "tomorrow" in its blazing fast progress that you'll pardon me please if I am concerned about the knowledge of yesterday! I design new hand tools. I love it, I am fixated by the process. But the great skilled machinists, the giant manufacturing metal gardens of Eden like the old Vise Grip plant are gone or are being dismantled everyday. Where is the knowledge going that we need to "make stuff"? I am not trying to be flippant when I remind you that a single EMP burst makes all of these laptops and cell phones go bye bye. So what are we doing to teach our next generation about making great steel? Becoming a machinist? A toolmaker or metallurgist? Using a lathe? Is there a place in America where we are drawing the best and the brightest for this amazing realm, or is everyone being drawn to the virtual world of internet software and video games? Believe me, I am not complaining, just wondering. Really. Just asking. I want to be reassured.
On a slightly different note, why are we not protecting plants and facilities that took decades to establish and all of the skills and technique that must be passed on to survive there? How do we demolish critical parts of what could easily become part of our nation's defense manufacturing facilities? Do our leaders remember the USA of Roosevelt in 1940? Can we shift the remaining facilities more increasingly owned by foreigners so quickly into plants that would make the necessary "items" to defend our soil? Or do we just put an order in overseas?
