Toyota executives were questioned by members of Congress today about the problems with their cars.
Despite two or three recalls, it seems (1) that the problems with Toyota cars may not be fixed, and, (2) worse, that Toyota attempted to sweep some of its cars' problems under the carpet, trying to minimize recalls and thus save adverse impact on its profitability—at the cost of lives of Toyota owners and drivers.
As I have said before, it is possible that the computer software that controls modern car engines is responsible. Last night ABC News NightLine reporter Brian Ross, together with a Professor Gilbert, drove a Toyota Avalon which had been rigged to create a short circuit in the car's computer. This car experienced sudden and uncontrolled acceleration. Worse, the car computer's diagnostic output did not register that any problem had occurred.
In the face of this kind of publicity, Toyota is sitting up and taking notice. They worked late into the night to replicate Gilbert's experiment.
It is hard to imagine that the adverse publicity that Toyota has been getting could get any worse. I wonder if anyone has any idea of how many buyers are being steered (no pun) away from Toyota showrooms. I am sure that Toyota sales are going to take a hit and Toyota will probably lose money. How long will it be before they can recover? Well, people have shown, over and over, that they have short memories. But meanwhile, Toyota's competitors, both American and Asian, will gain sales that might otherwise have gone to Toyota. That's about the only thing anyone can be sure of.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Which Is More Hot Air, Global Warming or Rush Limbaugh?
Rush Limbaugh recently pointed to the extraordinary and even record snowfall events on the East Coast and in Texas and said these events are "driving a nail in coffin of the global warming theory"—or words to that effect.
Mr. Limbaugh is not a meteorologist or other weather or climate scientist. When he does not know what he is talking about, he should keep quiet—not that he's ever adhered to that principle before. In fact, he makes his living sounding off when he is all opinion and no fact.
The reason he is wrong this time: Meteorologists are telling us that these snow events were the result of warmer Arctic air.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
Mr. Limbaugh is not a meteorologist or other weather or climate scientist. When he does not know what he is talking about, he should keep quiet—not that he's ever adhered to that principle before. In fact, he makes his living sounding off when he is all opinion and no fact.
The reason he is wrong this time: Meteorologists are telling us that these snow events were the result of warmer Arctic air.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
Friday, February 19, 2010
More on Tiger
The media won't stop talking about Tiger Woods' statement today, so I have been giving it more thought.
Infidelity can occur in almost any married couple, and we in America don't stone people for this lapse. Tiger's big story comes on the heels of almost countless other sexual scandals involving public figures. I probably don't need to mention any, but John Edwards is another man who has been receiving a lot of attention for his affair. In a sense it's the couple's own business. But it seems that somehow, and inevitably, this little detail of a couple's business is a far different thing when it involves someone in the public eye.
And that's precisely the operative phrase—in the public eye. Two phenomena are acting together here: a very zealous media industry—particularly tabloid newspapers which in America are evidently getting to be like the infamous tabloids in Great Britain—and a cult of the celebrity which, as I have argued in another posting, goes back to the 1920s when Hollywood publicists started to create larger-than-life personae for Hollywood film stars. The result is that no one who attains celebrity status has much right to, or expectation of, privacy. I'm not really approving of this, but it's a fact of life for these men and woman. It's the price of celebrity that no one can, for a moment, believe he's not being watched. Whether it's Michael Phelps taking a puff on a bong, or Britain's Prince Harry doing his partying thing—you just have to be on your best behavior if you don't want to have your latest caper be the subject of headlines beside every supermarket checkout lane.
Poor Tiger is just sexually addicted. Well, he was a fool if he thought the news would never leak out. When you're the world's most famous athlete, you can't be a Tiger and a tomcat, too.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
Infidelity can occur in almost any married couple, and we in America don't stone people for this lapse. Tiger's big story comes on the heels of almost countless other sexual scandals involving public figures. I probably don't need to mention any, but John Edwards is another man who has been receiving a lot of attention for his affair. In a sense it's the couple's own business. But it seems that somehow, and inevitably, this little detail of a couple's business is a far different thing when it involves someone in the public eye.
And that's precisely the operative phrase—in the public eye. Two phenomena are acting together here: a very zealous media industry—particularly tabloid newspapers which in America are evidently getting to be like the infamous tabloids in Great Britain—and a cult of the celebrity which, as I have argued in another posting, goes back to the 1920s when Hollywood publicists started to create larger-than-life personae for Hollywood film stars. The result is that no one who attains celebrity status has much right to, or expectation of, privacy. I'm not really approving of this, but it's a fact of life for these men and woman. It's the price of celebrity that no one can, for a moment, believe he's not being watched. Whether it's Michael Phelps taking a puff on a bong, or Britain's Prince Harry doing his partying thing—you just have to be on your best behavior if you don't want to have your latest caper be the subject of headlines beside every supermarket checkout lane.
Poor Tiger is just sexually addicted. Well, he was a fool if he thought the news would never leak out. When you're the world's most famous athlete, you can't be a Tiger and a tomcat, too.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
Thursday, February 18, 2010
The Tiger Speaks
Today they said that Tiger Woods is going to be making some public comments. Not a press conference. And this is being televised by major TV networks. Looks like Tiger is as important in the U.S. as President Obama-- but I bet some people like Tiger better.
I think that Tiger Woods and Toyota should team up and form a joint venture. Maybe call it something like T & T Damage Control, Inc.
Continuing in a light vein: Tiger Woods should also team up with Jeremy Irons and start a golf club manufacturing company. Naturally, it would be called Woods and Irons.
Copyright (c) 2010 by Richard Stein
I think that Tiger Woods and Toyota should team up and form a joint venture. Maybe call it something like T & T Damage Control, Inc.
Continuing in a light vein: Tiger Woods should also team up with Jeremy Irons and start a golf club manufacturing company. Naturally, it would be called Woods and Irons.
Copyright (c) 2010 by Richard Stein
Toyota
As I've said previously, I am a Toyota owner. So far, at least, my model and year has not been among those named in any of the recalls or otherwise been mentioned as having a problem. And I have no anxieties or concerns as to whether I'm safe while driving my car. (Even if my car were one of the "problem" models, statistics would still be on my side: that is, the problems so far have manifested themselves in only a small percentage of the cars of a certain model. It's kind of like how you expect the odds to be in your favor when you board an airplane.)
Nevertheless, if I were an owner of a model affected by one of the problems that we've been hearing about, I would feel that Toyota has betrayed the trust of its customers. Our loyalty, our esteem for its products—and here I think can include myself—seems to have been misplaced.
That my model is not being recalled and presumably does not have one of the problems (acceleration, brakes, steering) does not mean that I am totally unaffected by all the averse news involving Toyota cars, however. A few days ago it was announced that Kelly Blue Book was lowering its values for Toyotas: that is, the worth that they specify for cars as trade-ins or for sale on the used-car market. And the Blue Book is a highly respected authority on the value of used cars.
The acceleration problem with certain Toyota models at one point was being ascribed to the fact that the "gas pedal" on these cars is not a simple, mechanical link to the engine throttle, but actually an electronic control that works on the engine through the car's computer. And now, newer Toyota Corollas are said to have a fault with their steering, and again it's not a problem with old-fashioned, simple mechanical parts but, again, Toyota has switched to electrically-controlled steering.
Maybe simpler is better, and these new, more sophisticated and more complicated electrical controls are not a good idea. Cars are getting so sophisticated and so complicated. Anyone who used to work on his own car, doing tune-ups and so forth, has found that, over the decades, that has become almost impossible. You need electronic instruments to work on modern cars, at least to diagnose their problems. (Plus, for reasons best known to the manufacturers, modern cars are also impossible to work on because nothing is accessible anymore. As an example, it used to be so easy to check or replace the air filter. It was a matter of loosening a wing nut with your fingers, or on later models, flipping a clamp. Not any more: the air filter housing is fastened with bolts. and it takes a socket wrench to remove those bolts. Why these changes? It must be to discourage the owner from performing this task himself and thus to make more money for the dealers.)
Older, mechanical car parts might be subject to wear and corrosion and so on; but the new ones are subject to errors in computer programs. To put it very non-technically, computers can mess up big-time, maybe creating worse consequences than the simple wear of a mechanical part would cause.
Also, our government is mandating more and more electronic controls on cars. A lot of the electronics and computer controls originally came into use to help car engines meet government-mandated emissions limits. (I'm not implying that these emissions standards are a bad thing.) The latest is that all cars must have Vehicle Stability Control, which helps keep drivers from giving bad driving inputs to their cars that might send the cars out of control. Basically, the car knows better than you do, how it should be driven.
One concern I have about that is that there are a lot of cute, economical, and fun-to-drive little European cars that I'd like to see sold in the U.S. so that drivers who want to drive something economical would have more choice. But manufacturers have some terrible hurdles that they must clear in order to import their cars, including the cost of adding all the features that the U.S. government says a car must have before it can be sold here.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
Nevertheless, if I were an owner of a model affected by one of the problems that we've been hearing about, I would feel that Toyota has betrayed the trust of its customers. Our loyalty, our esteem for its products—and here I think can include myself—seems to have been misplaced.
That my model is not being recalled and presumably does not have one of the problems (acceleration, brakes, steering) does not mean that I am totally unaffected by all the averse news involving Toyota cars, however. A few days ago it was announced that Kelly Blue Book was lowering its values for Toyotas: that is, the worth that they specify for cars as trade-ins or for sale on the used-car market. And the Blue Book is a highly respected authority on the value of used cars.
The acceleration problem with certain Toyota models at one point was being ascribed to the fact that the "gas pedal" on these cars is not a simple, mechanical link to the engine throttle, but actually an electronic control that works on the engine through the car's computer. And now, newer Toyota Corollas are said to have a fault with their steering, and again it's not a problem with old-fashioned, simple mechanical parts but, again, Toyota has switched to electrically-controlled steering.
Maybe simpler is better, and these new, more sophisticated and more complicated electrical controls are not a good idea. Cars are getting so sophisticated and so complicated. Anyone who used to work on his own car, doing tune-ups and so forth, has found that, over the decades, that has become almost impossible. You need electronic instruments to work on modern cars, at least to diagnose their problems. (Plus, for reasons best known to the manufacturers, modern cars are also impossible to work on because nothing is accessible anymore. As an example, it used to be so easy to check or replace the air filter. It was a matter of loosening a wing nut with your fingers, or on later models, flipping a clamp. Not any more: the air filter housing is fastened with bolts. and it takes a socket wrench to remove those bolts. Why these changes? It must be to discourage the owner from performing this task himself and thus to make more money for the dealers.)
Older, mechanical car parts might be subject to wear and corrosion and so on; but the new ones are subject to errors in computer programs. To put it very non-technically, computers can mess up big-time, maybe creating worse consequences than the simple wear of a mechanical part would cause.
Also, our government is mandating more and more electronic controls on cars. A lot of the electronics and computer controls originally came into use to help car engines meet government-mandated emissions limits. (I'm not implying that these emissions standards are a bad thing.) The latest is that all cars must have Vehicle Stability Control, which helps keep drivers from giving bad driving inputs to their cars that might send the cars out of control. Basically, the car knows better than you do, how it should be driven.
One concern I have about that is that there are a lot of cute, economical, and fun-to-drive little European cars that I'd like to see sold in the U.S. so that drivers who want to drive something economical would have more choice. But manufacturers have some terrible hurdles that they must clear in order to import their cars, including the cost of adding all the features that the U.S. government says a car must have before it can be sold here.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
What Is the Function of Government?
I just read a very interesting article in Smithsonian magazine (Oct. 2009 issue). The title is "A World Too New," and the author is Edmund S. Morgan, an emeritus professor of History at Yale. The article has to do with the knowledge and expectations that Columbus had for "the Indies," which affected the outcome of Europeans' early contacts with Western Hemisphere natives.
The entirety of the article is very interesting, but there were two very subordinate thoughts of Morgan's that struck me as very provocative. I've made my riff on one of those thoughts in the previous posting.
The second quote from Morgan paints a picture of the European society from which Columbus came, and which contrasted itself to that which they considered barbarian:
For me, encountering this thought comes not long after I read some discussion, from different persons, about what the proper or legitimate role (or scope, or extent) of government should be. I think Morgan states it well, and succinctly. We have a Constitution and Bill of Rights that were written as they are to help ensure that the weak are not exploited or otherwise harmed by the strong (or more clever, or more ruthless, etc.) But some extreme conservatives and libertarians would not agree with this. I wonder if, if it were put to them, they would even say that we do not need or want the government to protect investors from a Bernie Madoff; or protect consumers from food manufacturers who might want to make and sell unhealthy food.
Well, actually, I think I know the answer to that one. It's easy to condemn a Madoff. Where it's just one individual, it's easy to condemn him. But, when it's corporations, or an industry—why, in that case some people almost seem to be saying that Business can do no wrong. Anti–big government people like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush feel that business must not be hamstrung by government oversight. But the interests of a corporation—usually meaning, in one word, its profits—can and often do conflict with the interest of consumers—who are more numerous. In other words, should or should not the government legitimately protect the majority (the public, or "consumers") from a minority—one corporation or one industry? So much seems to hinge on issues like this, of protecting one group from another. And that is precisely, as Morgan says, one of the central functions of government.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
The entirety of the article is very interesting, but there were two very subordinate thoughts of Morgan's that struck me as very provocative. I've made my riff on one of those thoughts in the previous posting.
The second quote from Morgan paints a picture of the European society from which Columbus came, and which contrasted itself to that which they considered barbarian:
They had strong governments to protect property, to protect good persons from evil ones. . . .
For me, encountering this thought comes not long after I read some discussion, from different persons, about what the proper or legitimate role (or scope, or extent) of government should be. I think Morgan states it well, and succinctly. We have a Constitution and Bill of Rights that were written as they are to help ensure that the weak are not exploited or otherwise harmed by the strong (or more clever, or more ruthless, etc.) But some extreme conservatives and libertarians would not agree with this. I wonder if, if it were put to them, they would even say that we do not need or want the government to protect investors from a Bernie Madoff; or protect consumers from food manufacturers who might want to make and sell unhealthy food.
Well, actually, I think I know the answer to that one. It's easy to condemn a Madoff. Where it's just one individual, it's easy to condemn him. But, when it's corporations, or an industry—why, in that case some people almost seem to be saying that Business can do no wrong. Anti–big government people like Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush feel that business must not be hamstrung by government oversight. But the interests of a corporation—usually meaning, in one word, its profits—can and often do conflict with the interest of consumers—who are more numerous. In other words, should or should not the government legitimately protect the majority (the public, or "consumers") from a minority—one corporation or one industry? So much seems to hinge on issues like this, of protecting one group from another. And that is precisely, as Morgan says, one of the central functions of government.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
What Does a Self-Educated Person Know?
I just read a very interesting article in Smithsonian magazine (Oct. 2009 issue). The title is "A World Too New," and the author is Edmund S. Morgan, an emeritus professor of History at Yale. The article has to do with the knowledge and expectations that Columbus had for "the Indies," which affected the outcome of Europeans' early contacts with Western Hemisphere natives.
The entirely of the article is very interesting, but there were two very subordinate thoughts of Morgan's that struck me as very provocative.
First, he says that, before setting out for "the Indies" (the east coast of Asia, as, you recall, Columbus expected to reach), Columbus
I truly applaud this observation of Morgan's, about the self-educated person. My experience includes encountering several people who precisely fit that picture. Such people know a lot, but often not as much as they think they do; and, more important, a lot of what they "know" is wrong.
I wish I could identify exactly where the pitfalls of self-education lie. Maybe this—from my own experience—will help shed a little light.
At one point, for the sake of the work I was doing in my job, I decided I ought to have a little more knowledge of organic chemistry. So I got my hands on a college organic chemistry textbook.
Well, the problem was that the organic chemistry course in college usually assumes you've taken a prerequisite course, perhaps inorganic chemistry. And I had not had that course. I had had a high-school chemistry course, and no college chemistry at all. Therefore, I was at a disadvantage in trying to learn organic chemistry. I did not have the background knowledge that the book assumed, I lacked what I needed to make what the book had to say meaningful.
Not that I could gain nothing from the book. The real lesson is, if you don't have a systematic education in a field or subject, if you have bits of knowledge acquired piecemeal, you are going to have some gaps in what you know and understand, and maybe, like the self-taught people I've known, you get some wrong impressions. Imperfect or inadequate understandings are sometimes no better than a lack of understanding. At least in the latter case you may realize that you don't know something, rather than believing you understand the matter when in fact you have incorrect ideas.
Further thoughts inspired by Morgan's article in the next posting.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
The entirely of the article is very interesting, but there were two very subordinate thoughts of Morgan's that struck me as very provocative.
First, he says that, before setting out for "the Indies" (the east coast of Asia, as, you recall, Columbus expected to reach), Columbus
was studying the old writers to find out what the world and its people were like. . . . Columbus was not a scholarly man. Yet he studied these books, made hundreds of marginal notations in them and came out with ideas about the world that were characteristically simple and strong and sometimes wrong, the kind of ideas that the self-educated person gains from independent reading and clings to in defiance of what anyone else tries to tell him.
I truly applaud this observation of Morgan's, about the self-educated person. My experience includes encountering several people who precisely fit that picture. Such people know a lot, but often not as much as they think they do; and, more important, a lot of what they "know" is wrong.
I wish I could identify exactly where the pitfalls of self-education lie. Maybe this—from my own experience—will help shed a little light.
At one point, for the sake of the work I was doing in my job, I decided I ought to have a little more knowledge of organic chemistry. So I got my hands on a college organic chemistry textbook.
Well, the problem was that the organic chemistry course in college usually assumes you've taken a prerequisite course, perhaps inorganic chemistry. And I had not had that course. I had had a high-school chemistry course, and no college chemistry at all. Therefore, I was at a disadvantage in trying to learn organic chemistry. I did not have the background knowledge that the book assumed, I lacked what I needed to make what the book had to say meaningful.
Not that I could gain nothing from the book. The real lesson is, if you don't have a systematic education in a field or subject, if you have bits of knowledge acquired piecemeal, you are going to have some gaps in what you know and understand, and maybe, like the self-taught people I've known, you get some wrong impressions. Imperfect or inadequate understandings are sometimes no better than a lack of understanding. At least in the latter case you may realize that you don't know something, rather than believing you understand the matter when in fact you have incorrect ideas.
Further thoughts inspired by Morgan's article in the next posting.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
The Game of Life
I was looking at a full-page magazine ad from The Teaching Company. I've known of this outfit for a while. They periodically send me CDs containing sample material from their courses, and I borrowed one of their courses from the public library. As far as I can judge, their material is authoritative.
This particular ad was headlined "Master the Rules of Competitive Behavior," and was for a course titled "Games People Play: Game Theory in Life, Business, and Beyond." Some of the individual lectures are titled "Practical Applications of Game Theory," "Pure Competition—Constant-Sum Games," "Credibility, Deterrence, and Compellence," "Encouraging Productivity—Incentive Schemes," "Bargaining and Cooperative Games," "Game Theory and Business—Co-optition," and so forth.
I'll admit that maybe I ought to listen to at least some of this course before I base an opinion solely on the ad's copy and the lecture titles. But I think one or two things are obvious, even so.
The last lecture of the course is titled "All the World's a Game." Now, I've often thought that myself. I think a lot of the people who advance themselves and garner a lot of money or power (1) realize the game nature of life, (2) know what the rules of that game are, and (3) play that game skillfully and mercilessly. (This begs for examples. I'd say maybe a Napoleon or some other general, or maybe a Roman emperor who schemed his way to power.)
If I long ago recognized that all of life is a game, why didn't I try to be a successful player of the game? For one thing, recognizing that it's game is not the same thing as being able to play that game for your advantage. Now look at video games (and I must admit I don't play them, so maybe what I have to say is not authoritative): they require certain skills or traits. If the player does not possess these skills or traits to begin with, the game fosters their development by providing reinforcement, a la what we learn about in Psychology 101. I wonder whether playing video games makes people better players of the game of life. I suspect not, for a couple reasons; but it would be getting too far off my track to go there.
Where all this is tending: Looking over the titles of the lectures of the course "Games People Play" explicitly invokes the world of business. This course (or any instruction on how to practically apply game theory) sounds to me a lot like what people are taught in business school: things like how to manipulate employees to get the most out of them, relative to your labor cost (and employees are just another "ingredient" in the product, and employees are fungible--that is, interchangeable: any chair in the company can be filled by any person possessing certain qualifications). How to manipulate your customers, to get them to buy your product. And (when necessary), how to manipulate lawmakers and government regulators so as to enable you to carry on your game-playing in the most favorable environment possible.
My feeling about all this is that it seems cynical to me, first and foremost. Also, it's arrogant. The attitude or assumption is that the bosses (executives and/or those getting their MBAs) are smarter and therefore are fully justified in exploiting people and treating them just like any resource, even an inanimate resource. To say that it’s manipulative would be to restate what I hope I've already established. It even seems to me hostile, aggressive, and evil. Why, in a society that is supposed to be egalitarian, do we accept that some people have the right to manipulate others? Why do we let our government, our bosses, our teachers, our doctors, and even the people to whom we are customers, have secrets from us? And tell us half-truths and untruths? They believe we are not entitled to know this or that (I've blogged about this elsewhere). They know what is good for us (to know and to not know).
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
This particular ad was headlined "Master the Rules of Competitive Behavior," and was for a course titled "Games People Play: Game Theory in Life, Business, and Beyond." Some of the individual lectures are titled "Practical Applications of Game Theory," "Pure Competition—Constant-Sum Games," "Credibility, Deterrence, and Compellence," "Encouraging Productivity—Incentive Schemes," "Bargaining and Cooperative Games," "Game Theory and Business—Co-optition," and so forth.
I'll admit that maybe I ought to listen to at least some of this course before I base an opinion solely on the ad's copy and the lecture titles. But I think one or two things are obvious, even so.
The last lecture of the course is titled "All the World's a Game." Now, I've often thought that myself. I think a lot of the people who advance themselves and garner a lot of money or power (1) realize the game nature of life, (2) know what the rules of that game are, and (3) play that game skillfully and mercilessly. (This begs for examples. I'd say maybe a Napoleon or some other general, or maybe a Roman emperor who schemed his way to power.)
If I long ago recognized that all of life is a game, why didn't I try to be a successful player of the game? For one thing, recognizing that it's game is not the same thing as being able to play that game for your advantage. Now look at video games (and I must admit I don't play them, so maybe what I have to say is not authoritative): they require certain skills or traits. If the player does not possess these skills or traits to begin with, the game fosters their development by providing reinforcement, a la what we learn about in Psychology 101. I wonder whether playing video games makes people better players of the game of life. I suspect not, for a couple reasons; but it would be getting too far off my track to go there.
Where all this is tending: Looking over the titles of the lectures of the course "Games People Play" explicitly invokes the world of business. This course (or any instruction on how to practically apply game theory) sounds to me a lot like what people are taught in business school: things like how to manipulate employees to get the most out of them, relative to your labor cost (and employees are just another "ingredient" in the product, and employees are fungible--that is, interchangeable: any chair in the company can be filled by any person possessing certain qualifications). How to manipulate your customers, to get them to buy your product. And (when necessary), how to manipulate lawmakers and government regulators so as to enable you to carry on your game-playing in the most favorable environment possible.
My feeling about all this is that it seems cynical to me, first and foremost. Also, it's arrogant. The attitude or assumption is that the bosses (executives and/or those getting their MBAs) are smarter and therefore are fully justified in exploiting people and treating them just like any resource, even an inanimate resource. To say that it’s manipulative would be to restate what I hope I've already established. It even seems to me hostile, aggressive, and evil. Why, in a society that is supposed to be egalitarian, do we accept that some people have the right to manipulate others? Why do we let our government, our bosses, our teachers, our doctors, and even the people to whom we are customers, have secrets from us? And tell us half-truths and untruths? They believe we are not entitled to know this or that (I've blogged about this elsewhere). They know what is good for us (to know and to not know).
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
Monday, February 1, 2010
How Can There Be So Many. . . . ?
Have you ever noticed how, when you drop a glass and it smashes on the floor, you keep finding pieces of it on the floor for days? and that it seems like all the pieces you find would make up at least three glasses? (Even worse: when one of your car windows gets smashed. You'll keep finding those little bits of glass for years.)
Well, yesterday I spilled—no, propelled—most of the contents of a 180-pill bottle of a prescription drug onto the floor. It's only the day after, today, but I'm still finding pills on the floor. In fact I'm seeing pills on the floor where I am sure there were not any yesterday.
Of course it might be nice to not have to swallow pills that have been on the floor (my kitchen floor is not quite up to the "you could eat off it" standard). But I'm sure that my prescription drug insurance would not pay for another prescription-filling before the date when the old one was supposed to be used up. I don't think they'd be moved by my saying, "But I spilled it all on the floor!"
Of course there's the—what is it, five-second rule? But it's a bit of a stretch to make it a 24-hour rule. Let's hope that the germs on my kitchen floor are mostly pretty benign ones.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
Well, yesterday I spilled—no, propelled—most of the contents of a 180-pill bottle of a prescription drug onto the floor. It's only the day after, today, but I'm still finding pills on the floor. In fact I'm seeing pills on the floor where I am sure there were not any yesterday.
Of course it might be nice to not have to swallow pills that have been on the floor (my kitchen floor is not quite up to the "you could eat off it" standard). But I'm sure that my prescription drug insurance would not pay for another prescription-filling before the date when the old one was supposed to be used up. I don't think they'd be moved by my saying, "But I spilled it all on the floor!"
Of course there's the—what is it, five-second rule? But it's a bit of a stretch to make it a 24-hour rule. Let's hope that the germs on my kitchen floor are mostly pretty benign ones.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
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