Red Tape

Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies.

— Honoré de Balzac

It took me five trips to Delaware's DMV recently to get a new driver's license and registration.

Five.

At every step in the months-long process, the clerks provided verbal and printed instructions to follow, both of which were always—always—wrong.

The procedures were Byzantine and no one I encountered knew what he was doing.

Complexity and frightening incompetence prolonged my agony—although I must admit I grew fond of the hot dogs. 

(There was a long queue at the entrance to the building, where a vendor sold Polish dogs from a cart. Two dollars bought you a hot dog, chips, and a soda; by my third trip, I’d become a regular. Mo and I were on a first-name basis.)

My ordeal's origins were evident from the start.

Although the DMV used yellow tape to demarcate the queue, the underlying problem was red tape.

"Red tape has killed more people than bullets," novelist Ben Bova once said.

It almost killed me. (The hot dogs didn't help.)

The expression red tape enjoys a six-century history.

It originated in the 1600s, when nobles and lawyers began—literally—to bind batches of paperwork with red tape.

To open a batch, you had to "cut through the red tape."

Red tape went from literal to metaphorical use three centuries later.

Dickens, Carlyle, Longfellow and other writers all used the expression in the 19th century to deride bureaucracies.

During the American Civil War, bureaucrats in Washington, DC, took red tape to new lengths, using roll after roll after roll of it to seal envelopes and bundle documents, according to the National Archives.

In fiscal year 1864 alone, the War Department purchased 154 miles of the stuff—nearly twice the length of Delaware.

HAT TIP: Ann Ramsey, no friend of red tape, suggested this post. 

Unbundled

The creator economy allows people to unbundle from traditional employment and still be successful.

— Destinee Berman

Ageism is a thing. 

Indeed, a basic tenet of Critical Age Theory (CAT) holds that ageism is systemic.*

It begins to affect you the day you're no longer carded for an alcohol purchase.

Things go downhill from there.

By your late 60s (my age), ageism rears its ugly head every day. 

Waitresses give you the senior discount without asking; kids hold open doors for you; your mailbox is stuffed with offers for long-term care; your spam filter is clogged with emails about ED; and all the TV and Facebook ads feature Tom Selleck.

Worse, whenever you're asked for the name of your employer, the only answer the clerk will accept is "retired."

I'm not retired; and never will be, Lord willing. 

I'm unbundled.

To be unbundled is to be part of the gig economy.

A perhaps creaky part, but a part nonetheless.

Currently, I consult to clients; advise three nonprofit boards; tutor a high-schooler; write occasionally for magazines; and, first and foremost, paint original still lifes in oil.

Just ask the IRS whether I'm "retired."

I have no issue with anyone who's really retired, but only with those binary people who believe everyone over 60 must be retired, when in truth a lot of us are unbundled.

Why isn't that on your form, punk?

*NOTE: Bob James' Critical Age Theory (CAT) is not to be confused with linguist Eric Lenneburg's Critical Age Theory. The latter pertains to children; the former, to geezers. Lenneburg's theory is, in addition, widely accepted, while James' theory is still controversial.

Pie in the Sky

I was delighted to tell this couple the print they had picked up for less than the price of a pizza was the work of the most celebrated figurative artist of the 20th century.

— Will Gilding

A British couple bought an £18,000 print for £12, only because they liked the frame that came with it.

The print is one of an edition of 46 signed and numbered in 1998 by Britain's greatest 20th-century figurative artist, Lucian Freud.

The couple began bidding in auctions for fun last spring, during a Covid-19 lockdown. 

They bought a lot of two picture frames for £12 one day, and were given the print, attached to two pieces of cardboard, because it was part of the lot.

The husband decided to use the cardboard as a drip-pan while he worked on his motorcycle, and tossed the print aside. 

But it suddenly appeared one afternoon on the BBC show Secrets of the Museum.

The gleeful couple contacted auctioneer Will Gilding, who verified the print's authenticity and set its price at £18,000—a lot of dough for the price of a pizza.

The original etching would cost millions, Gilding says.

The lucky couple's print goes on auction in November.

Lucian Freud, grandson of Sigmund, is best known for fiercely realistic portraits of friends and family members, who often sat months on end for the finicky artist.

The couple's print depicts Freud's assistant, the artist David Dawson.

NOTE: £18,000 equals US$24,800.

Leg Up

Eighty-two years ago today, nylons went on sale to the public for the first time.

Inventor DuPont had chosen Braunstein's, a women's fashion store in Wilmington, Delaware, as the test site for sales of its new "miracle yarn." 

Four thousand pairs of nylons sold the first hour. 

"Women went nuts," storeowner David Braunstein told the local paper. 

They climbed over the counters, nearly crushing the clerks, to get their hands on the product, then fled the store with their purchases to try them on.

The curbs were lined all day with frenzied women slipping on their new hosiery.

We scoff at it today, but in 1939 Dupont's Nylon, the first commercially viable artificial fiber, was a "modern wonder" and a breakthrough in textile manufacturing. 

The first successful synthetic polymer, it was also a breakthrough in chemical engineering.

Nylon only came about because DuPont's executives a decade earlier had decided to forego profits and, like Bell Telephone, invest in "pure science." (DuPont's previous efforts at "applied" science had produced only Rayon, a cellulose fiber that flopped, because it sagged and crumbled.)

Although disdained by academics, DuPont's executives managed to attract Harvard chemist Wallace Carothers to lead the company's research team.

Within four years, working without constraints, Carothers' researchers synthesized the first polymer by linking short resins into long chains of molecules. 

Eight years later, they created a silky "artificial yarn" they derived from coal tar.

DuPont dubbed the creation "Nylon" and produced over two million pounds of the stuff that same year, turning all of it into women's stockings.

The company captured nearly a third of the US hosiery market within 12 months.

You could say pure science gave DuPont a leg up on the competition.

NOTE: Learn how Nylon and Braunstein's fought World War II.

Ship of Fools

No one is entitled to be ignorant.

— Harlan Ellison

Investigators this week found that a $2 billion warship burned because no one aboard turned on the fire-suppression system, according to US Naval Institute News.

The USS Bonhomme Richard burned last summer because its crew didn't know how to fight a fire, investigators concluded.

The fire-suppression system could have been activated, and the warship saved, by the push of a single button.

"It is surprising that nobody on the scene knew how to activate the system," a defense expert said.

A number of other missteps, including delays in reporting the fire, a disorganized command response, and a failure to seal off the area where the fire began, only worsened the situation.

The Navy blamed 36 individuals, including five admirals, for the ship's loss.

The incident is the second of its kind in eight years.

The USS Miami, a $ 1.6 billion submarine, burned in 2012.

The fatalist in me says catastrophes like the one aboard the Bonhomme Richard are overdetermined—brought about not by one, but by a "cascade of failures."

You could chalk the disaster up to hubris; but I'm more apt to blame sheer ignorance.

Americans have a romance with ignorance. It's at the bottom of most the errors and bad decisions we make, from investing in subprime mortgages to electing Donald Trump.

Our unfathomable ignorance is inexcusable, given how easy it is to become moderately informed about almost any topic. (Google it.)

Our widespread ignorance is willful, woeful, and thoroughly unconscionable.

We get what we deserve.

POSTSCRIPT: I felt a bit crabby when I penned this post. But less than 24 hours later, Maria Shriver wrote "most people don't want the truth," citing Trump's launch of his new social media platform TRUTH. She's right, by gum.