Category Archives: Current Events

Secular Marriage. Gaussling’s 8th Epistle to the Bohemians.

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Below is a comment that I left on the Volokh Conspiracy some time ago. Rather than squander perfectly good ramblings there, I have reproduced it here and attached a link.  Th’ Gaussling

Broadly, we have two kinds of marriage in the USA. One is before a god and the other is before the state. Marriage before a god is a supernatural arrangement that is beyond the scope of this letter.

It would seem that the states compelling interest in marriage is mostly confined to the disposition of debts, assets, and minor children during the marriage and in the event the marriage fails. Married partners have an obligation to the welfare of minor children born to them or adopted. Married partners also have a status that allows for decision-making in critical care situations. It seems to be a kind of partnership whereupon responsibility for the secular aspects of married life are defined. After all, the state is called in to make decisions as to the disposition of civil matters in the event of a divorce. Surely the state can clearly define certain basic responsibilities and privileges in advance.

The moral/spiritual aspects of marriage “can” be interpreted as being perpendicular or orthogonal (like the x and y axes in a graph) to the legal dimension of property rights and other secular aspects of married partners. The state is without supernatural powers, thankfully, so it is inherently impotent in the spiritual dimension. If that is the case, and in the absence of a uniform interpretation of supernatural governance, it should be silent on spiritual matters.

The state should have no interest in how married partners conduct their lawful affairs beyond the normal confines of civil and criminal law.

A code defining the responsibilities of married partners in a variety of configurations could be modeled easily. If you accept the premise that secular marriage is confined to the mundane matters that are already contestable in a court, then it is a simple matter to imagine same sex or plural marriages under the same constraints. What is the compelling interest of the state in barring same sex partners from having automatic authority in giving comfort to a dying partner? We already have codes regulating many other kinds of complex relationships between people- corporations, partnerships, LLC’s, government, etc. Minimally, the state should entertain the prospect of recognizing limited entry of some new definitions of marriage to adult parties wanting to be responsible members of society with the rights and responsibilities thereto appertaining.

Verbund Manufacturing

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German manufacturing culture does many things very well, but a few things particularly stand out. One of these items pertains to the concept of verbund manufacturing. Verbund simply means “integrated” or “linked”. Verbund manufacturing sites are clusters of manufacturing units that take advantage of proximity. Clustering can offer certain logistic and energy advantages if done intelligently.

A cluster of manufacturing sites can operate and share a co-generation plant for the distribution of steam, waste heat, and electricity. Large capital items like steam plants can be shared so funds can be plowed into larger scale for better economy. Rail operations and other transportation resources can be shared as well. Clustering also provides for the possibility of vertically integrated manufacturing on site and a reduction in transportation costs.

Clustered manufacturing may also have the effect of concentrating the supply of skilled workers for the labor pool. A manufacturing nexus can attract community colleges and other vocational opportunities for the next generation of employees.

The USA has many manufacturing sites where similar industries congregate. Look at the Gulf coast with all of the refinery locations. But the extent to which there are synergistic interactions between companies is unclear.

In the US, corporations tend to behave as the Republic of Exxon or the Republic of the Union Pacific. This kind of a fragmented confederation of corporate states is becoming obsolete as we go up against nationalized business entities that control key resources and trade. The key to future vitality is greater efficiency with resources. Synergistic cooperation is one model that is available. But to do this requires trust and the desire to cooperate for mutual benefit. Competition begets gamesmanship and posturing which works against the verbund model for US businesses.

US corporations have much to learn from this business model.

Chemists and Engineers

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What would happen to innovation in chemical technology if we had a more intimate comingling of chemistry and the engineering sciences?  What effect would there be on the stream of chemists graduating into the world if more schools had a chemical engineer on the chemistry faculty? Could a single engineer on the faculty actually make a difference in altering the direction of the boat a few degrees?

Why is such a change desirable? One way to change the trend of deindustrialization and economic repositioning of manufacturing out of North America is to stimulate innovation in the industrial sciences. To do this we can rely on business leaders individually to formulate strategic plans to upgrade plants and processes by way of step changes in technology. But for business leaders, the calculation for such a change must also take into account the alternative of moving production to another country. Many times it is easier and faster to move production to China rather than taking a gamble on the invention of better technology. A large amount of pharmaceutical manufacturing has been shifted to China, Mexico, and India for this very reason.

To rely on business leaders (top down) to ramp up innovation really means that one is relying on the market. While letting the marketplace drive the economics and distribution of manufacturing has a certain appeal to purists, the global marketplace is highly distorted by government and taxation. Letting “pure” market forces govern innovation as the sole driver is to bet all of your money on a horse that limps.  Why not find ways to stimulate innovation with an improved stream of chemical innovators and a renewed urgency?

Universities do this all of the time. But it is my sense that other disciplines perhaps do this better. It is all too easy for we chemists to invent a reaction or composition, publish it, and then move on to the next outcropping of opportunity. We do this thinking that surely somebody will pick up the ball and run it to the end zone of commerce.

But for any given paper published in SynLett or JOC or ______, the likelihood of commercialization is low. It is not automatically the role of academic science to drive its work towards commercialization. That has been the role of engineering. 

What has been lacking is more significant early overlap of the two disciplines. For a chemist to truly be a part of bringing a transformation to the manufacturing scale, the chemist has to begin thinking about how to prepare the chemistry for the big pots and pans. This is what the art of scale-up is about. And in scale-up, the practice of chemistry has to overlap with the practice of engineering.

Industry already provides for itself in this way by training chemists to do scale-up work. This kind of work has always been beyond the scope of academic training.  But what if there were a course of study wherein chemistry faculty and students could more thoroughly address the problems of chemical manufacture? What if engineering concepts would be allowed to creep into the training of chemists?

Chemistry faculty would begin writing grants for process oriented research. Schools without engineering departments might start hiring the odd engineer or two in an effort to “modernize” the chemistry department.  Gradually, a department might become known among recruiters and donors for producing a strain of BS, MS, and PhD chemists who are already adapted to process research.

It is important to stress that the goal is not to plop conventional engineering curriculum into the chemical course of study.  That will not work. But what is possible is to build a minor in industrial chemistry applications. This pill will be easier to swallow for the P-chemists because in short order it would be apparent that chemical engineering is heavily loaded with physical chemistry.

I have tried to make a case that one way to make a positive influence in chemical innovation in North America is to begin a grass-roots effort to stimulate the culture of chemistry. I believe that providing an avenue of study that includes early exposure to engineering and process economics will stimulate many more students and faculty to make significant contributions to entrepreneurism and industry.

The Chemistry Curriculum

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It is time to have a frank talk about the fundamental merits of the college chemistry curriculum. This plan of study has remained substantially unchanged for decades (see comment by bchem). Certainly minor changes occur through nudges and bumps here and there pertaining to details. But in the last generation has there been a dialog or debate on the fundamental assumptions of the common curriculum? And I refer specifically to the ACS certified curriculum, which has been the gold standard across the country. Major changes that I have been witness to mainly accomodate an increased emphasis on biochemistry or new computerized instrumentation. 

The undergraduate chemistry curriculum is a very logical and thorough survey of the three pillars of chemistry- Theory, synthesis, and analysis. This covers the fields of inorganic, organic, physical, analytical, and biochemistry. Along the way we teach a few other areas of specialty by way of electives.

The current program of chemical pedagogy is certainly true to itself. There is genuine concern and care to avoid dilution of the content and over-inflation of grades, generally. The core domains of the subject are sorted out and given special consideration. Much work has been done to spark interest in the field and textbooks seem to be written quite well as a rule.  Resources like J. Chem. Ed. are a continuous stream of clever tools and tricks to make the subject more plain.

Our colleges and universities have been quite good at churning out chemical scholarship. And students are given scholarly exposure in their learning program. Not surprisingly, scholars are very good at producing more scholars.

But has the academy been keeping up with the role of chemistry in the world?  Just look around. How many CEO’s and upper executives in the top 100 chemical companies are chemists? I have not seen this statistic tabulated. But I am confident that relatively few chemists populate those ranks. Those that do often arise through marketing or finance channels.

But why should they? The field of chemistry attracts people interested in science, not business. Chemical educators have a responsibility to educate chemical scientists with a minimum proficiency in the field.  That requires a minimum number of semester hours of coursework within a 4 year period. There is only so much a department can do and so much a student can absorb.

Yet, the purpose of a college education is to prepare a student for a productive life. A learning program that is internally consistent but blind to the needs of the external world is a fantasy. Have we come to value programmatic tidiness more than practicality?

Chemistry is a highly practical field. It involves problem solving and production. Chemists make stuff. Chemists solve problems. Chemists are specialists in the transformation of matter. But chemists do not operate in a vacuum. They do their work for organizations, and there is the rub.

By training, chemists are woefully prepared to function outside the laboratory. And as a direct result, chemists are poorly prepared to leave the lab and function elsewhere in the organization.  Traditionally, education in the organizational arts has been considered on-the-job training. In a sense this is not unreasonable. How can educators anticipate the needs of a student 5 years into the future? 

What is under appreciated by educators and students alike are the many opportunities that will follow for a chemist in industry. Many if not most chemists will come to a fork in the road in their careers. Will they stay in the lab or will they go to the business side? Usually, the path to greater opportunity in a business organization is the business side. Technical sales, customer service, marketing, procurement, management, etc.

I am not proposing that chemistry faculty teach coursework that cover such material. I am trying to suggest, however, that chemistry departments take a closer look at what an industrial career really looks like and try to anticipate a few needs that will arise as a result of this career path. Advisors can talk to students about the possibility of a business minor. An accounting or marketing class could be very helpful for a student who is uncertain about his/her career path. These are painless actions that can be of great use to a graduate.

But there is more than the passive approach of suggesting alternatives to undergrads. There is a more active approach that would definitely serve the needs of students and society alike.

Elective coursework covering intellectual property and patents, business law, the regulatory world (TSCA, EPA, OSHA, CERCLA, REACH, etc.), industrial hygiene, and perhaps most importantly an introduction to chemical engineering. This last item I cannot overemphasize.  Chemical engineering includes the basics of unit operations, process economics, thermodynamics, and controls. I would offer that the whole package could be called Industrial Chemistry. 

There are junior college programs for chemical operators that do provide exposure to some engineering concepts. But this isn’t necessarily for management track graduates.

I would offer that the department with an industrial chemistry program would be very successful in job placement as well as attracting new majors.  Comments?

 

Poorer Living from Better Things

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I’m not an apologist for the chemical industry. Chemical industry has a checkered past in many ways. The pesticide, petrochemicals, and mining industries have left a deep and abiding foul taste in the mouths of many communities. In a previous era, heavy industry has fouled rivers, lakes, air, and ground water. It has lead to illness, death, and loss of livelihood to many people.

But in the modern era much of this wanton issuance of hazardous industrial material into the air and waters has been halted or greatly diminished. At least for the US, Canada, and the EU. And it is not because industry suddenly found religion. The “regulatory environment” became so compelling a liability cost factor that industry set its mind to engineering plants into compliance. 

I would make the observation that today, the major chemical health issues before us are not quite as much about bulk environmental pollution by waste products. Rather, I would offer that the most important matter may have to do with the chronic exposure of consumers to various levels of manufactured products. High energy density foods, particularly, high fructose corn sweeteners; veterinary antibiotic residues, endocrine disrupters, smoking, highly potent pharmaceuticals, and volatiles from polymers and adhesives to name just a few.

Modern life has come to require the consumption of many things.  A modern nation must have a thriving chemical industry to sustain its need for manufactured materials. It is quite difficult and isolating to live a life free of paint and plastics or diesel and drugs. Choosing paper over plastic at the supermarket requires a difficult calculation of comparative environmental insults. Pulp manufacture vs polymer manufacture- which is the least evil? I don’t know.

Our lives have transitioned from convenience to wretched excess. Our industry has given us an irresistable selection of facile ways to accomplish excess consumption. Individualized portions meter out aliquots of tasty morsels that our cortisol-stressed brains cry out for. These same portions are conveniently dispensed in petroleum- or natural gas-derived packages within packages within packages. These resource depleting disposable nested packages are delivered to our local market in diesel burning behemoths because some pencil-necked cube monkey decided that rotund Americans needed yet one more permutation of high fructose corn syrup saturated, palm oil softened, sodium salt crusted, azo dye pigmented, extruded grain product on Wal-Mart shelves.

Enough already.

All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2008.

Spacely Sprockets

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A commentor recently pointed out that Th’ Gaussling was sounding off in a nationalist/socialist way. While I’m pretty sure I’m not a socialist, I must admit that I’m on a nationalistic bender at the moment. And by nationalistic, don’t think for minute that I get weepy and sentimental over Kenny Rogers flag waving ballads. I don’t.

But I do believe that, in the short and bloody history of humanity, this North American culture of ours has produced or advanced some truly amazing things. Like space exploration and antibiotics. Airplanes, transistors, synthetic chemistry, and cinema. We’ve had some low points as well. But in spite of our war-like behavior, much good has come from our industriousness. 

And, I am anxious to keep it much of it running. There is no return to a pastoral life in the Shire. We are electric hominids whether we like it or not. The very existence of life itself leads to disorder. Highly ordered organisms that we are, we create vast amounts of disorder to energize life and hold our molecules together in cellular membranes.  Practically by definition, we cannot help but leave a carbon footprint. The trick is to avoid adding carbon faster than the cycle can accomodate.

It is plain as day that the USA is trending in a bad economic direction. I’m not talking about economic indicators or some political movement. I’m talking about our business culture. I believe that our manner of doing business has gone astray.  We have come to value the wrong people and unhealthy organizational behavior. We have come to admire those who appear to generate wealth by the manipulation of financial contrivances and accounting machinations. Strangely, the notion of manufacturing as a desirable activity has become nearly obsolete.

We don’t need Grand Theft Auto IV or Microsoft Vista or better cell phone gimmicks. We don’t need more gadgets to give neurotic, hyperactive, workaholics 2X better web connectivity.  Somehow, we have become intoxicated with computer technology to the point where we feel we need to fill terabytes of disk space with junk data rather than going outside and planting a garden or talking to the neighbor.

The greedheads in banking, finance, and real estate have helped to construct a business finance machine that few understand. Greed as a virtue is the norm. The right to petition congress has come to mean a docking port for electronic funds transfer to the military-industrial complex. If gaming the system is possible, then it is manditory.

We don’t have to abandon the basic principles of laissez faire markets. Markets work. Even the Chinese communists realize this. But we don’t have to shut our brains off either.

We do need a comprehensive mass transit network covering most of the continent. We need better ways to generate and transfer electric power. We need to find ways to make sure that people in Honduras have clean drinking water.

We don’t need a better version of Excel or SAP. We need Spacely Sprockets. We need people to continue to go into the trades and build things. We need welders and electricians and machinists, millwrights and longshoremen.  This country needs to get back to the fundamentals of manufacturing tangible products.

 

 

Aviation Deathmatch- Boeing vs Airbus vs PR of China

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China has announced that it will enter into the passenger jet manufacturing business.  China Commercial Aircraft is expected to produce 150-passenger aircraft by 2020. 

This is a big deal.  And a big time challenge to the primacy of the US aviation industry. China’s aim is to achieve self-sufficiency in all high tech sectors. If it were just that, it would be less threatening. But what it really means is global market domination, not just self-sufficiency.  This is just competition, but how it plays out for the US will depend on how US industry acts to hold on to its marketshare beginning right now.

The USA retains talent and ability in the entertainment and aviation industries. I believe that US influence of the petrochemical industry is in decline, due in part to the rise of nationalized oil companies in much of the oil producing world. It looks as if our aviation industry will feel competition by a nationalized aircraft manufacturer as well.

The rise of Chinese competition in the marketplace in inevitable. What the west must come to grips with is the inherent leverage that China has with its low wage labor force and the ability to channel resources into projects of national pride such as this.

China will also have the benefit of a century of jet engine and aeronautical research paid for by other nations. I imagine that more than a few of its engineers will have western universities listed on their resumes. Can’t do much about this either. But we in the west can use this example to strengthen our resolve to not go the way of tired and anemic empires.

Thus Begins Cold War II

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Russia celebrated a holiday recently with a large scale military parade on Red Square. Just like the bad old days. Putins sock puppet, President Dmitri Medvedev, smiled while Putin stood stern-faced at his side at the annual Parade of Hardware.  Insiders claim that Russia’s effort to modernize its military forces is anemic and plagued with corruption. Putin and followers are plainly appealing to that voice in the Russian soul that longs for strongman leadership.

China, on the other hand, is quietly constructing a secret underground nuclear submarine base on Hainan. Hmmm. A secret underground lair. Sounds like Dr. No.  I doubt there are miniskirted nubiles with machine guns. Bummer.

Whereas Russia is fighting infrastructural inertia in its return to the platform, China is methodically ramping up its military with an economy flush with cash. With funding from its exports of Wal-Mart inventory and other Cheap Plastic Crap (CPC) marketed through its many outlets in the USA, China is moving closer to a blue water Navy and an SSBN fleet.

In the next 20 years, we are likely to see China flexing its muscle by positioning naval (carrier ?) groups and hints of Chinese submarine fleets prowling the continental shelves of the world.  Just like us.

While the USA shadow boxes with multiple terrorist threats around the world, China plods forward minding its own business and funding its own growth.

Four US presidential terms were squandered following the fall of the Soviet Union- 2 x Clinton and 2 x Bush.  US efforts to engage Russia in economic cooperation were weak at best. The highlight was perhaps the downgrading of Soviet era nuclear materials.  Instead of building friendships and trade cooperation, US presidents were distracted by faulty nation building exercises and dubious foreign adventures. Mikhail Gorbachev himself recently lamented that “… every US president has to have a war…”. 

US government needs to spend a 4 year term focused inwards. We must address US infrastructure as eagerly and aggressively as we land troops on the sandy reaches of the earth. The US needs an upgrade in electrical power distribution, bridges, its rail “system”, and its ports.

Collectively, we must find ways to keep factories and businesses in the USA. We need to reconsider the structure of the Code of Federal Regulations. Our regulatory structure is now so complex and extensive that we face the real risk of killing innovation. Our tax code is too complex and too burdensome on citizens and businesses. The government is funding far too many activities.

In short, the USA must get back to basics. The country is in a existential crisis and we need to get grounded again. We need fewer rules in our lives, not more. We need fewer people telling us how to live an authentic life. More of us need to spend a bit more time in the pursuit of happiness.

Oligarch Council of the United States

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As if further proof of my true tediousness was really necessary, Th’ Gaussling will disclose to the world that I log a fair amount of odd-hour time watching C-Span 1 & 2.

Saturday morning’s broadcast bonanza was a re-airing of an earlier awards gala put on by the Atlantic Council.  Among the illuminati doling out awards was “Henry the K”. Yes, the venerable Henry Kissinger- Dr. Shuttle Diplomacy.

Arguably, among President Nixon’s gang of operatives, Henry Kissinger was a towering and intimidating intellect. In the management of the Viet Nam “conflict” and the diplomatic opening of China, Kissinger was extremely influential in the Nixon Whitehouse. But unfortunately for Kissinger, he continues to be unpopular in some circles. Chile has invited him to answer some difficult questions. In his characteristic 20 Hz basso profundo voice, Henry has declined to visit.

Not a tall fellow, Kissinger stood on a stool behind the podium and read a glowing and heartfelt introduction for one of the Awardees- Mr. Rupert Murdoch. Mr. Murdoch was held out to the world by the Atlantic Council as an example of shining excellence in international business.  I can only guess that the poobahs and grandees on the awards committee, through the refractive lenses of their world view, somehow missed the profound global bastardization of broadcast news under the wing of News Corp. More likely, they do not see it as a perversion but rather a turnabout to right thinking.

As a compulsive channel surfer, I switched to the other C-Span channel just in time for proceedings of the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by the Honorable Representitive Conyers (D-MI).  Conyers was reading the riot act to the Director of the FBI regarding due process for members of the house during FBI raids.

After a few minutes of roasting the Director, the chair yielded to the Honorable Representative Smith (R-TX). Rep. Smith began by figuratively Kowtowing to the Director and then prefaced his comments by referring to a report from Fox News, that fountain of information plumbed by Mr. Rupert Murdoch.

That a senior member of congress would preface his comments by citing Fox News as a primary reference is surely telling of the reach of Rupert Murdoch into the political machinery of the USA. Of course, citing Fox News is not a new rhetorical habit of neo-conservatives. But the simultaneity of the Murdoch pageantry on C-Span 2 and endorsement of Murdoch’s Fox News as the Republican “Van Nostrand’s Encyclopedia” on C-Span 1 was at once fascinating and faintly anticholinergic in effect. Though certainly random, this overlap of Murdoch mania only brings into focus the influence this man.

Murdoch went on to opine on the stability of NATO, stating

“We must face up to a painful truth: Europe no longer has either the political will or social culture to support military engagements in defense of itself and its allies. However strong NATO may be on paper, this fact makes NATO weak in practice. And it means that reform will not come from within.”

Murdoch has turned his attention to the expansion of NATO. A member of the merchant nobility, Murdoch has said aloud what is perhaps already on the minds of policy makers. Expansionism. Western exceptionalism. Democracy through superior firepower. 

The spread of democracy is a good thing. And western culture has much to offer. But a US government with insufficient checks and balances is a dangerous thing. Especially when our petro-president is on a security binge and is driven by an autistic military /petroleum fixation.