IP: faith based defense ssytem

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

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> Date: Mon, 14 May 2001 18:28:21 -0400
> To: dave () farber net
> From: Kobrin <KobrinS () wharton upenn edu> (by way of David Farber 
> <dave () farber net>)
> Subject: faith based defense ssytem
>
> Dave,
>
> While it is a bit off topic, I thought you might enjoy the attached proposal
> for a faith based air traffic control system.  Tom Friedman used much of
> this essay in his column in the Times a few weeks ago.  I ends with a
> reference to a faith based defense system
>
> Steve

A Modest Proposal  --  Stephen Kobrin*

Now I get it!

I was confused last summer.  People would come home furious about 
interminable flight delays, go on and on about the awful state of the 
nation's air traffic control system and then, in the next breath, drool 
over the Bush tax cut proposal.  I didn't understand how "giving money back 
to the people who earned it" was going to get planes off the ground.

I wasn't listening.  The answer is clear as a bell:  A faith-based air 
traffic control system.  Thousands of church groups all over the country 
using second-hand police radar guns and short wave radios to guide 
airplanes to their destinations.  Hey, if a guy flying a plane filled with 
passengers with two engines sputtering doesn't get right with God quickly, 
who will?

My plan  FbF (Faith-based Flight)  will transfer funds from stodgy 
bureaucrats interested in feathering their own nests back to the 
people.  More important, it will put government funds in the hands of 
groups that have the motivation and energy to solve the problem.  Does 
anyone really want a 747 crashing into their neighborhood?

Both Mao and Bush pere talked about 1000 points of something.  Think of the 
possibilities for innovation and new technologies that will emerge from 
thousands of small faith-based groups trying to come to grips with all of 
the problems of guiding planes safely and efficiently through our 
over-crowded skies.  And the airlines will be forced to become independent 
and self-reliant instead of depending on the public dole and publicly 
funded air traffic controllers.  If the inevitable does happen, what better 
hands could you wish to be in?

There may be a few rough spots here and there.  It is not clear how actions 
by thousands of separate religious groups across the land can morph into 
some sort of coordinated national policy, but then again, we can't be much 
worse off than we are now.  While others may wonder about amateurs dealing 
with complex, highly technical issues, I say that the professionals have 
had their chance and they have not done so well either.  Diversity should 
not be a serious problem: most of the international airlines like Gulf Air, 
El Al and Thai Airways land in large heterogeneous metropolitan areas like 
New York and LA where they should be able to find a synagogue, mosque or 
Buddhist temple to guide them in.

While proselytizing may happen, it should not be a big deal.  These days 
planes are pretty automated and pilots have long stretches of time that can 
be put to good use.  And what an opportunity to give passengers the option 
to listen to a stirring faith-based message full of family values instead 
of watching a movie full of (badly edited) sex and violence.

The possibilities are endless.    Faith-based education is already on the 
way through school vouchers.  Doctors have always argued that 
blind  faith  albeit in their opinions  is the key to effective health 
care.  And with Star Wars, a faith-based defense policy is well off the ground.

* 215 898-7732; kobrins () wharton upenn edu





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