Reinventing the flat tire is a far more common achievement than reinventing the wheel.
And this is in spite of the fact that most flat tires are a good deal more complex and clever than a wheel. A wheel solves a problem. A flat tire salves an ego. The better a wheel works, the less it is noticed. A flat tire requires us to stop, gives us a chance to admire someone's skill with a jack and tire iron and may beget all sorts of speculation as to why it is flat. Whatever drives one to invent a wheel passes away with the invention. The flat tire must be reinvented over and over again, even by the same person, since it does not solve the problem that sets the inventor in motion.
[I will gradually fill this yawning white space with examples as they occur to my strange mind but you doubtless have a few of your own.]
4 comments:
GreenSmile, old pal, has the Graham-Levin Amendment to the Military Authorization Bill been voted on yet? If so how did that go? I can't find anything in the Googlesphere other than mention that it was due to be voted on 7 Dec 2005.
Gerry:
the best links I have on the matter are: http://www.scotusblog.com/movabletype/archives/2005/11/the_grahamlevin.html
http://www.alternet.org/rights/29214/
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/12/retired-us-judges-urge-congress-not-to.php
the last link, if I scanned it properly, informs us that the amendment has been bartered and kicked about, become the graham-levin-kyl amendment and will get further debate Monday...I find so little news and even less opinion in in favor of this whitewash. who the f**k are we in the US to tell peoples from other countries what their rights are..espcially if we are going to claim some wierd "its outside the normal rules of war...its...its terrism" status? Kyl is foaming at the mouth. What a bloody fear-monger.
I am ashamed of my country...making up morally vacuous rules to cover its ass and arrogantly ignoring a century of progress on international law about jus in bellum agreements. Its as if you could make it OK to kill and eat babies if only you could print up a suitably glossy cookbook. Bastards!
And reinventing the "almost wise" saying is what sort of activity?
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