On gratitude

and other stuff.

If a curious man is diligent, he can actually find something on TV worth watching. It is not easy. The program “How It’s Made” has interesting stories, provided the man watching has an I.Q. that can be registered in positive numbers.

Among other things the long-running series details the intricacies of factories that make everything, everything from Twinkies to light bulbs to airplane engines. Western civilization has provided us with astounding capabilities based on higher math and an understanding of the laws of physics.

Watching a robot build a machine that builds robots is nothing short of fascinating, if, that is, a person has an attention span. Whereas nails were once made by hand, one at a time, machines spit out nails and screws by the thousands, every minute. Machine tools guided by computers drill inch-wide holes in solid steel blocks, then thread the holes to receive bolts, all in seconds. Assembly lines move products up and down and sideways on their way to packaging. Machines sort millions of letters every minute. Generators at the bottom of the Hoover Dam churn out billions of volts of electricity that is sent to homes and businesses hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Somebody built all those high-voltage lines, the windmills, the solar panels, and the nuclear power plants that electrify the world. And somebody figured out how to manage it all. I’m telling you, Western Civilization is really quite the accomplishment.

So it is our moral obligation to try and find some way to thank the many Somali engineers and technicians who built all this stuff. Who knew?