My earlier post on television science fiction largely concentrated on the early years. By the time Doctor Who was available to American audiences I was out of school, had a fulltime job, and (as I’ve mentioned before) was routinely working sixty or seventy hour weeks.

Some time in the early to mid 1970s my local PBS station,WTTW, began broadcasting Doctor Who more or less in the original episode format at 6:00pm in the evening. When I first tried watching it (my recollection is that it was an episode of The Deadly Assassin) I came in in the middle of a lengthy ceremonial sequence with a newsreader doing color commentary in hushed tones. The next day WTTW accidentally re-ran the same episode. When I tuned in and saw the same, dreary ceremonial sequence I concluded that Brits have a higher tolerance for pomp and circumstance than I do and gave up.

A few months later WTTW began editing three or four episodes together, showing the program in a late night time slot, I gave Doctor Who another try, and I got hooked. I watched it faithfully even obsessively until the original show ceased production. I haven’t been able to get into the 21st century version. I may give it another try.

Like most Brit Doctor Who fans, the Doctor I love the most is the one I started watching. In my case that’s Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor. By the time that I started watching Doctor Who I had worn greatcoats for over a decade, a friend (my business partner’s wife) knit a full length Doctor Who scarf for me, and I must have cut quite a figure.

However, I watched every episode that WTTW showed from the William Hartnell First Doctor to the end of production. I was truly sad to see The Doctor go even though it was clear that the show had run out of steam. Heretically, (although my heart belongs to Tom Baker) I think that Jon Pertwee, the Third Doctor, was probably the best. It’s possible that Patrick Troughton, the Second Doctor, was even better. It’s certainly the case that the Troughton years set the stage for the development of the series to come. I wish that more of the Troughton episodes survived so I could make a reasonable judgment. Unfortunately, most of his episodes seem to have been taped over by the thrifty BBC.

In my view Doctor Who was graced with excellent acting, even by bit players (which is what you might expect from the people who invented modern theater), decent direction, good writing, and absolutely execrable production values. The show must be fun (or surreal) for Brits more familiar with the landscape than I am, figuring out where individual sequences were shot.

I am here.

P. S. This is also a reference to the anime Voices of a Distant Star which you can view at the link.

There’s quite a bit of chuckling going on in the blogosphere about a prediction that the world will end at 6:00pm on May 21. I’m reminded of a story told about Ignatius Loyola (founder of the Jesuits) which I may have told here before.

A novice, shocked to see the great soldier-priest playing billiards, asked him what he would do if he learned that the world would end in an hour. Loyola replied “I’d finish the game.”. Now there’s a saint.

I’ve been a science fiction fan for well over half a century. Long before I could read I watched science fiction.

My dad was routinely what’s called an “early adopter”. He was the first lawyer in St. Louis to use a dictating machine, to buy an electric typewriter, or to own a copier. Had he lived I’m quite sure he would have used word processing as soon as word processing machines became available and would have loved personal computers.

He bought a television before I was born. I still remember that first television. It was one of those big, tube-filled boxes with a little round nine-inch screen.

And I watched the earliest TV science fiction programs: Captain Video (a program with such low production values that it made the old 1930s serials look like high tech) and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. I have vivid memories of them.

Shortly thereafter the few St. Louis stations, starved for content to fill air time with, began showing those old 1930s serials—Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon—in the after school time slot. I was enthralled.

Science Fiction Theater, hosted by B-movie actor Truman Bradley, ran from 1955 to 1957. It was pretty high tech—the first season was shot in color. It’s been a half century since I’ve watched any of these programs but my recollection is that it was what is called “hard” science fiction, sticking pretty close to science.

The Twilight Zone in contrast was “soft” science fiction, frequently veering into fantasy. It had the virtues of solid acting, good direction, and fabulous writing. That’s why it’s borne the test of time. The original Twilight Zone is still the gold standard for anthology programs.

I remember watching the very first The Outer Limits program: “There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission…”. I loved it. Having some of the best writing in any television science fiction program helped. It remains my all-time favorite television science fiction program (Star Trek TNG was solid, too) and I think it’s rather clear that it inspired a good deal of the television and movie science fiction that followed it. Is there any question that the episode Soldier inspired James Cameron’s Terminator?

I was in college when Star Trek premiered. It followed Wild, Wild West. An entire dorm of guys crowded into a rec room around a single television set. I didn’t miss a single episode in its first run. It’s a bit hard to explain its fascination now but, remember, nothing like it had ever been shown on network TV.

I couldn’t stand the original Battleship Galactica or Buck Rogers. I don’t know if that’s because I got bigger or the programs got smaller. Maybe some of both. I did like Space: 1999, though. I suspect that Barbara Bain and the original Rudi Gernreich-designed costumes helped.

Nowadays television is full of science fiction programming. Nowhere is Sturgeon’s Law (99% of everything is crap) so evident. But once upon a time science fiction television was rare and exotic and exciting. At least it was to me.

Whenever I hear the claim that the rising cost of healthcare is due to the cost of technology I’m always reminded of what I learned when working for a client of mine. This particular client was a pathology lab and its main profit center was Pap smears.

The actual technology costs of processing a smear consisted of the consumables and capital equipment used (microscopes and so on). The total cost that could be attributed to these items was less than a dollar. The payroll costs for the technicians who peered at the slides through microscopes and the pathologists who reviewed and signed off on the results amounted to a few dollars more. The balance paid for staff, non-technological expenditures (like building rental, electricity, and so on) and the profits of the pathologists who owned the lab. The markup on a Pap smear was phenomenal.

Nearly all of the cost was payroll in one form or another.

That’s why when I read the head of the Mayo Clinic’s explanation for the high and rising costs of healthcare, “too many people making too much money”, it rang true to me. And why I’m skeptical of the claim that technology costs drive healthcare costs. If that were the case it would show up in consumable and capital equipment budgets and those items are rising more slowly than healthcare costs, generally.

Unless when they say “technology” they mean “payrolls” in which case I agree.

I ran across two posts on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner that I thought were worth passing along. The first is a diatribe against the secretary at naked capitalism:

Geithner … and the boys made a conscious decision to side with the oligarchy at the expense of the people.

[…]

Geithner was, of course, largely responsible for much of the failure of the government to restrain risk-taking in the first place.

and another, friendlier post from (of all people) Keith Hennessey, praising some aspects of Secretary Geithner’s recent speech on the budget. Mr. Hennessey comments on three points made in Geithner’s speech:

1. There are demographic factors underlying the country’s fiscal problems.
2. Dealing with those problems can no longer be postponed.
3. Higher interest payments are a cost of inaction that will squeeze out other policy priorities.

There is a lot within Secretary Geithner’s speech with which I disagree, but I wanted to start on a constructive note. These are three important policy points where I think the Secretary deserves credit.

The great Mississippi has overflowed its banks, inundating towns and cities along its course in what some are calling a “hundred year flood”. Memphis has been struck, the waters have reached the bottom of Beale Street. New Orleans is bracing for the onslaught of the waters:

New Orleans is having a bad case of nerves. The Mississippi River has flooded catastrophically upstream and its swelling waters are moving inexorably down toward the Big Easy — and its traumatic memories of recent disasters, Katrina and the Gulf oil spill. “We’re in a weird situation,” observes Linda Jackson, an activist in the Lower Ninth Ward. Her district is particularly anxious: the neighborhood has two functioning bridges from which people can see the swelling Mississippi. The river is already at the top of many levees. The murky, dark green river is unusually choppy, causing ferries to sometimes rock uneasily. Cruise ships appear taller among this city’s bundle of downtown skyscrapers. The whole thing is drawing hordes of people to the levees, prompting the authorities to close some sections. In the Uptown area, overlooking the river, a part of the levee is a bit of dirt held together by wood — and the dirt is falling in some spots.

“Anytime we see water,” Mike Couste, an executive chef, said at the levee near the Audubon Zoo early Tuesday afternoon, “we get nervous.” Says Jackson, the neighborhood activist: “It’s only a matter of time before we flood again.”

People who farm the bottom land are philosophical. It is the richest farmland because it is flooded periodically. They knew the risks but they thought the rewards were worth them.

Some people live in the bottom land. They’ve lost everything now because they weren’t eligible for flood insurance. Some will cut their losses and leave. Others will return to rebuild as best they can. They don’t know any other way of life.

Civil engineers don’t design the systems of steel, concrete, and earth that are their work to withstand any conceivable stresses. That would be impossibly and unjustifiably expensive. Nothing would ever be built. Systems are built to withstand a 10 year flood, a 20 year flood, a 50 year flood. This spring’s floods are straining those systems but so far they’ve behaved as they were designed to.

Levees in Missouri have been detonated. That’s as designed. The last time that was done was more than 70 years ago. The Ensley Berm at Memphis is being reinforced and so far it’s holding.

People who live far from the river and thought themselves safe are being flooded out, too, as the waters back up every tributary. This is as designed, too.

The institutions that shore up our society have met their own hundred year flood and it strongly appears to me that they are failing. Last week the Medicare trustees announced that the Medicare Trust Fund will be actuarially insolvent in 2024. It will come much sooner than that because the assumptions on which they base their conclusions (as pointed out by their own actuaries) are hopelessly optimistic. Insolvency will come for Social Security much sooner than expected as well.

Bruce Krasting notes that the Highway Trust Fund, too, is failing:

Another trust fund going broke. In a year! Actually, these trust funds don’t go broke, they just cutback on what they are paying out. How big a cutback?

The cutback would need to be one-third.

Some of the pain is self-inflicted. We have known that the Baby Boomers would grow old and retire for nearly 70 years. It is no surprise.

I suspect that we didn’t expect a housing bubble and a financial crisis to coincide with that demographic inevitability although, as I’ve been saying here for some time, I believe that these things are all interrelated.

We are in the middle of a hundred year flood. The end of Beale Street is flooded. We need to start seeking higher ground.

The time to shore up is before the house is flooded, not after. Trying to do so afterwards will result in greater loss and a poorer job. Don’t complain that you liked your patio the way it was. The flood can’t be stopped.

I heard an interesting program this afternoon on Fresh Air. Annie Jacobsen, an editor at the LA TImes, whom you may remember from an incident involving strange goings-on on a Northwest Airlines flight, has written a book about Area 51. Apparently, although it doesn’t exist officially it does exist.

The explanation she got from what sounds like a pretty solid informant on the infamous “crashed flying saucer” incident is very nearly as hair-raising as it would have been if it actually had been alien invaders.

You can listen to the program here:

I was shocked that she had been unaware of the open air nuclear weapons tests in Nevada in the 1950s. I guess she’s too young.

In his first post for the New York Times economics blog, Bruce Bartlett challenges President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner to do the unthinkable: stick to the course the president and the Congress have already committed to do, implement the Sustainable Growth Rate compensation levels, and not apply a “doc fix” to kick the can down the road.

If you’re not inclined to read his entire post, here’s a quick summary:

1. Paying the unfunded or underfunded benefits of Social Security and Medicare will require a 61% increase in income taxes. Forever.
2. That number may be conservative.
3. Don’t implement a “doc fix”.

Note that this approach won’t solve Medicare’s problems or, more precisely, it will only solve Medicare’s problems to the extent that those problems are caused by physician reimbursements and that only to the extent that physicians aren’t able to recover the lost income by prescribing additional procedures (I’ve posted on this very subject not long ago). It will just ensure that it conforms to current assumptions.

If we had some ham we could make a ham and cheese sandwich if we had some cheese.