Stone Age Tech

As I noted the recent passing of former Wisconsin Tourism Secretary Moose Speros over the weekend over on Facebook, I searched for a link for the one and only White House Conference on Tourism that the two of us attended in the Fall of 1995.

I was stunned to find 30+ year old C-Span video coverage of the event with keynote addresses from Garrison Keillor (who stumbles early but brings it home strong) and then-President Bill Clinton.

Nothing really came from the Conference. A lot of pretty words…but very little substance (that would come later under the Obama Administration…and then gutted under the current regime). But, the time capsule that is Bill Clinton’s remarks 30 years ago was fascinating when he refers to the FAA (at the 45 minute mark, if you want to skip ahead).

“The FAA controls the bottom-line efficiency of the airline industry. Yet, believe it or not, its air-traffic control system, in many places, still depends upon Stone Age technology that's often older than the flight controllers using it. I know that's hard to believe. At a time when our private sector is building the most advanced airplanes in the world, the FAA is still buying vacuum tubes like this --the vice president gave me this just before I came over -- to run the computers and the radar systems that ought to be run by chips. We actually have to buy these vacuum tubes, for some of the old computers and radar systems, from other countries because they're not even produced here, any more. This is unacceptable.”

Aren’t we having the same conversation today?

Sigh.