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Voices from the clay
Oct. 17th, 2010 07:14 pmThe documents left behind by ancient civilisations are not all great works of literature and religion - you end up reading a lot of business and marriage contracts, court decisions, bills, complaints, and similar humdrum stuff. It always gives me hope to know that human beings have been solving basically the same problems for thousands of years.
It also suggests an alternative perspective to some of those problems. In Mesopotamia, when a guy got his mistress pregnant, it wasn't an issue of righteous moral blame or lofty political principles; the question was how to pay for the kid's food and clothing. It's a practical solution (he pays the mistress in rations unless he's already got kids by his wife) to a practical problem (how to feed and clothe the child). IMHO there are a lot of modern issues which this approach would benefit - sex education being an obvious example.
There are profound moral and political issues attached to the South Fulton fire, but for a moment, I'd like to look at it as purely a question of paperwork. For example, many commentators have pointed out, in lots of places, the same situation would have been handled by putting out the fire and then billing the guy afterwards. That's a practical solution to a practical problem: stopping fires from destroying lives and property. (Unlike my Mesopotamian example, this directly affects the whole community: fires spread.)
Dredging Google for more details, I came across a blog which characterises the South Fulton fire as very much an issue of paperwork. It states that Obion County has no county fire department; most fires in the county are rural, but the towns receive no funding to put out fires outside their borders. However: "A proposal was developed in 2008 for a county-wide rural fire protection system... The funding model preferred within the proposal is a mandatory fire tax (or modest increase in rural property taxes) to ensure that ALL county residents are covered." A fire chief in neighbouring Martin county is also calling for a county-wide rural fire protection system, suggesting that federal grants could cover the cost.
The Obion County Commission is meeting on Monday, and the county-wide plan is on their agenda. IMHO, the exact details of funding, as long as they work, are less important than achieving their goal, which is not supporting this or that model of government or assigning blame, but putting fires out.
It also suggests an alternative perspective to some of those problems. In Mesopotamia, when a guy got his mistress pregnant, it wasn't an issue of righteous moral blame or lofty political principles; the question was how to pay for the kid's food and clothing. It's a practical solution (he pays the mistress in rations unless he's already got kids by his wife) to a practical problem (how to feed and clothe the child). IMHO there are a lot of modern issues which this approach would benefit - sex education being an obvious example.
There are profound moral and political issues attached to the South Fulton fire, but for a moment, I'd like to look at it as purely a question of paperwork. For example, many commentators have pointed out, in lots of places, the same situation would have been handled by putting out the fire and then billing the guy afterwards. That's a practical solution to a practical problem: stopping fires from destroying lives and property. (Unlike my Mesopotamian example, this directly affects the whole community: fires spread.)
Dredging Google for more details, I came across a blog which characterises the South Fulton fire as very much an issue of paperwork. It states that Obion County has no county fire department; most fires in the county are rural, but the towns receive no funding to put out fires outside their borders. However: "A proposal was developed in 2008 for a county-wide rural fire protection system... The funding model preferred within the proposal is a mandatory fire tax (or modest increase in rural property taxes) to ensure that ALL county residents are covered." A fire chief in neighbouring Martin county is also calling for a county-wide rural fire protection system, suggesting that federal grants could cover the cost.
The Obion County Commission is meeting on Monday, and the county-wide plan is on their agenda. IMHO, the exact details of funding, as long as they work, are less important than achieving their goal, which is not supporting this or that model of government or assigning blame, but putting fires out.
