(Palm-Print
Photo by Edward F. Palm)

About Me

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Forest, Virginia, United States
A long time ago, my sophomore English teacher, Father William Campbell, saw something in my writing and predicted that I would someday become a newspaper columnist. He suggested the perfect title for my column--"Leaves of the Palm." Now that I have a little extra time on my hands I've decided to put Father Campbell's prediction to the test. I'm going to start using this blog site not just to reprint opinion pieces I've published elsewhere but to try to get more of my ideas and opinions out there. Feedback is welcome. To find out more about me, please check out my Web site: www.EdwardFPalm.com (Click on any of the photos below for an enlarged view.)

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Toyota's Troubles

[American technology, circa 1950:  A Hudson Hornet, Lubeck, Germany, July, 2004]
Shakespeare put it best:  "Striving to better, oft we mar what is well."
       Mechanical accelerator mechanisms have been working well for over 50 years.  Likewise, hydraulic brakes were perfected long ago and work just fine on my wife's Saturn and my Sebring.  I have to wonder why Toyota thought they had to replace both of these time-honored, proven mechanisms with sensitive high-tech electronic systems that are now proving problematic.  I'm no Luddite, but it seems to me that Toyota succumbed to the lure of technology for technology's sake. --EFP

1 comment:

J. David Bell said...

Ed,
You quote Shakespeare, I quote Thoreau: "Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract us from serious things."
Josh