Jay P. Greene's Blog

We had many excellent nominations for this year’s Al Copeland Humanitarian Award.

I nominated Banksy, the graffiti artist whose works promote free speech, provide thoughtful social criticism, and beautify public spaces.  But Banksy’s influence is not widespread enough to have done the most to improve the human condition.  And I think we have already acknowledged the importance of free speech and public art by honoring Wim Nottroth.

Anna nominated the auto pioneer and believer in consumer choice, Ransom E. Olds.  Having faith in the consumer rather than central planning does improve the human condition, but as Greg noted in the comments, the essence of consumer choice is among providers, not within them.  But to his credit we can say that at least Olds was not the anti-Semite and general bigot, Henry Ford.

Collin re-nominated Stan Honey, the inventor of the yellow first down line in TV broadcasts of football games.  Collin’s post was hilarious, especially the bit about how “Stan Honey made watching football with football novices tolerable.”  But I’m afraid that Honey fell short again.  The Al isn’t just about quirky inventors of novel and useful products, even though those do improve the human condition.

And this is the same reason that Greg’s nomination of Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes, the inventors of bubble wrap, doesn’t make the grade.  The Al should recognize something more transformative — like spicy chicken.

I’m proud to announce that the winner of the 2012 Al Copeland Humanitarian Award is George P. Mitchell, the natural gas entrepreneur who commercialized fracking and horizontal drilling techniques that have made cheap, clean natural gas plentiful.

A common theme in all Al honorees is how they improved the human condition through individual freedom, not government control.  Earle Haas liberated women from several days of confinement each month by developing the modern, hygienic tampon.  This expanded women’s economic and political power by given them full access to public life.  This advance in civil liberties came from a private businessperson, not from a government mandate.  And the fact that he and the Tampex Company made a fortune in the process in no way sullies the benefits they produced for women.  In fact, that profit motive made the advance possible by incentivizing them to develop and market it.  And contrary to the vaguely Marxist critique of advertising as creating false and unnecessary desires, the marketing of the tampon was an essential part of making women aware of the tampon’s benefits and helping women overcome the ignorance and stigmas that hindered widespread use of tampons.

Similarly, Wim Nottroth’s improvement to the human condition came from his embrace of individual liberty.  He stood up to an Orwellian government edict that denouncing killing was the equivalent of hate-speech against Muslims.  As I’ve argued before, the most serious threats to liberty come from small-minded government officials and their enablers surrendering our freedom in the name of promoting something good, not the big scary dictators whose threats are self-evidently menacing and more easily resisted.

And Debrilla M. Ratchford, the inventor of the rollerbag, won the first Al in recognition of how important the quirky inventor of something useful could be to improving the human condition.  But inventing knick-knacks and doo-dads is not the only, or even necessarily the most important, way to improve the human condition.

George P. Mitchell didn’t even invent the techniques that he commercialized to extract significantly more natural gas.  Mitchell’s efforts didn’t just reduce carbon emissions by making clean energy plentiful, as Matt documents in his nomination.  Mitchell demonstrated how improving the human condition, including improving the environment, is more likely to come from individual freedom and capitalism than from government coercion.

Yes, Mitchell was richly rewarded financially for his accomplishments, but we’ve already established that making money in no way undermines one’s case for having improved the human condition.  Besides, I had never heard of him before, so the recognition that comes with winning the Al is appropriate.  And yes, some people have publicly recognized the great things that fracking and horizontal drilling have done, but as far as I know Mitchell’s contribution has never been highlighted before.

And just to prove that no good deed goes unpunished, Hollywood is organizing the anti-fracking campaign with a forthcoming movie featuring Matt Damon about how fracking poisons a town.  Here’s the trailer, which really puts the capital B in subtle:

And here’s the Oscar winning moment for Damon in the film:

Mitchell’s Al beats any Oscar any day for actually recognizing something that makes our lives better.

[Editor’s Note — Here is a nomination for the 2012 Al Copeland Humanitarian Award by Guest Blogger, Collin Hitt]

Stan Honey invented the yellow first down line for televised football games. His remarkable invention was in fact an improved version of his own, failed highlighted hockey puck. The company he founded and the techniques he invented are key to the electronic strike zone seen in every baseball broadcast.

I nominated Stan Honey two years ago for the Al Copland Humanitarian Award. I am renominating him for the second and final time. In the time since his first nomination, he has made my life better by making televised football impervious to distractions, something I greatly appreciated yet still underestimated two years ago; I’ve since become a father.

I’ve discovered something else in the meantime. Stan Honey changed how Americans get from place to place. But more on that later. First, I must again remind everyone of what Stan Honey did for the game of football.

Americans, of their own free will, watch sports. None is more the family sport than football. There is no cosmic necessity to watching football – plenty of countries don’t care for it, or even know about football. But making football more enjoyable is something that improves the lives of almost every American.

Football is a simple game: keep getting first downs until you score. The end zone is instantly recognizable. So are the uprights. So a touchdown or a field goal are easily noticeable, at a glance. Not so for first downs.

Most of the game is spent trying to get a first down. Games are won and lost between the chains. And yet, until Stan Honey, the first down mark was often impossible to track for those watching from home or a bar.

Football is America’s game because it is television friendly. At most, 750,000 people are watching the NFL from the stands. The rest of America is either working or watching from home. A broken play, a sack, an end-around, a nine-and-a-half yard run, a muddy junked-up field – all can leave the at-home viewer disoriented, confused about the play’s relevance to the all-important first down. In time, yes, the announcers and the referees let us know where things stood. But this is America, and we want our information now. Instant answers, Stan Honey gave us that.

With the yellow first down line, football is also now watchable at a glance. Before Stan Honey, it’s not inconceivable that I might have been reaching for a spicy chicken leg, or a clean diaper, when the ball was snapped. Yes, I knew it was 3rd and 4, but now I’d lost my frame of reference. Jay Cutler is scrambling. Where is the line of scrimmage? The first down marker? It is a big moment in the game and I’m disoriented. Thanks to Stan Honey, the feeling of frameless cluelessness is now gone.

I might miss the snap, but at a glance I know the situation. I’ll know the millisecond the play ends whether it was a failure or a success.

Moreover, the stupid questions from the peanut gallery (some people call these folks their family), have become fewer. “How far do they have to go?” “Did he get it?” “He got eight yards. That’s good right?” When is the last time you heard someone ask one of those questions? (It was before 2001.) Everyone now knows: get past the yellow line. Stan Honey made watching football with football novices tolerable. It has made distractions less distracting. It has allowed people to pour earnest effort into snacking between commercial breaks. It allows certain people to read Elle Decor while watching the game. It has made an all American sport more American.

In case you question the impact that Stan Honey has had on America, think back to the last time that the announcers said “We’re having some trouble with the yellow first down line you usually see across your screen at home.” Technology being technology, the yellow line machine breaks from time to time, and when it does, life is awful.

When I last nominated Stan Honey, I focused exclusively on his invention of the yellow first down line. I’ve still done that here. But Honey’s pioneering work in fact began in electronic navigation hardware. The Garmin or the TomTom – even the navigation software used on your smartphone – they either directly descended from or directly inspired by the Etak Navigator that Stan Honey first brought to market in 1985.

From People Magazine, in 1986.

Start up a Navigator-equipped car, and a local map appears on a computer screen mounted near the dash. A green arrow marks the car’s location. Punch in a destination, and it is displayed as a flashing star.

Now begin your drive and turn a corner. The arrow representing the car remains centered, pointing straight ahead, while the map pivots and scrolls around the arrow, matching every turn you make. Approaching a cross street, there’s no need to crane to read a street sign when a glance at the screen reveals the street name, a feature that’s doubly helpful at night. You can even touch a button and zoom to a wide view showing a whole city or shift down to the neighborhood scale, where only a few blocks appear. When the arrow on the screen meets the flashing star, you’ve arrived within 50 feet of your destination.

Over the years, Honey’s Navigator surrendered market share to other products, but that’s no matter. Invention is followed by innovation. His device and software inspired imitators and improved versions that are commonly recognizable.

This has changed your life. Think of where you’re sitting right now. Did you use a navigation device to find the place, the first time you went there? When family or others come to visit, how do they find the place? I’ll bet their quest, and yours, would have been different if not for Stan Honey.

It’s fitting to place Honey’s contributions next to those of previous winners, as well as the award’s namesake.

As I write this entry for an award named after Al Copland, I’m getting hungry for Popeye’s Chicken. My first thought – I’ll pick up a bucket for the game this Sunday. Now I’m searching on my iPhone for the nearest Popeye’s. Great. I know where I’ll go for chicken on Sunday and how I’ll get there. And when I get home, I’ll be able to keep track of the game from the dinner table, where my son and I will be twenty feet away from the TV (and our new couch). Thank you, Stan Honey.

The 2009 winner was Debrilla Ratchford, inventor of the rollerbag suitcase. The next time I fly somewhere will be before the end of the football season. I’ll pack my rollerbag and get in the car. Using my handset, I’ll find the best route to the airport. I’ll get there early. I’ll roll my bag up to the bar and watch three different games on muted televisions, which is feasible because of the yellow lines on each screen. When I reach my destination, I’ll pull out my handset and find my hotel and the restaurants nearest to it, where I again might watch a football game or two. Thank you, Stan Honey.

Wim Nottroth was the 2010 winner. He is a pacifist and an anti-terrorist. Life is sacred. Peace is a precondition for a fun and enjoyable life. Spicy chicken, the yellow first down line and the rollerbag are enjoyable only in times of peace. Sure, they are trivial in a sense. But they are things that make the good life good. And so, in their own small ways, they are proof that Peace, and Wim Nottroth, are right.

Last year’s winner is the inventor of the tampon. I’m glad I didn’t nominate Stan Honey last year.

So, in closing, we have to ask ourselves, why did Stan Honey do what he did? He invented the yellow first down line for us, but really he invented it for himself. He is now a wealthy man. He has now retired to full-time yacht-racing, a lifelong passion that inspired his interest in triangulation, the foundation of his inventions. The literature on Stan Honey is scant. Few know his name outside of yachting, where he has won multiple awards for transoceanic navigation. Self-interested yachtsmen are not models for adulation. So don’t expect him to win a medal of freedom or genius award anytime soon. Yet he made every American’s life better. And that’s why he deserves the Al.

[Editor’s Note — Here is a nomination for the 2012 Al Copeland Humanitarian Award by Guest Blogger, Anna Jacob]

My nominee for the much-coveted 2012 “Al” is a gentleman with a profound respect for consumer choice. Ransom E. Olds, born in 1864 in Geneva, Ohio, got an early start to his professional life, helping out in his father’s machine shop when he was still a schoolboy. Olds’ talents for mechanical work were developed in this environment under the tutorship of his father and his creative flair was apparent in his inventions. The first car Olds developed was a three-wheeled, one-horsepower, steam turbine fueled with a gasoline burning engine, which offered a healthy competition to the coal or wood burning vehicles being developed around the same time in the nascent auto industry. As early as 1892, Olds attached a pair of these engines to a carriage, each connected to a driving wheel creating a vehicle that performed well on level ground but struggled to climb hills.

An 1893 trip to the Chicago World’s Fair the following year inspired Olds to experiment with fully gas-powered cars. Three years later, Olds’ engine manufacturing firm had an in internal-combustion engine under production and a patent application pending. Enlisting the financial support of Detroit capitalist, Samuel L. Smith, Olds started a new venture, the Olds Motor Works, in 1899. The company’s plant and offices were Detroit’s first permanent auto manufacturing enterprise, located on the Detroit River.

Smith was eager to target consumers at the upper end of the market and pushed Olds to develop an expensive, high-end model but Olds preferred to develop a product that could be sold to a mass market.  Olds understood that consumers wouldn’t all necessarily want the same thing.  And he also understood that it was exceedingly difficult for any one person, like himself, to anticipate exactly what others would want.

So, rather than committing himself to a single, expensive car design, as Smith wanted, Olds created eleven different prototypes, featuring a dizzying number of innovative technologies including steam-powered, electric, and gasoline-powered internal combustion engines. Olds wanted to let a thousand flowers bloom (actually, eleven) and then let the market sort it out.

But as it happened, an accident of fate selected Olds’ initial model when a fire destroyed all but one of his eleven prototypes, the gasoline-powered Curved Dash Oldsmobile Runabout. The company concentrated its efforts on fully developing this model. Although it had never been a foregone decision that gasoline-powered engines would be the dominant automobile type, Olds’ company wound up dominating the era of automobile production. In 1901 his company produced 425 gasoline-powered Curved Dash Oldsmobile Runabouts at $650 apiece, well within the grasp of the average American. Four years later, his company sold 6,500 cars. It appeared that Olds had produced the first mass-produced automobile in the U.S.

Olds’ success came amidst fierce competition as hundreds of producers, including such notable individuals as Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, were designing prototypes at this time. Yet Olds’ remarkable success is not the reason for his nomination; rather the humility of this early pioneer and his discomfort with choosing on the consumer’s behalf which model should be the dominant automobile design made him an obvious nominee. Instead of firmly defining what an automobile should look like, Olds embraced the innovative messiness that was the hallmark of the first half of the twentieth century, contributing his inventions to an already bewildering array of options. Above all, Olds displayed a respect for diversity and trust in the market to winnow out the winners and losers.   Unlike, Ford, who is reported to have quipped that consumers could buy any color car they wanted as long as it was black, Olds dreamed of a market where consumers could buy whatever they wanted…. Period.