There have been songs and poems celebrating our attachment to comfortable facilities. Billy Wheeler sings about the Little Brown Shack Out Back. John William Gardner, past president of the Carnegie Corporation said: “The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.” Whether in the city or the country, we’ve now come to depend on our plumbers and our plumbing.
