Contrarian on Bounties

Big hullabaloo now about the possibility  that Russia has offered bounties to Al Qaeda [Taliban] to kill American soldiers/contractors.

While I bow to no one in my low opinion of the current president, I think remember from the book/movie "Charlie Wilson's War" the degree to which the US government encouraged and aided the Afghan resistance fighters to shoot down Russian helicopters. Distinctions can be made between that effort and the Russian actions as currently reported/suspected, but the similarity is uncomfortable.

A closer example from our history is the use of rewards for [scalps of Native Americans.

Fund the IRS

That's my first wish for the next Democratic president.  Why?  See this distressing report by Pro Publica.

On Removing Statues and Renaming Names

I'm of two multiple minds on the issue, as I am on most things:

• on one hand I never give a thought to statues or names--who or what they stand for.  I just accept them as part of the environment, rather like the weather or gravity.
• on the other hand I know intellectually, if not emotionally, that some people do, at least at some times.  I really doubt that a black person who drove through Alexandria every day on the way to work gave much of a thought to the statue of the Confederate soldier which used to stand at the intersection of the two main streets.  More likely their attention was on navigating the traffic.  But I accept the idea that such a statue could, on occasion, be disturbing.
• on the third hand, my two positions above are coming from my background as a white 79 year old American male.  If I make the effort, I can imagine perhaps a German street with a statue of Hitler or an idealized Wehrmacht soldier and a Jewish person's reaction to it.  If I come at the issue from that direction, as putting myself in the place of a Jew confronting a statue or name which commemorated the Third Reich, it's a lot easier to empathize with the reaction of a black American confronting a reminder of the Confederacy or of slavery.

My contrarian side is a bit activated on the third point--some resistance to the implied comparison of the German treatment of the Jews and American slavery. But the above describes my position today.

I think in the long run the specifically Confederate statues and names will be removed.  That set of symbolic victories will be enough in the long run to reduce the feeling behind the movement.  As is usual with humans we'll end with a mixed bag of things, with no clear algorithm evident. 

A Thought for Hillary

I was struck by this in an Atlantic piece on Biden:

"It’s better to be a mystery [like Biden is to many] than to be like Hillary Clinton, who faced what amounted to a 25-year negative-advertising campaign that left even sympathetic voters suspicious. Her 2016 word cloud was dominated by liar, criminal, and untrustworthy, with strong registering a bit too."

That seems to be the way she's remembered now. But it's wrong about the way she was regarded during her political career.  Wikipedia shows that she had 22 appearances topping the "most admired woman in America" list between 1948 and now, far more than anyone else.  (Ike and Obama each had 12 as the most admired man.)

Granted this just means that she had a plurality of strong supporters, but there were years in which her favorability was quite high.  What happened in 2015-16 was the Republican publicity machine tearing her down, aided by a "both sides" media world, eager to balance Trump's real faults with Hillary's supposed ones.

You can see I'm aggrieved here.  I won't say that Clinton was a good candidate nor that she didn't open the door to some of the attacks.  I will say she would have been an above-average president, not the total disaster of the man who beat her.

Lying for Our Own Good?

Back in the day Pierre Salinger, JFK's press secretary, got into a controversy over whether it was ever appropriate to lie to the American public. That's the way I remember it, though this Daily Beast article seems to say it was Arthur Sylvester, another aide.  Anyway, it was in the context of the Cuba Missile crisis.  I thought I remembered Salinger telling the press that Kennedy had a cold which caused him to cancel a campaign trip to Chicago, when in fact the missiles had been discovered and the administration was figuring out what to do.

Anyhow, people were shocked that the government could and would lie to the public.  Again today it seems we're shocked to find out that Dr. Fauci was lying to us back in February.  He was saying don't bother with masks, they don't do much good, when the fact was the US didn't have masks enough for health professionals and the public.

As an ex-bureaucrat I often side with the bureaucracy more than most, and I do here.

Democrats may claim the people are mature and will react well to being told the truth, but I think conservatives with their suspicion of people are closer to the mark in some cases, as here.

McArdle's Question--Drawing the Line

Megan McArdle has a post which raises the question of drawing lines on statues.

It's interesting.  I'd add a question: when you evaluate a statue do you consider the intent of those who originally funded and created the statue, do you look at the current meaning of the life of the subject (if only one), or do you use the popular understanding of the subject?  How about artistic worth--is that a consideration?

Who decides--is it majority rule or what's offensive to a minority?

Are all statues fair game, or are some excluded?  For example, religious statues; statues from antiquity?

Another issue is how?  Must representatives of the original erecting body agree to removal, whoever currently has jurisdiction over the land on which it is erected? Or can an informal group, of protesters or a mob, depending on your affinity for the members, tear it down?  How about a symbolic defacing, temporary or permanent?

Did we have a problem in the Iraq War when Baghdad's residents first attacked the statue of Sadam Hussein, later to be assisted by a Marine.?  Do we have a problem with those members of the Revolution who tore down George IIi?

How about memorials--those which comprise multiple statues plus additional elements, particularly ones which commemorate events over persons? 

Personally, statues don't do much for me,

In Partial Defense of Andy Jackson

Protesters tried to take down the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Park last night.

Jackson's reputation has suffered a great decline since his salad days.  Even as late as 2007 Iowa Democrats were holding Jefferson-Jackson day dinners, and Obama made the speech which was key to winning the primary in 2008.

Let me quote a paragraph from near the closing of the speech--why is Obama running?

Because I will never forget that the only reason that I’m standing here today is because somebody, somewhere stood up for me when it was risky. Stood up when it was hard. Stood up when it wasn’t popular. And because that somebody stood up, a few more stood up. And then a few thousand stood up. And then a few million stood up. And standing up, with courage and clear purpose, they somehow managed to change the world.

 Implicitly this ties back to his acknowledgement of the occasion near the beginning of the speech:

This party -- the party of Jefferson and Jackson, of Roosevelt and Kennedy -- has always made the biggest difference in the lives of the American people when we led, not by polls, but by principle; not by calculation, but by conviction; when we summoned the entire nation to a common purpose -- a higher purpose. And I run for the Presidency of the United States of America because that’s the party America needs us to be right now.

That's my partial defense of Andrew Jackson. According to the way I was taught, the progression of America has been from:

"all men are created equal" where the definition of "men" is implicitly:

•  white men owning property, 
• almost all white men (except felons and Native Americans?)
• almost all men (except felons and Native Americans?)
• almost all adults (except felons)

Jefferson represents the first step, Jackson the second step, Lincoln the third.

Yes, I know Jackson was a slaveowner, a mean man, a bigot. Worst of all, he's the embodiment of America's first original sin (first in my mind if not in popular usage)--its mistreatment of Native Americans.

I don't mind taking down statues of whomever, but it shouldn't cloud our view of history, with all its complexities.

[Updated:  the discussions of Jackson I've seen have focused on the Trail of Tears and his populism/democratic stands, as I did above.  What we all miss is his preservation of the Union, resisting Calhoun and South Carolina over the nullification issue.. Had Jackson allowed SC to prevail, the union might have dissolved.  Definitely the advantages over the South the North had in population and industry in 1860 which allowed it to prevailed in the Civil War were not there.]

How Easily We Panic

I should say, how easily I panic,though I suspect it's true of most humans

Woke during the night with a fever, convinced myself I had covid-19,and panicked over the steps to take next--how to self-quarantine in the house, etc.

In light of day I'm 99 percent convinced it was false alarm--no other symptoms, fever possibly linked to a bit of gastritis (thank you Dr. Google) which happens now and again. 

But it dented my self-image as thoughtful, etc. 

I'm sure I'll forget/deny this episode in a few days.

Loren Becker Is Happy

As I've said, I've been lurking in the FSA Facebook group, watching the exchanges of hints, encouragements, etc. as the field offices struggle through CFAP (along with their regular work, all working from home or with restricted access to the offices].

One facet of the implementation effort is the use of Excel worksheets.  Back in the day, Loren Becker worked in KCMO. He became very proficient in Lotus 1-2-3, the dominant spreadsheet software of the day, and strongly urged us to use Lotus to develop test data, modeling what the results of System/36 software programs should be.  FSA isn't doing exactly that, but Loren would be happy, maybe is happy but I don't know, to see the extensive use of spreadsheets.

The Statue of King George III

I'm reminded that the American revolutionaries pulled down the statue of King George III in New York City and, I believe, turned it into bullets.

See this article.

The Tale of Two Graphs?

What's going on with the pandemic in the US?

From the NYTimes page, the graph of the new cases has been reasonably steady for a while, before taking an upturn in the last days.  (Might be the effect of protests, or the effect of reopenings.)

But the graph of deaths has been trending down steadily, and that continues.  So either more testing is finding more of the less serious cases, or the virus is becoming less virulent, or something else.

I'd guess the first,

{Update:I've seen a discussion that the increased testing is more and more of younger people, who aren't as susceptible to covid-19.  It makes sense that generally we focused our limited tests on the worse cases--i.e., assisted living/nursing homes, etc. and now the drive-through testing spots are getting active adults.]

What Should We Have Done?

Based on what we know about the pandemic and Covid-19 now, what should we have done back in time, say on Mar. 1.  Obviously, I think, we should have been ordering supplies, PPE, ventilators, whatever.  But given that we lacked sufficient tests, supplies, and contact tracers, what should we have done?

To me the answer is we should have focused on the areas and facilities which resulted in the most human contact--the dense areas of NY, NJ, MA, etc., the assisted living facilities, the prisons, the meat packing facilities.  For those areas we might have been stuck with the tactics we ended up using, social distancing, lockdowns, quarantines.

For the other areas I think we should have tried to leap to our current Phase II/III strategies, more distancing and lots of contact tracing. 

This two-part strategy might have been a tough sell; in an emergency we like to think everyone is treated the same.  But we've seen the problems in maintaining a uniform strategy across states, and the nation.

Scalia Says a Strong Economy--Not So

The Secretary of Labor, Mr. Scalia, says we have a strong economy. 

He's wrong.  We had a strong economy in January 2020; one which well by many of the usual criteria and under the conditions existing at the beginning of the year.  But those conditions changed; covid-19 emerged and suddenly our economic activity had to deal with a new world, one to which it was poorly adapted. 

We won't have a strong economy until we can adjust to these new conditions.

A Bit of Cynicism

I think a portion, very small perhaps, of the attendance at the protest rallies currently going on is affected by pervasive "cabin fever".  People who have been shutdown because of the pandemic are antsy, and the rallies provide a socially acceptable reason to go out and mingle.

What Will Change After Pandemic and BLM and Election?

I think we may err in expecting a lot of change after 2020 ends. My sketchy thoughts:

• yes, if Biden wins  there will be a lot of change in government, but mostly it will be reversion to the norm.  Even if Biden carries in a solid majority in the Senate, I don't expect changes on order of LBJ's Great Society in 1965-68.  Or even Reagan's changes.  I'd add a qualifier--there may be a lot of changes on the international front, which will force more changes than we can see now.
• full recovery from the pandemic will take years. I'd expect the major changes to be the result of people getting more used to online everything. But otherwise I'd expect reversion to the norm generally.
• the current BLM protests will result in some moderately important changes in law, justice, and policing, but not much more.

The theme here is, I think, the power of old habits and the past.  I hope to live long enough to see how wrong I am.

Pigford's Legacy

Government processes grind slowly away.  And, just because we're old, it doesn't mean you can trust the aged.  Years after the first and second Pigford claim settlements, DOJ brought suit against four sisters in their 70's for defrauding the government and tax evasion.  They arranged for the filing of 192 claims under the Pigford and the Hispanic settlements, getting money under the table from the claimants and conspiring with an attorney and a tax preparer to submit false claims for tax refunds.

I feel sorry for the 192 claimants, who lied on their applications, but who trusted people when they shouldn't have.

R.I.P. Freedom to Farm

Sen. Pat Roberts is retiring.  He was the ranking Republican/Chair of House Agriculture Committee last century.  His big thing was what he called "Freedom to Farm", ending government regulations and programs.  That became the informal title of the 1996 farm bill.

I don't think many farmers believe the reforms worked, either in the early 2000's or now.  Today's Farm Policy has an article on the current state of government help for agriculture.

"A Switch Before Time" Coming?

The Supreme Court famously defanged FDR's court-packing plan by delivering some pro-New Deal decisions--the "switch in time saved nine". 

There has been some discussion of possibly expanding the Supreme Court if the Democrats won the election.  I think it's a non-starter, but some serious people have talked about it. Today's decision on the LGBTQ issue makes me wonder if SCOTUS will tread carefully between now and the election, just in case the polls are right and Dems win big. 

Not a serious thought, but we'll see.

Pandemic From 30,000 Feet Again

This is based on the NYTimes summary as of June 13.

It seems to me you can categorize states by the shapes of their case graphs:

• States with one defined peak, and a fairly consistent decline from that peak.  This would include the NY/NJ/CT/MA states, with early peaks, and a number of other states which were slower to peak.
• States with two fairly clear peaks, which might include FL, TN, KY
• States which have never reached a peak--i.e., their case load is still climbing. Includes CA, TX,  AL, UT, NC, SC, AR, KY,
• Small states with too few cases to evaluate.
• Mixed cases

Trying to create a story from this data, I go back to my previous pandemic post:  

• the East Coast states were hit early because they are both well networked with Europe and dense.  That meant they weren't prepared and got overwhelmed early, but they learned to take covid-19 seriously and adopted measures which reduced spread.
• other states didn't take the virus that seriously (i.e., even if they were officially locked down, public compliance was less than in the hard hit states), meaning if they were networked like FL, they could have an early peak and then a later one.
• possibly two peaks reflects a matter of luck, the virus hitting nursing homes, etc. once, then a slower spread to the more general population.

A Sad Photo of Joyous Wedding

The Post had a picture of a wedding today, which I can't find online.  It was illustrating a Lisa Bonos story on a convergence of BLM and the wedding in Philadelphia.  All very joyous and feel-good, except when you look closely at the one photo of the wedding celebrants.

If I counted correctly there were 18 women and 7 men in the party.  I can make assumptions about the cause of the apparent gender imbalance, but whatever the reasons IMHO it casts a shadow on the event.

Watching the Messy Process of Implementation in the Field

I'm enjoying watching the FSA field people administering the CFAP by logging into the FSA Facebook Group. 

I have to remember I'm lurking, and no longer have the knowledge nor authority to comment on anything.  Much of the discussions seem familiar from times gone by but what's more visible (probably not new but it wasn't visible before) is the networking among the program technicians as they're officially called today.  I wonder how many of the State and DC specialists are auditing this group?

NASCOE has had a system of "program" recommendations where they pass problems and suggestions from the field on to the DC specialists for possible resolution. It seems to take a while to make the circuit.  Some of the problems raised in the Facebook group are resolvable there--just a lateral flow of knowledge and tips.  Some of the problems may be tackled by people with special knowledge, particularly of the software. Since the group has maybe 1,000 members, and the field offices probably have 7K+ employees plus temps I wonder whether the lateral flow of info is reaching everyone it should. 

Children Born Racist?

CNN says they aren't.  I disagree.

Children are born human.  As such they have both the capacity to fear and flee from the unknown, and to know and love the known.   The family and social structures they're born into will guide them to things to know, and how to fear the things they don't.  Racism evolves from the interplay of the human abilities and the environment.  It's inevitable.

The Effect of Graphics

Both the NYTimes and the Washington Post have graphs showing the deaths due to the covid-19 virus over the days since Mar. 1.  The Post's graph is on the front page, spanning one column, which represents 1/6 of the width of the paper.  The Times' graph is on page 4, in their coronavirus update column, which is double width--two columns. 

I've not measured the height scale, but the general effect is that the Post's graph shows a steep decline after a vertical rise in cases while the Times shows a much more gradual decline.  Same data, different impressions.

Reboot the Police

That's my position.  I don't particularly want to reduce funding for police.  History says, I think, that the public overreacts to swings in crime, cutting police excessively in low-crime periods, ignore a period of increase in crime, then over-fund police in an attempt to catch up.  In other words, we overshoot both on increases and decreases.

What I do want is more research into policing-- we have so many different strategies proposed:

• tough on crime, lots of policy,
• community policing--cops on the beat knowing the community
• broken-windows
• social services--replacing cops on the beat with social workers
• etc., etc.

Why can't we take precincts which are matched in demographics, etc. and use one strategy in one and a different one in the other.  Keep the experiment going for years and learn. 

Instead of taking money from police for the sake of taking money, raise taxes on me and you to fund needed and useful government services.

Satisfaction With 911 Calls

What's surprising in this survey is the uniformity in responses across ethnic and gender lines.  Though  that's good, what isn't the percent saying the police improved the situation.  (Might be because the situation had dissolved by the time the police got there, at least in part.)

World Pandemic from 30,000 Feet

Looking at the world wide incidence of covid-19, I see the influence of networks--it's as if the virus is a tracking molecule, like taking barium before a CT scan. 

You start with Wuhan, which is networked both to Europe and the US. (I'm guessing it might have particular ties to Italy?) The US is more closely networked with Europe than China, so a majority of our virus imports seem to have come from there. Meanwhile nations such as Russia, India, and Brazil are less closely connected to China and, perhaps more significantly, are less networked internally than countries such as UK and US.

Within the US the  NYTimes map shows a correlation, in my mind at least, between the timing and volume of cases and the networking of the state and county.  Currently the Northeast states are on the down slope, while the Southeast states are on the upswing. 

The Police: Now and 1968

Lots of comparisons between the protests/riots of today and those of 1968. Lots of concerns about police.

IIRC in 1968 white liberals thought that integrating the police and establishing civilian review boards would solve the problems with the police.  With hindsight, civilian review boards, where established, have not done well.  The problem is likely the entrenched political power of police unions. Not only do police generally have a positive aura,but, like the NRA, they've the power of fierce unity.

And the police have been integrated, perhaps not as thoroughly and at all ranks in some places as they should be, but we know  now that police who are minorities themselves can be authoritarian and abusive.

There have been gains in 52 years.  The number of people killed now as opposed to 1968 is witness to that.  I suspect, but don't know, that the property damage has been of an order of magnitude less.  Part of that is learning from experience (though it seems we've forgotten a lot of the lessons of 1968) but much of it IMHO results from social trends.

Again, in IMHO, I think the problems we see with police today reflect continuing forces in society and economy.  It's inevitable when you ask people to risk their lives, whether military, firefighters, police, or Doctors without Borders they're likely to develop esprit de  corps, and an us versus them mentality.  It's inevitable in crisis situations police get lots of attention, much unfavorable, which further aggravates the us versus them.  When you add minorities to the mix, they'll often feel forced to do better, to go one step further in order to "prove" themselves.   It's inevitable that public attention will fade as memories fade, meaning that police unions, based on the esprit de corps, will gain leverage over the political process.  If you're willing to increase pay, you can chip away at union-enforced procedural rights.  If you aren't willing, as most publics won't be most of the time, you'll allow polices to gain job security in lieu of more money.

Tom Friedman in NYTimes

Last week Friedman had a doom and gloom op-ed in the Times, rather surprising given his past optimism.  He argues three trends have made the world more fragile:

Over the past 20 years, we’ve been steadily removing man-made and natural buffers, redundancies, regulations and norms that provide resilience and protection when big systems — be they ecological, geopolitical or financial — get stressed. We’ve been recklessly removing these buffers out of an obsession with short-term efficiency and growth, or without thinking at all.

At the same time, we’ve been behaving in extreme ways — pushing against, and breaching, common-sense political, financial and planetary boundaries.

And, all the while, we’ve taken the world technologically from connected to interconnected to interdependent — by removing more friction and installing more grease in global markets, telecommunications systems, the internet and travel. In doing so, we’ve made globalization faster, deeper, cheaper and tighter than ever before. Who knew that there were regular direct flights from Wuhan, China, to America?

Today he returns with an even more gloomy one, at least by title:

"I am not at all certain we will be able to conduct a free and fair election in November or have a peaceful transition of presidential power in January. We are edging toward a cultural civil war, only this time we are not lucky: Abraham Lincoln is not the president.

He goes on to segue into praise of local leaders, since he's given up on national leadership/Republicans.

The "doom and gloom" phrase dates back to the 1950's, when Ike attacked Democrats for spreading doom and gloom.  It's a hint that I think Friedman is unreasonable in his fears.   For example, the current pandemic will, I think, kill many fewer people than the 1918-20 one.  Why? Mostly because of our advanced science and communications.  The world is fighting it together, not as together as it could be, but much more so than in 1918.

Another example: the current riots are much less serious than in 1964-68--they don't reflect a racial division nearly as serious as then, mostly because conditions have improved greatly since then. 

The Effects of the Recession and Other Stats

Three interesting stats in the news on May 29: one was how much fewer school employees the education system has today, as opposed to 2008; one was how much fewer employees the health system today as opposed to 2008; the third was how little time cars spend on roads.

The Decline of Pension Plans

The Post had an article on the decline of pension plans provided by companies, pointing to Minnesota and Iowa as exceptions to a general decline of such plans.

What stood out to me was that MN and IA weren't exceptional, didn't stand out in any of the maps shown from 1980 to 2014.  In the 1980-94 period they weren't in the top rank of states. It's only in the 2014-19 period that they become exceptions.  So whatever is the cause of their slower rate of decline, it seems to me it's unlikely to be deep-rooted trends, such as labor unions. 

Doubled Payments in CFAP?

I shouldn't do this, because I'm approaching senility and know little about the subject, but I won't let that stop me asking this question: is it possible that some producers and commodities will receive compensation for the same loss under both CFAP and the existing insurance and FSA programs?

1968 and Now--a Subtle Difference

I remember 1968 well, so well I've tried to avoid most coverage of the riots over the past few days.

There is one subtle difference I notice between then and now: the rioters are integrated.  In 1968 the rioters were all black.  Now they seem to be the majority but there's some whites (and perhaps Latinos and Asians, but I don't know that) shown as well.

I think that's a significant detail showing the distance between then and now.