A Modest Suggestion--Trump Hotel as Dormitory

Louis Gohmert sleeps in his office, a fact mentioned in an article on his contracting coronavirus.  That's not unusual.  This article estimates up to 100 members of Congress do so.

Over the years there have been many articles bemoaning the decline of civility and bipartisanship in Congress, often attributed to the idea that members commute back to their districts on the weekend and don't develop close personal relationships with members of the other party.

Presumably the members who sleep in their offices are usually the ones who are commuting back home--they don't feel the need to rent quarters in DC when they're only sleeping here 2-3 days a week for 40  weeks.

A third fact: the Trump Hotel in DC  hasn't been doing well with the pandemic.  Once Trump is out of office, it's likely to do much worse than it did in 2017-19.

So my modest suggestion:

Let the US  government buy out Trump's lease on the building and set it up as a dormitory for members of Congress. By housing 250 or so members it should create a better atmosphere in Congress, and it helps get Trump back to NYC the evening of Jan 20.

Diversity Now and Then

I was struck by this tweet the other day:

The suburbs are actually a lot more diverse than NIMBY-in-Chief Trump seems to realize. NIMBYism is still partly about racism, but to an increasing degree it's about classism too.https://t.co/yxOeDJIpW7

— Noah Smith 🐇 (@Noahpinion) July 29, 2020

Back in the 1950's and 60's suburbs were often seen as white, because the narrative was evil realtors were using "block-busting" tactics to get whites to sell their city homes for low dollars and flee to the suburbs while they turned around and sold the homes to blacks for high dollars.

With that narrative, anyone moving to the suburbs was "white", regardless of whether they were moving from a formerly Italian, Polish, Jewish, Irish, or whatever neighborhood.  With a different narrative we could have seen the suburbs as diversifying since they were, I believe, the site of mixing of ethnicities into "white Americans". 

But suburbs weren't "integrated", in the terms used then.  A number of prominent blacks have in their history the memory of being the "first" black family on the block. 

These days we say the suburbs aren't "diverse", by which we tend to mean they're segregated by class--typically a subdivision has only a limited range of prices, meaning it is affordable to a group of families limited by their income.  I think in most areas the middle income suburbs are integrated--they've a small number of "minority" families living in them, but not a great diversity.  At least in the DC area, that description might apply to the black-majority neighborhoods in Prince Georges, or the smaller Hispanic, Korean, or other ethnicity areas scattered around the Beltway.

The rule seems to be, if you have the money, groups with the greater feeling of identity (often more recent immigrants) will tend to buy in the same area, while a minority will go elsewhere. If you don't have any feeling of ethnic/racial identity, you buy wherever, usually based on the school system if you have or are going to have children.

Capitalizing "Black" and "White"

The Post announced today it would capitalize "white". This follows on the Times and AP deciding to capitalize "black". 

My gut reaction is opposed to both changes, particularly the "white".  But I'm not sure I've a rational basis for my objection.  Our designations for other racial groupings are capitalized: Asian-Americans, Latino/Hispanic Americans, African Americans; Pacific Islander Americans, Native Americans.  To be consistent in my opposition don't I have to come up with substitutes for those groupings.

I'm not sure, top of my head, of the difference between African-American and black--I know there's a perceived problem in distinguishing between immigrant African-Americans and antebellum African-Americans but does the black/African-American terminology handle that distinction?  (Personally I think the perceived differential might point to an important dimension in American culture, but that's an issue for another post.)

I guess my reaction, as shown in a tweet this morning, is concern over reifying differences.  To me "black versus white" is different than "White versus Black".  A George Floyd demonstration which includes "Blacks" and "Whites" feels different than a "black and white" demonstration (though I suppose a careful writer might say "biracial protesters" or something similar, which leads to the possibly that forcing writers to capitalize "Whites" will drive some to avoid the racial designation entirely.

Another part of my reaction might be discomfort at being forced to consider myself as part of a racial group, rather than assume membership in the majority culture (at least as U.S. is currently constituted).

Testing Coronavirus Vaccines and Getting the Shots

Oddly I find myself being confused about the vaccine.  If I were approached to participate in Phase III test of a vaccine, I'd likely agree.  Why?  It would be a contribute to the safety of humans.  That's good.

But when the vaccine has been tested and released, I won't be the first one to get it.  Why?  For the same reason I wouldn't rush to buy version 1.0 of software.  That's not particularly logical.  The Phase III trial would have identified any known side effects and proved its safety otherwise.  It's possible that there might be rare effects that are found only when millions, not thousands, are vaccinated.  (There was a flap in the 1970's over a flu vaccine, but it seems that after some years the fears weren't well founded.) 

The difference is that in the second case I'm acting mostly in my own interest.  The community will benefit from my being vaccinated, but that's a minor benefit compared to my participation in the trial.  So the risks to me of being vaccinated are the same in either case.

Can We Sing "Amazing Grace" Anymore?

In today's environment, "Amazing Grace" points two ways:

1. On the one hand, it was written by a man who actively participated in enslaving and transporting enslaved people from Africa to the Americas.  (I knew this, but until I looked him up today I didn't know that he himself had been enslaved, although only for months, not a lifetime.) 
2. On the other hand, its message is one of forgiveness and redemption of sins.

IMHO the way to reconcile is to believe that humans are prone to error (my Calvinist forebears would say "original sin"), but change and redemption can happen, whether by God's grace or otherwise, and we must accept all humans as human.

Gorbachev and Other Leaders

Just finished reading William Taubman's Gorbachev.  It's a good book, as a winner of the Pulitzer should be.  The  focus is, of course, on political history.  I don't remember any great surprises that weren't fairly clear in the newspapers of the time, except for the closeness of Mikhail and his wife and family.  Yes, he faced a lot of opposition over the years, from both liberals who wanted to go further and differently and conservatives who didn't want to change the system in which they had prospered. Yes, he maneuvered back and forth first to rise to power and then to maintain his power while trying to move  the country towards his goals, which turned out to be a liberal social democracy (though that seems to have been a post facto realization.

Taubman writes well, seems to have interviewed those Soviet figures still living, and doesn't force his conclusions.  He reports differing assessments from friends and foes, including a number of people who began as allies and ended disappointed and disaffected.

I, as I suspect most American readers would be, was most interested in his foreign policy and  dealings with other world leaders.  He got on well with his counterparts, from Thatcher and Reagan, Mitterand and Kohl, to Bush.  The glimpse of Thatcher through Soviet eyes was particularly interesting. Taubman's assessment of the Bush approach to Gorbachev is mixed: Bush's personality and upbringing meant he eased Gorbachev's way, but it also meant he perhaps missed a chance to push events in a better direction, one which might have averted our current state of hostility between Russia and the U.S., but who knows?

Allying With Stalin

Matt Glassman has a nice reply tweet this morning apropos calls for political purity: we allied with Stalin to defeat Hitler.

To me it's a two-fold reminder: 

• there's no purity in human beings, we're all a mixture of qualities. Stalin was an evil man but effective enough as a wartime leader. 
• our decisions are made in time.  As Churchill said; I'd ally with the devil to defeat Hitler.

Who Calls Whom a Bitch?

Lisa Lerer has an article in today's Times discussing the use of the epithet in politics, given Rep. Yoho's use in connection with Rep. AOC..  A lot of discussion of its use against Hillary Clinton.   But I'm old enough to remember the "grandmother of the nation" somewhat delicately using it against the first woman on a major party's national ticket.

Yes, I'm talking Barbara Boss and Geraldine Ferraro, as described in this NYTimes piece.

Reopening Schools--Possible Baby Steps

Fairfax County just announced they'll start schools 100 percent using distance learning.

I sympathize with the problems school boards and principals have in dealing with the pandemic. 

In tackling new problems I like to work with baby steps.  In that light, my idea, worth no dollars and with no experience in teaching through Zoom or whatever, would be:

• start by moving teachers into school buildings and have them do distance learning from the school, using school facilities.  I'd assume that by and large schools have things, wifi,computers,etc. than teachers have at home.  Teaching from school would also help by allowing teachers to share ideas and troubleshooting.  And having them eat lunch at the school would test that process. Having people in school would test the maintenance and support personnel.  Teachers who are leary of their exposure to the virus in a school context might be willing to try if the immediate environment--the school-- only contains their peers, not their students. 
• assuming no major problems, a next baby step would be to open the school to those students who don't have good access at home. Again, still teaching using distance learning, but in the school building using school facilities.
• other steps might be to  expand the school week, so as make more use of the facilities, but that would require more money to hire teaching assistants.

The Wrong Question: Are Algorithms Racist?

Frequently I see posts/articles which say that computer algorithms are racist.  When I bother to read them, the logic is fairly simply--garbage in, garbage out.  The algorithms are being developed using the conventional wisdom of whatever the subject is, and the conventional wisdom is racist.

I don't challenge any of that, but I'd insist the question is: so what?

Usually I take the message of the pieces to be--toss the algorithm out, it's biased, racist, undesirable.

But the true question is one of comparison: will using this algorithm instead of the existing process mean less racist results?  My guess is usually the algorithm is likely to produce more consistent results, and usually less racist results.  I see that happening because the algorithm would replace a more haphazard, variable process which evolved over time, and because the algorithm is being developed by people who are generally younger and more "woke" than those involved previously.

The second key question is: if we start to use the algorithm how likely is it that the algorithm can be improved?

Five People to Write a Times Article? (And the Past)

NYTimes has an article on how the Trump administration turned away from the coronavirus, deciding to push responsibility to the states and localities.  In part it reads to me as a hit piece on Dr. Birx, possibly with Kushner as one of the sources (he's barely mentioned, while she gets portrayed as unduly optimistic and trying to please her bosses).

But that's not really what struck me.  It's the question: how do the logistics of five people writing one article work?  Does one person do the draft and the others add comments and paragraphs?  Is it more collaborative or individualistic? 

And how did the Times (and other papers) get here?  Back when I started reading the paper (usually the Sunday version) in the 1950's there were very few bylines on articles.  Over the years they started to appear on a greater proportion of the articles until now there's hardly an article without at least one named author.

I think that's representative of a more general evolution in society: diminishing the importance and voice of institutions and raising the importance and voice of individuals.

How Soon We Forget--the White Freedom Riders

There was a good bit of commentary, some here, on the protests after George Floyd's death about the number of white faces in the crowds. 

So I was struck today by the photo in this piece on the Freedom Riders. It's easy to forget that the civil rights movement was diverse. Including whites was strategic--whites had the money, better connections to political leaders, and, when assaulted, got more publicity.

Undoing Trump's Work II

The Times has an article today on how the Democrats are planning to use the Congressional Review Act to undo Trump regulatory actions.  According to the article the Republicans are now within the period to which the Act applies so a new Congress controlled by the Democrats would be able to reverse any final rules published from here on to Jan. 19.

The piece quotes Sally Katzen as raising the issue of whether it's possible to reinstate the Obama regs which the Trump administration nullified using the CRA, but it doesn't explore it. I haven't looked at the actual wording of the act recently, but I wonder if the courts would uphold the ability of one Congress to bind a future Congress.

Trump's Expansion of Farm Payments

Here's a piece on how the Trump administration has expanded federal payments to farmers.

Undoing Trump's Work

Trump has made many changes in federal policy, issuing a lot of executive orders. Most recently, he's proposing to change the way the government does environmental policy.  There's already a lawsuit saying he's not following the Administrative Procedure Act. IMHO it's likely the policy won't be final by Jan 20, so a new Biden administration could withdraw it easily. My point here is actions like this are basically political campaign fodder, not realistic.  It's okay; the Obama administration did  much the same.  You spend 3.5 years hoping to do something,and you wake up and find you're out of time, but you might as well do it anyway--it will look good to your supporters and there's always the chance the new administration will carry on the work.

Other changes Trump has made are permanent, meaning a new administration will have to go through the rulemaking process to consider whether they want just to reverse the changes, or whether they want to take the occasion to make some modifications of their own.  I'm not sure whether a straight revocation of a final rule has a lower legal hurdle for justification or not--it's possible a new cost-benefit analysis would still be required.  Since Trump's people have changed the parameters for such analyses  the situation gets a bit more complicated.

Assuming Biden wins in November, watching the new administration navigate these hurdles will be rewarding.

Pet Peeve: Academics/Media and Naval Terms

Early on I got heavily into 20th century naval technology and history, such as the development of the torpedo, of torpedo boats, of torpedo boat destroyers (now just destroyers), etc.

So it aggravates me when, as in "A Very Stable Genius" I see a writer loosely use the term "battleship" for a significant ship of some size, whose precise description I can't be bothered with.  (Otherwise the book is very good, recommended.)

I find this in academic works as well as popular nonfiction and media writing.  There are no battleships on active duty in today's Navy.

MFP and CFAP and ?

Politico has a piece on Trump's payment programs for farmers, which have set new records, arguing it will be difficult to cut back.

It's not Trump's fault, entirely. Yes, he bears responsibility for the trade war with China, which then justified $23 billion in MFP payments, and seems not to have accomplished much. But the payments under CFAP to cushion the blows of the pandemic are as big, or will be bigger.  And farm state Democrats are as eager as Republicans to fund the payments. 

I'm waiting for the WTO evaluation of the programs, but Trump is likely to pull us out of that as well.

I Was a Redskin Fan

In my youth I followed the NY Giants, which was the team being carried on local TV. After college and Army I lost most contact with the Giants, although for a couple years they had an ex-Cornell quarterback, Gary Wood., who may have been a better athlete than Tiger Woods BTW.

Living in DC and following sports in the Washington Post I gradually became a Redskins fan, especially during the glory days of the Hogs. As I grew older and the Redskins started losing more often my involvement started to falter some.

I can't claim to have ever been particularly bothered by the team's name.  I know that gives me a bad mark, if it doesn't actually make me a bad name. But I'm not going to rewrite my history.

I anticipate I'll still be interested and root for the Washington NFL team this fall, if they actually play games. 

So be it.

Today's Kids Are Needy?

The Post has a piece by a two-profession couple with 8 and 12 year old daughters, on their struggles to handle home schooling while still doing their professions.  In order to minimize interruptions they designate one parent as the duty parent for the morning and the other one in the afternoon.  The kids are supposed to go to the duty parent for their questions and needs. 

One day (not a big sample) they did a spreadsheet showing how many times the daughters interrupted the duty parent's work. I found the graph of the results to be incredible.

I know when I was young, maybe 8, I'd get bored and nag at mom.  But that wouldn't last long--it wasn't tolerated and I'd find something to do or play with.  Now I wasn't being home schooled; I'd understand that makes a difference.  But still...

I suppose it's just an example of how child rearing has changed over 70 years--parents and children are much closer now.  I know that.  But it still strikes me in my gut as being needy.

The Infection Chain

As I've said before, the progress of the pandemic seemsto have been from the most mobile and therefore whitest and wealthiest people, seeding various countries, then within the country a progression down the chain from most connected to least connected with the most vulnerable. Think of it as a forest fire, with the progression being governed by which unburned spots are most closely connected to burning spots, and the most flammable material in each spot.

So California and Washington had early cases. The Northeast was hard hit. Then things seemed tosubside for a bit, but there were warning cases in meat packing and nursing homes, etc. 

Then things moved south and west, as the networks hooked up to the vulnerable.  This is my explanation for California as well--the first wave there was the mobile upper class, the new wave is hitting Latinos and African Americans.

There's been a learning curve, particularly in the health professions, so we're in better shape thanwe were on May 1, though we now realize we weren't in as good shape as we thought then.

Expanding CFAP to More Crops

USDA announced additional crops would be eligible for payments under CFAP.  Here's the revised list of specialty crops.


I pity the FSA offices which have to implement this.  I remember what ASCS got into the first time the disaster program was expanded to cover specialty crops, though I don't remember when it was.  1986, 1988? maybe. KCMO slapped together a quick software package to allow us to take applications and compute the payments. But we had no experience with the crops which meant some stumbles in the software, and even more stumbles in administering the program in the counties.

The only good thing is acreage reporting is almost done, at least in theory, but if you look at the FSA Facebook page you know the employees are feeling the strain.

How To Deal With the Powerful

Politico has a piece on a presentation by the CIA person who usually briefs the President.

One of the things which fascinate me is what Erving Goffman called "The Presentation of Self inEvery Day Life".  It's a classic. Part of it is how you deal with a person more powerful/higher ranking than yourself.

I like to apply this to the relationship between slave and master, or to use today's language, the enslaved person and the enslaver.

The Case for an Operations VP Candidate

As Biden's lead in the polls grows, it seems to me there's less importance for him to choose a VP candidate who can add enthusiasm to the ticket, specifically a black or Latino.  The closer we get to the election it seems the more we can count on his opponent to provide enthusiasm.

So maybe there's a case to be made to go in another direction--a VP who would be great at improving the way the government operates.  That would represent a long-term investment in government capability, which is the prerequisite if liberals are to succeed in their ambitions for government programs.

If you accept the premise, it seems to me that two possibilities stand out: Elizabeth Warren and Gina Raimondo. The case for Warren seems obvious to me; the case for Raimondo can be built based on her track record, specifically with covid-19, as laid out in this Politico piece.

[update--to clarify "operations VP"--it's the sort of role Biden performed with the stimulus act, and Gore performed with Clinton (though I'm not really a fan of Gore's effort.

Writing and Statues

On twitter a historian denied any obligation for historians to fight for the preservation of statues.  That got me thinking about the difference between statues and historical artifacts--mostly written ones, but also the sort of things which wind up in museums.  Some thoughts:

• as I wrote yesterday, raising a statue is an act of power, signaling the influence of the group behind it and their importance in the community (I'm assuming that usually only a minority which feels strongly are pushing a statue). A statue is an assertion of meaning occupying a public space.  The power embodied in a statue ebbs and becomes stale as the years pass, but the statue is always there, somehow imposing on our attention to public matters. Though as I've written, statues can fade into the general landscape, no longer noticed by the majority of the public; a thorn only to a minority with reason to be aggrieved.
• written artifacts can sometimes be more obnoxious than any statue--consider Mein Kampf or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  But such writings cannot intrude themselves on our notice once the context of their creation is gone.  I mean, presumably most Germans were somewhat aware of Mein Kampf by 1938 or so, to that extent it was a signal of the power of Hitler and the Nazis, but post 1945 it's stuck on library shelves, fodder only for historians and a few on the far right. 
• other artifacts, say quilts or old episodes of I Love Lucy, also lose their power and their meaning as the years increase since the time of creation.

So what is the justification for a historian not to fight for preservation of a status in its original setting? To me the key is the occupation of a public space. It's reasonable and no violation of a historians pledge to the past to say that statues should be removed from public spaces.  And just as historians have no obligation to preserve all buildings they have no obligation to preserve all statues somewhere..  Every statue has some value, considered as an object with history, but we can't preserve everything.

Power, Statues, and Signalling

An article on the Columbus statue in front of Union Station in DC this morning provokes these thoughts:

The ability to erect statues is a signal of the power of the people behind the movement.  In the case of Union Station, it was the power of the Knights of Columbus back in the day.

In the case of statues commemorating Confederate generals, it was the power of upper class white Southern women (UCWSW).

In the case of naming forts it was likely the power of the Congressional delegation in the state, responding perhaps to UCWSW.

Now, the ability to take down statues is a signal of the power of the Black Lives Matter movement (construed broadly), power to move the needle and gain white support.

[Updated: by signaling I mean the action is not very important by itself to most people, is quite important to some.  For leaders of the movement, it's a way to gain influence.  If the KofC can persuade the powerful to emplace this statue, they must be listened to when they want X, Y or Z. If BLM can persuade the powerful to change the MS flag, then they must be listened to on other issues.  When non-legal processes are used, there's an element of physical fear involved as well, as there was in dumping the tea in Boston Harbor.]

At What Point Does Covid-19 Become Another Flu?

President Trump notoriously dismissed Covid-19 early on as just another flu.  That was quickly disproved.  I wonder, though, whether there is a point at which influenza and Covid-19 are really comparable.

Apparently flu kills from 20,000 to 80,000 people a year.  20,000 divided by 50 weeks equals 400 a week, 80,000 would equal 1600 a week.  Deaths are just one metric.  Another consideration is severity of illness and longevity of effects.  My impression is that on both counts Covid-19 has been worse than flu in that regard. 

[Updated:  a senior moment--confusing weeks and days--100 deaths a day would mean 36,500 deaths a year.  If we're currently averaging 5-600 deaths a day, we still have a long way to go.]

The idea of comparing covid-19 and the flu was discredited by its extensive use in the early days of the pandemic to minimize the dangers of the covid-19.  But now it seems to me that we're focusing exclusively on covid-19 and, perhaps, losing some perspective on the overall picture.

Housecleaning and Statue Removal

There's someone named Marie Kondo who advises on decluttering.  (Our house is cluttered, so no I've not followed her advice, but I'm sensitive to the issue so I recognize the name.)

I think she's the one who advises only keeping stuff which speaks to you. I wonder if that advice would work as applied to statues?

Personally, few statues speak to me.  The Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Park does, but likely only because of its associations with my wife.  The Lincoln Memorial does.  The Gaudens' of Clover Adams.

Some would speak to me if I were visiting, but not as part of my daily routine. Those statues for which I know some background, like the TR statue at the American Museum of Natural History, might speak to me. (Though I'd likely interpret it as partially a reference to TR's "Rough Riders" though Wikipedia doesn't mention any blacks in the regiment.)

So by the Marie Kondo test, I'm fine with removal of most of the statues. 

The National Garden of American Heroes

One of the items on the agenda of Biden's transition task force is, I hope, a listing of Trump executive orders to be reviewed, possibly modified, and perhaps revoked in the early days of a Biden administration.  One of the top items is this July 3rd order for creating the National Garden of American Heroes.

It's nonsense.  The listing looks like an abbreviated one from this "Conservapedia Gallery of American Heroes"

The Last Mile Problem in Government--AMS

One of the problems of our government is the threads connecting national legislation to local effectiveness are often broken. 

I think I just found one such case today.  The USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service has a program called "Farmers to Families Food Box".  Briefly the concept is to buy food, mostly perishable, which can't find a market under our pandemic conditions, and provide it in boxes to needy families. I'm thinking the boxing is a new idea being pushed by Secretary Perdue.

AMS has experience buying perishable food and providing it to schools for school lunches, tribes, etc.etc. But this is a new program using money appropriated by Congress (and perhaps CCC funding, not sure).  So AMS ran a new bidding process to find more vendors capable of handling the boxing and distribution to nonprofit organizations..  (I'm not sure how much overlap between the vendors in the new program and those AMS has dealt with before.  I do know there has been some scrutiny of some vendors with allegations political influence was involved in awards to new vendors.) 

So my picture is, you've this established network of AMS procurements, intermediaries, and recipients.  But now you have new additional money, additional intermediaries, and hopefully new recipients.  Where the threat is broken in my metaphor is the last mile problem--connecting new recipients with the old or new intermediaries.

If I understand the program correctly, which is a problem, AMS and the administration are making the assumption that existing nonprofits can make the connection.  But a question on the FSA employee group Facebook page raised the question.  Checking the AMS sit they have a list of the approved vendors who are getting the food and boxing it.  But there is no national database showing which nonprofits the vendors are dealing with. So the question is, if Jane Doe in Mississippi is interested in getting a box--who does she contact?  As far as I can see, she has to use the phone book to locate a nonprofit which might be  distributing the boxes.

Race Is a Social Construct?

Political correctness these days claims that race is socially constructed; perhaps it goes further to say there is no objective, independent basis for race.

I tend to bristle at such claims because I believe groups of humans can be grouped by common genetics.  But regardless of that, things like this Tweet remind me that society does construct "races". 

Sketches used by USSR police to identify suspects based on “race” pic.twitter.com/f9qtnrYwdS

— Soner Cagaptay (@SonerCagaptay) July 1, 2020

Sketches used by USSR police to identify suspects based on “race” pic.twitter.com/f9qtnrYwdS

— Soner Cagaptay (@SonerCagaptay) July 1, 2020

New--The Phishing Call

I'm long familiar with the phishing email.  But today my wife and I dealt with a phishing phone call, which is new on me. 

Briefly someone who claimed he was from Amazon said they had an order for $359 for an Apple Watch to be sent to Dayton Ohio, which was suspicious.  When we said we didn't order it, he claimed he needed to establish 2-step verification on the account.  When challenged he was able to give an employee id number and a phone number to call.  Of course, we rejected the premise.  If it were real, we could have rejected the charge on our credit card.

But I'm impressed by the phishing.  Seems there's an arms race going on, where scam artists and merchants and customers are trying to keep up with each other.