My cousin, Marjorie Harshaw Robie, is recalling her days on the Ipswich School Committee by a series of posts Facebook page.
Her initial run for the committee was aided by two institutions which have faded since then: the League of Women Voters, which did two questionnaires of the candidates, and the local newspapers, which did interviews.
I assume it's not just Ipswich which has seen the fading, but general phenomena.
When I first started working on the program side, ASCS had a disaster payment program, covering low yields and prevented planting for its then-usual crops: wheat, barley, oats, corn, sorghum, rice and upland cotton. The auditors had been critical of its administration, saying that the way the program operation ended up paying the same farm in multiple years.
From what I remember the problem was a combination of legislation and human nature, or rather legislation and administration reflecting human nature. Farmers are optimists, they have to be to survive the disappointments, so they remember the good years and not the bad. That means the laws they supported provided for "Olympic averaging", ignoring bad years but usually not the great years. So the resulting payment yields were high, too high if you agree with the auditors that disaster payments from the government should be unusual.
The further problem was variability--optimistic farmers grow crops on marginal and hazard-prone land. They've done that forever--much of the Great Plains in the 19th century. Sometimes farmers are able to modify geography, using irrigation, levees, drainage, or terraces depending on the problem. We're finding the limits to such measures, as now in the Central Valley of California.
Anyhow, this ramble was set off by a new EWG report on crop insurance payments on flood prone land.
Via Kottke, this article on return of lost property in Japan. I'm reminded of some experiments done in this country--IIRC some involved leaving a wallet containing the owner's phone number with some money and seeing whether the wallet was returned, with the money.
I think maybe it ties in with my recent reading of McManus on the Army's war in the Pacific--how was it possible to motivate Japanese soldiers to die rather than surrender--partially a concern for reputation in the community?
The last thing I would think of if I found a wallet is whether my actions would be condemned or praised by the community.
United has contracted for such planes for 2026. At 19 seats they aren't going to be flying between major cities, but rather out to small cities. I find that I flew in a Beechcraft 1900D which has 19 seats when I flew into Goodland, KS in 1992 or 3. Goodland has since lost air service.
Reading Woody Holton's "Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution".
I'm about halfway through but already have a reaction. It's KISS, meaning "keep it simple, stupid'. And that's what the Constitution did, at least partially. Holton's describing the conditions of the 1780's, and the conflicts which led to the writing and adoption of the Constitution. Holton describes things, but doesn't see them as follows:
David Brooks has a column in the Times today discussing friendships, how many we can maintain at various levels of intimacy. He ends by thinking our friendships have become fragile during the pandemic.
I'm certainly not an expert on friendships--I don't maintain the ones I once have, and since retirement I've not been creating new ones.
I'm not sure Brooks is correct--I know my cousin's extended family has found new community bonds by having weekly zoom calls during the pandemic. Before the pandemic, they were scattered across CA, CO, OH, PA, NH, MA, TX with much less regular contact.
I suspect the issue is what the psychologists call "availability"--we readily notice the changes, the losses, which occur but we are less conscious of the new patterns we're establishing.
Short answer--damned if I know.
Longer answer--gone with dissolution of the Soviet Union. For my entire lifetime the US has had adversaries, first the Axis, then USSR. After 1991 we've had no such adversaries. Brief flirtations with Japan as an economic rival, with Bush's Axis of Evil supporting terrorism, and later China as a rising rival don't match the threats those mid-century adversaries seemed to pose. Today we're seeing with Russia's invasion of Ukraine we're seeing a resurgence of unity, of national feeling, etc. both in Congress and the country.
So--my answer: sense of community vanished with our enemies.
My two retirement hobbies are reading and gardening, in that order. I've been gardening in the Reston community garden since a couple years after buying my house in 1976. Over the years my wife and I have settled into a selection of plants to grow, some to eat, some to decorate. Gardening connects me to the cycle of the seasons which was all-important to farmers when growing up. It also offers the opportunity to improve my game each year, trying different things based on the experience of last year. That's something which my mother was very much into.
The Reston garden follows organic rules, which is fine to me, except that it extends to banning preservative-treated wood for raised beds. Not good, offends mypenny-pinching soul.
Saw a tweet complaining about the 230-odd pages of material the Red Tractor inspector wanted. Did a search and found it's a UK scheme, as they'd say:
We are a not-for-profit company that is the UK’s biggest farm and food assurance scheme. We develop standards based on science, evidence, best practice and legislation that cover animal welfare, food safety, traceability and environmental protection. Around 50,000 British farmers are accredited to Red Tractor standards, which form the basis of buying and sourcing specifications for major supermarkets, household brands and restaurant chains, ultimately making life simpler for everyone,
50K is about half the active farmers in the UK, but I'm not sure of the definition. It doesn't mention organic products.
I find this:
"Results are weighted to represent the full population of farm businesses that have at least 25 thousand Euros of standard output as recorded in the annual June Survey of Agriculture and Horticulture. In 2019, this accounted for approximately 56,521 farm businesses. " (That would be a little over $27,000 depending on exchange rate.)
Someone with ambition could, or maybe already has, compare UK distribution of farms with US.
Back in my time it was the Westinghouse Science Search but now it's Regeneron (it's a biotech company which I had to look up).
Here's the press release of this year's winners, dominated by Asian-Americans.
Two signs of the times here--Westinghouse going bankrupt, ending its sponsorship of the talent search, and reinventing as nuclear energy company, and the domination of the search by people whose ancestry isn't western European.
I sort of regret the first--I think nuclear should have a role in moving away from fossil fuels--and applaud the second--the more brains from more areas we have working the better off everyone will be.
As I sometimes do, I created this blog post a few days ago, but with no text--just as a reminder to myself that I might have thoughts on the subject.
But I delayed, so I think Jack Shafer covers part of the topic--journalists like war partially because their audiences like war. It's a good narrative, particularly David versus Goliath.
That seems to me to be a big question in Ukraine. Apparently the spring thaw there creates a lot of mud, meaning that Russian vehicles stick to the roads, which makes them targets for Ukrainian anti-tank weapons fired by drones or by ambushing troops.
But the mud won't last forever, meaning Russian tanks can maneuver and won't be sitting ducks anymore.
One way we progress over time is by having role models and acquiring social capital over time.
I joined a local facebook group devoted to helping Afghan refugees so I could buy items off their Amazon wish list. Now as a member I get their requests for help--the latest one is for people to help learning to drive and passing the driving test.
That was traumatic for me, so I thought about it. Both refugees and some people whose families have always lived in urban areas without experience with cars face the same problems:
There's discussion of establishing some sort of international guarantee of neutrality for Ukraine, suggested by the Austrian precedent. Seems to me there are questions in getting to a resolution:
Brent Orr posted on Facebook about the System/36, which evoked a lot nostalgia from old-timers. Given the amount of cursing from the counties in 1985-90 it's a bit amusing to hear about how reliable the software and system were, etc. etc. Lots of complaints early on which now faded away in memory.
I must admit it's rather satisfying though, because I and others invested a lot of time and energy, sweat and tears in it. (I don't remember any blood being shed, but I remember a number of occasions where I drove my employees to tears.)
This post at Statistical Modeling suggests structural causes for an increase in traffic deaths, as opposed to the individualized "pandemic malaise" causes. That is, congestion in traffic reduces speed and rewards safe driving within the design of the streets and roadways.
I think it's similar to something I saw a bit ago--suggesting that a rise in crime was due to a changing mix of people on the street --i.e., the conservative, risk-averse people stayed away.
My therapist was deeply impressed by nuclear energy; he called it the self-destruct engine where the chain reaction got out of hand and applied it to individual psychology.
I'd apply the metaphor of nuclear reactors to now--society consists of older and younger, risk-seeking and risk-averse, conformists, and rebels. In any situation, whether driving or just interacting in public, patterns of behavior take into account all the variations. From 30,000 feet it seems the old/conformist/risk-averse component tends to act to moderate interactions, whether it's speed of driving or interpersonal conflict. When the composition changes by changing the relative proportions of the population, you get a change in society.
Marginal Revolution notes a twitter thread about progress in India, one man's experience with no indication of whether it applies across the very complicated country.
1a. India is beyond advanced now as a cashless society! From street vendors to shops in the mall, everyone, everywhere is using Google Pay (or something similar).
— Dr. Karan Jani (@AstroKPJ) March 9, 2022
A sugarcane juice vendor on the Dandi beach gave me a look when the QR code scan failed as I didn't have it set up!
He doesn't describe a cause, but I assume the BJP/PM Modi would claim credit. I'd be curious as to how Estonia compares, being a country which plunged into the e-world years before Modi became PM.
Two prices of long ago came up today:
I'm intrigued by a sentence in a recent Times article about agriculture in the Ukraine. We've become conscious of how important the country is as an exporter of grain. This was a quote from a Ukrainian farmer, but what was intriguing wasn't the quote, but the description of the farmer--he was Dutch and part of a 1,000+ organization (don't remember but it might have been a co-op or a corporation) running a big farm in the Ukraine. I wonder how and why he got to Ukraine, and how unique he is. (I'm aware some Dutch farmers have emigrated to the US for dairy operations.)
Also intriguing are the pictures of the Russian convoy and vehicles which are stalled, or stuck in what looks to be very rich, stone free soil.
The post on the Rural Blog reports that 28 percent of farmers with over $500,000 gross income have poor or no internet service. More farmers had a cellphone than had a computer.
The modern concept of race was introduced to North America to make working or lower class solidarity more difficult. It is still doing that. https://t.co/SpiLOfn6QR
— Sam Haselby (@samhaselby) March 7, 2022
I think the phrasing implies there was conscious intent. I don't believe that.
I was born before Pearl Harbor. After the war was over I got a compilation of Bill Mauldin's Willie and Joe cartoons, depicting GI's in a picture of combat and service life that was more realistic than anything seen before, A tweet yesterday evoked this memory.
Been reading the John McManus books on the Army's role in the Pacific (so far two volumes,carrying the story through the end of 1944 and the invasion of Leyte in the Philippines).
It's good, not as good as the Toll trilogy on the Navy, with less focus on overall strategy and the home front, but it does do justice to the Army which McManus says has been overshadowed by the Marines. The first book is critical of MacArthur, the second book not so much. In the controversies between Marine and Army generals he usually takes the Army side, but seems to be fair in assessing the good and bad of the leaders.
I was struck by the fact that the US had overall commanders--Nimitz and MacArthur, while the Japanese apparently always separated navy and army chains of command. We had friction between Marine and Army forces which apparently didn't exist for Japan.
Do we essentially call for unconditional surrender (of all of Putin's goals) or are we willing to offer a fig leaf? More importantly, can we and Zelensky remain united--there's no guarantee that he will see things the same way we do. Are we willing to fight on until the last Ukrainian fighter is killed? Is he?
Part of the problem I didn't make clear in my comment is we've got multiple decision makers-- Zelensky on the one hand and the "West" as represented by Biden on the other. (And that's oversimplifying--while NATO and the EU and the rest of Europe seem united now, that's not necessarily the case in the futre.)
I think we can predict that our high regard for Zelensky today will fade as we and he come to realize we have different priorities and aims.
I don't know how to link over to a Facebook post with its comments, but here's the url of this post:
I've blogged before about the plight of maintenance. I learned with ASCS automation that building new systems means increasing the burden of maintenance and decreasing the time and people available to do more good things. I've applied that learning to other things.
One is infrastructure--we don't maintain our roads and bridges as we should. Another is pipelines, as described here.
People like new ideas, new things. Someone has a bright idea and others join in the applause. This often results in new legislation or whatever. The people who originated the idea/legislation/proposal move on and eventually die. Their replacements, even those with nominal responsibility for maintenance, have no pride of authorship, no emotional commitment to the project, so devote their attention and time to other efforts.
For proof of my thesis, compare the state of the pots and pans in your kitchen after years of use with what they looked like on the day of your wedding, when you received them.
