False Colors

 Since the Webb telescope has started delivering pictures, I've seen references to their "false colors" or "fake colors".  NASA has used the term:

This false-color mosaic is made of 72 exposures over a 32-hour test. Note: 6-pointed diffraction spikes unique to Webb around the bright stars & a background full of galaxies. Webb will #UnfoldTheUniverse with its first full-color images in just 1 week! https://t.co/LaJjK8v3Bd

— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) July 6, 2022

I don't like it.

As I understand it, the Webb captures a much wider portion of the spectrum than do our human eyes. So if the images reflected the spectrum we could see, i.e., were in "real colors", we wouldn't see a lot of the interesting phenomena. So NASA uses what I'd call a translator program to convert all the data the telescope has captured into colors humans can perceive.  The program is true to our perceptions--we see longer light waves as blue, with "ultraviolet" designating the waves which are too long for us to see; we see shorter light waves as red, with "infrared" designating the waves which are too short for us to see. So the results of the translation have the infrared waves showing as red, the ultraviolet as blue.

Whenever we convert phenomena into colors on the printed page, we're dealing in "false colors", not reality.  That's true whether we're dealing with red states and blue states, or starlight.

Just as translators of the Iliad try to be faithful to the original Greek in their presentation of the text in modern American English, so the NASA scientist try to be faithful to the data their telescope has captured in presenting it to us.  In neither case do we get the full richness of the reality, but the best effort of the translators.

Small Farms, Big Farms, Haiti and Dominican Republic

 Here's a long discussion of why Haiti and the Dominican Republic have diverged so drastically, GDP per capita is 5 times greater in the DR, although they share the same island.

Several topics are discussed, but he leads off with the small farm/large farm contrast. There are several reasons Haiti now has small farms, compared to other Caribbean/Spanish American countries. The revolution, the prohibition on foreigners owning land, etc.  

One thing struck me--in the context of the US, we've lost millions of small farms over the years not only because of the economic advantages of consolidation, which is the usual explanation, but because of the opportunities in the cities for better jobs in industry, commerce and finance.  The "Great Migration" of African Americans from the rural South to jobs in cities all over the country is the prime example, but the reality is that there was a bigger migration of whites from Southern farms and of whites from farms in the rest of the country.  

Civil War? Stuff and Nonsense

 Stephens and Collins have a weekly conversation at the NYTimes.

When he noted a fairly widespread fear of civil war, she had a response with which I agree--a sentence:

It’s very possible things look worse than they are because we’re experiencing a revolution in communication more dramatic than anything since the invention of a national postal service.

Big changes in technology usually require a period of adjustment by society.  You can see that in the novels of Dickens, in the writings of Thoreau and his fellow Romantices, in the literature of the 1920's, etc.

The advent of the internet, particularly the cellphone/internet connection, is such a change.   Father Time will dissolve some of the partisanship we're experiencing now.  As we grow more used to the technology and develop norms to deal with the problems it brings we'll settle down into patterns which will become familiar and comfortable to us.

Appearances and Reality--When Are We Back to Normal?

 I think part of the gloom about the country must be perception--we don't see the country as having rebounded back to normal.  One indicator:  rush-hour traffic.  I don't know what it's like elsewhere in the country, but in Reston the parkway used to often have some backups aroun 9:15, when I was crossing on my way to the garden or out for my walk.  Even when there weren't backups the traffic was pretty heavy, especially for someone who remembers the time when it was a two-lane road, not a four-land divided highway.

But not these days.  During the height of the pandemic there was little traffic. Now the traffic is heavier, but I've not seen any backups since April 2020.  My ingrained definition of "normal" is heavy traffic and backups; by that definition we aren't back to normal yet. 

Precision Agriculture

 Wired has a long piece on precision agriculture. Divisions between automating current operations, like John Deere's version of their 14 ton tractor, and new paradigms, like small weed-pulling robots, between field crops and fruits and vegetables, and dairy.  

Did you know legal marijuana is the fifth most valuable crop grown in the US?

If You've Lost Fox?

 Kevin Drum blames Fox for much of the partisanship of the last 20-30 years.  

Jack Shafer at Politico believes the former guy is being abandoned by the network.

Liberals and Change

 

I mean...

What IS the response to this from good-faith liberals, btw? https://t.co/AvRtjYv7xb

— Wilfred Reilly (@wil_da_beast630) July 22, 2022

Within this thread is the "gentrification"/"white flight" cartoon attacking liberals--that is, if the neighborhood changes by increasing the proportion of whites--it's bad because "gentrification"; if it changes by decreasing the proportion of whites--it's bad because "white flight".

I think it's a fair point.  As a liberal I'm stuck, welcoming change from the "creative destruction" of capitalism/market economy, and opposing change by providing a "safety net". 

The key, I think, is modulated change: change must occur but change that's too fast, too massive needs to be cushioned.  That's my analysis and defense of farm programs--only a rigorous supply management system such as those we had for tobacco and peanuts has been halfway successful in maintaining successful farms. If we aren't willing to go that far, then the best farm programs can do is to cushion the changes. 

Things Get Better?

As someone who lived through the 1960's, I sometimes get impatient with today's discussions of race  and its problems.  I remember how it used to be, at least as best a young white NY liberal could who viewed from afar, did not jump into the struggle.

I was struck by the data in the twitter thread below, covering the life expectancies by race and sex between 1960 and 2017.  While there's still a gap in expected life span, the gap has indeed narrowed since 1960, narrowed signficantly and particularly in recent years. 

here's how it looks to me: pic.twitter.com/bd6NHH0cP7

— blighter (@blightersort) July 21, 2022

Cynical Take on Federal Records Act

 Commentary on the missing Secret Service cellphone records has invoked the spector of the Federal Records Act, violation of which can lead to jail time.

We don't know what happened in the case, but I start with some cynicism.  I don't think most bureaucrats in most agencies know much or care much about the FRA. The leader of all Federal bureaucrats for 4 years, the former guy, showed exactly what he thought of it when he tore up documents he'd read.

The Act lacks an enforcement mechanism; NARA has no real power.  

I suspect, and predict, that the Secret Service has never taken the FRA seriously.  This might mean they simply ignored the preservation of records in past years, and continued that mind set in dealing with Jan. 6 and the upgrading of their cellphones.

We may find out if I'm right. 

Modern Sculpture--Oldenburg

 Claes Oldenburg recently died. He was, I guess, a modern sculptor.

I don't have much experience with modern sculpture.  "The Song of the Vowels" which was installed on my college's campus about the same time I arrived didn't do much for me, but apparently it's still considered good.

The National Gallery of Art has a sculpture garden which I've toured, with several of Oldenburg's sculptures.  I do get a kick out of The Typewriter Erasor--Scale X. I remember using the real life erasor before the days of correction fluid.  I'm sure these days few people could identify it. 

Making Decisions--Roberts

 I believe Russ Roberts was an economist before he became head of a college.  Anyway, he's got a piece in the NYTimes on decision making in which he describes the process Darwin went through before marrying. When I read about it in a recent bio I didn't pick up everything he did.

Back when I joined ASCS I was sent to a Kepner-Tregoe training class.  One of the things taught was the same sort of calculus Darwin went through--figuring out pros and cons of a decision, assigning weights to each, and deciding according to the balance.

I tried that approach in choosing the house I was going to buy in Reston.  It was useful, but then, like Roberts, I threw away the calculations and went with my gut feeling--the house I chose didn't come out as the best choice.  The process can only go so far, and whenever there are imponderables and unknowns, as in deciding whether to marry, it's limited. 

Our American Dentistry System

 I've commented before on the advantages of the Kaiser Permanente system, as opposed to the system of independent doctors, specialists, and testing labs found elsewhere.

Currently I'm gaining some (vicarious) experience with dentistry.  While Kaiser includes some dental coverage, it's not in-house but run through a separate organization.  It includes a directory of participating dentists, endodontists, and oral surgeons which are in-network. For a variety of reasons (not rational ones, but human ones), we're getting the work done outside the plan.

One difference between the medical side of our health system and the dental side is technology.  The various dentist/specialists have a lot more technology in their office. Where doctors had to send you out for blood tests, dentists have x-rays in their office, while the endodontists and surgeons have even more equipment. 

One similarity betwen the system is the referrals from dentist to endodontist and surgeons. It seems to an outsider there's likely an informal network in existence; whether the network is more than just mutual trust I don't know.  

From the patient's standpoint there's still the frustration of repetitive forms: health histories and legal documents. Within the Kaiser organization, that's avoided for medical issues.  

For any complex issue, there's a coordination issue.  That's likely true within Kaiser for medical issues, especially when you involve a hospital. 

Younger Generation Losing Skills?

 My title is a bit of a troll--the younger generation is always losing skills and learning new skills.

What triggered this post is my buying Starbucks coffee today.  I pay in cash, usually trying to pay provide $5.55 for a $3.55 coffee, meaning I can put $2 in the tip jar (a habit carried over from pandemic days).  The veteran baristas know my habit and handle it; today a newbie was thrown by it, gave me changes for $5 and my $.55 in change back.

I suppose like using the stick shift and the correction fluid, the art of making change is gradually losing ground as we all switch to digital payments. 

Fixing ECA

Before we fix SCOTUS we should fix the Electoral Count Act. 

Fixing SCOTUS

 I tend to the position that any "fix" to SCOTUS is likely going to be worse than the current situation.  Vox has 10 possibilities discussed here.

I heard of an intriguing suggestion, can't remember where now: each president gets to appoint two justices to the court.  The court is composed of the 9 most recent living appointees. Any others still living who wish can take senior status (as Justice Souter has).  Except for the possibility of the Senate refusing to confirm an appointee, which I've seen handled in another proposal, it seems a reasonable suggestion.  

Clearance Rates on Homicides

 This piece describes six reasons that the clearance rate for homicides has declined. 

None of them mention my guess at a possible reason: a higher proportion of gang/drug-related murders. There were gangs in the 60's; the Mafia was active. But it seems to me there's more conflict among gangs now, fights over territory for selling drugs, etc.  Gangs have and enforce the code of silence, and they have more power to intimidate possible witnesses.  

On the Margins--a Metaphor

 Behind our townhouse there's a strip of lawn at the foot of a sloping bank up to a strip of the woods which remain from the original landscape before the townhouse cluster was developed.  Originally when I bought the townhouse from the developer the bank was planted to grass.  When the maintenance company's crew mowed the lawn it also mowed the grass on the bank.  For a few years.

Unfortunately the bank was good Virginia red clay, so the grass never thrived. It was invaded by weeds, which soon the mowing crew decided not to cut. Over the years some woody brush has filled in behind the weeds, which have advanced down the bank and into the strip of lawn. Just the other day I noticed how narrow the strip of lawn had gotten, as each year the crew abandoned more land to the weeds.

The situation reminds me of the borders of our fields, back on the farm I grew up on.  Something similar happened there.  First you have a fence, and a few weeds grow up around it.  The fence posts prevent you from mowing under the fence, so you mow within a foot or two of it.  But areas which aren't mowed become a niche for brush to grow up, which shades the adjacent area, where the weeds invade next. 

When mowing hay, you don't really want to cut brush which might get baled, or which might clog the cutter bar of the mowing machine.  So each year you mow just a tad further away from the original fence, and so the brush becomes a hedgerow, and the hedgerow grows and grows.

Which is sort of like my sideburns.  Particularly since covid, I go a long time between haircuts. When I shave each morning, somehow my sideburns become a little longer, meaning when I do get a haircut the barber needs to shave them back to their original place.

Bottom line: I think hedgerows and sideburns become good metaphors for what happens on the margins of states, the Roman empire, and organizations. Often the returns from maintaining them don't really justify the investment needed to sustain the difficult maintenance. 

Coal for Heat and Hot Water

This Smithsonian piece on coal brought back memories. The theme is the process and the difficulties in getting American households to switch from wood to coal, from open burning to enclosed burning.

I grew up in a house with two coal burners--our kitchen stove was a coal burner, though we could burn wood as well.  In fact, in order to get a coal fire started first you burn some wood.  During the colder months we kept the coal fire going all the time, banking the fire during the night, bringing it alive during the day, after removing the previous day's accumulated ashes to the dump near the side door.  Midway during my years we added an electric stove, very handy for cooking, particularly during the hot days of the summer when you really didn't want a fire going.  (Before the electric stove there was a kerosene cook stove.)

The other coal burner was the furnace, providing hot air to heat the house.  The evidence of the past was visible in the shapes of the chimneys in the walls, two of them; one was still used for the cook stove and the "one-a-day" (a woodburner in the basement which heated water, mostly for weekly baths; the other was closed off.  The chimney for the furnace was outside the house.  I've a vague memory of its being built, or perhaps rebuilt with cinder blocks, so possibly it was originally connected to the second chimney.   It too was banked during the night, which was an acquired skill.

The coal was delivered yearly by dump truck, maybe a couple tons of anthracite of different sizes: smaller for the cook stove; larger for the furnace, into separate bins in the basement.

Should I Apologize?

 Reading comments in the FSA Employees Group in Facebook. One noted the proliferation of programs, arguing that Congress should restrain itself.  

One of the things I tried to do during my time on the program side was to make things more efficient, particularly on the software side.  I also got involved in crash efforts when Congress or the administration came up with new programs (1983 payment-in-kind and 1986 disaster I remember particularly). I think I was reasonably successful, so why might I need to apologize?

Isn't there a parable of the  beast of burden which is always able to handle the loads which it's given, until one day the master adds the last straw? (Can't find it in wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_that_broke_the_camel%27s_back, but it seems as if there should be one.)

My point: I was just part of a long tradition in AAA/ASCS/FSA of employees taking pride in implementing programs quickly, which created a reputation among policy makers, which led to more and more programs. 

To some extent this is democratic policy making--IRS, SBA, etc. had similar problems in responding to the economic impact of the pandemic. 

But the reality is if we had been screwing up programs in the 1980s and 90s, the employees today won't be overloaded. 

We Need More CoDels

 Politico has a post on the unseen advantages of "Codels"--Congressional delegations visiting foreign countries. Because there's lots of travel time, and less actual meeting time, a codel throws the members together in a non-political environment, allowing them to experience each other as humans, not stereotypes.

A codel also has the advantage of seeming to be work; it doesn't seem to be a vacation or a boondoggle (at least sometimes).  

So maybe some foundation should sponsor domestic codels.

Pigford Case Resolved

 Don't know if I've blogged on this part of the Pigford case before, but here's a case which ends in pleas of guilty by four of the six defendants.

Ukraine-Russia--Siloes Everywhere

  A quote from an assessment of the conflict: 

One challenge here is that NATO standardisation is not very standardised, with different countries’ howitzers not only having completely different maintenance requirements but also using different charges, fuses and sometimes shells.

The old story 

USDA Budget Baseline

 I found this table in the CRS report on farm bill basics interesting: 

What jumps out is the huge increase in the baseline for nutrition programs. 

Douglass on USA Mission

Frederick Douglass had a speech on the US, partially focused on Chinese immigration during a time when that was a big thing.  

Our geographical position, our relation to the outside world, our fundamental principles of government, world-embracing in their scope and character, our vast resources, requiring all manner of labor to develop them, and our already existing composite population, all conspire to one grand end, and that is, to make us the perfect national illustration of the unity and dignity of the human family that the world has ever seen.

That's a vision of America I can endorse.  It's backed by this Bloomberg interview about immigration. 

Hutchinson on Declaration

Boston 1775 has a post on Hutchinson's view of the Declaration. Denies that the thirteen colonies constitute a "people" and points to the conflict between "life, liberty, pursuit.." and slavery.  

So the founders hypocrisy was apparent early (and to themselves, given the rapid progress of gradual emancipation in the northern colonies by 1790). 

It's interesting though that he thinks there are 100,000 slaves. (The 1790 census showed about 700,000.)  

Proud To Be an American

 In response to a tweet by Will Hurd:

I understand and appreciate why 72% of the country thinks we're on the wrong track, but despite this pessimism what is one reason why you are thankful to be an American?

— Will Hurd (@WillHurd) July 4, 2022

Lots of people from all over want to come here, and most find it good enough to stay and live.

— Bill Harshaw (@BillHarshaw) July 4, 2022

Is the popularity of the country sufficient reason to be proud?  YES.  

It's an objective measure of the value of the country. It's one which both conservatives and liberals, the far right and far left ought to be able to embrace. 

Mainline Christianity--Membership Versus Affiliation

 

My curiosity was triggered by this tweet:

In fact, the only denomination among whites that has increased recently is "mainline Protestant," which is decidedly liberal on abortion. The decline of "evangelical Protestant" - especially compared to other sects - since 2006 is very noticeable. pic.twitter.com/XUxdJa4VV0

— Aaron Astor (@AstorAaron) July 3, 2022

So I did a little looking at Wikipedia.   It seems Pew did surveys in 2014 and 2020 of individuals, asking their affiliations.  And the survey does show an increase between those years, with 16.4 percent being members of mainline Protestant churches (Episcopal, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Church of Christ, Lutheran, Disciples of Christ).  But in 2010 a survey of denominations for their membership showed 7.3 percent.

That's quite a gap. 

The To and Fro of Government and Private

 Much of what government,at least American government, does is to take over what private initiative has started and make it more uniform, more universal.

For example, roads--many of our roads started as Indian trails, simply because of the influence of geography. Colonies did some roads, private initiative did other roads ("turnpikes" as I was taught), eventually governments took over almost all roads, except for driveways.  That was mostly true through the 20th century; now private enterprise is building roads again, toll roads.

Another example is redlining.  The simple version is that the New Deal's agency to provide mortgages for housing and distressed homeowners divided cities into two areas: those where no mortgages would be supported and those where mortgages were available.  The redlined areas were black, the others were white. That's drastically oversimplified, as McWhorter describes in this Times piece.

The reality is that bankers were always deciding who could get a mortgage and who couldn't.  As their volume increased, they simplified their decision making by generalizing to areas.  When the Feds got involved, they further generalized the process.  

See this piece by Colin Gordon in Dissent.

What Really Matters to Congress: Policy or Offices?

 David Brooks on Newshour Friday said he'd learned, contrary to the assumptions of political scientists,  that people don't want power.  He was talking about Congress not being willing to write specific authorities in legislation, as SCOTUS in this week's decision, says they ought to, rather than relying on agencies like EPA to decide and act.

It sort of fits with something I learned from "The First Congress", a book by Fergus Bordewich on the wheelings and dealings during 1789-91.  I've learned the Bill of Rights was not the Congressional version of the Ten Commandments, words of wisdom widely debated and finally etched in stone.  Some legislators saw them as rather meaningless, sops thrown to the Anti-Federalists who'd extracted the promise of amendments as part of state ratification of the Constitution.

Much more important to Congress was the location of the national capital.  It took months of maneuvering and deliberations before the final compromise which settled it.   

That also fits with another action this week: Congress blew up efforts to rationalize and modernize the Veterans Administrations healthcare facilities.  That reminded me of a similar attempt back in the early 1980's to rationalize ASCS offices. It ended badly.

So my bottom line: Congress doesn't do well on difficult policy questions; it's much more interested in offices and jobs and will never delegate authority to agencies to change them.