A Bureaucrat's Ambivalence--Agricultural Disasters

USDA announced that "sign-up begins May 17, 2006, for four crop and livestock assistance programs providing aid to producers affected by the destructive 2005 hurricanes. These programs are funded by $250 million in Section 32 funds authorized immediately following these destructive storms."

This is separate from the billions for disaster included in the supplemental appropriation bill now under consideration in Congress (HR4939). A bunch of people have criticized the provisions, including the Secretary of Agriculture.

It's a topic that causes me much ambivalence. I was a part, a big part I think, of USDA's implementation of early ad hoc disaster programs during the 1980's. I suspect there's still bits and pieces of the software programs and system designs incorporated in USDA's implementation of the current programs (bureaucrats and programmers like to re-use the old). And the bureaucratic systems are like the field of dreams--"build it and they will come". If bureaucrats can build systems to get money in farmers pockets reasonably efficiently, politicians will come up with programs to authorize such payments.

When I remember my father and uncle, and the pain caused by bad weather, disaster programs seem halfway justified. When my memory fades, the programs seem excessive.

RIP JK Galbraith

John Kenneth Galbraith died. See the NYTimes obit, which I found disappointing, though it did provide words of wisdom about the worldview of farmers and Calvinist Presbyterians:

"Mr. Galbraith said in his memoir "A Life in Our Times" (1981) that no one could understand farming without knowing two things about it: a farmer's sense of inferiority and his appreciation of manual labor. His own sense of inferiority, he said, was coupled with his belief that the Galbraith clan was more intelligent, knowledgeable and affluent than its neighbors.

"My legacy was the inherent insecurity of the farm-reared boy in combination with the aggressive feeling that I owed to all I encountered to make them better informed," he said."

I can identify with the thoughts. (My family often played the game: Who's Right, I Am.)

Last year I posted a note of praise of him as a great bureaucrat. It's common in bureaucracy, and I suppose in real life, to find great talkers but someone who will write the first draft is a great asset. At times I didn't agree with his political ideas but the basic Calvinism of disdaining the nouveau riche and conspicuous consumption and valuing the use of money for public goods rings true.

Great Bureaucrats (Henriette Avram)

The Post today carries the obit of a bureaucrat no one has heard of (perhaps Laura Bush did):

"Henriette D. Avram; Transformed Libraries :

Henriette D. Avram, whose far-reaching work at the Library of Congress replaced ink-on-paper card catalogues and revolutionized cataloguing systems at libraries worldwide, died April 22 of cancer at Baptist Hospital in Miami."

From the obit we learn that Ms Avram essentially created a metaclassification scheme, subsuming the Dewey decimal and others, that rapidly became a world standard. Perhaps even more impressive is the personal story behind the facts--no college, goes to work at NSA, becomes an early computer programmer, then to Library of Congress and ends up in charge of 1700 people! Oh, and raised 3 kids.

She did great at one of the essential jobs of a bureaucrat--creating abstract representations of reality.

So Long, Secretaries Day

Yesterday was what I used to observe as "Secretaries Day". See this official explanation of the day and week , see this in Slate for a view from the other side.

My impression is that secretaries are an endangered species. 21 years ago in a computer training session for professional I was told: "I don't type". I doubt many would say that today (although Michael Chertoff doesn't use e-mail). I recently read a book on Eisenhower as President. (I think it was called "the Hidden Hand" but I'm too lazy to look it up. It was one of the first books to renovate Ike's reputation on the basis of his work behind the scenes.) It was written in the early 80's and the author included in the acknowledgments a nod to his secretary for typing the manuscript. That used to be commonplace but no more.

Why Doctors Aren't "Faceless Bureaucrats"

There's a reason that doctors aren't considered "faceless bureaucrats"--the pricey training they get in medical school. You know the saying: "if you can fake sincerity, you've got it made"? Well it turns out according to the Times today that doctors are trained to fake caring--How a Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down: [The writer describes an appointment where the patient is getting tense, which she defuses by complimenting the patient's hair.]

"We were taught to call them lubricating comments: little morsels of oleaginous verbiage tucked into the usual miserable catechism to ease it along a little. Quite early on in medical school, we were handed a list to memorize. Most of us shuddered. It seemed then, in that nice, peaceful classroom, that the list's contents were just inane. 'Tell me more about that.' 'That must have been very difficult for you.' 'I hear what you are saying.' 'Your story moves me.' Surely, with all the other wisdom spilling from our lips, we would not be resorting to those viscous cliches.
But with experience came the knowledge"

[that such things are necessary.]

Seriously, bureaucrats can be divided into those who directly contact the citizens/clientele of the bureaucracy and those who don't. The former are often not trained in how to cope with tense situations. (Although I remember that my USDA bureaucracy did offer such training when I came on board--not sure they do now.) But it's mostly the latter who get called faceless bureaucrats, on the assumption that they deliberately create rules that make no sense but make life difficult for the client, and often for the bureaucrat who's dealing with the client.

The Course of "Progress" on Rural Roads

The law of unexpected consequences operates in Montgomery County, MD, where the county is trying to preserve rural farming districts. It's well-intended, but as this article in today's Washington Post indicates, it's difficult, because the remaining farmers are adopting new modern equipment.

Where the 'Rustic' Clogs the Road:

"With traditional farming less profitable, many farmers are using larger tractors and combines, some as wide as 15 feet, to plant on more land. Their machines, they say, are getting too large for the roads, which are kept as close to their original condition as possible. Compounding the problem is that farmers are increasingly sharing the roads with commuters looking to find alternatives to clogged highways."

When All Movies Are Smashes

Garrison Keillor will always be famous for his "all children are above average" line. But as I was looking at our Netflix account the other day I was struck by the ratings--we liked everything we saw (at least 3 stars, some 4 and a few 5)!

Why's that? In part because we're generous graders but mostly because of the way we choose movies to watch--we don't waste our money if there's a good chance we won't like them. What that means is that instead of having a 5 star range in our rating system, we've only got 3. I think it also means that the Netflix ratings carry less information--our "3" doesn't really tell you that much, our chosing the movie in the first place is the most informative data Netflix has on our preferences.

End of Briefcases?? Change Shows in NYTimes Photos

I'm not able to provide a URL, but the printed Times had a photo of Bush, Rove, and McClellan walking (presumably to or from the announcement of the personnel changes). What struck me was that both Rove and McClellan were carrying handbags!

Just joking, they were shoulder bags. What struck me was that they weren't briefcases. I suspect it's a symbolic moment like JFK's inauguration, where he broke precedent by going hatless. (Actually, while the press at the time talked about him disrespecting (not a word known them) the hatters, I suspect hats were on the way out anyway. I'm not sure when the pattern started of men wearing hats. Sean Wilentz in his history From Jefferson to Lincoln mentions that Andrew Jackson was hatless at his inaugural, but that the audience wasn't.)

In the old days when I was an active bureaucrat, a briefcase was part of the definition. But then laptops came into the picture, which was helpful in that it balanced off the briefcase, but not so dashing. Now Moore's law has resulted in laptops small enough, and other devices numerous enough, that the modern major general bureaucrat carries more bytes and fewer pieces of paper, hence the shoulder bag.

Why Iraq and the Government Are Similar`

The Post this morning has a sidebar that I can't find on line. It reports results from a Post-ABC poll asking people about government waste. The basic result is that people think half (or more) of the money spent by government is wasted.

Obviously I disagree, but why the result? It's partially the way the question seems to have been worded--just an open-ended question. If the same people had been asked by budget category: i.e., how much of the money spent on education is wasted? how much on defense? how much on social security? and the results weighted by the proportionate share of the category in overall spending the amount of "waste" would be much lower.

It's also a result of multiple definitions of "waste"--is it foolish spending of money on wise objectives or is it wise spending of money on foolish objectives? There's an article today on wasted spending in Katrina relief which would fall in the first definition. An anti-war blogger like George Buddy who posts the cost of the war on his site would say Iraq spending falls in the second definition .

But as an ex-bureaucrat I focus on the first definition and believe that government is much better than people believe. Of course Rummy and Bush say that Iraq is much better than people believe. Why--because the media never reports the good news, just the bad.

Different Rules on Privacy Act

The NYTimes yesterday reported, Employers Push White House to Disclose Medicare Data:

"WASHINGTON, April 10 — The White House is clashing with the nation's largest employers over their request for huge amounts of government data on the cost and quality of health care provided by doctors around the country.

President Bush has repeatedly urged private insurers to disclose such data, saying it will help consumers choose doctors and hospitals. But Medicare, the nation's largest insurer, has turned down a request for its data from the Business Roundtable, whose member companies provide coverage to more than 25 million people."

Supposedly the Privacy Act prohibits providing this data to businesses. Yet it doesn't prevent the Environmental Working Group from getting payment data from USDA and showing the whole world what farmers got. (http://www.ewg.org/farm/) (I wrote a letter to the Times pointing out the inconsistency.)