Transparency or NOt?

I remember when our IT guy in DC was working on the EWG's FOIA request for all farm program payment data. Part of the issue was whether the data was personal, and covered under the Privacy Act, or business, and not covered. (Part of the argument probably was that the data was all tied to the Social Security Number.) EWG (with I think the Washington Post) ultimately won their court case. Since that day more than 10 years ago EWG has put the data they got from ASCS/FSA/USDA on line. It's gotten a lot of use as people have become more aware of it.

Ken Cook's blog refers to this newspaper article discussing some of the results of this transparency. (The neighbors are jealous.) There are costs, to be sure, but I think transparency is warranted. As the government goes forward in implementing the Coburn/Obama bill calling for the same transparency for all funding, we need to remember what's been learned with this database.

Of course, I've never really figured out why a farmer's payment should be public when my pension amount is not.

Technology Obsoletes Skills

In the long learning curve that is human history, one constant is the incorporation of knowledge into technology (and the decorporation, much decried by Luddites and romantics, of the same knowledge from human bodies).

Here's another instance, as John Phipps, a jack of all trades as a farmer must be, discovers that new welding tools make him a better welder.

Culture and Shakespeare

Philip Kennicott, the Post's general purpose critic, whom I find a taste difficult to acquire, had an article today on a Shakespeare/America exhibit at the Folger Library, part of this year's DC Shakespeare festival. I mention it because I just started reading a book, "Highbrow, Lowbrow", on American culture, by Lawrence Levine. His first chapter is on Shakespeare in America, particularly the 19th century. Shakespeare was popular, and part of the "popular" culture as well as highbrow. (Though Levine's thesis here seems to be that culture wasn't subdivided into those categories, at least before the Civil War.) He has multiple quotes and cites--Walt Whitman of course. But also that U.S. Grant played Desdemona while waiting for action in the Mexican War. He cites a New Orleans paper, the Picayune, in 1840+ as observing the "playing going habits of our negro population" (that's close to verbatim); a striking quote on many levels--that New Orleans had theaters, that blacks went to the theater, that the paper would write on this, and finally that the language would be politically correct, 21 years or so before emancipation.

I hope the rest of the book is as good as the first 20 pages.

The Evil Ones

Shankar Vedantam in the Post has an article describing research on political partisans. It proves that my opponents are not well-informed, their conclusions are biased and self-serving, and their motives are totally malign. I, on the other hand, I am very well informed, I see clearly even when things aren't quite the way they ought to be, I form objective and soundly based conclusions, and have only the best of motives, wishing prosperity for all (except of course those evil enemies of mine).

Owning Land

John Phipps links Hernando De Soto (The Mystery of Capital) and the new Chinese initiative on land ownership. It's an important point. For example, in Ireland for generations most land holdings were rentals, very long term rentals but still. Only by coming to the U.S. (or Canada, Australia...) could an Irishman own the land he farmed.

Walter Reed Problems

[Wrote the first two paragraphs on 2/23/07, the remainder today.] Walter Reed has been in the news since the Washington Post did a 2-part series on problems there [this gives Friday's piece, with links to earlier ones], then Lehrer Newshour included a couple pieces and then the whole world (defined inside the Beltway as the authorizing committees and appropriations subcommittees of Congress) landed on DOD and VA. If I understand, wounded soldiers are moved from the hospital when they are convalescents into a set of buildings elsewhere on the campus. They're in charge of NCO's who are also recovering. Many are in a sort of limbo--maybe needing physical therapy or other treatment but too well to be confined to a hospital. From a military standpoint, some may wind up fit for duty, while others may finally be determined to be unfit. In part the problem is accentuated because medicine is saving more wounded, so they're recuperating from more serious injuries.

The situation seems to be a classical bureaucratic problem--you have a bureaucracy, Walter Reed Hospital, that prides itself on great medical care of the wounded. You have another bureaucracy, the Army, that has rules for able-bodied soldiers. But now you have a growing number of people who don't fit comfortably into either category. So the bureaucrats in power don't take responsibility, the facilities suffer a bit from neglect, the NCO's are overwhelmed, and the soldier/patients don't get what they need.

There's further complications: many soldiers want to remain in the service, so want to minimize their injuries and maximize their chances for recover. The services want to retain soldiers (though I suspect there's some hidden prejudices against soldiers with "disabilities"). On the other hand, if a soldier can't, or doesn't want to, stay in, he or she wants to maximize the injury so as to increase the disability benefits (realizing that not all soldiers fit the economists' "maximizing utility" model).

And still more: some soldiers are Army, some are National Guard, some are Reserve (presumably some may be Navy or Marine and some Air Force). Each one has, I'm sure, a different pay system, a different set of rules and regulations, and separate personnel offices. So Building 18 becomes the focus of a perfect storm, the point where multiple bureaucracies meet, and miscommunicate. And, because the VA services veterans where they live in civilian life, a surge of casualties resulting from the deployment of a Guard unit from a state poses problems for the local staff.

The number of investigations going on reflects the underlying complexity--each bureaucracy and its overseers have to do their own thing.

It's no comfort to the soldiers to know that some of this, as it relates to the Guard, is a direct result of the wisdom of the Founding Fathers.

Computer Problems

Make blogging difficult.

Great Day for Cats

The sun is warm and bright, streaming in through the windows on the south, reaching farther inside the house than it will in the summer, stronger and more long-lasting than it was in winter. The cats bask in it, sleeping without a care in the world.

More on FSA Computers

The High Plains Journal has a take on FSA's problems with its Web-based applications at the same time USDA is proposing to close offices:

"At the same time that FSA's national web-based program struggles, several state FSA offices have proposed closing selected county offices throughout the High Plains. FSA contends that these office closures will help provide more efficient service to producers. On one hand, FSA wants to jump into the 21st century by offering on-line program sign ups that reduce the need for producers to drive to county offices so often. On the other hand, they want to close marginally performing offices. The fatal flaw in this plan is the fact that the on-line program isn't working efficiently.

It makes sense for USDA to come out with an aggressive plan to fix their nationwide technology problems first or at least at the same time as they propose to close selected county offices. These two issues are not mutually exclusive. FSA has a long history of providing excellent service to producers in the field. Poor timing of reform proposals should not be a reason to tarnish such a laudable record."

(It's interesting that the web page seems defective.) This isn't exactly Catch-22, but in the ideal world farmers face the choice: drive more miles to deal with a bureaucrat with a face, or go online and deal with a faceless one.

History Repeats Itself at FSA

I never thought to see this:

The Associated Press story said that Teresa Lasseter, who heads the agency, complained that computers were so slow it sometimes took 10 to 25 minutes for a screen to come up. In January, the computer system worked sporadically or not at all, she said.

“It’s gotten better, but not as fast as we’d like it to be,” Kiel said.

Back in 1985-87 when the agency was first given minicomputers in the county offices, they turned out to be vastly underpowered for the stuff we were trying to do. IBM and the agency struggled for what seemed an eternity to try to get ahead of the curve, expanding storage, upgrading processors, etc. In the light of the power of today's PC's, it all seems ridiculous now. I forget what the parameters were then, but I think the biggest system had like 1.5 gigs of storage and maybe a meg of RAM. (These were IBM System/36's, supporting a number of terminals and printers.)

What seems to have happened today with FSA is that they've migrated applications off the System/36 (actually AS-400's which I believe are running emulations of the System/36) onto the web and their web servers aren't up to the task. Now if you ask me whether it's really FSA or it's the Department's IT people responsible, damned if I know.

There's probably only a handful of old timers there who remember the hammering we took on the Hill over the computer problems. Live and learn.