Virginia Postrel Meet John Phipps

Earlier in the week I noted the John Phipps post about the new welding tools, which made it easy for him to do good welding. Then I ran across Virginia Postrel's discussion
of do-it-yourself design tools (Adobe Pagemaker, etc.). Similar messages, very different technologies.

Highbrow/Lowbrow

Finished the Lawrence Levine book, Highbrow/Lowbrow, which I mentioned earlier. He carried the thesis through opera, Shakespeare, and classical music: in all cases before the Civil War the audience was composed of a mixture of classes, was boisterous and participative (22 people died in the Astor Place riot, where class, religion, and nationality came together over an issue of Shakespearean acting). After the Civil War the arts became "sacralized"--treated more solemnly and religiously, with more exclusive audiences behaving more mannerly. Levine seems to say it was the elite and the purveyors who enforced this separation. In his epilogue he argues against Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind, who was very much in favor of elite arts and for the idea that the arts should be more popular.

I think this is a limited interpretation. Using a different perspective, one of a growing economy with more ecological niches, after the Civil War the number of people in urban places grew, the number who had the leisure and the dollars to participate in recreational activities also grew. So I'd see more of a process of differentiation of a market. In other words, I suspect a number of different sports and recreations grew--professional baseball I know, horseracing, college sports. From Putnam's work, Bowling Alone, the number of local theater and opera groups also grew. So those people who enjoy participation, booing and cheering, found outlets. Those who liked to focus intently on a performance found their outlets.

(I write this as someone who was raised to treat "culture" with great respect so I'm obviously prejudiced. But I still think my thesis is better than Levine's, by explaining more.)

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.