An odd confluence of articles this week in the Washington Post, and then a post by Marc Fisher on his blog:
Raw Fisher, reporting on an academic study showing race and class differences in attitudes towards immigration
An article on wedding styles among immigrants--some immigrants get married following the customs of their ancestral home and religion, but with modifications to adjust to the U.S. environment.
A Marc Fisher article, reporting on recent developments in the Virginia suburbs--first Prince William, then Loudon counties passed resolutions "cracking down" on illegal immigrants.
Finally, Marc held a discussion for local residents--open line. You'd think that the topic would be illegal immigration, but DC education probably attracted more attention. (The new head of DC schools is Korean-American.) That's probably because more Post readers fit the profile of those who are less concerned about illegal immigration--in other words, we aren't competing against them for jobs.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Farm Bureau Supports FSA
From a news article:
Kevin Paap, president of Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation, who just returned from a trip to Washington, said Farm Bureau has some concerns with payment limits and means testing.
On the other hand, the organization supports switching the administration of farm bill programs to the Farm Service Agency from the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
It makes sense to have those folks who are good at doing administrative stuff do that while having the folks who are good at technical assistance doing that, he said.
I suspect the outcome will depend more on accident and networking, than on logical arguments. You can (at least I can) hear the low level of interest Mr. Papp has in the issue. In the absence of great public concern, and with lobbyists on both sides of the issue, some one person who may feel strongly could sway the outcome. For example, should the Vice President decide to honor his father, who worked for NRCS, that could make a difference.
Farm Bill Cliff Hanger
For the handful of people who care about a piece of legislation, like the farm bill, its progress can be almost as suspenseful as a Harry Potter novel. [I wrote the sentence suspecting I was the first one to put "farm bill" and "Harry Potter" in the same sentence. But I googled, and found 40,000 cases where they're on the same web page. Darn.] All the farm blogs are providing updates on the progress, and we haven't even seen the Senate yet.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
NRCS and FSA II
Both sides are going at it, trying to get support for their position on who should hand out the checks for conservation programs. The National Association of Conservation Districts has an "Action Alert" while the National Association of State and County Office Employees has provided a letter to be sent to representatives and is talking to the press. (I have to say, if Congress used the respective web sites to judge which group was more efficient, I'm afraid NACD would win. A Google on "NASCOE" produces this as the first entry: "AllWebCo Website Templates and Pre-Made Websites. Very reasonable prices and a complete setup." (Searching on the full term produces the right result, but it's still incompatible with the Firefox browser.))
NASCOE claims that they have statistics on their side--the percentage of total money spent on administration is much less for FSA programs than NRCS. That factoid sends me off musing about charitable organizations, where oversight groups tend to focus on that percentage. It's not a great measure, but it's about all we have.
The showdown comes this afternoon (and Wed and Thurs).
NASCOE claims that they have statistics on their side--the percentage of total money spent on administration is much less for FSA programs than NRCS. That factoid sends me off musing about charitable organizations, where oversight groups tend to focus on that percentage. It's not a great measure, but it's about all we have.
The showdown comes this afternoon (and Wed and Thurs).
Monday, July 16, 2007
Cream Puffs and Twinkies
I blogged on the Twinkie Deconstructed book the other day. I've had maybe one Twinkie in my life but I fondly remember my mother's cream puffs. Mom wasn't a good cook but she did do a lot of good baking. Her cream puffs were great--light, with real whipped cream filling.
I'm no baker, and the book is back to the library, so my comparison is top of the head. Mom's cream puff has to taste better than any Twinkie, that is, at least on the evening of the afternoon she made them. Her batches probably ran 8-10, so we never finished them all. (Good Calvinists avoid gluttony.) So we'd finish them the next night. By then the whipped cream had lost its air, the crust of the cream puff was getting stale, and the whole thing was just a sad memory of the glory of the night before.
Thinking about what went into the cream puff--the whipped cream was probably whipping cream from local dairy farms--Crowley's or Dairylea (i.e., "Dairymen's League--the co-op) pasteurized and processed. But it contained vanilla extract, as do Twinkies and perhaps a little powdered sugar. (Vanilla and sugar are two of the chapters in the book tracing the route traveled.) The cream puff itself had flour, milk (ours), sugar, and baking powder. (Baking powder is one of the ingredients from mines--the author get good mileage from following that ingredient from its origin in mines to the shelf.)
So mom's puffs were, in part, the product of industry and manufacturing processes and don't fit comfortably into the concepts of the "slow food" movement. Twinkies, as the book's author makes clear, is that they have to stay fresh on the grocery shelves for weeks, not just last 6 hours in mom's kitchen. That difference requires a lot more science, a lot more additives, more globalizations and a lot more industrial processes. (I've started Bill McKibben's new book and have Barbara Kinsolving's one on hold at the library--I'll be interested to see how strictly they hold to local food.)
I'm no baker, and the book is back to the library, so my comparison is top of the head. Mom's cream puff has to taste better than any Twinkie, that is, at least on the evening of the afternoon she made them. Her batches probably ran 8-10, so we never finished them all. (Good Calvinists avoid gluttony.) So we'd finish them the next night. By then the whipped cream had lost its air, the crust of the cream puff was getting stale, and the whole thing was just a sad memory of the glory of the night before.
Thinking about what went into the cream puff--the whipped cream was probably whipping cream from local dairy farms--Crowley's or Dairylea (i.e., "Dairymen's League--the co-op) pasteurized and processed. But it contained vanilla extract, as do Twinkies and perhaps a little powdered sugar. (Vanilla and sugar are two of the chapters in the book tracing the route traveled.) The cream puff itself had flour, milk (ours), sugar, and baking powder. (Baking powder is one of the ingredients from mines--the author get good mileage from following that ingredient from its origin in mines to the shelf.)
So mom's puffs were, in part, the product of industry and manufacturing processes and don't fit comfortably into the concepts of the "slow food" movement. Twinkies, as the book's author makes clear, is that they have to stay fresh on the grocery shelves for weeks, not just last 6 hours in mom's kitchen. That difference requires a lot more science, a lot more additives, more globalizations and a lot more industrial processes. (I've started Bill McKibben's new book and have Barbara Kinsolving's one on hold at the library--I'll be interested to see how strictly they hold to local food.)
FSA's Far-Flung Web of Offices Gets Smaller
From the headline: "Feds plan to close a Farm Service Agency office in Mexico." Among the other six offices being closed are the one for the county in which I grew up. I can understand why--my uncle's (former grandfather's) old farm has houses on it. (One in particular very nice--with a great view looking southwest. As you move west from the Catskills, each range of hills is just a few feet lower than the one before, so the view to the south and west is impressive.) The "big" dairy farmer across the valley from ours has lost its barns and outbuildings and just has a few horses in the pasture. ("Big" was defined in my day as 50+ milking cows being pastured. Now when I visit my sister near Syracuse, the big dairy farms around Tully have several hundred and no pasture.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Coming This Week
No, not the last Harry Potter, but the full House Ag committee meeting on farm bill. Interesting discussion here.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Interesting Site and Post
I don't think I've noted the Farm Policy blog before. Seems to be mostly summaries of news articles.
And Dan Morgan, who has posted on the blog, has an article in the Post on farm policy, pointing out divisions among Democrats. Do the newcomer Dems support reform, or continuation of the current programs?
And Dan Morgan, who has posted on the blog, has an article in the Post on farm policy, pointing out divisions among Democrats. Do the newcomer Dems support reform, or continuation of the current programs?
Bureaucracies and Measurement
Kevin Drum makes a good point in the health system debate. Because single-payer systems are bureaucracies, they measure things about the health care system, including waiting times for various illnesses/treatments. Their statistics are better than ours (we don't measure waiting times at all). That's no argument to change the system, but it is a warning when we discuss different systems-- we don't have comparable statistics.
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