Pigford Dispute

The ins and outs of employee ethics, reality, racial politics, history are all on display in the "Pigford" case (short title for a suit by black farmers against USDA charging racial discrimination in FSA programs, particularly the farm loan programs originally under the old Farmers Home Administration.

This Shreveport Times article is only the start of a wave. (Actually, Ken Cook had it yesterday but I was slow to post it.)

My Intelligent Reader(s?)

Someone, who shall be nameless, read my mind in the post Aug. 6 about proving one's intelligence. I was indeed thinking of episodes dealing with IT people in ASCS/FSA. Perhaps I'll muster the energy to get back to the topic. In the interim, I hasten to add that many of my best friends were in IT.

Remembering the Past--Eugene Robinson

One of the penalties of getting old is you're forced to have some perspective on some issues. In today's Post, Eugene Robinson opines about the threat to privacy from all of the surveillance that we are under--he ends by saying:

The text messages we send back and forth on our cellphones are similarly long-lived. And if your mobile phone communicates with the Global Positioning System, it sends information about precisely where you are. What was that again about having to work late at the office?

Who needs GPS anyway? Think of all the security cameras that record your movements every day. Use an automated teller machine, fill the gas tank, drop into a convenience store, visit the mall or walk into the lobby of an office building and chances are you've been caught on videotape.

What if someone had predicted 50 years ago that someday all this once-private information would be captured and stored? Psychiatrists would have issued a quick and definitive diagnosis: paranoia.

Of course, 50 years ago some of us were still using party lines, so the eavesdropping was not potential, but actual; not a faceless bureaucrat, but your nosy neighbor; not of who you called and when, but what you actually said. Sometimes modern technology doesn't destroy privacy, it provides it.

Barchester Towers

My wife and I started the Barchester Towers DVD (a BBC series made in 1982, based on Anthony Trollope's series of the same name). I had forgotten how funny it was. In "The Warden"--the first book and first hours of the series--Trollope manages to slam the established church, the law, the mass media of his time, and overly earnest and theoretical reformers--quite a satirical four for one performance.

And for those Harry Potter fans out there, you'll see the first incarnation of Professor Snape, whose greatest and final performance is still in the future, as a young Mr. Rickman brings Obadiah Slope to life.

How To Prove Your Intelligence

There's two ways to prove one's intelligence:

• Point out all the problems with a position or proposal, all the reasons it won't work and nothing should be done.
• Figure out how to do something, particularly something that someone else says can't be done. Do so even if it requires a Rube Goldbergian contraption.

I'm particularly fond of the second strategy myself.

My Two Selves

This article by Shankar Vedantam outlines research on our two selves. He leads off with the paradoxes, including that of Sen. Vitter with prostitutes at the same time he was pushing bills on abstinence.

Studies have found that, for some reason, an enormous mental gulf separates "cold" emotional states from "hot" emotional states. When we are not hungry or thirsty or sexually aroused, we find it difficult to understand what effects those factors can have on our behavior. Similarly, when we are excited or angry, it is difficult to think about the consequences of our behavior -- outcomes that are glaringly obvious when we are in a cold emotional state.

Rings true for me. Even though my addictions in life have dwindled, get between me and my Starbucks and I'm pure emotion. I often think the same applies for sports and politics--we become irrationally attached to our team, our positions, and can't apply reason. I know the Redskins won't reach the Super Bowl this year, but I'll still believe. I know George W. is a worthy person (but I immediately ask: "worthy of what?") I hope I'm mostly "cold" on this blog.

Bureaucracies and Their Customers

Who polices the police? Or, more broadly, how does a big bureaucracy keep all its operatives on the same page?

The short answer: they don't, at least not in a nation as big as the U.S. An example, which I ran into while working at USDA, is the US Postal Service (and which I was reminded of while reading the NASCOE negotiation notes). USPS has written directives for its local post offices, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the local postmaster in Podunk, Iowa (why do we pick on Iowa?) has read, understands, and follows it.

When you bring two big bureaucracies together, like USPS and the Farm Service Agency, you reveal discrepancies. If FSA and USPS in DC reach an understanding of what directive A means, FSA tells its field offices to do X, Y, and Z based on that understanding. But when the field office operative reaches the local postmaster, he or she may have a different understanding. Result: confusion and inefficiency.

Mixed Signals on FSA Office Closings

The House seems to be giving mixed signals on closing USDA offices. On the one hand, this provision is included in the appropriations bill (search through Thomas):

Provided further, That none of the funds made available by this Act may be used to pay the salary or expenses of any officer or employee of the Department of Agriculture to close or relocate any county or field office of the Farm Service Agency (other than a county or field office that had zero employees as of February 7, 2007), or to develop, submit, consider, or approve any plan for any such closure or relocation before the expiration of the six month period following the date of the enactment of an omnibus authorization law to provide for the continuation of agricultural programs for fiscal years after 2007 [NOTE: I take this to mean either a new farm bill or a 1-year extension of current farm programs--they're trying to cover the bases]: Provided further, That after the expiration of the six month period following the date of the enactment of an omnibus authorization law to provide for the continuation of agricultural programs for fiscal years after 2007 none of the funds made available by this Act may be used to pay the salaries or expenses of any officer or employee of the Department of Agriculture to close any local or county office of the Farm Service Agency unless the Secretary of Agriculture, not later than 30 days after the date on which the Secretary proposed the closure, holds a public meeting about the proposed closure in the county in which the local or county office is located, and, after the public meeting but not later than 120 days before the date on which the Secretary approves the closure, notifies the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry and the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate, and the members of Congress from the State in which the local or county office is located of the proposed closure. [This is the procedure that USDA seems to have been following until this, so presumably the idea is, Congress does a new farm bill, we wait 6 months to close offices. If the farm bill causes lots of work, there's an opportunity to reconsider. If it doesn't, then the Reps can say they tried.]

But from the Report on the bill (this isn't binding on USDA, but it explains intent):

Further, we are concerned about the restrictive FSA office closure language included in the bill. In many cases, the USDA has completed required steps to close certain offices under provisions set forth in fiscal year 2006, and again in the Continuing Resolution that agencies are operating under this fiscal year. Members are urged to consider these facts: there are 58 FSA offices that have no staff; 139 offices that have one employee; 338 that have two employees; and 515 offices that have three employees.

It is also worth noting that the funding level included in the bill for FSA salaries and expenses is $102 million below the President's budget request. As a result, the Democrat majority has significantly cut the appropriation below the request while prohibiting the FSA from closing unneeded offices. There are many States that, while not necessarily happy with proposals to close some offices, are willing to work with the FSA to close offices that should no longer be open. The minority worked with Chairwoman DeLauro to modify the language in the bill in order to continue making progress on this issue. Ranking Member Kingston offered an amendment that would allow FSA to close those offices that have zero employees, and the amendment was adopted by the full committee. People often ask why government can't run more efficiently. Closing FSA offices provides a good example. It's hard to run an agency with 435 managers second-guessing all decisions.

I interpret the Report language as saying--we recognize that Representatives want to protect their offices, but: be real--we can't keep all the offices open.

As a final note, there's no specific restriction on closing NRCS offices (except for generic restrictions elsewhere about not closing offices unless you notify Congress). So, if I'm reading it right, in New York where both FSA and NRCS offices are scheduled for closing, the one will be delayed, but the other could go through right away.

Your political system at work.

Katrina Cottages

It's intriguing that Lowes has developed a series of plans for "Katrina cottages". They'll sell the plans, you get the land and permits, and they'll sell the materials. See here for the smallest cottage plan. When I think that my great grandfather and family lived in a house smaller than this (as did all our ancestors, down to relatively recent times, it's amazing.

How Do You Make a Bureaucrat Honest?

That's the challenge in China. So they ( news story) created a computer game:

The Disciplinary Commission of the Communist Party in the well-off city of Ningbo in the province of Zhejiang financed the development of the game which stands at the vanguard of its campaign against corruption.

The hero is an 'honest and upright civil servant' who kills corrupt officials, their children and bikini-clad lovers with weapons, torture and even magic.

The children appear as monsters with names like 'son of corrupt official' or 'daughter of corrupt official.'

With each dead dirty civil servant, the player wins points that improve his or her abilities in areas like moral character and ethics.

The aim of the game is an 'honest paradise free from corruption.'