Your NRCS at Work

Washington Post has an article on the problems of working with Mennonite dairy farmers to reduce pollution of waterways. A reminder of the variety and complexity of the nation.

Hillary as Manager

Yes, I'm back home and back blogging again. The NYTimes has an article on Hillary's management style, which Ann Althouse commented on (basically comparing Hillary's tight circle and GWB's).

It's interesting. I think there's some relevant issues:

• "How many mistakes has she made and how well has she learned from them?" If you never do anything, you never screw up. If you never admit and learn from your mistakes, you're an idiot. Seems to me Hillary's okay here, except perhaps for being slow to admit mistakes. it's tough for any smart and ambitious person. Anyone remember any admissions of error by others in the race?
  
• Who would she appoint to her administration? Doris Kearns Goodwin got a book out of the fact that Lincoln appointed heavyweights to the Cabinet, and then managed them. Both parties will have a bench of talent to appoint (unlike Bill in 92--the 12 years in the wilderness meant talent was scarce). The idea that she has a tight circle doesn't bother me much--the issue is whether she'll expand it if elected. Her tight circle is better than GWB's was because they don't have an anti-Washington bias. The unknown is whether they have the balls to admit that GWB did some things right (Bush certainly had problems admitting that Bill had done some things right).

More blogging to follow as I catch up with papers and blogs.

RIP Bruno

I posted on Bruno Mangum, who worked for FSA and its predecessors in the North Carolina State Office. He died, after 71 years of service. RIP (Thanks, Jeff).

Blog for Rural America--On Farmers

As I said, blogging will be slow. Here's an interesting post discussing farmers' attitudes to the farm program. (The blog's also not happy about the recent developments in the farm bill.)

Slow Blogging?--Perhaps

I may not be blogging much over the next 10 days--my wife and I are taking a trip. On the other hand, I have a laptop to play with, so maybe?

Two Iowa Counties

Tom Philpott has a long piece comparing two Iowa counties: Hardin which has lots of hogs, and Woodbury, which doesn't but does have local foods. I'm a bit skeptical of descriptions of new projects: too often a new idea gets going based on the drive and energy of a handful of people, but doesn't mature into a long lasting institution. I'd like to come back in 20 years and see what's happening. But it's an interesting comparison.

Immigration and Free Markets

The Post, Shankar Vedantam, reported yesterday that immigration cuts gas and grocery prices. The idea being, we natives get lazy and patronize the nearest gas station and grocery regardless of their prices. Immigrants, being more energetic and more price conscious, shop around. The shopping around is the element of competition that tends to drive prices lower.

(I think I've mentioned before a supermarket location that went through 3 incarnations, being too small for efficient Safeway/Giant operation. Now it's been open as a Latino themed market, with good vegetables at lower prices than our regular Safeway.)

John Tierney Explains South Carolina Politics

In the NY Times, John Tierney reports on a study of the impact of gossip on judgments. The bottomline, when it comes down to it, we believe gossip despite the evidence of our eyes. Or, more accurately, gossip sways our decisions even though we know the full story. (Of course, the study was a bit unrealistic--we rarely are in situations where we know we know the full story.) The only positive bit--positive gossip had as much power as negative gossip.

Maybe this explains the recent reports on the Obama is a Muslim urban legend, or the anti-McCain gossip in South Carolina in 2000--the gossip persists and spreads because we're tuned into it as intrinsically valuable, not only do some of us believe it, but it's worth passing on.

"Organic" Dairies

Interesting piece here--excerpt:

Watts Brothers, which started milking cows in December, is Washington's largest organic dairy with 2,200 milking cows.

State regulators and some small dairy farmers speak highly of it, but critics question whether milking thousands of cows is worthy of the term "organic."

In part, this is a lesson to those leftie liberals, who want to write laws to solve problems. You write a law setting up standards for things like "organic" and you have certain pictures in your head. (See Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion). And you write the law based on those pictures. But the reality is that smart and determined people want to make a buck, so your law tends to be evaded, at least in part. Far from the picture in textbooks, administering law is like a long conversation, back and forth, between two people, who might stay married for 50 years, or might get divorced in 6 months.

I was also tickled by this quote:

"People want to picture cute 50-cow dairies all over the countryside, but our economics don't allow for that everywhere anymore," said Georgana Webster, an organic-livestock inspector for the Washington Department of Agriculture, which determines whether dairies like Watts Brothers are following national organic standards.

Having been brought up on a very uncute, mini-dairy of 12 cows.

Philip Roth Does Not Know Dairying

Wife and I watched "The Human Stain" last night. An unsuccessful movie with great actors based on a good-selling novel by Philip Roth, who was passed over for the Nobel this year. It's not doing too badly on Netflix, probably because of all its assets in themes (racism, political correctness, cowardice, spousal abuse, cross generation sex, "crossing" color lines) and actors: Hopkins, Kidman, Sinise.

But, assuming the movie was faithful to Roth's book, which I haven't read, it's unrealistic. Kidman works on a dairy farm, but also in a store and as a janitor on the local college (from which Hopkins was fired). That's unrealistic right there--if you're doing two milkings a day you don't have the energy for two other jobs. And then Hopkins and she make love at all times of day and night. Roth's forgetting the first law of dairying:

"The cows have got to be milked"

Whatever else you do, they've got to be milked, and milked at the same times every day. You might indulge in a quickie. But you can't have a long night of sex then a leisurely breakfast--Kidman has got to pull on her clothes and get back to the barn for the 4 or 5 am milking.

(But how was the movie--I see why it failed commercially but it's worthwhile on Netflix.)