The Role of Fear in Politics

At Grist there's a dispute over the role of fear. Glen Hurowitz summarizes and posts in defense of fear, using the reasoning that fear overcomes apathy. He winds up by saying, first you scare people then you give them hope.

I understand the logic, and maybe even agree on an individual basis--emotions seem to serve the role of overcoming inertia: fear, love, hate, jealousy--they all counteract our tendencies to stay in ruts (particularly strong for me).

As a matter of fact, it's almost the same formula as revivalists use, you scare people with hell, with reminders of their own wickedness, loneliness, whatever, then you offer them hope with the grace of God. It's been working for centuries.

But on a social level I resist. Glen's formula can be generalized; politicians strive to stir emotion (whether it's mocking rivals or disrespecting them, as can be seen this week, and last week)
then offer hope. So it's the way the world works, and environmentalists have as much right to do this as anyone else.

I dislike conflict, which means I dislike emotion, which means I seek refuge in the Progressive's dream (actually the culmination of the Enlightenment) that reason can dissolve all conflicts and create the millennium. That's one reason why computers/software are/were so attractive to me; I have the idea that the proper system design can satisfy everyone. (And fail to remember the law of 2 out of 3: software can be cheap, good, or quickly done.)

So should we worry about vanishing ice? Yes. Should we act? Yes. But humans are going to muddle through for a while longer, even if we don't do exactly what activists want.

English Should Be the Official Language?

June Lloyd shows the surprising persistence of other languages at Universal York.

Losing Ice in the Arctic

Reports like this don't make me feel good. Sort of ties to another post I'm working on--the role of fear in politics.

Oil Prices Falling

Megan McArdle comments on the subject. I also liked the comment by "cynic".

Falling Property Values

My little corner of Reston is rather diverse. We had an African-American family down the court--they bought in 2006. I use the past tense because they moved out this weekend, presumably having been foreclosed on. The prior owner bought in 1999 for $98,500; he sold in 2006 for $365,000.

A Kludge, at Long Last a Kludge

That's what this sounds like: a piece of equipment/system from DHS to enable first responders to cross-communicate, or a kludge:

The program, which DHS will test in the District of Columbia, integrates land mobile radio networks that police, firemen and emergency medical service workers use with cell phone broadband networks and wireless Internet devices, including laptops and personal digital assistants.

With the new technology, a public safety official can communicate with personnel in the field using a cell phone, land radio or computer all on the same network. The technology also allows them to contact colleagues in different departments or nearby municipalities without reprogramming their radios or having a dispatcher connect them.

It's long overdue. If I weren't lazy I'd go back a couple years and find my argument for one. But trust me (I was from the government) on this.

GOP Government Produces Results

Hat tip to Understanding Government's Edward Hodgman, who notes the White House site pushing government results: Results.gov has not been updated for a year and a half.

As a confirmed Dem, I'd love to say this just reflects the fact that Bush's government hasn't done anything positive in 18 months. (And I just did.) But the reality, I suspect, is somewhat different. Sometime back in the recesses of time, someone in the White House got this great idea: "let's have a website devoted just to highlighting the good things that are going on." Others in the hierarchy nodded wisely and said: "Oh yes, that sounds great, you go ahead and do it, here's some money to get it up and running." So, the site was put together and put on the net. And two things happened:

1. the original sponsor of the idea decided to leave for greener pastures, perhaps located along K Street in Washington, leaving no one behind who had really bought into the idea.
2. it turned out the site was just a pimple on the body politic, just a haphazard extrusion which didn't really tie into any institution or ongoing effort.

Results.gov is really no different than the millions of blogs that have been started and abandoned.

What's a "Big" Farmer?

From Farmgate, here's a possible definition of what a farmer is, so a big one would be bigger than this:

How much acreage or livestock does it take for you to earn a living on the farm? One farm business management group in MN offered its calculations based on its members:
1) 890 acres of corn, based on a net return of $84.03 per acre over a 5 year average.
2) 970 acres of beans, based on a net return of $77.15 per acre over a 5 year average.
3) 369 acres of hay, based on a net return of $202.77 per acre over a 5 year average.
4) 4,380 head of farrow to finish hogs, with $17.08 per head over a 5 year average.
5) 15,568 head of finish hogs, with a $4.51 net return per head over a 5 year average.
6) 831 head of feedlot calves, with a $89.98 net return per head over a 5 year average.
7) 127 head of dairy cows, with a $509.96 return per head over a 5 year average.

The biggest surprise to me was no. 3.

Frustrating Article on Russian Agriculture

Back in 1991, if I had been blogging, I would have predicted that grain prices would go through the floor because Russian agriculture would have flooded the market, finally having been freed of the constraints of the system. So much for my wisdom.

Today the NYTimes runs an interesting but frustrating article on Russian agriculture
from the beginning:

A decade after capitalism transformed Russian industry, an agricultural revolution is stirring the countryside, shaking up village life and sweeping aside the collective farms that resisted earlier reform efforts and remain the dominant form of agriculture.

The change is being driven by soaring global food prices (the price of wheat alone rose 77 percent last year) and a new reform allowing foreigners to own agricultural land. Together, they have created a land rush in rural Russia.

The article's frustrating because there's no real description of the current state of agriculture, just that big money people are buying land. There are two facts of interest: 16 percent cof Russia's arable land is idle, about 35 million hectares (maybe 80 million acres); and "[t]he average Russian grain yield is 1.85 tons a hectare — compared with 6.36 tons a hectare in the United States and 3.04 in Canada." That points to lots of potential (although if I recall my geography, Russia's closer to Canada in latitude than the U.S., albeit global warming is changing that.)

Ultra-Orthodox Jews and Sarah Palin

I suspect that may be the first time the words in the title have been used together.

In today's Post an article from Israel. Briefly, a Norwegian woman converted to Judaism 15 years ago to marry an Israeli Jew. Now she's looking for a divorce, but the Ultra-Orthodox control the religious establishment in Israel and they say her conversion process wasn't exhaustive enough, so she's not a Jew, and therefore was never married, and therefore her two kids aren't Jews. The article paints the issue as between those who believe in God's covenant with the Jewish people, who must observe his commandments strictly, and those who believe that Israel must, to survive, welcome converts.

That's the same issue faced by other organizations, from car companies to countries. What is your identity, and how do you maintain it, yet survive in the world? If you're an Asian car maker, do you focus on smaller, economical cars or try to move up-market into the luxury cars and SUV's and trucks. Toyota looked to be a winner doing the latter, an example followed by Hyundai, but with today's gas prices Honda, which retained more of a small car identity and focus, is doing better. If you're a country, do you limit immigrants and require those who come in to learn English, etc. in order to maintain the country's culture as it is now, or do you gamble on opening doors and going with the flow?

That's the issue for political parties, now. How does the Republican Party, and particularly their nominee, maintain an identity and yet attract voters? In that light, Ms. Palin seems a good choice. It's a maverick, anti-establishment, anti-Washington choice for McCain, but one which mends his fences with the social conservatives of the right wing, while simultaneously perhaps attracting women. It breaks with GWB's "compassionate conservatism" by picking someone who supported/was friendly to Pat Buchanan in the 2000 convention. [Updated--additional thoughts] Assuming that McCain has the pocketbook Republicans in his hip pocket, Palin reinforces the party's appeal to working class America.