A Poem I Like and a Teacher I Can Take

I liked some poetry growing up, but my taste stopped with Mr. Frost and college. But I ran across this poem by the late Snodgrass, which University Diarist has now posted with an interpretation. It probably appeals to old men like me more than whippersnappers and women.

Obama Missed a Chance

I was pleased Obama took a second to thank the wait staff at the luncheon in the Capitol yesterday. But he missed a chance to ram his message home in his speech. If, in the context of small steps being important, he had asked the million+ on the Mall to take responsibility for their trash it would have been great (that is, if they'd planned ahead with the Park Service to have designated sites for garbage). The reality of the day after the first black President's inauguration is a lot of black workers picked up trash from the Mall.

Radiation Alert: FSA Computers Use Cobalt

That was the typo in this Nextgov post on the $250 million for FSA computer fixes in the stimulus package.

(House AG Chair Peterson says he's urged USDA to keep the computer consultants who recommended the money and to do away with the use of "cobalt" (now corrected to "COBOL" in the post). Sounds good, except:

• I just got through watching Obama talk about new conflict of interest rules. Seems to me hiring computer consultants to implement what they just recommended is exactly the sort of thing our new President does not want.
• It's very easy to talk about getting rid of COBOL. Unfortunately the FSA systems are so interrelated it's hard. First you have to have a platform to migrate too (which appears now to be a centralized database with internet access). Second you have to maintain the old system, build the new system, and be sure you've handled the interfaces between new and old. (At least that's the way I thought when I worked there. Now I wonder whether we wouldn't have been better off just having the county offices maintain two systems for a couple years. We'll never know now.) And, third you have to respond to the demands from the Hill timely to implement new programs while keeping the old ones going.
  

To Keep Things in Perspective

From an MSNBC post about the surge in internet traffic yesterday, which strained some sites:

Akamai also maintains an index showing the number of Internet users clicking into online news sites, and today's figures showed a significant spike of 5.4 million users per minute at 11:45 a.m. ET. However, that peak ranks just No. 5 on Akamai's all-time list, just below the first day of the NCAA's "March Madness" basketball tournament in 2006.

Curley : JFKennedy :: Adam Clayton Powell : Obama?

James Curley (and his rival, Honey Fitz, JFK's grandfather) were professional Irish politicians (Boston mayors I'm barely old enough to remember) and corrupt. Adam Clayton Powell was a professional Negro politician (US Rep from Harlem back in the day) and corrupt. JFK was a new sort of Irish-Catholic politician, who didn't run as either.

I think the lesson is that a politician who runs as a representative of a group can often get away with corruption. And it may take a couple generations for the "group" to melt enough in the American pot.

No Pay Raises for Judges

Chief Justice Roberts wants pay raises for federal judges. But as a taxpayer I want performance--if he gets the Presidential oath right next time, I say give him his raise, but not before.

MLKing

I rarely like the posts at Powerline, so it seems only fair to link to one I do (actually a rerun from 2005 and composed mostly of M.L. King's words.

Inaugural Words

Here's a NYTimes interactive feature which provides word charts showing the most used words in each inaugural address. (I owe a hat tip to someone. ) What's interesting to me is you can click on the word and see how it was used in the address, and then go on to the next uses in future addresses. For example: "people" in George Washington's address. It's nice to see he's talking of the "American people" and the "people of the United States", i.e., as one people, not as the people of the several states. Whereas James Buchanan mostly talks of the "people of the several states" or of the Territory, already conceding the rhetorical high ground to the secessionists.

Post Racial and Post Religious?

Tomorrow is a historic day.

Joe Biden becomes the first Catholic elected to be Vice President, a mere 48 years after JFK was elected.

That fact, and the fact his religion was not an issue and was not much mentioned during the campaign, says something about the U.S.

Extension and Organics

It's not true that USDA is always unfriendly to organic farming. Extension is there for you, though I haven't figured out their website yet. Here's a link to the RSS feeds on organic as of today, apparently these are releases which aren't automatically posted to the website (extension.org).