McNamara 4; Palin 2

That's the score on the Washington Post op-ed page: 4 pieces on Robert McNamara and 2 on Gov. Palin.

It's an interesting contrast. They represent the extremes of the governmental types, even human types: McNamara the ultimate rationalist and Palin the opposite.

The End of Peanut Program

The peanut quota program had lasted for maybe 40 years was phased out in the early 2000's in favor of treatment like wheat and feed grain. I've blogged before on the effect of ending the tobacco program. From Farm Policy today comes an update on peanuts from Mississippi:

Elton Robinson reported yesterday at the Southeast Farm Press Online that, “One of the biggest benefits to growing peanuts in Mississippi has been the relative lack of disease pressure compared to other more established growing regions of the Southeast.

“That honeymoon period appears to be ending, according to Mike Howell, area Extension agronomist at Mississippi State University, who has peanut responsibilities for the state.

“Eight years ago, fewer than 4,000 acres of peanuts were planted in Mississippi. But when the 2002 farm bill did away with the quota system for peanuts, acreage started to climb.”

Yesterday’s article noted that, “The state averaged a little over 2 tons per acre in 2008, which places them near the top in average yield in the United States. Howell attributes that to ‘relatively low disease pressure. Until last year, we had been able to get by without spraying a lot of fungicide.’

“‘But it looks like the honeymoon period is over,’ Howell said. ‘We’re starting to see some diseases creep in on us. Up until now, we haven’t had the acreage to allow the inoculum to build up.’

So, as with tobacco, the government program had frozen the area of production. End the program and new areas and new farmers come into production. (It's probably relevant that Mississippi has an extremely low acreage of cotton this year--presumably some farmers switched from cotton to peanuts.)

A Really Surprising Sentence

From a surprising MSNBC article on AIDS in Haiti in which the news is very surprising because it's mostly good:

"More Haitians know about modes of transmission than high school students in the U.S.," Pape said.

Wisdom for the Day

From Dan Drezner, at the end of an interesting comparison of Iran and Honduras (both places where the right has assumed power over the left...):

"Bear in mind, however, that life never holds everything else constant."

Docking Tails and Hurting Animals [Updated]

Sometimes you have to practice tough love, whether it's with animals or humans. And we always have to learn. This post at Stonybrookfarm reminds me of both imperatives.

[Added: And here's a Slate piece of a few days ago on ringing free-range pigs and spaying. Some of the same issues.]

Our Founding Mother

Back in the early 1960's Harvard U Press published paperback editions of the letters of John and Abigail Adams as part of their Adams papers effort. Since I was into history, I was introduced early to Abigail, who later became an icon of the feminist movement and a beacon to women's history: "Remember the ladies, John". Laura Linney did her justice in the recent HBO series.

But just surfing through her letters, and reading the occasional description of her as keeping the home fires burning, raising the large family etc. didn't give me the picture of her as an investor as did a piece this morning by Woody Holton in the Post. He's a U of Richmond professor who has a bio coming out, but he extracts a series of rules for wise economy/investment from her life and presents them well. (Including a rule on how to outwit a Founding Father.)

Have a "Happy Fourth"

I'm passing on those words, which I received as I left our community (organic)garden after watering our beds (we had a wet two months, followed by 2-3 weeks of dry, so it's time to start watering), from a fellow long-time gardener. He happens to be African-American (immigrant from Africa some time back) with whom I exchange hellos when we cross paths. His garden is an obnoxiously neat and organized one, with raised beds and great soil. He grows the usual variety of vegetables, although he always has a great bed of carrots into the winter.

He was weeding as I passed and offered those seasonal greetings. I replied, and went on (I'm too shy to initiate many conversations). I wonder whether he finds more meaning in the Fourth than I do. I don't think I've used those words on my own initiative: "merry Christmas", "good Thanksgiving", yes, but not a "happy Fourth".

In the spirit of enjoying the Fourth, read this Washington Post article containing the responses of a number of immigrants to the question: "what do you like about America".

Faith in the Execution

Obamafoodorama has had a fight over the possibility that lead from sludge used on White House lawns was a danger in the new organic garden. The blogger seems to have had the better of it, but shows a touching faith in the ability of a bureaucracy to execute:

"The other bizarre element to the whole bashing thing is that anyone who thinks the White House left a single stone unturned in planning the garden is...what's the most delicate, diplomatic, term? Oh yeah, silly. The White House was well aware that the first food garden planted on the campus since WWII was going to be big news. Of course all details were accounted for. Of course appropriate testing was conducted. The White House has the finest minds in America, experts in every field, available for consultation. It's beyond silly to imagine that the garden wasn't thoroughly "vetted.""

The Obama administration may be different, but I doubt it. They're human, after all, and humans can screw up.

Locavore Versus "Industrial"

Walter Jeffries at Sugar Mountain Farm has a post on his hot dogs, which I'm sure are very good, mostly. But because he has to rely on others, there's some problems in achieving a consistent product. Industry has trained us consumers to expect the same thing every time and every place; a McDonalds french fry tastes the same from coast to coast. McDonalds can demand its suppliers meet its standards. But a locavore food producer doesn't have the cash flow or the size of operation to compete on uniformity. (I'm reminded of a memoir from Ontario county, NY where the writer remembered that every farm had a different recipe for its bacon and ham.) The same is true for restaurants. My wife and I like the Tortilla Factory in Herndon, but some days their chips and their machaca are better than others.

There's always a tradeoff.

I Always Like Historical Nuggests

From the 1930 blog summarizing the Wall Street Journal articles for the day:

U.S. Treasury surplus for fiscal year ended June 30 was $184M. Receipts were $4.178B vs. $4.033B in 1929; expenditures $3.994B vs. $3.848B in 1929. Public debt was reduced by $746M due to surplus and $554M of "sinking fund" operations charged to ordinary receipts. Original estimate of surplus before start of fiscal year was $225M; 1% tax cut last fall reduced this estimate to $145M.

Senate may direct the Secretary of Agriculture to investigate the multiyear decline in cotton prices. Resolution would budget $125,000 to investigate "the cause of the decline, the amount of short selling, and by whom."

The first item is a reminder--8 months after the Wall Street crash, there's no stimulus from the budget.

The second item seems to be a perennial--always suspect the speculators. Maybe that's because we are paranoid, or maybe because speculators are always more visible in times of boom or bust.