Wince-Making Words

I didn't really need this image implanted in my mind, from a Post article on the heavy truck traffic on I-81 (Shendandoah Valley north to Harrisburg, Scranton, Binghamton, Syracuse):

"To be blunt: If you're driving a car and you have a truck in front and a truck behind and a truck passing you, it's not difficult to determine who the jelly in the sandwich is if things go bad," said Lon Anderson, spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic.

Don't No Economists Know What's Going On

That's my interpretation of this from the CBO directors' blog (a report on how well their predictions compare with OMB and private, Blue chips):

"Comparing CBO’s forecasts with those of the Blue Chip consensus suggests that when the agency’s predictions of the economy’s performance missed by the largest margin, those errors probably reflected problems shared by other forecasters in predicting turning points in the business cycle."

ACRE and FSA

ACRE has been getting a lot of mention in the stuff I follow. Here's an example, at extension.org.

What bothers me, perhaps wrongly, is the degree to which a farmer's decision to participate is being determined by market prices and predictions. I know past participation in production adjustment programs also relied on such calculations. But, maybe because it's new and I don't fully understand it, this seems different. I'm not concerned about the farmers so much as the FSA offices. It seems to me when the ACRE checks go out, or don't go out, there's more potential for farmers to come back at the offices to blame them for their decision. That's always a problem, particularly when the farmer can claim misaction/misinformation, if they still can. (That provision began back in the day when ASCS would tell a farmer to destroy seeded acreage to get with his permitted acreage, or that he was okay as he was, and the info turned out to be wrong.)

The Anti-Pollan

Via Chris Clayton at DTN, here's an article by a Missouri, who takes on Michael Pollan and others. He makes a number of good points, ranging from the corporate ownership of organic outfits versus the family ownership of many "industrial" farms, the use of manure, the problems with cover crops and composting, etc.

What most bothers Blake Hurst is the contrast drawn between the organic farmer, wise in the ways of the soil, and the commercial farmer, a dupe of industry and a pawn of Cargill. He writes defending the sense and the sensibility of the modern, non-organic farmer.

Surprising Factoid on Education

From the 1930 blog (quoting WSJ editor):

"You have mentioned various reasons for the continued progress and prosperity of the US, but you have overlooked the main reason. Last year college students enrolled in the US numbered 1,237,000, exceeding the total of the rest of the world by 287,000. No further comment is necessary."

The White "Community"

I got an email from Jewish Week, the title of which started: "dealing with shame in the Jewish community" (in reference to the arrests of 5 rabbis in the big corruption sweep in New Jersey).

We hear about the Jewish community, the Hispanic/Latino community, the black community, the Hasidic community, the immigrant community, but how about the "white community"?

Also, we used to hear about the Protestant community and the Catholic community, but not much any more. And the Irish community or the Scotch-Irish community rings false.

FSA Disses Organics

Unfortunately, the number of unique acronyms available is limited, so the "FSA" reported here is the UK's Food Standards Agency:

In the most comprehensive study ever to be carried out into the nutritional content of organic food compared to ordinary fare, scientists found no significant difference in vitamins and minerals.

Mirror Images: Public Option, Charter Schools?

I was struck watching a Lehrer discussion of health care with Ezra Klein and someone else by these thought:

Aren't the arguments for and against charter schools vis a vis public education the same as the arguments for and against the public option and national healthcare?

If I understand correctly, the public ed establishment believed that charter schools would undermines public education through unfair advantages while the supporters thought they would compete with public schools and cause them to improve. (Lots more nuance, I know, but that's the core argument.) Now the supporters of a public option believe it will create competition with private health insurance plans and cause them to improve, while the opponents believe the public plan would have unfair advantages which would undermine the private plans.

Most Unexpected Words Today

From a Washington Post piece on Julia Childs' friends reacting to the new movie:

"She loved chicken and hot dogs from Costco," Berman said.

Downward Mobility [Updated]

The Post reports on a Pew study which says black middle class children more often grow up in poorer neighborhoods than do white middle class children and there's a high correlation between one's neighborhood and one's eventual status. That is, black middle class children more often end up as lower class adults than do white middle class children.

It makes sense to me. It may be my preconceptions talking, but I think people who do well are often envied by their relatives and neighbors and expected to share the wealth. I think that's particularly true of blacks, perhaps because the black community has stronger ties although it might simply be the by-product of the distribution of wealth. (Is there such a thing as the "white community"?)

I remember a book by an anthropologist studying a small Caribbean island, entitled "Crab Antics", the thesis of which was the less successful tried to pull down the more successful.

[Added: Watched the first two episodes of The Corner last night. It's the HBO dramatization of a nonfiction book written by David Simon about Baltimore; it led eventually to The Wire. The major characters are the McCulloughs, a black couple who had it made then lost it to crack, and their son, DeAndre who is vacillating between the drug culture and school. We don't see Gary's (the father) fall, just the aftermath but the writer makes it sound as if he was dragged down by his obliging his old friends. I recommend both the book and the TV series.]