Understanding America, II

I'm most of the way through the book. Two points that occurred to me, which may be related:

• there's no mention so far of Baker vs Carr, which was the big Supreme Court decision enforcing "one man, one vote". (Actually, it seems to have said the Supreme Court would have a say in reapportionment of legislative districts, with subsequent decisions actually saying one man, one vote.) Chief Justice thought these cases the most important set of decisions of his term. The significance was that both in the House of Representatives and in the State legislatures rural areas had a disproportionate representation. If memory serves, in some States the ratio was as bad as 1 to 10 (i.e, a rural voter had the same representation as 10 urban voters).
  
• the end of "blue laws". Don't rely on wikipedia--it's not a good summary. These were laws restricting the times stores could open (like only Thursday night and never on Sunday). I'd also include the "fair trade" laws, which required merchants not to discount their merchandise.

These two changes, IMHO, were not only interrelated, because the rural people were more concerned with restricting the aggressive advance of commercialization and the undermining of local stores by competition from the big city, later to be Walmart and Target, but also accelerated lots of the other changes in the culture we've seen since my childhood.

I'm prompted to write this because Dirk Beauregard, at the end of his post on the Miracle Weekend in France, observes that new French laws will legitimize Sunday openings.

The World We'll Miss

Just got an email with some attachments showing old newspaper pages. The relevant articles were social notes (for genealogy, someone getting married--that sort of thing). But what was interesting was the other material on the page--the ads and the fact that in the 1930's, in a smallish PA town newspaper, they were carrying a piece on the fighting in Manchuria.

I'm constantly awed by what is available on the Internet through Google, but what isn't available and what we lose is the social context of the material.

White House Tomatoes

At last, confirmation the White House garden produced some nice tomatoes. There's no discussion, Marian Burros in today's NYTimes is strictly concerned with the soil in the garden, (they've lowered the lead in the soil from 93 to 14ppm) but the accompanying photos show maybe 10 nice tomatoes as part of the harvest, plus Sam Kass is shown in the garden. Judging by the photo they may be planting some fall vegetable transplants, like some more lettuce. The chard (I think) in the background looks good. I guess the White House doesn't have problems with deer or with two-legged samplers--I'm sure the Secret Service is earning its pay in that regard.

It's good to see USDA outdoing the boss (Obama) in some respect--at least in transparency as regards garden harvests.

Julia Childs and the Blogger

My wife and I saw the movie yesterday and enjoyed it. For anyone who hasn't, see the movie then read this LA Times piece by the guy who asked Julia for her reaction to Julie's blog.
The critics have often dissed the Amy Adams character, saying she's self-centered and whines. That's true in the movie, but as a fellow blogger I couldn't complain, I identified with her.

Ezra Klein offers a perceptive comment:

"Grand Rapids, Mich.: What is your take on "Julie and Julia"? I thought the movie was fun, and enjoyed the scenes with Julia Child and her husband (their relationship was interesting). But I found Julie's side of the story to be less interesting and, at times, poorly constructed.

Ezra Klein: Nora Ephron did Julie Powell a disservice. Powell's story is banal in a respectable way: She's underemployed, bored, and young, and she discovers a passion. That doesn't normally merit a movie. But since it did in this case, Ephron had to give the character a conflict. And that conflict was that she was a self-absorbed child.

Take all the stuff about Julia Child "teaching" Powell so much. Child taught her nothing except how to make food. it was Powell who woke up at 5:30am to cook. Powell who kept to a grueling schedule. Powell who kept the blog updated. Powell who developed an appealing writing voice. Powell who didn't stop cooking when she was tired or busy. But in the movie, Powell just gives all credit to Julia, and the movie is constructed to make that plausible. The pity is that it isn't plausible, and it doesn't need to be. The parallel between Child and Powell isn't that they both cook. It's that they found passions. And while it's very good at explaining why Child loved French cuisine, it's too interested in explaining why Powell loved Child to explain why Powell loved writing."

Crop Reports, ACRE and FSA

Already a projection the new USDA crop estimates for corn and soybeans will cause a last minute rush at FSA offices to sign up for the ACRE program.

But later I read the projections lessen the odds of ACRE kicking into effect. It's all very confusing and makes me glad I've resolved not to waste minutes of my remaining life in trying to figure it out. Good luck to those who have to.

NAIS and Cattle Rustlers

ABC news did a piece on cattle rustling in Oklahoma. They didn't mention NAIS, but implicitly it made the case for it.

Marketing Quotas and Catch Shares

A Grist piece reports on a consensus on to manage fisheries, which strikes me as very similar to the marketing quotas which used to apply to tobacco and peanut production:

What comes out on top, though? It comes down to effectively implementing caps on catch levels using two key tools: reducing the Total Allowable Catch and putting in place catch shares. (You can look at their table where a solution was identified in at least five of the ten fisheries, and was usually ranked an “essential” part of the solution.) This is strong stuff!

Somehow the logic is the same. You have a common resource: in the case of fish it's the stock which reproduces and grows without human input; in the case of tobacco and peanuts, it was the market, which although it was developed by humans, in the short term it's outside human control Then you have a set of players: for fish, the fishermen; for tobacco and peanuts, the growers. And you have a free-rider problem: if fishermen don't coordinate their efforts they destroy the fishery; if the growers don't coordinate they destroy the market price.

The Housing Market Does Not Make Sense

Looked on Zillow for current house prices in my housing cluster (5 models, about a 20 percent spread among prices when new in early 70's). Today the range is from $130K to $318K. Presumably some of the range is foreclosure discounts and condition variations, but that's an unreal spread.

USDA Tomatoes

Give props to the people at the USDA Garden. Not only have they continued gardening through the year (something I was secretly dubious about, but was wrong) but they've updated their harvest summary. The last I checked, that's better than the White House has done. They've gotten 12 tomatoes so far (Aug. 10). I think my wife has done better, although deer and possible 2 legged bandits have decreased the harvest. I congratulate them for their cucumber harvest; we've had little or no luck with them so have given up on trying. But USDA has bunches.

Obamafoodorama posts about the late blight, claiming it hasn't hit the White House garden. But I'm still waiting for evidence the White House planted tomatoes.

You Didn't Know Me

Michael Daconta used to work for DHS. He discusses 6 hot technology trends, pouring some cooling water upon them ("fads"). However, I have to challenge this one:

3. Agile development is a programmer’s fantasy and a manager’s nightmare. In my more than 20 years of software development experience, I have never met a government program manager who is available on a daily or even weekly basis to help design an application on the fly....

Mr. Daconta, you never met me. Of course the problem is I was a frustrated programmer at heart, so the time I was spending giving input on the program was mostly time I should have been spending elsewhere, like developing my employees.