What "Open Government" Doesn't Cover--Subordinate Offices

Here, via OMBwatch, is the text of the Obama's administration instructions to agencies on opening government. I like it, but I think there's a major problem: it treats each agency as an entity, not as a set of interrelated offices.  For example, an agency like FSA has over 2,000 county offices, state offices, offices in Kansas City and Salt Lake City.  NRCS and RD have similar structures.

So the issue, which I've hashed with at least one county executive director, is whether you have a centralized unitary open government structure or a more decentralized one. Complying with Orszag's instructions implies a centralized structure, which in a way is contrary to the open government philosophy. I'll be trying to track how NRCS and FSA implement this directive.

Hoop Garden

Obamafoodorama posts on the installation and use of hoops and hoop covers for the White House garden.

"Fabric-covered aluminum hoops have been placed over the crop rows and these capture passive solar energy and boost the interior temperature dramatically, so the garden soil and air is warmed, and crops can flourish--even in winter. Hoop Houses are often tall enough to walk through, but the White House is using mini versions, about two feet tall, which some farmers and gardeners refer to as "low tunnels" or just simply "row covers."....

But no matter: It's warm and cozy inside the covered beds in the 1,100 square foot Kitchen Garden, and the winter crops, which include lettuces, cabbage, winter radishes, onions, broccoli, turnips, and carrots, are easily accessible, because the covering fabric is held down with sandbags, and can easily be flipped back to weed, harvest, or water, if for some odd reason it doesn't rain (but it'd been raining a lot before it started to snow)"

I'm not sure it's going to be warm and cozy, particularly when the winds blow.  And I still think they'd do better with collards and kale than lettuce, but it's their first year.
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Whatever Happened to Clinton's Surgeon General

The one who was unfairly fired  (Jocelyn Elders, maybe?).  She might enjoy this post from Margaret Soltan.  I well remember when masturbation was an unmentionable subject.

Best Sentence Today (Berluscone in a Speedo)

"However, all the attempts I've seen are like Silvio Berlusconi trying to wear a Speedo - no matter how you try to make everything fit, a couple of awkward bits wind up poking out and ruining the picture."  (From the 1930 Blog" musing about an economic theory which would explain current market movements.)

The Problems of Foodies--"Founding Farmers" Restaurant

Jane Black had an article on the problems the hot new "Founding Farmers restaurant" has with its goal of serving local, sustainable, and organic food.  She catches instances where their performance is less than their promises, but I don't take it as a critical, muckraking piece, rather as showing the difficulties of putting a square peg (the sustainable restaurant) into a round hole (the existing food system).  What happens is the buyer for the restaurant assumes a big responsibility which isn't easily performed, the responsibility of searching out the backstory of every food item purchased.  There might, in bigger cities, be a niche for an organic, sustainable broker, someone who takes on that burden and serves as a middleman between food producer and the restaurant.

And Round in Circles We Gaily Go

This post on the USDA blog praises a Forest Service employee who is a finalist in the competition for the best suggestion to save money.  Based on a fast skim (still trying to catch up from my travels) and fading memory, it seems to me ASCS used to use the proposed method.  We even had bank accounts in local banks.  That system is long gone, both the accounts and the methods of processing collections.  So maybe the proposal is in effect a return to the past for a USDA agency.

The Importance of Looks

Robin Givhan is a writer I mostly can ignore but the fashion/culture writer for the Post had a good piece yesterday: the theme being that the Salahi's were able to gate crash because they looked right--a thin blonde on the arm of a man in a tuxedo. Change any of the parameters and the security people would have been much more likely to challenge.  It's a sobering reminder of the importance of the genetic lottery in our culture (probably all cultures).

First We Kill All Middle Managers

No, that wasn't Al Gore's mantra, but he wanted to get rid of them and he thought he did.  Hope he is doing a better job on climate change.  These thoughts evoked by this piece in Government Executive on the use of numerical targets in managing government

Snow and Foxhounds

Baldwinsville, NY is in the snowbelt--meaning they get the lake effect snow off the Great Lakes, at least until the lakes freeze over.  But this year they haven't had much, if any, snow.  But the day after I got back to Reston we started to get snow, snowed most of the day yesterday, 5 inches or so of the wet, pretty stuff.

I got some nice photos this morning on my usual walk for Starbucks, but none as great as this first photo from the Post, showing the Middleburg hunt leading the Christmas parade.  The rest of the photos in the show are worth viewing as well.

The Restaurants of Baldwinsville

Returned from my trip last night and thought I'd resume blogging with thumbnail reviews of the restaurants at which I ate:

• Chili's.  Nothing to be said--a chain restaurant with a good southwestern chicken salad and too much beer (my capacity for alcohol diminishes as I age). 
• Mohegan Manor.  Downtown Baldwinsville's classiest restaurant, I suspect. This was new to me, though I've seen it on previous visits.  Had the black cod special, the fish on top of some tarted up mashed potatoes and steamed? spinach.  Enjoyed the food, but not the noise.  The restaurant's in an old building (long ago mansion I expect), which has been renovated down to the original floor boards, so there's nothing to absorb the sounds.
• Tabatha's. Have eaten here several times, usually try to hit it once each trip.  It's a home-style restaurant with good food and lots of it.  What makes it special are the desserts, particularly the pies. 
• Canal Walk Cafe. Deserted the hotel's continental breakfast for this place, which is by the side of the canal. It reminds me of the corner restaurant in Greene, NY.  Good food.  I almost said "simple", but their breakfast special Thursday was a "strata" something--a cheese omelot stuffed with Italian sausage, onions, and other stuff (I'm not exactly a discerning eater, BTW).  It was good, but so was the scrambled egg on Wed.  It  to be the sort of place with neighborhood regulars, and a friendly atmosphere where the waitress calls you: "honey". 

Any or all of these are recommended in case you're visting the Syracuse area.