I'm Shocked, Shocked

To find cynicism in a blog.  Matt Yglesias on Sen. Bayh's next job.

Historical Ironies--Wallace and King Corn

Tom Philpott has a post at Grist on "King Corn" stating the food movement's usual case against " the companies that dominate the global agrichemical, seed, and grain trades: Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, Monsanto, Syngenta, BASF, Dow AgroSciences, Bayer CropSciences, and Dupont’s Pioneer agrichemical/seed business."

The food movement is generally seen as a movement on the left. But ironically, the Pioneer seed business started with the Wallaces of Iowa, notably Henry Wallace, the Secretary of Ag and later Vice President for FDR and the Progressive Party's candidate for President in 1948.  He was a good progressive, meaning he had faith in the ability of human reason to transform the world, just as his hybrid seed corn

Nostalgia for the Good Old Days of Early PC's

Via the American Historical Association blog, here's a link to James Fallows in the Atlantic in 1982.He describes his experiences with a $4,000 PC: 48K RAM, 2 tape drives, Selectric printer, etc.  But there's a sentence there which foreshadows the future, as described in today's NYTimes, in an article on a family that's consumed by its devices, and always on line:

Fallows writes:

"CAN HARDLY BRING myself to mention the true disadvantage of computers, which is that I have become hopelessly addicted to them. To the outside world, I present myself as a man with a business need for a word-processing machine. Sure, I have a computer: I'd have a drill press if I were in the machine-tool business. This is the argument I make frequently to my wife. The truth, which she has no doubt guessed, is that I love to see them work [sic: "love to make them work" would be more accurate.].

The Campbells in the Times article love to be online, checking their email, playing games, etc.  The $4000 PC has transformed in a bunch of network devices, laptops, IPads, Iphones, etc., linked to communications networks, but the addiction continues. And they are really really addicted.

Maybe that's one definition of human progress: we keep creating new ways to become addicted.

Obama as Executive

Richard Neustadt's book on Presidential power quoted Harry Truman on the futility of ordering things done: Presidents may order, but agencies don't necessarily jump to and ask how high.  That truth is demonstrated once again with Obama--from the Federal Eye

A March report by the National Security Archive found that less than a third of the 90 federal agencies that process requests have significantly changed their FOIA practices since President Obama ordered them to "adopt a presumption in favor"

Obama Learns Bureaucrats Matter

That's the thesis of this politico article:

The Gulf crisis has shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of Obama’s unique management style, which relies on a combination of his own intellect, a small circle of trusted advisers and a larger group of outside experts. But it’s also driven home a more generic lesson all presidents learn sooner or later: Administrations are defined, fairly or not, by their capacity to control stagnant backwater agencies, in Obama’s case the Minerals Management Service, which failed to detect problems with the Deepwater Horizon well.

“This is a centralized government power guy from the word go, and this may be the best education Obama may get on the ineffectiveness of government and just how hard it is to get the bureaucracy to solve problems,” said John Sununu, the former New Hampshire governor who was an iron-fisted, chief of staff to President George H. W. Bush.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38161.html#ixzz0q6c8tCP0

White House Garden Progress

Don't see an update on the White House garden on the website, but Obamafoodorama has a couple posts showing people in it harvesting. Looks as if it's doing well; the greens are in good shape.  However, by now their peas are probably finished and some of the lettuce has bolted (judging by our garden in Reston).  And I wonder how they harvest: do they get a bit each day to feed the First Family or do they wait and harvest lots to serve at dinners?  At least on this the Obama administration isn't very transparent; fellow gardeners want to know these things.

The Fat Chinese and Not a Corn Subsidy in Sight

Prof. Pollan blames federal farm program subsidies of corn and soybeans for our obesity, at least in part.

The Newshour had a piece last week on the growing obesity problem in China, which doesn't have the same sort of subsidies.  The reasons include the one-child policy (lots of adults to spoil the kids), lots of cars and less exercise, urbanization, fast food.  To the best of my knowledge the Chinese don't subsidize corn production.

Government and Wikipedia (Warning: Off-Color Word)

This New York Times article describes a deal between the British Museum  and Wikipedia.  It seems the Museum has realized that people go to Wikipedia to look up information on the Museum, much more than they go to the museum's web site.  So the museum decided: if you can't fight them, join them (or something like that). By cooperating with Wikipedia, they can get more info and more accurate info into the browsers of the users, which presumably in the long run benefits the museum.

The lead guy says: "“Ten years ago we were equal, and we were all fighting for position,” Mr. Cock said. Now, he added, “people are gravitating to fewer and fewer sites. We have to shift with how we deal with the Web.”

I don't know why the same logic doesn't work for all official sites which try to push information--put a good deal of effort into upgrading the Wikipedia pages and, in a pet peeve of mine, making your pages accessible to Google.  Of course, Wikipedia is skeptical of having bureaucrats updating pages on their own bureaucracy, but this is, I think, the wave of the future.

Column on Pigford Claims

Interesting column in the High Plains Journal, with which I agree:

If the Ag Census data is correct, it still seems difficult to understand how the number of people filing Pigford claims could be more than double the number of black farmers in the U.S. Unfortunately, few people at USDA are willing to even discuss this topic for fear of appearing racist.
In the interest of transparency, it would seem helpful to have USDA provide the names and more information about who has or will be receiving payments under the Pigford cases. Adding more "sunlight" to this issue might help close another heart-wrenching chapter in farm loan history.

Unfortunately the "table" of payment data she refers to does not appear.

USDA Rulemaking

From Chris Clayton:

One thing I asked Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack about at the Rural Summit was the complexity of rules, and delay getting rules out. He responded there were a lot of rules that certainly have been issued from the 2008 farm bill and that the department had more than 600 such rules to issue from the bill.

That sounds high to me, but what do I know.  I hope that's 600 in all stages of completion, and that most have notices of proposed rulemaking.  I'd hope the new Administrative Conference would work on helping to streamline the process, but I doubt it.  Most Congress people are happy to pass stuff they can point to with pride, and are much less concerned about actual implementation.