If Matt Weiner's Mad Men keeps rolling along, he may get to the time when Ossining's schools were desegregated.
I was trolling through a site listing the reports of the Civil Rights Commission and stumbled across this report, on the desegregation of Ossining's schools over the period 1969-74. There was what we used to call de facto segregation, because Ossining had a significant black population (working at Sing Sing, I assume. So back in that idealistic time the effort was to realign elementary school boundaries to provide a more integrated environment.
Friday, July 30, 2010
I Thought Republicans Disliked the Nanny State?
This bit from Farm Policy about a House Ag hearing on nutrition was amusing:0
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Subcommittee Ranking Member Jeff Fortenberry, R-Nebraska, expressed concern about health and obesity rates, and noted that data from the Healthy Incentives Pilot (HIP) would not be available for another two years. He went on to ask the second panel of witnesses yesterday an interesting theoretical question about a potential “new paradigm” in linking SNAP benefits to improved choice. He offered a hypothetical example: “Instead of a SNAP card having $100 on it, a SNAP card would have 100 ‘nutritional points,’ and that would also be measured as you buy certain foods and therefore the market would then respond to develop food products that would fit easily into the nutritional categorizations.” To listen to this interesting discussion on linking SNAP benefits to nutritional health, click here (MP3- 8:12).As technology progesses more and more can be done. I don't know whether the old slogans about "nanny state" work in the new environment.
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Thursday, July 29, 2010
China
From a Grist post on energy efficiency, talking about China:
I suppose I should be used to this by now, but somehow I'm often revert to the images of the 1950's and 60's, from the Korean War and the Great Leap Forward. Who whaddya thunk it?
For every 100 urban households there are 138 color TV sets, 97 washing machines, and 88 room air conditioners. Even in rural areas there are 95 color TVs and 46 washing machines for every 100 households.
I suppose I should be used to this by now, but somehow I'm often revert to the images of the 1950's and 60's, from the Korean War and the Great Leap Forward. Who whaddya thunk it?
And a Tear Flows Down a Face: Oldest Farm Gone
Sometime in the 70's I think it was there was a famous picture of an Indian, sorry--Native American, with a tear running down his cheek. If I remember it was tied into the environmental movement.
Don't know why I thought of that when I saw this article on a farm in NH which dates back to 1632, owned by members of the same family, which is now up for sale.
Don't know why I thought of that when I saw this article on a farm in NH which dates back to 1632, owned by members of the same family, which is now up for sale.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
What David Brooks Fails to Mention
In Tuesday's Times, David Brooks imagines he's a Democrat again, and from that position gives advice to Obama, who should be.
focused on the long term? He could explain that we’re facing deep fundamental problems: an aging population, overleveraged consumers, exploding government debt, state and local bankruptcies, declining human capital, widening inequality, a pattern of jobless recoveries, deteriorating trade imbalances and so on.What Brooks doesn't mention is the sort of stuff in this OMB Watch post, because, as it says:
These long-term problems, Obama could say, won’t be solved either with centralized government or free market laissez-faire. Just as government laid railroads and built land grant colleges in the 19th century to foster deep growth, the government today should be doing the modern equivalents.
The administration gets little credit for these achievements, which are often wonky in nature and easily overshadowed by the hyper-partisan atmosphere of Washington.
The Missing Data for Education: Teacher Data
David Leonhardt in the NY Times reports on a study from Tennessee of kindergarten, under a headline: The Case for $320,000 Kindergarten Teachers.
Earlier this year I saw a mention of a similar result where early intervention didn't have lasting impact on test scores in school, but seemed to lead to better life results (less joblessness and crime, higher salaries). Intended to blog it, but it slipped through.
What I'd really like to know is data on the teachers of the best classes back in 1980's: who were they, what were their backgrounds, were they identified as good teachers by their principal and the local community, and, most importantly, what has happened to them in the intervening 20+ years? Did they find teaching kindergarteners a satisfying career, or did they move on?
Students who had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds. Students who learned more were also less likely to become single parents. As adults, they were more likely to be saving for retirement. Perhaps most striking, they were earning more.These results are despite the fact that during most of their school years, the effect of kindergarten doesn't show up in test scores. I'm sure this is going to attract a lot of attention, and it should. See Mankiw and Althouse.
Earlier this year I saw a mention of a similar result where early intervention didn't have lasting impact on test scores in school, but seemed to lead to better life results (less joblessness and crime, higher salaries). Intended to blog it, but it slipped through.
What I'd really like to know is data on the teachers of the best classes back in 1980's: who were they, what were their backgrounds, were they identified as good teachers by their principal and the local community, and, most importantly, what has happened to them in the intervening 20+ years? Did they find teaching kindergarteners a satisfying career, or did they move on?
Geezers and the Kindle
Interesting discussion here of the fact Amazon is temporarily out of the Kindle, now they've dropped the price to $189.
Having helped an older relative with her Kindle, but not having one myself, I wonder about this factor. I assume the elderly, like me, are slower than the rest of the world to adopt fancy cellphones and stuff like the IPad or the Kindle. But simply looking at me, I'm more likely to spring for a Kindle than an IPhone or IPad. I don't know if that's broadly true. My logic is that the multipurpose jobbie is a bit overwhelming in its possibilities. I could cope with learning the Kindle, but not all the stuff that a smart phone or tablet can handle.
Having helped an older relative with her Kindle, but not having one myself, I wonder about this factor. I assume the elderly, like me, are slower than the rest of the world to adopt fancy cellphones and stuff like the IPad or the Kindle. But simply looking at me, I'm more likely to spring for a Kindle than an IPhone or IPad. I don't know if that's broadly true. My logic is that the multipurpose jobbie is a bit overwhelming in its possibilities. I could cope with learning the Kindle, but not all the stuff that a smart phone or tablet can handle.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Sherrod as Faceless Bureaucrat
One puzzle about the Sherrod episode is why, why was it so explosive, so radioactive? Why did the administration and NAACP react so quickly? Race is obviously part of the answer, but I'd suggest bureaucracy, specifically "faceless bureaucrats", is also part of the answer. [ed--gee that's a surprise.]
As I see it now, this is my best guess at what actually was happening in 1986 and then what happened last week.
What's the context? The NYTimes has an article published Sept. 10, 1986, which provides some background. Essentially the Farmer's Home Administration (FmHA) of USDA had made lots of loans in the 1970's which, in the hard times for agriculture in the 1980's, had turned sour. Meanwhile the Reagan administration, not known for its enthusiasm about government programs, had tried to cut back on FmHA's programs. And GAO and the press had found a lot of instances of abuse of the programs. And finally 1986 was the first time there was an automatic cut in federal programs under Gramm-Rudman. All this meant bad times for farmers. Although FmHA was trying to collect delinquent loans, as the Times article says, "The agency has been sued 55 times since 1981 by farmers saying its loan-collecting and foreclosure practices were unconstitutional. The agency lost 37 times...." My suspicion from Sherrod's statement is that the Federation had participated in one or more of the lawsuits and, perhaps, had obtained an injunction against FmHA's pressing its foreclosure actions.
To complicate the situation even more, in 1986 Georgia and the Southeast were suffering a historic drought as described in this Times article. "In Georgia, Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin is predicting, ''We may lose up to 5,000 farmers over the cycle of the next 12 months.'' That would be 10 percent of the state's index of 50,000 farmers and ranchers, ''and of that 50,000, probably 25,000 are in financial trouble,'' he said."
From what we are told, in 1986 Sherrod was working for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, Land Assistance Fund, presumably as a counselor of some kind. Don't know how long she's worked there--the Federation seems to have originated in the late 60's. (In 1980 there was a Times article about the Emergency Land Fund and its efforts to preserve black land ownership. The Fund merged with the Federation in 1985.)
Sherrod was about 38. In comes Mr. Spooner, who is her first white client. She assumes that he's not here of his own volition; he's not a walk-in customer like other customers (I'm assuming black farmers would often come to her first); he's been sent by USDA or GA Department of Agriculture. (I'd assume having him as a client means she becomes rather tense, more tense than usual. That would be my reaction, but maybe that's wrong, because she may be an extrovert people-person.) She's definitely on guard.
What's Spooner feeling? Sherrod says he eventually ended up in Chapter 11 bankruptcy so I'll assume he probably had FmHA loan(s) and was in trouble. We don't know why he tried the Federation--Sherrod's assumption that USDA had sent him might be correct. If FmHA was trying to foreclose, it might be a conflict of interest for them to advise Spooner on the best way to fight it. Referring him to a third party, like the Federation, would make sense.
Spooner is about 20 years older than Sherrod, so he's born in the early 1920's, in south Georgia when the KKK is riding high. We don't know what his opinions and feelings were in 1986; maybe he had evolved faster than other Georgians (who had elected Lester Maddox of pick-axe handle fame, then Jimmy Carter of the famous grain in earlier decades). In the interests of telling the story it's probably fair to say he's not happy about turning to a radical organization, which would have been the reputation of the [coop] and one which caters to blacks, but he needs to save his farm.
Again, we don't know if this is the first time Spooner is acting as the customer/client of a black, a situation where he is a supplicant. Let's say it is; almost certainly he's never applied for help on such an important matter to a black woman. So in addition to feeling trapped by his economic situation, he may well be feeling uptight from the situation--he's asking for help from a black woman. And it's a younger person
So, as Sherrod describes it, Spooner talks and talks. To her he comes across as trying to be superior. Maybe that's true, maybe not; maybe he's compensating for his helplessness.. Maybe he's telling his story from day 1 and trying to show that his predicament isn't his fault; maybe he's just anxious about getting help.
Back to Sherrod now: She says she's trying to figure out how much help she'll give him. There's an implication of games-playing here; he's trying to impress her, she's feeling her power. If she's bad, she'll turn him away. If she's good, she'll help him all she can. Somewhere in between is where she comes down, at least in her telling; she sends him to a white lawyer. I'm not clear why that's not the optimum solution. Sherrod isn't a lawyer and he's got legal problems, but maybe she thinks her advice would have been good. Or maybe she knows the lawyer isn't much good, as he turns out to be, and maybe that fact gives her a little malicious pleasure. It's definitely a situation with a lot of emotional currents. When the NAACP audience listens to it, William Saletan in his analysis of their reaction only allows for one interpretation, but to me there's enough going on that likely different people picked up on different elements. Most of all, I suspect they were, as we do, empathize with her mixed emotions.
Now what about Sherrod's narrative strikes someone so strongly that they make the excerpt, someone adds text giving wrong information to the front, it gets played, and NAACP and USDA over react to it?
The first and obvious answer is racial. Breitbart's position now is that she's recounting an episode of discrimination and her audience is enjoying it. The idea is "man bites dog"--a black person has power and discriminates against a white. And, given the misframed excerpt, the idea which Vilsack and the NAACP was reacting to, the [wrong] fact she was a USDA bureaucrat when she did this. But humans tend to enjoy reversals: we love to see the powerful take a pratfall, so I don't think the racial element, by itself, was enough to account for its power.
I think there's another story here, a story which is symbolized by the conversion of "faceless bureaucrat" into an epithet. In part it ties into American anxieties about the power of the faceless bureaucrat. We don't like power; we tolerate powerful people if they don't rub our noses in it. But we're aware whenever we deal with a bureaucrat that they know the rules, we don't. They have the power, we don't. So the idea of a bureaucrat, like Sherrod, being arbitrary and capricious is frightening; it's particularly frightening if you represent people who usually sit across from the bureaucrat, like the NAACP, or if you manage a bureaucracy, like USDA, which has been called the last plantation.
So arbitrary bureaucracy is our bogeyman (a good old Scots term, apparently) which has a scare power all out of proportion to its reality. That's why the excerpt had its power. And because it was powerful, Vilsack and the NAACP reacted too fast.
As I see it now, this is my best guess at what actually was happening in 1986 and then what happened last week.
What's the context? The NYTimes has an article published Sept. 10, 1986, which provides some background. Essentially the Farmer's Home Administration (FmHA) of USDA had made lots of loans in the 1970's which, in the hard times for agriculture in the 1980's, had turned sour. Meanwhile the Reagan administration, not known for its enthusiasm about government programs, had tried to cut back on FmHA's programs. And GAO and the press had found a lot of instances of abuse of the programs. And finally 1986 was the first time there was an automatic cut in federal programs under Gramm-Rudman. All this meant bad times for farmers. Although FmHA was trying to collect delinquent loans, as the Times article says, "The agency has been sued 55 times since 1981 by farmers saying its loan-collecting and foreclosure practices were unconstitutional. The agency lost 37 times...." My suspicion from Sherrod's statement is that the Federation had participated in one or more of the lawsuits and, perhaps, had obtained an injunction against FmHA's pressing its foreclosure actions.
To complicate the situation even more, in 1986 Georgia and the Southeast were suffering a historic drought as described in this Times article. "In Georgia, Agriculture Commissioner Tommy Irvin is predicting, ''We may lose up to 5,000 farmers over the cycle of the next 12 months.'' That would be 10 percent of the state's index of 50,000 farmers and ranchers, ''and of that 50,000, probably 25,000 are in financial trouble,'' he said."
From what we are told, in 1986 Sherrod was working for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, Land Assistance Fund, presumably as a counselor of some kind. Don't know how long she's worked there--the Federation seems to have originated in the late 60's. (In 1980 there was a Times article about the Emergency Land Fund and its efforts to preserve black land ownership. The Fund merged with the Federation in 1985.)
Sherrod was about 38. In comes Mr. Spooner, who is her first white client. She assumes that he's not here of his own volition; he's not a walk-in customer like other customers (I'm assuming black farmers would often come to her first); he's been sent by USDA or GA Department of Agriculture. (I'd assume having him as a client means she becomes rather tense, more tense than usual. That would be my reaction, but maybe that's wrong, because she may be an extrovert people-person.) She's definitely on guard.
What's Spooner feeling? Sherrod says he eventually ended up in Chapter 11 bankruptcy so I'll assume he probably had FmHA loan(s) and was in trouble. We don't know why he tried the Federation--Sherrod's assumption that USDA had sent him might be correct. If FmHA was trying to foreclose, it might be a conflict of interest for them to advise Spooner on the best way to fight it. Referring him to a third party, like the Federation, would make sense.
Spooner is about 20 years older than Sherrod, so he's born in the early 1920's, in south Georgia when the KKK is riding high. We don't know what his opinions and feelings were in 1986; maybe he had evolved faster than other Georgians (who had elected Lester Maddox of pick-axe handle fame, then Jimmy Carter of the famous grain in earlier decades). In the interests of telling the story it's probably fair to say he's not happy about turning to a radical organization, which would have been the reputation of the [coop] and one which caters to blacks, but he needs to save his farm.
Again, we don't know if this is the first time Spooner is acting as the customer/client of a black, a situation where he is a supplicant. Let's say it is; almost certainly he's never applied for help on such an important matter to a black woman. So in addition to feeling trapped by his economic situation, he may well be feeling uptight from the situation--he's asking for help from a black woman. And it's a younger person
So, as Sherrod describes it, Spooner talks and talks. To her he comes across as trying to be superior. Maybe that's true, maybe not; maybe he's compensating for his helplessness.. Maybe he's telling his story from day 1 and trying to show that his predicament isn't his fault; maybe he's just anxious about getting help.
Back to Sherrod now: She says she's trying to figure out how much help she'll give him. There's an implication of games-playing here; he's trying to impress her, she's feeling her power. If she's bad, she'll turn him away. If she's good, she'll help him all she can. Somewhere in between is where she comes down, at least in her telling; she sends him to a white lawyer. I'm not clear why that's not the optimum solution. Sherrod isn't a lawyer and he's got legal problems, but maybe she thinks her advice would have been good. Or maybe she knows the lawyer isn't much good, as he turns out to be, and maybe that fact gives her a little malicious pleasure. It's definitely a situation with a lot of emotional currents. When the NAACP audience listens to it, William Saletan in his analysis of their reaction only allows for one interpretation, but to me there's enough going on that likely different people picked up on different elements. Most of all, I suspect they were, as we do, empathize with her mixed emotions.
Now what about Sherrod's narrative strikes someone so strongly that they make the excerpt, someone adds text giving wrong information to the front, it gets played, and NAACP and USDA over react to it?
The first and obvious answer is racial. Breitbart's position now is that she's recounting an episode of discrimination and her audience is enjoying it. The idea is "man bites dog"--a black person has power and discriminates against a white. And, given the misframed excerpt, the idea which Vilsack and the NAACP was reacting to, the [wrong] fact she was a USDA bureaucrat when she did this. But humans tend to enjoy reversals: we love to see the powerful take a pratfall, so I don't think the racial element, by itself, was enough to account for its power.
I think there's another story here, a story which is symbolized by the conversion of "faceless bureaucrat" into an epithet. In part it ties into American anxieties about the power of the faceless bureaucrat. We don't like power; we tolerate powerful people if they don't rub our noses in it. But we're aware whenever we deal with a bureaucrat that they know the rules, we don't. They have the power, we don't. So the idea of a bureaucrat, like Sherrod, being arbitrary and capricious is frightening; it's particularly frightening if you represent people who usually sit across from the bureaucrat, like the NAACP, or if you manage a bureaucracy, like USDA, which has been called the last plantation.
So arbitrary bureaucracy is our bogeyman (a good old Scots term, apparently) which has a scare power all out of proportion to its reality. That's why the excerpt had its power. And because it was powerful, Vilsack and the NAACP reacted too fast.
Fred Hoyle Is Laughing Now
When I was growing up there were a number of paperbacks, published I think by Ballantine, on science. Isaac Asmov was one writer, Microbe Hunters was a title I remember, and Fred Hoyle was another writer. I believe that's where I first heard about the "Big Bang" versus "Steady-State" theories of the universe--Fred was the leading proponent of Steady State. Then the Big Bang won out and I thought certainty had been achieved, at least in that minor area of thought. Then I saw this:
I guess I'm doomed to die without knowing what sort of universe I really inhabit.Big Bang Abandoned in New Model of the Universe
A new cosmology successfully explains the accelerating expansion of the universe without dark energy; but only if the universe has no beginning and no end.
What Really Gets Commenters Going
I thought the Sherrod case was the prime example of what really got commenters going on blogs. But I was wrong. What really gets people stirred up is if a blogger asks how to beat a speeding ticket.
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