Thank You, L. Norman Adams and David Brion Davis

Turns out May 3 is Teacher Appreciation Day.  Since I've never thanked my teachers, let me do it here:

L. Norman Adams was my high school history/social studies teacher, for whom I wrote many pages of papers and with whom I engaged in much back and forth, focused, if I remember correctly, on the nature and course of the Cold War.  I failed to keep up my correspondence with Norm so I lost track of him.

David Brion Davis was a young professor of American intellectual history, whose 2-term survey course in my sophomore year was challenging and amazing.   He went on to win prizes for his books on slavery.

Looking back, what they had in common was an intense interest in and caring about their subject.

Thank you.

Conservation Versus Direct Payments

Article in the Post today on the challenges conservation programs are facing, as opposed to direct payments.

One quote puzzles me:

“There is a growing feeling that [Congress] must find a way to make sure that the cuts affect everyone,” said Ferd Hoefner, policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, “to make sure the mega-producers are not the ones let off the hook this time around. “
To get around cuts in the past, corporate farms would add a partner or two that could then apply for separate subsidies, thereby restoring the overall take to prior levels."

My impression was that attribution of payments was going to mostly take care of that problem, but apparently not to the satisfaction of NSAC.  Come to think of it, I haven't seen any analysis of how well or poorly that change in the 2008 law is working.

Because my blogging has been slow because of plumbing problems, I'll throw in here a renewal of my proposal: instead of trying to apply a cap on payments, apply a factored reduction, increasing as the total amount of payments rises.  (Think income tax in reverse.)

Slavery in the Shadow of the Capitol

Found this link in doing research for my cousin--unfortunately it's from 2001 and the links supporting it seem to be broken:

Foreign travelers accounts from the 1830 and 1840 described the Robey and
Williams slave pens which stood along the Mall in the shadow of the Capitol;
the two were often juxtaposed in artworks, and the presence of slave pens in
the center of the nation's capitol captured the attention of abolitionists.
(Ironically, today the Museum of African Art sits less than a block away from
the former location of the Robey and Williams slave pens.)

Biggest U.S. College?

According to this NYTimes article, Miami-Dade is:

With an enrollment of 170,000, Miami Dade is the country’s largest college (not including online universities). Ninety percent of its students are minorities, and it graduates more black and Hispanic students than any other college. This is no small accomplishment in light of the country’s stubbornly low college attendance and graduation rates among minorities.

It's drawn 3 Presidents to speak at commencement.

US and India on Food

Ajay Shah's blog has a post discussing a new CPI (consumer price index) for India.  What's interesting is the weighting

Sub Group		New CPI
	Rural	Urban	All India	CPI IW
Food, beverages and tobacco	59.31	37.15	49.71	50.20
Fuel and Light	10.42	8.40	9.49	6.25
Clothing, bedding and footwear	5.36	3.91	4.73	13.28
Housing	0.00	22.53	9.77	5.33
Miscellaneous	24.91	28.00	26.31	24.94

Don't know what the weights are for the U.S. but wikipedia gives this: They are weighted this way: Housing: 41.4%, Food and Beverage: 17.4%, Transport: 17.0%, Medical Care: 6.9%, Other: 6.9%, Apparel: 6.0%, Entertainment: 4.4%

The Trump Game: "I Am So Proud of Myself Because..."

All you need to do to play the game is to complete the sentence made notorious by the Donald:

"I am so proud of myself because...."


Extra credit if you complete "I am so proud of myself because I've accomplished something that nobody else has been able to accomplish...."

Why Do Things Go to Hell in High School

I've been distracted by a plumbing crisis, but I saw a favorable piece on Jeb Bush mention that Florida scores under him did great, except they fell off when tested in high school. Matt Yglesias has a piece on Milwaukee, comparing scores of different systems, but they all fall down in high school.  I suspect it's a tribute to one three-letter word: sex.

Bureaucrats and Experts

What's the difference between a bureaucrat and an expert?  Here's a NYTimes science essay in which a doctor compares his relationship with plumbers over a puzzling problem with his dishwasher to the relationship between patients who have their own theories of their illnesses and a doctor.  He ends:

When matters of personal health (or home appliances) are at stake, we want a lot more than expertise from our experts. The rational world suddenly loses its appeal; dull, steady scientific observation seems only dull and steady. We want some pixie dust, a little magic, an eccentric genius who can see through the usual mumbo-jumbo to the core of the problem (paging Dr. House).
But until our prince comes, we are left with the most basic, bare-bones determination: do we trust this guy or not? And this decision, rather than following along a perfectly manicured line of reasoning and evidence, relies on that least scientific of all human inclinations — the simple leap of faith.

 So what distinguishes a bureaucrat dealing with the public from a plumber dealing with a homeowner or a doctor dealing with a patient? I suspect in some cases, perhaps many, an FSA technician at the desk in a county office is seen as an "expert" by the farmer she's serving, rather than being viewed as a "bureaucrat".  One thing which strikes me is: in the doctor/patient, plumber/homeowner scenarios both parties share the same goal, curing the illness or fixing the appliance.  When the relationship is viewed as bureaucrat and customer/client there's little or no assumption of a shared goal.

The Ultimate in Customization of Farm Programs

The Rural Blog has a piece reporting a suggestion southern farmers will push for an individual option: the ability to choose between direct payments and the ACRE program.  I guess it's not the first time farmers have had a choice: the SURE program was also an option.  I understand the logic: northern farmers like crop insurance, southerners don't, so you make both sides happy by giving them a choice.  It's logical, but it's confusing to explain and hard to administer.  I hope someone is asking GAO to look at the tradeoffs of offering options.

Form and Reality: Binding Signatures and Notaries Public

Our legal system tends to operate on notarized signatures: you take a document to a notary public, present proof of identity, sign the document and the notary impresses her seal.  But these days it seems one could document a signing by technology:  use a video camera to record the proof of identity and the person signing. Of course, it's likely it will take a century or two to change the rules to use the new technology.