Ode to Village Life

Here's a paean to village life:

"The Joys of American Village Life in the 1800s

How different is the state of things to-day, and in our own country! Village life as it exists in America is indeed one of the happiest fruits of modern civilization. Our ancestors, familiar with the English and French villages, could never have dreamed of all the many striking differences which would appear two centuries later in the village homes of their own descendants in the New World. The idea would never have occurred to them that the remote village could ever share so freely in the enlightenment and civilization of the capital city. But steam, the great magician, serves the rustic to-day as faithfully as he serves the cockney.13

  Comforts, conveniences, new inventions, striking improvements are scarcely known in New York and Philadelphia, before they are brought to the villages, hundreds of miles in the interior. You find there every real advantage of modern life. Your house is lighted by gas -- and, if you choose, it is warmed by steam. The morning paper, with the latest telegram from Paris or London, lies on your dinner-table. The best new books, the latest number of the best magazines, reach you almost as soon as they reach the Central Park. Early vegetables from Bermuda, and early fruits from Cuba, are offered at your door. You may telegraph, if you wish it, to St. Petersburg or Calcutta, by taking up your hat and walking into the next street. This evening you may, perhaps, hear a good lecture, and to-morrow a good concert. The choice musical instrument and the fine engraving may be found in your cottage parlor.

What more can any reasonable being ask for, in the way of physical and intellectual accessories of daily life? And in addition to these advantages of modern civilization shared with the cities, there are others of far higher value, belonging more especially to country life. The blessings of pure air and pure water are luxuries, far superior to all the wines of Delmonico14, and all the diamonds of Ball & Black.15 And assuredly to all eyes but those of the blindest cockney, the groves and gardens and fields and brooks and rivers make up a frame-work for one's everyday life rather more pleasing than the dust-heaps, and omnibuses, and shop-windows of Broadway. And, happily for the rustic world, the vices, the whims and extravigances -- the fashionable sin, the pet folly - - of the hour are somewhat less prevalent, somewhat less tyrannical on the greensward than on the pavement. There is more of leisure for thought and culture and good feeling in the country than amid the whirl of a great city. True, healthful refinement of head and heart becomes more easy, more natural under the open sky and amid the fresh breeze of country life

. Probably much the largest number of the most pleasant and happiest homes in the land may be found to-day in our villages and rural towns -- homes where truth, purity, the holiest affections, the highest charities and healthful culture are united with a simplicity of life scarcely possible on our extravagant cities. And these advantages, thanks be to God, are not confined to one class. Even the poorest day-laborer in the village, if he be honest and temperate, leads a far happier and easier life than his brother in the cities. The time may come, perhaps, when the cities -- greatly diminished in size -- shall be chiefly abandoned to the drudgeries of business, to commerce and manufactures during the hours of day and deserted at night; when the families of the employers and laborers shall live alike in suburban village homes. In the present state of civilization, every hamlet within a hundred miles of a large city may be considered as one of its suburbs. In former centuries, he was a wise man who left the village for the city. To-day, he is wise who goes to the city as to a market, but has a home in the country."

The author is Susan Fenimore Cooper, the year is 1869.   [Threw in some paragraph breaks.]

Cafeteria in South Building

Turns out USDA has banned deep-fat fryers in its South Building cafeteria. The article seems a bit skeptical on whether the big shots' efforts at getting their employees to eat more healthily will work.

White House Garden

Obamafoodorama has a report on the winter harvest--cabbage and broccoli.  Given their hoop houses and the relatively warm winter we've had, the garden should be productive.  (We've had some cold spells, with lows into the teens, but neither terribly low nor prolonged.)

Security Software

NY Times reported  that hackers based in China had been attacking their computer system and the identities and passwords of their staff.  Buried in the article was a factoid: their security software provided was Symantec, and its software failed to identify all but one intrusion.

James Fallows Defends Bureaucracy

Though he may not know it.  This observation from a blog post relating to software is true:

Almost any organized human activity is much more complicated and interesting than you would expect, once you examine its particularity. For instance: I have never taken mail delivery for granted after my earliest paying jobs as a parcel-post sorter and then letter carrier at the local Post Office. People scoff at the USPS, but it pulls off some amazing feats of volume management -- even as today's volume sadly goes down.

Candy Thompson

I see I'm late in realizing that Candy has been appointed to be Associate Administrator for Administration and Operations and her bio hasn't been posted yet.  I remember her 27 years ago when she and Chris Niedermayer were in Kansas City working on testing the price support software for the system/36.

For all the newbies, yes, it's true that we walked to and from Ward Parkway uphill both ways in the snow barefoot.  Those were the days. 

Animal Rights/Welfare

Extension.org has a series of posts in this area.  Here's one on cages and chickens.

What Was on Their Minds in 1787?

Stumbled on an item from New Jersey in 1787.  After the NJ convention had ratified the new constitution, they adjourned to a tavern to celebrate.  "After dinner, the following toasts were drank:

1. The new constitution
2. The united states in congress.
3. The president and members of the late federal convention.
4. The governor and state of New Jersey.
5. The states of Delaware and Pennsylvania.
6. May the independence of the union, reared on the basis of the new constitution, be perpetual.
7. The princes and states in alliance with the united states.
8. May the interest of the united states be ever deemed the interest of each state.
9. Religion, learning, agriculture, arts, manufactures, and commerce, in harmony and mutual subserviency to each other.
10. The memory and posterity of those who have falled in the late war.
11. May the gratitude of the American citizens be equal to the valour and patriotism of the American soldiery.
12. The daughters of America.
13. May the united states be the asylum of invaded liberty.

Volunteer [sic?] May the American drums soon beat reveille to the dawn of the new government, and tattoo to anarchy and confusion.
Ditto.  Universal liberty, justice and peace. "

Stolen From DeLong: 14th Century

"A Commonplace Book: Buying Power of 14th Century Money: "In the second half of the 14th century, a pound sterling would: (i) Support the lifestyle of a single peasant laborer for half a year, or that of a knight for a week. Or buy: (ii)( Three changes of clothing for a teenage page (underclothes not included) or (iii) Twelve pounds of sugar or (iv) A carthorse or (v) Two cows or (vi) An inexpensive bible or (vii) ten ordinary books or (viii) Rent a craftsman’s townhouse for a year or (ix) Hire a servant for six months…. It should be obvious from the above list that the conversion rate depends a great deal on what you buy…""

Stole this from Brad DeLong verbatim.  Can't wrap my head around the various conversions.  It seems a knight is worth 26 times a peasant or a servant.  That's not a bad ratio, given the relationship of the wages of modern CEO's and their lowest employees, but it would seem bad to anyone before 1970.

Industrial Farming and "Soiling Cattle"

"Industrial farming" usually includes "factory farming".  I think the usual assumption is that in the good old days, as when I grew up, dairy cattle were pastured and only recently have they been confined with the feed brought to them.  As is often the case, that assumption is wrong.  It seems in the old days "soiling cattle" was a recognized method, promoted in this Google book of 1874. Other references found by Google are earlier.