Weather in Hell: Cooling?

Today the Post runs an article written by Jane Black, whom I ordinarily consider to be one of the food movement, which treats a big(!) industrial (!) Minnesota farmer who grows genetically engineered crops(!).  And it's favorable(!), or at least understanding.  In part it's because he's tried other crops and other niches, in part because he cares for his soil, and mostly because the Minnesota Sustainable Ag organization praises him.

One thing I wish she'd addressed: she describes him as "precisely" applying fertilizer, but without specifying how the reader doesn't know whether it's part of "precision agriculture" (which can be defined as replacing the footsteps of the farmer with the memory of the computer).

Crop Insurance--Prairie Potholes, Good Farming, and Seatbelts

As crop insurance takes over being the main "safety net" for crop farmers, it gets more attention:

• from Congress, particularly those in the prairie pothole region, who want consideration for "prevented planting" coverage and have gotten their Congressional delegation involved, as described in this Farm Policy issue.  The problem, as I may have described before, is, unlike Gertrude Stein's rose, a pothole is sometimes arable land and sometimes not.  Or, more accurately, since the marshiness of a pothole varies directly with the general water table level, in wet years a pothole expands its untillable area; in dry years it contracts.  So farmers want coverage for the wet years under their insurance policy.  (It's sort of the mirror image for areas of the Great Plains, where a period of wet years may enable a couple years of continuous cropping whereas dry years mean you have to fallow or reconvert the land back to grazing.)  
• from NRDC, with a study described in a Des Moines Register article suggesting lower premiums for farmers who use good conservation methods:

   "The group said the use of cover crops, such as grasses and legumes that improve soil health and reduce runoff,  no-till farming and an improved irrigation schedule are the best management practices that could be used"

   

Both issues relate to an idea economists have: the more you mitigate risk, the more risk you take, as when you mandate seat belts and improve brakes, people drive faster and tailgate more.

 

When To Give Bonuses--a Flawed View

The Post has an article on the backlog in VA processing veterans claims.   Part of the problem seems to be that their system to measure performance of their claims processors is flawed--it gives more credit for easy claims and less credit for hard claims than it should.  That points to the difficulty of constructing good measures of performance in a service-oriented bureaucracy.  Build a widget, and you can count widgets. Run a dairy/poultry farm and you count pounds of milk, numbers of eggs, and feed consumed.  But try to measure service and it gets difficult.

But that's not why I'm blogging on the piece.  Another part of the piece is the fact VA is giving bonuses to employees even though the backlog is growing.   Now in principle I've no problem with bonuses being awarded when an organization is having problems.  There can be outstanding performers in poorly-run organizations, and they can be recognized.

But what blew my mind is this quote, from a bigshot HR type:

"“There are many, many employees who are exceeding their minimum standards, and they deserve to be recognized for that,” she said."

 No, no, no and no.  Exceeding the minimum standards is called "being average", and there's no bonuses for that--maybe an "atta-boy" (or girl, or woman).  You give bonuses for being outstanding.

I can only hope the HR person was misquoted, because the statement as quoted reflects poorly on all good government bureaucrats. 

Do Not Pay and It's Implementation

A quote from an article in FCW on OMB's instructions on implementing the Do Not Pay legislation:

The legislation mandates that payments to federal payees be checked against five databases: the Social Security Administration’s Death Master File, the General Services Administration's System for Award Management (the new name for their Excluded Parties List), the Debt Check database at Treasury, and databases kept by the departments of Housing and Urban Development and the Health and Human Services.

The law also permits OMB to tap commercial databases, potentially including credit reporting agencies, payroll processors, and consumer data services, as a potential check against fraud or improper payments.

 Interesting, though I still think it would be better to do a "data hub" to hide the source databases from the paying agencies.  

The MLKing Speech

Robert Kaiser, who was an intern at the Washington Post then, was assigned to help cover the March on Washington. He writes a column today on how the Post missed Martin Luther King's speech: I Have a Dream".  Two paragraphs towards the end:

"We were poised and ready for a riot, for trouble, for unexpected events — but not for history to be made. Baker’s 1,300-word lead story, which began under a banner headline on the front page and summarized the events of the day, did not mention King’s name or his speech. It did note that the crowd easily exceeded 200,000, the biggest assemblage in Washington “within memory” — and they all remained “orderly.”

In that paper of Aug. 29, 1963, The Post published two dozen stories about the march. Every one missed the importance of King’s address. The words “I have a dream” appeared in only one, a wrap-up of the day’s rhetoric on Page A15 — in the fifth paragraph. We also printed brief excerpts from the speeches, but the three paragraphs chosen from King’s speech did not include “I have a dream.”

This is how history sometimes happens.  The actual occurrence is like a speck of sand, nearly indistinguishable among all the other events happening concurrently.  But somehow it gets inserted into an oyster and layers of nacre begin to build, gradually forming what we recognize as a pearl, and obscuring the very existence of any other happening.

Sometimes it's different.  For example, JFK's inaugural speech got generally good reviews, if my memory is accurate.  His "ask not what you can do for the country..." was recognized as a good line and not much more.  But through the years, particularly after his "martyrdom", as writers wanted to discuss his oratory, and wanted something good to work from, that particular sentence was selected more and more, until in the end it predominates in our memory of him.

The Amish Make the Map

Here's a map showing counties in the US where at least 10 percent of the people speak a language other than English, and the language. 

So looking at it, you can see the French Cajuns in LA and New England, the Navajos in the Four Corners., the Portuguese in New England, Chinese in Tompkins  County, NY (Cornell University) and Massachusetts, etc.  Several counties scattered around (MT, WI, OH, NY, IA) have either German or similar languages.  At first I was thinking German immigrants, since my grandfather was part of an influx to Wisconsin in the 19th century, but then I realized the data most likely reflects the Amish/Mennonite communities.

Rominger Brothers and USDA

It seems the Rominger farm visited by Mark Bittman may have been the home farm of ex-Deputy Secretary Rominger, based on his oral history interview. He's rather general in the interview, disappointingly so.  Of course the interviewer is a USDA type, so throwing softball questions at him.

Google Maps  west of Sacramento

If You Want a Friend in DC, Get Sunny

To paraphrase HSTruman's words about getting a dog.  That's what I was reminded of by this Politico piece

Non-Discrimination Wording Is Screwy

The USDA non-discrimination statement keeps growing.  I think I remember when it was first added to our releases. 

I copied it from a recent notice and restructured it to try to figure it out:


The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination against its customers,
employees, and applicants for employment on the basis of[:]

race,
color,
national origin,
age,
disability,
sex,
gender identity,
religion,
reprisal,1/

and [on the basis of ]where applicable:2/

political beliefs,
marital status,
familial or parental status,
sexual orientation,

or all or part of an individual’s income is
derived from any public assistance program,3/

or protected genetic information in employment 4/

or in any program or activity conducted or funded by the Department. 5/

(Not all prohibited bases will apply to all programs and/or employment activities.)6/

Persons with disabilities, who wish to file a program complaint, write to the address below or if you require alternative means of communication for program information (e.g., Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) please contact USDA’s TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD). Individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, or have speech disabilities and wish to file either an EEO or program complaint, please contact USDA through the Federal Relay Service at (800) 877-8339 or (800) 845-6136 (in Spanish)


Footnotes (mine).

1/  I assume "reprisal" means reprisal for whistleblowing.  I doubt most people would know that.

2/ I don't understand the "where applicable"?  I could see it applying to "reprisal", because USDA has only a few whistleblowers, but everyone has a marital status, familial status, and a sexual orientation.

3/ One rule in writing sentences is that the different parts (I forget--is this the direct object) must tie back to the beginning.  They could fix it by inserting "whether" before "all or..."

4/  Presumably USDA is vowing not to use genetic information in deciding whether to employ a person, like avoiding hiring someone who's doomed to develop a fatal disease quickly, but it doesn't tie back.

5/  No idea how this is supposed to fit--maybe they're saying USDA offices won't favor a USDA employee, but it certainly doesn't say that.

6/  This parenthetical would do the work of the "where applicable".

Our Federal System, Same Sex Marriage, and Animal Rights

Our federal system is like an apple orchard for small boys.  It provides an abundance of ammunition for political controversy, without worrying about consistency. (I'm flashing back on a war between two groups of boys (10-12) back when I was young.)

 That pontification (I sound more and more like my grandfather) is prompted by Kathleen Parker's column in today's Post, defending the idea of states passing their own laws for humane treatment of farm animals.  What I'm pointing at is the inconsistency of liberals and conservatives: liberals mostly want each state to have their own laws on animal treatment, but they now want all states to recognize marriages wherever made.  Conservatives want to ban state laws which are tougher than national law on animals, but want each state to have the ability to accept or reject marriages formalized in other states. 

There's many more cases of inconsistency, mostly generated by the temptation to snatch up the nearest cudgel handy with which to beat one's foes over the head.